Slim Chance - A Las Vegas Adventure (c)

By Burt Peretsky... 

 

Chapters 4 and 5.

 

 

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Chapter 4

Eye Look for John-Boy

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I didn’t have much of a chance on the drive back to the Castle to think about what I had just agreed to do for Sandra and the FBI.  That’s because of Miss Nomer.  At the corner of Main and The Strip, at the lights in front of Vegas World, Bob Stupak’s palace of pizzazz, her dashboard suddenly lit up like it was Christmas.  I knew it had to be her alternator.  I had the air conditioner going full blast, so I also knew the battery alone wouldn’t keep her going too much longer.  I pulled her into the first gas station, where a particularly greasy mechanic, the station owner, confirmed my suspicions about the alternator.

“We’ll have to order one, Mack,” he said to me, “and it’ll take a few hours for it to come and get put in. Ya’ wanna pick it up around 5?”

His son, Greasy Jr., drove me back to the Castle in a boiling hot tow truck, whose filthy cab left no doubt about who owned the vehicle.

By the time I got back into my office, I was as dirty and almost as hot as the tow truck.

“Boss, you look terrible,” Pinky greeted me.  “What happened to you?”

I told her what had happened with my car and about the tow truck ride back to the Castle, whereupon Pinky came up with the best idea she’d had in a long time.  “Why don’t you go to the health club?  You could use the relaxation, boss, and you sure could use the showers!”

So I did just that.  I always had a change of clothes in the office.  So, I grabbed them, and for the first time in the nearly fifteen years that I had worked at the Castle, I visited the Castle health club.  As a department head, I always had the right to free use of the health club or any other Castle facility, but look at me!  Why would a chubbo like me want to exhibit himself in a place where people are thinking about their health?

Fortunately, for me and for the sensibilities of any potential health clubbers, the place was empty when I arrived.  I had to introduce myself to the attendant who didn’t recognize me as a hotel employee, much less a department head.  And after proving who I was, I did enjoy a soothing, relaxing half-hour in the whirlpool and another near half-hour in the shower.  I thought briefly about using the exercise machines, but only briefly.

What is there about showers that stimulate creativity?  I get my best ideas in the shower.  Every morning – it never ceases to amaze me – I stand in my shower, and great thoughts roll over me.  And so it was, as I was standing in the shower of the Castle health club that I hit upon an idea.  I was thinking about how I’d go about looking for John-Boy.  Basically, there were two public places in the Castle, the casino and the lobby, and I don’t spend all that much time in either during my normal day at work.  And, what with the regular crush of activity now being made worse by Lefty’s death and the hotel’s financial crisis, I really couldn’t cut back on the time I was spending in the office. So, what I needed was a method by which I could survey both the casino and the lobby in a short time.

The answer that came to me in the shower was “The Eye.”  “The Eye” is short for “The Eye in the Sky,” the surveillance floor, or half-floor to be exact, above the casino, above the mirrored ceiling of the casino.

In the old days, people walked and lay on the catwalks of the Eye, looking down as best they could for players who would be cheating, or more importantly, for casino employees who would be helping themselves or players to an illegal piece of the action.  If casinos are watching for anything, they’re watching for employees, rather than customers, who cheat.  In probably 90 percent of the cheating cases, an employee is either helping himself or helping the customer in a scam.

Since the mid-1970s, people on the catwalks of The Eye have more often than not been replaced by video cameras.  Lefty, about the most security-conscious person I had ever known, had completely modernized the Eye at the Castle.  Every video and audio contraption known to man had found its way to the second floor of the Castle’s casino.  NASA and the Air Force never sent a satellite into the sky with as sophisticated a set of cameras and mikes as sprouted from the Vegas Castle’s Eye.  At least, that was what I had heard; you see, I had never been to the Castle’s Eye.   Security was especially tight with regard to who would be allowed to visit it.  Even a hotel department head needed both a very valid excuse and special permission from Security to get up there.

I showered, changed, and headed over to Chief Casey’s office. I had a plan to get up to the Eye.

A secretary buzzed Casey from the outer office to announce my arrival.  After a few moments and a second buzz on the intercom – the Chief was known to nap from time to time at work – he responded and invited me in.

Casey stood at his desk as I entered his office.  “Good to see you, Slim!  Good to see you!  How can I help you?”

“Good to see you, too, Chief.  I won’t take up too much of your time.  I know how busy you are.  I had a call from a travel magazine reporter.”  I had concocted a cover story as part of my plan.  “He’s doing several stories on Vegas, and one of them is on how hotels watch for cheaters, how they use the Eye.”  Anticipating Casey's resistance to letting any unauthorized person into restricted areas, I quickly added, “I’m not proposing to let him go up there, but with your permission, I’d like to see it, so I can, in real general terms, describe how your people protect the hotel against any and all cheaters.”  That little bit of flattery was, of course, intended.

Casey pondered his answer.  He motioned to sweep back his gray hair, but his right hand remained on his head for an extra few moments, as if he were scratching it. “So, it'll just be you up there, Slim?”

“That's right, Chief. Just me.  And, I'll be real vague on the details with him, too!”

Casey considered the request.  “Okay, then. I guess there's no harm in letting you see the Eye.  Do you think this reporter might want to interview me?”  The old bird was always interested in feathering his own nest, and with the hotel possibly closing in a month, who could blame him?  We'd all be looking for jobs soon, and good publicity right about then wouldn't have hurt any of us.

“I think there's a possibility of that.” I winked.  Casey pressed a button on his intercom.  “Webster, come in here, please,” he barked.

Moments later, a tall, good-looking, and young security officer entered Casey's office.

“Slim, this is Roger Webster, one of our new men.  Been with us about six months, and he's an expert on surveillance.  He was working with Lefty on the boss' new camera project.  Webster, this is Slim Chance, our PR guy.  He wants a tour of the Eye.  Could you take him around, and also show him the surveillance room?  Give him all the cooperation he requests.  It's for a magazine story.”

Webster snapped to attention.  “Yes, sir!” he replied.

Then, turning to me, Webster said: “Mr. Chance. Nice to meet you.”  He offered his hand, and we shook.  I thanked the Chief, and Webster then led me out of the office.

