Author’s Note: The first two chapters from a finished 92,000 word manuscript. I’m planning on publishing the novel at a currently unknown point in the future.
Chapter 1
Clyde Javernick’s basement level speakeasy was the coolest spot in Rioville when the afternoon temperature went over 100°F. Tall and lean with a pencil thin mustache, he sat at the bar next to Eunice Adair, the madam from the nearby Palomino Palace. Lonnie Rey was slinging the drinks, and he put a Meade “Lux” Lewis piano boogie-woogie record on the phonograph to set the mood. It was the Prohibition Era, and though alcoholic beverages had been officially illegal since 1920, a prosperous underground market made bootleg hooch not that hard to find.
“Melvin Royce, there’s the man I need to talk to.”
“What’s on your mind, Mr. Javernick?” Melvin took a seat on the other side of Eunice who’d strategically placed her Rubenesque derrière under a swamp cooler vent on the ceiling.
“Can the formality, Melvin. Call me Clyde. I need your opinion on a new construction project I’m planning.”
“What are you building this time?”
“An underwater casino and hotel.”
Melvin did a double take. “An underwater hotel?”
“Yessir, and a casino too, because there’s money to be made now that the state legislature has legalized gambling.”
“Where are you planning on building it?”
Eunice was making eyes at Melvin, batting her false eyelashes and smiling seductively as the hotel owner leaned forward in his seat to look around her and talk to him. Melvin was a young Jack Mormon, ruggedly handsome with a football player’s build.
“To answer your question, Melvin, I’m planning on building it right here in Rioville.” Javernick extracted a slim cigar from a fancy silver case and Lonnie the barkeep offered a light. He puffed on the panetela, then pulled it from his mouth to continue: “I told that Beekman ass from the Bureau of Reclamation to go to hell. I’m not taking their money, I’m staying put.”
“My folks finally gave in. Pa thinks their offer is low, but they’re taking the check and moving up-valley. Ma said she’s sick of fighting it.”
“Not me. I told that clown to take his measly cash and stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
“But you’re not much higher than the base of the dam down here in the canyon. Rioville will be at the bottom of the lake when it’s filled.”
“Our base elevation on the ground floor of the hotel is seven hundred feet above sea level. The surface elevation of the reservoir—if they do manage to fill it—will be over twelve hundred feet at maximum capacity. So, you’re right, Melvin. In another ten years, it’s likely we’ll be under over five hundred feet of water.”
“Speak for yourself, Clyde,” said Eunice. “I’ll be long gone. I can’t run a whorehouse out of a goddamn submarine.”
“Not a submarine, Miss Adair. An underwater casino and hotel with plenty of room for all your ladies. Why, I’ll even give Little Juanito in the shack out back a place to perform his filthy trade.”
“Seems like ever since the steamboat stopped coming, Little Juanito’s been getting most of the business. I never knew it before, but half those Welshmen from the salt mines go that way. They were all lined up last Saturday night and Joy went back there and said, ‘Hey fellas, Rose and I are available out front. No sense standing back here in the dark waitin’ on Little Juanito.’ But they weren’t having it. Said they’d rather wait on the Mexican.”
“Well, each to his own, Eunice. It’s a free country, and I’m going to exercise my Fifth Amendment right to possession of private property by staying right here when they flood the doggone canyon.”
“Sounds like an expensive project,” said Melvin.
“Money’s not an issue. I made a fortune selling real estate in Los Angeles, and I have plenty to invest. Plus, I have a couple of California investors who will chip in more when things get moving.”
“What are you going to build it out of?”
“We’ll use stainless steel panels and heavy bulletproof glass for the exterior. I’ll need experienced men and that’s where you come into the picture, Melvin…If you’re interested.”
“Yeah, sure I’m interested. It would beat the hell out of traveling to California for work.”
“I’ll make you my supervisor then and top what you’ve been making on those bridge projects, I’ll pay you more.”
“Yeah, I’ll help you build it. If you’re really serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
“If it’s under five hundred feet of water, how will people get to it?”
“The front desk will be near the top floor with docks outside. I’m also planning a hydroelectric plant at the base of it. We’ll drop a stream of water from the surface, and the momentum will be enough to turn turbines and generate electricity to power the place.”
“Do you need approval from the government?”
“Clark County and the Bureau of Reclamation can both kiss my ass. Likewise with Carson City. This is my property and if I want to build an underwater casino and hotel, they’re not stopping me. The goddamn bureaucrats are welcome to keep their noses out of my business.”
Roland Wells appeared at the bottom of the stairway. He was a sturdy Afro-American, built like an ox. Maximino Padilla, a heavyset Mexican and shorter in stature was close behind. Roland took a seat next to Melvin.
“Evening, Roland,” said Lonnie. “The usual?”
“Yeah. Get us a couple of drafts. And a shot of tequila for Max.”
“I was just telling Melvin about my plans for the new hotel,” said Javernick to Roland.
Rose Fletcher, one of the prostitutes from the Palomino came down the stairs. “Eunice, I need to get in the cash drawer to make change.”
Eunice finished off her drink and rose from her seat. “A lady’s work is never done.”
“Tell Dolly I’ll be by in a while,” said Roland, turning in his seat as Eunice walked past.
“What about you, Maximino?” said Eunice, pausing at the stairway. “It’s Friday night. In the mood for some female companionship?”
“Thanks for the offer, Miss Adair, but I’m saving money for Christmas.”
“Christmas?” she replied in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, Max, that’s four months off.”
“Sí, four months away but I’m traveling to Mexico this year.”
“You haven’t stopped by the Palace in a while. You’re not going back there to see Little Juanito instead, are you?”
Maximino laughed. “Oh no. Little Juanito and me, we’re just friends.”
“Just friends, eh? I saw you walking back there the other night.”
“Playing cards, that’s all.” He shrugged his shoulders, drained his glass and looked towards Lonnie for another beer.
Eunice shifted her attention towards Melvin. “What about you, Mr. Royce? I don’t think we’ve seen you in the Palace yet.”
“You won’t either. No offense, Miss Adair, but I have a steady lady friend up valley.”
“That’s wonderful, Melvin, but a little excitement on the side never hurt anyone.” Eunice climbed the narrow stairway and disappeared.
Melvin looked back to Javernick. “How soon do you want to start building?”
“We can start the layout tomorrow. Roland and Maximino are going to help too.”
“Do you have a set of plans?”
“Damn right I do, Melvin. Can’t build an underwater casino and hotel without a set of plans. My architect in L.A. drew them up for me.”
“How big are we talking?”
“A 35,000 square foot casino on the bottom of the lake and above it, a 55-story underwater hotel.”
“That’s a huge amount of work. We’ll need more than four men.”
“We’ll find them. Hundreds of workers are streaming in for the dam project. I’ll spirit the best of them away with better money and free accommodations.
□□□
The next morning, Javernick spread the architectural plans out on a table in his not-so-secret speakeasy. Melvin was a skilled heavy construction worker, and he took a close look at them as he sipped his black coffee. It was a thick bundle of blueprints drawn up by Hardy Fogg, a famed Los Angeles architect. Javernick referred to him as Foggy.
The hotel owner stood by the table with a Bloody Mary in one hand, and one of his trademark panetelas in the other. He gestured emphatically with his cigar hand as he spoke, and he paused occasionally, to take a sip from his morning cocktail, wincing. “You’ll notice Professor Dewey W. Culpepper designed the underwater engineering, Melvin. Another one of my associates from the California development market, he’s the best in his field.”
Roland and Maximino sat at a nearby table. Roland ran the ferry and steamboat landing downstream from Rioville, but his small business enterprise was close to deceased due to the canyon-blocking construction of mammoth Hoover Dam.
