Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil Part 9

"I'm different," said Danny. "I been on the street since I was fifteen. I quit school in the eighth grade. My family hates me. Bonnie, my girlfriend, won't marry me, 'Cause I ain't got a fulltime job."

"So you'd rather be dead, huh?"

Danny looked down at his feet and shrugged. "Maybe."

"Well, look at it this way. If you had died last night, you wouldn't have met me this afternoon. Right? And we wouldn't have f.u.c.ked on that four-poster bed the way we did. That was something to live for, wasn't it?"

Danny took a long drag on the joint and handed it to her. She was sitting on the side of him that had the Confederate flag tattoo. He leaned against her and uttered a low growl.

"Well, was it?" she asked.

"Yeah, it was worth living for," he said, "but only if there's more where it came from." He slid his arm around her waist and kissed the back of her neck, growling softly and nibbling at her like a playful lion cub. She felt a tingle of pleasure. In a moment he was stroking her knee, rubbing her thigh, lifting her off the pedestal, and lowering her onto the ground. She squealed as he rolled on top of her. He lay lightly on her, supporting himself by his elbows to keep from pressing her too hard against the ground. Dried leaves crackled beneath them. She began to moan, louder and louder. Suddenly, he clapped his hand over her mouth and froze, motionless. Startled, she looked up and saw that he had lifted his head; he was peering out through the bushes. She could feel his heart pounding. He lay absolutely still, not moving a muscle. She heard voices. People were approaching. She turned her head and saw several pairs of legs walking along a path that would bring them to within a few feet of where they lay. She and Danny were only partly covered by the bushes. If the people looked in their direction as they pa.s.sed, they would surely see them. She heard a middle-aged woman speaking in a complaining voice.

"Perpetual care means just what it says. It means taking care of things in perpetuity. Like pulling out weeds and sweeping up debris. Forever. I'm going to stop at the guardhouse and have a word with the groundskeeper before we leave."

They were twenty feet away now and coming closer. A man's voice replied. "They do a pretty fair job compared to most places. Anyhow, I can't imagine Granny minds a few weeds or a couple of twigs lying around."

"Well, I do do mind," the woman persisted. "And I want to know that when I'm laid to rest, someone will tend the plot in perpetuity, as they've been paid to do." mind," the woman persisted. "And I want to know that when I'm laid to rest, someone will tend the plot in perpetuity, as they've been paid to do."

The legs were walking right by them now. Corinne held her breath. "Suit yourself," said the man. "We'll wait for you in the car."

They had pa.s.sed. They had not noticed. Danny relaxed his grip on Corinne's mouth and resumed having s.e.x as easily as if he were picking up a conversation dropped in mid-sentence. Co-rinne was swept away by his staying power and by his ability throughout the entire terrifying interruption to maintain a rock-hard erection.

On the way back to the car he walked with a spring in his step. Corinne took his hand in hers. She had rescued him from morbid thoughts, and that pleased her. He was moody, all right, but what did that matter? She had found the perfect s.e.xual playmate. He was aglow, and she was aglow-but for very different reasons, as she discovered when he turned to her in the car and asked, "Will you marry me?"

She was not so much taken aback as surprised at the absurdity of it. "But we just met three hours ago!" she said. She started to laugh, but she realized almost at once, when she saw his expression suddenly turn grim, that his offer had been heartfelt. She had wounded him.

"You're gonna marry one of them two a.s.sholes at the beach, aren't you?" he said softly.

"No," she said. "I don't know them well enough either."

"Sure you do. They got money. They got an education. What else do you need to know?"

She had hurt him deeply, and she was crushed. She was touched that he was so desperate to be loved. "I had a wonderful time today," she said gently. "I really did. I-"

"But you won't marry me. You'll never marry me."

She struggled for words. "Well, but I ... I certainly want to see see you again. I mean, we can get together often and, you know, we can-" you again. I mean, we can get together often and, you know, we can-"

She did not see the back of his hand coming at her until it struck her a glancing blow on the cheek. It would have landed with more force, but Danny had floored the accelerator at the same moment and swung sharply onto Abercorn Street, throwing her against the door and out of reach. They roared south on Abercorn, swerving from lane to lane, pa.s.sing one car after another. It was getting dark.

Corinne cowered as far away from him as she could get. Her cheek felt numb. "Please take me home," she pleaded.

