[b]Arizona[/b] Nate Parker sipped Jack and Coke from a plastic cup. Stewardesses in tight polyester dresses walked down the aisles of the airplane with trays loaded down with food and drinks. Their color scheme was navy blue on the left side and burnt orange on the right with a bright white line serving as a divide between the two colors. The pilot announced that they were making their final approach into Sun City and flashed the fasten seatbelt sign. Nate buckled up and finished off his drink. He opened up the manila file folder on his lap and looked down at the official Federal Crime Bureau seal stamped across the front of the document. This was his third time reading it since boarding the flight in Chicago. -- Internally circulated FCB intelligence report. Marked: "Classified Confidential 2-A: Restricted Agent Access"/"Pertinent Facts & Observations on Major Sun City Hotel-Casino Ownerships & Related Topics." Note: Officially logged at FCB Central Arizona Office, 1/8/80. The major Sun City hotel-casinos are situated in two locales: The downtown (Anderson Street/"Twilight Ridge") area and "The Strip" (Sun City Boulevard, the city's main north-south artery). The downtown establishments are older, less gaudy & cater to local residents & less affluent tourists who come to gamble, enjoy low-quality entertainment & engage the services of prostitutes. Junket groups (Elks, Kiwanis, Rotary, Shriners, etc.) are frequent downtown hotel-casino visitors. The downtown establishments are largely owned by "Pioneer" groups (e.g., native Arizonans & general non-organized crime groups). The dispute between the Mafia and Pioneer factions came to a head in a brief conflict in the early 1960's (See FCB File #210189701233 for further details) but the conflict was settled after some minor bloodshed from both sides and peace has reigned in the city for nearly twenty years. Some of the Pioneer owners have been forced to sell small (5%-8%) interests to organized-crime groups and local politicians in exchange for continued "Preferential Treatment" (on-site "protection," a "service" to ensure the absence of labor trouble & untoward on-site incidents). Organized-crime associates frequently serve as casino "Pit Bosses" & thus act as enforcers and on-site informants for their organized-crime patrons. The downtown area is jurisdictionally covered by the Sun County Sheriff's Department (SCSD). The Sun City Police Department (SCPD) was absorbed by the SCSD in 1968 in order for a more streamlined police service. FCB considers the agency widely influenced and corrupted by factions of organized crime. This corruption is of the type most identified with "Company Towns" (e.g., casino revenue forms the financial base of Sun City and Western Arizona and thus influences the political base and law-enforcement policy). Numerous officers benefit from organized-crime bestowed "Gratuities" (free hotel stays, free casino gambling chips, the services of prostitutes, "police discounts" at various businesses owned by organized-crime associates) and outright bribery. The Sheriff's Dept enforces organized-crime policies with the implicit consent of the Sun County political hierarchy and by extension the consent of the Arizona State Legislature. (Negroes are strongly discouraged from entering certain "Strip" hotel-casinos and on-site casino personnel are allowed to see to their expulsion. Crimes against organized-crime-connected casino employees are frequently avenged by SCSD officers, acting on orders from the Casino Operators Board, an organized-crime front group. Sheriff's deputies are often used to track down casino card cheats, "discourage" them & run them out of town.) The best-known hotel-casinos are situated on the "Strip." Many of them have been infiltrated by organized crime, with percentage "Points" divvied up among the overlords of organized-crime cartels. (The Chicago Crime Cartel controls the Desert Rose Hotel-Casino and boss Robert Colosimo aka "Bobby C." has a 15-20% personal interest. Chicago mobster Benjamin "Benny" D'Amico (the Chicago Cartel's Sun City overseer) has a 3% interest and Chicago Mob enforcer Jonathan Leggario aka "Johnny Legs" has a 1% interest.) Smaller percentage points are traded between organized crime factions as part of an ongoing effort to ensure that all factions have a stake in the expanding Sun City casino economy. The profit base is thus shared & faction-to-faction rivalry is averted. Thus, organized crime presents a unified face in Sun City. The man responsible for developing & maintaining this policy is Franco "Frenchie" Gallo (b. 1923), former Montreal mobster, [i]caporegime[/i] in the Fortunato Crime family, and Sun City's all around crime boss. Gallo owns points in the Lucky Gent Hotel Casino, which he operates, and is rumored to have points in several others. Gallo is known as "Mr. Sun City," because of his numerous philanthropic endeavors and his convincing non-gangster image. Gallo founded the Casino Operators Board, dictates their enforcement policies and is largely responsible for the "Clean Town" policy that organized crime factions believe will help promote tourism and increase hotel-casino revenue. This policy is informally enforced & has the implicit approval of the Sun City political machine and SCSD. One goal is to enforce ad hoc segregation in the "Strip" hotel-casinos (admit Negro celebrities or perceived "High Class" Negroes & refuse admittance to all others) and to isolate Negro housing in the slum area of North Sun City. (Restrictive real-estate covenants are widely observed by Arizona-based realtors.) A key policy dictate is the "No Narcotics" rule. This rule applies specifically to heroin and marijuana and cocaine to a lesser extent. The selling of heroin is forbidden and is punishable by death. The rule is enforced to limit the number of narcotics addicts, specifically those who might support their addiction by means of robbery, burglary, fraud, or other criminal activities that would sully the reputation of Sun City and thus discourage tourism. Numerous heroin pushers have been the victims of unsolved homicides and numerous others have disappeared and are presumed to have been killed per the aforementioned policy (see Addendum File #B-3 for partial list). The last homicide occurred on 12/22/79 and there appears to be no heroin traffic in Sun City as of this date. It is fair to conclude that the aforementioned deaths have served as a deterrent. Gallo is a close associate of International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President Mitchell Riddle (b. 1929) and is rumored to have secured large loans from the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund that have covered the cost of hotel-casino building and improvements. The fund (estimated assets 2 billion dollars) gets its money from the dues and pension payments made by IBT locals in thirteen Midwestern states. It serves as a watering hole that organized crime factions borrow from routinely. Dubious organized-crime-connected businessmen also borrow from the fund at high interest rates that often result in the forfeiture of their businesses. It is rumored that a second set of Pension Fund financial books exists (one that is hidden from government subpoena & thus official audit). These books allegedly list a more accurate accounting of Pension Fund assets & detail the illegal & quasi-legal loans & repayment schedules. Many of the "Strip" hotel-casinos routinely hide a large portion of their assets. These reported accountings are generally considered to be only 70-80% accurate. (It is very difficult to detect sustained underestimation of taxable income in large cash base businesses.) Underestimated table profits are estimated to amount to untaxed revenue of over $150,000,000 per year ('79 fiscal estimate). This practice is called "skim." Cash receipts are taken directly from casino counting rooms and dispersed to couriers who messenger the money to pre-arranged spots. Large-denomination bills are substituted for slot-machine coins & daily accountings are fraudulently tallied inside the counting rooms proper. Casino "skim" is virtually impossible to detect. Most hotel-casino employees subsist on low wages and untaxed cash gratuities and would never report irregularities. This endemic corruption extends to the labor unions who supply the major hotel-casinos with workers. The Dealers and Croupiers Local #117 is a Chicago Crime Cartel front. Its members are paid a low hourly wage and are given play chips and (presumably stolen) merchandise as bonuses. All chapters of this union are rigidly segregated. The Lounge Entertainers Local #41 is a Detroit Crime Cartel front. Its members are well paid, but pay weekly kickbacks to crew stewards. This union is nominally integrated. Negro lounge entertainers are "discouraged" from patronizing the hotel-casinos they work in & from fraternizing with white patrons. The four building and building-supply locals who service the "Strip" hotels are Kansas City Crime Cartel fronts & work exclusively with organized-crime-connected contracting firms. The all-female Chambermaids Local #16 is