I remembered having seen Webster around the hotel.  In fact, on the day Lefty was killed, I saw Webster and the Chief in the casino talking with two of the Metro homicide detectives who had descended upon us.

As Webster and I walked in the general direction of the casino, it occurred to me that in all the time I'd been at the Castle, not only hadn't I ever been in the Eye, but I hadn't even seen the door that led into it.

“Where's the entrance to the Eye?” I asked.

“Follow me,” Webster answered.

Silently, he led me through the lobby, out the front door, and – of all places – around to the side of the hotel.  At a point beneath a fire escape, he reached over his head and pulled down the metal ladder attached to the structure.  He then began to climb it.  “Follow me,” he ordered.  Twice now, Webster had said nothing but, “Follow me!”  Obediently, I followed.

He reached the fire escape landing before I began my ascent, and by the time I joined him there, he had produced a key from his pocket and was unlocking the fire exit door that could be operated without a key only from the inside, and only in a fire emergency, as its opening would automatically set off an ear-splitting alarm.

We entered the Eye onto another metal landing, which looked like an inside extension of the fire escape.  But, from the landing, catwalks extended in five directions, connecting to other catwalks set in a grid running the full length of room, equivalent in size to the casino below.  The walks were suspended above the glass floor of the Eye, which also served as the mirrored ceiling of the casino.  The entire Eye was dimly lighted, protecting anyone up there from reflections that would distract surveillance of the

people and games below.  The dim light gave the Eye a surreal, eerie atmosphere.  Not a soul walked the catwalks, except us.  No sound, except Webster’s and my footsteps, could be heard, not the bells, whistles, or computer tones of the slot machines below, nor the calls of the craps or Big Six wheel games.   In short, nothing.

“Here we are, Mr. Chance. This is the Eye,” Webster announced.

I looked around.  At regular locations along and adjacent to the catwalks, inverted Plexiglas domes housed video cameras pointing down, as did the domes, toward the casino.  I asked Webster about them.

“That’s what replaced people up here a few years ago,” he said.  “Those cameras can be trained on any game or machine in the house.  They can move horizontally and vertically, so we can train several cameras on one spot, if we wanted to.  Most of them are black and white, but a few, especially those that watch the baccarat pit, the progressive slot machines, and the high-minimum games, are color.  And,” he continued, “we can zoom in to pick up Abe Lincoln’s eye off a penny.”

This was marvelous.  “Where are they controlled from?” I asked.

“The surveillance room,” he answered.   “We'll see that after we're through here.”

I looked down through the glass floor of The Eye to see a casino that looked more like a morgue.  Very few table games were open, and only a handful of players were at the slots.  It was 3 in the afternoon, and the Vegas Castle was virtually empty.  No wonder the bank was about to close us down! Before long, these cameras would be watching nothing but furniture.

After a little while, I told Webster I had seen enough.

In reality, I hadn't seen John-Boy, so in effect, I hadn't seen enough.

I asked to see the surveillance room, figuring it would jibe with my cover story, and it might even help me to locate John-Boy.  But instead of leaving the Eye the way we came in, Webster led me away from the fire escape door and across a catwalk to the opposite side of the building.

There, he produced another key to unlock another unmarked door.  We walked into a room packed with high-tech video monitors, a control room that would make any television station envious.  Webster explained that the door leading into the surveillance room from the Eye could only be unlocked from the Eye.  This was necessary, he said, to maintain security and to protect against video camera operators in the surveillance room who might want to fix the camera of their choice to make cheating a little easier than it would be normally.

I could see how the system was built.  Checks and balances were everywhere.  Nothing was left, if you’ll excuse the expression, to chance!

Three uniformed security officers sat at the console of monitors, occasionally operating the remote controls in front of them.  Those controls, in turn, would turn a camera here or there, or focus in on a particularly or potentially suspicious situation.  As Webster explained, additional fixed cameras were suspended on the ceiling over the casino cage, the cashier’s office, where money was counted and exchanged for chips. Also, he said, cameras watched the counting room, behind the cage, the room, need I say, where the money is counted.

It was apparent from Webster’s tour that much of the surveillance done in a casino is done to protect against crooked employees.  I asked him about the customers, and what type of cheating they do that could be uncovered by video surveillance.

The “claim bet artist” was the principal cheater caught by the cameras, Webster said.  That's the guy who usually works the busy craps tables, and when the betting is hot and heavy, he'll claim that he had a big bet on the table for which he wasn't paid.  He'll typically raise his voice and become indignant, until finally, as the other players are urging the dealers to continue with the game before the dice cool off, the house will give in and give him what he claimed was due.  Cameras, according to Webster, can't right the wrong immediately, but after the videotapes are reviewed, they can nab the guy the next time he shows up.

Webster really knew his stuff.  He talked about slot machine cheaters who are also vulnerable to video coverage from above. At ground level, they usually are protected by spotters and blockers, confederates who stand around the cheater, spotting for security or other casino employees and blocking their way, while the cheater plies the machine with slugs or computer chips pre-programmed to produce illicit jackpot payoffs.  Slot cheaters can cost a casino millions over a very short time, and as sophisticated as the new computer slot machines get, the slot cheaters come to town with even more sophisticated computerized cheating devices.

As interesting as the Eye and the surveillance room were, I quickly realized that I'd be unable to use them to spot John-Boy.  First, access to the Eye and the surveillance area was too restricted for the amount of surveillance I'd need to look for someone who was in the hotel only occasionally. Second, the cameras focus on dealer's hands, slot machine players, and cash or chips far more often than on the faces of customers walking through the casino and lobby.  I needed to see faces.

By the time I finished my tour, it was 4:30PM.  I thanked Webster for showing me around, and I headed for my office to call the service station about Miss Nomer.

Exiting from the surveillance room, by the way, was – lo and behold – through a door that led into the back of a men's room on the second floor, the very men's room that I used every workday.   Now, that did surprise me!  It also intrigued me, as I considered for a moment how the hotel wouldn't be able to accommodate a female security agent assigned to the surveillance room.  No, indeed!

