“The harm is the filth, Sam. The filth. It is in our interest for them to be clean and decent. Our food is cooked by colored hands. Our children rest in the arms of colored nurses. Colored housekeepers make our beds and wash our underclothes. But when you get too many of them in one place, the result is squalor and crime.”

“Well, poverty can—”

“They lack the instinct for civilization. Do you know that some white people are scared to emigrate to the South for fear of cannibalism? Cannibalism!”

“You don’t believe that—”

“The signs are plain. Things don’t change soon, we’re in for another depression.”

Sam was nonplussed. “Are you saying we shouldn’t have come?”

MacRae smiled and said softly, “What I’m saying is—if you’ll listen—what I’m saying is, we can’t count on outsiders to bail us out again. We must take matters into our own hands.” He squeezed the stem of his wineglass, and Sam waited for it to snap, but it didn’t. “Seize control of our destiny.”

Sam hadn’t touched his compote. “Meaning?”

“Meaning there are eight thousand Christian whites in this town. Well, my God, you got seventeen thousand coloreds over there across the track. Just waiting to rise up on their hind legs, just biding their time. You got white Republicans putting ideas in their heads. Now, they want to vote.”

“They’re allowed to vote, the law says so.” Sam was confused: he thought that business about voting had been settled years ago, during Reconstruction.

MacRae smiled but stopped eating, and Sam could tell he was annoyed. “Cousin, the law is not something written down in some book. The law is the way people live. How they do things. How they carry on their business and their families.” The waiter leaned over the table to take their plates. “Hell, you can’t have every ignorant cotton-field nigger voting for a two-dollar bribe. Where would this country be?”

Sam had no answer. He fidgeted in his chair, trying to concentrate on the opulent surroundings.

“Negro overpopulation, that’s the virus killing this town, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. And more coming in all the time. They’ve put the word out, see. Come to Wilmington, come to Darktown. Bring your mammy, bring your cousin. Bring your rifle.”

Their entrées arrived. The steaming platter of braised pork loin hardly touched the tablecloth before MacRae attacked it with knife and fork. The waiter yanked his hand out of the way of the blade.

“I don’t really believe—”

“You’ll see a lot of things down here you’ll find hard to believe.’’

Sam ate a few bites. The pork was succulent, tasting of light vinegar and parsley. “What did you mean, take matters into your own hands?”