DARK TRADE He Was Slipping out of Control
1 THE BADDEST MAN JUNE 1991 While the sun burned high in a blue desert sky I waited for him. The heat had emptied the streets, turning Vegas ghostly in the early afternoon sunshine. I’d reached the bare edge of town, miles beyond the Strip, far from the clank and reek of money churning in the casinos and topless bars along Glitter Gulch. “Watch yourself round these parts, bub, watch yourself,” Maxie, my morose pal from the Yellow Checker Star Cab Company, had muttered when he left me standing on that stretch of wasteland—empty but for a blue and yellow tin building someone once had the wit to dub “The Golden Gloves.” But I felt strangely serene as I rocked back on a step outside the gym. I knew he was near but also that there would be time enough to fret, to think of him as “The Baddest Man on the Planet.” Those were his words, and he loved the sound of them. The fight surroundings were as grimy as his hotel, The Mirage, was ornate with its deluxe suites, Lanai bungalows, white-tiger enclosure, and exploding fountains of fire. There was no such grand style here as the sun grilled down, slowly melting the cheesy tar beneath my feet. Mike Tyson was an hour late, but who would expect punctuality from a man tagged “the biggest thug in America”? Another ten minutes passed. I felt a prickle of uncertainty. It was still three weeks before the rape, and yet all year the papers had predicted that 22 DARK TRADE he was slipping out of control.
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