Maximino and his amigo Little Juanito were Mexican immigrants. Back in Sinaloa, Little Juanito had entered the field of adult entertainment at the age of 15. He hired on as a G-string clad pole dancer at El Club Urano, a sleazy nightclub in Los Mochis. When he turned 18, he was let go. “Too old for the pole now, Juanito,” is what the owner had told him. (The other dancers were all underage muchachos as young as 12 and 13.)
So, in 1927, Little Juanito and Maximino hiked across the U.S. border surreptitiously, to look for employment opportunities in El Norte. They were flat broke and close to starving when they arrived at Roland’s ferry on the Colorado, and both lacked the fifty cents he charged for the boat ride to cross it.
“Sorry, my man,” Roland had said to Maximino, “but unless I get a half dollar from both of you, I can’t take you across.”
“Fuck it then, we swim,” exclaimed Maximino out of frustration. He sat down in the dirt and pulled off his trail-weathered boots.
Realizing the overweight Mexican would likely drown in the broad river’s unpredictable currents, Roland reconsidered the situation. “Hold on there, Hoss. Before you jump in. I do have a few chores I need to get done around here if you’d like to earn yourselves some spending money.” And that was how Maximino and Little Juanito ended up working for Roland.
Maximino piloted the ferry boat and collected the tolls when Roland was busy in his 1919 Packard flatbed truck. He’d converted it to an open-air bus by bolting seats to the bed, and he used it to transport steamboat passengers to the rail station in Saint Thomas. An improvised canvas roof sheltered his customers from the hot desert sun.
Maximino was happy with the low paying, part-time work. Business was light and he had plenty of time to doze off in the shade, but Little Juanito wanted more, and he set to work sprucing up the abandoned shack he found out in the weeds behind the Palomino Palace.
Javernick admired his entrepreneurial spirit and decided to simply look the other way when the enterprising young Mexican opened his business in the rundown shed with the rusted tin roof…
“We’ll need a few months to excavate and lay the footers,” said Melvin as he continued to peruse the tremendous bundle of blueprints.
“Dewey thinks we’ll hit solid bedrock within eight feet of ground level. That should give us a bulletproof footing because it’ll need to be solid, to support the hotel tower.
“Yup,” said Melvin, “It’ll be one whale of a five-hundred-foot-tall structure.”
“Five hundred and fifty feet tall there, Melvin. Twice as tall as the Central Tower in downtown San Francisco. We’ll need to put a boatload of structural steel in it, make sure the damn thing doesn’t fall over before they fill the lake.”
Melvin continued to page through the immense bundle, then stopped when he found the structural drawings for the hotel tower itself. “It looks like the architect is calling for an exterior access door on every story, I see.”
“Yes, the waterproof doors will only be opened as needed according to the fluctuations of the lake’s surface elevation.”
“Waterproofing those doors and the structure itself will be the trick. Once the water comes up, we won’t get any second chances.”
“Yessir, but I’m trusting you’re a good enough welder to pull it off.”
“I’m confident I can do waterproof welds on stainless steel, but I’ll need help. Lots of it.”
“We’ll find the help then, Melvin.”
“Maximino and I don’t know shit about welding,” said Roland. “Where do you suppose you can find the skilled men?”
“Like I said last night, I’ll spirit away the best workers from the dam project. Offer ’em better money, free housing and fringe benefits.”
“How do you do that?”
“We’ll drive down to Boulder City this evening. Find the local gin mill where the men drink.”
The foursome spent the rest of the morning plotting the outlines of the soon-to-be-built structures. Melvin operated the transit level that was supported by a mobile tripod. He peered through the eyepiece and carefully adjusted the focusing knob as Roland and Maximino pulled a tape measure and drove stakes into the ground with a handheld sledgehammer.
Javernick looked on, puffing on his skinny cigar and taking an occasional sip from a flask of illicit hooch he carried in the hip pocket of his fancy twill trousers. An experienced builder, he followed Melvin’s progress in plotting the structures, studying the blueprints they’d spread out on a rickety table.
A hot wind came up in the afternoon. It felt like a giant furnace door opening and closing as the gusts picked up steam. At first, the crew kept working. Javernick laid rocks on the corners of the blueprints to keep them from blowing away. Before long, it went over 100°F, and the wind was clearing fifty mph. The gusts picked up the gritty desert dirt and blew it in their faces, at one point temporarily blinding Melvin as he continued peering through the transit level’s eyepiece.
Finally, Javernick said, “To hell with this, let’s go back over to the bar.”
The men were covered with tortilla-colored dust from head to toe by the time they made it to the front porch of the hotel. The wind was blowing it sideways now, with an occasional tumbleweed thrown into the mix. It was hard to see more than a few feet in the maelstrom. They stood on the leeward side of the hotel building, sheltered from the severe windstorm, knocking the dust off their clothes and emptying it out of their shoes, looking like they’d spent the morning fighting the Ottoman Empire in the windblown expanses of the Libyan Sahara.
Downstairs in the speakeasy, Lonnie turned the swamp cooler to high as the men settled into their seats. He set cold glasses of illicit draft beer on the bar in front of each, except for Javernick, he ordered a bootleg bourbon on the rocks.
At the behest of Javernick, and with a stack of greenbacks in hand, Maximino went back outside. He ran from porch to porch, two doors down, past the Palomino Palace, to Hao Lóng Shèng’s Chinese Restaurant, almost blown off his feet in the alleyways by the relentless wind. Hao’s number one cook, Yue Peng, loaded a box with containers of food, Kung Pao Venison, Sweet and Sour Catfish, and a bag full of Braised Mountain Goat Eggrolls.
Carrying the cardboard food box carefully, Maximino ran back to the hotel, making sure not to trip over Miss Adair’s bloodhound Willie, fast asleep on the front porch of the Palomino, seemingly oblivious to the windstorm blowing at close to hurricane force in the unsheltered desert expanses nearby. (The dog was snoring loudly, gently flexing his legs, chasing and biting whorehouse pikers in his vivid dreams, an expression of canine contentment on his face.)
Back in the speakeasy, Maximino set the box down on the bar. He handed out the flimsy food containers and opened the bag of eggrolls. Having worked through lunch, all four of the men were famished. Lonnie sampled an eggroll as he refilled their beer glasses.
Eunice appeared at the bottom of the stairway. “Jesus Christ, that wind is blowing out there, fellas.”
“Have a Braised Mountain Goat Eggroll,” said Javernick. “They’re delicious.”
“Braised Mountain Goat?” She turned her nose up at the eggroll Maximino tried to hand her, waving him off. “More like grilled pack rat.”
“Horseshit, Eunice. Hao Lóng is a master chef. He would never authorize use of common Rodentia in one of his culinary masterpieces.”
“Rose said she saw him and number one cook out in the desert shootin’ rats with a twenty-two.”
“Target practice and cleansing the neighborhood of vermin. Hardly a reason to accuse him of using rodent meat in his food.”
“Damn tasty, whatever it is,” said Roland, popping the last of an eggroll in his mouth, wiping his hands on a napkin. “Rat meat or not.”
Javernick silently rolled his eyes and drained his highball.
By late afternoon, the wind had let up and the air became still. It was uncanny how fast the weather changed in the severely parched desert. They waited until the sun disappeared behind the rugged outline of the Black Mountains before setting out for Boulder City.
Javernick had a 1930 Cadillac V-16 convertible he’d ordered brand new from the factory. Fire engine red with a luxury interior crafted from genuine leather and hardwood veneer. He had it shipped to Saint Thomas on the Union Pacific rail line. The car was parked outside the hotel, and after sweeping the windblown dust off the hood, he used a hand crank to start the engine.
“Hop in, boys,” said Javernick. He lowered the convertible roof and secured it at the back. “Let’s go see if we can hire some help.”
