Roger looked at Wes with wide eyes, as if to say, “What does this mean?”

  “This doubles, triples the pressure on the ‘responsible’ media to break the story. They know people all over town are reading what you just read. They’re dying to publish it, but they don’t have anybody to attribute it to. They don’t have anybody to confirm the rumor. Armholster hasn’t filed charges because his daughter’s begged him not to—because she’s traumatized and won’t even leave the house—or that’s what he told me—and as far as that goes, Armholster himself, he’s petrified that his daughter’s name will end up in the press. Meantime, he’s going around trying to round up support behind the scenes for whatever retaliation he has in mind for your client.”

  “Which will be what?” asked Roger.

  “I don’t know, but he knows a lot of influential people. So I want to make sure your client has a fair shake when the time comes.” The Mayor smiled again. “I know a lot of influential people myself.”

  Roger Too White didn’t say anything. He just looked at Wes Jordan and waited and tried to figure out what it was that was … different … about him. He was aware of yet more Yoruba carvings mounted on the ebony walls.

  “But that isn’t what I wanted to see you about,” said the Mayor. “What I wanted to see you about is … our man.”

  “Our man?”

  “Our man Charlie Croker.”

  “Ahhhhhh,” said Roger, tilting his head back in an ironic, mock-significant way. “What about him?”

  “He’s the one. No doubt about it. ‘The Sixty-Minute Man.’ People used to point him out on the street and say, ‘There’s the Sixty-Minute Man.’ I’m sure he knows precisely what pressures a big-time athlete is under. He knows how jealous and resentful people can be. He knows how fast people are to find fault with a sports star and how they overinterpret every little thing. And the time to approach him is right, because this thing’s going to blow wide-open any moment.”

  Roger knew there was a missing link in the logic of what Wes had just said, but he confined himself to a simple “Unh-hunh.”

  “Oh, he’s our man,” said Wes, “but we’ve got one big problem. The man’s practically bankrupt. Yeah! He’s about to lose everything he’s got. They’ve already seized his corporate jet, a huge thing called a Gulfstream Five, big as an airliner. It won’t have the same effect if he tries to stand up for Fareek Fanon while he’s going down in flames as just another megalomaniacal Atlanta real estate developer who didn’t know enough to quit while he was ahead.”

  “Who seized his corporate jet?”

  “PlannersBanc.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, I know a lot of what goes on at PlannersBanc. We—I’m talking about the city—we keep a lot of our deposits, the municipal deposits, at PlannersBanc. That’s a huge asset for them. We’re talking about millions of dollars a year they can lend, based on those deposits. That’s a huge asset. Believe me, they’ll do a lot to keep us happy. And it’s not just a matter of money. You remember we were talking the other day about the ‘Atlanta Way’?”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “Well, these big firms like PlannersBanc—and the interesting thing is, the bigger they are, the more willing they are—they’re willing to do us big favors just for the sake of … oh, keeping everything smooth, warm, congenial, and well oiled with the black power structure. It’s sort of like ‘paying tribute.’ Remember old Pomeroy—the historical sense in which he always used that term ‘paying tribute’?”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “That’s one of the ways we keep ourselves busy in the city that’s too busy to hate,” said Wes Jordan with a classic Wes Jordan ironic smile.

  “Maybe I’m slow or something, Wes,” said Roger, “but I still don’t get it.”

  “Roger—I’m speaking to you as a brother now. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I have a delicate mission for you to perform,” said Wes Jordan. Roger searched his face for a twist of the lips, a twinkle of the eyes, that would indicate that the phrase delicate mission was yet more Wes Jordan irony. But he looked completely serious and mayor-like. “This is something,” he continued, “that you mustn’t tell your client about or your colleagues, Mr. Salisbury and Mr. Pickett. Can I have your word on that?”

  “I love you, Brother Wes, but I can’t see how I could possibly give you my word, since I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You can’t even do that much for me, hunh?” said Wes Jordan. “All right, then I’ll just appeal to your sense of civic concern.”

