Dennis stood looking up at the top perch again. 'You think he can get down?' 'He went up there like a monkey.'
'Coming down,' Dennis said, 'isn't the same as going up.'
Not more than a few minutes later Dennis was watching Billy Darwin start down: careful at first, both feet on the same rung before taking the next step, descending a whole section of the ladder this way. But then he seemed to have the feel of it and the goddamn wavy-haired show-off was coming down one rung after another, his hands sliding down the outer sides of the ladder. Dennis waited for him to come over.
'You made it.'
'I had to see what it was like,' Billy Darwin said. 'A great view of the river, all the bends in it. But you know, I think the tank looks bigger than a half dollar. More like a teacup.'
'You have to see it at night,' Dennis said, 'after somebody climbs up there one-handed carrying spotlights.'
The son of a bitch said, 'Oh? I thought you'd use a hoist. What do you call it? That thing you hauled up the ladder sections with-a gin pole?'
By two o'clock Dennis had counted thirty-eight people gathered on the lawn, some with plastic chairs they'd brought from home. These would be local residents, Dennis believed, though they didn't look much different from the hotel guests who wandered out. He spotted Robert Taylor and Billy Darwin standing together, a couple of dudes in sporty summer apparel.
Vernice was supposed to be here-see for the first time what high diving was all about-but she was home studying the script for tonight. Charlie Hoke would call the dives. He'd stand on the plywood deck below the three- meter board, no mike, he'd announce through a bullhorn he used to attract contestants to his pitching cage. Dennis said that each time he came out of the water he'd tell him what the next dive would be and Charlie would announce it. 'Be sure to tell them,' Dennis said, 'this will be my first performance in over a month and it's only a warm-up for the show at nine-fifteen tonight. You'll have to ad-lib, too, use some of the information that's on the poster. `From the Cliffs of Acapulco,'
Charlie introduced Dennis and he opened with a flying one and a half somersault from the forty-foot perch to get the crowd's attention.
'Remember,' Charlie told all the faces looking up at him, 'Dennis is only warming up, keeping his best stuff for the big show tonight.'
Dennis did a triple somersault from the threemeter board, and Charlie said, 'I can tell you personally, having pitched eighteen years in organized baseball, that you better take enough time to warm up before you go in there to face some of the sluggers I've pitched to. Wasn't that a beauty? A triple somersault. Come on, let Dennis hear it.'
Dennis did a back one and a half pike from the forty-foot perch. 'That was a back dive with a flip,' Charlie said. 'I knew I was in shape the times I faced legendary hitters like Don Mattingly, Mike Schmidt, and was fortunate enough on occasion to put 'em down swinging. Let's hear it, folks, for world champion Dennis Lenahan.'
Dennis came up to him pushing his hair back. 'Whose show is this, yours or fuckin mine? I'm going off the top.'
Charlie said, 'And now world champion Dennis Lenahan, a man with a lot of character, folks, is going for the fence with a flying backward reverse pike from the top of that eighty-foot ladder. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you want, you could say a little prayer for Dennis, going off from a perch that's higher'n the cliffs of Acapulco, where he dove one time and broke his nose. And please hold your applause till we see Dennis come out of the tank in one piece.'
Charlie said, after, 'How was l?'
Robert said, 'They love you, man.'
Billy Darwin said, 'That's the show?'
Dennis said, 'You might've caught from the commentary it was a warm-up.'
Billy Darwin had his assistant, Carla, with him, Carla a knockout, tan, dark hair, Carla in a slim brown sundress. He said to her, 'What do you think?'
Carla said, 'It was cool,' looking at Dennis.
Billy Darwin said, 'Okay,' and they left.
Robert said, 'Time to go see Massa Kirkbride.'
7
THE BLACK MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH was hanging naked less than ten feet above the river. Lining the rail of the bridge above him were fifty-six people. Dennis counted them-more than he got for his diving exhibition-women in sun hats, children, men in overalls and felt hats, one man in a dark suit of clothes with his arm raised, holding on to a support strut, his other hand in his pocket. The banks of the river were thick with old trees and scrub, the water motionless. The tone of the photograph had turned sepia and there were a few cracks. Handprinted across the bottom were the words HE MOLESTED A WHITE WOMAN-TIPPAH COUNTY, MISS- 1915
It was lying on the seat when Dennis got in the car and he studied the eight-by-ten all the way to Old 61, where Robert made the turn south toward Tunica. Blues came out of the speakers turned low, 'Background music for the picture,' Robert said. 'Robert Johnson doing `I Believe I'll Dust My Broom' first, and now Elmore James dusting his broom, a heavier beat working, electrified, Elmore riding on Robert Johnson's back, plugs in the Broom and has a hit. Then you gonna hear Jimmy Reed riding on Elmore's back to get where he got. It's how you do it. Later on we'll catch Sonny Boy Williamson II, and the poet of the blues, Willie Dixon.'
'There little children in the picture,' Dennis said.
'A bunch of 'em. Couple of dogs, too, wondering what the fuck everybody's doing out on the bridge.'
Dennis held up the photo. 'Where should I put it?”
'In my case, on the backseat.'
Dennis reached around for it, laid the darkbrown attache case on his lap and snapped it open. The black checkered butt of a pistol showed beneath a file folder.
'You're not gonna shoot him, are you?'
Robert glanced over. 'Nooo, we gonna talk is all.'
'What is it?'
'Walther PPK, the kind James Bond packs. No, it's just-you know, in case. Like I find myself in the kind of situation you find yourself in.'
They turned into Southern Living Village to Sonny Boy doing 'Don't Start Me Talking' past a billboard that showed what the village would look like finished: one-story homes with peaked roofs on winding streets lined with trees, that didn't look much at all like the models they came to on bare plots of ground. Dennis said, 'They're like regular houses.'
'Sonny Boy's gonna tell everything he knows. Yeah, once they get the garages and shit added on. Bring 'em here in big pieces and nail 'em together. See up ahead, the transit mixer? Pouring a slab, what the houses sit on.'
Signs in front of the models they passed identified the VICKSBURG, the BILOXI, the GREENVILLE. 'The Yazoo,' Robert said. 'That's my dream, live in a house called the Yazoo.'
The big manufactured log cabin with no name turned out to be the office of American Dream, Inc., Kirkbride's manufacturing company. They angle-parked in front.
Walter Kirkbride stood by his desk wearing a Confederate officer's coat, gold buttons, gold braid on the collar, over a pair of khakis. They took him by surprise coming in unannounced-no one in the front display room-but within a moment the man was in charge.
'I hope you boys have come to sign up.' A Confederate battle flag filled the wall behind him. 'You want a job, you got it. You want to buy a house, take your pick. Ah, but if you came in here to join Kirkbride's Brigade your
