Cadillac. "There were a lot of places that were run down and others that were struggling to keep their heads above water," Assael says. "Sonny was a fixture in a lot of these places. His routine largely involved drinking and, as I discovered, dealing some cocaine out of a casino and also getting involved in heroin. This double life begins to weigh on him."

Liston was associating with some of the city's darkest characters. "There was a drug raid on the home of a beautician named Earl Cage who was also dealing drugs," Assael says. "Sonny was there, and when the police raided it [they] thought they were going to have to shoot him because he wasn't backing off."

The boxer once ran into an old acquaintance, Moe Dalitz, oneof the most powerful mob figures in the city. "As a joke, Liston made a fist at Dalitz and cocked it," writes David Remnick in his book King of the World. "Dalitz turned to Liston and said: 'If you hit me, you'd better kill me, because if you don't, I'll make one telephone call and you'll be dead in 24 hours.'" Perhaps it was a premonition. Before long, Liston would be dead and the shadow of the mob would loom large over his corpse.

"He was moving in dangerous circles, even without organised crime," says Michael Green, a professor of history who has studied Nevada and the mob extensively. "He appears to have had involvement with drugs and if you're involved with drugs, then you're dealing possibly with the