“Got no use for a man such as that,” she was saying. “Out chasing the colored folk. Him and his shotgun, both of ’em loaded.”

“Do you know where she went?”

Callie shrugged, irked at being interrupted. “Gray Ellen? She didn’t go nowheres. Never come home from school.”

Sam tried to remember: had she gone to school today? This day had gone on so long that he couldn’t remember when it had started, which things had happened today and which yesterday. He couldn’t get the picture out of his mind—Dan Wright staggering into the sand while the infantrymen shot him again and again. Then they had just let him lie there for the longest time.

Norwood’s office at the school must have a telephone. Sam walked down the street to the drugstore across from the courthouse and called the operator, who tried to connect him. But no one picked up on the other end. He would just have to go up there.

On Third Street, he spotted Harry Calabash crossing from city hall. “Harry!” he called. “For God’s sake.”

Harry had on a shabby gray duster over his frayed wool suit. A gray fedora was perched on his head as if someone else had carelessly put it there. “Where’s your raincoat?” he said.

“Raincoat?” Sam looked at the sky and saw that it was clouding up with a low overcast. All at once, he shivered with the new chill. “Guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Come along with me,” Harry said. “You’ve been missing all the news.”

“Can’t, Harry,” Sam said, pulling away. “Got to get up to Williston and find Gray.”

“Williston’s closed. All the schools, hours ago. Where on earth have you been?”

“Brooklyn, mostly.” If not Williston, where? He had no idea where to start looking. If she’d had any friends, he would have gone to their homes. But there was only Gabrielle, and Gray wouldn’t go there.

“Then let’s trade notes,” Harry said.

Before Sam realized it, Harry had steered him past the guards and into the Cape Fear Club, which was full of businessmen and out-of-town reporters. Representatives of the Businessmen’s Committee were meeting their trains and escorting them directly to the club, so they’d get the straight story from the men who knew it best. It wouldn’t do to have them roaming around forming independent impressions. Only the woman in the crimson Eaton jacket was allowed to wander unmolested, and, Sam suspected, that was mainly because, as a woman, she was barred from the club.

They stood at the bar. Harry ordered a whiskey for himself and a Coca-Cola for Sam, but Sam was still shaken from what he had watched today. He was actually shivering.

“Give me a whiskey, water back,” he said.

“Special occasion?” Harry asked. He wasn’t smiling.

The Negro bartender delivered the drinks immediately and stood off in the corner. Sam could not tell whether he was in or out of earshot—he supposed people used to servants didn’t worry about such things. Right now, he didn’t care, either.