A/N: Second chapter of Duke and his greatness. Ahh, the American Dream. Anyway, the story's gonna really kick in next chapter, but this isn't a bad one, so get reading darlin'!

Chapter Two

Sitting in the room on the top half of the bed, Ema wanted the bottom half, I wonder who she is, where she's going, what she wants, and why she is here. I only picked her up in Oklahoma, why am I sharing a bed with her? She could be a murderer, she might follow me around for the rest of my life!

"Eeeee!" I say, at the thought.

"Duke," she says from the bottom half of the bed, she's not facing me but repeatedly slaps my stomach. "Where are we?" I leap off the bed like a madman, maybe I am, kneeling on the floor my face very close to hers.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," I reply. "We're not in Kansas Toto, no ruby slippers here, no sir! We're in Oz! The land on the magical fairy-folk." This last comment is in a sing-song voice as I stand up, and hop about like a fairy, or dancing bunny. There's gotta be something wrong here.

But thank God there were no lights in this hotel! Man, Las Vegas had not been the place for a drug addict on mescaline, and we took a lot of it. And that adrenaline stuff, zing! That was good. I begin poking about in the case for some of it, but close the case forlornly when I discover the empty bottle. Damn, need to find new Satanist.

"We're in Washington!" I exclaim at her. "Land of the free, land of the empty, land of the ether!" I growl the last part.

"Why?"

"Why?" I stop walking towards the bathroom and turn to look at her. "Why? I dunno why the fuck you're here." I slam into the bathroom door, and ricochet off it. Then I try to open the door, and find this much more successful. Ema walks in before I've finished. . .doing my business and turns on the taps of the bath. I finish, zip up my pants and turn the taps off. "No, no no no no. No no no no no no no. Baths and high-flyers don't mix! Lots of fruit, fruieeeeeeee!" She stumbles out of the bathroom and collapses on the bed, deeply asleep, shhhhhhhh.

There's a knock on the door, as Ema's clearly unable to open it, I do. Phone call.

"Hello? Yes. Yes. Well I've just got here. Yes, a presidential speech. Newspaper? Magazine. Tomorrow? No. Yeeeees. Goodbye." I drop the receiver politely back onto the phone from about sixteen or seventeen inches, missing the phone completely and falling to the floor, springing up on the cable. I slam the door in the boys face. Thank you.

Bloody speech. I gotta clean up my act, no more drugs. Gotta be responsible, gotta do my job, man, gotta make some sort of sense to the outside world. I stick my head out of the door and look about the hall, the outside world. Nope, nothing seemed to be happening in the outside world. I slam the door again, and light a cigarette, puffing quickly away on that I perch myself on the edge of the bed until I'd finished, roll up some cannabis and smoke that, take a tiny pinch of cocaine. LSD. Did we even have any LSD? We should do! The world would be a terrible place without it. Hey, what happened to responsible journalist?

But these weapons of mass distraction were another matter entirely, a very serious matter in the eyes of the law. A very serious matter in the eyes of the UE. UB. UN. Finally locating a sheet of acid I tear off a tab, and put the sheet on the table, slowly sliding the little tab into my mouth, with pursed lips. Zing! Great stuff! I wander around the hotel room, occasionally raising a leg, checking out all the hidey holes, plugging in the tape recorder, swatting the hundreds of flies that appear in the room. What the fuck, man? Where did they come from? I crouch slightly, hitting out at flies at random and then regaining my position. My eyes flick all over the room, flies. Flies.

"Duke, what the fuck are you doing?" Ema asks from the bed.

"Flies!" I screech. "Millions of flies, flies flies flies, flies, dahhhh!!!" swatting out at more, but they don't seem to die! Die! Die! Immortal flies of the Undead soul sent to lure me into a false sense of security. I could see washing in Washington wasn't going to be easy, where did that come from? "Damn fucker flies!" Ema tries to take the fly swatter off me, but I'm having none of that, I won't be left without any protection, although it was useful as shit on a warm day. Ema looks reasonably dull, must be wearing off, bet she's not seeing flies. She picks up the tape player and whacks it over my head. Thank you.

I wake up pretty low, and with an awful headache. I roll over, and fall off the bed. I'm still dressed in yesterday's clothes. Oh well. I find my green Las Vegas visor, hit Ema to signal wakey-wakey time and enter the bathroom, of doom.

"We've got to leave!" I shout, coming out of the bathroom. "Got to write a story!" I get to the door, Ema following.

"You're an author?" she asks, grabbing my shoulder and peering over it. We walk down the hall.

Truth was – maybe owing to the amount of grass smoked on the journey up here from LA – the presidential speech wasn't until the day after tomorrow, we'd arrived early. So where we were going now I wasn't quite sure. But I knew that after the Las Vegas story, my editor wasn't gonna accept the usual shit I produced anymore. So maybe background presidential knowledge and information was needed.

Now, Washington wasn't very warm, and I couldn't wear my shorts, which was pretty terrible, I can tell you. But somehow I managed to stumble about all day, a little high, maybe. Definitely. And in the whole day, all I managed to find out was the presidents name. Nixon.

Nixon. What kind of name's Nixon? Ema pointed out (rather inappropriately) that I should know my own presidents name, and I might do. Just not now.

But, during the day we did find out there's a nice little restaurant just south of the FBI building by 10th Street. Unfortunately, due to the excess of acid in the trunk, we didn't stop by for a chat.