a Los Angeles Crime Cartel front. Many of its members have been suborned into prostitution. The work crews for the above-mentioned locals are run by organized crime associates who report to the Casino Operators Board. The Kitchen Workers Union (Sun City-based only. There are no other chapters) is not organized-crime-connected & is allowed to operate as a favor to the Sun City "Pioneer" contingent and the largely non-ethnic political machine. The union is run by Thomas "Red" Mulligan (b. 1925), a conservative real-estate investor and chairman of the Arizona Gaming Commission. Mulligan is the covert owner of a bottom-rung casino, the "Pot o' Gold." The crew chiefs for the union are all white men and the workers (mostly illegal Mexican aliens) are paid substandard wages and are given bonuses of dented cans of food and play chips for the Pot o' Gold. The workers live in slum hotels in a Mexican enclave on the West-North Sun City border. (Note: Mulligan and frequent business partner Senator Roderick "Rod" Marston are rumored to have hidden points in over seven Pioneer casinos and two dozen liquor store/slot machine arcades around the state. If true, these ownerships would constitute infractions of the Arizona Gaming Commission charter.) The Arizona Gaming Commission oversees and regulates the granting of casino licenses and the hiring of casino personnel. The Commission and its subcommittees, the Arizona Gaming Control Board and the Sun County Liquor & Control Board, are the most powerful political force in the state. The same five men (Appointed "civilian" members named by the state legislature) serve on all three boards. Thus, the power to approve liquor and casino license applicants for the entire state rests solely in Sun City. Mulligan's connections aside, none of the five board members are overtly organized-crime-connected and it is difficult to assess the level of collusion the boards engage in. There are no dossiers available on members of the above organizations. The SCSD Intelligence Unit keeps detailed files on the Gaming Control and Liquor Board men, but has consistently refused to grant the FCB & U.S. Attorney's Office access to them. (As previously stated, the Sheriff's Dept. is strongly organized-crime-influenced.) The SCSD Intelligence Unit operates city & countywide and is the sole such unit in Arizona. It is a 3-man operation. The commanding officer is Captain Byron A. Randall (the adjutant of the SCSD Detective Bureau & strongly connected to the Casino Operators Board) and his only assigned officers are Sergeant Bartholomew "Bart" Marston (Sgt. Marston is the son of the aforementioned Senator Marston) and Deputy Charles "Chuck" Waters. Waters is arguably one of the most intimidating men in Sun County. The work of the Intelligence Unit is secretive and speculation abounds on if they are as corrupted as the rest of the Sheriff's Dept. --- Nate closed the folder and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. It was a lot of information to take in. The long and short of it was that Sun City, and Arizona by extension, was without a doubt the most corrupt place in the country. Even more so than Chicago or even Washington. Everything in Sun City was for sale, except narcotics apparently. Drugs were off the table, but people were very much still for sale. One of the stewardesses leaned in close and slipped a piece of paper to a man sitting two rows ahead of Nate. She winked and walked off, sashaying her hips as she went. The man pocketed the slip into his jacket. Nate had to suppress a laugh. The guy would be in for a rude awakening once he got on the ground and the flirty stewardess would name her price. Of the four women serving as flight attendants, Nate saw three of them flirting and slipping notes to five of the men in first class. The men they targeted all had the same traveling scumbag businessmen look. Even sitting in first class Nate didn't give off that vibe. His cheap suit and hangdog demeanor made it clear that he was flying first class on someone else's dime. That someone was Director Ford. FCB headquarters in Washington bought the ticket under the name Nathan Jameson, the same name his hotel reservation was in. Officially he was on paid vacation from the FCB Chicago office. The terminal of the Wasserman Airport played up the casino aesthetic. Flashing neon lights were wrapped around the boards announcing arrivals and departures. Slot machines flanked both sides of the corridors and were shoved into every nook and cranny. Nate walked through the terminal with his suitcase in