Melvin had been watching Javernick drink all day, starting with the Bloody Mary at breakfast. “We can take my car if you want, Clyde.”
“Nonsense, Melvin. We’ll take the caddy. It’s a roomier ride and I haven’t had it out in a week. Can’t let ’em sit too long, the crankcase oil starts to coagulate.”
Melvin took the passenger seat and watched with silent concern as Javernick filled a highball glass from a bottle of unlabeled bootleg whiskey he kept in the glove compartment. He juggled the glass from hand to hand and set it between his legs when he did a series of quick manual gear shifts to climb the steep hill at the edge of the river gorge. The big engine roared as they crested the top of the hill, and when he hit a pothole in the road, he managed to spill the glass of hooch on his pants leg.
“Oh, for the love of Saint Peter’s proboscis. Look at that, I spilled whiskey all over my freshly laundered trousers.”
He stopped the car in the middle of the road as Roland and Maximino did their best to suppress laughter in the back. Javernick swung the door open, climbed out, and after removing his shoes, took off his pants to reveal nothing beneath beyond a skimpy pair of jockey shorts and a set of extremely hairy, snow-white legs. He returned his shoes to his feet and pulled his argyle socks up high around his naked calves. Next, he opened the trunk, and after rearranging assorted debris, found a gallon jug of water.
“Always carry fresh water when traveling in the Mohave, boys. Never know when you might need it.” He splashed water on the whiskey stain on his pants and rubbed it furiously with a rag. After holding them up for inspection, he returned the water jug to its place, closed the trunk, then tied his trousers’ belt loops to the luggage rack with a few pieces of twine. “They should dry in no time in this infernal desert heat.”
Saint Thomas was a twenty-five-mile drive and as they were approaching the small farming community, Javernick adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could make eye contact with Maximino in the backseat. “Hey Max, reach over the convertible top and see if my trousers are dry yet, wouldja?”
Maximino turned in his seat, and getting up on his knees, looked over the collapsed convertible top. “They’re gone, Mr. Jav. Must have come untied on that rough stretch.”
“For the love of Christ!” He attempted an abrupt U-turn in the roadway, startling his three passengers—and then himself—when instead, he lost control of the fishtailing car, and slid out into the rough desert dust, coming to rest at the base of a gradual incline. The big V-16 engine had plenty of power, enough to return the hulking automobile to the roadway, and Javernick managed to run over a few creosote bushes as he gave it gas. By the time he returned the car to the road, headed south now, one of the bushes had become lodged underneath the car and it began making noise.
“What in the world is making that goddamn noise?” Thinking he might have knocked something loose when they slid off the road, Javernick stood on the brakes. He jumped out, and looking under the car, saw the bush lodged in the suspension and was soon down on his hands and knees trying to pull it loose.
A Ford Model T appeared, carrying three Welshmen who’d recently finished their shift at the nearby salt mines. When the driver saw Javernick on his hands and knees with his wriggling jockey short clad derrière high in the air, he laid on the horn. A startled Javernick hit his head on the Cadillac’s frame as the Ford flew by with all three of its occupants pointing and laughing.
Halfway back to Rioville, Melvin spotted Javernick’s missing trousers in the waning daylight. They were hanging from a bush alongside a switchback, on a particularly rough stretch of road known as the Empinado Curves.
Javernick shook the dust off his pants and pulled them on. Climbing back in the car, he opened the over-sized glove compartment and grabbed the bottle of hooch. Instead of pouring the whiskey into a glass, this time he drank from the bottle. “You want a slug, Melvin?”
“No thanks, Clyde, I’m good.”
“What about you, Roland?” he said, turning in his seat.
“Yeah, I’ll take a hit.” Roland took the bottle, and after a quick drink, feigned passing it to Maximino with a questioning expression, but the Mexican turned him down. He took another hit and passed it back over the seat to Javernick.
Guided by the car’s bright headlights, Javernick set out for Boulder City once again. Attempting to regain the lost time, he drove considerably faster, fishtailing around the curves, an enormous plume of dust rising in their wake. After a few miles of bumpy road, he held his twitching nose high. “What in the name of god is that smell?”
“Reefer, Clyde,” said Roland from the back seat, offering him the marijuana cigarette he held in his hand. “Care for a hit?”
“No thank you, and please be careful with that stuff in the car. If we happened to be stopped by the police, it could lead to trouble.” He took another swig from the bottle of hooch and returned it to its spot between his legs.
Soon they were approaching Saint Thomas and the Arrowhead Trail junction. Melvin leaned over the console so he could see the instrument gauges on the dashboard. “We’re under half a tank. The Gentry Store is closed, but if you stop at the house, I can get one of Harry’s kids to unlock the fuel pumps.”
“Won’t be necessary, Melvin. This beast has a fifty-gallon tank, even if it does only get five miles to the gallon.”
“You sure? I know Harry wouldn’t mind.”
“Hate to interrupt their evening meal and there’s certainly nothing to worry about. We’ll make it into Vegas no sweat.”
“If you say so,” said Melvin.
The Arrowhead Trail was an unpaved automobile route that connected Los Angeles with Salt Lake City. Every few minutes they would pass a northbound car, but generally, traffic was light. Numerous jack rabbits and an occasional coyote appeared in the Cadillac’s high beams as the nocturnal desert mammals sprinted across the road. An hour and a half passed as Javernick negotiated the curves, staying on the gas. Finally, they reached the summit of a low pass adjacent to Sunrise Mountain. They could see the lights of Las Vegas in the near distance, a small town in 1931, home to about 6,000 residents.
The engine began to sputter as they crested the divide. “Sonofabitch, I think we’re out of gas, boys. Hold on, because I’ll need to keep my speed up to make it to the filling station at the bottom of the hill.”
Melvin was about to say, “I told you so,” but kept it to himself.
It was a wild ride through tight switchbacks as they descended the mountain pass, fishtailing around the curves. The brakes were less responsive with the transmission in neutral and Javernick came close to losing control and careening off the side of the mountain. In the passenger seat, Melvin held on and braced himself for impact.
After running several oncoming cars off the road, their horns blaring, they reached the bottom of the hill and coasted into the filling station a few minutes before closing time. Javernick busied himself cleaning the windshield with a squeegee while the uniformed attendant filled the Cadillac’s mammoth fuel tank.
It was almost midnight by the time they pulled into Boulder City. They passed through rows and rows of hastily erected housing, pint-sized bungalows on treeless lots. At the center of town, they found an ill-disguised speakeasy, the Downtown Lounge. The place was packed with workers from the nearby dam project. The men inside were drinking heavily with few women in evidence. The place smelled like stale beer, secondhand tobacco smoke, and poor bathing habits.
Towards the back, an Afro-American quartet performed on an elevated stage. The Hepcats of Disaster were traveling performers from Port Arthur, Texas, the stage name an allusion to their fickle luck when out on the road in their big blue Buick bus with the oversized whitewall tires. In Lubbock, the police had planted marijuana in the converted school bus when they were on stage, then pulled them over and arrested them when they were leaving town. The Hepcats did thirty days on a highway repair chain gang and that was where they came up with the name, though their reception in towns big and small seemed to improve the further west they went. (In Palm Springs, they were adored, held over for three weeks at the Pink Hippopotamus, and on their way out of town this time, awarded a foot long gold key to the city by the mayor.)
Kordell Wright sang bass and played the piano. Keenan Williams played upright bass and sang baritone. Niles Hill was the tenor and blew the horns, playing trumpet and saxophone. And center-stage, strumming a ukulele was charismatic Busta Briggs, singing lead in a high-pitched falsetto. Decked out in matching pinstripe zoot suits with pocket watches on long gold chains, absurdly baggy trousers and fedoras adorned with long peacock feathers, the foursome sang, “Nevada on My Mind,” a lighthearted takeoff on the popular Hoagy Carmichael song about Georgia.
