Part 2 (1/2)

As I crawled into the front seat, I was still sh.e.l.l-shocked from the sights and sounds of Dunetown.

”Okay, let's roll,” he said, pulling into the dark, palm-lined street.

He didn't have anything to volunteer; his att.i.tude was still cooperative but cautious. And while I was interested in getting the lowdown on Tagliani-Turner, for the moment I was more interested in what had happened to the local landscape.

After a block or two of silence I asked, ”What in h.e.l.l happened to Dunetown?”

He stared over at me with a funny look on his face, then, as if answering his own question, said, ”Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting you lived here once”

”Not here,” I said. ”Not in this town. Anyway, I didn't live here. I was, uh . . . I guess you could say was a summer guest. ”

”When was that again?”

I was trying to be casual, trying to keep away from personal history. I didn't know him well enough to show him any scars.

”Twenty years ago, just for a couple of months. It's hardly worth mentioning,” I answered in an offhand way.

”You were just a kid then.”

”Yeah, a senior in college.” While I didn't want to get too personal, I didn't want to play games, either.

”Teddy Findley was my best friend,” I added after a second or two.

”Oh,” he said. ”Then you know what's been going on.”

”No, I got out of touch with the family,” I said.

”You know the Findley kid is dead?”

”You mean Teddy?”

”Yeah. ”

”Yes,” I said. ”It's after that I kind of lost track of things.”

”Well, what happened was the racetrack, that's what. The town got bent. Twenty years ago there was probably, what, seventy-five, a hundred thousand people?”

”Sounds about right.”

”Probably three hundred thousand now, about half of 'em from the shady side of the tracks. What you got here, you got a major racetrack, and a beauty. Looks like Saratoga. A cla.s.sy track, okay? That's a gimmee.”

”Where is it?”

”Back behind us, on the other side of the river. It's dark now, anyway. ”

”Okay, so you got a cla.s.sy track. Then what?”

”I think maybe what the money in town expected was kind of another Ascot. Everybody standing around sipping tea, wavin' their pinkies in the air. What they got is horseplayers, which come in every shape, size, and variety known to mankind, and about half of them smoke tea; they don't drink it.”

”So that's what Front Street's all about?”

”It appeals to some of that element. It isn't Front Street's gonna make your gonads shrink. It's what happened to the rest of the town. They turned it into a little Miami.”

”They? Who's they?”

”The wimps that took over. Look, Chief Findley's an old man. Most of the rest of the old power structure's dead. They turned it over to their heirs. Keepers of the kingdom, right? Wrong. Wimps, the lot of 'em, with maybe an exception or two.”

”I probably know some of them,” I said.

”Probably. But it wasn't just them, it was anybody had a square foot of ground they could sell. Condos all over the place. High-rise apartments. Three big hotels on the beach, another one going up. Real estate outta sight. Two marinas as big as Del Mar. You feel bad now, wait'll you see Doomstown in the daylight.”

That was the first time I heard it called Doomstown, but it was far from the last.

”I'm still surprised Chief Findley and the old power structure let it happen,” I said.

”Couldn't do anything about it,” Dutch growled. ”They died or were too old to cope.”

An edge had crept into his tone, a touch of anger mixed with contempt. He seemed to sense it himself and drove quietly while he calmed down.

I tried to fill in the dead s.p.a.ce. ”My father used to say you can inherit blood but you can't inherit backbone.”

For the first few blocks we drove through the Dunetown I wanted to remember, the large section of the midtown area that had been restored to its Revolutionary elegance.

I remembered driving through the section with Chief and Teddy one Sunday afternoon a long time ago. It had fallen on hard times; block after block of broken-down row houses that were either boarded over or had been converted into cheap rooming houses. We were in Chief's black Rolls convertible and he was sitting on the edge of his seat, shoulders square, his white hair thras.h.i.+ng in the wind.

”We're going to restore this whole d.a.m.n part of town,” he had said grandly, in his soft, Irish-southern accent, while waving his arm at the drab ruins. ”Not a d.a.m.n museum like Williamsburg. I mean a livin', breathin' place where people will be proud to live. Feel like they're part of her history. Share bed and board with her ghosts. This is the heart of the city, by G.o.d! And if the heart stops, the city dies. You boys just remember that.” He paused to appraise the street, then added, half under his breath, ”Someday it'll be your responsibility.” And Teddy looked over at me and winked. In those days I was one of the boys.

It seemed he had kept that bargain, although G.o.d knows what miserable trade he had made, allowing the business section to go to h.e.l.l. That part of it didn't make sense. This part did. The parks and squares opened the town up, letting it breathe and flourish naturally, giving it a personality of its own. Here and there, expensive-looking shops and galleries nudged up against the townhouses. You could tell that zoning here was communal, that the rules were probably shaped by common consent.

”This is better,” I said. ”But Front Street, Jesus!”

”They had to give the two-dollar bettors someplace to play,” Dutch said matter-of-factly.

We took a left and a right and were back to reality again. We were on the edge of Back O'Town, a kind of buffer between Dunetown and the black section. You could feel poverty in the air. The fancy shops gave way to army-navy stores and cut-rate furniture outlets. It was the worn-out part of town. A lot of used-car lots and flophouse hotels.

We drove in silence for a minute or two, then I asked, ”How long you been here, Dutch?”

”Came down from Pittsburgh almost four years ago, right after they pa.s.sed the referendum for the track.”

”They built it when?”

”It opened for business year before last and the town went straight to h.e.l.l. From white Palm Beach suits to horse blanket jackets and plaid pants overnight. You gotta bust an eardrum to hear a southern accent anymore.” His own was a kind of guttural Pennsylvania Dutch.

”You mean like yours?” I joked.

He chuckled. ”Yeah, like mine.”

”Town on the make,” I said, half-aloud.

”You got that right.”