Fishblate wasn’t carrying any food. He stood before them, arms crossed, mouth and cheek jumping in a nervous tic. “Gentlemen,” he said, face flushed, out of breath, as if he’d run all the way from his shop on Front Street. “I had no idea you were planning such a show.” He stood rocking on his heels, holding his left arm as if it were broken, waiting for somebody to invite him to sit down. No one did.

“Rumors,” Fishblate blurted out. “To my ears come these rumors.” His arms uncrossed and boxed his own ears, then flailed the air. “Secret plans, secret committees, things to happen after the election.”

“Let’s control ourselves,” Walker Taylor said.

“Town’s full of rumors,” Rountree observed, drawing on his cigar. “What else is new?”

“I have met with my people. It was not easy, on such short notice, but they listen to Sol Fishblate. They are willing to go along.” He collected himself and caught his breath. “I want you to know,” he continued in a lower voice, and paused, studying their faces, “that I am willing to serve again.”

Rountree looked puzzled. “How’s that?” He held his cigar casually, his index finger hooked over it.

Fishblate grabbed the handkerchief out of his front pocket and mopped his brow and neck. “To serve again. As your mayor.”

MacRae said quietly, “You’re jumping the gun.”

“But the secret committee, the plan.”

Walker Taylor said, “There’s no secret committee—get that out of your head.”

Rountree said, “There’s no secret plan. We’re going to win back the county and the legislature. That’s as far as it goes.”

“But I contributed money. I was given to understand—”

“We all kicked in,” Walker Taylor said. “Put this town back on a stable footing.”

“Make it safe again for decent white women to walk the streets,” Waddell said. This was the first he’d heard anybody mention this mayoral business. Suddenly, he was very sure he’d been left out of some important conversations. He’d have to ask a few discreet questions in the right quarters. But there was no need to include Solly Fishblate, not yet—if Fishblate’s administration hadn’t been so incompetent, they wouldn’t be in this mess. He might talk to him later, though, in private.

“But as long as Dr. Wright and his crowd—”

“Let it be, Solly,” MacRae advised. “Now, run along out of here—we’ve got business.”

Fishblate, too, found an empty table, across the aisle from Dowling’s, and it soon filled with his old Dry Pond cronies. They bent their heads over the table and talked with their bodies.

When Fishblate had gone, Sam asked his cousin directly, “What about it? Is there a secret committee?” He expected wild anger, maybe even a fist.

MacRae only sighed and said, “You’ve been reading too many romances,” and patted him on the back.

“Secret plan, that’s rich,” Walker Taylor said.

George Rountree said, “Sam, there’s not a thing going on here that we’re not proud to do in the light of day, out in the open, with the whole town watching. That’s why it’s called democracy.”