Not so, Roger. Shook with trepidation was more like it in his case. Not even his flawless sartorial armor—a new hard-finished worsted navy suit from Gus Carroll, a high-necked tab-collar shirt, and a pale-blue crêpe de chine necktie with a perfect dimple—could make him feel secure. He would have to lead off. The three of them had decided that Wringer Fleasom would be the best setting for the press conference, because it had such a grand and sedate decor and precisely because it was not a firm that ordinarily handled criminal cases. So Roger would be the host. When Roger had asked the firm’s general partner, Zandy Scott, if it would be all right to use the library for a press conference, Zandy had ruminated for what seemed like four or five minutes—it was probably no more than twenty or thirty seconds—before he said yes. That hadn’t made Roger feel any better.

  Julian must have detected Roger’s shakiness, because he kept sidling up to him and, in a low voice, offering advice, as he was doing at this moment:

  “One more thing,” he said. “Just remember: speak firmly but slowly and in a low voice, a normal voice. People take a loud, hurried voice to mean you’re insecure. No matter what they say to you, don’t rise to the bait. Don’t argue—or if you have to, make it short. At a press conference, the more you argue, the shakier you sound. Above all, remember: we’re not here to defend Fareek against charges—because nobody’s made any charges, and so he don’t need any defending yet. You don’t have to shoo flies off a hawg in a shady sty.”

  Roger nodded to show that he understood, but his eyes had drifted back toward the gathering press. Mercedes Prince was directing a fifth—or was it a sixth?—television camera crew toward a place in the rear of the throng. Ninety percent of this mangy collection of humanity were white. They seemed to range in age from twenty-five to fifty. The older men’s taste, if it could be called that, ran to gray beards consisting of out-of-control ten-week stubbles that had spread like crabgrass on the undersides of their jowls and practically down to their Adam’s apples. Made you itchy just looking at it. They wore baggy polo shirts, completely unbuttoned at the neck, with short sleeves hanging down to their elbows. There were no neckties; not one. There were two jackets, one on the hunched-over back of a paunchy white man, a newspaper reporter, judging by his notebook. He had on an ordinary cotton button-down shirt—the dignity of which had been subverted by the fact that he had been one button off when he buttoned the shirt, causing the right side of the collar to wind up two and a half inches lower than the left. There were four black members of this herd, two of whom he knew or knew of. One was a woman, the only decently dressed person among the whole bunch of them. Her name was Melanie Wallace, and she lived at Niskey Lake, although he barely knew her to say hello. She was a pretty, light-skinned woman who did on-camera reports for Channel 11. She had relaxed hair that was … done … in expensive-looking waves … She wore toffeecolored pants with a matching silk blouse. The other was a heavyset dark man who wore a black chalk-striped suit over a black T-shirt. Just so; a suit and a T-shirt. Roger had seen his picture many times in local black publications. He was part of the seemingly endless ranks of professional protesters and complainers, to Roger Too White’s way of thinking. Just looking at the man made Roger Too White’s damnable nickname pop back into his head. The man was Cedric Stifell, and he edited a weekly called Atlanta Alarm.

  There he was, Cedric Stifell, posing insolently against a backdrop of the library reading room at Wringer Fleasom & Tick. Wringer Fleasom was paneled in mahogany from one end of its two floors here in the Peachtree Olympus to the other. The mahogany-paneled hallways were so dark, you had to stand directly under a downlighter in order to read a letterhead. But the reading room of the library was the firm’s pièce de résistance when it came to mahogany. It was a veritable mahogany theme park. Panels, pilasters, cornices, shelves, tables, chairs, and even light switch wall plates—all of it was mahogany. And down at that end was the mahogany chair Roger Too White would soon have to sit in, before a thicket of microphones already in place on the big mahogany table. Six big television cameras would be aiming at him like lasers. He was consumed by fear. He had memorized what he was going to say, but suppose he became an ignominious casualty of nerves? What made his nervousness worse was the fear of suddenly appearing to white clients like Gerthland Fuller as just another black careerist riding the “activist” train—while in the eyes of the Cedric Stifells of Atlanta he would always be … Roger Too White. Wringer Fleasom & Tick, indeed! He had informed Zandy Scott that he had Fareek Fanon as a client as soon as he had been brought into the case, but he had never told him the nature of the case in any detail, and certainly had not told him it was a potential stick of dynamite. Zandy had not looked happy an hour ago when Roger Too White sought him out to introduce him to that sartorial curiosity, Julian Salisbury, and to a black criminal lawyer, Don Pickett, a dark, dapper, smooth-looking figure obviously not from the orbit of Wringer Fleasom, or anything close to it. So Christ God!—what must he think of this rabble, the Press!

