Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Duke is eager to get to his room. He wants to rest, smoke his “last big chunk of Singapore Grey,” and watch Walter Cronkite. He needs to regroup before the Drug Conference, which will be nothing like covering the Mint 400. Duke and Gonzo will “be attending the conference under false pretenses and dealing, from the start, with a crowd that is convened for the stated purpose of putting people like [them] in jail.” Still, Duke plans to take drugs and storm the conference—but “not to prove any final, sociological point, and not even as a conscious mockery.” No, now it is “mainly a matter of life-style, a sense of obligation and even duty.” If the cops are meeting for a “top-level Drug Conference,” then Duke feels “the drug culture should be represented too.”

As Duke opens the door to his room, he hits a human figure on the other side. It is a girl of “indeterminate age with the face and form of a Pit Bull.” She stares at Duke with eyes full of anger. “You degenerate pig,” Duke says to Gonzo, who is standing naked in the bathroom door. “It can’t be helped,” Gonzo says. “This is Lucy.” The girl continues to stare at Duke with hate and violence in her eyes. “Lucy!” yells Gonzo. “Lucy! Be cool, goddamn it! Remember what happened at the airport…no more of that, OK?”

Gonzo explains to Lucy that Duke is his client and friend, and she starts to calm down. Duke looks around and sees several paintings cluttering the room. “Lucy paints portraits of Barbara Streisand,” Gonzo says. “She’s an artist up in Montana.” Gonzo says that they plan to go to the American Hotel tonight to meet Barbara backstage. Obviously, Duke thinks, they have “a serious case on their hands.” Duke turns to Gonzo and asks him to help unload the car. He agrees and turns to Lucy: “We’ll be right back. Don’t answer the phone if it rings.”

“Well…” Duke says to Gonzo outside. “What are your plans?” Gonzo explains that he met Lucy on the plane. She had just run away from home for the fifth time in six months, and Gonzo didn’t realize until after he had given her acid that she has never even had a drink. “Jesus,” Gonzo says, “she’s a religious freak.” Gonzo stares at Duke. “Well,” says Duke, “it’ll probably work out. We can keep her loaded and peddle her ass at the drug convention.”

“Jesus Christ,” yells Gonzo. “I knew you were sick, but I never expected to hear you actually say that kind of stuff.” After they unload the car, they head back to the room to try to talk some sense into Lucy. She can’t stay with them, Duke says. It is entirely possible that in a few hours she will “work herself into a towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being picked up and seduced in the Los Angeles International Airport by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, then dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and savagely penetrated every orifice in her body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.” This girl is a “walking bomb,” says Duke, and the authorities might even call it kidnapping. “You’re right,” says Gonzo. “They’d probably burn me at the goddamn stake.”

Duke and Gonzo tell Lucy it is time to “go meet Barbara,” and after packing up all her portraits, they head in the direction of the airport. They stop at a telephone where Gonzo makes Lucy a reservation at the Americana. He tells the desk clerk that he is the girl’s uncle, and that she must be “treated very gently” because she “is an artist” and “a trifle high-strung.” Then, Duke drives to the airport where Gonzo gets Lucy out of the car, telling her that they are trading the Cadillac for a Mercedes. Gonzo walks inside with Lucy but comes out alone and gets into the car. “Take off slowly,” he tells Duke. “Don’t attract any attention.”

Gonzo tells Duke that he paid a cab driver to take Lucy over to the Americana and see that she checks in. He had told the cabbie that he would be there himself in an hour, and if Lucy isn’t checked in by then, he’s coming “back out here [to] rip his lungs out.” Duke suggests taking it easy for the rest of the night, and Gonzo agrees. He wants to find a restaurant and get a fresh salmon dinner. “But first we should go back to the hotel and settle in,” Duke says. “Maybe have a quick swim and some rum.” They both agree and drive away.