Miss Nomer wasn't going to be ready that night; the alternator wouldn't be delivered from the Plymouth dealer's parts department until the next day.  I caught a ride home with the hotel limo driver.  He was on his way to the airport to pick up Mr. B., the last of our high rollers.  My place was on the way to McCarran, so it worked out.

Miss Nomer cost me $200 the next day, and I could see that once again this month, I'd be late with my alimony and child support payments.  So be it.  There was nothing I could do.

I spent almost all of my waking hours over at the Castle during the next few days.   Morale, normally poor, was abysmal after word spread that the hotel was on a 30-day deadline to make or break itself.

 

You might not believe that a casino can lose money, much less to the point of looming bankruptcy.  You might not believe it, but the annals of Las Vegas casino history, and now Atlantic City’s, are filled with grand palaces gone gray and towering temples turned to dust.  As usual, the biggest hurdle to profitability in both towns is stiff competition for a limited number of dollars.  In Atlantic City, that competition is among fewer than a dozen hotels, and high taxes, high labor costs, and high marketing costs to lure the players inside the casinos mean that hotels in that city must operate as close as possible to their crowd capacity.  In Las Vegas, the taxes and operating costs might be lower, but the competition is far greater.  Within Las Vegas’ Clark County alone, for instance, more than 50 major resorts and a score of smaller casinos vie for the gaming buck.  And when the national economy ebbs, or, as the economists would say, “discretionary spending” is limited, Las Vegas, as the boys on the block would say, “bites the big one!”

Big or little, a badly managed casino, or a casino that’s badly marketed to the public can go belly-up like any other business.  And add to this mix the vagaries of the casino business, and financial disaster potentially looms at even the best-run joint.

I remember, not long ago, that one of the big casinos on the Strip – you’d be surprised at which one – nearly went into bankruptcy, when Mexico devalued its peso twice within a six-month period.  Before you ask, “Que pasa?” I’ll tell you what happened: this particular casino had a slew of high rollers out of Mexico.  High rollers generally play on credit.  The hotel advances them a line, say $150,000, and high rollers can play on borrowed money.  Before long, the debts are called in, and the rollers, in theory anyway, repay the hotel the money they borrowed and lost.

These Mexican high rollers lost a bundle each time they came north, but the hotel was slow in calling in its markers.  At one point, during the week following the annual “Cinqo de Mayo” celebration at the hotel, the Mexicans had built up a collective debt of pesos equal to $24 million, or so that was the figure I heard.  Then, Mexico City devalued the peso, first by 20 percent and, six weeks later, by another 20 percent.  The amount of pesos that had been billed by the hotel, originally equal to $24 million, suddenly became equal to about $15 million, and presto, the hotel was out $9 million.

The high rollers, considerably poorer after a double devaluation of the peso, couldn’t, or didn’t want to, pay their gambling debts in full, and the word is that they collectively settled with the hotel for about $10 million, after some considerable negotiation.  The total paper loss for the hotel was $14 million.  And while it was only paper, not many businesses can lose $14 million in accounts receivable without feeling the pinch, not even casinos!

Now, the twin specters of bankruptcy and unemployment haunted the Vegas Castle, and a devaluation of spirit permeated its hallways.  Las Vegas was never an easy town in which to be unemployed, and many of the Castle employees had known no other employer for most of their working life.  About two dozen hotel employees, mostly in the casino, had started with the Castle when it opened its doors 35 years ago.

Among today’s department heads, Anna Leo, now head of housekeeping, was a maid at the new Vegas Castle back then.  Food and Beverage Manager Rosa Laurence was a waitress in the Little King Coffee Shop, and Sales Director Ed Griffin worked in the mailroom as a kid.  Each had grown up with the Castle; each had been through the good times and now the bad.  The lives of each of them, and of many other long-time employees of the hotel, were inextricably tied to the Castle.  Their personas were the hotel’s, and vice versa.

The Vegas Castle in those early days was one of the Valhallas of Vegas, and for many of the workers, in the parlance of the casino, a “juice job.”  You had to know someone, or have “juice,” to get a job, for instance, in the Castle’s casino, where, back then, a “21” dealing job would net you an average of $100 a day in tips, or, as they were called, “tokes.”  Add that to the typical $30 a day in wages, and you have a pretty good salary, especially before the IRS crackdown on unreported tokes.

A craps dealer at the Castle in its heyday could average $150 a day, not counting his daily $30 wage.  A Castle baccarat dealer was good for upwards of $200 a day, plus the $30.

Tokes had not been so good in recent years, but just having a dealing job in town was good fortune, given the glut of dealers.  Being laid off would most certainly mean long unemployment for most of the Castle casino workers.  It would be a real tragedy for the employees who had given their lives to the joint!

My digital watch said 10:58; it even said AM, rather gratuitously when you think about it.  The Graveyard shift was ending, as I walked through the casino.  I always marvel at how precisely shifts change, and breaks are taken in casinos, where clocks and even windows are forbidden for fear that customers would know what time it was or, worse, when to quit gambling.  Of course, everyone wears watches, and it's easy in a casino to catch a floor person or even a dealer on the job looking at a watch.  Casino workers are flagrant clock-watchers, or at least watch-watchers.

This was the one of the times of the day when casinos were the quietest.  The heaviest gambling was done in what TV would call prime time, between 8PM and 11PM.  After 11PM, the high rollers had the tables almost to themselves.  By 5AM, they had retired to bed, and from then until about noon, most tables are closed.  On this particular day and time, like on most recent days at the Castle, the few tables that remained open entertained only a handful of tourists with $2 games.  Row after row of slot machines lay idle.   Neither of the two gourmet restaurants were yet open.  The coffee shop, just off the casino and always open, was preparing for lunch.  A waitress was exchanging breakfast placemats and paper napkins with lunch placemats and cloth.

The Little King menus never changed, however.  A customer could buy a breakfast at 10PM or dinner at 8AM.  Nearby, in the Day and Knights Buffet, a busboy had just posted the “Closed Until 11:30AM” sign.  That would be his last official act of his eight-hour shift, and another busboy would start his day, a half-hour later, by turning the sign over to read “Open for Lunch.”