  No sooner had Zandy Scott possessed Roger Too White’s thoughts than here he came, walking from the rear of the reading room toward the alcove. Zandy was a tall white man, probably six four or so, in his early fifties, with red hair that was yielding to a rising tide of gray. He had the sort of full, smooth jowls and hefty midsection that used to denote prosperity and position in portraits by Copley. He was capable of ferocious displays of temper. Roger’s first thought was: He’s going to call off the press conference and throw everybody out! The entire damnable un-Wringer un-Fleasom & un-Ticky rabble!

  Instead, when he reached the alcove, he broke into a smile. “Hey, Julian! Hey, Don!” Then he looked at Roger Too White. “Mercedes tells me the telephones are still ringing! People are coming in from all over the place! I hope you guys know what you’re going to say!” An ingratiating grin. A beseeching grin! The man was thrilled to be a part of it all. It was through his law firm that the thrilling electric current of the microphones and television cameras would soon run! After decades of contracts, briefs, wills, and codicils in this mahogany mausoleum, Wringer Fleasom was for this brief moment part of the hurly-burly of the gaudy world outside.

  “Julian and Don know what they’re doing, Zandy,” said Roger. “I’m the one to worry about. I’ve never done this before. I want you to sit up front and be my prompter.”

  “Aw.w.w.w., you’ll be fine,” said Zandy.

  “That’s exactly what I told him, Zandy,” said Julian. “I think Roger here’s like the fella who tells you, ‘Well, you know, I’m jes an ol’ country lawyer?’ That’s when you got to keep a good grip on your watch fob!” Then he held his wrist up again, the one with the watch on it. It showed a few minutes past eleven. “Speakin’ a timepieces,” he said, “I think it’s like I said. ’Bout time to go out there and slop the hawgs.”

  Roger could feel another uptick in the adrenaline as he entered the reading room, followed by Julian and Don. For a moment he was frightened by the glare of the television lights. It was as if he were all at once in an entirely new atmosphere that his eyes and his lungs were not used to. He was aware of small red lights turned his way. They were the red lights that indicate television cameras are on and filming. To Roger they seemed like eyes, and they followed him all the way to the table, where he sat down in a banker’s chair, a carved mahogany chair in which the arms and the backs created a great horseshoe curve. Julian took a seat to his right; Don, to his left.

  Roger looked down at the surface of the table and then up at the mob of reporters and cameras and then became acutely aware of all the microphones in front of his face. From one side to the other they were pointed directly toward him, as if he generated some sort of magnetic field. At first he could scarcely make out the people standing before him. Because of the lighting, or something, they seemed to exist in a haze. He knew what he wanted to say, but he wondered if the words would come out if he opened his mouth. Television cameras! The thought first occurred to him: Those red-eyed machines will expose me to thousands, millions! I’m not just in this room! I’m streaming through the air in every direction! How can I do this? But in that instant he thought of Wes Jordan. He had called Wes early this morning to let him know what was about to happen. But somehow Wes already knew. In any case, Wes would be watching. It would be dreadful to look like a frightened fool in front of Wes Jordan! So, like many another man before him, Roger White pulled himself together and gulped his fears back down mainly so as not to look like too great a ninny.

