Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
LUCY (makes one-fingered Jesus freak sign) God bless.
INT. FLAMINGO HOTEL – CORRIDOR OUTSIDE SUITE – DAY
DUKE collars GONZO — serious.
DUKE WELL? What are your plans?
GONZO Plans?
DUKE Lucy. 68.
GONZO (struggling to focus) Shit. I met her on the plane and I had all that acid. (he shrugs) You know, those little blue barrels. I gave her a cap before I realized… she’s a religious freak… Jesus, she’s never even had a drink.
DUKE Well… It’ll probably work out. We can keep her loaded and peddle her ass at the drug convention.
GONZO stares uneasily at DUKE.
GONZO Listen, she’s running away from home for something like the fifth time in six months. It’s terrible.
DUKE She’s perfect for this gig. These cops will go fifty bucks a head to beat her into submission and then gang fuck her. We can set her up in one of these back street motels, hang pictures of Jesus all over the room, then turn these pigs loose on her… Hell she’s strong; she’ll hold her own.
GONZO’s face twitches badly.
GONZO Jesus Christ. I knew you were sick but I never expected to hear you actually say that kind of stuff.
DUKE It’s straight economics. This girl is a god-send. Shit, she can make us a grand a day.
GONZO NO! Stop talking like that.
DUKE I figure she can do about four at a time. Christ, if we keep her full of acid that’s more like two grand a day. Maybe three. 69.
GONZO You filthy bastard. I should cave your fucking head in.
DUKE In a few hours, she’ll probably be sane enough to work herself into a towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being seduced by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and savagely penetrated every orifice in her body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.
GONZO starts crying.
GONZO NO! I felt sorry for the girl, I wanted to help her!
DUKE You’ll go straight to the gas chamber. And even if you manage to beat that, they’ll send you back to Nevada for Rape and Consensual Sodomy. She’s got to go.
Pause.
GONZO Shit, it doesn’t pay to try to help somebody these days.
A silence.
DUKE (V/O) The only alternative was to take her out to the desert and feed her remains to the lizards. But, it seemed a bit heavy for the thing we were trying to protect: My attorney.
GONZO We have to cut her loose. She’s got two hundred dollars. And we can always call the cops up there in Montana, where she lives, and turn her in.
DUKE What?… What kind of goddamn monster are you? 70.
GONZO It just occurred to me, that she has no witnesses. Anything that she says about us is completely worthless.
DUKE Us?
INT. HOTEL FLAMINGO SUITE – SUNSET
DUKE is speaking into the phone in hushed tones.
DUKE Hotel Americana? I need a reservation. For my niece. Listen, I need her treated very gently. She’s an artist, and might seem a trifle highstrung…
In the background GONZO helps LUCY and her paintings out the door.
GONZO Okay, Lucy, it’s time to go meet Barbra…
DUKE (V/O) I felt like a Nazi, but it had to be done.
EXT. ON THE STREETS – A CAB STAND – DUSK
The WHITE WHALE pulls up — DUKE at the wheel. GONZO helps LUCY and her paintings from the car.
DUKE (V/O) Lucy was a potentially fatal millstone on both our necks. There was absolutely no choice but to cut her adrift and hope her memory was fucked.
GONZO unrolls a couple of bills — pays off a CAB DRIVER — waves to LUCY in the back with her paintings. She’s starting to come down…
GONZO gets back in the WHITE WHALE and slaps his hands together as if washing his hands of the situation.
GONZO Well that’s that. Take off slowly. Don’t attract attention. 71.
They pull out into traffic.
EXT. LAS VEGAS STREETS – DUSK
GONZO I gave the cabbie an extra ten bucks to make sure she gets there safe. Also, I told him I’d be there myself in an hour, and if she wasn’t, I’d come back out here and rip his lungs out.
DUKE That’s good. You can’t be subtle in this town.
GONZO As your attorney, I advise you to tell me where you put the goddamn mescaline.
DUKE Maybe we should take it easy tonight.
GONZO Right. Let’s find a good seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon. I feel a powerful lust for red salmon…
The electric WHITE WHALE heads off down the Strip. The sun’s going down behind the scrub hills, a good Kristofferson tune croaks on the radio in the warm dusk.
