Nothing Beats Luck

By Harry Brooks

Nothing Beats Luck takes the reader on a journey from the financial district of New York to the corrupt, mafia-infested city of Chicago and then finally to Las Vegas. You will meet all types of colorful characters, some who totally believe in luck, and then some like BJ, who has made a fortune on both Wall Street and in sports-betting, who does not believe in luck. Nothing Beats Luck is a story about people and their hopes and dreams as much as it is about Las Vegas and organized crime.

Endorsements:
“Brooks has done it again. He is able to develop colorful fictional characters, while at the same time never losing his sense of humor”
Sam McKeel, former Chairman and Publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer & Daily News, and former President, CEO, & Publisher of The Chicago Sun-Times



“Brooks has the uncanny ability to weave his Philadelphia experiences of real people, places, and events into an exciting tale of fiction”
Judge Lisle B. Tinkler, Retired.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664150560

Harry Brooks

Brooks was born and raised in Philadelphia. After serving two years in the marines, he went into the trucking business. During his business career, he served on the board of the American Trucking Association, was chairman of two state trucking associations, and was appointed to the U.S. Senatorial Business Advisory Board Steering Committee. After retiring from his business in 1989, Brooks has published six novels, written three short stories and an unproduced screen play. He continues to write a monthly column for a local Philadelphia publication. He presently resides in South Florida.

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Copyright © 2021 by Harry Brooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/12/2021

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CONTENTS

Luck

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Chapter 128

Chapter 129

Chapter 130

Chapter 131

Chapter 132

Chapter 133

Chapter 134

Chapter 135

Chapter 136

Chapter 137

Chapter 138

Chapter 139

Chapter 140

Chapter 141

Chapter 142

Chapter 143

Chapter 144

Chapter 145

Chapter 146

Chapter 147

Chapter 148

Chapter 149

Epilogue

Personal Note from the Author

In memory of my son Michael.

He was my best friend.

He was taken from us much too soon.

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LUCK

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W HEN I WAS about fourteen years old, growing up in North Philly, I knew a kid whose nickname was Lucky. I have no idea how he ever got that name because as long as I knew him, he was anything but lucky. I remember when he was sixteen years old, he was sent to juvenile hall for three months for attempting to steal a car. The last thing I can remember about him is when he was eighteen, he was arrested for armed robbery. I don’t know what happened to him after that. He should have changed his name to Unlucky ! So what is luck?

An abbreviated version of Wikipedia’s definition of luck is "the experience of notably positive, negative, or improbable events. The interpretation is that positive and negative events happen all the time in human lives, both caused by random and nonrandom natural and artificial processes, and that even improbable events can happen by random chance. In this view, being ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ is simply a descriptive label that points out an event’s positivity, negativity, or improbability. Saying someone is ‘born lucky’ might mean anything from that they have been born into a good family or circumstance, or that they habitually experience improbable positive events due to some inherent property or the lifelong favor of a god or goddess in a monotheistic religion. Many superstitions are related to luck. For example, lucky symbols include the number 7 in Christian-influenced cultures and the number 8 in Chinese-influenced cultures. Then there are unlucky symbols like entering and leaving a house by different doors, opening an umbrella in the house, walking under a ladder and so on."

So when something good happens to you, does that mean you are lucky? When an NFL quarterback completes a Hail Mary pass at the end of the game to win, is that skill or luck? When a high-school basketball player sinks a bucket from half court to beat the buzzer, is that being lucky, or is it some sort of ordained intervention? Is it fate when you miss your plane, and then that plane crashes, or is it luck? And when a gambler fills an inside straight while playing poker, does that mean he is lucky or just that he is a smart poker player?

When someone says they were in the right place at the right time, does that mean they were lucky? Being in the right place at the right time makes me think about Moses parting the Red Sea. Modern-day researchers have carried out studies using computer modelling which demonstrates that it is possible that the waters were parted by the momentum of the wind.