  He surveyed the tiny red eyes and all the mangy faces looking at him and managed to say:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Roger White”—it was strange to hear himself uttering his own name in front of these people. “I’m a partner here at Wringer Fleasom & Tick.” Had he just told them more than they needed to know? Did he sound as if he was bragging? These worrisome questions circulated in his skull even as he opened his mouth again and said, “On my right”—he gave a tentative gesture—“is Attorney Julian Salisbury, and on my left”—a more authoritative gesture—“is Attorney Donald Pickett. We’re representing Mr. Fareek Fanon. Now, we’d like to say—”

  “Is he here?”

  It broke in—just like that—a deep gravelly voice. It was the white man who had buttoned up his shirt wrong. It startled Roger Too White and made him angry. The man had thrown him offstride.

  “Is who here?”

  “Fareek Fanon.”

  Roger remembered Julian Salisbury’s advice: “A firm voice, low and slow.” For a moment Roger’s mouth hung open awkwardly as he stared at the man and his aging grayboy wattles, and then he said, lowly, slowly, firmly: “Given the erroneous and completely irresponsible nature of the rumor that has brought us all here this morning, there isn’t the slightest reason why Mr. Fanon should even have to think about being at this event.” The fact that this went down without any yammering or grumbling made Roger feel immensely stronger. “Now, as I was about to say, we’re going to make a statement, and then you can ask questions.” He looked from one end of the mangy crescent to the other, into the red eyes of the cameras, into the cynical mug of Cedric Stifell, into the pretty, inscrutable face of Melanie Wallace, and was aware of his heart drumming away. “This morning, as you know, an article was printed in a traditionally responsible organ concerning Fareek Fanon. The basis of this article was the existence over the past week of an item carried by a Web site”—pronounced porn shop—“on the Internet. Now, the Internet is an uncontrollable medium and, in this case, an out-of-control medium. That anyone could make an item carried by a Web site on the Internet”—pronounced porn shop in a massage parlor—“the basis of a printed article is disturbing. The fact of the matter is that there are no facts and there is no matter. No charges of any sort have been brought against Fareek Fanon in any forum whatsoever, not the courts, not the police department, not Georgia Tech. Mr. Fanon denies involvement in any act such as the one mentioned in this story”—rhymes with fairy tale—“and no one has stepped forward to assert otherwise. We are here to enlist the help of the press in seeing to it that this talented young man’s reputation is not stained in this wholly baseless, irresponsible fashion.”

  With that, Roger leaned back in his mahogany banker’s chair and took a deep breath, as if to say, “That’s the statement. That’s that.”

  “Then are you saying,” said the big man who had buttoned his shirt wrong, “that there is no ‘leading Atlanta businessman’ who has been leveling such a charge against Fanon?”

  That had Roger stumped, since in fact he did know of such a creature. The moment grew longer and longer.

  Julian Salisbury spoke up. “’At’s like asking if there’s a brood sow out there somewhere dancing a minuet. Could be, I reckon, ’cause a hawg’s smarter’n a hound dawg. But it’s what I’d call a moot point! There ain’t no charges!” By the time he got to a moot point, Salisbury was convulsed with laughter, which must have been why the Press started laughing, too; either that or they were amused because the bouncy little lawyer worked his hawgs into every conversation.

  Melanie Wallace said, “Then Fareek Fanon is denying these charges—”

  “There are no charges,” said Roger. “No one has made any charges.”

  “All right—is he saying that the events … uh … the matter referred to in the press today did not occur?”

  “Absolutely.” Firmly, lowly, slowly. Roger was pleased to see that the Press was dancing coyly about the subject. So far no one had used the word rape.

  “If nothing happened,” said the man who had buttoned his shirt wrong, “then why are you here, Julian, and you, too, Don? You’re both criminal defense lawyers.”

