There was
this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you
know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things
were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada ... made
a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later
on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way
to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was
Las Vegas . This
was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a
signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye.
No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I
knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned
up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen;
I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!
If I could
only live to see it, to be there with you. What I wouldn't give for twenty more
years! Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the
goddamn Justice Department and the F.B.I. ninety miles away, in partnership
with a friendly government. Ninety miles! It's nothing! Just one small step,
looking for a man who wants to be President of the United States , and having the cash
to make it possible. Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.