INT. HOTEL FLAMINGO SUITE – BATHROOM – NEXT MORNING
GONZO throws up in the toilet bowl.
In the background, DUKE opens curtains. Daylight blinds him.
DUKE Come on, we’re going to be late.
GONZO looks up at his sick reflection — wipes his mouth with a towel.
GONZO This goddamn mescaline. Why the fuck can’t they make it a little less pure? Maybe mix it up with Rolaids or something. 72.
INT. HOTEL BALLROOM – DAY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (crackling and booming over the lousy sound system) On behalf of the prosecuting attorneys of this county, I welcome you to the Third National DA’s Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
The EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR — well groomed, GOP businessman type — speaks from the podium. A banner behind him reads: NATIONAL DA’S CONVENTION 1971. “If You Don’t Know, Come To Learn… If You Know, Come To Teach.”
A BIG MIXED CROWD: TOP LEVEL STRAIGHT COPS, UNDERCOVER NARCS AND OTHER TWILIGHT TYPES — beards, mustaches and super-Mod dress. Just because you’re a cop, doesn’t mean you can’t be WITH IT! However, for every URBAN-HIPSTER there are around 20 REDNECKS.
A dozen big, low-fidelity speakers mounted on steel poles distort and feed back the EXECUTIVE’s voice through the room.
At the back, under a loudspeaker, sits DUKE — $40 FBI wingtips, a Pat Boone madras sportcoat, and an official name tag: RAOUL DUKE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, L.A.
GONZO sits beside him. His name tag: DR. GONZO. EXPERT, CRIMINAL DRUG ANALYSIS. He’s nervous — close to the edge.
GONZO (lowers his voice) I saw these bastards in Easy Rider, but I didn’t believe they were real. Not like this. Not hundreds of them!
DUKE They’re actually nice people when you get to know them.
GONZO Man, I know these people in my goddamn blood!
DUKE Don’t mention that word around here. You’ll get them excited.
GONZO This is a fucking nightmare. 73.
DUKE Right. Sure as hell some dope- dealing bomb freak is going to recognize you and put the word out that you’re partying with a thousand cops.
COP IN BACK SSSSHHH!
DR. BLUMQUIST — a “drug expert” — takes the stage.
DR. BLUMQUIST We must come to terms with the Drug Culture in the country… country… country…
The sound systems echoes.
DR. BLUMQUIST (CONT’D) The reefer butt is called a “roach,” because it resembles a cockroach… cockroach… cockroach…
GONZO (whispers) What the fuck are these people talking about? You’d have to be crazy on acid to think a joint looked like a goddamn cockroach!
DUKE (V/O) It was clear that we had stumbled into a prehistoric gathering.
DR. BLUMQUIST Now, there are four states of being in the cannabis, or marijuana, society: Cool, Groovy, Hip, and Square. The square is seldom if ever cool. He is not “with it,” that is, he doesn’t know “what’s happening.” But if he manages to figure it out, he moves up a notch to “hip.”
DUKE and GONZO listen in disbelief.
DR. BLUMQUIST (CONT’D) And if he can bring himself to approve of what is happening, he becomes “groovy.” After that, with much luck and perseverance, he can rise to the rank of “cool.” A cool guy… cool guy… cool guy… 74.
COP IN BACK Dr. Bloomquist, do you think the anthropologist, Margaret Mead’s strange behavior of late might possibly be explained by a private marijuana addiction?
DR. BLUMQUIST I really don’t know, but at her age, if she did smoke grass, she’d have one hell of a trip!
Roars of laughter.
GONZO I know a hell of a lot better ways to waste my time than listening to this bullshit.
He stands, knocking the ashtray off his chair arm, and plunges down the aisle to the door.
COP IN BACK Down in front!
GONZO Fuck you! I have to get out! I don’t belong here!
COP IN BACK Good riddance!
He stumbles from the room. DUKE turns his attention back to the stage.
The lights go down. A black & white film — REEFER MADNESS! — illustrates his now evangelical talk.
FILM NARRATOR KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND! YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT! You will not be able to see his eyes because of Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension…
DUKE turns his attention to a 340 pound TEXAN POLICE CHIEF who necks with his 290 pound WIFE beside him.