one hand, the briefcase containing his work in the other. He paused at a slot machine and set his bags down. Twenty-five years ago he'd visited Hot Springs, Arkansas honeymooning with his now ex-wife Edith. Back then Hot Springs was the gaming hub of the Southeast. Nate tried to go to one of the little backroom poker rooms that the city was filled with but Edith wouldn't let him. She didn't approve of gambling, she said. He fished out a quarter and fed it into the slot machine. The number spun after he slammed the lever down. The first stopped on a bright green 7, the second on a bright yellow lemon, the third on a blood red cherry. No winner and no payout. Nate's glasses fogged up the second he stepped out of the air-conditioned terminal. He stopped in his tracks and let the condensation pass. The heat was oppressive. It topped out at 98 degrees easily and he was still dressed in a thicker suit made for the Chicago climate. Nate felt sweat already beading on his forehead and neck by the time he got a cab. His cab driver as certifiably insane. He was a Chinese man that jabbered in some weird mix of Mandarin and English that had a thick accent to it. Nate only caught every third word. He caught snippets like "cocksucker" and "pigs" and "Norman" and "Cocksucker Norman" and "Pigfucker President." The driver hauled ass down the boulevard towards town, oblivious to traffic signs and other drivers. Two big ass pictures were taped to the dashboard: A miniature version of the world famous poster of Hou Sai Tang was one, a portrait of Eric Fernandez was the other. Nate tuned out the driver's ranting as they cruised through the Strip. It was early afternoon but the people were out in droves on the street, heading to and from the huge casinos that loomed over the streets. The Lucky Gent had their billboard displaying an advertisement for the next Jackie Bradley fight while a large billboard in front of the Desert Rose Casino announced "Boppin' Barry Chambers Preforms Nightly!" just underneath it in smaller print read "King of the Insult Shecky Lemon." Seeing the name Barry Chambers brought Nate back to his late teens. He and Edith parked on a hill overlooking Iowa, necking while Boppin' Barry crooned "Harbor Lights." The memory brought a soft smile on to his lips. The loud roar of an engine snapped him out of his memory. A pack of six motorcycles roared down the Strip and blew past the cab. The driver cursed in his mixed tongue and flipped the bikers off as they sped wherever they were going. Nate saw the six men were wearing cut off leather jackets with a motorcycle-riding warrior on the back. "Fucking bikers," the driver rolled down the window and spat at them even though they were long gone. "White trash piece of shit!" Another five minutes and Nate was at his destination and paying the driver, who roared off at breakneck speed to find his next fare. The entire Pot O' Gold Casino was done up in a cheesy Leprechaun, luck of the Irish motif. Lots of green and gold and shamrocks with a staff dressed up in green suits and green hats that had four leaf clovers in them. He checked in at the front desk with his alias and got a hotel key. His third floor room was what you expected of the place. Green curtains reeked of cigarette smoke and his emerald bedspread was severely faded due to repeat bleachings. Nate made a mental note not to sleep under the covers. He laid his bags on the bed and took his jacket off, undoing his tie and wiping the sweat from his face. His room had a clear view of the Pot O' Gold's pool. Women in bikinis sunned themselves and walked around the water. Nate ignored the action poolside and instead focused on a row of six ranch bungalows two hundred yards away from the pool. The small bungalows were pricey and for long-term guests at the Pot O' Gold. Bungalow 4 was the one that drew Nate's gaze. His assignment from Ford concerned the bungalow and the equipment inside his briefcase. Somehow, he had to break into that small bungalow and wire every inch of it up for surveillance. The bungalow's sole occupant was one Ms. Arleen Rhodes, a twenty-five-year-old redhead from Homa, Louisiana. She had no Arizona or Louisiana rap sheet, but the LA County Sheriff's Vice Unit had a blue sheet on her a mile long. The blue sheet was part of his briefing back in Chicago. Five years of Arleen's hooking on the streets of LA were documented through routine hooker sweeps and undercover pops. Her last arrest in LA was five years earlier. Nothing on her since. The bungalow meant a higher class of clientele. It also made Nate