I was headed for the lounge.  It, too, abuts the casino.  In fact, everything of interest to the customer abuts the casino.  That was the design plan of this and most casino-hotels – to have the customer spend as much time in the moneymaking areas as possible. And the moneymaking areas were all in the casino.  To get to the front desk to register for a hotel room, one must walk along an area immediately adjacent to the casino.  The way to the showroom, the restaurants, the coffee shop, or the lounge goes through the casino.  The main floor Castle restrooms, as they are in most casinos, are at the back of the casino area.  You can’t get anywhere from anywhere, without walking through the casino.  In a phrase, they get you coming and going.

Casinos, labyrinths of neon, chrome, and glass, are built to a plan, and the tables and slot machines that fill them are arranged with a purpose in mind – to extract from the players in a logical or methodical way their last quarter.  Slot machines are placed with the looser ones at the end of rows at most casinos, including the Vegas Castle.  And the reason?  It was the same - to attract players and their money.  As a potential player passes by, his or her attention would be drawn to a machine paying off, right then, right there, right on the outside of a row, right in front of them.  Listen, there’s that bell that rings when someone hits a jackpot.  Look, here it is, right here, beside me.  I’ve got to play.  This might be a sign.

It is a sign.  It says, “Come hither, sucker.  Prepare to lose.”

Gaming tables at the Castle, and at most casinos, are also arranged in a logical fashion. At the Castle, nine “21” tables form each of three oval-shaped blackjack pits.  Inside the pits, floor men, and a few floor women, watch the games carefully, not as much for cheating as for which players were betting at what rate.  Most carefully watched are the credit players, who to maintain a good credit rating with the hotel not only must pay back their debts promptly – as gambling debts are legally uncollectable – but they must also maintain a steady pace of gambling.  Casinos don’t want to give out thousands of dollars in credit to players, if those players are only going to bet five dollars per blackjack hand.  Every once in a while, a floor man reports to the pit boss on the rate at which a credit player is betting. “Smith, John,” the floor man whispers to the boss, “three reds, an occasional green.”  The boss, at a computer terminal in the center of the pit, at the desk, hits the terminal keys appropriately.  He calls up “Smith, John” on the amber screen and enters on a format ted display “BJ” for blackjack, “$15” under “average bet,” and “$25” under “occasional high bet.”  At a glance, the floor man notes the information under “Smith, John” as being in line with what it should be.  “Smith, John” has a line of $20,000, that is, a credit limit of $20,000.  At that rate, he should be betting greens, or $25 chips, at “21,” his game of choice.  But, “Smith, John” is down $5000 for this trip, according to an earlier entry into the computer, so if he’s only betting three reds per hand, or $15, then it’s understandable.  He’s waiting for his luck to change.

Were “Smith, John” to start winning, he’d probably start betting larger amounts, and a floor person would whisper that to the boss, who would add the new information to the “Smith, John” computer file.  Were “Smith, John” to win big and want to quit for a while, he’d “color up,” or consolidate his reds and greens to black chips, each worth $100, or to pink chips, each worth $500.  He’d then, most likely, be off toward the cage, or casino cashier, to pay back some of his markers, the IOUs he’s signed to get his chips on credit in the first place.  And just in case, a boss would be on the phone with the cage and into the computer with the information that “Smith, John” has won, how much he’s won, and the fact that he’s walking around with X number of pink and/or black chips.

An hour or two later, “Smith, John” might walk over to a table and ask the house for more credit.  But instead, he’d be asked to settle some of his markers first.

Two craps table were being used, as I passed on my way to the lounge.  They were manned – no women dealt craps at the Castle – by a stickman on one side, a “box man,” and two additional dealers to make change, payoffs, and bet setups.

The box man sits like the liege that his position makes him.  His bosses are the craps pit floor men. Craps dealers and the box men watch payoffs, bet procedures, and potential cheaters.  Craps floor men watch, as do their counterparts on “21,” the rate at which players bet.  In craps, where betting can be fast and furious, and fortunes won and lost in double-time, a floor man’s job is often difficult.  It was more difficult in the days before computers, but then again, Las Vegas was a lot different in the days before computers.

At this time of the day, as I passed by, nobody was betting fast nor furious.  Above the casino, a mirrored ceiling reflected all the inaction on the sleepy Castle floor.

I glanced up, but instead of seeing the cameras and security men I now knew to be behind the one-way glass in The Eye, I caught a glimpse of myself, striding across the red print rug, more than a bit overweight, a man worthy of the nickname, “Slim.”

I looked in the mirror like my father looked when I lived at home.  A portly man with a beer belly, he too could have been called “Slim,” but his nickname was “Bum,” as in “Bum” Chance.   His real name was Harold, but with a last name like Chance, it was inevitable that somebody would stick you with some kind of moniker.  “Bum” was appropriate, I guess.  Dad had very little ambition for himself. 

For me, he had ambitions galore.  I was expected to be the best of everything, to live the kind of life he never lived.  It was as if Dad’s own laziness could be excused by a son who, in some way could excel at something.  Dad was disappointed with me when I graduated from high school, because I wasn’t at, or even near, the top of my class.  Although he never went beyond the eighth grade, nothing less than valedictorian for me would have pleased him.  I wanted him to be proud of me when I graduated from college, but if he was proud, he never said anything to me.  When I got the job as a reporter, the only comments I ever got from him were complaints that I wasn’t writing the lead story every day.  I never lived up to Dad’s expectations, but then again, I was always disappointing someone, whether it was he, or my ex-wife, or even myself.  In being a reporter, I was always writing about others’ accomplishments, others’ achievements, others’ lives.  In PR, it was even worse – I was doing the bragging for others.

“The Moat,” one of Las Vegas’ countless lounges and the biggest of three at the Castle, is elevated along the north side of the casino, near the bank of slot machines.  It is in the noisiest end of the casino by design.  Players at table games didn’t want to hear the noise of slots and/or loud music that often emanated from lounges.  So, the lounge and the slots find a common home in the back of the room.

Of course, if the lounge plays groups like the lounge does in Sam’s Town – the raucous country groups, the shit-kickers – then slot machine players, table game customers, and everyone in between can kiss the peace and quiet goodbye.

