The World of Hek, Book One: Forever       

CHAPTER ONE

     Throughout the nineteen-sixties and seventies, Las Vegas, Nevada was home to some of the most influential and powerful players in money-making America.  In the middle of the desert nowhere came the celebrities, the politicians, the playboys, ma and pa big-bucks, and, of course, organized crime.  The crime families were probably enjoying the city of sin more than any other lost soul who had somehow made his way there.  For Las Vegas belonged to them.  Organized crime made Vegas.  They brought the neon lights, the tourists, and the almighty dollar.  During those years the hotel casinos sprung up as fast as sweat on a forehead.  These were actual casinos, not the family fun parks with a few slot machines that made their way into the city in the late eighties.  They were the real deal.  The city was even a lot safer then as well because of the organized crime families.  If there was one thing a young street punk knew it was not to make trouble with the mob.  Many had tried but only to find themselves bruised, bloodied, sliced, shot, and/or buried six feet under next to a cactus plant thirty miles outside of Vegas.  The city was in a constant state of change then and found itself gaining in population every year.  Charlie Facinelli arrived in the summer of 1970 with his fiancée in tow to accept a job with the gaming commission.  Charlie had a few connections with some of the questionable characters in Chicago though he himself had managed to keep his nose clean (save for a few burglaries as a minor, mostly during The Great Depression).  He cleaned up his act and went on to find himself doing legitimate bookkeeping for several high finance businesses such as automobile companies, hotels, and banks.  As a favor to some friends, Charlie, instead of retiring, took the Las Vegas job.  His fiancée, Julianna, though set in her own ways with a huge home of her own and most of her family in Chicago, decided to chance the West as well.  Both were in their early seventies but had the energy of a couple in their forties.