Chapter One

Dennis Lenahan the high diver would tell people that if you put a
fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that's what
the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder.
The tank itself was twenty-two feet across and the water in it
never more than nine feet deep. Dennis said from that high up you
want to come out of your dive to enter the water feet first, your
hands at the last moment protecting your privates and your butt
squeezed tight, or it was like getting a 40,000-gallon enema.

When he told this to girls who hung out at amusement parks they'd
put a cute look of pain on their faces and say what he did was
awesome. But wasn't it like really dangerous? Dennis would tell
them you could break your back if you didn't kill yourself, but the
rush you got was worth it. These summertime girls loved daredevils,
even ones twice their age. It kept Dennis going off that perch
eighty feet in the air and going out for beers after to tell
stories. Once in a while he'd fall in love for the summer, or part
of it.

The past few years Dennis had been putting on one-man shows during
the week. Then for Saturday and Sunday he'd bring in a couple of
young divers when he could to join him in a repertoire of comedy
dives they called "dillies," the three of them acting nutty as they
went off from different levels and hit the water at the same time.
It meant dirt-cheap motel rooms during the summer and sleeping in
the setup truck between gigs, a way of life Dennis the high diver
had to accept if he wanted to perform. What he couldn't take
anymore, finally, were the amusement parks, the tiresome pizzazz,
the smells, the colored lights, rides going round and round to that
calliope sound forever.

What he did as a plan of escape was call resort hotels in South
Florida and tell whoever would listen he was Dennis Lenahan, a
professional exhibition diver who had performed in major diving
shows all over the world, including the cliffs of Acapulco. What he
proposed, he'd dive into their swimming pool from the top of the
hotel or off his eighty-foot ladder twice a day as a special
attraction.

They'd say, "Leave your number," and never call back.

They'd say, "Yeah, right," and hang up.

One of them told him , "The pool's only five feet deep," and Dennis
said no problem, he knew a guy in New Orleans went off from
twenty-nine feet into twelve inches of water. A pool five feet
deep? Dennis was sure they could work something out.

No they couldn't.

He happened to see a brochure that advertised Tunica, Mississippi,
as "The Casino Capital of the South" with photos of the hotels
located along the Mississippi River. One of them caught his eye,
the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino. Dennis recognized the manager's
name, Billy Darwin, and made the call.

"Mr. Darwin, this is Dennis Lenahan, world champion high diver. We
met one time in Atlantic City."

Billy Darwin said, "We did?"

"I remember I thought at first you were Robert Redford, only you're
a lot younger. You were running the sports book at Spade's." Dennis
waited. When there was no response he said, "How high is your
hotel?"

This Billy Darwin was quick. He said, "You want to dive off the
roof?"

"Into your swimming pool," Dennis said, "twice a day as a special
attraction."

"We go up seven floors."

"That sounds just right."

"But the pool's about a hundred feet away. You'd have to take a
good running start, wouldn't you?"

Right there, Dennis knew he could work something out with this
Billy Darwin. "I could set my tank right next to the hotel, dive
from the roof into nine feet of water. Do a matinee performance and
one at night with spotlights on me, seven days a week."

"How much you want?"

Dennis spoke right up, talking to a man who dealt with high
rollers. "Five hundred a day."

"How long a run?"

"The rest of the season. Say eight weeks."

"You're worth twenty-eight grand?"

That quick, off the top of his head.

"I have setup expenses -- hire a rigger and put in a system to
filter the water in the tank. It stands more than a few days it
gets scummy."

"You don't perform all year?"

"If I can work six months I'm doing good."

"Then what?"

"I've been a ski instructor, a bartender..."

Billy Darwin's quiet voice asked him, "Where are you?"

In a room at the Fiesta Motel, Panama City, Florida, Dennis told
him, performing every evening at the Miracle Strip amusement park.
"My contract'll keep me here till the end of the month," Dennis
said, "but that's it. I've reached the point... Actually I don't
think I can do another amusement park all summer."

There was a silence on the line, Billy Darwin maybe wondering why
but not curious enough to ask.

"Mr. Darwin?"

He said, "Can you get away before you finish up there?"

"If I can get back the same night, before showtime."

Something the man would like to hear.

He said, "Fly into Memphis. Take 61 due south and in thirty minutes
you're in Tunica, Mississippi."

Dennis said, "Is it a nice town?"

But got no answer. The man had hung up.

This trip Dennis never did see Tunica or even the Mighty
Mississippi. He came south through farmland until he began to spot
hotels in the distance rising out of fields of soybeans. He came to
signs at crossroads pointing off to Harrah's, Bally's, Sam's Town,
the Isle of Capri. A...

Excerpted from TISHOMINGO BLUES © Copyright 2005 by Elmore
Leonard. Reprinted with permission from HarperTorch. All rights
reserved