Searching for Cecil. Where are You?

In the early winter of 1985, I was waiting on tables at the TGI Fridays on West Flamingo Road in Las Vegas. A manager there, Greg, had given notice to open a restaurant/nightclub on East Flamingo Road, then a growing collection of apartment complexes, new businesses, and acres of open desert. Greg asked if I wanted to be his assistant manager and take over the restaurant side of the business. This was Tramps, the seedy nightclub featured in two of my novels.

Such a weird name, but also personally ironic. The motif was old railroads and tramps—you know, hobos. Ironic because I’d hopped freight trains all over the country, logging over 10,000 miles. In a way, I’d been an actual tramp (or hobo—the old definition was that tramps travel and drink while hobos travel and work).

I opened the restaurant with no training to speak of; I’d only worked in restaurants as a dishwasher, busboy, and waiter. I helped design the menu, I programmed the new POS system, hired and trained all the front-of-the-house staff, and then played manager. I did good. But when Tramps opened, it became more of a nightclub than a restaurant. This, I think, had much to do with the owner, Frank Fratitta III, who was a year younger than me at 24, drove a Ferrari, and knew many of the other high-roller kids in town, the sons and daughters of casino owners, executives, gangsters, and other fat cats.

This was 1980s Vegas at the height of the cocaine boom. The club was booze-and-coke-fueled, with music pounding deep into the morning (we were open 24/7, with no locks on any of the doors). Fights, drugs, and prostitution became endemic, and the manager hired to run the nightclub was quickly in over his head. I’d see him in the mornings, sitting at the bar sipping Dewars, his hands shaking. He was married, and that relationship was becoming strained. He was well on his way to a divorce and a complete mental breakdown. Greg switched us up, and I became the new nightclub manager.

Here, I should mention Cecil Campbell, really the focus of this story. Cecil was the kitchen manager, hired away from an IHOP, International House of Pancakes. Cecil was a complete force of nature: Cuban, six-two, muscled, wiry, sharp-dressed, loud, funny, confident, and really good at the whole kitchen thing. He had this Billy D Williams look and vibe. Everyone loved Cecil.

Long story short, Greg was no good at the whole general manager thing. He believed he was another Vegas fat cat with his custom-made suits and status as the manager of the hottest nightclub in Vegas. He’d hang out late at night, drinking with his buddies, and ordering me around like some dog. Then he did the unthinkable: he started writing IOUs and taking money from the safe (literally, he wrote, “Need new rims for my truck”). WFT? He was quickly fired, replaced by Cecil.

Meanwhile, I’d taken over a shit show. My initial problem was the constant fighting. Like magic, at around 2:00 a.m., the booze and cocaine infused twenty-something boys—and often hopped up on steroids—would be dateless and decide to take out their frustration on each other. I could rarely get through a Friday night without at least four fights. I had a crew of bouncers, but not enough, and half of these bad boys were useless. Now, as a hands-on manager, I felt compelled to jump behind the bar when backed up, clean tables when the cocktailers were “in the weeds,” mop up puke when needed, and help break up fights. My first real all-out brawl was with about seven guys. Todd was a bouncer I could count on, a competitive kickboxer rarely outmatched. His problem was his overconfidence, and when he went into the fight, he did so alone before backup arrived. He picked out the central troublemaker, took him from behind in a chokehold, then proceeded to drag him out the back door. What he didn’t see was the guy’s friend with a heavy beer mug. From behind, the friend slammed the mug into Todd’s face, breaking the glass. I moved in with two other bouncers, and the fight continued outside. By the time the police arrived, I was covered in blood (the guy who swung the mug had sliced up his hand, and that blood was what ruined my Brooks Brothers dress shirt and cashmere sweater vest). Todd was driven to the hospital, and it took over thirty stitches to close up the spidery cut that went from his skull, wrapped around one eye, and down his cheek. That was my real initiation. Two weeks later, when Todd was back at work with his very badass scar, he taught me the chokehold that could incapacitate a man.

Las Vegas Police, known locally as Metro, later let me know in a side conversation that they didn’t ever want to be called to the club if any situation was out of control: “If you can’t control your club, we will.” So, I beefed up the bouncer staff.

