Nearly 25 years ago, a between-gigs Richard Schuetz Jr. was offered refuge by confidante Bill Curran, a former Nevada Gaming Commission chair, via a vacant office in Curran’s law firm in Las Vegas. That’s where, eventually, Schuetz slid into composing a suicide note on a computer. At some stage, he informed Curran of his activities.

“Under most circumstances, a guy will say, ‘Well, let’s go have a drink.’ But he reached into his desk and took out the card of a psychiatrist down in Laguna Beach,” Schuetz said. “He said, ‘Get into your car and go see this guy right now!’

“I was in a down cycle.”