Alex smiled in the dark. “Can’t retract it—how would it look? Anyhow, they’re going to do what they’re going to do, regardless of what I print or don’t print.”

“You underestimate—”

“It’ll blow over.”

“You’re always so sure about things. What if it don’t?”

“Course it will. They’ve got an election to win. Congress, the statehouse, all those county offices. They can’t have civil disorder.”

“Ain’t that the whole point? The election?”

“Let’s boil up a pot of coffee. We can figure this thing out.”

In Hugh MacRae’s basement dining room on Market Street, nine men were gathered around a mahogany table. They had been talking since midnight. There was much to discuss, and this was a good place to discuss it. The dining room was accessible from an outside door beneath the front porch.

The house itself was a fortress, built of fieldstone and gray-stuccoed brick to resemble a castle, complete with rooftop battlements and an ivy-covered turret. The walls were a foot and a half thick. The lot was a full city block, fenced by high wrought-iron spikes set into granite footings. On granite standards at intervals along the fence burned electric security lights. The Princess Street side was closed off by a nine-foot-high brick wall.

“I was standing in the middle of Market Street—not fifty yards from my front door—conversing with a business associate.” MacRae was telling the story of how he had finally decided enough was enough. “This gentleman was down from Raleigh. He had gone to the courthouse on a legal matter that morning and had to ask the nigger janitor for directions to the judge’s chambers. Do you know that nigger spoke to him in the familiar?”

They nodded. They’d all heard this story before, enough to wonder if it were even true. But it confirmed them in their purpose.

“This gentleman was flabbergasted. Right there in the street, he was telling me, ‘Our niggers address us with some respect.’ Just then, a dray came barreling down toward the wharf, a nigger driving. Now, he had plenty of room to go to one side of us or t’other. Point is, he aimed right down the middle of the road. We were forced to leap for safety.”

They nodded, murmured their disgust.

“Leap to safety, gentlemen. Point is, that nigger driver forced us to take action.” He smiled. “Maybe that boy did us a favor, after all. We are here tonight to contemplate just exactly what action we are going to take. And I can assure you, gentlemen,” he said, looking around for effect, “the one action we will not take is to leap for safety.”

“Hear, hear.”