Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil Part 3

He was lean, very dark, and a little over six feet tall. When I fell in behind him the first time, I noticed he was carrying a short blue leather strap. Most of it was wound around his hand; eight or ten inches of it protruded. He snapped the free end against his thigh every other step, producing a rhythmic whap whap that forced me to run in step or very much out of step. I ran in step; it was easier. As he turned the corner at the south end of the park that first day, he looked back in my direction but not quite at me, a little behind me. I looked over my shoulder. About fifty yards back, there was a blond woman jogging with a little terrier romping beside her. that forced me to run in step or very much out of step. I ran in step; it was easier. As he turned the corner at the south end of the park that first day, he looked back in my direction but not quite at me, a little behind me. I looked over my shoulder. About fifty yards back, there was a blond woman jogging with a little terrier romping beside her.

The next time I started my run, the blond woman and her dog were running ahead of me. The dog would dart into the park and then double back to join her. As I drew near, she turned her head to look across the park toward Drayton Street on the other side. The black man was jogging along Drayton, having already made both turns at the far end. He looked back at her.

After this, I never saw one of them without also seeing the other. He always carried the little blue leather strap. She always had her dog with her. Sometimes he was in the lead; sometimes she was. They were always separated by at least a hundred yards.

One day I saw the man at the M&M supermarket pus.h.i.+ng a shopping cart. Another time I caught sight of him getting into a late-model green Lincoln on Wright Square. But no blue strap and no blond woman. A few days later, I saw the blond woman coming out of a bank. She was unaccompanied except for her terrier, who trotted along beside her. He was straining at the end of a blue leather leash.

"We don't do black-on-white in Savannah," Joe Odom told me when I mentioned having seen this couple. "Especially black male on white female. A lot may have changed here in the last twenty years, but not that. Badness is the only woman I know of who had a black lover and got away with it. Badness was the wife of an influential Savannah businessman, and she had lovers during most of their marriage. That was all perfectly acceptable. Savannah will put up with public infidelity no matter how flagrant it is. Savannah loves it. Can't get enough of it. But even Badness knew enough to leave Savannah and go to Atlanta when she felt the urge to have an affair with a black man."

I understood all that, but I still wondered about certain small details concerning my jogging companions. Why, for instance, did he carry the leash? And when and where did they get close enough for her to give it to him? The whole point, I finally realized, was that I would never know.

If I happened to be walking along Bull Street in the late afternoon, I would invariably see a very old and very dignified black man. He always wore a suit and tie, a starched white s.h.i.+rt, and a fedora. His ties were muted paisleys and regimental stripes, and his suits were fine and well tailored, though apparently made for a slightly larger person.

Every day at the same time, the old man walked through the cast-iron gates of the grandiose Armstrong House at the north end of Forsyth Park. He turned left and proceeded up Bull Street all the way to City Hall and back. He was very much a gentleman. He tipped his hat and bowed in greeting. But I noticed that he and the people he spoke with-usually well-dressed businessmen-played a very odd game. The men would ask him, "Still walking the dog?" It was perfectly clear that the old man was not walking a dog, but he would respond by saying, "Oh, yes. Still walking the dog." Then he would look over his shoulder and say to the air behind him, "Come on, Patrick!" And off he would go.

One day, as I came through Madison Square, I saw him standing by the monument facing a semicircle of tourists. He was singing. I could not make out the words, but I could hear his reedy tenor voice. The tourists applauded when he was done, and one of the lady tour guides slipped something into his hand. He bowed and left them. We approached the crosswalk at the same time.

"That was very nice," I said.

"Why, thank you kindly," he replied in his courtly way. "My name is William Simon Glover."

I introduced myself and told Mr. Glover that it seemed we often took the same walk at the same hour. I said nothing about the dog, figuring that the subject would come up on its own.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I'm eighty-six years old, and I'm downtown at seven o'clock every morning. I'm retired, but I don't stay still. I work as a porter for the law firm of Bouhan, Williams and Levy." Mr. Glover's voice had a bounce to it. He p.r.o.nounced the name of the law firm as if an exclamation mark followed each of the partners' names.

"I'm a porter, but everybody knows me as a singer," he said as we started to cross the street. "I learned to sing in church when I was twelve. I pumped the organ for a quarter while one lady played and another lady sang. I didn't know nothing about no German, French, or Italian, but by me hearing the lady sing so much, I learned to say the words whether I knew what they was or not. One Sunday morning, the lady didn't sing, so I sang instead. And I sang in Italian. I sang 'Hallelujah.'"

