Manly back in town? After they’d evicted his newspaper? After Mike Dowling, the Red Shirts’ leader, had vowed to kill him if he ever showed his face again? Now, that was a story worth pursuing. And why did Clawson want to speak to Manly? He couldn’t quite peg Clawson. He was an educated, reasonable man. Negro baiting wasn’t his style. So why was he still running that Manly editorial every day on page one?

Sam rooted through Calabash’s desk until he found a city directory. It listed Manly as residing on McRae Street, up in Brooklyn. But Manly wouldn’t be careless enough to go home. He’d be hiding out in one of those shacks, among his own people, a screen of hard men around him.

The sergeant behind the booking desk said, “Eddie Bryant may be colored, but that don’t make him dumb enough to draw down on a streetcar driver.” He had a laugh full of phlegm that came up from an impressive belly. Sam had seen cops in Chicago use their bellies as a muscle, bouncing little criminals into brick walls. This fellow looked as if he’d bounced a punk or two.

“I’ve got a report,” Sam said quietly. No use pushing this copper—Clawson had said the night man was drunk.

“I got all kinds of reports,” the desk sergeant said. “Don’t mean they’re true.” He hawked an enormous wad of chaw into a brass cuspidor.

“Got a point.” Sam leaned on the desk. He could be as laconic as anybody.

The sergeant scratched under his tunic. “Now, there’s a boy I could show you. Made friends with a chicken that already had enough friends.”

“I heard there was silverware,” Sam said. “I heard some neighbors caught up with him.”

“Spoons. Pair of silver spoons.” The sergeant hollered to somebody in the back to watch the desk. Then he grabbed a ring of iron keys and led Sam down a corridor, through a steel door, and into the jail. The sergeant locked the steel door behind them. “But it was Red Shirts caught him.”

The jail was quiet. Prisoners hunkered over their morning meal of grits and sausage. The sergeant opened a cell and Sam stared in at a skinny black boy sprawled unconscious on a cot against the far wall. His face was swathed in clean bandages, and his arm was tangled in a sling. There was blood on the pillow next to his mouth. “Sixteen years old,” the sergeant said. “Name’s David King. A good boy. Gammy leg. And a little slow.” He tapped his skull. “His mama’s a God-fearing woman, best cook in town. Domestic over on Fifth, near Princess. One of the better homes.”

The boy was all beat up. No matter how many times Sam saw the victim of a beating, he couldn’t get over it. All those fists and boots, pummeling. “Why in the world do you think he was stealing chickens?”

The sergeant looked him in the eye, as if to say, how stupid are you?