According to the computer simulations, a strong east wind from overnight could have forced back the water at a bend, where it is thought an ancient river could have joined with a lagoon in the Mediterranean Sea. This could have made the water push back in both of the waterways, causing a land bridge to open at the bend, meaning people could have safely walked across the mud flats.

The Bible tells us, And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left (Exodus 14:21-22).

Now I don’t want to be sacrilegious, but when Moses stretched out his hand, was it a case that he was lucky to be in the right place at the right time? I don’t know. You tell me.

What I will tell you however, is nothing beats luck!

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PROLOGUE

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F LYING BACK FROM Nassau, Raymond Miller could not help but reflect on his past. He had just spent three glorious days with his friend Scottie Roberts and his wife Shirley, helping them celebrate their first wedding anniversary as well as the grand opening of Scottie’s casino and hotel. He thought back to the time when he opened his casino in Las Vegas.

In 1961, little did he know that when one of the Mormon banks backed him to buy out his partner and provide the funds to acquire acreage just off the Las Vegas Strip, where he would ultimately build his hotel and casino, that he would be forever tied to organized crime.

*       *       *

What do you mean I owe you the money? Are you crazy? My loans are all with the Las Vegas Mormon Trust, he said when, in 1963, the man behind the money came to collect.

Who do you think controls the loans the bank makes? Salvador Esposito asked.

I assume it is the Mormon Church, Raymond said.

Well, technically, that’s true, Esposito said. But it’s a little more complicated than that. Didn’t you ever wonder why it was so easy for you to get the loan, Raymond? And when you decided to take the company public, how easy was that? Pretty easy, uh? And when the bank helped you buy the company that manufactures slot machines, that was a sweet deal, right? And let’s not forget the bingo parlors, Raymond. Now don’t misunderstand me, you have done real well for yourself. I have to give you credit for that. You are young and smart, and you run a first-rate operation, and we have all made some money on the stock, but now it’s time to share all your good fortune.

Look, Mr. Esposito, I have been doing business with Las Vegas Mormon Trust for over two years, and your name has never come up. Now if this is some sort of a shakedown, well, you’re dealing with the wrong guy.

Salvador looked at the young Raymond Miller and smiled. Listen to me, my young friend, this is not a shakedown, as you call it. I am here to change your life. You think you are rich now. You have no idea how rich I am going to make you . . . I should say us. Now why don’t you just sit back and listen to what I have to say?

What Salvador explained to Raymond Miller was The Las Vegas Skim!

A skim is where a casino would make, say, $200,000 a night but only report that they made $150,000. That $50,000 dissapears, maybe into a bag, or suitcase, or in the baggy pants of someone working in the count room, or the trunk of someone’s car. You must understand that skim money, if reported, is subject to Nevada State gambling taxes, and the less money the casino declares, the less money they have to pay in taxes. So what happens to that skimmed fifty grand? Well, it ends up in the pockets of either the mob or a crooked casino owner. In either case, it’s tax-free cash!

Salvador Esposito was only thirty-three years old but looked older. He was over 6 feet tall and weighed close to 200 pounds. His olive skin and full head of premature gray hair gave him the look of a kind gentleman, but nothing could be farther from the truth. He grew up in the mob culture. When he was fifteen years old, he dropped out of school and went to work for Angelo Bruno in Philadelphia as a collector. When he was twenty years old, he decided to leave Bruno and move to Vegas. By the time he was twenty-three, pick any mob scam—drugs, prostitution, bookmaking, extortion—and Salvador Esposito had a piece of it. Need a horse race fixed? He would tell you how to get it done. Want to know how to rip off a casino? Salvador could show you ten different ways.

But that was all petty larceny compared to what happened when he met Samuel A. Broxton, the senior loan officer at the Las Vegas Mormon Trust Bank.

Those who have lived in Las Vegas long enough tend to wax nostalgic for a time that never was; when the mob ran the town and everybody was safe. But those who have lived in Las Vegas even longer can remember the Mormon settlers who moved to Las Vegas in the ’30s and ’40s and had a significant emphasis in setting up the trappings of a civil society in Sin City.