"How did it go?" I asked him.

Mr. Glover stopped and faced me. He opened his mouth wide and drew a deep breath. From the back of his throat came a high, croaking sound, "Aaaaa lay loooo-yah! loooo-yah! A-layyyy-loo yah!" He had abandoned his tenor and was singing in a wavering falsetto. Forever in his mind, apparently, "Hallelujah" would be a soprano piece as sung by the lady in church so many years before. "Allay- A-layyyy-loo yah!" He had abandoned his tenor and was singing in a wavering falsetto. Forever in his mind, apparently, "Hallelujah" would be a soprano piece as sung by the lady in church so many years before. "Allay-loo-yah, a-lay-loo yah, a-lay-loo yah, a-lay-loo yah, a-lay-loo-yah, a-lay-loo-yah!" Mr. Glover stopped for a breath. "-And then the lady always finished by saying, 'AAAAAAAAhhh 'AAAAAAAAhhh lay lay looooooo looooooo yah!'" yah!'"

"So that was your debut," I said.

"That's right! That's how I started. That lady learned me to sing in German, French, and Italian! Oh, yes! And I've been musical director of the First African Baptist Church since 1916. I directed a chorus of five hundred voices for Franklin D. Roosevelt when he visited Savannah on November 18, 1933. I remember the date, because that was the very day my daughter was born. I named her Eleanor Roosevelt Glover. I can remember the song we sang too: 'Come By Here.' The doctor sent word up to me, 'Tell Glover he can sing "Come By Here" for the president all he d.a.m.n pleases, but I just come by his house and left a baby girl and I want him to come by my office and pay me fifteen dollars.'"

When we parted at the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue, I realized I was still in the dark about the imaginary dog, Patrick. A week or so later, when I next fell in step with Mr. Glover, I made a mental note to bring the subject around to it. But Mr. Glover had other things to talk about first.

"You know about psychology," he said. "You learn that in school. You learn people-ology on the Pullman. I was a porter for the Pullman during the war. You had to keep the pa.s.sengers well satisfied for 'em to tip you fifty cents or a dollar. You say, 'Wait a minute, sir. You going up to the club car? Your tie is crooked.' Now, his tie is really straight as an arrow, but you pull it crooked and then you pull it straight again, and he likes it. That's people-ology!

"Keep a whisk broom in your pocket, and brush him off! He don't need no brus.h.i.+ng off, but he don't know it! Brush him off anyhow, and straighten his collar. Pull it crooked and straighten it again. Miss Mamie don't need a box for her hat, but you be sure and put her hat in a box! If you sit and don't do nothin', you won't get nothin'!

"Another thing I learned: Don't ever ask a man, 'How is Mrs. Brown?' You ask him, 'How is Miss Julia? Tell her I ask about her.' Tell her I ask about her.' I never did ask Mr. Bouhan about Mrs. Bouhan. I ask him, 'How is Miss Helen? I never did ask Mr. Bouhan about Mrs. Bouhan. I ask him, 'How is Miss Helen? Tell Miss Helen I ask about her.' Tell Miss Helen I ask about her.' He liked it and she liked it. Mr. Bouhan gave me his old clothes and shoes. Miss Helen gave me records from her collection, all kinds of records. I got records I don't even know I got. I even got records of that great opera singer ... Henry Coca-ruso! He liked it and she liked it. Mr. Bouhan gave me his old clothes and shoes. Miss Helen gave me records from her collection, all kinds of records. I got records I don't even know I got. I even got records of that great opera singer ... Henry Coca-ruso!

"I keep busy," Mr. Glover said. "I don't sit down and hold my hand. I got five hundred dollars of life insurance, and it's all paid up. I paid twenty-five cents a week for seventy years! And last week the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company sent me a check for one thousand dollars!"

Mr. Glover's eyes were sparkling. "No, sir, I don't sit down and hold my hand."

"Glover!" came a booming voice from behind us. A tall white-haired man in a gray suit approached. "Still walking the dog?"

"Why, yes, sir, yes I am." Mr. Glover did his little bow and tipped his hat and gestured to the invisible dog behind him. "I'm still walking Patrick."

"Glad to hear it, Glover. Keep it up! Take care now." With that, the man walked away.

"How long have you been walking Patrick?" I asked.

