Normally the passing of a legend in Las Vegas is preceded with turning off the lights on the marquees of the major Strip hotels, the naming of a street after the deceased, then marketing a slot machine by IGF in his name to make a few bucks off the poor dead sap. But the passing of Joey "the Deuce" Encino went pretty much unnoticed last week except that they shut off the lights in the men's john at the Can Can Room, they pissed in the back alley in his honor while smashing Budweiser bottles against the rear wall, and at the Friday night poker game, if anyone got a pair of deuces, he got a free round of drinks until he passed out or lost all his money betting the deuces thinking for once, in honor of Joey, maybe God actually would let the old acronym hold true for once, and deuces wouldn't looses.

They buried Joey in his finest suit with his usual red tie that he wore so when he spilled spaghetti sauce it would blend into the tie, the old boys and the old girls now showed their respect by showing up at the funeral, most stayed sober for the occasion, some didn't. But Joey wouldn't have cared if they were half in the bag as long as they showed their respects and didn't laugh out loud when the Reverend said what a good man this was. The thing was that Joey was a nice guy, but you didn't want to tell him that to his face.

So who, you're asking, was Joey "the Deuce" Encino?

Joey was the original mobster from New Jersey that opened the original Can Can Room back in the late 60's so he could get close to naked girls, besides, he couldn't take the bad weather any more and with the blessings of the boys (More to the relief of the boys) moved out to Las Vegas after a particularly lucky streak at the tables in '68 to, in his words, " bang a few hookers and shoot a few bad guys, whilst having a few drinks and making a couple bets." He'd always say in his finest Jersey mob accent.

They called him the Deuce because he always carried $2 bills with him he'd buy at the track to tip everyone. Problem is, that was ALL he'd tip. When he went to New Orleans he bought himself a little two shot derringer he'd carry around with him all the time since he was really afraid of guns and this one only looked like a toy anyways, which he fondly called "mother" and when anyone would piss him off he'd always say "you wanna talk to me, or you wanna talk to my mother?"

He had a soft spot for the girls he'd hire and would always help them out. Once a girl got pregnant and he let her strip until she was 8 months due, she just took the top off and left the rest on to the relief of the customers in the last couple months. Another girl went through surgery and he let her come back before she could walk but they just wheeled her out in a wheel chair and she did her number that way careful not to expose the scar on her stomach. The guys said it was a great number until she fell over and couldn't get back in the chair by herself and had to be helped by the lighting guy who knocked the spotlight over trying to help her and almost set the place on fire.

The cigarette girl lost her babysitter once and had to bring the 6-year-old daughter into work with her. At first Joey let her put the kid on his couch while he conducted business until she crawled up on the desk and speed dialed his bookie and bet the afternoon trifecta at Hollywood Park (the kid pocketed $300 on that one) then climbed on the bar and tried to pour herself a shot of his best 12 year old Scotch and he threw a fit and had the kid put into a booth in the showroom instead.

This went on for a few days and the customers took such a liking to the kid that they wouldn't watch the strippers because they were too embarrassed and they quit drinking in front of her too and when she'd cough they'd put the cigarettes out and mom lost a lot of business that way too so the kid had to go. They took up a babysitting fund for her and the customers threw in $1,200 bucks. The mother and kid took a powder with the money and neither was ever seen again, although we heard that the two were running the same scam in Phoenix and Albuquerque too.

But Joey wasn't the typical mobster type. He couldn't stand blood. He had some bad business dealings with the owner of a rival strip club and told his boys to "take him out in the desert and lose him." The next day in the newspaper he read where the guys' body was found a few miles from town in the desert shot twice in the back of the head. When he questioned his boys he was shocked to hear the answer, he told them he only meant to take him out in the desert and drop him off somewhere so he didn't know how to get back to town to teach him a lesson. But since Joey never actually killed anyone himself, he proudly took credit for the hit to his family back in Jersey. When the family found out Joey finally killed someone they were so proud, his mother cried and his father bought cigars and champagne. They threw a party for him they still talk about in the neighborhood.

