So I took the $300 and left.

My attorney was waiting in a bar around the corner. “This won’t make the nut,” he said, “unless we have unlimited credit.”

I assured him we would. “You Samoans are all the same,” I told him. “You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man’s culture.

Jesus, just one hour ago we were sitting over there in that stinking baiginio, stone broke and paralyzed for the weekend,

when a call comes through from some total stranger in New York, telling me to go to Las Vegas and expenses be damned –

and then he sends me over to some office in Beverly Hills where another total stranger gives me $300 raw cash for no reason at all…

I tell you, my man, this is the American Dream in action! We’d be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.”

"Takeoff?" he said. "Can we handle that much torque?"

on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."

"Absolutely," I said. "I'll call New York for some cash."

"That sounds about right for this gig," he said.

"It is," I assured him. "The fucker's not much for turning, but it's pure hell on the straightaway. It'll outrun the F-111 until takeoff."

"Indeed," he said. "We must do it."

"Right," I said. "But first we need the car. And after that, the cocaine. And then the tape recorder, for special music,

The New York office was not familiar with the Vincent Black Shadow: they referred me to the Los Angeles bureau

- which is actually in Beverly Hills just a few blocks from the Polo Lounge -

but when I got there, the money-woman refused to give me more than $300 in cash.

She had no idea who I was, she said, and by that time I was pouring sweat.

My blood is too thick for California: I have never been able to properly explain myself in this climate.

Not with the soaking sweats… wild red eyeballs and trembling hands.