Mr. Glover straightened up. "Oh, for a long time. Patrick was Mr. Bouhan's dog. Mr. Bouhan used to give him Chivas Regal scotch liquor to drink. I walked the dog, and I was the dog's bartender too. Mr. Bouhan said that after he died I was to be paid ten dollars a week to take care of Patrick. He put that in his will. I had to walk him and buy his scotch liquor. When Patrick died, I went to see Judge Lawrence. The judge was Mr. Bouhan's executor. I said, 'Judge, you can stop paying me the ten dollars now, because Patrick is dead.' And Judge Lawrence said, 'What do you mean Patrick is dead? How could he be? I see him right there! Right there on the carpet.' I looked behind me, and I didn't see no dog. But then I thought a minute and I said, 'Oh! I think I see him too, Judge!' And the judge said, 'Good. So you just keep walking him and we'll keep paying you.' The dog is dead twenty years now, but I still walk him. I walk up and down Bull Street and look over my shoulder and say, 'Come on, Patrick!'"

As for the mysterious old lady who punched out Joe Odom's windows with a hammer, I never saw her again. I did learn, however, that there were quite a few people in Savannah who might have felt justified in smas.h.i.+ng Joe's windows as a result of having done business with him. The ranks of such people included any number of old ladies.

At least half a dozen people, for instance, had come to grief in Joe's most recent real estate development deal-the conversion of an office building into a luxurious apartment house: the Lafayette. Shortly before completing the renovation, Joe hosted a gala dinner-dance in the building as a preview party for prospective buyers. Sixteen of the guests signed up for apartments then and there, and six plunked down cash. The new owners were just about to move into the building when events took an unexpected turn: A mortgage company swooped down and repossessed their apartments. How could this happen? The people had paid for their apartments in full! The answer was not long in coming. Joe had defaulted on his construction loan and had never bothered to transfer the deeds to the new owners. At the moment of foreclosure, the apartments were still in his name, so they were seized as collateral. The rightful owners were forced to go to court to retrieve their apartments.

Joe never lost his good humor throughout the affair. Like an unflappable master of ceremonies, he cheerfully rea.s.sured his clients that things would sort themselves out. Whether they believed him or not, most chose to forgive him. One woman communed with the Lord, who told her not to sue. Another simply refused to believe that so lovely a young man could have done anything improper. "I suppose I should hate him," said an osteopath, who had lost money in another of Joe's financial schemes, "but he's too d.a.m.ned likable."

There were rumors that Joe had squandered the money from the construction loan for the Lafayette, that he had chartered a private plane and taken a dozen friends to New Orleans to select a chandelier for the lobby and, incidentally, attend the Sugar Bowl game. After the foreclosure, however, it was clear that Joe had in no way enriched himself in the fiasco. In fact, he had lost his car, his boat, his butler, his wife, and t.i.tle to his house.

In the aftermath of the Lafayette affair, Joe had found it necessary to supplement his income by playing piano at private parties and by opening his house to busloads of tourists several days a week, at three dollars a head, as part of a tour package that included lunch in a historic townhouse. The tour companies would send caterers to Joe's house at 11:45 A.M. A.M. with platters and tureens of food; the tour buses would pull up at noon; the tourists would walk through the house, eat a buffet lunch, and listen to Joe play a few songs on the piano. Then at 12:45, the tourists would get back on the bus, and the caterers would pack up and leave. with platters and tureens of food; the tour buses would pull up at noon; the tourists would walk through the house, eat a buffet lunch, and listen to Joe play a few songs on the piano. Then at 12:45, the tourists would get back on the bus, and the caterers would pack up and leave.

Laughter and music continued to ring through 16 East Jones Street day and night as it had before, but Joe was merely a rent-paying tenant now. Neither the house nor anything in it belonged to him anymore. Not the portraits, not the carpets, not the silver. Not even the little panes of gla.s.s upon which the mysterious old lady, whoever she was, had taken out her fury.

Chapter 5.

THE INVENTOR.

The voice came over my shoulder like a murmuring breeze. "Oh, don't do that," it said. "Whatever you do, don't do that." I was standing at the sales counter in Clary's drugstore after breakfast one morning, and when I turned around, I was confronted by a scarecrow of a man. He had a long neck and a protruding Adam's apple. Lank brown hair hung over his forehead. The man's face reddened, as if he'd been caught thinking out loud. It struck me that if either of us should have been embarra.s.sed, I was the one. I had just asked the salesgirl what I should do about the crystallized ring of black sc.u.m that would not come off my toilet bowl. The girl had told me to use steel wool.

