Dancer drove out of the parking lot and followed an ice truck down to the loading dock. The river was wild. White-capped swirls splashed over the edge of the loading dock.
Another beefy guy with a clipboard waved him into a spot at the railing. “Just leave it running. We’ll get it unloaded. Mr. Landis is waiting for you on the upper deck.” He pointed to the boat.
Barrel-chested Ted Landis was standing on the deck of The Spirit of St. Joseph in a white polo and khaki shorts, hands on his hips, surveying the activity taking place on shore. Last month when the boat had been towed to the water park from Cape Girardeau, the local paper had run a front-page story on Landis’s big riverboat project. How he had purchased the 1880s vintage boat from a salvage company and spent two years and a small fortune having it made river worthy.
The riverboat strained at the ropes that kept it tethered to the dock. Dancer walked cautiously up the ramp. He crossed the main deck and climbed a spiral staircase to the top deck. As he stepped out on to the deck, Landis turned away from the railing. “Dancer. Welcome.” He walked over, his hand extended.
The last time the two men had been that close, Landis had been left gasping for air on Dancer’s patio. Landis was bigger than Dancer remembered. He’d probably put on thirty pounds, but he had spread it evenly, so he looked more husky than fat.
Dancer probably didn’t look like he would be much of a match for Landis now. With his post-Clayton weight loss, his cargo shorts sagged and his T-shirt was no longer tight across his chest.
“Boat looks great,” Dancer said. He could feel the deck roll beneath his feet. He had to shift his weight to maintain his balance. “The river’s rough today.”
Landis stood ramrod straight, his feet planted. He was used to the roll. He waved off Dancer’s observation. “The storms up north are just about flushed out. It’ll be calm by tonight.” He marched over to a large table. “Let me show you something.”
On the table was a three-dimensional mock-up of the Caledonia River from Landis Landing to Maple Springs. “This is the grand plan.” He leaned over the table and put his hand on the tiny steamboat. “First phase is the casino. If everything goes right, it will throw off the cash to finance the rest of the project. Eventually, if I can persuade the Army Corps to dredge the river up here,” he pointed to a spot north of where the boat was docked, “I’ll have the riverboat cruise from here to Maple Springs and back.”
“River’s high enough now, you could probably make it. That’s a pretty short cruise,” Dancer said. It was only about five miles from the Landing to Maple Springs as the crow flies, but the river had a winding path.
Landis nodded, smiling. “We’re going to crawl up that river. Keep the customers on the boat, gambling. It’ll take at least ninety minutes, roundtrip. But that’s for later.” He moved on down the board. “We’ll build a luxury hotel right here.” He pointed to a spot on the river about where the bandstand had been assembled. “We’re talking to Hyatt. They’re for sure interested if we can get the permits. They can build one of their luxury timeshare resorts next door. Leverage their resources.”
As always, Landis was playing every angle: use county commissioners to threaten reluctant landowners; convince the Army Corps to dredge the river for a cruise to nowhere; persuade zoning boards in three counties to approve his projects.
“Lots of politics involved,” Dancer said.
“It’s the name of the game,” Landis said. “Gotta be a politician to get anything accomplished these days.”
“Never thought of the Caledonia River as a luxury destination,” Dancer said.
“That’s because you’ve lived here all your life. You take it for granted. People love to live on water: lakes, oceans, rivers. It don’t matter.”
Dancer pointed to the map. Just beyond the timeshare building were dozens of sugar-cube size blocks. “Houses?”
“Yep. Minimum of three thousand square feet, and three acre lots. Every one of them with river access. Those will go for seven-fifty to a million, easy.”
“Where are you going to find all those rich folks? This is hillbilly country.”
Landis smiled smugly, like Dancer was following his script. “They’ll find us. But this isn’t just for the well-off. On the east side of the river we’ll build one of the largest campgrounds in the state. There will be a swimming area, a marina, and areas especially designated for fishing.” He swept his hand all along the eastern border of the river.
He had set it up so the rich folks were on one side of the river and the regular folks would be on the other.
“What’s this building?” Dancer pointed to a domino-sized block just north of the campground.
“Factory outlet stores. Gap, Land’s End, all the popular brands.”
“Won’t that take business away from your mall?”
The smug smile again. “Nope. I’ll make sure we don’t put in stores that compete with our tenants. They’ll complement each other. Make this a destination for affordable shopping. But those are all later phases. Next month we’re breaking ground on the golf course.”
Dancer stared at the board. Beyond the luxury houses there was a large splash of green, and on closer inspection, he could see there was a golf course laid out. It appeared to run right up to the gorge where Dancer lived.
“Jim told you I bought the house?” Landis asked.
Dancer nodded. “Yeah. He told me.”
“That’s a great location.” He paused. “Damn shame about Clayton. I’m sorry.”
They both stared at the board.
After a moment, when it was clear Dancer wasn’t going to respond, Landis said, “I want to make Clayton’s place our clubhouse for the golf course. Great location. Fantastic view. We’ll have to expand it, but we’re not tearing it down.”