  Roger searched his face once more. No smile, no wink, no arching of the eyebrows.

  “This case,” said the Mayor, “has the potential to do more damage to this city than anything since the murder of Martin Luther King or the Rodney King riots, because it gets right down to the core of the white man’s fear. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” said Roger Too White, “I can see that.”

  “All right, so what I’m saying is, I’m saying that Charlie Croker, or somebody like Charlie Croker, could be an essential figure to keep the city from getting split apart.”

  “Along the racial fault line,” said Roger Too White.

  “Exactly, along the racial fault line. Very well put. Along the racial fault line. So if he’s willing to stick his neck out to that extent—and for somebody like him, this’d really be sticking his neck out—this sixty-year-old Cracker with a—did you know he has a 29,000-acre plantation down in Baker County?”

  “No.”

  “Just for shooting quail? All very antebellum? Even got African-American servants who sing gospel for the guests after dinner?”

  “You’re … exaggerating.” He had started to say “kidding.”

  “Not at all, not at all. He calls the place Turpmtine. T,u,r,p,m,t,i,n,e. Originally the cash crop at this place was not cotton but turpentine, from the pine trees. Apparently slashing the pine trees for resin was the worst work in the world, much worse than picking cotton. Croker seems to enjoy calling them the ‘Turpmtine Niggers.’”

  “Aw, come on! And you think you’re gonna get him to stand up for Fareek Fanon against Inman Armholster?”

  “I have my reasons for thinking he might. And if he does, then I think the city would owe him a debt of gratitude, which might take the form of removing some of the other pressures that now bear down on the man.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the threat of bankruptcy, to be specific. I would think that PlannersBanc would find it in its long-term interest, as a part of this city, to restructure the man’s debt load in some significant fashion, so that in the same moment he speaks up for your client he isn’t revealed to be one of the biggest deadbeats in the history of commercial real estate in Atlanta.”

  Roger Too White pondered all this for a moment. He wasn’t sure what he was actually hearing. “All right, Wes, assuming all that makes sense—which I’m not sure it does—I don’t see where I would fit in.”

  “I need someone to outline the facts of the matter to Croker. It can’t be me, because that might be misinterpreted. But if it comes from your client, from counsel representing your client, then it’s perfectly appropriate. You’re not asking him to testify in court. All you’re doing is asking him to render a judgment in the arena of public opinion. We’re not talking about the law. We’re talking about public relations.”

  “But what kind of opinion, Wes? What kind of opinion could you possibly expect Charlie Croker to have—or express?”

  “That Fareek is a fine young man. That young athletes like him have always been setups for all sorts of pressures, schemes, and vilifications. That he can’t believe that Fareek is guilty of the sort of thing he’s being smeared with now, and so forth and so on.”

  “Where’s he going to do this?” asked Roger. “At a protest demonstration or a rally or what?”

  “No, no, no, no,” said Wes. “You don’t have protests or rallies in a sex case. What I envision is a press conference, a press conference whose ostensible purpose is simply to urge calmness and restraint in the face of a potentially explosive situation. In the course of that I establish the point that men have rights, too, even big black men, even big black sports stars, every bit as many rights as white women half their size. This is all in the context of maintaining public order, you understand. Then Croker gets up and makes the point even stronger. He says that Fareek is a fine young man—”

  “Wait a minute, Wes,” said Roger. “He’s gonna say Fareek is a fine young man—on the basis of what? I wonder if he’s ever even laid eyes on Fareek, unless it was from a seat in the grandstand.”

  Wes Jordan smiled. “He has to meet Fareek, Roger, and get to know him. And as you know, to know him is to love him.”

  Roger let loose a laugh that ended up sounding like a snort. “For God’s sake, Wes, you and I can’t stand the sonofabitch!”

  “I think you might be surprised, Roger,” said Wes Jordan with a familiar ironic gleam in his eyes. “I think you might be surprised. I think Mr. Croker might see something in Fareek that we don’t see.”

  “Well—where’s he supposed to meet him?”