The man smiled self-consciously. "Steel wool leaves big scratches in the porcelain," he said. "Those are calcium deposits you've got. It's from the water. You need to scrub them off with a red brick. A brick's harder than the calcium deposits, but it's not as hard as the porcelain and it won't scratch it."

I had seen this man several times before, right here in Clary's drugstore. He was one of the regulars who came in for breakfast every morning. Although we had never spoken before, I knew who he was. That was one of the main things about Clary's drugstore. It was a clearinghouse of information, a bourse of gossip.

Despite the permanent smell of burned bacon grease and the likelihood that Ruth or Lillie would get the orders confused, Clary's had a loyal breakfast and lunch clientele. People sauntered in, sidled in, or stumbled in, and their condition was duly noted over the tops of newspapers. Customers greeted one another from table to table, or from table to soda fountain, and every word was overheard and pa.s.sed along later. Patrons at any given moment might include a housewife, a real estate broker, a lawyer, an art student, and perhaps a pair of carpenters doing work in a townhouse down the street. One of the carpenters might be heard to say, "All we got to do today is seal up that doorway between her bedroom and his," and the news that a marital Ice Age had descended on the townhouse in question would be common coin by the end of the day. Overheard remarks were as much a commodity at Clary's drugstore as Goody's Powder or Chigarid.

The man who told me to scrub my toilet bowl with a brick performed a peculiar daily ritual at Clary's. He always ordered the same breakfast: eggs, bacon, a Bayer aspirin, and a gla.s.s of spirits of ammonia and Coca-Cola. But he didn't always consume it. Sometimes he just looked at it. He'd put both hands flat on the table as if to steady his gaze, and he'd stare at his plate. Then he would either begin to eat or get up without a word and walk out the door. The next day, Ruth would serve him the same breakfast and go back to her perch at the end of the soda fountain to take a drag on her cigarette and see what he would do. I, too, began to watch.

Whenever he left without touching his food, Ruth would say to no one in particular, "Luther's not eating." She'd clear his plate away and put his bill beside the cash register. From the remarks that followed these exits, I learned that the man's name was Luther Driggers and that some years back he had achieved a certain prominence in Savannah. He had made a discovery-involving a certain pesticide and its ability to pa.s.s through plastic-that had led to the invention of the flea collar and the no-pest strip.

In this respect, it could be said that Luther Driggers was the modern equivalent of Savannah's other famous inventor, Eli Whitney. As it happened, neither man had made a dime from his invention. Eli Whitney had carefully kept the cotton gin under wraps while he applied for a patent, but he made a tactical error when he allowed women to have a look at it, a.s.suming that they would not understand what they were looking at. A male entrepreneur put on a dress one day and slipped in with a group of women visitors, then went home and made his own cotton gin. Luther Driggers's case was complicated by his having been a government employee at the time he had made his discovery. Government employees had no monetary claim to their work. The only way Driggers could have profited was by secretly selling the pertinent information to a private manufacturer. While he wrestled with the moral pros and cons of doing just that, one of his colleagues beat him to it.

Luther Driggers had a mournful expression, but his failure to make any money from the flea collar was not the only reason for it. His life seemed to be marked by a succession of unfortunate misadventures. His early marriage to his high school sweetheart had lasted little more than a year. Her father was the owner of a supermarket, and the girl's dowry consisted of a house and unlimited free groceries. When the marriage came to an end, the house and the groceries went with it. Luther moved into an old mortuary at the corner of Jones and Bull, where the first thing he did was to convert the tiled embalming room into a shower. Later, he sold some inherited property and bought an old townhouse. He leased the house to tenants and converted the carriage house behind it into living quarters for himself. In the process of renovation, he devoted considerable attention to one small design detail of the stairway-the so-called false step. The riser of the false step was one inch higher than the other steps so that it would trip up anybody unfamiliar with it and serve as a primitive burglar alarm. This was a device used in many old houses, but it proved to be a hazard for Driggers, since he generally arrived home in no shape to deal with normal stairs, let alone trick ones. Furthermore, once the stairs were built, he realized he'd overlooked a more important consideration: namely, where to put the stairway in the first place. He'd put it against the one wall that could have had windows and a view of the garden. As a result, the living room looked out onto a back alley and a big brown dumpster.

