Fannie took a sip of her drink. Too much goddamn grenadine. She liked the Shirley dirty, not syrupy sweet. “Buster White is a prehistoric slab of whale shit,” she said. “You were right. He shouldn’t trust me. Any more than I trust him. Or you. Can we all just admit we’re each in this business for ourselves, only sticking together when it’s beneficial?”

“How’s your drink, Miss Hathcock?” the Chief asked, folding his massive arms over his chest.

“It tastes like Rainbow Brite took a squat in my glass,” she answered. “It makes my teeth ache.”

“I know who I am and what we do,” the Chief said. “I work for no one. I never have. But being nice, making friends, is never a bad thing in this state. You made nice with Ray and that got you a seat at the table.”

“I got my own fucking seat.”

“You played nice with Buster White and you got yourself a start-up strip club after running a chicken-choking business from double-wides.”

“I got my own fucking club,” she said. “The most profitable in the Mid-South.”

“Is that before or after Buster White’s money wash?”

“You know I control more than all the titties in north Mississippi,” Fannie said. “Ask Marquis Sledge up in Memphis if he gives a shit about Buster White. Besides, I never heard you complain about the way I ran my cooze.”

“Never was a problem, Fannie,” he said. “Until you up and decided you’d rather be chief. The girl you used nearly destroyed my life. My second wife left me. I nearly got voted out as chief. Dirty, dirty business.”

Fannie laughed, spilling a little of her drink, licking the wetness off the back of her hand, using the cocktail napkin to sop it up. She leaned back and crossed her legs, thinking what a big goddamn waste it was to wear a pair of hundred-dollar panties.

“I am a chief now. I don’t need Buster,” she said. “You don’t need him, either. But you still need me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ll be working our incoming governor like the joystick of a claw machine.”

Chief Robbie shook his head, not believing a word she was saying. “Go into business with you? Maybe with Ray. Ray was a very good man. Honorable.”

“Thank you.”

“The compliment was not intended for you,” Chief Robbie said. “You weren’t his wife. Or family.”

Fannie just smiled, the expression cold and frozen on her face, waiting for him to grow more curious. But he just sat there in the empty white room, the plastic drop cloths undulating, a blank look on his thick, heavy-browed face. The ceiling fans rocked and creaked overhead.

“White doesn’t run Vardaman,” she said. “Nobody runs Vardaman. Yet.”

“And how do you plan on doing it?”