“Daddy, of course,” she said. “Wes Taggart humped me like a mangy damn dog first night we met. Took me back to the VIP room at Vienna’s Place in Jericho and got five damn lap dances in a row. Had the DJ play nothin’ but some old band called Def Leppard. You know, ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me,’ ‘Pyromania,’ all that shit? And then didn’t pay me a dime. Said what was between me and him was personal. Wish I’d known what the arrangement was before I started shifting his gears.”

“Next time get paid up front,” Lillie said. “Don’t be anyone’s punch.”

“Why are you so damn hard, Miss Virgil?” she said.

“You know what?” Lillie said. “I never gave it a second thought.”

“You drive like damn Dale Junior and keep a loaded Winchester twelve-gauge in your trunk,” she said. “I seen it when you loaded up our bags up in Memphis. You’re taller than my daddy and most boys I know, got an ass like an NFL linebacker, don’t talk much except for when you’re cussin’ or telling folks what to do. You don’t back up for no man, do you?”

“That’s enough, Sister Twilight,” Lillie said. “My big ass is full of smoke. And I think I can take it from here.”

“Money?”

“In the dash,” she said.

Twilight looked kind of sheepish about it until Lillie nodded to the glovebox and she opened it to find a fat envelope inside stuffed with cash. “Can I at least stick around and see how it goes down?”

“Only if you shut your damn mouth,” Lillie said. “And promise to stay the hell out of the way.”

*   *   *

Senator Jimmy Vardaman arrived at the Neshoba County Fair that morning triumphant as hell after beating the establishment favorite two-to-one in the primary runoff in June. His long silver hair was slicked tight to his skull, and he’d dressed for success in khakis and a blue-and-white gingham shirt rolled to the elbows. A real man of the people, with a big toothy grin and a bright gold watch. It was a warm and muggy morning, Vardaman up on the dais as his supporters sat in church pews laid out underneath the Founders Square tin-roofed pavilion. He announced he sure was ready to dig deep into the muck in Jackson and serve the working folk of Mississippi. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Just the mention of the working man sent a sea of red bandannas swirling in the crowd, his symbol, worn around the necks of his supporters. Sweat spread under his arms and across his chest as he spoke like an old-time preacher. His face was flushed with sun and heat as if he worked outdoors, not hanging out at the Country Club of Jackson.