Tommy Lake was drinking coffee from a tall glass.

Every time I saw Lake doing that, which was just about every morning at this time at The Moat, I remembered my grandmother, who in the Old Country and still in the New would drink her sweet tea with milk from a tall glass.  And like Grandma, Tommy put a spoon in the glass, so that the heat of the beverage wouldn’t crack it.

Tommy was alone in the lounge.  A couple of men were drinking hard stuff at the bar; a young couple, perhaps a bride and groom on their honeymoon, were sitting at the only other occupied table, on the other side of the lounge from where Tommy sat.  They were drinking white wine.  The small stage in The Moat was dark and empty, but through the darkness above the stage near the ceiling, one could make out the now-dark neon sign hailing “The Castle’s Own Tommy Lake.”

The Castle’s Own looked unhappy or sleepy, or perhaps both, as I approached.

“Hi, Tommy.  Mind if I join you?” I said, pulling out the other chair at the small table.

“No, I’d welcome it, Slim. I was expecting you.”

“Funny, you didn’t look pregnant,” I offered.  Tommy forced a smile.”  Thanks, I’ll do the jokes around here, Slim, at least in The Moat.  I was expecting  you, because you always do your rounds about this time of day, don't you?”

“You're right.” My routine didn't change much.  Between 10:30 and 11:30 every morning, I walked the casino area, picking up news and gossip, catching up on what was what.  A PR man needed to know just about everything that was happening at the place where he worked, so that he could anticipate trouble, uncover potentially positive news or feature stories for the press, and just generally have an appreciation of the situation.  The late morning provided me an excellent opportunity to chat with the graveyard shift people as well as the day shift crew in the casino, who were just coming to work.

“Slim, I have an idea on how to help the hotel.  Can I run it by you?”

“Sure, Tommy, let's hear it.”

Lake inhaled deeply, let out his breath slowly, and sipped some tea.  A moment or two went by, as he swallowed and seemed to gather his courage.   “You know,” he said, “you're one of the few people in this place I can trust.  I can't trust Arlene.  First, she's my boss, and second, she'd love to have my balls, especially now that her husband's gone.  She's a bitch, Slim.  You know that, don't you?”  “Ya...”  I was barely paying attention to Tommy who complained every chance he could to whomever was handy.  And at that instant, I caught the eye of the lounge waitress, a lovely creature named Cheryl, barely covered by a Medieval barmaid costume.

“Coffee, please, Cheryl, with cream,” I asked, flashing on what Cheryl would look like with cream, the whipped variety, in bed with a whipped cream lover like me.  Reluctantly, I suppressed that thought and turned my attention back to Tommy.

“So, what’s your idea to help the hotel?” I asked.  That sounded all business, but I didn’t intend it so.   I was no exception to the rule that everyone, except perhaps Arlene, liked Tommy Lake.  He was the hotel puppy dog.  His sad eyes, long face, and Beagle features, added to the self-deprecating type of humor he pitched nightly in the lounge, generated empathy for Tommy with just about everyone who knew him.

“Well, I’ll be quick,” Lake said, almost apologetically.  “You know, Pat Andrea’s one of my dear friends.”  A pause.   “Did I ever mention that?”

“You may have, Tommy.”  I tried to sound sincere.  Everyone was Tommy’s “dear friend,” especially the biggest names in show business, to hear him tell it.  “So, what about it?”

“I was thinking, Slim.  Maybe I can get Pat to play our showroom for a couple of weeks for a “Save the Castle” benefit.  That would bring in the crowds, wouldn’t it?  We could ask him to do it for old time’s sake, to save the hotel that made him his name.”

It was difficult to remain sincere now, but I tried harder still: ”Be serious, Tommy. He’s not going to do it ... even for a dear friend like you.”

“But, what if he did, Slim, wouldn’t that save the hotel?  Wouldn’t that bring in the crowds like the old days?  Wouldn’t that show the bankers back east that the Castle can make money, and that it should remain open?”  Tommy was cooking now.  His speech had quickened with his pulse.

There was no harm in humoring him.  “I guess it could work, Tommy.  How would you go about getting Pat Andrea here?”

“I’m writing him a letter.  I’m going to ask him to play here all next month, and I’m going to explain that we can’t afford to pay him anything, that he’s got to do it for the sake of the hotel, for old time’s sake.”

“OK, Tommy.   A good idea.  Let me know when you hear from him, and I’ll make the announcement to the press.”  Cheryl approached with my coffee.

“Thanks, kid, I’ll take it with me.”  I handed her a dollar toke, grabbed the steaming cup and the saucer from her hand, and said goodbye to Tommy.”  I like it, Tommy.  It’s a good idea,” I lied, and quickly qualified my lie, “if it works.  Let me know if I can help.  And keep your chin up!”

I continued on my morning rounds.  At the bus registration area, a group from Spokane was crowded around a desk clerk.  None of their rooms were ready yet, and I could hear one of them complaining.   “What kind of a place is this, anyway?”

And I thought for a moment about that question, what kind of a place is this, anyway, and I thought about those pictures in my office, of Pat Andrea and the stars of the Vegas Castle in the Fifties and Sixties, the stars that made the Castle, the very stars that made Las Vegas.  What kind of a place is this, anyway? And no matter what I said, no matter what happened to me at the moment, this place, the Vegas Castle was a special place.  It was history; it was a legend in its own right.  It was a way of life for Tommy, for Anna Leo, for Herb Schwartz, and for me.  As towers grew around it, and corporations eclipsed it, the Vegas Castle remained fixed in the personal past of Las Vegas, in the Golden Era.  The Vegas Castle was the glamour and the glitz of the Strip, the way it used to be, when people's names were associated with hotels.  The Castle beckoned the biggest, the best, and the richest in its day. It was a big piece of the town's history.

The Vegas Castle was the Las Vegas of legend.  It was the place that Lefty Needham owned, that Pat Andrea made famous.   It, like Lefty was – like Andrea and all the stars were who made the Castle their home away from home – it was a legend, it was a name, it was history itself. 

