"I'11 give you two hundred a day for two weeks guaranteed and we'll see how it goes. I'll pay your rigger and the cost of setting up. How's that sound?"

Dennis dug into the pocket of his jeans for the

Kennedy half dollar he kept there and dropped it on the polished brick surface of the patio. Darwin looked down at it and Dennis said, "That's what the tank looks like from the top of an eighty-foot ladder." He told the rest of it, up to what you did to avoid the 40,000-gallon enema, and said, "How about three hundred a day for the two weeks' trial?"

Billy Darwin, finally raising his gaze from the half dollar shining in the sun, gave Dennis a nod and said, "Why not."

Nearly two months went by before Dennis got back and had his show set up.

He had to finish the gig in Florida. He had to take the ladder and tank apart, load all the equipment just right to fit in the truck. He had to stop off in Birmingham, Alabama, to pick up another eighteen hundred feet of soft wire. And when the goddamn truck broke down as he was getting on the Interstate, Dennis had to wait there over a week while they special-ordered parts and finally did the job. He said to Billy Darwin the last time he called him from the road, "You know it's major work when they have to pull the head off the engine."

Darwin didn't ask what was wrong with it. All he said was, "So the life of a daredevil isn't all cute girls and getting laid."

Sounding like a nice guy while putting you in your place, looking down at what you did for a living.

Dennis had never said anything about getting laid. What he should do, ask Billy Darwin if he'd like to climb the ladder. See if he had the nerve to look down from up there.

2

THE TANK, PAINTED A LIGHT BLUE with curvy white lines on it to look like waves-Billy Darwin 's idea but okay with Dennis-was in place out on the sweep of lawn. Dennis changed his mind about using that river water full of silt. He spoke to Darwin about it and Darwin got the Tunica Fire Department to fill the tank from a hydrant by the hotel, giving each of the firefighters a hundred-dollar chip they could play with or cash in. Dennis would bet they played and hoped they won.