Dancer had been hearing about Ted Landis’s plans his whole life. He was tired of the man and his ideas. He just wanted to get paid and leave. But first he had to do what Jim had refused to do. He pointed at a spot just south of Clayton’s A-Frame. “You don’t have a golf hole here at the bend in the river, where the basket ladies live. Why can’t they stay put?”
Landis scoffed. “They’re a little too, uh, countercultural. With their skinny-dipping and their pot-smoking. That scrawny gal—Phoebe—she’s a troublemaker.” He reached on to the board and repositioned the tiny steamboat so it was lined up with the dock. “I learned early in the game, you let someone like that slide, it will come back to bite you in the ass every time. I’ll give them a fair price for their property. I’m bringing in the county commissioners to help me persuade them.”
Dancer should have known when he brought it up that it was pointless. There was no sense wasting his breath on the ladies’ lost cause. He turned away from the board and looked out at the parking lot, where a band was doing a sound check.
“Who’s playing tonight?” he asked.
“You mean the mystery band?” Ted grinned, relieved he no longer had to talk about the basket ladies. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to share it with all your friends. It’s the Confederate Pirates.”
“Never heard of them,” Dancer said, but he had. That was the group Wayne said he had a tryout with before he went to Iraq.
“They’re up and comers. Just got a recording deal and they’re going on tour this fall.”
Dancer wondered if Wayne knew they were playing here tonight. “I guess we ought to settle up. I need to get back to the house. You want to inspect the jukeboxes?”
Ted was already walking away. “Nah. I trust you.” He moved into the stateroom, which was a combination office and bedroom, sat down at his desk, and pulled out his check ledger. “Make the check out to . . . ?” he asked.
“American Jukebox, LLC. We’re still in business,” Dancer said, more sourly than he intended.
Landis detached the check and handed it to Dancer. “You sound annoyed. What’s wrong?”
“Jim never should have sold those boxes to you.”
Landis’s brow creased. “Why not?”
“They’re worth twice what you offered. Jim should have known better.”
“What do you think they’re worth?” he asked.
“Two thousand. Those are top of the line Seeburgs in primo condition.”
Landis picked up his pen again and looked quizzically at Dancer. “So four thousand dollars instead of two?”
“Yeah,” Dancer said.
“Okay, then.” Landis wrote another check. “Here’s another two thousand. Didn’t mean to take advantage.”
“Thank you,” Dancer said, but he didn’t mean it. He knew Landis’s generosity would come with strings attached.
“I have a proposition you might be interested in,” Landis said, on cue. “I think it would be a good fit for your skill set. Let me show you.” He walked back to the project board, his face animated like a kid playing with his electric train.
Dancer wasn’t interested in anything Landis could offer him, but he was curious to hear what Landis thought his skill set was.
“See these houses here?” He pointed to the smaller dominoes—just north of the hotel development project.
“The luxury homes?” Dancer asked.
“Exactly. I’ll need to furnish multiple model units and same goes for all the other building projects I’ll be undertaking.”
Dancer stood silent, refusing to be Landis’s straight man again.
“You know that lady you picked up the sconces from?”
Dancer shrugged. “Johnnie Brown? Yeah, I know her.”
“I’m her biggest customer. Her stuff gives the models a much more authentic feel.”
Dancer nodded.
Landis frowned at Dancer’s refusal to contribute to the conversation. “Her business and Clayton’s ain’t that different. Both dealing in old stuff that people want today. So I was thinking, I could take over Clayton’s jukebox business—I know Jim wants to close it all down, but I could keep it running. You could help me do that, and also be my point man for dealing with Johnnie.”
There must be something to Clayton’s business if Ted Landis was willing to take it off their hands. Dancer wanted nothing to do with that deal or anything else Ted Landis was working on. “Didn’t think you needed point men,” he said.
“I don’t normally, but this is a little complicated. I’m dating Johnnie’s daughter.”
Ted Landis was dating Wayne’s wife? That kid couldn’t catch a break. “I thought she was married,” Dancer said.
“That’s over. He just hasn’t come to accept it yet. He will. Just a matter of time.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Johnnie doesn’t know about us. But when she finds out, she ain’t going to be happy. I get that. But we still need to do business. I have a lot of places that need to be furnished. Johnnie does good work, I want to keep using her. You could be my buffer. Everyone likes you, Dancer.”
The way he said that, there wasn’t any doubt Ted Landis wasn’t including himself in that everyone.
Dancer looked at the checks in his hand. “Here.” He handed the second check back to Landis. “Jim made the deal with you. Not up to me to renegotiate.”
“So you don’t want to keep Clayton’s business alive? Probably the one thing he ever did on his own that wasn’t fucked up.”
Dancer could feel his cheeks warming, but Ted was way ahead of him. His face was florid.
“We aren’t closing that business,” Dancer said.
Landis smirked. “You have a gift for fucking things up too, don’t you? That hasn’t changed in forty years.”
Dancer smiled coldly at Landis and stepped closer. “Last time you talked to me like that, you almost blew your lunch.” He grabbed Landis by his shirt front. “One more word and I’ll throw you over that fucking railing.”
From the look on Landis’s face, he didn’t think it was an idle threat. Dancer let go and walked across the deck to the stairway. Landis didn’t say a word.
Five minutes later, Dancer was back in his truck heading for Zelda’s Tattoo Parlor.