The last time I heard or saw Jimmy "The Cowboy" Tomissario was the week after they imploded the Dunes. I don't know why they called him The Cowboy, since he was anything but a cowboy, he didn't dress or look like a cowboy, he was from the east coast by his accent and he dressed like a mobster, not a cowboy, and it wouldn't be until our dinner together that I would learn the truth behind his nickname as well as the truth behind his past. I knew he left town years ago, in fact it was just after they imploded the Dunes, I don't know if it was just the fact that the face of Vegas was changing or that he was just seeing the future and didn't want any part of it. My best buddy Larry W. was a pit boss downtown at the Horseshoe and had worked for the Binions since 1974 when he practiced at home with a deck of cards and a couple of stacks of Roulette chips to practice with and walked into the "Shoe" and convinced Tomissario to hire him.

I met Jimmy when I used to meet Larry after his shift and we'd hook up with some dealers or cocktail waitresses at the back bar and drink and party all night, always taking turns buying rounds of 50 cent drinks. We all felt like high rollers since even the good brands were still a half buck thanks to Benny Binion saying his drink prices would never go up after he raised them from a quarter. And since I can remember he kept his word. Jimmy Tomissario was the quintesential Italian "mob looking:" shift boss with greying hair combed back meticulously along with his shoes and nails, this guy looked like he had a barber shop next door. With his silk ties, expensive suits, diamond pinky ring topped off by his black Cadillac, this guy was a tight shift boss but after work he had his reserved seat around the back corner of the bar by the million dollar display, he'd take off his jacket, loosen his tie and turn into a mench. He'd always by rounds, usually dropping a double sawbuck making him look like Rockafeller to the six or eight people he bought rounds for,depending who was closest to him.

I was a Jeweler back then and he took to me right away since I wasn't a low-life dealer to him and I could actually do something for him besides deal cards and cheat and steal and drink and take drugs. The second or third time we met he took off his pinky ring and handed it to me telling me it was his dad's diamonds but he was tired of the mounting and wanted a new ring made. So we struck up a friendship durring the weeks it took to decide on a mounting for the ring and the time it took to make it and set it on my own time at home. He would call me from work when I got home...

"Hey pal, you workin' on my ring? How's it lookin'? Do I need to come by to see it?"

This was the same conversation every night until I walked in with the ring. It was a beauty, I paved it so it looked so bright and rich looking, I walked to the back bar, he kicked the girl off the seat next to him and before I opened the box he wanted to see it in the lights of the million dollar display, (If you've never seen it, it's a thick plastic display of 100 $10,000 bills. I don't think they're in production anymore but they were originally used for banks to pay other banks on big deals that needed cash, Benny only was allowed to have it as long as it was publically displayed behind the bullet proof plastic that would be of no use to anyone anyway since nobody could cash them, but for a buck you can get your picture taken in front of it.)

Anyway, when I opened the box and he caught his first look at the ring I swear he started to tear up, he looked at it, turned away for a couple of seconds, wiped a tear and slipped it on. "It's just beautiful man, just beautiful, come on, let me buy you your drinks tonight." We settled up and he started showing off the ring. Like the Pope, his minions lined up to kiss the Pontiff's ring. If you didn't have an "It's beautiful" to go along with it, don't even get in line. After an hour or so the line finally thinned out, he even walked into the pit to see it under the halogen lights and looked at the mirror behind the bar to see how he looked in the pit with the lights against his black suit. Then the girls started telling him how it would go good with his black suit and white tie, he always dressed like a hood with black shirts and white ties, or some combination like that, but you rarely ever saw him in a white shirt. He didn't talk much except about the creeps in the business and how it was great that I could do something worthwhile with my hands.

But by now the town had taken giant leaps to stay away from his kind and I didn't understand the term "his kind" When I asked he hesitated and said "You know, us Italians from back East" And left it at that. He wasn't the type of guy you asked a lot of questions to. Even when I asked him how long he'd been in Las Vegas he'd just say "Ah, that's in the past." I'd ask "What did you do before the Horseshoe?" "Ah that's all in the past." But through the years I stayed in touch with Larry W. We'd been great friends that drank and played pool and chased cocktail waitresses and generally hung out together. His brother was the third, he was a dealer too and was a tall, good looking guy that attracted the women, where Larry and I would take whoever he decided he didn't want that night.

It was Larry's brother that told me one night when he hooked up with us at the Shoe, a rare occasion since he worked Graveyard. Danny and I were drinking waiting for Larry to get off work and he pointed to Tomisarrio and said "That guy used to be mobbed up, I don't know if he still is, he looks like he is but he always was a good dresser but he was a skimmer back in the early 60's." "Where the hell did you hear that shit?" I asked. "Ah Tomisarrio told me that one night when we were getting hammered, back then he used to drink bottles of Champagne, now he drinks cheap whisky, but then drunk is drunk, but he tells me one night this story about how he would come into town from St. Louis just dressed like a tourist then when he left he'd have a suitcase of money stuffed in his cloths with a body guard that would follow at a distance, but he'd put on a cowboy hat and boots and just look like a different person altogether and nobody wouldand the casino, the Dunes, would escort him to the airport discreetly, but in the six years he did the run he never missed a dime, that's why he was still alive." And we left the story at that. I never wanted to just come out and ask him if he ever worked for the mob, what kind of question would that be?