Nevada, Nevada
The whole night through
A peppy little ditty with a boogie-woogie rhythm
Keeps Nevada on my mind
The banks went bust in Ashtabula
We lost our jobs and all our moolah
But now we’re makin’ lots of dough
On that Hoover Dam project, Joe
Nevada, Nevada
The whole night through
A peppy little ditty with a boogie-woogie rhythm
Keeps Nevada on my mind…
And so forth and so on, faster than the original. The song had a jazzy backbeat and a number of parody verses.
The bar was crowded with drinkers, many in their sweat-stained work clothes, slamming shots of high proof hooch and chasing it with draft beer in glasses. Javernick led his crew through the swarm of workers gathered around the bar and found a table in the back, near the Hepcats performing on stage. According to his plan, he unrolled copies of his new building project’s cover pages, the first part of the blueprints that included an artist’s rendition and elevations of the casino, what it would look like when completed.
He began an intentionally loud conversation with Melvin, as if it was the first time his supervisor had seen the plans. The strategy was designed to entice eavesdroppers and worked like a charm. Soon he had a captive audience of the local workers, some pulling their chairs in closer, others crowding around the table on their feet.
“Whatcha building there, Mack?” said a bald man as he dragged his chair across the floor to squeeze in between Roland and Maximino. A pronounced potbelly hung over his belt and was only partially concealed beneath his soiled muscle shirt.
“The name’s not Mack. I’m Clyde Javernick and I’m building an underwater casino and hotel up-canyon in Rioville.”
“An underwater casino and hotel? You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious as a five-alarm fire, and I’m looking to hire help.”
“What kind of money you pay?”
“The green kind and I’ll beat the wages you’re making on the dam.”
“There’s a whorehouse in Rioville, what’s the name of the place?” said another worker, drunk enough to be unsteady on his feet.
“Eunice Adair’s Palomino Palace, within walking distance of the job.”
“Now there’s some kind of fringe benefit,” said the drunken man. “What about lodging, is there anywhere to stay?”
“I’ll put up the first twenty-five men to sign on at my hotel, free of charge. Forget the rent the government is charging you to live in those half ass shacks they’re throwing up.”
“Sounds like one helluva a good deal,” said the bald man. “Do you have some kind of business card?”
“Of course.” Javernick reached in his pocket and produced a stack of cards. He handed one to each of the crowd now gathered around the table.
“Clyde Javernick, Nut Rancher, Thousand Oaks, California,” said the bald man as he read the card aloud. “Almonds, pecans, walnuts, and pistachios. You’re a long way from home, Mr. Javernick. If you’re a California nut rancher, what in the world are you doing in Nevada?”
“The San Fernando Valley nut ranch is only one of my current business enterprises, a thousand acre spread, run by a trusted caretaker.”
“How’d you end up in Rioville?”
“I won the title to the land in a high stakes poker game in 1922. Fell in love with the place and decided to make it my home away from home so to speak. I built the hotel and the rest of the town with the help of my supervisor here, Melvin Royce.” He gently draped his arm around Melvin’s nearby shoulders. “Mr. Royce is a native of Saint Thomas and as kindhearted a gentleman as you’ll ever meet.”
“Well, we’re not exactly over-joyed with the working conditions on the dam project,” said one of the workers. Others nodded and murmured their agreement. “Long hours and the pay could be better.”
“Come work for me then, boys,” said Javernick with a smile. “Like I said, I’ll beat the government pay and provide you with deluxe accommodations free of charge. And eight hours a day is fine with me. Work overtime if you want, but I’m not forcing long hours on anyone in this hellish Mohave heat.”
Javernick bought multiple rounds for the crowd of workers gathered around the table until 1:30 am, when one of the bartenders rang a bell loudly signaling last call. He was still handing out business cards and shaking hands as the Hepcats packed up their instruments and the bar was closed for business.
“Why don’t you let me drive,” said Melvin as they walked towards the Cadillac in the warm desert night. He was concerned about Javernick’s driving abilities after watching him drink non-stop, though the wry hotel owner appeared sober.
“Well, I know you’ve been dying to feel the unbridled power of a Cadillac V-16 at your fingertips, so of course there Melvin, why don’t you take the wheel.”
Melvin’s concern proved prophetic, because they were pulled over by the Boulder City PD on their way out of town. A 1930 Ford Model A with flashing lights and a loud siren, hand-cranked by a cop in the passenger seat, leaning out the open window. Melvin carefully pulled the gigantic convertible onto the shoulder, and once it had come to a complete stop, the cop on the siren switched to operating a bright spotlight that he fixed on Javernick and his construction crew as the driver walked up to the Cadillac. Two more police cars appeared, pulling up and parking behind the first.
“Good evening, gentlemen, or should I say good morning. What brings you fellas to Boulder City?”
“Why’d you pull us over?” said Javernick from the passenger seat.
“Why’d I pull you over? Suspicious motor vehicle, that’s why there, Bub.”
“The name’s not Bub, it’s Clyde Javernick, and I’d like to see your identification.”
“Right here, Javernick,” said the cop, pointing at the badge that was pinned to his stiff blue uniform. “That’s all the identification I need.” A pair of cops from each of the other cars walked up behind him, all of them carrying batons. “Now, are you gentleman going to cooperate with me politely or you want to take it down to the stationhouse?”
“Of course, officer,” said Melvin with a cool smile. “We’re out on the town having fun tonight. Stopped in at the Downtown Lounge to see the Hepcats of Disaster.”
“Well, we received a report about some troublemakers at the Downtown Lounge. You fellas working on the dam project?”
“No, we’re not.”
“Then what are you doing in Boulder City late at night?”
“None of your goddamn business,” said Javernick.
“Sorry to inform you it is my business. This is a company town, and we don’t need outsiders coming down here to sow discontent among the workers. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go back where you came from.”
“Sure thing, officer,” said Melvin. “We’re headed back there right now.”
“I see you boys down here again, I’ll lock all four of you up for disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace.”
The next day was a Sunday, and the Hoover Dam workers had the day off. A total of twenty-seven men visited the Rioville Hotel to inquire about Javernick’s job offer, and by sundown that evening, he’d hired nineteen of them.
Chapter 2
The construction of Clyde Javernick’s unconventional gambling establishment was a monumental project, and after a year of work, the underwater casino began to take shape. Javernick brought in materials on the Union Pacific railroad spur that served Saint Thomas. From there, Roland and Maximino moved the freight down the Virgin River Road in cargo trucks.
The casino building was dome shaped. Most of the exterior was built from extra thick bulletproof glass with an engineering design strong enough to withstand the intense water pressure at the bottom of the proposed reservoir. The design included two smaller sized glass domes too, a restaurant, and an adult entertainment wing, the future home of Eunice Adair’s Undersea Whorehouse with space for Little Juanito included as well. The secondary domes were connected to the casino by a walkway enclosed in more thick glass.
Javernick had little trouble finding workers as the Great Depression worsened and the Dust Bowl obliterated farming communities on the Great Plains. The national unemployment rate was 25% in 1932 and much higher west of the Mississippi. Wheat farms in Kansas and Nebraska were buried under drifts of windblown dust and the once booming building industry in California had slowed to a crawl.
Javernick hired scores of men and women. He filled his hotel with construction workers, then built temporary housing along the banks of the river for the rest. He put Hao Lóng Shèng in charge of a cafeteria and brought in more cooks from L.A. He ordered fresh food by the boxcar and Roland and Maximino trucked the supplies down the bumpy road from Saint Thomas. Business at the Palomino Palace had never been better, and in the shack out back, Little Juanito was raking in the simoleons.