  “We’re here … if needed, Bryce,” said Don Pickett, who had a slow, pleasant voice. “So far we haven’t had anything to do, and in this case we like it like that.”

  A deep and indisputably black voice spoke up: “How do you suppose rumors like this one get started, and why does anybody want to circulate them?” It was Cedric Stifell of Atlanta Alarm.

  “I have no idea,” said Roger Too White. His good sense told him to leave it at that. But Cedric Stifell was the black press—and he, Roger, was Roger Too White, and contrary to all logic, it was important to him, in this place, the white-as-white-can-be Wringer Fleasom & Tick, to be liked by this man—yes, this man in his ludicrous outfit. Besides, he, Roger White II, just might want to let it be known that he was a learned lawyer as well. So he didn’t leave it at that. Instead he continued: “You know, Nietzsche once said that resentment is the least explored of the primary human motivations. He said there are certain types of people who can’t improve their own place in the world, and so they devote all their energies to tearing down others. He called them ‘the tarantulas.’ I suppose there’s a certain type of person who resents a young man like Fareek Fanon rising up from English Avenue, from the Bluff, and becoming a great sports star.”

  As soon as the words “up from English Avenue” passed Roger’s lips he wished he could pull them back from out of the air, from out of the ether, from out of the electric gullets of all those microphones in front of him. No matter how indirectly, he had now introduced the matter of race into the discussion. There was probably not another neighborhood in Atlanta more completely identified with black folks than English Avenue.

  “Who do you have in mind?” It was a white man, about thirty-five, wearing a shirt open almost to the waist, the better to reveal a T-shirt with the face of a grotesque clown on it and the name KRUSTY. The man wore his pale brown hair down over his ears, like the clown.

  “I don’t have anybody in mind,” said Roger anxiously. “I was just making a speculation that was probably not worth making. I doubt that the fact that Fareek Fanon is from English Avenue has anything to do with … uh … uh … with anything.” He was aware that his voice now sounded terribly anxious, even a bit desperate. But sounding unnerved wasn’t the end of the world. At least he had retracted … most of it … Had to show off your knowledge of late-nineteenth-century philosophy, didn’t you! You vain, overreaching fool! You … Roger Too White!

  The questions continued, but Julian and Don took most of them. Roger sat there in a daze, tuning in and out … Nietzsche and the tarantulas … Why had he said that? … Would anybody print it or broadcast it? … Nahhhhhhhhh, who was going to quote Lawyer Roger White on the subject of Friedrich Nietzsche? But suppose they did? How bad would it be? … But English Avenue, too! … Why in the name of God had he ever mentioned English Avenue? Why had he said “rising up from English Avenue”? Why couldn’t he have left it with “becoming a great sports star”? … Had to pander to Cedric Stifell and the readers of Atlanta Alarm, didn’t you! Had to prove you weren’t really Too White, isn’t that so? But none of that shaggy pack standing before him was talking anymore about English Avenue or the tarantulas, were they … They were talking about this, that, and the other thing, aimlessly fishing for something substantial in this titillating situation … The tarantulas and English Avenue were not substantial, either … Yet he couldn’t help but notice that Julian and Don, no matter how many more hawgs Julian threw in, and no matter how broad Don Pickett’s smile became, stuck strictly to the text: there are no charges, and so there’s nothing to discuss—and no matter how many times you have to say it, say it firmly, lowly, slowly.

  Suddenly a woman’s voice: “Mr. White, you mentioned ‘tarantulas.’ Let’s suppose there’s a tarantula out there who’s the head of a very large corporation with headquarters in Atlanta, and he makes charges openly, through some official public channel. Do you think your client will be at a disadvantage because he comes from English Avenue and is black?”

  Roger stared at her for a moment. She was a white woman with short, bobbed blond hair, wearing a black jersey and pants and a black canvas Cargo vest. She had an aggressive, terribly rapid-fire delivery. Tarantulas! English Avenue! Black! The woman had hit every single blunder he’d made right on the head!