LITMIR.BIZ

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candid answer surprises me. “I thought that was a big secret.”

      He sips judiciously from his Scotch. “To some people it is. But unlike your mother and her sister, you know how to keep a secret.”

      I feel my cheeks flush. My status as my grandfather’s favorite has always been more of a burden than a blessing, and it frequently causes jealousy in my mother and aunt.

      “I want to show you something, Catherine. Something no one else has seen outside Atlanta.”

      He stands and goes to a large gun safe built into the wall, which he unlocks with precise twirls of the combination lock. I feel a great urgency to get to New Orleans, but if I want to find out anything about the night my father died, I’ll have to humor my grandfather for a few minutes. Grandpapa Kirkland doesn’t hand out anything for free, especially information. He’s a quid pro quo man. This for that, I recite, mentally translating the Latin he insisted I study in school.

      As he works at something in the safe, I recall what Michael Wells said about how strong Grandpapa seems. Most men age first in their shoulders and chests, their muscle mass waning as their middles thicken, the bones slowly becoming brittle like those of their wives. But my grandfather has somehow retained the shape of men twenty-five years his junior. He’s a member of that rare brotherhood that seems to age at half the rate of mortal men—epic figures like Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster.

      Instead of the priceless antique or musket I expect him to bring out of the gun safe, he produces a large architectural model. It looks like a hotel, with two grand wings framing a central section done in the Greek Revival style so common to the antebellum homes of Natchez.

      “What’s that?” I ask, as he carries the model to a poker table in the corner.

      “Maison DeSalle,” he says with pride.

      “Maison DeSalle?” That’s the name of my mother’s interior design business. I walk over to the table. “That looks way too big to be a new building for Mom’s store.”

      He chuckles with rich amusement. “You’re right. I just liked the name. This Maison DeSalle is a hotel and casino complex. A resort.”

      “Why are we looking at it?”

      Grandpapa sweeps his arm over the model like a railroad baron taking in a map of the continent. “Sixteen months from now, this will be standing in downtown Natchez, overlooking the Mississippi River.”

      I blink in disbelief. By law, every Mississippi casino—even the Vegas-style palaces on the Gulf Coast—has to be built on some kind of floating platform. Natchez has its own riverboat casino permanently docked at the bottom of Silver Street. “How can that be? Doesn’t state law restrict gambling to casinos on water?”

      He smiles slyly. Michael Wells was right: my grandfather knows something no one else does. “There’s a loophole in the law.”

      “Which is …?”

      “Indian gaming licenses.”

      “You mean reservation gaming, like in Louisiana?”

      “Louisiana and about twenty other states. We have one in Mississippi already, up at Philadelphia. Silver Star, it’s called.”

      “But there’s no reservation in Natchez.”

      Grandpapa’s smile becomes triumphant. “There soon will be.”

      “But we don’t have any Native Americans here.”

      “Who do you think gave this town its name, Catherine?”

      “The Natchez Indians,” I snap. “But they were massacred by the French in 1730. Slaughtered down to the last infant.”

      “Not true, my dear. Some escaped.” He runs his long fingers along the roof of one of the model’s wings, then caresses the casino’s central section. “I’ve spent the last four years tracking down their descendants and paying for DNA tests to prove their lineage. I think it would interest you. We’re using three-hundred-year-old teeth to get the baseline DNA.”

      I’m too stunned to speak.

      “Impressed?” he asks.

      I shake my head in bewilderment. “Where did the survivors escape to?”

      “Some vanished into the Louisiana swamps. Others went north to Arkansas. Some got as far as Florida. A few were sold into slavery in Haiti. The survivors mostly assimilated into other Indian tribes, but that doesn’t affect my venture. If the federal government certifies their descendants as an authentic Indian nation, every law that applies to the Cherokee or the Apache will apply to the descendants of the Natchez.”

      “How many of these people are there?”

      “Eleven.”

      “Eleven? Is that enough?”

      He taps the model with finality. “Absolutely. Tribes have been certified with fewer members than that. You see, the fact that there are so few left isn’t the Indians’ fault. It’s the government’s.”

      “The French government, in this case,” I say drily. “And by the way, they’re called Native Americans now.”

      He snorts. “I don’t care what they call themselves. But I know what they mean to this town. Salvation.”

      “That’s why you’re doing this? To save the town?”

      “You know me well, Catherine. I’ll grant you, the cash flow from this operation could run twenty million a month. But no matter what you may think, that’s not my reason for doing this.”

      I don’t want to listen to one of my grandfather’s righteous rationalizations for his ambition. “Twenty million a month? Where will the people come from? The gamblers, I mean. The nearest commercial airport is ninety miles away, and we still have no four-lane highway from it.”

      “I’m buying the local airport.”

      “What?”

      He laughs. “Privatizing it, actually. I’ve already got a charter airline committed to coming here.”

      “Why would the county let you do that?”

      “I’ve promised to bring in ongoing commercial service.”

      “It’s like Field of Dreams, isn’t it? You believe that if you build it, they will come.”

      He fixes me with a pragmatist’s glare. “Yes, but this isn’t a dream of foolish sentimentality. People want glamour and stars, and I’ll give them that. The high rollers will fly into the cotton capital of the Old South on a Learjet and live Gone With the Wind for three days at a time. But that’s all window dressing. What they really come for is the age-old dream of getting something for nothing. Of walking in paupers and walking out kings.”

      “That’s an empty dream. Because the house always wins in the end.”

      Now his smile shows pure satisfaction. “You’re right. And this time we’re the house, my dear. But unlike that abomination floating under the bluff, which fleeces local citizens of their Social Security checks and sends the profits directly to Las Vegas, Maison DeSalle will keep its profits right here in Natchez. I’m going to rebuild the infrastructure of this town. A state-of-the-art industrial park will be first. Then—”

      “What about the Indians?” I ask bluntly.

      The cool blue eyes lock onto mine, silently chastising me. Grandpapa has grown unused to interruptions in my absence. “I thought you said they were Native Americans now.”

      “I thought you might answer my question.”

      “Those eleven Indians will become some of the richest people in Mississippi. Naturally, I’ll receive fair compensation for spearheading the venture and laying out the initial capital.”

      I

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