Every Wednesday, we continue to bring you past articles by the Unknown Scribbler that were previously published in the FLAT RABBIT PRESS in northern Nevada.
Welcome back pal.
Vegas has lost its magic. What a way to start a column! But, believe it or not, there WAS once upon a time a real and very vibrant place in the desert where movie stars hung out and dreams came true. Over recent decades, it's been changed from a center of mystery and intrigue into a rather simple and blasé Disneyland for adults. Today, Vegas is just a big pile of concrete, asphalt, and money grubbing corporations whose stockholders would shoot and kill "lady luck" in a heartbeat, if they could get past their pedigreed Harvard business degrees to find her. And all of that is a fact.
I promised to tell you about my experience with Howard Hughes. Let's face it; in those days, Howard Hughes WAS Las Vegas. I'm not going to lay a story on you about how I bumped into Mr. Hughes on the Desert Inn Golf Course at 2:00 AM where we compared tennis shoes, and I'm not going to cajole you with a tale about meeting Mr. Hughes on a Nevada desert road in the middle of the night, either. Nor, will I tell you that he named me in his last will and testament. But, he did leave me with a very interesting tale.
When I started to work for the Desert Inn the first time, in 1972, Mr. Hughes had long since departed from his penthouse suite. I’ve been in that suite, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, I think he had in fact also departed the Bahamas and was ensconced in a fancy resort in Nicaragua, as I recall. I'd been working for the Flamingo and had been hired for a special project by Summa Corporation, (Summa meaning "The Great One"). Mr. Hughes, of course, was Summa. I don't even want to tell you about the background investigation they ran on me for this gig. Those guys in those days were extremely security conscious and had half of the nation’s former FBI agents on their payroll. Hell, they even looked up my third grade teacher! Thank God she didn't remember the day I whacked her fat fanny with a spit wad!
The job was a pilot project to see if it was feasible to try and collect old gambling debts. Yeah, it's amazing, but some guys didn't pay up on their markers, regardless of the potential ramifications, if you get the gist. Well, I was handed a cardboard box full of "written off" gambling debts and told to have at it. Wow, have I got a whole lot of stories to tell out of that box! Some would curl your toenails all of the way back to the quick.
One account was a $1,500 tab due from a guy who, at the time, was a top security guy for Hughes Tool Company in Culver City. The bill was due from around April of 1967, when Mr. Hughes bought the Desert Inn and moved into that penthouse suite. So, the debt was five years old when I picked up the phone and called the guy. (Scribbler’s note: I need to interject a funny side note. One night, Howard’s toilet seat broke. They called in a maintenance guy and the only color toilet seat available in town at that hour of night was pink. So, Howard ended up with a pink toilet seat on his white throne. He was not a happy camper,).
Now, catch this response from the Hughes Toolco security guy. He had the unmitigated gall to tell me that the bill was owed by Howard Hughes himself! My first reaction was, “horse manure.” His line was that he had been in the group that took over the Desert Inn premises, and that he was in charge of the security details. He went on to suggest that Mr. Hughes had asked him, in the middle of the night and just after the sale was consummated, to go down to the dice table and make some bets for him. Mr. Hughes had supposedly called down to the cashier cage and arranged a line of credit for this joker to use.
Well, what was I to do? The fellow was still employed by Hughes Tool. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain by trying to BS me. So, I sashayed on up to the General Manager's office and laid the story on Fred Gee. A few minutes after I told Fred the story, he managed to quit rolling around on the floor in laughter and said that he'd put in a call to Los Angeles. Hughes had maintained an office on Romaine Street in Los Angeles for decades, wherever he went. Nadine Henley was his personal and corporate secretary and had her office in that location.
A few days later, Fred asked me to come up and see him. He handed me a check for $1,500. It was drawn on "The Romaine Street Account," and signed by one Nadine Henley. "Mr. Hughes wants to know who the son-of-a-bitch is who's going around collecting gambling debts that are five years old," he said.
Over the years, I've read a lot about Howard Hughes. You should, too. From those readings, I have no doubt that he used those exact words. And, I discovered that Nadine Henley had been Mr. Hughes' right-hand financial person for many, many years, and that the Romaine Street Account was his personal piggy bank.
The death of Mr. Hughes shook the gambling community. There was a lot of concern in the ranks about what was going to happen to his gaming empire, and to the rest of his holdings, for that matter. Within hours after the announcement of his death, all offices of the Desert Inn and other Nevada holdings were searched by security agents trying to find any evidence of a Last Will. My office was searched as well. You have to believe that, because he wasn't my family member, I had already elected to toss his will that named me as his sole heir into the shredder. I'm really that kind of a guy. Really. Honest.
Yeah, I've got a whole ton of stories to tell. I can go on and on and on. Here's one that's not a gambling story.
I was in the Air Force, stationed at Beale AFB near Yuba City, California. I was in the Civil Engineering Squadron and had a variety of duties during my time there. The Civil Engineers do everything from routine maintenance to laying out airfields to building houses…you name it. Well, the base got a new Wing Commander, and he was fussy. He didn't like flies in his office, and he had a few. So, he called on the Civil Engineering Squadron to come out and spray his office.
The next day, he walked in and found some flies in his office. So, he called Civil Engineers and raised a ruckus. Next day, same thing. This went on for about a week. Finally, his secretary called the Civil Engineering Squadron Commander and politely suggested that the Wing Commander was about ready to put someone on a barbeque spit. Well, the boys in the pesticides department got out to his office and gave it full throttle.
The next morning, the Wing Commander opened the door to his office to discover that the pesky flies were indeed gone and… that the Formica top of his desk had sprung up off the wood and curled into a very tight ball.
Catch me in the next issue and maybe we'll talk about me and Billy Carter. You remember him, don't you? Wish I had a can of Billy Beer to stick on E-Bay right now!
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