He splashed cold water on his face, shaved quickly, dressed, and hurried out to find somebody who knew something. On Front Street, he fell in with a knot of white men headed for the meeting. They knew only what they’d read in the paper. He quickened his stride and broke away from them, cutting across a vacant lot on Mulberry behind Colonel Roger Moore’s house. Moore had already gone to the meeting. It was ten minutes till ten. Rountree practically ran the remaining two blocks and arrived at the courthouse in a sweat, breathing hard. He took a minute to collect himself, carefully mopped his brow, neck, and pate with his handkerchief, then strode up the stairs to the main courtroom.

There was not an empty seat. A thousand white men and women jammed the seats, the aisles, the hallway, the stairs.

In the jury box sat a dozen leading citizens, including Senator-elect John D. Bellamy, Solomon Fishblate, and Tom Clawson, along with Hugh MacRae and every other member of the Secret Nine. Conspicuously absent was Alfred Moore Waddell.

Rountree took in the scene at a glance. MacRae. He was operating outside the party now, outside the legitimate Businessmen’s Committee. And what in the world was Solly Fishblate doing in the foreman’s seat? A machine boss from the old days. Didn’t have any principles, didn’t believe in the Cause. He had no standing at all. Yet there he was, seated next to Senator Bellamy, and here he, George Rountree, was—in the back of the courtroom, practically out the door.

Without hesitation, Rountree shouldered his way down the aisle, stepped over the wooden railing, grabbed a chair from behind the court reporter’s desk, and sat down at the far end of the jury box, next to Hugh MacRae. The courtroom resounded with the murmur of the crowd. Babel, Rountree thought—an utter nonsense of voices, five hundred different conversations, words overlapping words, the chirping laughter of women and the raucous braying of men, the creak of wooden seats and the scrape of feet, whispers and shouts, men calling out to their cohorts across the aisle and women giggling and arguing fiercely among themselves, pimply Red Shirt hooligans chanting “White is Right!” and old soldiers singing off-key the marching songs of bygone days best forgotten.

MacRae leaned over, smiling without showing any teeth. “Glad you could join us, George.”

“Like hell,” Rountree said. “Why wasn’t I consulted about this?”

MacRae turned up his pink palms. “There was no need.”

“I’m on the Executive Committee of the Democratic—”

“It’s gone beyond that now, George. This is phase two.”

“You can’t just—”

“It’s done, George.” MacRae stared at him, practically nose to nose. Rountree was the larger man, but he backed off. “Now, you can either go along, or you can just plain go,” MacRae said. “Your choice.”