their funeral clothes at Blames.
Gone. No more Bucky?s, no more Blame?s, and the two theatres were twenty-four-hour porno houses.
A neon blight had settled over the heart of the town like a garish cloud. Hookers peddled their bodies
from under marquees to keep out of the rain, hawkers lured out-of-towners and footloose horseplayers
into all-nudie revues, and “bottomless” and “topless” signs glittered everywhere. The blaring and
oppressive beat of disco music was the street?s theme song.
I had been there before, along Hollywood?s strip and in the Boston combat zone. The scenario was
always the same. You couldn?t buy a drink in any bar on the street without staring at a naked bosom
or getting propositioned by a waitress—or a waiter, depending on your inclination.
My God, I thought, what?s happened here? How could Chief and Titan have let this happen to a town
they had once treated like a new bride?
The neon blight held the next six blocks in its fist.
And then, as if some medieval architect had built an invisible wall right through the middle of the
city, the neon vanished and Dunetown turned suddenly elegant. It was as if time had tiptoed past this
part of town with its finger to its lips. Old trees embraced mansions and two-hundred-year-old
townhouses. The section had been restored to Revolutionary grandeur with spartan and painstaking
accuracy. Gas lamps flickered on the corners, the streets were mostly window-lit, and there were
flower-laced squares every three or four blocks, fountained oases that added a sense of symmetry and
beauty to the place.
My reaction was simple.
The town was schizo to the core.
3
DOOMSTOWN
Dutch was waiting for me under the awning in front of the Ponce, the political watering hole of
Dunetown, a grand, old, creaky hotel, dripping with potted plants, and one of the few things in
Dunetown that hadn?t changed. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of a bagged-out, nondescript
suit, and a Camel was tucked in the corner of his mouth. If he had a care in the world, it didn?t show. I
parked behind a large black limo, gave the keys to the garage man, checked in, gave a bellhop five
bucks to drop my bag in my room, and tossed my briefcase into Dutch?s backseat.
As 1 crawled into the front seat, I was still shell-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 attitude was still cooperative but cautious. And while I was