Melvin was promoted to project manager. He set up an office in the old hotel and stayed busy behind his desk. He rarely had time to get his hands dirty on the jobsite. Melvin solved design problems in regular conference calls with Foggy and Professor Culpepper and made sure the crews had their materials delivered on time.
By the spring of 1933, the casino’s shell was finished and work on the hotel tower had begun. Tall and narrow, the architectural footprint had enough space for the elevator shaft, the fire stairs, and twelve hotel rooms on every floor. The exterior walls were built from polished stainless-steel panels with vertical rows of four-by-four windows from ground level to the top of the 55-story building.
The tower also included steel tubes that would drop water from the surface down to a hydroelectric plant at the base. Professor Culpepper was still working on the plant’s design. The chief obstacle was how to evacuate the water back into the reservoir once it had passed through the turbines. Turbocharging the exhaust seemed like the best solution, but he’d yet to finalize a plan.
The Professor was responsible for the integrity of the structural engineering, and he came up with a revision that added eighteen inches to every level meaning the tower’s roof would end up eighty feet above the surface of the lake. Javernick went ahead with the full 55 stories, putting the surface entry and front desk on the 47th floor when the reservoir was at maximum capacity. The eight levels above water would be used for employee housing, he’d need to hire a small army to run the place.
Working underwater full-time could be difficult and it might be hard for some to adapt, so Foggy added exterior decks to the eight floors above water level, with an employee only outdoor recreation area on the roof. Javernick would use the penthouse level for his own residence.
The building project was busy with activity on the day that Everett Beekman showed up with the Clark County Sheriff. After parking nearby, Beekman walked towards the construction site in his jet-black wingtips, with the sheriff, Oscar Flynn, by his side. Javernick was high above them on the scaffolding, and he climbed down quickly when he saw the government bureaucrat approaching.
Beekman stopped at the edge of the jobsite and addressed the workers that were within earshot: “By the authority vested in me, I hereby order all of you to cease work immediately.”
“And what authority would that be, Beekman?” shouted Javernick as he hurried towards him, on the ground now.
“By the authority of the Bureau of Reclamation. This property has been condemned, and you need to vacate it as soon as possible.”
“This is my land and you’re trespassing. The signs are clearly posted.”
“You can’t stay, Javernick. When the dam is completed, you’ll be under five hundred feet of water.”
“That’s why I’m making all my seams waterproof.”
“How do you think you’ll access it under that much water?
“We’re working on the hotel tower right now. We’ll have docks at the surface of the lake and an electrified sign up above it. A high-speed elevator will drop visitors to the casino level lickety-split.”
“Where do you think you’ll get the electricity to power the place?”
“I’m building a hydroelectric plant at the base. When the water falls five hundred feet through the steel tubes we’re building into the tower, it’ll have enough momentum to turn turbines and generate juice.”
“A hydroelectric plant? You’ll certainly need government approval for that. You’ll be requisitioning resources that don’t belong to you.”
“That don’t belong to me? Horseshit, Beekman! The deed to Rioville includes fair use of the water that flows through my property. And besides, once the water has gone through the turbine apparatus it’ll be returned to the lake.”
“You’re getting in way over your head, Javernick.”
“Five hundred feet over my head, Beekman. Why, this place will be world famous when I’m done, and you’re not going to stop me, because this is my goddamn property!”
Sheriff Flynn watched the confrontation closely without saying a word. Finally, Beekman turned towards him and said, “The Bureau of Reclamation is putting a stop to this unauthorized construction project. I want you to arrest every one of these workers if they refuse to stop what they’re doing right now.”
“Arrest them for what?”
“For defying the authority vested in me by the Bureau.”
“Do you have some type of court order?”
“I don’t need a court order. I represent the United States government.”
“Well, this is Mr. Javernick’s property. I can’t stop him from doing anything without a court order.”
Beekman went before a district judge in Las Vegas, but the magistrate said it was a federal matter, outside his jurisdiction, and he wouldn’t hear the case. Next, Beekman tried a federal judge in San Franciso, the honorable Axel T. Ambrose. The resident U.S. Attorney, Carlton Francis, presented the government’s complaint in Beekman’s behalf, arguing that the Bureau of Reclamation had the right to evict Javernick based on the legal theory of eminent domain and he had been offered compensation for his property.
Javernick’s Los Angeles attorney, Dylan J. Cosgrove, traveled to San Francisco with a small entourage and spent a full week responding to Francis with long-winded technical arguments that included multiple examples of documented precedence. In essence, he argued that the improvements to the property Javernick had already accomplished made the Bureau’s compensation offer look ridiculously low and he had every right to turn the money down based on the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, specifically: “…nor (shall he) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation…” Cosgrove went on to question the legitimacy of the Bureau’s right to dam the canyon in the first place. That it was a bureaucratic edict that may have been approved by Congress, but it had not been voted on by the people it affected the most, and the damming of the river damaged other business enterprises beyond those in Rioville, specifically the steamboat landing operator Roland Wells, and the small businesses that had been evicted in Saint Thomas. In his summation, Cosgrove said Ambrose should not only allow Javernick to stay on his property but also said he should stop construction of the dam itself.
It took a month for Ambrose to issue a ruling. When the order was finally handed down, Javernick had cause to celebrate. The federal judge refused to evict him from the property and said the government should strive to accommodate his business ventures in the design and operation of the new reservoir. It was, after all, private property. On Cosgrove’s additional legal challenge, Ambrose sided with the government and refused to stop construction of the dam itself, but that was no surprise.
Beekman wasn’t ready to give up. He’d become obsessed with evicting Javernick saying it set a dangerous precedent, and the ruling might be used to impede further projects, so he took his complaint to Washington D.C., to the Bureau of Reclamation administration. He thought Ambrose’s ruling should be appealed to the Supreme Court if needed, because it threatened the Bureau’s very existence and its goal of damming every major river in the American West.
The Director called Beekman into his office and said his preoccupation with stopping Javernick was making him look like a lunatic and was affecting his work. He said the underwater casino and hotel project was preposterous to begin with and was bound to fail. He told Beekman to have a jelly doughnut and forget about the whole thing.
So, the work continued, and before long, the hotel tower was climbing towards the azure-blue sky, growing taller by the month. Javernick secured investor backing and the added funds allowed him to complete the project with a tall crane that was erected beside the tower.
By 1934, when the lake began to fill, the project was for the most part finished. Javernick had the construction crews disassemble the tiny town and employee housing he’d built, and at the behest of Melvin, he donated the used building materials to a couple of Moapa Valley churches. All that remained was the gleaming new casino and hotel.
The tower had a waterproof exterior door on every story, so as the water rose, it could be accessed by boat. A floating dock gained elevation as the water came up.
It would take another seven years to completely fill the lake because much of the water that flowed down the Colorado had to be released through the gates to generate electricity and satisfy downstream users. Farmers in the Imperial Valley and the City of L.A. owned most of the downstream water rights. The seven-year wait created a problem that Javernick had not anticipated. Even with the floating dock and waterproof doors, it made the property impractical to access. No marinas had been built around the perimeter of the future lake yet, and Javernick couldn’t build his own because it was mostly public land, and the water level was constantly rising.
Consequently, he decided to delay the grand opening until the lake was entirely filled. Melvin stayed on the job, working on the huge amount of interior finish work with a smaller crew that included Roland and Maximino while Javernick returned to his San Fernando Valley nut ranch.
A famed interior designer named Delroy De la Rue was hired to oversee the finish work. Known as “Mr. Delroy” in L.A., (pronounced del-ROY,) the unconventional Frenchman had an impressive resume, having designed several high dollar living spaces for Hollywood stars such as Clark Gable and Rita Hayworth. Mr. Delroy hit it off with Little Juanito quickly. The designer wore an off-white linen blazer with a paisley ascot tie, L.L. Bean penny loafers and checkered socks. He puffed on a curved stem pipe, then pulled it from his mouth to speak: “I have wonderful plans for your new bordello, Juan.”