"When I'm G.o.dd.a.m.n good and ready," he snapped.

They sped south. Two miles, three miles, five miles. They sailed past the Mall, past Armstrong State College. Corinne felt dizzy. She could think only of Danny's death wish and that now he would kill them both. Surely the vodka, the pina coladas, and the marijuana had taken their toll. He would drive off the road; he would slam into another car. She was frightened just looking at him: He was so utterly changed. His jaw was set. A diabolical fire lit his eyes. He held the wheel in a ferocious grip. It all seemed like a horrible, surreal nightmare. Suddenly, his image began to flicker before her eyes-the back of his head, his shoulders, his arms, his face, his whole body-as if caught in the beam of a stroboscopic light. She was about to lose consciousness when she heard sirens. It was the police.

The rage drained out of Danny as quickly as it had flared up. He lifted his foot off the gas and pulled over onto the shoulder. Three squad cars quickly hemmed him in, blue lights flashing. The crackle of two-way radios filled the air. The policemen shouted at Danny and ordered him out of the car. He turned imploringly to Corinne, his face once again sweet, his voice childlike. "Get me out of this, will you?"

They did not see each other again after that. Corinne was still shaken by their encounter months later when she told me about it in Clary's drugstore. She had made mistakes before, she said, and she would make them again. But not like this, she hoped. She had watched Danny from afar for months-studied him, worshiped him, stalked him. In all that time, it never entered her mind that he might turn out to be so volatile. She had thought of him only as a walking streak of s.e.x, and about that, at least, she had not been wrong.

Chapter 10.

IT AIN'T BRAGGIN' IF Y'REALLY DONE IT

On the whole, the thirty-odd residents of Monterey Square regarded their neighbor Jim Williams with a respectful friendliness. Several were on his Christmas-party invitation list. Others were more wary and kept their distance. Virginia Duncan, who lived with her husband in a townhouse on Taylor Street, for example, still remembered the chill she felt when she came out of her house two years ago and saw the swastika hanging from Williams's window. John C. Lebey, a retired architect, had fought a number of acrimonious battles with Williams, all concerning what Williams described as Lebey's "destructive incompetence" in matters of architecture and historic preservation. So Mr. Lebey had no use for Jim Williams. But the Lebey-Williams feud was a mere quibble compared with the cold war that raged between Williams and his next-door neighbors, Lee and Emma Adler.

The Adlers lived in an elegant double townhouse that occupied the other of the two trust lots on the west side of Monterey Square. Their side windows looked directly across Wayne Street at Williams's parlor and the ballroom above. It was the Adlers' howling dog that had prompted Williams to play his thunderous version of Cesar Franck's "Piece Heroique" on the organ. But the dog's bark was only one sour note in a whole medley of bitterness that existed between the two households.

Lee Adler, like Jim Williams, had played a central role in the restoration of Savannah's historic downtown. His approach was entirely different, however. While Williams's efforts had involved his own restoration of houses, Adler had been an organizer and fund-raiser who left the actual restoration work to others. Adler had helped create a revolving fund for the purpose of buying old houses that were in imminent danger of being razed; the houses were then sold as soon as possible to people who promised to restore them properly. Lee Adler's accomplishments had been so successful, and his partic.i.p.ation so energetic, that he had emerged as a national spokesman for revolving funds and historic preservation. In recent years he had turned his attention to renovating old houses for poor blacks. He toured the country making speeches. He was elected to the board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He lunched at the White House. His name appeared frequently in The New York Times The New York Times and in national magazines. Now in his mid-fifties, Lee Adler was probably the best-known Savannahian outside Savannah. and in national magazines. Now in his mid-fifties, Lee Adler was probably the best-known Savannahian outside Savannah.

Lee Adler's national prominence inspired a fair amount of resentment in Savannah. It was widely felt, in Savannah at least, that Adler's manner was bombastic and peremptory, that he was an autocrat, and that he stepped on toes needlessly. He was accused, openly and behind his back, of taking more credit than was really due him for the renaissance of Savannah. It was said that he hogged the limelight, that he was insincere, and that his only interest in historic preservation was to use it as a means to gain fame and make money. Jim Williams was among those who felt this way about him.

