But why grapple now with a book of such massive stature? I need time to ponder it and to run tests on the many weapons and devices that appear in the text. No professional would attempt to deal lightly with this book. It is a rare combination of sociology and stone craziness, laced with weapons technology on a level that is rarely encountered.

You will want this book. But I want you to know it first. And for that, I need time. . . to deal smartly with the bugger on its own terms. No pro would settle for less.

-- Raoul Duke (Master of Weaponry)

Scanlan's Monthly, vol. 1, no. 7, June 1970

Gonzo 1 - The Great Shark Hunt

PART 4

The Great Shark Hunt

Four-thirty in Cozumel now; dawn is coming up on these gentle white beaches looking west at the Yucatan Channel. Thirty yards from my patio here at Caba–as del Caribe, the surf is rolling up, very softly, on the beach out there in the darkness beyond the palm trees.

Many vicious mosquitoes and sand fleas out here tonight. There are 60 units in this rambling beach-front hotel, but my room -- number 129 -- is the only one full of light and music and movement.

I have both my doors and all four windows propped open -- a huge bright magnet for every bug on the island. . . But I am not being bitten. Every inch of my body -- from the soles of my bleeding bandaged feet to the top of my sun-scorched head -- is covered with 6-12 Insect Repellent, a cheap foul-smelling oil with no redeeming social or aesthetic characteristics except that it works.

These goddamn bugs are all around -- settling on the notebook, my wrist, my arms, circling the rim of my tall glass of Bacardi A–ejo and ice. . . but no bites. It has taken about six days to solve this hellish bug problem. . . which is excellent news on the one level, but, as always, the solution to one problem just peels back another layer and exposes some new and more sensitive area.

At this stage of the gig, things like mosquitoes and sand fleas are the least of our worries. . . because in about two hours and 22 minutes I have to get out of this hotel without paying an unnaturally massive bill, drive about three miles down the coast in a rented VW Safari that can't be paid for, either, and which may not even make it into town, due to serious mechanical problems -- and then get my technical advisor Yail Bloor out of the Mes—n San Miguel without paying his bill, either, and then drive us both out to the airport in that goddamn junk Safari to catch the 7:50 Aeromexico flight to MŽrida and Monterrey, where we'll change planes for San Antonio and Denver.