“Please, call me Little Juanito, Mr. Delroy.” The infamous male prostitute had a slight build and wore nothing but sandals and a pair of navy-blue Speedo briefs, his body hair shaved entirely smooth, except for his expressive eyebrows and slicked back pompadour hairdo.
Jeepers! Looky there, it’s the Hepcats of Disaster. Strolling through the casino singing acapella in four-part harmony. Snapping their fingers and laying down the jive:
Little Juanito in the shack out back
He’s just tryin’ to make a living so cut him some slack
And he’s really makin’ bacon, take a look at his stack
Little Juanito in the shack out back
Mr. Delroy was captivated by the scandalous prostitute. Such an attractive young man, and he had the scent of lilacs. Was it a men’s cologne? Or was Little Juanito wearing ladies’ perfume? “I’d like you to consider a name change for your new location, Little Juanito. ‘Shack out back’ sounds awfully provincial and I’m not sure it’s quite right.”
“What would you suggest as an alternative?”
“I was thinking along the lines of Little Juanito’s Spanish Salon. It would attract a clientele with more sophistication, and in turn more—how you say—dinero.”
“Exquisito, Mr. Delroy, I love it.”
“I’d also like you to think about a royal motif. Velvet drapes, thick pile rugs, and gold-plated door latches.”
“What about a royal throne? Can I have my own royal throne too?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Little Juanito had a small snuff tin stuck under the elastic waistband of his Speedo briefs. Inside it was la cremita. He opened it, dipped a tiny silver spoon in the expensive cocaine, then with little finger daintily extended, sniffed it. He repeated the procedure for the other nostril. “Can you do the color scheme in a muy vivo fresh squeezed lemon yellow?”
“Of course, Little Juanito. I’m glad we’re seeing eye-to-eye.”
Eunice moved her brothel to Tonopah in 1934, but within a few years the gold mines had gone bust, and by 1941, she was looking forward to returning to Rioville, now hundreds of feet beneath the slowly rising waters of Lake Mead. She visited the underwater casino to check on the progress and was fascinated by the gigantic mural Mr. Delroy had hired an artist to paint at the entrance. It depicted beautiful topless mermaids swimming through an underwater landscape that looked like a tropical reef. The mermaids’ naked breasts were decidedly risqué and guaranteed to garner attention from casino visitors.
“I love the mural, Mr. Delroy. Can you put a sign right next to it that points the way to my new undersea whorehouse?”
“Oui, Eunice, there will be signage throughout the property, one of the finishing touches.”
“The ladies in my current lineup are a little fussy and they’re not exactly crazy about the mermaid suits and that gigantic aquarium you put up. Rose said the last thing a whore needs is waterlogged tits.”
“Sorry to hear that, Miss Adair. But what about you? You’d make a beautiful mermaid.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Delroy,” she said, batting her false eyelashes. “I could give it a try, but you might need to order a plus size fishtail. I’m pushing fifty now, and Jesus knows I’m not getting any leaner.”
“Fifty? You’re kidding me, aren’t you? You don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
“Oh, you’re too sweet,” she said, patting him on the arm.
“You’ll also be pleased to know I’ve designed a custom canine villa for Willie that will be strategically placed next to the mermaid tank at the entrance to your new brothel.”
“Perfect. Willie’s gettin’ a little senile in his old age but so long as the dog has plenty to eat and a good place to shit, he’ll do fine.”
“Willie’s poop station is equipped with a weight activated trap door. Designed to keep offensive odors at a minimum.”
“Well, aren’t you clever.”
The finish work on the casino was close to completion in April 1941 and the lake was within twenty feet of maximum capacity. Snowfall was above average in the Rocky Mountains, and it was all but certain the spring run-off would bring it the rest of the way up.
Melvin worked with Roland and Maximino installing the brand-new gambling equipment. Poker and baccarat tables, the roulette wheels and slot machines, and it appeared everything would be ready for the grand opening, but there was still something missing. That’s what Mr. Delroy said as he stood by the tall glass on the casino floor with his index finger pressed against his pursed lips. Even with the multi-colored lighting powered by ample juice from the new onsite hydroelectric plant, the finnicky designer didn’t like what he saw. “The undersea view is all wrong. It should look like the ocean, but instead it looks like a flooded desert.”
“Because it is a flooded desert, Mr. Delroy,” said Roland. “We did the best we could hauling the old buildings away and left it as natural looking as possible. But it’s still only Mohave Desert under five hundred feet of water.”
“It needs work. It should look like the scene on the mural. I’m thinking fabricate a coral reef. I know a scenery expert in Hollywood who makes sets for motion pictures. I’ll have him fashion the parts for a faux coral reef.”
“The problem is installing it,” said Melvin. “The lake is too deep for conventional scuba diving. The water pressure is too strong.”
“We’ll need to come up with something,” said Mr. Delroy. “The view is unacceptable for a casino so grand.”
“I’d better get in touch with Clyde and see what he thinks about it.”
In 1941, it was necessary to call a switchboard operator to place a long-distance call. Melvin dialed ‘O’ on the rotary desk phone in his construction office.
“Operator,” said a familiar female voice on the other end of the call.
“Kaylee?”
“Oh hi, Melvin. Are we still on for the town picnic on Sunday?”
“Of course we are. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you’ve been so busy with work lately, I don’t want to interfere with your busy schedule.”
Melvin detected a hint of sarcasm from his longtime lady friend. They’d been dating steadily for years. Ever since they’d met at the rodeo. The night when Melvin was thrown off the back of a bucking bronco and landed in a mud puddle. It was monsoon season, and had rained steadily the night before, rare in the Mohave Desert. When he’d pulled off his soggy shirt, she’d thought he looked awfully sexy standing there under the bright arena lights in his Lee jeans and cowboy boots, covered with the slimy tortilla colored mud and she was overcome with feminine lust. He was built like an armored car, and she liked the way he laughed it off too, landing square on his ass in the slop. Kersplat! She’d made the first move: “Hey there, cowboy. Need a towel?” She handed him the towel she’d been using to sit on in the bleachers, and the attraction was mutual. Melvin thought she was gorgeous, and they’d been going out ever since.
“C’mon, Kaylee, you don’t need to be like that.”
“Be like what?”
“You’re not interfering with anything, and you know it.” Melvin knew he could sometimes get carried away with his work ethic, a habit his father had ingrained in him as a young kid. But he’d never stood her up on a date. Never backed out on anything.
Maybe it was the lack of a diamond ring. He wasn’t the marrying type, and they’d talked about it at length. Melvin thought it was probably that same old disagreement eating her again.
“So, what do you need?” said Kaylee.
“How ’bout those long legs wrapped around my lonesome posterior?”
She laughed. “Okay, cowboy. We’ll talk about that later. Why’d you call?”
“I need to place a long-distance call.”
“Clyde Javernick in Thousand Oaks, California?”
“Yup, you got it.”
Javernick sat on the commode reading the L.A. Times with his trousers around his ankles. He kept a telephone in the master bath and picked it up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“I have a long-distance call from Rioville, Nevada,” said Kaylee.
“Yes, put it through.”
“Clyde, this is Melvin. Did I get you at a bad time?”
“No, Melvin. Your timing is fine. I’m, uh, sitting here by the pool waiting on an overdue delivery.”
“We’re installing the gambling equipment, and for the most part, everything is going great. We’re looking good for the grand opening except for one thing.”
“Except for what?”
“The view outside the glass. Mr. Delroy said the flooded desert is all wrong. He wants us to install a fake coral reef. Said he can get the parts fabricated in Hollywood.”
“But it’s under five hundred feet of water with no way to access it.”
