fifty-five-gallon drum smokes like a barn fire outside the NAACP center, sending the aroma of chicken and pork ribs into the air. A knot of middle-aged black men stands around the pit drinking Colt .45 from quart bottles. They fall silent and watch with sullen suspicion as I get out of the BMW and approach Johnson’s building. I nod to them and go inside.
A skinny young man wearing a three-piece suit that must be smothering him sits behind a metal desk, talking on a telephone. Behind the desk stands a wall-to-wall partition of whitewashed plywood with a closed door set in it. The young man looks up and motions me toward a battered church pew. I nod but remain standing, studying the partition, which is plastered with posters exhorting the public to vote for Shad Johnson. Half show him wearing a dark suit and sitting behind a large desk, a model of conservatism and rectitude; the other half show a much younger-looking Johnson sporting a Malcolm X-style goatee and handing out pamphlets to teenagers on an urban playground. It isn’t hard to guess which posters hang in which parts of town.
A voice rises over the partition. It has anger in it, but anger communicated with the perfect diction of a BBC news reader. As I try to get a fix on the words, the young assistant hangs up and disappears through the door. He returns almost instantly and signals me to follow him.
My first impression of Shad Johnson is of a man in motion. Before I can adequately focus on the figure sitting behind the desk, he is rising and coming around it, right hand extended. A few inches shorter than I, Johnson carries himself with the brash assurance of a personal-injury lawyer. He is light-skinned—not to a degree that would hurt him with the majority of black voters, but light enough that certain whites can reassure themselves about his achievements and aspirations by noting the presence of Caucasian blood. He shakes my hand with a natural politician’s grip, firm and confident and augmented by a megawatt of eye contact.
“I’m glad you came,” he says in a measured tenor. “Take a seat.”
He leads me to a folding chair across from his spartan metal desk, then sits atop the desk like a college professor and smiles. “This is a long way from my office at Goldstein, Henry in Chicago.”
“Up or down?”
He laughs. “Up, if I win.”
“And if you lose? Back to white-shoe law in Chicago?”
His smile slips for a nanosecond.
“You said my family is in danger, Mr. Johnson.”
“Shad, please. Short for Shadrach.”
“All right, Shad. Why is my family in danger?”
“Because of your sudden interest in a thirty-year-old murder.”
“I have no interest in the murder of Del Payton. And I intend to make a public statement to that effect as soon as possible.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that. I must have taken fifty calls today asking what I’m doing to help you get to the bottom of it.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I’m in the process of putting together the facts.”
“You didn’t know the facts already?”
Johnson examines his fingernails, which look professionally manicured. “I was born here, Mr. Cage, but I was sent north to prep school when I was eleven. Let’s focus on the present, shall we? The Payton case is a sleeping dog. Best to let it lie.”
The situation is quickly clarifying itself. “What if new evidence were to come to light that pointed to Payton’s killer? Or killers?”
“That would be unfortunate.”
His candor surprises me. “For local politicians, maybe. What about justice?”
“That kind of justice doesn’t help my people.”
“And the Payton family? They’re not your people?”
Johnson sighs like a man trying to hold an intelligent conversation with a two-year-old. “If this case were to be dragged through the newspapers, it would whip white resentment in this town to a fever pitch. Black people can’t afford that. Race relations isn’t about laws and courts anymore. It’s about attitudes. Perceptions. A lot of whites in Mississippi want to do the right thing. They felt the same way in the sixties. But every group has the instinct to protect its own. Liberals keep silent and protect rednecks for the same reason good doctors protect bad ones. It’s a tribal reaction. You’ve got to let those whites find their way to the good place. Suddenly Del Payton is the biggest obstacle I can see to that.”
“I suppose whites get to that good place by voting for Shad Johnson?”
“You think Wiley Warren’s helping anybody but himself?”
“I’m not Warren’s biggest fan, but I’ve heard some good things about his tenure.”
“You hear he’s a drunk? That he can’t keep his dick in his pants? That he’s in the pocket of the casino companies?”
“You have evidence?”
“It’s tough to get evidence when he controls the police.”
“There are plenty of black cops on the force.”
Johnson’s phone buzzes. He frowns, then hits a button and picks up the receiver. “Shad Johnson,” he says in his clipped Northern accent. Five seconds later he cries “My brother!” and begins chattering in the frenetic musical patois of a Pine Street juke, half words and grunts and wild bursts of laughter. Noticing my stare, he winks as if to say: Look how smoothly I handle these fools.
As he hangs up, his assistant sticks his head in the door. “Line two.”
“No more calls, Henry.”
“It’s Julian Bond.”
Johnson sniffs and shoots his cuffs. “I’ve got to take this.”
Now he’s the urbane attorney again, sanguine and self-effacing. He and Bond discuss the coordination of black celebrity appearances during the final weeks of Johnson’s mayoral campaign. Stratospheric names are shuffled like charms on a bracelet. Jesse. Denzel. Whitney. General Powell. Kweisi Mfume. When the candidate hangs up, I shake my head.
“You’re obviously a man of many talents. And faces.”
“I’m a chameleon,” Johnson admits. “I’ve got to be. You know you have to play to your jury, counselor, and I’ve got a pretty damn diverse one here.”
“I guess running for office in this town is like fighting a two-front war.”
“Two-front war? Man, this town has more factions than the Knesset. Redneck Baptists, rich liberals, yellow dog Democrats, middle-class blacks, young fire eaters, Uncle Toms, and bone-dumb bluegums working the bottomland north of town. It’s like conducting a symphony with musicians who hate each other.”
“I’m a little surprised by your language. You sound like winning is a lot more important to you than helping your people.”
“Who can I help if