Two Mormon brothers who had both played football for BYU manned the door. An ex-cheerleader from ULV worked the line checking IDs (the kind of cheerleader who could lift young ladies over his head and do an iron cross on the rings). John was a professional arm wrestler and amateur Jesus freak known as a one-punch artist (knocking out a guy with one punch, using sap gloves—knuckles filled with lead granules). Then a rotation of eight other dudes equally intimidating. We promoted Marcus, a blackbelt friend of Cecil’s. Besides bouncing for us, Marcus had a workout show on cable TV, one of those high-stepping, arm-swinging daytime shows that inspired homebound women to keep their bodies fit. He also worked security at Caesars on fight nights (he’d then invite all the boxers with their hangers-on back to Tramps). Eventually, we all carried handcuffs and held the wrapped-up perpetrator in the office or in a storage shed out back until Metro arrived, the situation very much in control. I had a three-ring binder with Polaroid sleeves of guys whom I’d permanently banned from the club—”86’d.” It was a treat for regulars to get a peek at the fast-growing book of bloodied boys (”Look, that’s Tony!”).

Back to Cecil. He loved being the General Manager of Tramps and would hang out through the night, helping manage the place and placating the owner, Frank Fertitta III. Cecil was great. He supported me when the inevitable customer complaints came in and when the inevitable employee backstabbing ensued. I’ll be honest—I was an outsider from Minneapolis, a preppy Midwestern boy who worked among Vegas-born-and-bred. I made tough choices, kept tough employees inline who would have liked to run their own show—no taking money at the door, no smoking on the job, no doing cocaine while clocked in, no giving away free drinks without a receipt, no beating a guy already in handcuffs, no preferential treatment for your fucking friends, and no drinking on the job! Frank liked me, I believe, because I was a prepster from Minnesota, and somehow that meant I could be trusted with his money.

So, here’s where it got ugly. In that life, if you can call it that, I lived beyond the boundaries of what might be called normal. It started with the fights. I got tired of breaking them up, getting my shirts ripped, and trying to take out blood stains with soda water. Then the money issue. A brawl could empty the club, and the loss of revenue would show up in the receipts the next morning when Frank’s money guy, Mr. Diamond, would come in to check the numbers and do the deposit. The blame was somehow on me. So, I just started throwing out the belligerent boys, the ones all jacked up on booze, coke, and steroids. I’d walk around the club with stiff shoulders and not-so-accidentally bump into one. If he gave me that hostile look, I’d come back with a bouncer and ask him to leave. Sometimes this was where John came in handy with his one-punch trick. That seriously cut down on the fights.

Then the bomb threats. The first time it happened, I cleared the club and called the police and fire department. They searched and found nothing. The take that morning was around $10,000 short. No one wanted to tell me what to do, but there was plenty of intimation. I ignored the next bomb threat, saying to the caller, “It’s on you, Bro.” After that, I instituted a policy to simply not answer phones after midnight—no calls, no threats. I know, I know.

Asking people to leave, ignoring bomb threats, holding people in handcuffs, and getting rough was all ugly. I was becoming an ugly person. And it was getting to me.

Back to Cecil. Soon after becoming the general manager, he bought a Porsche 911 Cabriolet with a mobile phone installed (back when mobile phones were ungodly expensive and primarily used by corporate CEOs, personal injury lawyers, and drug dealers). He also owned a house with his girlfriend, Bonnie, and kept a Corvette Stingray stored in his garage. All I can tell you is that I owned a used Volkswagen Jetta, lived with roommates (two strictly platonic French sisters), and pretty much survived hand-to-mouth. Cecil didn’t make that much more than I did. There was speculation that he dealt drugs. But, if the dealing was in the club, I would’ve known about it; I knew just about every big coke dealer in town. I did find out that he owned two of those coin-op laundromats. Then someone told me that laundromats with all those quarters and crumpled dollar bills were perfect for laundering drug money. I never did find out how Cecil paid for his cool shit, but as far as drugs went, he did begin to use.

It started off small, Cecil stopping into the club deep into the morning to check on business. I could tell he was jacked up, wired on something. I initially assumed coke; everyone was doing coke. Then, one time, he came in during my shift and confronted me about some backstabbing bullshit. The new kitchen manager, who’d worked for Cecil at the IHOP, had it in for me for some fucking reason. I think it started when I fired two of his late-night employees for drinking on the job. (Both were tasked with taking out garbage, and what they did was combine all the little dregs of each bottle of booze—there were hundreds—and drink that jungle juice. They were wasted.) Anyway, the Kitchen Manager spread some misinformation, which Cecil confronted me about alone in the office.

I said that guy was a fucking liar. I told him to bring the liar in, and I’d say it to his face. Cecil was obviously jacked up on something. He started yelling, then grabbed the front of my shirt and stood me up against the wall. I kept saying, “Don’t you hit me… Don’t you hit me.” He didn’t, but he came damn close. But now there began that pattern of Cecil and drugs. He would show up during the day to do his job, but he’d also be up all night. And he wasn’t going home. Like I’ve said, Cecil was this very handsome Billy D. Williams-looking guy, and he seemed to have a revolving door of side action. He wasn’t going home, and for days at a time, didn’t wash or change his clothes. None of this escaped the attention of Frank, or Mr. Diamond, his money manager, who would see Cecil each morning and collect the fat deposit envelope. In retrospect, I believe it wasn’t coke but cheap crystal meth. Cecil was soon fired.