“Exactly. So, what should we do?”
Javernick took a slug off a nearby glass of bourbon. “I’ve talked to Professor Culpepper about the underwater access problem in the past.” He paused to light a cigar. “It’s far too deep for scuba equipment, you’ll need deep sea diving suits.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
“And to do any work down there on the bottom of the lake you’ll need some sort of vehicle to carry the tools and parts.”
“Some sort of vehicle?”
“That’s right Melvin, an underwater vehicle. I’ve avoided making a decision in the past because it’ll cost an arm and a leg to buy one, but what we need is a doggone submarine.”
“Can you find one?”
“I’ll call Professor Culpepper right now.”
□□□
The next day, Javernick picked up Professor Dewey W. Culpepper in Woodland Hills. He was an older man in his sixties with a full beard and eccentric demeanor, dismissive of those he felt were intellectually inferior. Born and raised in a high-brow section of London, England, he spoke in a well enunciated, proper Queen’s English. They traveled to Long Beach in Javernick’s V-16 Cadillac convertible.
Los Angeles had been a fast-growing city for decades, ever since the first aqueduct began delivering water from the Sierra Nevada in 1913. Javernick’s grandfather was an early pioneer, and he’d bought hundreds of acres in the San Fernando Valley dirt cheap in the 1890s. Limited well water provided enough irrigation for a few hay fields, but the land was mostly dry, and the Javernicks grazed cattle and sheep. When the first imported water arrived in 1913, it created a real estate boom and the value of the family’s extensive land holdings skyrocketed overnight, making Javernick’s father an instant multi-millionaire.
The motion picture industry and oil discoveries continued to fuel the region’s growth. In 1941, California supplied a quarter of the world’s oil and derricks had sprung up across the Los Angeles Basin like weeds. Javernick and Professor Culpepper passed hundreds of them as they traveled across the Santa Monica Mountains and then down the Pacific coastline to Long Beach.
When they arrived at the waterfront, they found the California Underwater Exploration Company, an outfit that manufactured submarines for oceanic research. The salesman said he’d never heard of one being used in a freshwater lake before, but he’d be happy to sell one to Javernick.
He showed them a freshly built submarine that sat in an outdoor dry dock. He said it was well-suited for their intended use, a deluxe watercraft forty feet long. “I sold an identical sub to the University of California’s Oceanography Department. They’re using it for deep sea research.”
“They use it in water that’s over five hundred feet deep?” said Professor Culpepper.
“Well over five hundred. They’ve gone as deep as twenty-five hundred with no issues that I know of.”
“Should do the trick then,” said Javernick admiring the sub’s glossy exterior shell as they walked around it. “And divers can exit the craft when it’s underwater?”
“Yes, it’s equipped with an airlock. Let me show you.” He motioned for the pair to follow as he climbed a portable stairway that led to a flat platform that was built into the watercraft’s aft end. “The cargo bay gives the crew a place to carry tools and equipment.”
“Perfect. That’s precisely what I need.”
“And it also provides an easy way to access the airlock.” He pulled down on a lever that opened the exterior hatch and motioned for them to follow as he entered the enclosed compartment. “Using the control panel, the diver fills the airlock with water before he exits, and on reentry, evacuates it before going back inside. The functions can also be controlled from the pilot’s dashboard.” He opened the interior hatch, and the trio went further inside.
“What’s the source of power?” said Professor Culpepper.
“Two diesel engines. Each one pushes a propellor. It has a top speed of about twenty-five knots, that’s fairly fast for a sub.”
“A fine example of American engineering and it will serve my needs well,” said Javernick. “Can I write you a check?”
“Certainly, Mr. Javernick.”
“There’s an issue to consider before you seal the deal, Clyde,” said the professor.
“And what would that be, Dewey?”
“Delivering it to the lake. How will you transport the sub to Nevada?”
“A good point. We could probably have a crane load the craft onto a flatbed railcar.”
“That gets it close. Then what? It’s too big to load on a truck.”
“A savvy question and exactly why I wanted you to come along today. Transporting the sub does present a problem. What would you suggest?”
“The only thing I can come up with is an airship. Suspend the submarine below the gondola and when it arrives at the lake, cut it loose.”
“Genius, Dewey. Pure genius. Do you have an airship company in mind?”
“There’s a commercial dirigible based in El Cerrito, the Disappointment. It’s big enough to do the job, a 950-foot monster of an aircraft, over three football fields long, and they’ve assisted in the installation of offshore oil derricks. It should certainly have enough displacement to lift the sub.”
“The Disappointment? That’s a curious name for an aircraft.”
“Yes, it’s an allusion to the airspeed. The engineer who designed it was disappointed when he realized the ship’s maximum velocity was less than twenty miles per hour. He thought it would travel faster.”
“Well, let’s hope I’m not too disappointed when I see the cost involved.”
“It won’t be cheap.”
“It seems like nothing is these days.”
A week later, Javernick and Professor Culpepper were back in Long Beach watching the immense Disappointment as it sailed in low over the shipyards. The airship had the classic shape of a German zeppelin and a female captain, Phyllis Reed. The pilot, Bentley Butts, slowed the craft, then brought it to a stop, though the props still rotated at low rpms to account for the onshore breeze, and the dirigible had a slight wobble as it hovered over them. The crew dropped eight steel cables from winching apparatus on the underside of the gondola, a fraction the size of the giant rigid balloon. The spectacle attracted a crowd of spectators including a news reporter who recognized Javernick and began shouting questions from outside the chain link fence. He smiled and waved but for the most part ignored him.
Soon the Disappointment was gaining altitude with Javernick’s brand-new submarine suspended beneath it. At a little under twenty miles per hour, it would take a full day to make it to Lake Mead. After dropping Professor Culpepper off in Woodland Hills, Javernick headed for Cajon Pass in the Cadillac. He wanted to take a few photos of the airship as it passed through the gap between the San Gabriels and the San Bernardino Range to the east.
He found a spot in a parking area near the top of the pass and carried a 35 mm camera equipped with a telephoto lens to the top of an overlook. He sat down on a large square shaped boulder to await the appearance of the Disappointment. He also carried a walkie talkie on his belt that he could use to communicate with Captain Reed when the airship was in range.
It was a sunny afternoon, and the overlook afforded a splendid view of the San Bernardino Valley and surrounding mountain peaks. A man and a woman sat on another copper-colored boulder on the hillside below him. After eavesdropping on their conversation for a few minutes, he discovered their names, Fred and Melody. He took an occasional belt from his hip flask and chuckled to himself as he listened to their birdbrained conversation.
Before long, the Disappointment appeared in the distance, making a beeline for the pass. Javernick was sure to get some good snapshots as the aircraft passed overhead, and he stood up and began taking photos.
“Look Melody, it’s the Goodyear Blimp comin’ straight for us,” said the man on the hillside below as the Disappointment closed in on the pass.
“I don’t think it’s the Goodyear Blimp, Fred.”
“How come?”
“Because it don’t say Goodyear on the side of it, that’s how come. I don’t think it’s a blimp neither. Looks more like one of those German zeppelins.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. What’s that thing hangin’ down below it?”
“Looks like some kind of bomb.”
“Damn, I think you’re right. Some kind of big ol’ torpedo bomb with propellors on it. And they’re headed straight for Victorville.”
“If the Germans are gettin’ ready to bomb Victorville, maybe we should call the Sheriff.”
“Sheriff? Hell, we better call the National Guard instead.”
Javernick thought he should straighten them out, before they conveyed any faulty information to the authorities. “Excuse me,” he called out.
“Excuse you?” said Fred, turning to look up the hillside and make eye contact with Javernick, a puzzled expression on his face.
“That’s not a bomb the airship is carrying.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s a submarine.”