Adler and Williams were outwardly civil, but just barely. Adler had been a member of the Telfair museum's board of directors when Jim Williams was president, and from time to time their animosity spilled out into the open at board meetings. On one occasion, Adler accused Williams of stealing furniture from the museum. Williams denied it and countercharged that Adler was trying to blacken the name of anyone who had more power over the museum's affairs than he did. Eventually, Williams engineered a plot that forced Adler off the board, and Adler never forgave him.

Williams was contemptuous of virtually everything about Lee Adler-his taste in art, his word of honor, even his house. A visitor once rang Williams's doorbell by mistake and asked if Mr. Adler was at home. Williams told the man, "Mr. Adler doesn't live here. He lives in half half the double house next door." the double house next door."

Lee Adler was no less disparaging of Williams. He believed him to be fundamentally dishonest and said so. Furthermore, he suspected the n.a.z.i flag episode was more than a lighthearted attempt to foil a crew of moviemakers. He let it be known that a letter addressed to Williams from the John Birch Society had once been delivered to his house. Adler was critical of Jim Williams's "decadent" life-style, but he was just curious enough about it to get out his binoculars and spy on one of Williams's all-male Christmas parties. Adler had clumsily forgotten to turn out the light behind himself and was silhouetted in the window. Williams saw him, waved, and drew his shutters.

In spite of all this, there were restraining factors that kept the two men on a civil footing most of the time. Lee Adler was Leopold Adler II, the grandson of the founder of Adler's department store, Savannah's answer to Saks Fifth Avenue, and his mother was a niece of Julius Rosenwald of the Sears Roebuck fortune. Emma Adler was the sole heir to the biggest block of stock in the Savannah Bank. She had been president of the Junior League and was an active member of several civic organizations. So, the reality of the situation was that both Jim Williams and the Adlers were prominent, influential, and rich. They lived in such close proximity and moved in so many of the same circles that they felt obliged to remain on cordial terms. Which was why, despite his loathing for them, Jim Williams always invited the Adlers to his Christmas parties. And why, even though they detested Williams in return, the Adlers always accepted.

Early one bright April morning, Lee Adler came toward me with a broad smile on his face and an arm outstretched in greeting. "Shake the hand that's going to shake the hand of the Prince of Wales!" he said.

Mr. Adler was making a jocular reference to an article in the morning paper announcing that he and his wife would be traveling to Washington at the end of the week to meet Prince Charles of England. The Adlers and the prince were to partic.i.p.ate in a discussion of low-income housing. Adler a.s.sumed I had read the article, and of course I had. Most of Savannah had read it, and to judge from Mr. Adler's ebullient mood, he either did not know or did not care what certain people were saying about it.

"It's just another of Leopold's cheap, self-promotional ploys," Jim Williams said. But the rolling of eyes and clearing of throats was not limited to people who disliked Lee Adler. Katherine Gore, a lifelong friend of the Adlers, also found the news distasteful. "I would like to meet Prince Charles too," she said, "but I would never stoop so low to do it. Low-income housing, indeed!"

Adler and I were standing in Adler's office on the ground floor of his townhouse. This was the command post from which he directed his many projects in real estate and historic preservation. A telephone rang in another room. Somewhere a copy machine churned. The walls of his office were decorated with memorabilia of Adler's role in the remarkable renaissance of Savannah's historic district. The photographs doc.u.mented parallel transformations that had taken place over the past twenty-five years: Savannah regaining the splendor of its youth and a youthful Lee Adler progressing by stages into silver-haired middle age.

Adler wore half-moon gla.s.ses and a pale, rumpled summer suit. His speech was a soft, cajoling drawl. We had met a week earlier at a garden party given by a local historian, and Adler had offered to take me on a tour of Savannah to show me, stage by stage, how Savannah had been saved from the wrecker's ball. As we got into his car, he let me know he was aware of all the carping going on behind his back.

"Do you know what the saying for the day is?" he asked. "'It ain't braggin' if y'really done it!'" "'It ain't braggin' if y'really done it!'" He gave me a meaningful glance over the top of his gla.s.ses, as if to say: Never mind all the backbiting you've been hearing. It's sour grapes. He gave me a meaningful glance over the top of his gla.s.ses, as if to say: Never mind all the backbiting you've been hearing. It's sour grapes.

We pulled away from the curb and began moving through the streets at ten miles an hour. As we did, the visual treasures of Savannah flowed by in slow motion-townhouses, mansions, shadowed gardens, well-tended squares.

