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mood considerably. “You’ll need to buy some new clothes with some of that. As I said, Killian is a clotheshorse and he expects his people to dress professionally. That money should also be plenty to front a plane ticket. Fly into somewhere other than Biloxi, New Orleans perhaps, and rent a car. You can use any of your current identities for those operations.”
    There were many more details and we spoke into dusk. I invited him for a walleye dinner at Wilma’s Welcome Inn, but he passed. He had a long drive home ahead of him.
    We shook hands just outside my front door and he was smiling as he walked briskly to the Lincoln. Behind the wheel, Roger gave me a nod. I didn’t return it.
    I had a trip ahead of me, too.
    I was fine with that—even if it was an unusual job that took me out of my element and meant I had to deal with people, which I didn’t love. But fifty grand was fifty grand. So heading South was no big deal.
    As long as the job didn’t go south.

THREE
    After getting in at New Orleans’ Moisant Field around two, I rented a cobalt-blue Chevelle SS, signing on for a week but guessing I’d need it longer. The brunette Southern belle at the Avis counter wore a jaunty company cap and sported an accent thicker than a bowl of grits. She understood Yankee fluently, however, and helped me out with several maps.
    The drive to Biloxi on U.S. Highway 90 should take maybe an hour and a half, I figured. I could go by way of the new Interstate 10, but the Broker had recommended “the parallel scenic view,” which provided the benefit of taking me directly to the Biloxi Strip.
    In a burgundy t-shirt and lightweight jeans, I’d braced myself for heat and humidity only to be greeted by a balmy seventy-five. I had a hunch this might be the last nice surprise of my trip. Barely out of the city, I stopped at a funky Cajun joint and chowed down on a plate of crawfish etouffee with a side of red beans and rice—I don’t eat on airplanes. Not that damn reckless.
    Heading east, I left the windows down, and not just because I was farting—a Gulf breeze was whipping up a heady concoction of magnolias, wild grass and brine. You just knew you were somewhere else. The Chevelle performed fine, or anyway it did after I found a rock station—every radio pre-set was country western. You’d at least think there’d be some fucking Zydeco.
    The countryside was lush and green and kudzu-heavy, when I wasn’t cruising through little towns where the major industry seemed to be poverty; new leaves reflected sunlight even as they provided a near tunnel of shade. Gulfport, of course, was no hamlet, offering up sandy-white beaches, fishing fleets, and white-columned antebellum mansions; and Biloxi itself had its share of the latter, too, with grounds arrayed with Spanish-moss-bearded oaks. But then I came upon a startling slice of surrealism: a dusty-looking Air Force jet on a pylon perched on the highway median like the discarded toy of a giant’s spoiled child.
    Military boosterism, and a dewy-eyed respect for the Old South—that seemed to be Biloxi all over.
    That and a tourist attraction of a narrow strip of white sand separating the four-lane blacktop from the blue-steel vastness of the Gulf of Mexico. No tourists right now, though. Like back home at Paradise Lake, Biloxi’s shore had that lovely lack of people—the smell of coconut butter had not yet impinged upon the salty air, the lawnmower churn of motorboats and jet skis nicely absent. And who needed girls in bikinis with what awaited along the highway?
    On either side stood the shabby churches waiting to fleece their flock of sun worshipers—the Biloxi Strip. And so many denominations—bars, striptease clubs, Bonnie & Clyde motels, bars, fast-food franchise joints, striptease clubs, local crab shacks, bars, souvenir stands, and putt-putt golf. Also striptease clubs and bars. Or did I mention that?
    On the north side of 90, Mr. Woody’s sat on its own parking lot, looking