Casino Page #2

He opens the door. We see inside the count room from NANCE'S

point of view.

It looks like the area behind a teller's cage in a bank. A

large room, windowless, decor-free. One side is a mesh cage,

opened to reveal stacks of cash boxes. Several COUNTERS in

white shirts are gathered around a glass table counting and

sorting paper money.)

ACE (V.O.)

Now this place was off limits.

COUNTER #1

Verify two thousand.

ACE (V.O.)

Even I couldn't get inside, but it

was my job to keep it filled with

cash. That's for sure.

NICKY (V.O.)

They had so much f***in' money in

there, you could build a house out

of stacks of $100 bills. And the

best part was that upstairs, the

board of directors didn't know what

the f*** was going on.

At one end of the room the clerks empty the metal boxes and

rapidly count the cash at a counting table. The camera follows

a cash 'drop box' being lifted from the stack by a clerk. He

pours the cash on to the table and shows the empty box to a

video camera. COUNTER #2 rapidly counts the cash and

announces:

COUNTER #2

Five thousand.

NICKY (V.O.)

I mean, to them everything looked on

the up and up. Right? Wrong.

The first counter recounts the cash.

COUNTER #1

Verify five thousand.

NICKY (V.O.)

The guys inside the counting room...

Stacks of bills lie nearby. The camera pans across the room

to another table manned by a COUNT ROOM EXECUTIVE who repeats

the figure and writes it down on a master list.

COUNT ROOM EXEC:

Five thousand.

We move back to NANCE opening a cabinet full of stacks of

$100 bills. He opens his suitcase and begins to fill it with

cash. As he does this, the workers studiously look in other

directions.

NICKY (V.O.)

...were all slipped in there to skim

the joint dry. They'd do short

counts, they'd lose fill slips. They'd

even take cash right out of the drop

boxes. And it was up to this guy

right here [NANCE], standin' in front

of about two million dollars, to

skim the cash off the top without

anybody gettin' wise ...the IRS or

anybody.

COUNTER #1

Verify two hundred.

NANCE closes the case and walks out. One of the counters

dumps another container of money on the table.

NICKY (V.O.)

Now, notice how in the count room

nobody ever seems to see anything.

Somehow, somebody's always lookin'

the other way. Now, look at these

guys [COUNTERS]. They look busy,

right? They're countin' money. Who

wants to bother them? I mean, God

forbid they should make a mistake

and forget to steal. Meanwhile, you're

in and you're out.

NANCE exits the count room and proceeds through the lobby of

the casino, passing ACE and SHERBERT, to a side exit door.

NICKY:

Past the jag-off guard who gets an

extra c-note a week just to watch

the door. I mean, it's routine.

Business as usual: in, out, hello,

goodbye. And that's all there is to

it. Just another fat f*** walkin'

out of the casino with a suitcase.

Now, that suitcase was goin' straight

to one place:
right to Kansas City

...which was as close to Las Vegas

as the Midwest bosses could go without

gettin' themselves arrested.

NANCE leaves the casino and gets into a cab parked at the

curb.

EXT. KANSAS CITY AIRPORT - DAY

NANCE arrives. He is greeted by ARTIE PISCANO, a gray-haired

sixty-year-old underboss.

TITLE IN:
'KANSAS CITY'

NICKY (V.O.)

That suitcase was all the bosses

ever wanted ...and they wanted it

every month.

PISCANO:

Hey, John, how are you? How was your

ride?

EXT. SAN MARINO ITALIAN GROCERY, KANSAS CITY - DAY

NANCE, with suitcase, and PISCANO leave the car and enter

the produce market.

NICKY (V.O.)

Now this old Mormon f*** here...

CUT TO:
NANCE, AS HE GETS OUT OF PISCANO'S CAR

INT. SAN MARINO ITALIAN GROCERY, KANSAS CITY - DAY

NANCE and PISCANO walk through the grocery store, through

the warehouse, past various employees to a doorway leading

into the back room, where they are greeted by five older men

around a large wooden table with bowls of macaroni and old

jelly glasses filled with red wine.

NICKY (V.O.)

...he had to fly in with suitcases

once a month, nice and easy.

NANCE:

Somethin' smells good.

PISCANO:

Yeah, they made us somethin' to eat.

NICKY (V.O.)

The bosses would come from all over

the place:
Detroit, Cleveland,

Milwaukee. All over the Midwest.

And they would meet in the back of

this produce market in Kansas City.

I mean, nobody even knew.

NANCE shakes hands with AMERICO CAPELLI, sixty-eight, a bald,

affable Milwaukee entrepreneur and ARTHUR CAPP, his thirty-

year-old yuppie lawyer son.

Camera continues to pan around the room.

NICKY (V.O.)

One of the guys made his mother do

all the cooking.

On VINCENT BORELLI, seventy-year-old Kansas City boss.

BORELLI:

Did you ever see that guy Jerry

Steriano?

On VINNIE FORLANO, mid-seventies, an old-timer who once drove

for Capone and is now Remo Gaggi's right-hand man.

FORLANO:

Jerry Steriano?

BORELLI:

Yeah.

NICKY (V.O.)

Now, these old greaseballs might not

look it, but believe me, these are

the guys who secretly controlled Las

Vegas.

PISCANO joins his MOTHER and DAUGHTER by a stove.

PISCANO'S MOTHER

That man's here again.

Piscano dips a piece of bread into a pot of tomato sauce.

NICKY (V.O.)

Because they controlled the Teamsters'

Union, and that's where you had to

go if you wanted to borrow money to

buy a casino.

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