His family back in Jersey City was relieved when Joey decided to move to Las Vegas since he never had a real talent for the family "business". On his first "assignment" by his dad to visit a cement contractor that failed to make his monthly "security" payment. Joey was found standing in a freshly poured cement block to his knees and it took three guys six hours to break him out. When he went to get even with the guy it took three months in a cast and two specialists to get his right arm back to the same length as the left one.

His dad gave him another try and sent him to pick up the receipts from a whorehouse on the south side of Jersey City. When he came out the tires on his dad's Cadillac were gone with the radio and the back seats. Joey took the train home and had his wallet lifted on the platform waiting for the train. Then two guys on the train stole his gold ring and when he finally got home six hours later his dad already had the tires, the radio, and the two guys. They never found the back seats…daddy didn't like that… The board of doctors, after examining the two, named a new surgical procedure after them in their honor since they've never quite seen anything like it before.

When Joey failed at all that he grabbed his gun and went to the whorehouse to finish it. He pulled out the gun and click! click! He had forgotten to load the gun. But he was in luck; the 78 year old guy that ran the place had a bad heart and was so scared when Joey pulled the gun and pulled the trigger he had a heart attack right there between the linguini and the garlic sticks. Joey got credit for that hit too. After grabbing a garlic stick and some sauce on the way out, he was a regular at the whorehouse every Friday night for Italian Night for years.

In 1967 his dad flew him to Las Vegas for his 35th birthday. He stayed at the Stardust and although he never played craps before was able to run the $1,000 his dad gave him to $20,000 during a wild session at the table where he first gained his reputation and his name "The Deuce" when he was winning the thousands, was tipping the dealers his patented $2 bills every few $500 wins, and when the dealers were pissed off enough they gave the cocktail waitresses the word and the bartenders started pouring doubles. When he had soaked up enough booze the dealers bought him a hooker for his first time, and after that he was hooked on girls. But was too drunk to realize when he woke up $5,000 short and couldn't account for that last hour at the table. That hooker swore up and down, as did the same dealers the next night that he made one $5,000 bet just before the two went upstairs and promptly crapped out…as they say.

But he did notice one of the dealers had a nice new diamond pinky ring, another sported a new pair of Ostrich skin boots. He loved to be around the girls but they didn't exactly go for him so he took the $15 grand and decided to open a strip joint behind the Stardust so he could walk across the street and play for a while then go see the naked girls, his naked girls. He phoned the realtor and rented the spot just built in a little strip mall (where the Can Can Room still stands), but forgot he needed girls and since he didn't know any in Las Vegas, would just stand in front of the Stardust, and ask girls walking by, in the nicest way "Hey honey, you wanna go strip for money across da street?"

After a week of bothering every girl that walked by, slapped stupid by a few, he had almost given up until Marge walked into his life. She was hungry and when Joey said "Common honey, foist you'll strip, den you'll eat." She just couldn't say no. She was the red-head (sort of a cross between a Lucy Ricardo head and an Ethel Mertz body) that said yes of the three girls after drinking all night after driving up from Barstow where she worked as a waitress in a 24 hour coffee shop off I-15 and had just gone through a ten hour shift of the locals favorite Friday night all-you-can-eat Spaghetti and Garlic Bread only $5.95 and she could still smell the garlic in her cloths so her future prospects amounted to about a plate of sausages and tatter tots with a couple of runny eggs in the middle, so the gig dancing was a big improvement for Marge.

Joey bought a spotlight and plenty of booze, and had a carpenter build her a little stage with a brass pole in the middle and a curtain, his dad paid off the cops, and he was in business, almost. Since Marge was the only dancer he could get she either had to recruit a few more dancers, or figure out how to deliver three beers while un-hooking her bra and wrapping her right leg around the pole since she had some arthritis in the left leg and could barely do the back grind without falling over (although she was good, when she did fall over she'd just do the old bump and grind on the floor on her back and make it look like she fell on purpose, although the pretzel crumbs stuck to her back gave her a rash) and the brass pole had to go since it left a green brass stain on her thighs when she slid up and down the pole which kind of turned the customers off. But some years passed and Marge fell in love with Joey and they married after she defaulted on a big loan she couldn't repay to him. They couldn't find a priest to perform the ceremony so Joey hired a local Elvis impersonator to dress like a priest and perform the ceremony.

