It was the Tishomingo Lodge amp; Casino's celebrity host, Charlie Hoke, the ex-ballplayer, who got Dennis a place to stay, a room in a private home for a hundred a week. No meals, but he could cook if he cleaned up after.

"Vernice," Charlie said, "is on a diet and hardly cooks anymore, goddamn it." Vernice, a nicelooking redhead if a bit plump-which was okay with Dennis, he liked redheads-owned the house, a three-bedroom bungalow with a screened porch on School Street in Tunica, the school at one end, two bail bond offices at the other. Vernice was a waitress at Isle of Capri. Charlie Hoke was supposed to be her live-in boyfriend, but had his own room so Dennis couldn't tell how much time he spent with Vernice. They acted like they'd been married twenty-five years. After Dennis looked at his room and agreed to take it, Vernice said, "I never met a high diver before. Is it scary?" Dennis believed he could get next to Vernice without breaking Charlie's heart.

It was Charlie, also, who got Dennis a rigger.

This was a man by the name of Floyd Showers from Biloxi, a skinny guy in his fifties with a sunken mouth and skidrow ways about him. He always had a pint of Maker's Mark and cigarette butts in the pockets of the threadbare suitcoat he wore with his overalls, wore it even during the heat of day. Floyd had worked county fairs on the Gulf Coast and showed he knew how to stake down and tie off guy wires, adjusting the block and tackle to pull forty to sixty pounds of pressure. Charlie mentioned Floyd had done time on a burglary conviction, but said don't worry about it, Floyd wasn't apt to get in any trouble.