wonder why the FCB wanted it wired. Regardless, it sure as hell beat wiretapping Commies. ----- [b]Los Angeles[/b] "From Hollywood, it's The Jack Welsh Show!" The band kicked up the show's theme song as the opening credits played. A montage of clips showed the highlights of Jack Welsh's fifteen years as the king of talk shows. Included in the montage was the incident with the baboon, the time the little kid karate chopped Jack in the balls, and Jack's interview with President Fernandez. "Tonight's guest: King of the Insult Shecky Lemon and Mr. Cool Boppin' Barry Chambers! Ladies and gentlemen, your host... Jack Welsh!" The golden curtain opened up and Jack Welsh walked out to a standing ovation from the crowd. Barry Chambers watched it all on a television in the show's green room. To his immediate left, Shecky Lemon snorted lines of cocaine off the green room's coffee table. "Thank you," Welsh said as the applause died off. "And I have to say, that applause is undeserved because you have clearly not heard my monologue." The band's drummer fired off a rimshot as the crowd laughed. Shecky came up for air and rubbed his nose, looking at Barry. "Want some of this, Barry? It's good shit." "I stopped with the coke ten years ago." "Jesus, you don't do drugs, you don't smoke or drink. The fuck do you do?" "Women," Barry said, turning back to the television. "They're my one vice." Welsh went through his monologue. It was a lot of tepid jokes about the weather and current events. Jack's jokes were always shitty, bombing was part of his shtick. A particularly bad joke got little applause, prompting Jack to pull at his necktie and feign discomfort. Nobody could bomb like Jack. Jack kept going with his monologue while Shecky's coke high started coming on. He sprung up from the green room couch and started pacing around. Shecky was only about ten years younger than Barry, but he was still new to this level of show business. Shecky had only made it big five years ago while Barry had been a star ever since he was twenty years old. It was still all shiny and new to Shecky, the coke and the girls and the mob guys who liked to pal around with the entertainers. It would lose its luster in a few years and Shecky would probably end up in rehab or hitting rock bottom in some skid row flophouse. But for now he was living it up. "There they are!" Barry cursed inside his head as the fat man waddled through the door. Phil "Fat Phil" Patriarca oozed sleaze from every sweaty pore. The fucker always showed up every time Barry came to LA, always pestering Barry about some scheme or another. He was a made guy, a shylock and bookie for Carmine Valestra. He glommed on to the celebrities like all the mid-level mob boys did. They thought having guys like Barry and Shecky partying with them made them somebody. "Jesus, you've gotten fatter," Shecky quipped as he shook Phil's pudgy hand. "I didn't think that was possible." Phil laughed. Shecky was the one guy on the face of the earth that could get away with insulting the Boys to their faces. Despite the nickname, Patriarca was sensitive about his weight. Some pawnshop owner once called Phil a fat fuck to his face. The man disappeared for two weeks until they started to find him, piece by piece, in storm drains around Los Angeles. "Why you always gotta bust my balls, Shecky?" "I don't bust your balls, Phil. To bust your balls, I'd have to find the tiny fucking things first!" Phil roared and slapped Shecky's back. Barry glanced back to the TV. Jack was in the middle of some sketch where he was talking to a man in a bear suit while holding a pot of honey. "I'm glad I got you both here," Phil said. "I got something I want to run by you." "Come on, Phil," said Barry. "We're just here to promote the show in Sun City, that's all. I don't want to get mixed up in anything." "Let's hear him out," Shecky said quickly. His eyeballs were pinned and he was in the middle of a coke high. Phil could propose Shecky overthrowing the King of England and he'd go along with it. Barry sighed and shrugged, motioning for Phil to take a seat. The leather chair creaked and groaned as Phil sat down in it. A PA popped his head into the green room and told Shecky he had five minutes before he was due on stage. "I'll make it quick," said Phil. "I got approval from Carmine to set up a gambling tour that goes through California and into Arizona. A group of about thirty to eighty guys, like some union local or some shit, sign up together for the tour and pay for travelling expenses up front. We start here in LA and head to