a real head ease and I have just one question for Mr. Foxy. Ifrngambhng is so corrupt, then how come the states are sponsoringrnlotteries and all the people are flocking to the casinos? Answerrnme that one, Mr. Smarty Pants!rnI ill )onnes’ Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History ofrnI America’s Romance With Illegal Drugs {1996) sounded like arnstone groove but was another bad trip. Jonnes knows all aboutrndrugs, but would you believe she’s against them? And not onlyrnthe drugs but the money and crime and corruption. Women.rnCan’t live with ’em.rnWell, by now I was desperate. I headed over to the periodicals.rnThere had to be something good for my head in this libraryrnsomewhere. And no old bat librarian had better cross me,rneither. Yeah, I was carrying. I never met a librarian yet whornwanted to get whacked, but you never know what yon mightrnrun into. I did run into a librarian one time, actually, but thatrnwas on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.rn7n)vvay, it was a real boost to read (in the New York Times ofrnJuly 12) that “A lobbying blitz by some of the biggest names inrncorporate America has succeeded in maintaining a corporaterntax break for multinational corporations—one that allows themrnto avoid United States taxes and reduce their foreign tax bill,rntoo.” The loophole involving “hybrid structures” was pushedrnby Philip Morris, General Motors, Microsoft, Merrill Lynch,rnXerox, Elxxon, Hallmark Cards, and Coca-Cola. “This measurernsignaled that Congress can’t stand up to industry,” declaredrnMichael Mclntyre, a tax law professor at Wayne StaternUniversity. “It’s outrageous, and as tax policy, it is indefensible.rnThis is so far beyond the pale of what is considered legitimaterntax avoidance.” Wliat does he know? Give me a break.rnSenator William V. Roth, Republican of Delaware andrnchairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was instrumentalrnin the negotiations with the Clinton administration, standingrnup on principle for the interests of the people of Delaware inrnthe matter, not to mention the people of the United States. Irnchugalugged one of those little bottles of vodka that this obligingrnstewardess slipped me the last time I flew into Vegas. Thatrnmade me feel good. I could rest easier knowing how attentivernto detail and to the higher responsibilities of his office SenatorrnRoth has shown himself to be. He manned the ramparts for thernmultinationals while the Democrats were taking money fromrnChina. No wonder this country is in such great shape, withrnstatesmanship like that. I was feeling better already, maybe twornamphetamines worth. The books had me going both ways, likernspeedballs.rnNow I wouldn’t want to say that anything is criminal becausernI am a stand-up guy and nobody ever called me a rat or a squealer.rnBut how could anything be anything but legit when thesernso-called “crimes” are committed by so many lawyers and legislators,rnthe people responsible for defining what crime is? Irnmean you got to follow the money and see where the money isrnbecause that is the market and the market is what’s legit,rncapish? That’s capitalism, pal. You got a problem with that?rnBut then the whole thing, the res publica, is fogged by somernkind of residual confusion. Maybe it should be called not thernRepublic but the Cosa Nostia. It is, after all, whatever it is. OurrnThing. Of course it is. And if we keep reading the New Yor^rnTimes of July 12, we can find out all about it. Our Thing isrngood, it’s American and it works. It’s even vummy. And thernprice is right. I was starting to get the munchies even withoutrnany dope when I read this great thing in the paper about what arnpiece of work Las Vegas is.rnThe front page human interest story, “For Las Vegas Locals,rnHeavy Action Is at the Buffet,” tells all about how to pig out atrnthe cheap spreads that the Las Vegas casinos present to lure thernsuckers—make that, happy consumers. Frank Bruni really laidrnit on in his account of the consumer troughs. Only the wallsrnstopped the ethnic sub-buffets (food tables, not gaming tables)rnfrom going on forever. They keep the locals waddling, not tornmention the millions of visitors. But I kind of missed in Bruni’srncute accoimt anything about the real background of Las Vegas,rnwhat they call the context, and that was not beside the point.rnThat was the point. Could there possibly be a connection betweenrnthe cozy formation of national tax policy and the rolloverrnfor the public relations of the corporations that now own therncasinos of Las Vegas? You better believe it.rnGee whiz, even I rather missed in Bruni’s picture of America’srndream place something of the surrounding aspect, the history,rnand I am no puff pastry. You know what I mean—the localrncolor. The illustrated directories of prostitutes—the onesrnthey hawk on the streets—kind of got left out. What about thernlosers, the suicides, the alcoholics, the addicts? What about thernenvironmental distortions, the jerry-rigged electricity, thernstolen water? Wliat about the murders, the car-bombings, thernMafia and Teamster money, the racketeering, the crookedrnwheels, the shaved dice, the marked cards? All those RobertrnDeNiro, Joe Pesei-tpe stories? Las Vegas gives you what yournwant when you want it, the air-conditioning and the ice cubesrnand swimming pools and golf courses in the desert, and, abovernall, gambling of every kind. Las Vegas is Our Thing, just likernWashington, D.C. Robert Venturi has made the argumentrnabout the buildings and lights. Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presleyrnhave made the argument with songs. Millions of Americansrnhave made the argument into a moral and social thing by showingrnup.rnAnd others have made different arguments. The drug-inducedrnvision of James Toback’s screenplay for the glitzy WarrenrnBeatty/Annette Bening vehicle, Bugsy (1992), began to rollrnin my head like a video. In the flick, when Bugsy Siegel gets hisrnBig Idea about how to organize Las Vegas and build thernFlamingo, the joy of the moment is conveyed as though thatrnhard case was a bighearted kid like Mickey Rooney playingrnAndy Hardy, ^ngsy wanted to give the people what they wantedrn—he is a founding father, a visionary benefactor. In thernmovie, his clip of Big Greenie Greenbaum is a mercy killingrnconsented to by the hapless victim—a favor to a pal who getsrnput out of his misery, whereas actually it was a Mob hit coordinatedrnfrom New York. Bugsy practices his elocution and worksrnon his tan as a latter-day Jay Gatsby or Benjamin Franklin, arnself-inventor. He did indeed want to be a movie star and hungrnout in Hollywood. But the movie doesn’t show am’thing aboutrnthe influence of the Mob in Hollywood, or the big studios’ dealsrnwith the mobster who later got whacked, Willie Bioff. Bugsyrnwas wired with every dirty deal in Los Angeles all the way to thernDistrict Attorney’s office, and with the corporations as well.rnThe movie Bugsy has to remind you that HolH-wood has alwaysrnhad a thing about crooks. Siegel’s sense of public relations andrnhis great clothes made him real Hollywood. Racketeering isrncool-if you have a nice haircut. Now anyone can walk intornLas Vegas and pretend to live in the fast lane until the billrncomes due. That’s what the Mob did for this country and wernlove it. We are a made country, living in a gangster movie.rnHey, Lucky Luciano was in the Hotel Arkansas in Hot SpringsrnOCTOBER 1998/19rnrnrn