 

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Chapter 5

Tom, COMDEX, and Harry

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Nearly a week had passed since Sandra Emerson had asked me to help the FBI.  I had abandoned the idea of looking for John-Boy from The Eye or from the surveillance room.  Were I to have sought admittance there beyond the first time, somebody in Security would have become suspicious.  The reporter-doing-a-story line would hardly work again.  So, I took the more conservative route, looking for John-Boy at floor level everywhere I went in the hotel.  In the casino, in the restaurants, the lounges, and even in the men’s room, I looked and looked, each time in vain.

One face that I did see everywhere was Sandra Emerson’s.  Our all-too-brief meeting at the Mint over a hamburg, French fries, and a taco salad stayed in my mind throughout the days that followed.  Boy, she was pretty!  In her presence, I felt like a school kid, stricken with – at the very least – puppy love.  It was a feeling I hadn’t had since before I was married, and certainly not since then, or even since my divorce.

I harbored hope that my liaisons with Sandra, to keep her posted on my search for John-Boy, would bear fruit in a romantic way.  All the elements were there.  At her request, we were to meet only in her apartment or in mine.  She was single; so was I.  She was beautiful and intelligent; I was intelligent.  Someday, I would be thin again.  That would be an accomplishment, precious few of which I had in my life.

Twenty years of news reporting and practicing PR had pummeled me into an abyss of inadequacy.  I spent my life, it seemed, writing about other people's accomplishments, bragging about other people's victories, and touting other people's plans for the future.  Professionally, public relations had starved me, and I suspect, personally, as well.  Wouldn't it be nice, someday, to have an accomplishment of my own to tout, or for someone else to tout my accomplishments?

My divorce trial ten years ago nearly ruined my self-esteem.   I remember wondering, after all that Georgia's lawyer brought out in the property and custody battle, whether I was even a decent person.   Skillfully, that asshole – even now I can't think of him, except in those terms – brought out a pattern of behavior in my past that had me doubting my own credentials as a member of the human race.  I was guilty of mental cruelty, alienation, and social abandonment, to name a few crimes.   I would never accomplish anything.   I couldn't be trusted to care for a child, even on occasion.   I was mean, arrogant, undependable, given to fits of extreme temper.   I drank too much, gambled to excess, and was irresponsible.

My lawyer claimed he was doing his best to represent me, but it was clear that, number one, I was tough to defend, and, number two – more to the point – that I wasn't going to be yielding too big of a fee, so why drag out the proceedings?

Years later, I was still what Georgia's lawyer had said I was – in so many words, a poor slob – never able to make ends meet financially or personally. After years of living down to my self-image, and now faced with what most would consider an opportunity to land a beautiful lady, the beautiful Sandra Emerson, I was certain that I was facing an impossible task. Why should the future be any different from the past?  Jimmy Carter was right – life is unfair.  But, it's also predictable!

As I eyed the players in the casino, what few there were, trying to pick out John-Boy, I came to the realization that what this boy detective needed was someone on his side, someone who was in the casino more than he was, someone who could be trusted, and someone whose constant presence in the casino wouldn't be noticed. I normally spent most of my working hours upstairs on the second floor, in the "back of the house" in hotelier's terms. At the Vegas Castle, the back of the house meant the second floor ballroom level, where, behind the ballroom, the administrative offices of the hotel were located. It was the half of the second floor, I now knew, which abutted The Eye and its surveillance room.

During my workday, to be sure, I made my “rounds" at least twice, and that included a walk through the casino each time. But, were I to be in the casino more often, on a regular basis, I would surely be noticed, and questions would surely be asked. Not only that, but I’d also have trouble attending to all my work. What with the end of the Castle in sight, I owed it to the hotel and to Lefty’s memory, to see to it, at least in PR terms, that the Castle goes out in style.

But I also wanted to impress Sandra, and at the very least, that meant finding John-Boy. But to do that and to have something substantive to tell Sandra at home – wow, that sounded good – I would need a casino lookout, an accomplice. Despite her admonition to keep my spying a secret, I determined that I would need someone to help me, someone who wouldn’t be noticed in the casino for long periods of time, someone who belonged there, someone who could be trusted – trusted and quiet. Someone like Harry. No, it would have to be Harry – Harry, himself!

Harry would be a good subject for the Reader’s Digest "Most Amazing Individual I’ve Ever Met” column. He was born just about at the same time the Vegas Castle was born, almost 40 years ago, to a simple family that operated a little grocery store in Manhattan. He was the second of three children, the older of two boys.

Amazing? Not really – except that THIS grocery store was the only store in Manhattan!

THIS Manhattan was 45 miles north of Tonopah, Nevada, 9000 feet in the sky looking directly at the Big Smokey in the Toquima Mountains. It was once a gold mining boomtown, but today, ghost town would be a better description. Harry and his family were among only 100 residents of this misnamed Manhattan.

The editors of Reader’s Digest would probably reject my "most amazing individual" entry, were Manhattan, NV, Harry’s only claim to fame.  But, in growing up in Manhattan, Harry grew up to be six feet, 11 inches tall. And (still more amazing?) Harry has been deaf since birth. And (still most amazing?) Harry trained himself to be a blackjack dealer.  Yes, a blackjack dealer!

I had discovered Harry early in my tenure at the Castle.

It was hard to miss him.  He towered over the table at which he stood. He also attracted players who had heard that there was a deaf blackjack dealer in town, and probably, since he was deaf, could be taken.

But, Harry was technically about the best dealer in the Vegas Castle.  He could read lips as well as any deaf person; his speech, although it was a tipoff to his deafness, was passable; and Vegas Castle rules, in any case, required all players to communicate their blackjack moves via hand signals.  If a player wanted another card to draw closer to "21," then he or she would have to signal by hand.  If the player wanted to stand with the cards he or she had, then another hand signal would be required to tell the dealer "no more."

The rules weren't designed for Harry's benefit; they were universal in Las Vegas.  In this way, The Eye security people and cameras can watch the games with relative ease.  Twenty-one is the only game that requires hand signals – and conversely, in those casinos, like the Castle, where the dealer still looks at his hole card before the action begins, "21" is the only game on which cheating can be carried out through simple conversation between the dealer and the player.

