In the old town of Natchez there is a slice of land below a bluff, near the river, known as Under-the-Hill. It has a long and colorful history that begins with the earliest days of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi. It attracted all the characters-the merchants, traders, boat captains, speculators, and gamblers-headed to New Orleans.
Because money was changing hands, it also attracted ruffians, vagabonds, swindlers, bootleggers, gunrunners, whores, and every imaginable misfit from the underworld.
Natchez was rich with cotton, most of which was shipped and traded through its port, Under-the-Hill. Easy money created the need for bars, gambling dens, brothels, and flophouses. A young Mark Twain was a regular during his days as a steamboat pilot.
Then the Civil War killed river traffic. It also wiped out the fortunes in Natchez, and most of its nightlife. Under-the-Hill suffered a long period of decline.
In 1990, the Mississippi legislature approved a bill that allowed riverboat gambling, the idea being that a handful of fake paddle wheelers would churn up and down the river while their cargo of retirees played bingo and blackjack. Along the Mississippi River, businessmen rushed to establish these floating casinos. Remarkably, once the legislation was actually read and analyzed, it was discovered that the boats would not be required to physically leave the shore. Nor were they required to be equipped with any type of engine to propel them.
As long as they touched the river, or any of its chutes, sloughs, oxbow lakes, man-made canals, or backwaters, the structures qualified as riverboats under the legislation. Under-the-Hill made a brief comeback.
Unfortunately, upon further analysis, the legislation accidentally approved full-fledged Vegas-style casino gambling, and within a few years this roaring new industry had settled itself along the Gulf Coast and in Tunica County, near Memphis. Natchez and the other river towns missed the boom, but did manage to hang on to a few of their engineless, stationary casinos.
One such establishment was the Lucky Jack. There, at his favorite blackjack table with his favorite dealer, Clete Coley sat hunched over a stack of $25 chips and sipped a rum and soda. He was up $1,800 and it was time to quit. He watched the door, waiting on his appointment.
Coley was a member of the bar. He had a degree, a license, a name in the yellow pages, an office with the word 'Attorney' on the door, a secretary who answered the occasional phone call with an unenthusiastic 'Law Office,' and business cards with all the necessary data. But Clete Coley wasn't a real lawyer. He had few clients to speak of. He wouldn't draft a will, or a deed, or a contract, at gunpoint. He didn't hang around the courthouse, and he disliked most of the other lawyers in Natchez. Clete was simply a rogue, a big, loud, hard-drinking rogue of a lawyer who made more money at the casinos than he did at the office. He'd once dabbled in politics, and barely missed an indictment.
He'd dabbled in government contracts, and dodged another one. In his early years, after college, he'd done some pot smuggling, but abruptly abandoned that career when a partner was found dead. In fact, his conversion was so complete that he became an undercover narcotics officer. He went to law school at night and finally passed the bar exam on his fourth attempt.
He doubled-down on an eight and a three, drew a jack, and collected another $100.
His favorite cocktail waitress brought him another drink. No one spent as much time in the Lucky Jack as Mr. Coley. Anything for Mr. Coley. He watched the door, checked his watch, and kept gambling.
'You expecting someone?' asked Ivan, the dealer.
'Would I tell you?'
'Reckon not.'
The man he was expecting had also escaped a few indictments. They went back almost twenty years, though they were anything but friends. This would be their second meeting.
The first had gone well enough to lead to this one.
Ivan was showing fourteen when he drew a queen and went bust. Another $100 for Clete.
He had his rules. When he won $2,000 he quit, and when he lost $500 he quit. Anything between those limits and he would play and drink all night. The IRS would never know it, but he was up eighty grand for the year. Plus, all the rum was free.
He flipped two chips to Ivan and began the elaborate task of freeing his massive body from the elevated chair.
'Thanks, Mr. Coley,' Ivan said.
'Always a pleasure.' Clete stuffed the rest of the chips into the pockets of hislight brown suit. Always brown, always a suit, always with shiny Lucchese cowboy boots. At six feet four, he weighed at least 280, though no one knew for sure, but he was more thick than fat.
He lumbered away toward the bar, where his appointment had arrived. Marlin was taking a seat at a corner table, one with a view of the floor.
No greetings of any sort, no eye contact. Clete dropped into a chair and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. A waitress brought them drinks.
'I have the money,' Marlin said, finally.
'How much?'
'Same deal, Clete. Nothing's changed. We're just waiting on you to say yes or no.'
'And I'll ask you again. Who is 'we'?'
'It's not me. I'm an independent contractor, paid a fee for a job well done. I'm on no one's payroll. I've been hired to recruit you for the race, and if you say no, then I might be hired to recruit someone else.'
'Who's paying you?'
'That's confidential, Clete. I explained this a dozen times last week.'
'You did. Maybe I'm a little dense. Or maybe I'm just a little nervous. Perhaps Iwant answers. Otherwise, I'm not in.'
Based on their first meeting, Mariin was doubtful that Clete Coley would eventually say no to $100,000 in cash in unmarked bills. Mariin had virtually put it on the table. A hundred grand to get in the race and stir things up. Coley would make a beautiful candidate-loud, outrageous, colorful, able to say anything with no concern about the fallout. An anti-politician the press would follow like ants.
'Here's what I can tell you,' Mariin said, with a rare eyeball-to-eyeball glance at Clete. 'Fifteen years ago, in a county far away from here, a young man and his young family returned home from church one night. They didn't know it, but two black punks were in the house, a very nice house, and they were burglarizing the hell out of it. The punks were hopped up on crack, pistols in every pocket, nasty characters.
When the young family came home and surprised them, things got out of control. The girls got raped. Everybody got a bullet in the head, then the punks set the house on fire. Cops caught them the next day. Full confessions, DNA, the works. They'vebeen on death row at Parchman ever since. Turns out the young man's family has serious money. His father had a nervous breakdown, went insane, poor guy. But he's back and he's pissed. He's furious that the punks are still alive. He's livid that his beloved state never executes anybody. He hates the judicial system, and he especially hates the nine honorable members of the supreme court. He, Clete, is where the money is coming from.'
It was all a lie, but lying was a part of the job.
'I like that story,' Clete said, nodding.
'The money is peanuts to him. It's yours if you jump in the race and talk about nothing but the death penalty. Hell, it's a natural. The people here love the death penalty. We got polls that show almost 70 percent believe in it and more than that are upset because we don't use it enough in Mississippi.
You can blame it on the supreme court. It's a perfect issue.'
Clete was still nodding. For a week he'd thought of little else. It was indeed the perfect issue, and the court was the perfect target. A race would be a hell of a lot of fun.
'You mentioned a couple of groups,' he said, slugging his double rum.
'There are several, but two in particular. One is Victims Watching, a tough bunch who've lost loved ones and been chewed up by the system. They don't have a lot of members, but they are committed. Between me and you, Mr. X is also secretly funding this group. The other is the Law Enforcement Coalition, a very legitimate law-and- order group with some clout. Both of these will jump on board.'
Clete was nodding, grinning, watching a cocktail waitress glide by with a tray loaded with drinks. 'Such
