She looked stricken. “Would I know them?”

“Probably,” I said. “But they’re all undercover. The only way you’ll ever know is if something really serious happens and one of them has to contact you in public, with the pass word.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“ ‘One Hand Washes the Other,’ ” I said. “The minute you hear that, you say: ‘I fear nothing.’ That way, they’ll know you.”

She nodded. repeating the code several times, while we listened tomake sure she had it right.

“OK,” said my attorney. “That’s it for now. We probably won;t be seeing you again until the hammer comes down. You’ll be better off ignoring us until we leave. Don’t bother to make up the room. Just elave a pile of towels and soap outside the door, exactly at modnight.” He smiled. “That way, we won;t have to risk another one of these little incidents, will we?”

She moved towards the door. “Whatever you say gentlemen. I can;t tell you how sorry I am about what happened ...but it was only because I didn’t realize.”

My attorney ushered her out. “We understand,” he said “But it’s all over now. Thank God for the decent people.”

She smiled as she closed the door behind her.

She nodded, repeating the code several times, while we lis tened to make sure she

had it right.

“OK,” said my attorney. “That’s it for Dow. We probably won’t be seeing you

again until the hammer comes down. You’ll be better off ignoring us until we

leave. Don’t bother to make up the room. Just leave a pile of towels and soap

outside the door, exactly at midnight.” lie smiled. “That way, we won’t

have to risk another one of theep little incidents, will we?”

12. Return to the Circus—Circus ...Looking for the Ape ...to Hell with the American Dream

Almost seventy-two hours had passed since that strange encounter, and no maid had set foot in the room. I wondered what Alice had told them. We had seen her once, trundling a laundry cart across the parking area as we rolled up in the Whale but we offered no sign of recognition and she seemed understand.

But it couldn’t last much longer. The room was full of used towels; they were hanging everywhere. The bathroom floor was about six inches deep with soap bars, vomit, and grape fruit rinds, mixed with broken glass. I had to put my boots on every I went in there to piss. The nap of the mottled grey rug was so thick with marijuana seeds that it appeared to be turning green.

The general back-alley ambience of the suite was so rotten, so incredibly foul, that I figured I could probably get away with claiming it was some kind of “Life-slice exhibit” that we’d brought down from Haight Street, to show cops from other parts of the country how deep into filth and degeneracy the drug people will sink, if left to their own devices.

But what kind of addict would need all these coconut husks and crushed honeydew rinds? Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten french fries? These puddles of glazed catsup on the bureau?

Maybe so. But then why all this booze? and these crude pornographic photos, ripped out of pulp magazines like Whores of Sweden and Orgies in the Casbah, that were plastered on the broken mirror with smears of mustard that had dried to a hard yellow crust ... and all these signs of violence, these strange red and blue bulbs and shards of broken glass embedded in the wall plaster . . .

No, these were not the hoofprints of your normal, godfearing junkie. It was far too aggressive. There was evidence, in this room, of excessive consumption of almost every type of drug known to civilized man since 1544 A.D. It could only be explained as a montage, a sort of exaggerated medical exhibit, put together very carefully to show what might happen if twenty-two serious drug felons—each with a different addiction—were penned up together in the same room for five days and nights, without relief.

Indeed. But of course that would never happen in Real Life, gentlemen. We just put this thing together for demonstration purposes ...

Suddenly the phone was ringing, jerking me out of my fantasy stupor. I looked at it. Riiiinnnnnggggggg ... Jesus, what now? Is this it? I could almost hear the shrill voice of the Manager, Mr. Heem, saying the police were on their way up to my room and would I please not shoot through the door when they began kicking it down.

Riinnnngggg ... No, they wouldn’t call first. Once they decided to take me, they would probably set an ambush in the elevator: first Mace, then a gang-swarm. It would come with no warning.

So I picked up the phone. It was my friend Bruce Innes, calling from the Circus-Circus. He had located the man who wanted to sell the ape I’d been inquiring about. The price was $750.

“What kind of a greedhead are we dealing with here?” I said. “Last night it was four hundred.”

“He claims he just found out it was housebroken,” said Bruce. “He let it sleep in the trailer last noght, and the thing actually shiot in the shower stall.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Apes are attracted to water. Next time it’ll shit in the sink.”

“Maybe you should come down and argue with the guy,” said Bruce. “He’s here in the bar with me. I told him you really wanted the ape and that you could give it a fine home. I think he’ll negotiate. He’s really attached to the stinking thing. It’s here in the bar with us, sitting up on a goddamn stool, slobbering into a beer schooner.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let the bastard get drunk. I want to meet him under natural conditions.”

When I got to the Circus-Circus they were loading an old man into an ambulance outside the main door. “What happened?” I asked the car-keeper.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Somebody said he had a stroke. But I noticed the back of his head was all cut up.” He slid into the Whale and handed me a stub. “You want me to save your drink for you?” he asked, holding up a big glass of tequila that was on the seat of the car. “I can put it in the cooler if want.”

I nodded. These people were familiar with my habits. I had been in and out of the place so often, with Bruce and the and members, that the car-keepers knew me by name—although I’d never introduced myself, and nobody had ever asked me. I just assumed it was all part of the gig here; that that they’d probably rifled the glove compartment and found a notebook with my name on it.

The real reason, which didn’t occur to me at the time, was that I was still wearing my ID/badge from the District Attorney’s Conference. It was dangling from the pocket-flap of my multi-colored bird-shooting jacket, but I’d long since forgotten about it. No doubt they all assumed I was some kind of super wierd undercover agent ... or maybe not; maybe they were just humoring me because they figured anybody crazy enough to pose as a cop while driving around Vegas in a white Cadillac convertible with a drink in his hand almost had to be Heavy, and perhaps even dangerous. In a scene where, nobody with any ambition is really what he appears to be,’ there’s not much risk in acting like a king-hell freak. The, overseers will nod wisely at each other and mutter about “these goddamn no-class put-ons.”

The other side of that coin is the “Goddamn! Who’s that?” syndrome. This comes from people like doormen and floor-walkers who assume that anybody who acts crazy, but still tips big, must be important-which means he should be hu mored, or at least treated gently.

But none of this makes any difference with a head full of mescaline. You justblunder around, doing anything that seems to be right, and it usually is. Vegas is so full of natural freaks-people who are genuinely twisted-that drugs aren’t really a problem, except for cops and the scag syndicate. Psychedelics are almost irrelevant in a town where you can wan der into a casino any time of the day or night and witness the crucifixion of a gorilla-on a flaming neon cross that suddenly turns into a pinwheel, spinning the beast around in wild cir cles above the crowded gambling action.