The Mormons from Salt Lake City opened the Bank of Las Vegas in the late ’30s in conjunction with local investors. The following year Utah investors sent down a manager, Perry Thomas, who had a long family history in the Mormon Church. Thomas was the only banker willing to regularly lend money to casino owners—character loans, as they became known, since the loans were being made to illegal gamblers, mobsters, and reputed organized crime families who hated to write anything down. Asked why he would do that, Thomas said, I’m in the banking business, and I know these people will repay the loans—they are good loans.

Several years later, some local Mormons opened the Las Vegas Mormon Trust Bank and adopted the same policy of lending money to the casino industry and so started the marriage of the Mormon banking business and organized crime.

By the time Salvador Esposito met Samuel A. Broxton, the Mormon banks and organized crime controlled Las Vegas. Although Mormon businessmen encouraged the growth of the shady gambling business, they were concerned about the city’s image; however, there was so much money being made, they overlooked the influence of organized crime in the casino industry.

Unlike most of the Mormon bank hierarchy, Samuel A. Broxton was a compulsive gambler, and when he found himself deep in debt to the Vegas loan sharks, someone introduced him to Salvador Esposito. He will help you find a way to get out of debt, his friend told him.

It didn’t take very long before Salvador literally owned the banker. Salvador showed Broxton how to skim the loan payments customers paid to the bank, and they would split the take. Once Broxton and Esposito saw how easy it was to scam the bank, they decided to issue phony loans. They would create a phony company and then split the proceeds of the loan between them. In some cases, they even made minimal payments, and then at some point, Broxton would write off the loan as a bad debt. They never made the loan too large, so no one ever questioned it.

When Raymond Miller went to Broxton’s bank, looking for a loan to buy out his partner and purchase some ground to build his own casino, Salvador Esposito concocted a scheme so complicated that even the bank officials could not unravel it. In effect, Salvador was both the beneficiary of the loan as well as the one who owned the debt.

*       *       *

Lenore, Raymond Miller’s live-in girlfriend for the past nine years, was sitting next to him on the plane and could sense he was in deep thought.

Are you okay, Ray? she asked.

Yeah, I’m good. Why are you asking?

I don’t know, Ray. It’s just . . . you don’t look right. Is there something bothering you?

What makes you ask a question like that?

I don’t know, Ray, maybe it’s just a woman’s intuition. I get the feeling that you’ve had your fill of Las Vegas, and you continue to stay in the casino business because . . . because . . . because of them!

The them, of course, was the Esposito Crime Family in Las Vegas or at least what was left of the organization once run by Salvador Esposito. Although Salvador had died several years ago, Mikey Esposito, Salvador’s nephew, was now in control. In 1999, Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former criminal defense attorney and self-described mouthpiece for the mob, publicly denied the mob’s existence in Las Vegas. True, the likes of Bugsy Siegel and Myer Lansky were no longer in control of the casinos, but there still remained a significant criminal element in the city. Money laundering, skimming casino profits, prostitution, and loan-sharking were only a few of the illegal activities that Mikey Esposito inherited from his uncle.

Lenore and Ray had been together for almost two years before he told her about his connection with Salvador Esposito. It was one of those conversations he wished he never had. She was the only person he ever told, and as strange as it may seem, no one else knew or even suspected his involvement with organized crime.

You’re like a witch, Ray said to Lenore as he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

So tell me, Ray, why are you doing it? We sure as hell don’t need the money. And I love you, but you’re not twenty years old, you know. You don’t need all that stress and aggravation. Can’t you just tell those people you want out? After all, enough is enough.

Lenore, you know it is not that simple. When I made the decision to do business with Salvador that day over forty years ago, when he came to the casino to tell me he owned my loans, I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined the things I would be doing. I always thought I was a pretty straight-up guy, Lenore, but I’m not. I’m the front for a bunch of crooks, and that makes me as bad as them. Back then, Salvador as much as told me there was no turning back, and now all these years later, I can’t change what I have done. And with Salvador’s nephew running things, well, compared to him, Salvador was a saint.