"Picture all of this deserted and empty," said Adler. "Imagine it run-down-windows broken, weatherboards unpainted and rotting, shutters falling off, roofs caving in. Think what the squares would look like if they were nothing but hard-packed dirt instead of gra.s.s and azaleas and beautiful landscaping. Because that's the way it used to be. That's why Lady Astor called Savannah 'a beautiful woman with a dirty face' when she came here after the Second World War. That's what Savannah had allowed itself to become. And what's frightening is that while it was happening, n.o.body gave one G.o.dd.a.m.n."

A truck behind us honked its horn. Adler pulled over to let it pa.s.s, then kept moving at a slow pace, continuing the story of Savannah's decline. Until the 1920s, he said, Savannah had remained basically intact-an architecturally exquisite nineteenth-century town. But the flight to the suburbs was just then beginning. People moved out of the lovely old houses downtown. They cut them into apartments, tore them down, or just boarded them up and left them empty. In those days all the money was being funneled into the development of the suburbs, which was fortunate for Savannah in one respect: It meant there was no clamor to bulldoze ma.s.sive areas downtown for housing developments. Nor did Savannah have superhighways slicing through the center of it the way other cities did, because Savannah was not on the way to somewhere else. It was geographically the end of the line.

In the mid-1950s, almost a third of the old city was gone. Then in 1954, the owners of a funeral parlor announced plans to knock down a dilapidated tenement so they could use the s.p.a.ce for a parking lot, and a number of concerned citizens rose up in protest. The tenement happened to be Davenport House, one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in America. It was a shambles at the time; eleven families were crowded into it. Seven ladies got together, Lee Adler's mother being one of them, and saved Davenport House and restored it. They then formed the Historic Savannah Foundation, and that was the beginning of Savannah's salvation.

In the early days, Historic Savannah had a vigilante committee that sounded the alarm when an old house was about to be demolished. But the committee had no power to prevent demolition of houses, or even to gain a stay of execution. All it could do was try to find some sympathetic soul who would buy the endangered building and restore it. Most of the time the house came down before the committee could find anybody to save it. It soon became clear that the only way to save old houses was to buy buy them. And that was when Lee Adler became involved. them. And that was when Lee Adler became involved.

"I was having breakfast one morning," he said. "It was December of 1959. I read in the newspaper that a row of four townhouses on Oglethorpe Avenue was about to be torn down. They were lovely. Built in 1855. They were known as the Mary Marshall Row. It was the same old story: A local wrecker had bought the houses in order to knock them down and sell the bricks. The bricks! bricks! You see, they're Savannah gray bricks, which are larger and more porous than ordinary bricks, and they have a very soft and beautiful color. They were kilned at the Hermitage Plantation on the Savannah River. They're not made anymore, and you can't duplicate them. They were selling for ten cents each at the time, more than three times the cost of an ordinary brick. Anyhow, the wrecker had already demolished the carriage houses, and the townhouses themselves would be gone in a matter of days." You see, they're Savannah gray bricks, which are larger and more porous than ordinary bricks, and they have a very soft and beautiful color. They were kilned at the Hermitage Plantation on the Savannah River. They're not made anymore, and you can't duplicate them. They were selling for ten cents each at the time, more than three times the cost of an ordinary brick. Anyhow, the wrecker had already demolished the carriage houses, and the townhouses themselves would be gone in a matter of days."

Adler pulled over to the curb on Oglethorpe Avenue in front of Colonial Cemetery. Across the street stood a handsome row of four brick townhouses, each with a stoop of white marble steps leading up to the main entrance on the second floor. The bricks were a muted, grayish red. "There they are," he said, "fully restored. When I came to look at them that day, the windows were out, the doors were gone, and the steps were in bad shape. The bricks from the carriage houses were piled up in the backyard. I went into one of the houses and climbed up to the third floor and looked out at the magnificent view. And I thought, 'This can't be allowed to happen.'"

