The 1950's rang on like a litany, with every new hole in the ground trying to be the next Flamingo. In 1952 we got the Sahara, followed by The Sands in 1953, the Riviera and the Showboat in 1954, and The Dunes in 1955. See a pattern, there? I was waiting for The Rag-Head, myself.

The Moulin Rouge also came along in 1955, and it was quite a scandal. See, every other place would let the nig... er, well I guess I really shouldn't use that word in your company. Pardon me. They'd let the black folk come in and do their song and dance for cash onstage, but when it came time to bunk down for the night they had to do it someplace else. Yeah, yeah, this is the 1950's so what do you expect?

So there's the Moulin Rouge, and it was the only place that let the black folk stay in the guest rooms, too. You remember Joe Louis? Yeah, what a punch that guy had. He was a host-owner of the Moulin Rouge for a while, and you want to talk about lights-out? That place has just had the craziest problem with staying open. Wonder why?

And, of course, the bright lights and big city is what you do see. It's what you don't see that gets you worked over in the back room. The Sands was owned by Doc Stacher when it first opened, and he was a bonifide New York boy. The Rat Pack used to hang out there all the time when they weren't down at the Moulin with Sammy Davis Jr. I got
to chat with Dean a couple of times. Cool character.

The Riveria might have started out clean, if you want to call a casino "clean," but come the 60's these two guys named Ross Miller and Bernie Nemerov came along and took it over. Miller was a bookmaker for the Chi-Town fellows. Guess he didn't teach his workers anything, 'cause they got busted and hung out to dry in '67 for skimming casino profits for the Mob.

The Dunes was a pretty messed-up piece of work, too. It was owned by Major Riddle for years, and he was up to his elbows in the Chi-Town situation as well. He shared ownership with this bent attorney named Morris Shenker; he used to represent the mafia's interests in court in St. Louis and Kansas City all the time. And then, just when
you didn't think it could get any more cosmopolitan, the New England Mafia was in on it too via Ray Patriarca. Talk about one big, happy family.

The cash-flow litany went on from there. In 1956 we had the Freemont and the Hacienda, and the Tropicana came along in 1957. And managing the Tropicana was guess who? Remember Frank Costello? Yep, there he was, right along with Lou Lederer, who fronted for Chi-Town mobsters.

Come 1963 Lederer took a powder on behalf of the one and only Sam Giancana to go look around the Dominican Republic. You might remember Sam Giancana as one of the boys who really got on Robert F. Kennedy's hit list, come to find out Robert's Brother Jack F. was diddling Giancana's mistress. Talk about keeping it in the family.

Then in 1958, we got the Stardust, which was another piece of work. This Los Angeles Gambler by the name of Tony Cornero started work on it and then conveniently croaked. That was good news for the Chicago boys. This Murray Humphries fellow comes along and hires Jake Factor - brother of that hair-spray faggot king Max Factor -
to manage the operation for the boys back home. Quite a steal, quite a steal.

Now, I bet you're wondering something. There's guys from Cleveland, there's guys from New York and there's guys from Chicago, and they're all in competition for suckers and there's only so much room on the strip. So why aren't there gunfights going on every afternoon? Simple, they had an understanding. It was the sort of understanding that
took a while to build, of course, but any problems that went on went on outside the city in the desert, which made even more work for The Ten. We had a whole hell of a lot of... ah... Jim? What's the kind of Spectre that doesn't even get a chance at being a normal ghost?

Okay, there you go. Mortwights everywhere, all of them riddled with bullets. And The Ten had to take care of them. I think they missed a few, too, either that or the bastards have learned how to have sex.

And speaking of that, the Quick sure must have been diddling. The population in 1960 was 64,400, which was a whopping twenty-two percent of the entire state's population, right here.