“None whatsoever, sir.”

“See to it.”

“Yes, Mr. Mayor.”

Peters hung up and immediately dialed the home of General Charles Cole, former commander of the Fifty-second Yankee Division and one of the chief members of the Storrow Committee. “General Cole.”

“Mr. Mayor.”

“Would you serve your city as acting police commissioner, sir?”

“It would be my honor.”

“I’ll send a car. At what time could you be ready, General?”

“I’m already dressed, Mr. Mayor.”

Governor Coolidge held a press conference at ten. He announced that in addition to the regiments Mayor Peters had called up, he had asked Brigadier General Nelson Bryant to assume command of the state response to the crisis. General Bryant had accepted and would command the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Fifteenth Regiments of the State Guard as well as a machine-gun company.

Volunteers continued to converge on the Chamber of Commerce to receive their badges, uniforms, and weapons. Most, he noted, were former officers of the Massachusetts Yankee Division and had served with distinction in the Great War. He further noted that 150 Harvard undergraduates, including the entire football team, had been sworn in as members of the volunteer police department.

“We are in good hands, gentlemen.”

When asked why the State Guard had not been called out the previous evening, Governor Coolidge responded, “Yesterday I was persuaded to leave matters of public safety to city authorities. I have since regretted the wisdom of this trust.”

When a reporter asked the governor how he’d suffered the bruise under his left eye, Governor Coolidge announced that the press conference was over and left the room.

Danny stood with Nora on the rooftop of his building and looked down at the North End. During the worst of the rioting, some men had blocked off Salem Street with truck tires they’d doused in gasoline and lit afire. Danny could see one now, melted into the street and still smoking, the stench filling his nostrils. The mob had grown all evening, restless, itchy. At about ten o’clock, it had stopped roiling and begun to vent. Danny had watched from his window. Impotent.

By the time it abated about 2 A.M., the streets lay as smashed and violated as they had after the molasses flood. The voices of the victims—of assaults, of muggings, of motiveless beatings, of rape—rose from the streets and out of tenement windows and rooming houses. Moaning, keening, weeping. The cries of those chosen for random violence, bereft with the knowledge that they’d never know justice in this world.

And it was his fault.

Nora told him it wasn’t, but he could see she didn’t fully believe it. She’d changed over the course of the night; doubt had entered her eyes. About the choice he’d made, about him. When they’d finally lain down in bed last night, her lips found his cheek and they were cool and hesitant. Instead of going to sleep with one arm over his chest and one leg over his, her usual custom, she turned onto her left side. Her back touched his, so it wasn’t a complete rejection, but he felt it nonetheless.