Outside the tent, the breeze had freshened into a wind, snapping the flags. The white supremacy banner bellied like a sail, and under it Walker Taylor’s Boys Brigade performed close-order drill with their wooden toy rifles. Their mothers and fathers shouted “Bravo!” and clapped till their hands warmed with blood. Other boys looked on, envy shining in their eyes.

Walker Taylor looked on proudly. These were the boys everybody else had given up on, the bad boys, the truants and shoplifters and little gangsters, and he’d drilled them into a corps of proud soldiers for progress. It was only the beginning of what he could do for this town.

Bring it to order, then all things were possible.

Behind the drilling boys, the Red Shirts mounted their horses, sleeved their Winchesters, and quietly headed for Brooklyn.

In his first-floor library half a block from Market Street and just around the corner from Hugh MacRae’s mansion, J. Allan Taylor sipped brandy, waiting for the Pinkertons. He wondered how much Walker knew. They’d need Walker when the trouble came—a first-rate military man like him was hard to find. But Walker was naive about politics. He actually believed he was going to be mayor when this was all over.

The Pinkertons were half an hour late. It was going on one. The grandfather clock ticked away the minutes. He’d left the kitchen door open for them, but he’d left no outside lights burning—couldn’t risk their being seen. After the demonstration today, the speeches and the marching music, then the Red Shirts’ rampage through Brooklyn all evening—smashing up shops, shooting rifles—he wasn’t sure they’d dare venture into this part of town at all after dark.

He was just pouring another short brandy when they darkened the door of his library. He was startled. He had expected to hear them at the back door—door thunking shut, feet shuffling across the kitchen floorboards, voices muttering. But they had simply materialized without warning.

“Don’t just stand around,” he said softly, so as not to wake his family. “Come in.”

The two Negro men entered warily and sat on the edge of the chairs he had arranged in front of his desk. He got up heavily—realizing all at once how very tired he was, how late it was, how curiously old he was feeling tonight—and drew closed the French doors.

Both men wore rumpled city suits without ties—one blue, one brown. They held their slouch hats on their knees and fidgeted nervously. The one in the brown suit was smaller-framed, wore a moustache, and did all the talking. His name was Albert Tully.

“We’ve been up and down this town,” he said. “We’ve peeked into windows, listened at bedroom doors, praised the Lord in seven churches, got our hair cut eleven times, treated every brother in Brooklyn to free beer.” He cleared his throat. “We got the story, boss.”