Att’y: All right, that’s close enough
Lou: If there’s anything I can do for ya, honey. . . I don’t know if that’s even it or not. But it sounds like it is. I think you boys are on the right track.
Att’y: Right. That’s the best lead we’ve had for two days, we’ve been asking people all around.
Lou: . . . I could make a couple calls and sure as hell find out.
Att’y: Could you?
Lou: Sure I’ll call Allen and ask him.
Att’y: Gee, I’d appreciate that if you could.
Waitress: When you go down to Tropicana, it’s not the first gas station, the second.
Lou: There’s a big sign right down the street here, it says Tropicana Avenue. Make a right, and when you get to Paradice make another right.
Att’y: OK. Big black building, right on Paradise: twenty-four-hour-a-day violence, drugs
Waitress: See, here’s Tropicana, and this is Boulder Highway that goes clear down like that.
Duke: Well, that’s pretty far into town then.
Waitress: Well, here’s Paradise split up somewhere around there. There’s Paradice. Paradise. Yeah, we’re down in here. See, this is Boulder Highway . . . and Tropicana.
Lou: Well, that’s not it, that bartender in there is a pothead too…
Att’y: Yeah, well, it’s a lead.
Lou: You gonna be glad you stopped here, boys.
Duke: Only if we find it.
Att’y: Only if we write the article and get it in.
Waitress: Well, why don’t you come inside and sit down?
Duke: We’re trying to get as much sun as we can.
Att’y: She’s going to make a phone call to find out where it Is.
Duke: Oh. OK, well, let’s go inside.
EDITOR’S NOTE (cont.):
Tape cassettes for the next sequence were impossible to transcribe due to
some viscous liquid encrusted behind the heads. There is a certain consistency
in the garbled sounds however, indicating that almost two hours later Dr.
Duke and his attorney finally located what was left of the “Old Psychiatrist’s
Club”-a huge slab of cracked, scorched concrete in a vacant lot full of tall
weeds. The owner of a gas station across the road said the place had “burned
down about three years ago.”>
10. Heavy Duty at the Airport . . . Ugly Peruvian Flashback . . .”No! It’s Too Late! Don’t Try It!”
>My attorney left at dawn. We almost missed the first flight to LA. because I couldn’t find the airport. It was less than thirty minutes from the hotel. I was sure of that. So we left the Flamingo at exactly seven-thirty . . . but for some reason we failed to make the turnoff at the stoplight in front of the Tropicana. We kept going straight ahead on the freeway, that parallels the main airport runway, but on the opposite from the terminal . . . and there is no way to get across legally.
“Goddamnit! We’re lost!” my attorney was shouting. What are we doing out here on this godforsaken road? The airport is right over there!” He pointed hysterically across the tundra.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve never missed a plane yet.” I smiled as the memory came back. “Except once in Peru,” I added. “I was already checked out of country, through customs, but I went back to the bar to chat with this Bolivian cocaine dealer . . . and all of a sudden I heard those big 707 engines starting up, so I ran out to the runway and tried to get aboard but the door was right behind the engines and they’d already rolled the ladder away. Shit, those afterburners would have fried me like bacon . . . but I was completely out of my head: I was desperate to get aboard.
“The airport cops saw me coming, and they gathered into a knot at the gate. I was running like a bastard, straight at them. The guy with me was screaming: ‘No! It’s too late! Don’t try it!’
“I saw the cops waiting for me, so I slowed down like maybe I’d changed my mind . . . but when I saw them relax, I did a quick change of pace and tried to run right over the bastards.” I laughed. “Jesus, it was like running full bore into a closet full of gila monsters. The fuckers almost killed me. All I remember is seeing five or six billyclubs coming down on me at the same time, and a lot of voices screaming: ‘No! No! It’s suicide! Stop the crazy gringo!’