Chapter 2

I guess now is a pretty good time to mention what I actually did for Rusty. We washed and cleaned every single day (sometimes twice or more a day) every official Casino owned car, bus, van or limo, plus every single car that pulled up in front of the Casino main doors for valet parking. This took a round the clock staff of about twenty folks plus at least ten full time drivers to manage. Despite it being a nominally menial position that was prone to a good bit of manual labor, I came to find out that working in the garage was considered one of the better 'entry positions' in the Casino's operations. From here there was a clear promotion path available upwards to being a driver, then a courier and from there into the various different security or casino operations related specialties that required a high degree of trust. The employee turnover was high and the physical work could be hard and tiring, but the job built character, as they say, and management always kept an eye out to look for lads with promotion potential.

'The Boss' only promoted from within. In his day it was nearly impossible to just walk in off of the street as a stranger and get a mid level job or higher, such as a driver, working in security or even as a catering manager. Everyone got their start working in the garage, the kitchen, bussing or waiting tables, or working in housekeeping. Often, if you were considered especially promotable, you'd work for awhile in every single department ... even if you were 'family' ... sometimes especially if you were family, like The Bosses eldest nephew, Wesley...

Granted, the promotions came faster if you were 'The Bosses nephew' who started to work at the Casino while in college. Like everyone else when he first arrived, Wes made his start from the very bottom, first bussing then waiting on tables, before doing some time behind the bar. After graduation, since he was destined for upper management, he did the obligatory six month tour working the bottom rungs of Housekeeping before he got sent to us in the Garage for another six months of practical hands-on experience. Wes treated the experience like an unfortunate prison term and pretty much only just went through the motions of learning our job roles and function. He was quite a few years older than I was and pretty much pretended that I didn't exist in his world. He certainly didn't make many other friends of the garage crew.

Mr. DeLuca expected every manager in every department of the Casino to know at least the basic routines of every part of the Casino's operation. No one was considered an indispensible employee. The Boss rewarded loyalty, but he made sure that there was always someone available in his organization to immediately step in and do your job without skipping a beat, in the event of an emergency or a sudden promotion or demotion.

In theory, Rusty knew how to manage the daily operation of not just the garage but also the kitchen, wait staff, housekeeping, hotel front desk, security, the gaming floor, and even the holiest of holies, the basement 'money pit' where all of the cash and coins were counted, wrapped and stored. If needed, he could fill in for any other absent department managers. In practice, this made management much less 'territorial' and more prone to work together as a team instead of playing petty inter-departmental rivalries. Problems tended to get solved faster and remained relatively smaller and it was nearly impossible to hide major issues from The Boss, who let himself be seen in virtually every department on a daily basis.

Strict ladders of promotion from the ground up also ensured complete company loyalty and for Mr. DeLuca loyalty was the single most important thing that he demanded — but he rewarded it in kind. Soon I started to discover the many subtle ways our loyalty was tested.

My first 'test' occurred about a month before my seventeenth birthday. I'd had my driver's license for awhile now but hadn't bought a car of my own yet as I was still a couple of hundred dollars short plus I'd need extra money for the insurance down payment. Rusty was often using me now to shuttle cars back and forth from the garage to the valet at the entrance but I wasn't officially considered as a driver yet.

Our procedure was once accepting a car to give it a complete look over front and back before driving it off. When doing so, I found that a wallet and a leather attaché case had been left in the back seat in one of our limos that had returned from taking a VIP to the airport. The attaché case was open enough that several visible bundles of cash and a pistol could be seen. Without thinking about it I closed and secured the case and took the wallet without even opening it over to the valet supervisor who immediately accepted them and filled out the proper 'Lost Property' forms, which we both signed.

Frankly I didn't think twice about the whole situation until a few weeks later when I was commenting to Rusty upon an unexpected bonus that I had received in my weekly paycheck, which was enough to allow me to go out and buy my car now. Taking me aside for a walk outside in the open parking lot, he commented that this was undoubtedly one of "The Bosses little secret tests".

Apparently he did this sort of thing quite often and usually a bit more subtly. A cashier might suddenly find that the till was over or short by a large (or small) unexpected amount, or a valuable object (or cash) was left in one of the rooms for a maid to find. Invariably with a hidden camera or secret observer watching the subject. Even Security was not immune from being watched or tested as well. There were watchers watching the watchers, at least in those days.

In general at least once a year any employee could find themselves involved in a random 'loyalty test'. Most of the managers were aware that these tests existed but they were held to be a tight Casino secret. The fact that I had apparently passed mine with unusually high marks had made Rusty proud enough of me to break the rules and tell me of their existence.

The tests were apparently usually handled by an off-site private investigation and security company and could include one of a thousand simple opportunities for 'undetected' theft. Another of their most successful ploys was to have strangers (often of the opposite sex) try to make friendly conversation with you away from work and ask questions about your job. In that instance, the less you said the better. Usually the tests were conducted so carefully and subtly that you never suspected the test until it was over, if at all.

I learned quickly that it was best not to discuss any part of your job outside of work at all. This sort of testing revealed borderline disloyal employees that were willing to speak too candidly of their jobs or of events at the Casino to strangers, especially official looking ones with fake but convincing looking government badges.

This caused a fairly high turnover in low-mid employees, but the cream that was left was of proven loyalty, and compensated accordingly. These random 'Loyalty Tests", besides identifying dishonest or untrustworthy employees, were also used as a screening tool for promotion to any level of management. A college education was not particularly a requirement for any position at the Casino, including most of the top management jobs, except in the Accounting department, which did require a licensed CPA.