In addition to hand signals being required, some blackjack tables in casinos are miked – even the dealers don't know which ones. The theory says that hand signals observed from above, from The Eye, will keep everybody honest. If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to talk about with you!

Harry's shift, the night shift, started at 4PM.  That's when I would return to the casino to enlist him to help save America. For now, a hotel needed saving, so I retreated upstairs to my office to wrestle with the imminent – it seemed certain – death of the Vegas Castle.

 

Tommy Lake was waiting in the outer office of the PR department, when I arrived upstairs.

"Hi, Slim, can I see you for a min'?"

"Sure, Tommy, c’mon in."  I motioned Lake into my office behind the door that bore my name and title: "James Chance, Public Relations Director. While motioning with one hand, I grabbed a small pile of pink "While you were out" message slips from the message spike on the corner of Pinky’s desk. Pinky waved hello. She was on the phone, listening, but not talking.

Big and poorly lighted, my office was a mess.  It looked like a warehouse, and in a sense, it was. I have always been a saver. I rarely throw out letters or memos addressed to me, and I always make copies of correspondence I send.  My filing system, though huge, is set up – at my direction – into only two basic files, incoming and outgoing.  Any letters, memos, or paraphernalia that are sent to me go into the incoming file, while anything I send in writing is copied for the outgoing file.  The most recent materials are placed in front or on top, and all I have to remember is roughly when something was written, and I can find a copy of it in minutes.

"So, what’s cooking, Tommy?” I asked, as I sat down behind my oak desk.

"I’m in the shit with Arlene," the comedy legend said.

Tommy was dressed, or overdressed as usual, in a gray suit with wide vertical black stripes.  His pink-orange shirt was open at the collar, revealing a giant gold crucifix resting on his chest.  A pink-orange silk handkerchief was protruding from his jacket breast pocket.  He had on the most God-awful brown cowboy boots, staccato-ed with what looked like rhinestones.

"I sent Pat Andrea the letter I told you about," he continued, "and I sent Arlene a copy."

"Why did you copy Arlene on it?" I asked.  "You’re a personal friend of Andrea's sending him a personal letter, asking a favor?  You didn't have to copy her.  Anyway, she's in mourning.  She doesn't have to be bothered with every little thing.  Why get Arlene involved?"

Tommy drew a breath.  "Because she's the entertainment director, Slim, and she's hardly acting the grieving widow part.  Given all that, I just thought it would be appropriate to let her know what I was doing.  I figured if I didn't tell her, I'd get into trouble.  But, now I'm in trouble anyway!  I hear she's pissed, really pissed at me.  She thinks I'm horning in on her job.  She told one of the bartenders at the Moat when she was looking for me, that I'm an asshole.  Can you imagine?  She called me an asshole!"

Just then, as if on cue, a commotion in my outer office materialized in Arlene Needham's menacing presence at my door.  Her frame filled the frame of my door.  She was glaring at Tommy.

"You worm!  Who the hell do you think you are?"  She was yelling.  In her hand, she held a white piece of paper, probably the copy of the letter that Tommy had sent Andrea, her copy!

Lake winced, then looked at me, a pitiful appearance played across his face.  I started to say something to come to his rescue, but Arlene drowned me out ...

"You asshole!"  That must have been her word of the day.  "What gives you the right to start up with Pat Andrea?   I'll have you know, you little worm, that I'm the entertainment director of the Vegas Castle, not you.  And I'll have you know that I hire the help, including you.  And I fire the help too.  You, you little shit, you're fired!"

On that, she turned an about face, and as quickly as she had burst in, she walked purposefully out of the PR department, slamming the outer door on the way.

It was a moment or two, a noticeably long moment or two, before either Tommy or I removed our gaze from the door where Arlene had just stood.  Then, slowly, Tommy turned his head to me.  He looked dazed.  Tears were welling up in his eyes.  I had to say something, or he'd lose it, he'd break down.

“Tommy, I'll talk to her.   Don't worry!  She's not herself."  I lied.  "She's just been terribly upset since Lefty's death,” I lied again.  "She really likes you.”   Why not – I had lied still again!

Tommy pulled himself together enough to say something.  It wasn't too profound, either.  "Christ, I'm really screwed now."  Then, he paused.  His eyes watered again.  "What do I do now, Slim?" he asked plaintively.

"Why don't you get out of here, Tommy.  Go for a walk, or a drive.   Or, just go home and take it easy.  I'll talk with her.  You'll see," I hoped I wasn't lying again, "she'll change her mind."

Tommy finally went home, after I walked him to the employee's lot and put him into his car.  Tommy drove a 1978 pink Cadillac, a block long, with license plates that read, "GRT LAKE.”  There was nothing about Tommy that was out of character, with the age-old Las Vegas motto, "Nothing succeeds like excess!"

About the only thing I could do for Tommy immediately was to give Arlene time to cool off.  I would talk to her later in the day on his behalf.

I returned to my office and buried myself in my work.

I was never busier than I was during the week following Lefty's death.  So many people had called, so many questions were being asked.  Would the hotel survive?  What kind of a place would it be without Lefty?  What was being done to find his killer?  To all of these questions, I had the same answer: "I don't know. “

Before I knew it, the day had fled, and it was after 4PM.  Harry had arrived to work, and I had to talk with him to enlist him to my spy detail.  I knew Harry would turn a deaf ear to me, and I expected later in Arlene's office, she would do the same regarding Tommy's job.

As soon as I walked into the casino, I saw Harry's head towering above a table above all the other heads.  As I approached him, I noticed that his blackjack table was the only busy one in the pit area.  He had four players at his $2-minimum game, two men and two women.  Both men wore badges that said COMDEX, a big computer trade show in town that particular week.  I assumed the two women sitting next to them were their wives.  They didn't look romantically involved with the men.  Which is why I figured that they were their wives!

After a while, Harry had to shuffle the four decks he was dealing.  He was watching me – not the cards – as he mechanically and efficiently removed from the shoe the remainder of the cards that hadn't been dealt, mixed them to the cards piled high in the discard holder, cut the entire deck, cut each half again, and again, and finally shuffled one now relatively small deck, then another, then another, then another.  He placed each small deck that he had shuffled into an increasingly tall pile of cards.  Near the end of this routine, he caught my eye as I looked up from the table.

