Peregrin drew deeply on his cigarette and stared into Roblee’s frightened eyes. “Mr. Roblee,” he said softly, “you may never have had anything like this before, but you’ve certainly got it now, and the question is, ‘What do we intend to do about it?’” He waited. Not so much for an answer as for a realization on the other man’s part of just what the situation meant.
“It’s not White we’re worried about,” Roblee added hastily. “That jail is strong enough, and I don’t suppose the Chief is going to let them come by without doing something to stop them. It’s what’s happening all over town that’s got us frightened. We never seen the people round here act this way. Why, they in a killing frame of mind!”
Peregrin nodded slowly.
“How is your Pastor?” he asked.
Roblee shrugged. “He’s gone be blind in the one eye, maybe both, but that’s what I mean That man was respected by everybody ’round here. They thought most highly of him. We got to protect ourselves.”
“What do you propose?” Peregrin asked.
Roblee looked up from the empty glass suddenly. “What do we propose? Why, man, that’s why we asked for help from the N-double A-CP. Don’t you understand?Something terrible’s gone happen in this town unless we decide what to do to stop it. Even the sensible folks ’round here are crazy mad with wanting to lynch that Daniel White.”
“I can only make suggestions; that’s my job. I can’t tell you what to do.”
Roblee fondled the glass, then filled it half full with uneven movements. He tipped it up and drank heavily. “What about if we just all moved on out for a few days?”
Peregrin shook his head.
Roblee looked away, said softly, ironically, “I didn’t think so.” He moved his tongue over his thick, moist lips. “Man, I am scared! ”
Peregrin said, “Do you think the Chief would let me in to speak to White tonight?”
The other man shrugged. “You can try. Want me to give him a call?” Peregrin nodded agreement, and added, “Let me speak to him. The organization might carry a little weight.”
It was decided, after the call, that Peregrin and Roblee would both go to see Daniel White. The chief of police advised them to come by way of the police emergency alley, where the chance of their being seen and stopped would be less.
In the cell block, Peregrin stood for several minutes watching Daniel White through the bars. He studied the face, the attitude of relaxation, the clothing the man wore.
He mumbled something lightly. Roblee moved up next to him, asked, “What did you say?”
Peregrin repeated the words, only slightly louder, yet distinctly. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Sometimes I think there are too many fifth columnists.”
Roblee shook his head without understanding what Peregrin had said.
“Should we talk to him?” the Georgia Negro said to the Ivy-tailored visitor.
Peregrin nodded resignedly. “Not much bother, but we might as well. We’re here.”
Roblee stepped up to the bars. He called in to Daniel White. The man woke suddenly, but without apprehension. He sat up on the striped tick mattress and looked at his two callers. He smiled, a gap-toothed grin that was at once charming, disarming, frightful, and painful. “Hey there, y’all.” He stood up and walked to the bars with a lazy, rolling strut.
“You the man from the N-double A-CP I bet,” he said, the words twisted Georgia-style. Peregrin nodded.
“Glad t’meetcha. You gone keep them sonofabitches from hangin’ me?” He continued to grin, a self-assured, cocky grin that rankled Peregrin.
The tall Negro moved his face very close to the bars. “You think I should?”
Daniel White made a wry face. “Why, man, you and me is brothers. We the same, fellah. You can’t let them string up no brother of yours. Got to show them damn ofay we as good as them any day.”
Peregrin’s face momentarily wrenched with distaste. “Are we the same, White? You and me. You and Mr. Roblee here? Are we all the same.” He paused, and leaned his forehead against the bars.
“Perhaps we are, perhaps we are,” he murmured.
Daniel White stared at him for some time, without speaking. But he grinned. Finally, “I gone beat this thing, Mister NAACP, you just wait an’ see. I gone get outta this.”
Peregrin raised his eyes slowly. “You don’t even feel any remorse, do you?”
White stared at him uncomprehending. “Whatch’ou mean?”
Peregrin’s face raised to the ceiling, helplessly, as though drawn on invisible wires. “You really don’t know, do you?” he said to himself.
Daniel White grunted and bared rotten teeth. “Listen to me, Mister NAACP you. I gone tell you somethin’. That little white bitch, that Gore child, she a bum from a long way back: man, I seen her in the woods with half a dozen boys from time on time. She not such a hot piece, I tell you that.”
Peregrin turned to Roblee. “Let’s go,” he said, slowly. “We’ve done all we can here.”
They moved back down the cell block: the empty cell block from which the three drunks and the vag had been removed when the first rumors of lynch had begun circulating.
Outside, it was not so quiet. There were mutterings from dark corners of the central Georgia town. Murmurings, unrests, fear, and rising voices.
In his cell, Daniel White returned to sleep. He knew what was going to happen. He had it locked. He was a poor darkie who was going to get all the benefits so long overdue his people.
The man from the NAACP would tend to all that … even if he was a fruity-looking cat in a funny suit.
“What the hell you mean, for the greater good? Are you crazy or something, mister? You can’t let that mob take him and lynch him?” Roblee’s face was a mask of horror. “Are you crazy or what? ”
Peregrin’s forehead was a crisscross of weaving shadow, caught in the flickering light of the candle. They sat at the table once more, joined by five others, all hidden in the grey and black of the room. The shades were drawn, and behind the shades, curtains had been pulled. And they sat staring at the man from the NAACP, Peregrin, who had just told them, without preamble, that they must not only let the whites lynch Daniel White, but they must do everything in their power to aid the act.
“Say, listen, Mister Peregrin, I think you out of your mind. That’s murder, man!” The speaker was a stout, balding man with coffee-colored skin and a wart at the side of his wide nose.
“Just what do you mean, ‘for the greater good?’” Roblee sank a hand heavily on Peregrin’s sleeve. Peregrin continued to sit silently, having said what he felt he must say.
Roblee shook him. “Dammit, fella, you gone answer me! What’d you mean by that?”
Peregrin looked up at them, then. His eyes caught the candlelight and threw it back in two bright lines. His face was shattered; there was conflict and fear and desperation in it. But determination. “All right,” he said, finally.
They stared at him as he dry-washed his cheekbones and temples with moist hands. “Daniel White is sleeping up in that jail, and he doesn’t care what happens to any of you. He had his fun, and now he wants to capitalize on all the work we’ve done for so long, to escape punishment. He’s banking on everyone making such a hue and cry that no one will dare hurt the poor nigger being taken advantage of, down in rotten Georgia.”
Roblee continued to watch the tall man, impassively, waiting. There was confusion in the cant of his head, in the frozen hand on Peregrin’s sleeve.
“Those people out there,” Peregrin waved a fist at the shaded window, “they’re stretched as tight as piano wires. They’ve been told that everything they’ve believed for hundreds of years is a lie. They’ve been told the Negro is as good as them, they’ve been told their white sons and daughters are going to have to move over and share five-and-ten-cent store seats with them, and schools with them, and buses with them, and movies with them …”