Lenore forced a faint smile to stop from crying, then said, Okay, sweetheart, you do what you have to do, and I will always be with you.

Lenore laid her head back on the seat and thought about someone she knew before she met Ray. Could he possibly help Ray? Could she take a chance by calling him? The answer to both of these questions was probably no. Forget it, Lenore, he is history!

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CHAPTER 1

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I T ALL REALLY started for Mikey Esposito on November 2, 1976, when he was eighteen years old. He grew up in South Philly, where his father Jesse, Salvador’s brother, ran a check-cashing store and took sports bets on the side. In other words, he was really a small-time bookie. He was not all that smart, but he was Salvador’s brother, and so Salvador set him up in business. Salvador didn’t have any children of his own, so when his sister-in-law asked him to be Mikey’s godfather, he couldn’t have been more pleased.

So what happened back on November 2, 1976? That was the day voters in New Jersey approved casino gambling in Atlantic City. The fading resort city had always been part of the Philadelphia mob’s territory, and before the start of legalized gambling, nobody really cared. As a matter of fact, back in the day, Atlantic City was a wide-open town full of first-rate hotels, fancy nightclubs, and backroom casinos; the 500 Club being the most popular.

As an altar boy at Our Lady of Lourdes Grammar School, Mikey learned at an early age there was something wrong among the priests. So when his mother told him she wanted him to enter the seminary, he said, No way, the seminary is a place for homosexuals.

She told him that was a sin and God would punish him. Mikey was a tough kid; he told his mother he would take his chances.

He had been out of school only a couple of months when New Jersey voters approved casino gambling in Atlantic City. Mikey’s father wanted him to come to work for him, but that was out of the question. His father was a hardheaded mooch, with hands like shovels, and Mikey could remember the times his father would slap him around for no good reason. He was nothing like his brother Sal. On the other hand, his mother was the sweetest woman you would ever meet; he often wondered why she put up with his father.

So Mikey called his uncle Salvador in Las Vegas and asked if he could get him a job in Atlantic City.

You’re only eighteen years old, you’re not even old enough to go into the casino.

I know that, Uncle Sal, but how old were you when you went to work for Bruno? I mean, you’re a fucking legend in Philly.

Hey, watch your mouth, kid, and beside which, that was back then. Things are different now.

I understand what you’re saying, Uncle Sal, but all you hear around here is how much money the mob guys are going to take out of Atlantic City.

"The mob guys, you been watchin’ too many Godfather movies, kid!"

"C’mon, Uncle Sal, I’m tougher than you think. I wanna be like you."

Salvador couldn’t help but enjoy his nephew’s admiration, but he had second thoughts about bringing him into the type of life he lived.

Did you talk to your parents about this, kid?

Hey, Uncle Sal, you know my mom. If it was up to her, I would be a priest, and my old man . . . Well, you know he’s not like you . . . If it wasn’t for you, he’d be shining shoes in some barbershop.

Hey, Mikey . . . a little more respect, uh?

So whatta you say, Uncle Sal . . . ? Trust me, I will make you proud.

Salvador thought for a minute then agreed to make a couple of calls to some people he still knew in his old hometown of Philly.

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CHAPTER 2

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O NCE THE CASINOS opened, Atlantic City was a hustler’s dream. Hundreds of wise guys and wannabes flocked there to experience the rush. It was a chance for anybody on the make to take a shot. Most failed and went broke. They got caught up in the pitch, the hype, the lure, the fantasy. They couldn’t stay away from the tables. For the six or eight hours they were gambling, they escaped the humdrum nine-to-five world of suckers and losers. They could be whoever they wanted—Bugsy Siegel in his pin-striped suit and wide brim hat, Frank Sinatra, Dino or Pacino as the godfather, or just a wise guy from South Philly who always sat ringside at the 500 Club—so long as they were willing to pay the price. They gambled their paycheck, they mortgaged their homes, and they ended up owing their life to some two-bit loan shark. They busted out chasing the illusion, pretending to be what they weren’t.