the racetrack in Ventura for a day, then to that fucking Indian casino out near the Arizona border for day, then we hit Sun City and go through all the big casinos over the course of two days. It'd be a four-day tour designed to rob these fucking guys of whatever cash they got left over after paying for the trip. Any of them run low, then I'm there waiting to front them the money at my usual interest rates. I worked out deals with the Boys and the Indians who run that casino in Blythe and they all get a cut." "Where do we come in?" Barry asked. "I want you two part of the tour. Shecky keeps 'em laughing and Barry keeps 'em boppin' with the sounds of their youth. That keeps 'em happy and they love it so much they don't fucking care about losing their life savings. You each get ten percent." "I like it," Shecky said. "If Phil cares about money as much as he cares about food, we'll be fucking millionaires off the percent. Excuse me, gentlemen..." Phil roared while the PA came back in and collected Shecky. "We'll discuss it more after the show," Phil said, wiping tears from his eyes. "I got Shecky interested, Barry. What do you say?" Barry leaned back on the couch and looked at the television. Shecky came onto the stage like a fucking hurricane. He was doing some bit with Jack, holding his necktie in his hands and playfully slapping his face. The hicks in the seats ate it up. They were going wild as Shecky started pointing out people in the crowd to insult. "We got the gig at the Desert Rose," Barry said with a shrug. "That's seven shows a week, Phil. We won't have time for any tours, much less a four day one." "I talked to Benny and he's agreed to let you out of your gig at the Rose if you sign on to this thing. He says this is more of a money maker than what you're doing now." Barry felt anger rising inside of him. The Desert Rose, his comeback, was a goddamn flop and now he was being asked, told more like it, to escort a bunch of KofC members and Shiners and Teamsters around the country and butter them up while they lost everything to the mob. "This is beneath me," said Barry. "I can still pack 'em in, Phil. I don't want to go on some fucking pissant tour playing to nickel and dimers." "Beneath you?" Phil asked, color coming into his face. "Let me tell you what's not beneath you, you jewboy fuck. It's not beneath you to help out people who have looked out for you your entire fucking life. It's not beneath you to bite the fucking hand that feeds you. Didn't Frenchie get you out of fucking New York all those years ago and send you out here to become a star?" "And I've paid him back for that many times over," Barry spat. "And the jewboy crack sure as fuck isn't bringing me around to your side." Barry glanced at the TV. Shecky was in the middle of the audience, berating some sap for his ugly bowl haircut. From there, he moved on to a fat man and got a solid minute out of making fun of him and his skinny wife. "I'm sorry," he told the wife. "I'm sure when he rolls off of you, you need to get pumped back up." The crowd went wild. The camera cut to Jack, sitting at his desk with his feet up and laughing along with the crowd. "I'll do it for twenty percent," said Barry. "Shecky stays at ten, but I get twenty. That's my price for working with anti-Semites." "You goddamn jew bastard." Phil tried to get up, but he was wedged into the chair so tightly it was hard for him to pull himself up. Barry resisted the urge to laugh outright. "Do it or I walk," Barry said. "And I'll take Shecky with me. He's a jew too, Phil. I'm sure he'll love to hear your kind words about our people." Fat Phil pulled himself out the chair with a plop. The exertion left beads of sweat on his forehead. He was a deep shade of red that looked almost coronary purple. "Fine!" He said as he stormed out. "Tell fucking Shecky that I had to go somewhere, I'll be in touch with you goddamn heb thieves.' Barry laughed quietly to himself once Phil was gone. On the TV, Shecky was on a political kick. He was doing Alfonso Sotelo with a limp wrist, sashaying around the studio while the audience went apeshit. Shecky put on a fay voice when he said "Oh, I just have to have Africa! It goes to well with all my other colonial possessions, don't you think? If I don't get Africa, I'll just scream!" He suddenly became an Ethiopian warrior, thumping his chest and spouting out gibberish that sounded like some African language. The crowd was on the verge of mania as Shecky acted out Sotelo bending over for the Ethiopian warrior. Barry roared laughter and clapped his hands.