Adler paid a call on old Mr. Monroe, the wrecker, and told him he wanted to buy the whole row. Mr. Monroe told him he could get the bricks to him in six weeks. "I don't want you to touch touch those bricks!" Adler replied. "I want you to leave them right where they are." Mr. Monroe agreed, but said Adler would have to buy the land too; he could have the whole row, bricks and land, for $54,000. So Adler and three other men signed a note for it. Then they wrote a prospectus and took it to Historic Savannah Foundation, which had three hundred members at the time, proposing that the foundation buy the row-at a cost of $180 a member. "My idea," said Adler, "was that the foundation would resell the houses to people who would agree to restore them. Historic Savannah went along with it." That was the beginning of the revolving fund. those bricks!" Adler replied. "I want you to leave them right where they are." Mr. Monroe agreed, but said Adler would have to buy the land too; he could have the whole row, bricks and land, for $54,000. So Adler and three other men signed a note for it. Then they wrote a prospectus and took it to Historic Savannah Foundation, which had three hundred members at the time, proposing that the foundation buy the row-at a cost of $180 a member. "My idea," said Adler, "was that the foundation would resell the houses to people who would agree to restore them. Historic Savannah went along with it." That was the beginning of the revolving fund.

It happened that the poet Conrad Aiken had lived as a child in the house right next to Marshall Row-at number 228, the house in which Aiken's father had shot his mother and then himself on that terrible morning in February 1901. Having spent most of his life up north, Aiken wanted to come back and live his last years in Savannah. So a millionaire friend, a man named Hy Sobiloff, bought and restored the house on the end of Marshall Row for Aiken and his wife, Mary. It was number 230, the house next door to the one Aiken had lived in as a boy.

"When work was completed on the house," said Adler, "the contrast between it and the other three was startling. I went to the phone and called the newspaper and said, 'Do you want to see a miracle? Come on!' So they came over, and they did a big feature on it in their Sunday edition. That was in February 1962. We had an open house the day the story appeared. It rained, but something like seven thousand people came through the house. They wore the sh.e.l.lac off the banister. We let them go into the unrestored house next door, too, for a before-and-after comparison. And they saw for the first time how a dilapidated wreck could be transformed into something marvelous. When that happened, we started to get some interest. People began to see the potential. They began to think about moving back downtown. Of course, it didn't hurt one bit that Savannah's greatest man of letters, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was leading the way."

We resumed our drive. Adler pointed out dozens of houses that had been saved, describing in detail their once-fallen condition. "The porch on that one was completely gone ...that house had bright green asbestos siding and aluminum awnings ... the roof on that one was rotted through ...." He was like a doctor reviewing the case histories of former patients, now fully recovered.

Adler's success with Marshall Row encouraged him to go out and raise money for a revolving fund to be used by Historic Savannah to save other houses in the same way. The concept was very simple: Historic Savannah would use the money to buy endangered houses, then resell them-at a loss, if necessary-to people who would sign a pledge to begin restoration within eighteen months. The foundation set a goal of $200,000 for the fund, enough money in those days to save a lot of houses if they were turned over quickly enough. And they were.

"But even with the revolving fund, it was a struggle," said Adler. "I'd come downtown every day and breathe in the air and plot out the day's fight. And it was indeed a fight, because the buildings were still coming down pretty fast. Sometimes we won. Sometimes we lost. And the voters of Savannah gave us no help at all. They rejected urban renewal three times because they thought it was a communist plot, and they defeated any number of proposals for historic-zoning ordinances. That That monstrosity over there, for instance, was one of our biggest losses. The Hyatt Regency Hotel." monstrosity over there, for instance, was one of our biggest losses. The Hyatt Regency Hotel."

We were riding along Bay Street, pa.s.sing in front of the Hyatt-a squat, modernist building next to City Hall. The Hyatt had been a great cause celebre cause celebre in Savannah. The building had taken a great chunk out of the row of nineteenth-century cotton warehouses along Factors' Walk, and its backside jutted out over River Street, interrupting the line of facades along the riverfront. The public battle over the hotel delayed its construction for ten years. in Savannah. The building had taken a great chunk out of the row of nineteenth-century cotton warehouses along Factors' Walk, and its backside jutted out over River Street, interrupting the line of facades along the riverfront. The public battle over the hotel delayed its construction for ten years.

"You can see the hotel is all wrong for the site," said Adler. "We fought it in the courts, and let me tell you it was a bruising battle. Both of the developers were members of Historic Savannah Foundation. The sister of one of them was the acting director. The organization was split right down the middle. Practically destroyed. It was a very emotional time. I remember going to a wedding while all that was happening, and when I walked in I realized I was suing everybody in the room but the bride and the minister."

