Khan by Mike Baron

Author:Mike Baron [Baron, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781639779093
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2022-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY

SOUTH POINT

Josh rode to the Dane County Airport and parked in the garage. He strapped on a mask and went inside. At this hour, the airport was moribund. Southwest had a non-stop leaving at ten. Putting his shoes, wallet, cell phone, belt, and keys in a plastic bin, he passed through security. “No luggage?” an agent asked.

“No sir.”

“Wait here one minute.” Josh stood by the kiosk as the TSA agent looked him up on his computer. “Okay, I’m going to pat you down. I’m going to feel up your butt cheeks with the back of my hand and around your waist.”

“Go ahead.”

The agent pulled on blue nitrile gloves and did his thing. “Okay, you’re free to go.” The plane was boarding as he reached the gate. Josh snagged an aisle seat near the back. He slept most of the way. The flight to Vegas was two hours, but due to the time zone change, Josh landed at eleven and took an Uber directly to the South Point. Josh grabbed a blue face mask from a box near the main entrance. You could never have too many. Ahead and on both sides spread the epilepsy-inducing casino, clanging, flashing, buzzing. In his biker jeans and boots, tatted arms descending from his sleeveless sweatshirt, Josh fit right in. A banner to his right declared, “THIRD ANNUAL LAS VEGAS SPORTS MEMORABILIA AND COLLECTIBLES.” Standing, because there were no chairs, he downloaded a Mac Jones Panini and a Tom Brady Bowman chrome.

He got a room on the eleventh floor, showing his driver’s license and paying cash.

He studied a map near the front desk and located the poker room to his left, next to the Grandview Lounge. Stopping at a booth to purchase five hundred dollars’ worth of chips, Josh walked through the aisles of slot machines where grizzled military veterans, morbidly obese cigarette smokers, and coke-blitzed kids compulsively pulled the lever, like pigeons trained to peck a button in exchange for a kernel of corn. Josh sat at the Grandview bar and watched Wes Winters regale the blue hairs with “What’s New Pussycat.”

Josh had a shot of Jack and a beer chaser. Following years of hard drinking, that was his limit, and had hardly any effect on him. He sauntered to the poker room and looked around. At one o’clock in the morning, the joint was jumping, with every table busy. Texas Hold ‘Em was inside a no limit corral on a raised dais. There were five circular tables. It took Josh five seconds to locate Capadona, seated next to an Asian man in a tuxedo. Capadona had aged well, with a smooth roundish face topped with close-cropped curly hair dyed black. He wore a blue sharkskin suit, a blindingly white shirt open at the collar to reveal several gold chains.

There were five players at Capadona’s table, the dealer a young Latina in a blue vest with a bolo tie. As he approached, a middle-aged man with a bad comb-over threw his cards down, picked up his chips and stood.

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