After a year of working nights and sixty-hour weeks, I was burnt out. And I was becoming callous. I was usually in the position of keeping a leash on the doormen, and I figured that if I started sliding into their world of violence, it was time to leave. Then came the night of the counterfeiter. Someone was spreading fake twenties throughout the club. One bartender noticed the fake, and then more were found in other registers. The perpetrator was still in the club, and we were able to apprehend the guy. A bouncer and I held him in the office for the police. But it turned out that the Secret Service had jurisdiction over forgeries. So I called those guys, and they said it would be a couple of hours. I told the counterfeiter the situation. I added that I’d have to put him in handcuffs until they arrived. The guy freaked out. Now, believe me, it’s incredibly challenging for two guys to put one guy in cuffs who resists. You need to get physical, like rolling around on the ground sweaty physical. And that’s what we did. Not one of my proudest moments among many of those unproud moments. I was disgusted with myself. Two weeks later, I gave notice.

I moved on, managing the TGI Fridays where I once waited on tables. After that, I ran another restaurant/nightclub called The Elephant Bar. I moved back to Minneapolis to manage the nightclub at The Heartthrob Cafe in St. Paul. After meeting Stephanie there, we moved to Baltimore, where I ran a club called Surfside Sallys. (None of those places ever came close to the sheer pandemonium of Tramps.) Then back in Minneapolis to get my MBA and start a new, safer, less repugnant, and more job-secure profession.

I reached out to Cecil on his mobile phone while completing my MBA. We talked, and it was great to hear his now-calm voice. He’d moved to San Diego and had some weird business selling gourmet food baskets on the street. I’d always been his top right-hand man, and he wanted me to move out to help him run the business. He flew me to sunny California.

Weird. Cecil and Bonnie were still together and living in a gated community outside La Jolla with expensive homes all in the same Mediterranean style—off-white stucco, arched, hand-carved-looking doors, fake terracotta roofs. Hey, this was the American dream. He still had the Corvette in the garage along with his Porsche 911 Cabriolet. We drove the Porsche to downtown San Diego, where he assembled the gourmet food baskets, all wrapped up in opaque cellophane and tied with ribbon. What I learned was that Cecil hung around downtown and recruited primarily young girls to sell these things. The girls would pay for the baskets up front and then sell them on the streets, keeping the profit. These girls were never hired or paid wages. This was the business Cecil wanted me to run. I didn’t tell him at that moment, but my thought was, Fuck No. He then drove out to a girlfriend’s apartment, where I sat around watching daytime TV while he did his thing.

Then Bonnie. She’d always been this very lovely woman from somewhere in the Midwest, like someone you’d meet in Dubuque selling posies in a flower store. Now she was running a high-end message parlor called Sincerely Yours. Cecil tried to convince me that the business was all above board, no funny business. Sure.

That night before I flew out the next day, we ate a bucket of broasted chicken for dinner. Over crispy thighs, breasts, and wings, he tried to impress me with his new social status, one I guessed I’d be part of. Apparently, on weekends, he hung out with the polo crowd in La Jolla, getting to know fat cats and showbiz people. He knew Bo and John Derek. I guess I had that to look forward to if I decided to move. But recruiting girls to sell gourmet baskets? Fuck No.

The last I saw of Cecil was on Facebook, where he posted a video of his new BBQ joint on the seedy north side of Las Vegas. This was 2010. It closed a few months later. He and Bonnie had one son. He lived in Vegas and was a devout Muslim (Cecil and Bonnie were never religious).

I tried to reach out. I knew from online property records that he lived in a gated condo complex in Las Vegas. Bonnie was on the title—surprisingly, they were still together. I drove over and pressed the intercom button. The recording had not been set up, and no one answered. I wrote him an old-fashioned letter, but received no response.

Of course, I’d love to hear the rest of his story. You gotta believe it’s a whopper!

Side note on Frank Fratitta III: He took over from Frank II to run and grow the Palace Station Casino business in Las Vegas and across the US. The company went public, then private, then public again, making the Fertitta family millions. Then, in 2001, Frank bought the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for $2 million. He sold it fifteen years later for $4 billion. Unfortunately, we hadn’t remained friends.

Interested in my Las Vegas novels?