Curtis banged his gavel repeatedly as Parker shouted for order and the men hooted and applauded and rose to their feet.

Danny was reminded of what Ralph Raphelson had said about emotional rhetoric, and he wondered—even as he was as swept up in and stirred by Vahey’s speech as the rest of the men—if it had accomplished anything other than a fanning of the flames.

When Vahey returned to his seat, the men sat. Now it was Danny’s turn. He took the floor in front of a red-faced Curtis.

“I’m going to keep it simple. The issue before us, it seems to me, is whether affiliation with the American Federation of Labor will lessen the efficiency of the police force. Commissioner Curtis, I say with full confidence that it hasn’t thus far. A simple study of arrest records, citations given, and overall crime rate in the eighteen districts will bear this out. And I further state, with utter confidence, that it will remain so. We are policemen, first and foremost, and sworn to uphold the law and uphold the peace. That, I assure you, will never change. Not on our watch.”

The men clapped as Danny took his seat. Curtis rose from his desk. He looked shaky, impossibly pale, his tie loosened at the throat, strands of hair pointing askew.

“I will take all remarks and testimony under consideration,” he said, his hands gripping the edge of his desk. “Good day, gentlemen.”

And with that, he and Herbert Parker walked out of the room.

ABLE-BODIED MEN NEEDED

Boston Police Department seeking recruits for Volunteer Police Force to be headed by former Police Supt. William Pierce. White males only. War experience and/or proven athletic ability preferred. Interested applicants apply at the Commonwealth Armory between the hours of 9 A.M. and 5 P.M., M—F.

Luther placed the newspaper on the bench where he’d found it. A volunteer police force. Sounded like arming a bunch of white men either too dumb to hold on to a regular job or so desperate to prove their manhood they’d leave the good jobs they had. Either way, a bad combination. He imagined the same ad soliciting black men to fill those jobs and laughed out loud, a sound that surprised him. He wasn’t the only one—a white man one bench over stiffened, stood, and walked away.

Luther had spent a rare day off wandering the city because he was about to come out of his skin. A child he’d never seen waited for him in Tulsa. His child. Lila, softening toward him by the day (he hoped), waited there, too. He’d once believed the world was a sprawling party just waiting for him to join it and that party would be filled with interesting men and beautiful women and they’d all fill the empty parts of him somehow, each in their own way, until there was nothing left to fill and Luther would feel whole for the first time since his father had left the family. But now he realized that wasn’t the case. He’d met Danny and Nora and felt for them a fondness so piercing it continued to surprise him. And, Lord knows, he loved the Giddreauxs, had found in them a pair of grandparents he’d often dreamed were out there. Yet ultimately it didn’t make no difference because his hopes and his heart and his loves lay in Greenwood. That party? Never going to happen. Because even if it did, Luther’d just as soon be home. With his woman. With his son.