I hadn't talked to Larry in a month or so and he called me and said "Hey, guess who's in town? You remember Johnny Tomisarrio, they called him "Cowboyd?" I didn't remember at first. "He was my shift boss at the Horseshoe, you made him a ring?" and that's how I remembered him. "Oh yah, used to look like a mob guy, infact I think I remember hearing he was in the mob." "Well he called Danny and we're going to get together for dinner and he remembered you were our friends and he wants you to join him, he's staying at the Stardust and he's buying." "Sure, how long is he here for?" "I think he's just passing through for the night so if you want to see him we're gonna meet at the race book at eight." It had been fifteen years since I saw him and he was in his sixties then. Danny, Larry and I hadn't changed that much, some grey hairs here and there, a few pounds around the middle but anyone that knew us back then could recognize us now with no problem. But when Jimmy walked in with a four pronged cane having lost most of his hair, the rest was white. He was feeble looking, with a knit sweater and shirt and comfortable looking shoes, the way I knew it was him for sure was the way he talked, a little shakey but still had the east coast mob kind of accent and he still had the ring on.

Now he looked like my grandfather rather than the slick looking dapper dresser he was just fifteen years earlier. Time hadn't been kind to him and a heart attack in the late 90's didn't help. But he still had a drink now and then so we sat at the bar and had a round of drinks before dinner. That's when he told us about the heart attack and stuff. He was living with his daughter outside St. Louis since then and as I talked about myself I included this column. He was surprised that I had taken on a career writing and he seemed to take interest in it and weather people actually read the stuff. "I sure hope so, but they wouldn't be paying me if they weren't getting results."

After the third round of drinks we decided to eat at William B's Steak House, Jimmy said "You guys, whatever you want it's on me, lobster and steak for everyone,whaddya say?" As we pigged out on one of the best surf and turf's I've had in years in this town Jimmy said "I left after they blew up the Dunes, the Dunes was our hotel, we stayed in the top floor suites, we had the best of everything for the two days we'd be there every two weeks. We had broads, 24 hr. room service whatever we wanted. This was back in '62, '63, back then. Things were loose in this town, we had one of the only topless shows in town back then and the girls walkin' around this place were unbelieveable. I had these two suitcases, one was just the right fit to fit into the bigger one and I would keep cloths here or just buy some. The skimming was done by three guys that were cage employees and a manager who made sure the stealing was done right."

Jimmy lived in St.Louis and only came out to fill up the suitcase with money and some cloths, he'd stay a night or two, lived it up in the casino and headed home dressed like a cowboy, nobody would ask him questions or say goodby or nothing, he would just come downstairs, pick up his one suitcase at the casino manager's office and head back to St. Louis. Nobody seemed to know or care. It was just business and this was how business was done. "I didn't really need a body guard, nobody would rob us anyways, but there was always the chance of some outside grifter trying to make a little score like a purse snatcher they would snatch up suitcases at the front doors or wherever, at the airport, and this was just a little added protection." "How much did you bring with you ?" I asked him, still a little uncomfortable asking him questions about things I don't think I wanted to know about. "I was never told, they would tell eachother over the phone how much was coming in, it was just a percentage so it was different all the time."

"But they never told me so whenever I'd drop off the bag I'd have to sit in an outside office waiting for them to come out, hopefully with a smile and my cut of the money." "What was the alternative?" "I don't want to think about that. I guess they would tell me the count was off and take me out to some corn field and kill me. The guys that were doing what I was doing had plenty of incentive to keep things straight, including our families getting involved, there was always the threat of that. But I did know one guy that they say they fired and we never saw him again, but that doesn't mean they killed him, unless he just took off with the package altogether. I remember one guy that had his bag lost by the airline and it took two days to track it down and that guy was put up in a motel room until the bag showed up and lucky for him nobody opened the bag. He lived. But then in the late 60's the hotel was up for sale. The money wasn't coming in so fast and now the hotels were hitting the selling block. The mob needed to pay off their loans to the unions who loaned them the millions to build the places."

"I was lucky though, I knew a good friend of Benny Binions and I took a favor owed to me and took a job as a pit boss at the Horseshoe after the boys had all left town by then. But I liked Vegas, and I brought my wife and kid out and they loved it too so we stayed here and lucky for me I kept under the radar and never had to answer any questions. But when the town started to change and Wynn was working with legit money, at least as legit as Wall St. can get with it's junk bonds, that ran the rest of what was left of the mob out of Vegas, none of the big money straight stuits wanted to do business in Las Vegas if the mob was still on anyone's mind so they "hired" Governor Bob Miller and Harry Reid to clean up the leftovers and that was that. Some guys walked away with a lot of money, most had to rely on their old games to keep food in their mouths, they took it hard, Vegas was their own private bank, whenever they wanted or needed anything they just took it out of the "bank" but once the bank closes where does the money come from? These guys were used to living good and they took it hard, a lot of them turned to drugs and in the early 80's they cleaned up with that crack shit, that was a simple formula that some asshole brought back that was simple enough to make and hooked everyone, I mean eveyone."

---

©copyright, 2005 The GameMaster Online, Inc.

Check out our Banners and Page Personalities page.
Get you're GameMaster Online page stuff now!
Collect 'em all!

---