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.”
“1 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 space. “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 thrashing in the
wind.
“We?re going to restore this whole damn part of town,” he had said grandly, in his soft, Irish-southern
accent, while waving his arm at the drab ruins. “Not a damn 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 Cod! 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
