So in the last twenty-four hours that’s what she’d become. She studied pictures of their dead little girl. She combed her platinum hair over one eye like the girl did, bought a wooly, early ‘eighties sweater, and even found some of those Madonna rubber bracelets at a vintage clothing shop in midtown Memphis.

Last night, she just sat there in the casino bar and studied that poor old child trapped in a real silly time.

Girl’s name was Gina.

Gina. Gina. Bobeeena. Mofanna-fanna. Momeena.

“Can I get you another hotdog, Mr. Fisher?” Perfect asked.

“No, Miss Leigh,” he said, rearranging the cards like an idiot. She saw everything he had. But she’d let him win. Again. “I appreciate it though. My Lord, look how much I got. Must be two hundred dollars here.”

“Be a lot more if you take the offer,” she said. Real sweet. Not hard or hustly. But the way she imagined Gina would say it. Please, her words whispered, please accept your future.

“Ma’am,” he spoke, real indignant as if he’d just had a cattle prod inserted into his rectum. “We bought that land in ‘sixty-two and don’t see no good reason for leavin’ now.”

Perfect – in full Gina mode now – smiled. Real tight smile with her eyes crinkled up but not showing a bit of teeth. Maybe even showed a bit of broken heart in her failed mission.

“Well, if you folks ever reconsider,” she said, “we’d appreciate it.”

Her smile dipped into her glass of wine tasting their souls and their fears and desires. By morning’s end, she’d own them. They’d already opened too much. And they were hers.

S he didn’t have them bent until 7:00 A.M.. the next day over a breakfast in the casino’s Mardis Gras Time! restaurant. Some dummy in a red-and-white-striped vest played some New Orleans music on a Casio keyboard while a bunch of tired old people mashed soupy grits and butterless eggs into their dry mouths.