They remained happily married until they ran into him during a performance of Legends In Concert at the Imperial Palace and she recognized the way he did the same Elvis dip while singing "Your Teddy Bear" during the ceremony, but also realized how much better he sang "Love Me Tender" than "O Promise Me" (At the funeral we all complimented the Reverend on his cool sunglasses and blue suede shoes and suggested the long sideburns would be back in someday) and so in 1978 they renewed their vows with a real priest this time.

The wedding was a big event in Las Vegas and the whole family came out from Jersey and was a little shocked when they heard Marge had to be onstage for the 6 pm show that night and had to come back to the party after the first show because she forgot to throw the bride's bouquet. When she lifted her dress to remove the garter everyone had a laugh at the brass stains on her thighs and the pretzel crumbs stuck to her back. Joey couldn't afford a limousine but had a buddy of his Lysol down a Las Vegas cab (and de-flea the driver) and tie beer cans on the back, but he forgot to empty the cans first and as he drove away with the new wife, the cans blew and he doused everyone standing around the car that were cheering and throwing rice, thus assuring that they would be back if he ever divorced and married a second time saying "Only Joey could serve up free beer like that."

They stayed happily married and the place was making money. Christmas of 1980 Joey popped for a stainless steel pole for the girls and Christmas of '81 he even had it chrome plated. Marge quit stripping in 1982 when she caught a heel in a hole in the stage floor while doing a spin on the newly chromed pole. Marge couldn't stop spinning and although the audience was thrilled at first, she got nauseous and lost her lunch before the customers finally slowed her down and fire rescue had to be called when she lost consciousness. Marge had a terrible pole burn on both thighs and to this day she still gets a little woozy whenever she sees a pole anywhere. But for years Joey could never take her out dancing since whenever she sees a spotlight or mirror ball she always wants to take her cloths off.

And Joey's boys weren't much better. He had two guys that worked for him for twenty years. Donny came out with Joey from New Jersey. He was a pretty hefty boy and after a couple years couldn't even drive for him since he couldn't get behind the wheel anymore without getting stuck and although he carried a gun, he carried it in his waist and since he couldn't reach it anyway didn't bother loading it the last three years. He was missing a front tooth and would spit when he called Joey "Boss" so after a couple years of that Joey just had him nod yes or no to everything. His other boy Mickey had really bad eyesight and wore coke-bottle glasses. The only time he was sent out to kill a guy Donny was driving and Mickey grabbed the shotgun and as they whizzed around the corner Donny screamed to him "It's the fat guy in the lime-green suit!" Mickey accidentally whacked a lime green'72 Gremlin by mistake and Joey had hell to pay.

Another time Mickey was sent to rough a guy up who owed Joey money. The guy was having dinner with his wife at a Denny's and Mickey (he couldn't tell one from the other since both had a moustache) accidentally grabbed the wife by mistake and gave her such a smack. Joey picked him up from Sunrise Hospital three days later and brought an air-filled doughnut for him to sit on for the next two weeks, which didn't matter since it took that long to replace the prescription on his glasses and replace the front three teeth anyway.

But business dropped off in the late 80's as his girls started getting a bit old and the end finally came when during one of the girls acts her kids and her grandkids walked into the Can Can Room with a surprise birthday cake that said "Happy 60th Grandma we love you" and more candles on it than the Vatican Church and Joey knew it was time to retire. He sold out to a group of guys who spruced it up and got some younger girls and Joey just disappeared from sight until we heard about his death. Now we're left to only ponder what would have become of Las Vegas had Joey had his way. Topless buffets, naked casino hostesses, lot more Crazy Girls advertisements on all the cabs (AND LOSE THOSE THONGS!) To save time and space, only the shows with cloths on would be advertised. At New York, New York, in place of the Statue of Liberty would be a statue of Gypsy Rose Lee. And imagine the cocktail uniforms? If any? But in the immortal words of Joey "The Deuce" Encino when asked how he felt about finally classing up Las Vegas after all these years, Joey would firmly grasp his family jewels in hand in his best Michel Jackson pose and say in his finest Jersey accent "Hey, you wanna see class? I got your class right here!!"

Rest In Big Peaces Joey…Ken Pearlman