At about that time, restoration of the historic district was nearing completion. Over a thousand houses had been restored. The work had been done by affluent whites, but Adler insisted that blacks had not been displaced. Historic Savannah was buying empty buildings for the most part. But when the supply of unrestored houses in the historic district began to dwindle, the next logical step was to restore the houses in the neighboring Victorian district. And that that would have been a different story. would have been a different story.

We drove south on Abercorn Street. Within a few blocks, the restrained architecture of the historic district gave way to late-Victorian flights of fancy-big old wooden houses with romantic towers, gables, and elaborate gingerbread trim. A few were restored, but most were in very poor condition.

The Victorian district was Savannah's first streetcar suburb. It had been built for the white working cla.s.s between 1870 and 1910. After World War II, when the whites moved farther out into the suburbs, absentee landlords took over, and by 1975 the area had become a black slum. The houses were in deplorable shape, but they were still beautiful, and in recent years speculators and upper-income whites started buying them. At that point, Adler became alarmed. "It would have meant gentrification and ma.s.sive displacement of blacks," he said, "and I was determined to prevent that. I asked Historic Savannah to help find a way to restore this area without evicting the people who lived here, but Historic Savannah was still busted up over the Hyatt, and they weren't interested in the housing problems of poor people. That's when I quit Historic Savannah. I launched a nonprofit organization called the Savannah Landmark Rehabilitation Project, which has been a triumph, because the board includes everybody-black, white, you name it, rich and poor."

Adler's intention was to get houses out of the hands of the absentee slumlords and convert the Victorian district into a racially and economically diverse neighborhood. It occurred to him that the project might qualify for public a.s.sistance, and thus far, by using a combination of public and private funding, he had bought and renovated three hundred units. Tenants paid 30 percent of their income in rent, and the rest was made up by federal rent subsidies.

"I don't suppose I need to tell you," Adler said, "that not everyone is happy about what we're doing here. Some people complain privately about poor blacks living in subsidized housing so close to the historic district. A few people, like Jim Williams, have even spoken out publicly about it. Jim Williams says we're dealing with the 'criminal element.' I take it you've heard of Jim Williams."

"Yes," I said. "I've met him."

"Mmmmm. Do you know about the n.a.z.i flag incident?"

"He told me about it," I said. "He said he draped it over his balcony to interrupt a film being shot in Monterey Square."

"That's right," said Adler. "He had all those little f.a.ggots hanging the swastika out there and moving it from window to window."

On Anderson Street, Adler stopped in front of a freshly painted gray-and-white house. "Now I'm going to introduce you to an example of our so-called criminal element."

We climbed the steps, and Adler rang the bell. A black woman in a flowered housedress came to the door.

"Morning, Ruby," said Adler.

"Morning, Mr. Adler," she said. Adler introduced me to Mrs. Ruby Moore.

"Ruby, I've brought this gentleman to see what life is like in the Victorian district. If you don't mind-"

"Oh, that'll be fine," she said pleasantly. "Come on in."

Ruby Moore's duplex was cool inside. It had three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, and high ceilings. There was a small garden in back. A portrait of John F. Kennedy hung over the living-room mantel. Adler led me on a quick tour, upstairs and down. Then we rejoined Mrs. Moore in the front hall.

"These houses was pitiful before they was fixed over," she said. "I never dreamed they would look like this after they got through. While they was redoing them, I was over here every day looking, 'Cause I knew I was going to get one. I really do appreciate my apartment. I really do. It's got central heat and air."

"Is everything okay, Ruby?" Adler asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. Then she turned to me. "Would you sign my book, please?" A guest book lay open on a table in the living room. As I signed my name, I noticed that I was not the first outsider to be brought to this house by Lee Adler. A reporter from the Atlanta Const.i.tution Atlanta Const.i.tution had signed a few s.p.a.ces above. had signed a few s.p.a.ces above.

We got back in the car. Adler told me that Ruby Moore qualified for one of his apartments because she was a longtime resident of the Victorian district, because she worked-she was a housekeeper at the Days Inn-and because her income was below a specified level. She paid $250 a month in rent, and federal subsidies covered the rest. Adler said that Mrs. Moore more than satisfied his inspection staff; her house was always immaculate, and she was the rule rather than the exception. "We're not interested in housing the wh.o.r.es or the gamblers or the dope dealers," he said.

We headed back into the historic district.