  “I’ll leave that to your best judgment, Counselor. But it’s essential that he meet him and that he come away from that meeting ready to say favorable things about Fareek, for the record. It’s also essential that he know that you, as a representative of Fareek and his many supporters, are in a position to see to it that the banking interests in this city restructure his loans on highly favorable terms so as not to damage his credibility at this pivotal moment in Atlanta’s history. And if he says, ‘Why me?’ then you say, ‘Because you’re the only Atlanta business leader with a sports career like Fareek’s. You’re the Sixty-Minute Man.’”

  Now Roger gave the Mayor an ironic smile of his own. “And he’s supposed to believe all that because some black lawyer he’s never heard of drops by and tells him his troubles are over?”

  “I already thought of that,” said the Mayor. “I think what you have to do is offer him a practical demonstration, a sort of field experiment, as it were. I think what you have to tell him is ‘Go see Fareek, and then decide if you want to do your part for the city at the press conference, and if you say yes, then all communication from PlannersBanc concerning outstanding loans will immediately cease.’ I think Mr. Croker will look upon you as a black prophet he can believe in.”

  “And you really think you can see to that?” asked Roger.

  “If I can’t, then the field experiment will be a failure. But I’m not worried.” Wes Jordan leaned back in his chair and thrust his chest out in a certain satisfied way, as if he had already won a great battle. The ironic smile that Roger had known for so many years played upon his lips. “Roger, you’re about to see the way politics actually works in a city. It would be nice to think that certain laudable positions prevail because they have an irresistible logic all their own. But that is seldom the case … seldom the case … And I’m sure the Charlie Crokers of this town, dense though they may be in certain respects, already understand that.”

  Roger sat bolt upright on the couch, opened his eyes wide, and flashed a big grin. “I’ve figured it out!”

  “Figured out what?”

  “What’s different! About you!”

  “Really? You gonna let me in on it, too?”

  Roger Too White slapped the side of his leg and grinned some more and started laughing. “You’re darker, Brother Wes, you’re darker! What’d you do? How’d you do it?”

  The Mayor ran his hands over his own cheeks, as if in wonderment. “Darker? Well, I’ll be damned. It is true that I’ve gotten in a lot more golf than usual.”

  “Golf?”

  “Been playing a lot of golf recently, Brother Roger.”

  “You? Give me a break, Brother Wes!”

  “Yeah, I know. I used to make fun of golf. But I figured I ought to get outdoors more, smell the newly mown grass and the newly raked sand traps. Lanny’s been playing, too.”

  “Lanny? Your wife, Lanny? You must be joking!”

  “No, I’m not joking,” said Wes Jordan. “Everybody’s entitled to change his or her mind. The good old Georgia sunshine does wonders for a person.”

  “Well, you sly old dog, you!” exclaimed Roger Too White. “You’re getting … a suntan—for the election campaign! You’re getting … darker!”

  Wes Jordan winked and chuckled deep in his throat. “It just naturally happens to us golf lovers, just naturally happens. And besides, everything is relative. I’ve always been blacker than thou, Roger Too White.”

  Peepgass told people he lived “in Buckhead,” but this … was Buckhead. This … was the real thing. At the wheel of his little Ford Escort, he had just turned off West Paces Ferry Road onto Valley Road, on which, less than a quarter of a mile from this point, according to Martha Croker, he would come upon her house. Peepgass was all eyes. Rolling lawns, absolutely perfectly cut, watered, landscaped, and ornamented by flowers and deep-green bushes, every leaf of which seemed waxed and polished by hand—rolling lawns swelled up on either side of Valley Road, leading to stupendous piles of Georgian brick with real slate roofs or romantic but equally stupendous villas of Italianate stucco atop the crests. And even though it was nine o’clock in the morning, on a hot day in May that had already turned the asphalt slopes of Collier Hills into an oven, here in the real Buckhead all was serene and green and cool, thanks to the soaring trees, left over from virgin forest, that created a great green canopy for the entire neighborhood.