“A submarine? Don’t look like no submarine to me,” said Melody. “Looks more like a bomb.”
“Who asked for your two cents anyway, mister?” said Fred.
Javernick left it at that, and after taking a few more photos, he walked back down to his car. Let the fools think the sub was a bomb. He didn’t have the patience to argue with half-wits and the inland empire seemed to be full of them. He climbed in the Cadillac, revved up the big V-16, and intentionally spun the wheels in the gravel on his way out of the parking area.
He topped off the gas tank in Barstow. The Mohave was a vast stretch of unpeopled, bone-dry desert—a bad place to run out of fuel. He took his time on the washboard dirt road that comprised that section of the Arrowhead Trail. Taking a break, he found shade under a corrugated tin roof at a picnic area because the airship needed a chance to catch up. He broke out a bottle of whiskey and used the time to study the Cadillac’s owner’s manual, something he’d never thought of doing before, but found it packed with useful information. Like how to change the tiny lightbulb that illuminated the ashtray at night. When he began to nod off from the boredom, he walked around the beat-up picnic table in circles to stay awake and then looked to the west, wondering why the airship was taking so long to catch up.
The Disappointment’s pilot, Bentley Butts, had the throttle wide-open, but countering the thermal updrafts in the open desert was slowing the airship down, even with all six of the 750 horsepower diesel engines draining the fuel reserves at an alarming rate. Each one powered its own 60-foot diameter propeller. The gondola had a bridge and crew’s quarters towards the front. The rest of it was cargo bays, most of them empty.
They were barely making fifteen knots and seemed to be almost standing still as they floated over the featureless desert landscape. Miles and miles of flat, tawny-colored dust with nothing but a couple of distant bare rock mountain ranges breaking up the monotony.
Finally, using a pair of binoculars, Javernick spotted the airship in the western sky. He turned on the walkie talkie, a brand-new invention. The first one had been developed in 1937. “I’m stopped at a picnic area and can see you approaching from the west. Can you hear me, Phyllis?”
Javernick’s radio transmission was broadcast through a large speaker mounted on the gondola’s interior wall. Captain Reed picked up a desk microphone to reply. “Yes, you’re coming in loud and clear. We’re not making the best time. There’s atmospheric turbulence from the afternoon thermals and it’s slowing the ship down.”
Javernick saw a squadron of military airplanes closing in on the airship. “I see a formation of planes now, flying towards you from the south.”
“I see them too. They look like P-51 Mustangs.”
“I have incoming communications, Captain Reed,” said the radioman, Rolly Quinn, lifting his headset to speak.
“Put it on the horn,” replied the captain.
Javernick could hear the call through the walkie talkie connection. “This is Lieutenant Tommy Swanson of the United States Army Air Force hailing dirigible airship approximately one hundred miles east of Barstow, California.” Swanson spoke in a thick Texas drawl. “Please identify yourselves.”
“Roger, Lieutenant Swanson. This is Phyllis Reed, captain of the Disappointment. We’re a commercial airship company based in El Cerrito.”
“Ten-four, captain. I can read the registration numbers on your tailfin now. We’re investigating a report from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office. Someone called them and said they observed a German airship carrying a bomb and it was headed straight for Victorville.”
“Oh, for the love of Christ!” exclaimed Javernick, realizing it was Fred and Melody. “Those insufferable morons!”
“What was that, Clyde?” said Reed.
“I think I know who filed the report.”
“Then please call the Sheriff’s office,” said Swanson through his patched in connection. “We have better things to do than investigate prank calls.”
“I’ll certainly do that,” said Javernick. “We appreciate your patience, Lieutenant.”
“All in a day’s work. Is that some type of watercraft you’re carrying?”
“Yes, it’s a submarine,” said Reed. “Non-military. It’s a scientific exploration craft.”
“Hokey-doke. Ya’ll have a good day now.”
□□□
It took the rest of the day and all of the following night for the Disappointment to make it to Lake Mead. Early the next morning, Javernick was still waiting on the airship’s arrival. He stood with Melvin on one of the docks outside the 47th floor entry to the new hotel.
“They should be coming up the canyon at any time.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing the new sub.”
“It’s a state-of-the-art watercraft, Melvin, perfect for installing the underwater landscaping. I bought three deep water diving outfits too.”
“You’ll leave it here when we’re done?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t have a use for a submarine out at the nut ranch.”
“It might come in handy if we have issues with the structures down the road.”
“Issues?” said Javernick. “What kind of issues are you referring too?”
“If a leak sprang up.”
“Let’s hope to god we don’t have any. The last thing we need is a leak.”
“I’m not anticipating any. We should be 100% waterproof.”
Roland was nearby, scanning the western sky with a pair of binoculars. “Here it comes, Clyde. Rounding the bend over the narrows.”
Javernick switched on his walkie talkie. “I can see you coming up the lake now, Phyllis.”
“Ten-four. Do you have a spot in mind for the sub?”
“Yup, when you get closer, look for the dock with the orange cones. We’ll be standing out there waiting.”
The new hotel was situated almost dead center in one of the widest parts of the lake, a couple of miles from the closest shoreline. Hoover Dam was 726 feet tall, and its completion had created an enormous reservoir.
The sky was cloudless, and a stiff breeze came up making low waves on the surface.
A runabout boat appeared, closing in on the docks. It was powered by an outboard motor, and it pulled up alongside where they were standing.
“Top of the morning to you there, Mack,” said the man behind the wheel. Another sat beside him in the passenger seat.
“Name’s not Mack. It’s Clyde Javernick. How’s the fishing there, boys?”
“Not bad.” He paused to light a cigarette. “But the reason why we stopped in is to ask you if you know what the story is with the airship.” He used his thumb to point behind him, towards the Disappointment. The airship was within a mile of the hotel and getting closer all the time.
On the airship bridge, Bentley Butts had the throttle pegged wide open. They’d been traveling at maximum rpms ever since they’d left Long Beach, and with the wind at their backs now, the ship was making nineteen knots.
“They’re delivering my new submarine.”
“Oh, so that’s what they’re carrying. We weren’t sure what it was. A submarine, eh? You’re planning on using it here in the lake?”
“Well, yeah. I’m sure as hell not planning on using it out in the desert.” Javernick looked towards Melvin and raised an eyebrow.
“So, you gettin’ ready to open up the new casino soon? We saw the sign.”
“Hard to miss,” said the passenger, gazing up at the gigantic sign with an expression of unease. Supported by two tall steel columns, it rose up from the roof, eight stories above the surface of the lake.
“We’re working on finishing it right now. It should be open within a few months.”
“So how did you get her to float?”
“Get what to float?”
“The casino building, Mack. It’s awful big. What’s keeping it from sinking?”
“What you’re looking at is the top eight stories of a 55-story hotel tower. The casino itself is on the bottom of the lake.”
“Do tell. Must of been a sonofabitch building her underwater.”
Once he learned how to pilot the submarine, Melvin was able to install the new landscaping to the satisfaction of Mr. Delroy who supervised the procedure from inside the casino glass. The deep-water diving suits were a bit ungainly, but Melvin and Roland learned how to use them without much trouble, though Maximino didn’t want to have anything to do with working underwater, and he stayed inside the sub.
The Hollywood set designer did an admirable job with the coral reef, fashioning the multi-colored parts from plastic and foam rubber. It was well illuminated in soft shades of yellow and green. Beyond the lights, the deep water was shrouded in darkness, so from inside the casino, the scene appeared to be an authentic tropical sea.
The finishing touch was the addition of electric marine life. Mechanical fish, sea turtles and octopuses that ran on batteries.
After ten years of work and a budget that topped fifteen million dollars, the Rioville Underwater Casino and Hotel was finally completed. The grand opening was scheduled for the second week of October in the fall of 1941.