"I could show you another hundred apartments just like that one, but you probably get the picture. Once we got it going, private investors started buying houses, and property values began to rise. The Victorian district has been acclaimed as a national model for how to restore inner cities without uprooting the poor. We sponsored a national housing conference here in 1977, and four hundred people came from thirty-eight states. The next year, Rosalynn Carter came down and taped a segment of Good Morning America Good Morning America in one of our renovated apartments. And this Friday we're going to Washington to explain it all to Prince Charles." in one of our renovated apartments. And this Friday we're going to Washington to explain it all to Prince Charles."

We entered Monterey Square and swung around it counterclockwise, coming to a stop in front of Adler's house. "Well, there you have it," he said. "Historic preservation used to be an elitist hobby, something rich dilettantes dabbled in. But we've turned it into a gra.s.s-roots operation. In the process we created a $200 million tourist industry and brought people back downtown to live. Not bad, huh?"

"Quite an accomplishment," I said.

Adler looked at me over the top of his half-moon gla.s.ses. "It ain't braggin' if y'really done it."

A week later, the Savannah Morning News Savannah Morning News published an account of the Adlers' meeting with Prince Charles. Lee Adler was quoted saying that the prince "showed a keen interest in the problems of cities." Emma Adler said the prince had asked "marvelously intelligent, wonderful and apt questions." Four days later, the newspaper ran yet another article about the meeting, this one a first-person account written by Mrs. Adler. "It was a heavenly day in Washington," she wrote. "The sun was bright, the sky a deep blue. The weather was perfect for a suit ...." published an account of the Adlers' meeting with Prince Charles. Lee Adler was quoted saying that the prince "showed a keen interest in the problems of cities." Emma Adler said the prince had asked "marvelously intelligent, wonderful and apt questions." Four days later, the newspaper ran yet another article about the meeting, this one a first-person account written by Mrs. Adler. "It was a heavenly day in Washington," she wrote. "The sun was bright, the sky a deep blue. The weather was perfect for a suit ...."

Once again, the Adlers were the topic of conversation in certain circles. The talk was nowhere more animated than at the meeting of the Married Woman's Card Club on Tuesday night.

"Do you suppose," said a woman in a blue taffeta dress, "that the newspaper had to twist Emma's arm to get her to write that article? Or do you think Emma twisted the newspaper's arm to make them print it?" The woman's dress had a bow across the shoulders as big as wings.

"Julia, you're wicked," said a woman wearing a black velvet headband and single-pearl earrings.

"No, I'm not," the woman in blue replied. "The Adlers could have kept their audience with Prince Charles a private matter if they'd wanted to. But they've gone running to the newspaper as usual, and that changes things."

"True."

"I mean, Emma could have restrained herself a little, don't you think? She sounded so prissy and pleased with herself."

"Now, Julia," said the other woman, her voice dropping in volume, "I do believe you're jealous."

The two ladies had not yet begun to play cards. In fact, they were still standing outside Cynthia Collins's front door, waiting to be admitted. That was one of the unusual rituals of the Married Woman's Card Club.

Married Woman's (as it was known for short) was one of Savannah's most exclusive societies. No other city had anything like it. It was founded in 1893 by sixteen ladies in search of amus.e.m.e.nt during the day while their husbands were at work. There were always sixteen members-no more, no less. Once a month, always on a Tuesday, they would gather at one of the members' homes for two hours of card playing, c.o.c.ktails, and a light supper. Thirty-two guests would be invited by engraved invitation so that the number of ladies in attendance always came to forty-eight-twelve card tables in all.

According to custom, the ladies would arrive a few minutes before four in the afternoon, wearing white gloves, long dresses, and huge hats adorned with flowers or feathers. They did not ring the doorbell. Instead, they waited outside, either in their cars or on the sidewalk, until the hostess opened the door punctually at four o'clock. The ladies would then enter, sit down at the card tables, and start playing at once. In the early years, they played whist or euchre or 500. Later the game became auction bridge, then contract bridge. But for many years there was always one table of whist, because Mrs. J. J. Rauers refused to learn how to play anything else.

Once the ladies had begun playing, events proceeded according to a strict schedule that began with the serving of a gla.s.s of water. Every member was given a printed copy of the schedule upon joining Married Woman's. It read as follows: Four-fifteen: water.

Four-thirty: remove water.