The high-rise tower and bar at the Choctaw casino had always reminded Fannie of an enormous pecker. The long, cylindrical luxury wing with golden windows was topped with a large, bulbous rotating lounge that had to have come from some pretty unsophisticated minds, some on the Rez saying it was a monument to Chief Robbie’s true skill set. Fannie figured that was about right. He didn’t have much upstairs, so God would’ve had to have blessed him in more obvious ways. She looked up at the tower in the casino parking lot and crushed her cigarillo under her new Sergio Rossi suede boots and headed toward the grand entrance, the inner workings of the casino familiar as hell from the old days, the beeping, whirring, and mind-numbing bullshit of it all.

The Chief knew to expect her, told her to come straight to the floor and he’d come down and meet her at the bar. The casino floor looked a little shopworn from when she’d been working down here. Back then, the casino had just opened, with fresh paint and carpet, every bit of it new to the touch. Now it looked like the interior of an old Chevy truck about to be traded in by its redneck owner. The floor was threadbare and worn out, the baseboards scuffed and dirty, brass railings needing a good polishing. She looked around at the hundreds of slot machines, blackjack tables, and roulette wheels. The games all worked by folks from the tribe, that being Chief Robbie’s big claim to fame for his people. He brought the money back to Mississippi. Or at least that’s what his press agent said.

Fannie had gone all out for the meeting. Not only the Rossi boots but a Burberry long-sleeved silk dress hitting her about mid-thigh. She’d dabbed a little Chanel Gardenia between her tits and put on her finest pair of black lace panties in case she had the opportunity to uncross her legs in the right company. The Chief had tried for the jackpot before but never gotten it. When she’d worked the girls at the Rez, she hadn’t been a bit turned on by a grown man who spent his leisure time wrestling alligators.

“You’re a very bold woman,” Chief Robbie said.

Fannie turned around. Chief Robbie himself, live and in person, standing there in his Canadian tuxedo of denim on denim with a large chunk of turquoise around his neck and on his wrists. His long black hair combed straight back off his flat Native face and tied into a ponytail. The man’s shirt must’ve had five pearl buttons undone to make the point he still pumped a little iron. He looked like Engelbert Humperdinck had fucked the hell out of Pocahontas. The real one, with the hatchet face, not the hot Disney chick with the long legs and nice tatas.