"Did you want to talk with me, Slim?" he asked in nasal tones that revealed his handicap.

I had purposely waited for him to start the conversation.  Pit bosses didn’t want their dealers talking with other hotel employees while on duty, and I certainly didn’t want to get Harry into trouble.  "Yeh, could you meet me at the Moat on your break?"  I looked directly at Harry, so he could read my lips.

"Okay," he nodded.  "See you in about ten minutes!”  Dealers at the Vegas Castle work for 40 minutes and then take 20-minute breaks.  They normally head straight for the dealer’s room for a cigarette, or a hit of something a bit stronger than nicotine.  Occasionally, they head for the employee cafeteria on their break, where they try to inhale lunch – it is always lunch, no matter what the shift or time of day, in time to get back to their tables twenty minutes later.  I didn’t want any other dealer, or anyone else for that matter, overhearing my conversation with Harry.  So, I thought the empty Moat would be the best place for us to talk.  Of course, with Harry being a deaf lip-reader I could have gone most anywhere, mouthed the words in silence, and still have communicated with him in privacy.  Harry, on the other hand, because he couldn’t hear, couldn’t accurately gauge just how loud he was speaking.  That was why the Moat would be perfect for our talk.  It was way off on the side of the casino, banked by those several rows of noisy slot machines.

“Hi, Slim.”  Harry's voice came from on high, from six feet, 11 inches on high, to be exact.  I had been staring into my coffee cup, thinking about what I was going to say, not to Harry, but to Arlene about Tommy, and how I was going to get Tommy's job back for him.  Harry caught me by surprise.  “How's the PR world treating you?"

I stood up to greet Harry, but somehow, with my 5'10” height, I still felt like I was sitting.  “Good to see you, Harry.  How they treating you?”

Harry had a smile that wouldn't, and never did, quit.

Life hadn't dealt him too many good hands, what with his deafness and all, but Harry was not the proverbial lesser man that lamented his sorrows; some day, I'll write him up for Reader's Digest as the happiest as well as the most amazing individual I've ever met.

In his hand, Harry held a dealer's apron, part of his uniform, the red part of his “black and whites.”  The apron, emblazoned with the turret logo of the Vegas Castle, protects a dealer's shirt as he leans against the back of the table to reach for dead cards and lost bets.  One of our dealers, a cute kid that I had dated when she dealt at the Flamingo and whom I had subsequently juiced into the Castle, was only 4'11” tall, and she could barely reach the discards and the bets on her game.  After a typical day at work, her apron would need laundering from all the bending, bowing, and reaching she had to engage in across the table.

Undoubtedly, dealing was tough on her – and all dealers' stomach muscles, bladder, and kidneys.

Some day, after I write the Readers Digest story about Harry, I'll sit down and write a free-lance story, maybe for Gaming Times Magazine, on the physical problems associated with dealing.

Harry sat his large frame in a chair opposite me, and as I motioned to a cocktail waitress in front of the slot machine bank nearby, I asked him if he wanted anything to drink.  He declined, but I ordered myself another cup of coffee.

I told Harry simply that I wanted him to do a favor for me, to look out for a guy that owes me money, a guy whose picture I didn't have.  He had a mole on his face, I told Harry, a mole that made him look like "John-Boy" on "The Waltons."  I told him that it was a guy from back in Boston that I knew.

Harry agreed to be my spy.  My cup of coffee arrived; I drank it too fast, burning my tongue in the process; we chatted a bit more, mostly about the prospects of the hotel closing; then, Harry went back to the pits.

That was easy.  Talking with Arlene on Tommy's behalf would be a lot tougher.  I steeled myself and headed back upstairs to confront her.

Surprise, surprise.  It too was easy.  Arlene was a pussycat.  On hearing me asking her secretary if she was in, Arlene came out of her office and greeted me herself.  Graciously, she escorted me into her inner sanctum, which was decidedly bigger than my office, and decidedly more opulently furnished and accoutered.  It was also a lot cleaner than my office, but then so was Shecky Green's act, Watts, the Las Vegas town dump, and Andersonville.

"You're here to plead for Tommy’s job, aren't you, Slim?"

I confessed I was.  I had intended to point out that Tommy meant well by copying her with his letter to Pat Andrea, that he was only asking a friend ("dear friend") for a favor, and that we were all desperate, given the financial state of the hotel and the likelihood that it would close, leaving us all without jobs.

But, Arlene stopped me short.  "He can have his job back, Slim.  I guess we'll need him for the next month, since we can't get anyone else on such short notice to play the Moat.  Just tell him, though, that you had to beg.  This way, it'll scare the shit out of him, and then maybe I can get some respect out of the asshole.”

I didn't like hearing Arlene refer to Tommy as an asshole, but she was giving him his job back, so I thought it best to let the remark ride.  Say, isn't Arlene's language just soooo impressive?

"I owe you one, Arlene," I said, almost immediately wishing I hadn’t.

“I know,” came back her answer.  "You sure as hell do! 

My beeper on my belt was going off.  I excused myself, and using a phone on Arlene’s secretary’s desk, I called the hotel operator.  I was told that a player had hit a modest, $25,000 slot jackpot in the carousel area near the Moat.  I called Pinky Dawson, who answered on the first ring – to my surprise.  I asked her to bring the office camera and a publicity release form downstairs and to meet me in the casino.

A short time later, I had taken the lucky woman’s picture and all of her pertinent information, like name and hometown, and I had her sign a publicity release form.  Returning to my office, I called our photo service, asked them to develop and print the picture overnight.  It was 5:45PM by the time their messenger arrived to pick up the undeveloped film.

That night, I would stop at Tommy’s house on my way home to give him the good news about Arlene rehiring him.

In the morning, I would air express the jackpot winner’s picture and a caption to her hometown paper, and within a day later, after the morning edition is out on the streets and thrown on the lawns, 100,000 residents of her city would know that gamblers really can win big in Las Vegas.

It happens all the time.   And, oh yes, the Pope is Jewish.   The Cubs will win the pennant and face the Red Sox in the World Series.  And good things happen to good people! \