  Peepgass slowed down, as much in awe as in the interest of spotting Martha Croker’s house number. The house numbers seemed to be mainly on mailboxes at the foot of the driveways. In a neighborhood like this, if you actually put the number on the house, no one would ever see it; it would be too far away from the road. The street itself, Valley Road, was laid out in suitably wasteful serpentine curves, like the floor of a valley winding its way between the eminences of the castles that rose up on either side. Peepgass drove his little Escort around a big bend, ever so slowly, and—

  —there in the middle of the street … women! … six or eight of them … walking right in the middle of the road … at a leisurely pace … laughing, talking … black and Latin women of various ages, but none very young, some in dresses, some in blouses and pants and sneakers, walking right in the middle of Valley Road … In the next instant it dawned on Peepgass … Maids, housemaids, for the castles! They arrived by bus, on the line, the Number 40 line, that ran along West Paces Ferry Road, got off at the corner of Valley Road, and walked the rest of the way to the castles, which were their places of employment. There were no sidewalks in this part of Buckhead—who other than servants would be walking anywhere anyway—and they had to walk in the street. But why out in the middle?

  Peepgass swung way over to the left and passed them, very slowly … Only one or two of the women even bothered to look his way. Just ahead he saw Martha Croker’s house number on a mailbox by the driveway. And up the driveway, at the crest of the great swollen green lawn—Peepgass couldn’t believe it. The house was a colossal pile of brick with a portico and white columns and windows with white muntins that seemed ten feet tall. It took Peepgass’s breath away. He suddenly felt terribly intimidated.

  Jesus Christ, he thought. I can’t drive up to that place in a five-year-old Ford Escort.

  So he continued past the driveway and made a U—turn—plenty of room on Valley Road to make a U-turn in a Ford Escort—and headed back the other way. Now he had to pass the battalion of maids by swinging to the right. More of them gave him the once-over this time, no doubt wondering what he was doing. Once he passed them, he made another U—turn and pulled over to the curb about fifty feet from Martha Croker’s driveway. Now plenty of the women had turned their heads around to give him a dubious look. Who was this creep who kept driving by them and was now getting out of his car so he could follow them, on foot, out in the middle of the street?

  He’d walk up her driveway, Escortless, that’s what he’d do. He soon discovered why the maids walked out in the middle of the street. On the edges, the street sloped so much to allow for water to run off, walking was uncomfortable. So now, out in the middle of Valley Road, came a battalion of maids … with Raymond Peepgass of PlannersBanc bringing up the rear.

  Martha Croker’s driveway was also laid out in yet more graceful, wasteful Buckhead curves. On either side were banks of green-and-white-striped hostas. So this is what Croker had to give up when he shucked Martha, thought Peepgass. He was beginning to get a bit winded from the long climb. His armpits were already cooking. This in turn made him think of how second-rate his clothes were. This old gray pinstripe suit that had come back just a bit … shiny … from its last trip to the cleaners … the buttonhole in the front that was frayed and needed selvaging … this striped shirt that was beginning to get a bit threadbare where the collar met the necktie … and the necktie, which suddenly seemed far too loud to be wearing into a house like this …

  You had to walk up three steps to the portico and pass between two great white Doric columns to reach the front door, which was a colossal thing, painted dark green, with all sorts of raised panels and architraves a foot wide, plus window lights running down either side. Peepgass pressed the doorbell, and everything—the walls, the glass, the door—was so big and heavy, you couldn’t hear it ringing inside.

  Presently the door opened, and a middle-aged black maid in a white uniform was standing there.

  “Ray Peepgass,” said Peepgass. “I’m here to see Mrs. Croker.”

  “She’s expecting you,” said the woman. “Come on in.”

  Peepgass found himself in an astonishingly—to him—large hall with a marble floor of white, into which were set, at discrete intervals, black diamond shapes. At the rear of the hall a colossal staircase swung up in a half-spiral to the floor above. The curve of the staircase created a silhouette against the light that flooded in through an enormous arched window behind it.