Part II: Chapter 14 Summary

Waiting to board his plane in the Las Vegas airport, Thompson notices that he is still wearing his investigator's badge from the narcotics conference. The whole thing, he muses, was a waste of time. The only person who had learned anything at the seminar had been him—and what he learned was that the District Attorneys' Association was about ten years behind in their knowledge of drug culture.

Thompson boards his plane without mishap, but when the plane lands in Denver he rushes to the airport drugstore to get a box of amyls. The salesgirl at the pharmacy is hesitant to sell narcotics without a prescription until Thompson convinces her that he is a doctor.

He ends the chapter laughing crazily and shouting insults at two Marines he sees coming out of the restroom, imagining himself as an aberrant...