Where I Stand 1987 — Hank Greenspun: ‘Saga of Bugsy’s Safe’ is retold through Sun

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 10:02 a.m.

Note to readers: This column by SUn founder Hank Greenspun first appeared on July 17, 1987.

How Las Vegas was won!

It's not too much different than "How the West Was Won," which has been an enchanting history immortalized in books, songs and films.

Michael Mann, the executive producer of "Crime Story" and "Miami Vice," is readying a series to be filmed in Las Vegas in the coming months.

In a visit to this office on Wednesday, we discussed the early days and some of the characters and events that catapulted our town from a railroad switching post into the resort area of America, if not the whole world, as movie cowboy Tom Mix once prophesied.

Naturally, any discussion of the early days had to include the building of the Flamingo Hotel, one of America's most elegant at the time, and its originator, dreamer and planner, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

A story about Siegel, which intrigued the producer of TV's most popular series, "Miami Vice," was the night the "Bug" was killed in Los Angeles.

It could be an intriguing film in it's own right and should be shared with those in our community who have arrived in later years.

It should be entitled, "The Saga of Bugsy's Safe."

Benny was dispatched presumably on orders of the nation's top crime boss, Lucky Luciano, to the Beverly Hills home of his then girlfriend, Virginia Hill.

The turbulence aroused in Virginia's house did not compare with the storm raging in Las Vegas that night. The wind blew with such velocity that it took me about 2 1/2 hours to get from the Flamingo to my home in Boulder City. During the 30-mile drive, my car was completely sandblasted, swept clean of paint.

I was totally exhausted at about 3:30 a.m. when the phone rang. At the other end was Dick Chappell, who was manager of the hotel. Dick had been brought to Las Vegas from California, where he served as assistant manager of the Fairmont Hotel, one of San Francisco's finest and world-renowned hotels.

Paul Price, later to become the Sun's peerless columnist, was brought in as national publicity director, the fifth in line in the space of a few months since the opening. Paul was hired by Billy Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter and a minor stockholder in the Flamingo.

As fast as Billy would hire public relations men, Siegel would fire them. That was in keeping with the nickname bestowed upon him by those who knew him best but would never use it to his face. Benny had to do everything himself and he professed to know more than anyone about everything.

Shortly after Paul assumed his duties, he approached me to perform local public relations while he handled the national press. At that time I was publishing a local magazine, Las Vegas Life, and knew practically everyone in the valley from Las Vegas to Boulder City, a community that was boycotting the Flamingo for obvious reasons.

That was the reason for Dick's call, to alert me that the Flamingo owner was just killed, and newspapermen were driving him crazy because he didn't know how to respond.

With toothpicks to keep my eyes open I headed back to the hotel through the windstorm which showed little signs of abating and which had blown heavy beach chairs into the Flamingo swimming pool.

Upon arrival, Dick told me he had just received a strange call from New York from a party who would not identify himself. He was told there was a safe in the third floor penthouse which Siegel shared with Virginia Hill when he wasn't getting knocked off in her Beverly Hills mansion.

The caller told Dick the safe would be found behind a picture and gave Dick the combination and instructions to open it, together with his New York telephone number, requesting he report back the contents of the safe.

Dick suggested that it wouldn't be wise for him to execute the mission alone and that I should go with him. We found the safe, opened it and didn't take much time inventorying the contents.

When we reached the New York number and made our report, all we could hear was a gasp at the other end. The phone line went went dead.

Neither of us understood the situation at the moment, but later could look at each other and laugh with the sudden realization that we were two naive jerks.

We reported the safe contained $800 and a small diamond ring, not realizing that the "voice" had anticipated a bonanza running possibly into the millions.

To us, $800 was a lot of money and could have made a down payment on the Tumbleweed Motel that adjoined the Flamingo and was for sale.

Since then Dick and I often laughed about the incident, because his wife, Betty, constantly ran to the bank to cover my checks. She always asked for "instant action" because the magazine I owned was always on the periphery of covering expenses, never quite making it into the black.

For many years we have wondered how many eyes were tailing us to discover where we buried the loot. Nobody in the Las Vegas social order of yesteryear believed we could be that unsophisticated.

It probably never occurred to the New York "voice" that he was dealing with two small-town boys who were, as yet, totally unschooled in the subtleties and nuances of the incoming Las Vegas infrastructure.

It could make an interesting crime story for producer Michael Mann.

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