Others, however, saw the new Atlantic City gambling experiment for what is was—an opportunity. Mikey Esposito was in that group. Even though he was only eighteen years old, he saw the opportunities. He knew that if his uncle Sal could help him get his foot in the door, he would do the rest. He needed a break. He needed a little bit of luck.

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CHAPTER 3

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A COUPLE OF days after speaking with his nephew, Salvador Esposito called his old friend Tony Vesta in Philly. Tony had worked for Angelo Bruno up until two years ago when his bad health forced him to retire.

I don’t know what I can do for the kid, Tony told Salvador. There is so much shit going on now. Everybody wants a piece of the pie in AC. But let me see what I can do.

Two weeks later, Tony called Salvador and told him that Nicky Scarfo was in Atlantic City and he was dead out. I think he got sent there as punishment ‘cause he stabbed a guy in a bar in South Philly, and the guy he stabbed was related to a made guy. Anyhow, he runs a little sports book down there. Plus, he’s sharking some money, and he has a piece of an adult bookstore. But the irony of the whole thing is now that they are going to have casino gambling down there . . . well, what luck . . . He is already there, and you know Nicky, he is going to jump in with both feet. Anyhow I called him and spoke to him about your nephew, and he said he can use the kid. Not sure for what, but you know Nicky, he is a survivor.

Salvador was not all that happy that his nephew was going to work for Nicky Scarfo, but he decided to see what happened.

Scarfo had done about two years on a manslaughter charge, and when he got out, several members of the organization wanted him killed. Scarfo was a hot head; they said he would only cause trouble. At the time no one realized how right they were. Bruno could have saved himself and the organization a lot of aggravation if he would have gone along with the idea of whacking Little Nicky, but Scarfo had two uncles who were capos in the Bruno organization, so that got him a pass. Then came the incident when Nicky stabbed some kid in a South Philly bar; the result, he was sent to Atlantic City instead of the morgue. Now they were going to have legalized gambling in the city by the sea. I guess nothing beats luck.

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CHAPTER 4

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I N MARCH 1980, Angelo Bruno was murdered. There are two theories about why he got popped, but little debate about who was behind the hit. Just about everyone agrees the murder was set in motion and might have even been carried out by Antonio Tony Bananas Capomgro, Bruno’s consigliere.

On the night of March 21, 1980, as Bruno sat, smoking a cigarette, in the passenger seat of a car in front of his South Philly row house, a man in a raincoat walked up from behind, leveled a shotgun at the back of Bruno’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Mikey Esposito had been working in Atlantic City for four years when Angelo Bruno was murdered. He worked for Little Nicky Scarfo for about eight months and then decided to branch out on his own. Little Nicky was not happy about that and told Mikey that he better not step on his toes. Mikey knew exactly what he meant.

Very much like his uncle Sal before him, Mikey, at the age of twenty-two, was already a seasoned criminal. He was into loan-sharking, drug trafficking, prostitution, armed robbery, and even murder. When he was only twenty-one years old, he took a $10,000 contract to kill an Atlantic City businessman who welched on a big bet with a New York mob guy.

After Bruno was murdered, all of a sudden, the low-key backroom organization Angelo Bruno had nurtured for years was becoming a high-profile presence. Scarfo, with the backing of the Genovese family in New York, took over the top spot. Mikey knew Scarfo still had a hard-on for him, and now that he was running things, it was time to get out of Dodge City; in other words, leave Atlantic City. He called his uncle Sal in Las Vegas and told him he was on his way. He wasn’t asking him; this time he was telling him.

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CHAPTER 5

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W HEN MIKEY ESPOSITO arrived in Las Vegas in 1980, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. The neon lights, the crowds, the sense of excitement, it was all he thought it would be. He knew