The power broker: San Francisco's ex-Mayor Willie Brown has pioneered a new way to control a city without breaking a sweat--or running for office, or getting elected, or disclosing his clients, or making anyone particularly mad.

• Author: Stevens, Elizabeth Lesly

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On January 8, San Francisco's political and business elite gathered under the soaring rotunda of city hall for the inauguration of Edwin M. Lee, who had just been elected to a full term as mayor. Trumpets heralded the recently obscure city administrator as he made his way down the grand marble staircase.

Already front and center on the broad landing that served as the stage for the occasion was Willie L. Brown Jr. Brown's days as an elected official--he served as speaker of the state assembly, and then two terms as San Francisco's mayor--are long past. But he remains very much the star of the show, and was arguably the most powerful man in the room.

The ascent of Ed Lee that morning was the public culmination of Brown's deft maneuvering over the previous two years to ensure that a safe and reliable ally would continue to control San Francisco's local government. Lee's predecessor, Gavin Newsom, was himself a Brown protege, getting his start in city politics when Brown appointed him to the parking commission and then the board of supervisors.

Brown and his longtime ally Rose Pak, a community organizer and a powerful figure from the city's Chinese Chamber of Commerce, had managed to get Lee, an obscure city hall apparatchik, appointed interim mayor in January 2011 when Newsom left office early to become lieutenant governor. As an incumbent, Lee was then a shoe-in to win a rill term. Brown had built up Lee's public service bona tides for years, appointing the former Asian Law Caucus attorney to a series of posts, including head of the city's purchasing office and the department of public works. If Lee wins a second term, he will be in place until 2020, giving Brown a hold on San Francisco's government that will span a quarter century.

So the victory being celebrated on January 8 was Brown's. The very public stagecraft of the inauguration left no doubt about who remains the city's Alpha Male.

"Charlotte! We are mad at you!" Brown jovially shouted across the stage as Lee made his way down the stairs. Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, a glamorous socialite and the wife of former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, was long ago appointed by Brown as San Francisco's chief of protocol. She managed this inauguration, as she had countless official parties for Brown and other politicians and dignitaries over the years. "We"--Brown stood in the opulently decorated Beaux Arts temple with four other former mayors, including U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein--"didn't get this!"

The horns quieted. Lee stood meekly behind Brown. He tugged at his baggy business suit, clasped and unclasped his hands. The most colorful thing about him is his moustache, which is brown.

"Ed, if you want to sit down, it's all right. It's perfectly all right," Brown said, gesturing back toward a chair.

Lee sat.

Brown and the crowd laughed.

Brown then held forth for most of the next hour, cracking jokes and explaining what Lee's mayoralty was all about. He told Lee, who sat dutifully in his chair, gray and mute, that he had better learn to recognize the state and national political figures in the audience who could be pressured to support high-speed rail, a favorite public works project of Brown and, presumably, his clients.

"I should identify some of your real friends," Brown said. "People like Ron Conway, who is here. Where are you, Ron Conway?"

The influential technology investor, a Republican who had not been politically active before falling in with Brown and becoming Lee's largest donor, stood and beamed. The parties Conway hosted or funded for Lee had been the talk of the town. A widely distributed campaign commercial was filmed at Conway's home; it featured sports and tech celebrities like Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and Google's Marissa Mayer dancing merrily to demonstrate their enthusiasm for Lee as MC Hammer performed "U Can't Touch This." (Brown has been talking up Hammer, whose real name is Stanley Kirk Burrell, as the next mayor of Oakland.)

Conway's and the tech industry's support of Lee had already yielded a spectacular return. Shortly after being named interim mayor, Lee pushed through what became known as the "Twitter tax break." The deal allows San Francisco tech companies to avoid huge payroll taxes on employee stock options when they go public. San Francisco-based Twitter is among Conway's portfolio companies. After the inauguration, Lee put on hold an effort by city tax authorities to force another Conway-backed company, Airbnb, to comply with the city's steep lodging tax.

After making sure that everyone understood how much Lee owed Run Conway, Brown did cede the podium--reluctantly, promising he would soon return--and allowed Lee to speak. But Brown took a seat so very near the new mayor that even in the closest-cropped photos and videos of Lee's speech, Brown's familiar bald visage looms large, seemingly grafted to Lee's left arm.

Brown remains sparklingly charismatic and jaunty despite his seventy-eight years. He is possibly more powerful and certainly less controversial now than when he held public office. The ethics and criminal investigations that dogged his entire political career (no charges were ever filed) have been largely forgotten. The well-dressed bon vivant lives downtown in his St. Regis apartment and seems to never tire of the party circuit.

Brown is now a private attorney under no obligation to disclose the identity of his clients or his interactions with the legion of public officials and others who owe their careers to him. (The most promising of these may be California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Brown's onetime girlfriend.) Brown operates in a post-partisan, post-paper trail world in which he reaps the benefits of power while bearing none of the unpleasant culpability or scrutiny that typically comes with that.

There is no scandal here. Brown helped create the system that allows him to flourish now. And he plays that system like a born musician who rarely if ever hits a wrong note. "He is smarter than everyone else. That is...