Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

There’s no denying the light glowing softly through the curtain in the upper room across the way. But if Caitlin has returned to Natchez, she’s most likely come back in some connection with the Balloon Festival. Still, something else might have influenced her unexpected appearance, and it’s worth considering. Ten days ago I ended my relationship with Libby Jensen, after seeing her for nearly a year. Was ten days sufficient time for that news to reach North Carolina? Of course. One e-mail from a gossipy Examiner employee would have done it, and a text message would be even faster. If Caitlin has returned, her timing is certainly suggestive.

The casino file has grown damp under my shirt by the time I climb the porch and reach for my front door. Before my hand touches the knob, the door squeaks open, startling me, and the tenth-grade honor student who babysits Annie speaks uncertainly through the crack.

“Mr. Cage? Is everything okay?”

Because of my experiences with Mia Burke, the senior who used to sit for Annie, I no longer allow babysitters to use my first name. “Everything’s fine, Carla. What about here?”

She pulls back the door, revealing her blue-and-white jumper and eyes red from sleep or studying. “Yeah. I was kind of scared, though. I heard the car stop, but then you didn't come in…”

I smile reassuringly and follow her inside, keeping the file pressed inside my shirt with my left hand while I dig for my wallet with my right. Having no idea how long I’'ve been gone, I pull a couple of twenties and a ten from my billfold and give Carla permission to go with a wave.

“Annie did all her homework,” she says, slinging a heavy backpack over her slight shoulder. “Paper’s written.”

“Did she do a good job?”

“Honestly?” Carla laughs. “That girl knows words I don'’t know. I’d say she’s about one year behind me, gradewise.”

“I feel the same way sometimes. Thanks again. What about this weekend?”

Carla’s smile vanishes. “Um…maybe some late at night, if you need me. But I'm going to be at the balloon races most of the time. They have some decent bands this year.”

“Okay. Any time you can spare, I'’ll pay you extra. This weekend is crazy for me.”

She smiles in a way that doesn’'t give me much hope.

After closing the door behind Carla, I pour a tall iced tea from the pitcher in the kitchen fridge, carry it to the leather wing chair in my library, and spread the file open on the ottoman.

Golden Parachute Gaming Corporation pitched itself to the city as the Southwest Airlines of the casino industry. Capitalized by a small, feisty group of partners led by a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, the company evolved a strategy of moving into secondary gaming markets and undercutting the competition’s prices in every way possible, while simultaneously providing personable and personalized service, even to its less moneyed patrons. They run a phenomenally efficient operation, but what’s opened many stubborn doors for them is their practice of forming development partnerships with the communities they move into, building parks, ball fields, community centers, and even investing in the development of industrial parks in some cities. Small town officials eat this up, and Natchez was no exception.

More than anything, though, Golden Parachute’s success in penetrating our market came down to timing. They applied for their gaming license in the aftermath of Toyota’s disastrous decision to build a new plant in Tupelo versus Natchez. Citizens were bitter about the lost jobs and ready to climb into bed with someone else—almost anybody else—on the rebound. Golden Parachute already had successful casinos up and running in Tunica County, near Memphis, and Vicksburg, just sixty miles north of Natchez. With that track record, they had no trouble getting local heavyweights to lobby the state gaming commission to grant a fourth license for Natchez.

Bringing another casino boat to town had not been one of my goals when I ran for mayor. (In truth, none of the floating casinos are navigable vessels; they are barges built to look like paddle wheelers from the era of Mark Twain, but at five times historical scale.) My platform was reforming education and revitalizing local industry. But after considerable persuasion by the board of selectmen, I agreed to help close the casino deal. My reasons were complex: exhaustion in wake of the Toyota failure; a savior complex running on adrenaline after the depletion of my initial inspiration; disillusionment with my colleagues in government and with many of the citizens I was supposed to be serving. I was also frustrated that the board of selectmen were often divided along racial lines: four black votes and four white, with me the deciding factor. I voted my conscience every time, but few people saw it that way, and with every vote, I lost more allies on one side or the other. The only thing the board could agree on was any proposition that could bring money or jobs to their constituencies. And so…Golden Parachute found a receptive audience for its sales pitch.

The problem, as it so often is with casinos, was site approval. Golden Parachute wanted to moor the Magnolia Queen on riverfront property donated to the city by a prominent Natchez family—the Pierces—by means of a complicated trust. One stipulation of

that trust was that Pierce’s Landing never be developed as a casino or shopping mall while the matriarch of the family remained alive. Inconveniently for the selectmen, Mrs. Pierce had lived to the ripe old age of ninety-eight, and she was still, as the saying goes, as sharp as a tack. That tack lay directly in the path of the inflated giant that was the Golden Parachute deal.

My first instinct was to try to persuade the company to find another property, but the company wouldn'’t budge. Golden Parachute wanted the Pierce land, which was not only the last suitable river property within the city limits, but also the finest, barring the Silver Street spot taken by Lady Luck, the first riverboat casino in the state. Predictably, Golden Parachute began making noises about scrapping its plan to come to Natchez, and just as predictably the selectmen went into panic mode. I heard whispers about the new eminent-domain law, which allowed the government to seize private land for commercial development. I viewed this as one of the most anti-American laws ever put on the books, but my fellow officials did not share my feelings. Only Selectman Paul Labry stood with me in resisting this Stalinist move. Desperate to prevent the use of this tactic, Labry and I quietly went into action.

First we met with one of the Pierce heirs, who’d graduated several years ahead of me at St. Stephen’s. He got us a copy of the actual document governing the trust, which few people had seen, outside the preservationists who’d helped to write it, and the former mayor, who’d died of lung cancer shortly after leaving office. To my surprise, I discovered that Mrs. Pierce possessed the authority to unilaterally revoke the clause preventing casino development. Disturbed by the board’s increasing clamor to seize the land in question, I requested an audience with the grand old dame of Pierce’s Landing.

I met the distinguished lady in a conference room at Twelve Oaks Gardens, an assisted-living facility on the outskirts of town. As the granddaughter of an officer who had served under General J. E. B. Stuart at Gettysburg, Mrs. Pierce presided over an entire wing of the facility like a dowager empress. Her children had offered to take her in, but they had all settled in other states, and Mrs. Pierce preferred to remain in the city she’d lived in all her life, and to “be around people” rather than to live in her mansion with round-the-clock nurses (or “watchers,” as she called them, as in “They’re here to watch me