She smiled and looked down at her knees. “Maybe you’ll write.”

That damn near broke Luther, damn near brought him to his knees.

“Ma’am, you surely know that I will write. You surely must know that.”

She gathered up his soul in her beautiful eyes. “You do that, my son. You do that.”

When she looked back at her knees, Luther met Isaiah’s gaze. He nodded at the great old man. “If I may impose…”

Mrs. Giddreaux looked back up.

“I still have a bit a business to clear up with those white friends I made.”

“What sort of business?”

“A proper good-bye,” Luther said. “If I could stay one or two more nights, it sure would make things easier.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Are you patronizing an old woman, Luther?”

“Never, ma’am.”

She pointed a finger and wagged it slowly. “Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.”

“Might could,” Luther said. “Depends if it got some of your roast chicken attached to it, ma’am.”

“Is that the trick?”

“I believe it is.”

Mrs. Giddreaux stood and smoothed her skirt. She turned toward the kitchen. “I have potatoes need peeling and beans need washing, young man. Don’t be tarrying.”

Luther followed her out of the room. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

It was sundown when the mobs returned to the streets. In some sections—South Boston and Charlestown—it was the same random mayhem, but in other areas, particularly Roxbury and the South End, it had developed a political tenor. When Andrew Peters heard about this, he had Horace Russell drive him over to Columbus Avenue. General Cole didn’t want him to leave without a military escort, but Peters convinced him he’d be fine. He’d been doing it all last night and it was a lot easier with one car than three.

Horace Russell stopped the car at Arlington and Columbus. The mob was a block farther down, and Peters stepped out of the car and walked half a block. Along the way he passed three barrels filled with pitch, upended torches sticking out of them. The sight of them—the sense they gave of the medieval—stoked his dread.

The signs were worse. Whereas the few he’d seen last night were mostly crude variations on either FUCK THE POLICE or FUCK THE SCABS, these new ones had been carefully prepared in red lettering as bright as fresh blood. Several were in Russian, but the rest were clear enough:

REVOLUTION NOW!
END THE TYRANNY OF THE STATE!
DEATH TO CAPITALISM! DEATH TO SLAVE DRIVERS!
OVERTHROW THE CAPITALIST MONARCHY!

…and the one Mayor Andrew J. Peters liked least of all…

BURN, BOSTON, BURN!

He hurried back to the car and told Horace Russell to drive straight to General Cole.

General Cole took the news with a knowing nod. “We’ve received reports that the mob in Scollay Square is also growing political. South Boston is already bursting at the seams. I don’t think they’ll be able to hold them back with forty policemen, as they did last night. I’m sending volunteers to both areas to see if they can quell the disturbance. Barring that they’re to report back with specifics about crowd size and the depth of the Bolshevik influence.”