Lincoln doesn’t turn at first, and when he does, he turns slowly, as though already certain of what he’ll see.

“Take a seat, Mayor,” he says, not smiling. “I can’t say I was expecting you.”

As I slide into the chair opposite him, he says, “How’d you find me? Put your local Gestapo on the case?”

I don’t answer, and it’s several seconds before I realize why. I’m searching his broad face for similarities to my father’s—or my own. I see no obvious resemblance, but it’s strange to search for your own features in a face of a different color. Lincoln is an imposing man, if not conventionally handsome. He has an oval face, as I do, but not the prominent jaw that my father and I share. His eyes are brown, like mine, but almost disturbingly dark. I don’t recognize his nose or cheekbones, and his hair is as nappy as that of any black man I ever knew. Only Lincoln’s high forehead strikes a resonant note and, if I’m honest, reminds me of my father. The lack of overall similarity comforts me, and yet … something bothers me that I can’t put my finger on.

“I’m surprised you had the nerve to walk in here,” he says. “White boy like you in a black jook? Out on the edge of nowhere? Most white boys would be nervous as a whore in church.”

“I’d be a lot more nervous in a shitkicking honky-tonk. People come here for the food and the music.”

Turner chuckles. “You’re right. When rednecks drink, they want to fuck or fight, and not necessarily in that order.”

I want to ask him what he was doing outside my house earlier this afternoon, but that might force our conversation to an abrupt conclusion. Better to learn what I can before confronting him. “I didn’t even know this place existed.”

He looks around as though appraising the value of the place. “When I was a boy in Chicago, there were jooks like this on the South Side. No name, usually, just an address. Mississippi folks who moved up there re-created what they’d known back home. My stepfather did a lot of his business in corner jook joints. He’d sit there eating pork sausage and cat-head biscuits, running half a dozen scams from the pay phone while he ate. I guess I got to like it. The funk of it, you know?”

My stepfather. I try to recall what Dad told me about the man Viola married in Chicago. The phrase “charming rogue” comes back to me.

“I know why you’re here,” Lincoln says, his dark eyes suddenly serious. “I see you studyin’ my face.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“No. I’ll let you tell your lie before I tell the truth. Why do you think you’re here?”