Luke Brugnara Makes His Point

All the city's most bombastic commercial landlord wants is a San Francisco-themed casino in Las Vegas ... or absolute misery for anyone who gets in his way

Comments (0) By Jeremy Mullman Wednesday, Jan 30 2002

...continued from page 5

"What happened to that rack? Yeah. The head and the rack. ... The body's where it was, even the jawbone, but the rack and the head are missing. Has anyone been out here? What about Al? He hasn't been out here?"

After a few more minutes of grilling his brother-in-law, Brugnara is even more distraught. "He says it was probably an animal that did it, and I didn't see any footprints from trespassers," says Brugnara. "That really pisses me off."

Brandon Fernandez

Brugnara in front of his building at 351 California St.

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He isn't kidding. Even after a strenuous 90-minute hike through other portions of the property, Brugnara insists on returning to the creek bed to see whether the deer's neck was sawed or gnawed.

"Hopefully a hungry animal just ran off with it," he says with a shrug, noting that he would have "no problem with that" and somehow emphasizing the restraint he is exercising in not suing or otherwise punishing the offending coyote. He marches back to the carcass and crawls around the reeking animal, determining that the head was, in fact, removed by a scavenger attracted by the stench of putrefaction. Brugnara is standing inches from the carcass. "If you come down here you can smell the decomposing flesh," he says. "So I would venture to say perhaps, you know, a coyote. Because I don't see any footprints."

About a moment later, Brugnara turns and ... and spots an enormous rack of deer antlers sitting in a field, behind the creek bed, about 30 feet away. Like a giddy schoolgirl, he hops to the head, absolutely giggling with pleasure.

"Damn it, I'm good," he says, merrily swinging the deer head as he all but skips back toward his car. "You know what? I'm good.

"Damn it, I'm fucking good."