Dowling shoved back from the table and jumped up, spilling his coffee. “That’s it! I’ve taken about all I’m going to take! You goddamn high-hats have it all worked out! Well, Mike Dowling wants in on the action, see? I want of piece of this thing. Me and my boys—”

“What do you want, Mike?” MacRae said gently. “Sit down.” He said to the clerk, “Bring the boy more coffee.” MacRae was younger than Dowling, but nobody remarked the irony.

The clerk obliged, then mopped up the spill with a towel.

Dowling tried to get his rage under control. He was all jacked up this morning. His hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t bring the cup to his lips. His mouth was full of the sour taste of adrenaline. He couldn’t get his spit. He had worked himself up to what they must do today, and this was no time to lose his nerve. He steadied the cup. Finally, he managed a sip. “We want to work. We want jobs. Them niggers got all the good jobs locked up.”

“We can do that,” MacRae said amiably. “Honest white men ought to work.”

“Right,” Sasser said. “Bring a little dignity back to the working classes.”

Dowling scowled, but before he could say anything else, MacRae said, “Would you like to be a fireman, Mike?”

It had never crossed his mind. “A fireman, huh?” He rolled his eyes toward the pressed-tin ceiling, as if imagining himself driving the big hook-and-ladder wagon. “Sure, that would be a fine thing. One of them city jobs. They can’t fire you over every pizzlin’ thing.”

“You can lead men, Mike. You’ve got the makings of an officer.”

“I got a hundred rifles waiting out front,” Dowling agreed. He was slurping freely now from his coffee cup, his hands no longer trembling.

Seventy-five at most, MacRae thought. Get the numbers right—don’t fool yourself. A man fools himself with numbers, he loses track of the world.

“My boys. They listen to me,” Dowling said. He looked warily at Sasser, then MacRae. “Them fireman’s coats, they got fine brass buttons.”

“They do that,” MacRae said. “Coat like that, it would look good on—”

“And the chief—”

“There can be only one chief,” MacRae said quietly.

Dowling looked uncertain. He said, tentatively, “Assistant chief?”

MacRae stared at his coffee.

Dowling cleared his throat. “Mighty proud thing to be a captain.”

MacRae smiled and nodded. “You’d make a fine captain, Mike. Truly.”

Dowling relaxed and smacked his lips, as if waiting to be offered something stronger than coffee. When nobody offered any whiskey, he pulled out his own flask and dumped a slug into his coffee.

“You can appreciate our position, can’t you?” MacRae said.

Dowling frowned. With the whiskey hot on his tongue, he was feeling a bit cocky now. They understood he was a man to be reckoned with. They were taking him into their confidence—they had no choice—so he might as well speak his mind. “Mr. MacRae, I got to say I just don’t get it. Me and my boys, we could have this whole business settled within the hour.”