As I passed with flying colors, test after test, I was soon marked by The Boss himself for one of the top trusted positions in the entire Casino, to become his personal driver. I didn't get the job via seniority. There was a sudden vacancy for the position and I happened to be Jonny on the spot!

During the fall of 1980, I knew I was sort of at a crossroads in my life, but I didn't know which way to jump. I had gone to a local college for two semesters but I hadn't distinguished myself, largely because I just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Nominally, I was studying 'Catering Management', but the subject didn't grab me with any particular fascination. Frankly I was happy as a clam working for Rusty.

My mother wanted me to go to school (there wasn't a college graduate anywhere in our family tree) and Rusty was hinting to me that I was a prospect for middle management some day and mentioned that a rumor was afloat that I would soon be doing a rotation into either the kitchen or restaurant floor staff. This meant that 'The Boss' was pushing behind the scenes, so if that was what he wanted ... then fine I'd go to school to make everyone happy — except myself.

Really, I was at my happiest shuffling cars, driving minor VIP's to and from the airport and even washing the cars down at the start and the end of a day. I liked working with my hands and would have been happy to remain working with the garage crew. My transfer to the food service department came along as anticipated and my life became hell for almost the next year.

I flat out hated waiting tables and was frankly pretty horrible at it, easily the worst waiter out of our crew. My New England manners went over well with the customers but something always seemed to go wrong. My memory was too horrible to remember which customer had ordered what dish and I'd get an entrée wrong, or else the steak wouldn't be cooked right, and often the plate would arrive at the table cold. I was never any good at carrying multiple plates and orders all at the same time. I improved (slightly) with practice but I was not the most graceful steer in the herd, and routinely pulled in the lowest amount of tips the six months I worked the floor.

If I thought waiting tables was bad, I spent most of the next six months back in the kitchen area learning that part of the business also from the very bottom. Soon I was peeling potatoes and doing the other prep work of chopping scallions, onions, peppers, garlic and anything else that the chefs might need. Frankly, I'd rather have been washing the dishes instead. I do like working with my hands, but this was all minute detail oriented work that had to be performed at an unsafe speed and no one would ever let me work at my own rate.

"Faster, faster!" I heard this non-stop every day and night. I was cutting my fingers to pieces trying to keep up, but no matter how hard I tried or quickly I tried to work I found out that it wasn't good enough for the chefs. The atmosphere was loud and abusive and I hated nearly every minute I spent there.

I learned later that this was a perfectly normal routine hazing done to every single new kitchen assistant as everyone tried to 'toughen up the new kid'. It was nothing personal, just a long and painful initiation process until I became one of 'them'. Things did settle down some as new and more junior helpers arrived and took over the worst of the kitchen scut jobs. Finally I began to learn something about being an actual line chef while working the late-night grill. The late night to early morning hours being the only time things were ever quiet enough in the kitchen for any actual proper kitchen instruction to occur. I was actually starting to enjoy myself for the first time when I had my ultimate loyalty test to The Boss. Someone tried to shoot him just outside of the kitchen while I was only about ten feet away from him!

'The Boss' was a man of considerable power and influence in the community and had a lot of various business interests both public and private, some of them admittedly of dubious legality or morality. Not all of his business partners or associates were honest stand up citizens or even particularly faithful to either their word or even a signed contract. Some occasionally coveted various clandestine business concerns of The Boss and a few lesser rivals occasionally tried some extremely hostile takeovers of minor but rather lucrative secretive enterprises.

In this particular instance, a low-level, low-life by the name of Ned Arthur decided it was wisest to cover up his mismanagement of a certain after-hours lounge where 'working girls' were known to congregate, by grabbing all of the loose cash from the safe and a trusty handgun. On his way out of town he got the very bad idea of stopping by the Casino in order to plug a couple of bullets into The Boss.

Not real bright. I guess he thought with the top man down, the flunkies would be too busy fighting over the spoils of the empire to chase him down. Not hardly. He did luck out by seeing The Boss's Rolls Royce parked over by the service entrance floor of the restaurant, with the driver standing outside obliviously smoking a cigarette, very much against protocol, and not paying any particular attention at all to his surroundings.

If the would-be assassin had been either more competent or more patient, Mr. DeLuca would have indeed been shot. Arthur opened fire at him nearly at the very moment The Boss stepped outside the door, and before he had a clean wide-open shot. His first two shots instead hit the doorframe inches away from The Boss, giving everyone a chance to react.

At that moment I was just leaving the walk-in cooler by the service door, and just feet away from The Boss when the shooting started, so I immediately dived on top of him to get him down out of the line of fire. His bodyguard 'Big Ben' (aptly named, the guy was both as big as a bell tower and as loud) was now returning fire and The Boss's young driver was now realizing that he'd screwed up security bad, so he tried to redeem himself by charging the gunman and getting shot twice for his pains. Arthur decided belatedly to turn and run but he was then cut down in a crossfire rain of bullets from Ben and some additional late arriving bodyguards. He crumpled dead just feet away from where my car was parked in the parking lot.

It wasn't quite a ratfuck, but it was close enough to becoming a major security disaster that a lot of heads were going to roll (only figuratively fortunately). Mr. DeLuca's long time personal driver had recently retired (heart trouble) and it was now clear that his younger replacement wasn't up to the job. He recovered fine from his wounds and was reassigned as a low level supervisor in Housekeeping where he stayed until he retired about fifteen years later. One lapse of good judgment and The Rules was usually enough to put paid on any promising career and The Boss was not real big on second chances after a major fuckup. You either had his complete confidence or you didn't, and once you were out, you were pretty much out for good, barring a remarkable or unusual opportunity to redeem yourself.