“Do you really think he deserves that kind of treatment?”

“Well, he was going to set off a firebomb in the Brookings Institution, just to recover some papers. . . Colson is not one of your friendlier, happier type of persons. He's an evil bastard, and dragging him down the street would certainly strike a note of terror in that crowd; they could use some humility.”

“Poetic justice, no?”

“Well, it's a little rough. . . it might not be necessary to drag him 40 blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly scare the piss out of him, bumping along the street, feeling all his skin being ripped off. . .”

“He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and let him lie there all night.”

“Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson. . . and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him.”

“Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside in the street, bleeding to death. . .' ”

“. . . and we think it's Mr. Colson.”

“It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?”

“Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one.”

Gonzo 1 - The Great Shark Hunt

PART II

Flashbacks & Time Warps. . . Scrambled Notes and Rude Comments from the High Country. . . Dean vs. Haldeman in the Hearing Room. . . A Question of Perjury. . . Ehrlichman Sandbags an Old Buddy. . . Are the Sharks Deserting the Suckfish?

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the following section was lashed together at the last moment from a six-pound bundle of documents, notebooks, memos, recordings and secretly taped phone conversations with Dr. Thompson during a month of erratic behavior in Washington, New York, Colorado and Miami. His “long-range-plan,” he says, is to “refine” these nerve-wracking methods, somehow, and eventually “create an entirely new form of journalism.” In the meantime, we have suspended his monthly retainer and canceled his credit card. During one four-day period in Washington he destroyed two cars, cracked a wall in the Washington Hilton, purchased two French Horns at $1100 each and ran through a plate-glass door in a Turkish restaurant.