Jack ambled off in the direction of the newcomer, who had come to rest his elbows and his hat at the opposite end of the bar. I opened my pocketbook and drew out the Chesterfields and the lighter—To Lulu on her birthday. SBL—and contrived, under guise of lighting a cigarette, to catch a glimpse of the fellow. Yes, it was a fellow. Of course it was. Medium size, balding head shiny with perspiration, limp jacket slung over his arm, general air of sunstroke. Nobody I knew. I returned my attention to my drink, to the half-hearted operation of the cigarette, to the arresting spectacle of Jack’s glasses and bottles in their immaculate rows, the woodsy palette, the gleam of mirrors, the blue, fragrant curls of tobacco smoke, the draft stirring my hair from the fans overhead, all of it soaked in heat, sagging with heat, heat sticking to every last molecule of everything. I slugged down the end of the drink, put out the cigarette, made to rise. The world sort of throbbed. Jack reappeared before me.

“Leaving already?”

“Column to finish. You won’t miss me.” I opened my pocketbook and rummaged for shillings.

“You be careful out there, Mrs. Randolph,” Jack said. “You know what’s been happening out at them new airfields they’re building.”

I laid three shillings on the bar in a neat stack and closed my pocketbook. “I know the native laborers have been demanding the same pay as the Americans, and I don’t blame them. Working all day under the hot sun. Construction too. I don’t blame them a bit.”

Jack set his palms on the edge of the counter and leaned forward. “I hear there might be some trouble tomorrow. So you just stay in your nice bungalow, you hear me?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The usual kind. Fellows making their point.”

As he said this, Jack gave me the same stare with which a cobra might fix you. I knew he came from the South somewhere—you could hear it plain in his voice—but I hadn’t once heard him say a word against the Negroes. You never could tell where Jack’s true loyalties lay. He harbored no love for the Bay Street Boys, that I understood, even though he served their drinks and took their tips. But as for where he stood on that complex and monumental question so delicately phrased the color line? Only Jack and his Maker knew.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll stay home.”

His face relaxed. “Good. Lock your door.”

“Always do.”

“And that colored woman who keeps your house?”

“Veryl?”

He nodded. “She might could stay over with you, until the dust settles.”