Part I: Chapter 9 Summary

Beginning to panic, partially as a result of the hotel bill he knows he is running up, but primarily as a result of the narcotics he has been continually consuming since leaving Los Angeles, Thompson makes the decision to flee Las Vegas. His attorney has already departed for L.A. earlier that morning, leaving Thompson with a car full of cheap souvenirs, drugs, alcohol, and a gun. Thompson prepares to leave and stands reading a newspaper while he waits for his car to be brought to him by the parking attendant. The newspaper is filled with nothing but grim headlines—heroin overdoses, drug deaths among American GI's in Vietnam, conflict between anti-war demonstrators and police, and so on. The chapter ends with a mention of Muhammad Ali and his sentencing for refusing to take part in the Vietnam War...