Not if I can stay clear of the who-hit-john, I won’t, Sam thought.

“One more thing,” Harry said. “The mayor and aldermen don’t have a free hand in this town.”

“Oh?”

“Little club called the Board of Audit and Finance. Five men, all appointed by the governor.”

There it is again, Sam thought, just like Chicago—that old fear of actual democracy. “So the aldermen can pass whatever laws they please, but the Finance Board holds the purse strings—contracts, hiring, bonds.”

“You’re catching on just fine. Used to be three Republicans and two Democrats. Now, the tables are turned.”

“But the governor is a Republican.”

“That fat old boy don’t want no trouble.” Governor Russell was a three-hundred-pound embarrassment. “Wants to keep the lid on down here. Keep things at a stalemate.”

“So, whichever Board of Aldermen is ruled legal, they still have to pry loose their budget from the Democrats,” Sam said.

“Sooner bleed a turnip.”

“But the Democrats can’t actually do anything without controlling the Board of Aldermen.”

“That’s a fact. Got to control both boards.” Harry laughed. “Whereas, they’ve each got control of only one board.”

Sam shook his head to clear it. “God bless democracy.”

Calabash raised his glass and waited until Sam picked up his. “To the Bourbon Democrats.”

“Bourbon Democrats?”

Calabash hacked into his bare hand. “Redeemers, son. Redeemers. Call themselves Bourbons. And they ain’t named after the kings of France.”

They clinked glasses, and Calabash drank. Sam shoved his glass across the table. He felt relieved he could do it so easily—no hesitation, not a second thought, no twinge of regret. “I took the cure, Harry. It’s all yours.”

Calabash hesitated. “What could it hurt to have just one?”

It was still easy to refuse—one drink and he’d have his old appetite back. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name. It was the one thing that could sink him, sink his marriage, for good. Calabash ought to know better. In Chicago, all the newspapermen Sam had known were like Calabash, sleepwalking between boozy good times and hangovers.

“It would kill me,” Sam said.

“My word. You mean I’ll have to work with you sober?”

“Harry, believe me—you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Calabash sighed. “It’s going to be a long campaign, son.” Then he shot the whiskey to the back of his throat, smacked his lips, and set the glass down gently on the tablecloth.

“What’s all this have to do with Mr. Manly?” Sam said.

“Mr. Alexander Manly is the editor of our rival newspaper, the Record. Negro paper. I fear he is about to be evicted.”

Out the window, a band of five Red Shirts appeared on the wharf. Two had pistols shoved into their belts. They taunted the stevedores, oily with sweat. The stevedores ignored them. A white policeman stood by and did nothing.