It was while nursing a bruised s.h.i.+n suffered from a fall over the false step that Luther went one afternoon to the Wright Square post office to check the weight of a pound of marijuana he was about to buy. He wanted to make sure he was not being cheated. To his amazement, he was stopped at the door, his package was seized, and he was arrested. As the Savannah Evening Press Savannah Evening Press explained in its coverage of the event, the post office had received a bomb threat only minutes before. The story said Luther's parcel contained "slightly less than a pound of marijuana." Luther would have been short-changed, just as he'd feared. explained in its coverage of the event, the post office had received a bomb threat only minutes before. The story said Luther's parcel contained "slightly less than a pound of marijuana." Luther would have been short-changed, just as he'd feared.

Luther's misfortunes pained his friends, particularly the headstrong Serena Dawes. Luther and Serena were an unlikely pair. Serena was much older than Luther, and she spent most of her waking hours lounging in her four-poster bed, propped up against an embankment of tiny pillows. From her silken dais, Serena would cajole Luther to fix her a drink, look for her stockings, answer the door, get some ice, hand her a comb, fluff up her pillows, ma.s.sage her ankles. Alternately, and without a hint of irony, she would exhort him to stand up for his rights. "A lady," she would say in her most languid, multisyllabic drawl, "expects a gentleman to take what belongs to him!" Whenever Serena took this line, she was usually thinking about the proceeds from the flea collar and the no-pest strip. Serena had calculated what baubles those proceeds could have bought.

Serena Vaughn Dawes had been a celebrated beauty in her day. She was so alluring that Cecil Beaton had called her "one of the most perfect natural beauties I've ever photographed." The daughter of a socially prominent lawyer from Atlanta, Serena had met the young Simon T. Dawes of Pittsburgh, grandson of a steel tyc.o.o.n, while on a vacation in Newport before the Second World War. Simon Dawes was smitten by Serena. Gossip columnists across the country breathlessly chronicled their whirlwind romance. But when the New York Daily News Daily News reported that the couple had become engaged, Dawes's mother-the formidable Theodora Cabot Dawes-telegraphed a haughty one-word comment that was blown up into headlines: reported that the couple had become engaged, Dawes's mother-the formidable Theodora Cabot Dawes-telegraphed a haughty one-word comment that was blown up into headlines: SON ENGAGED? "ABSURD!" SAYS MRS. DAWES. SON ENGAGED? "ABSURD!" SAYS MRS. DAWES. Mrs. Dawes's opposition to the engagement was rendered moot by the subsequent elopement of Simon and Serena. After their honeymoon at the old DeSoto Hotel in Savannah, the newlyweds went back to live in Pittsburgh. Mrs. Dawes's opposition to the engagement was rendered moot by the subsequent elopement of Simon and Serena. After their honeymoon at the old DeSoto Hotel in Savannah, the newlyweds went back to live in Pittsburgh.

As Mrs. Simon T. Dawes, Serena became an icon of upper-crust glamour in the 1930s and 1940s. Her photograph adorned full-page cigarette ads in Life Life magazine. The copy always carried a message to the effect that Mrs. Simon T. Dawes of Pittsburgh was a lady of refined taste, that she traveled first cla.s.s and resided in presidential suites wherever she went. In the ads, Serena would be sitting in quiet splendor, her head tilted back and a wisp of smoke rising from the cigarette held in her fair hand. magazine. The copy always carried a message to the effect that Mrs. Simon T. Dawes of Pittsburgh was a lady of refined taste, that she traveled first cla.s.s and resided in presidential suites wherever she went. In the ads, Serena would be sitting in quiet splendor, her head tilted back and a wisp of smoke rising from the cigarette held in her fair hand.

Beneath the serenity, however, there was fire, and Serena's mother-in-law knew it. The elder Mrs. Dawes did her best to bend Serena to her will. She admonished Serena to donate the fees from her endors.e.m.e.nts to charity, and Serena did. But when Serena discovered that her mother-in-law secretly pocketed her own fees from such endors.e.m.e.nts, she slapped the woman's face and called her "a heathen b.i.t.c.h." The two women loathed each other.

When Simon Dawes accidentally shot himself in the head and died, his mother took her revenge on Serena. The family affairs had been arranged so that the bulk of Simon's estate would circ.u.mvent Serena and go to their children. But Serena would not be outdone; she announced her intention to sell her mansion in Pittsburgh to a black family. A group of rich neighbors begged her to let them buy it first. She sold it to them for a king's ransom and moved to Savannah.

It was in Savannah that Serena plunged headlong into middle age. She gained weight, indulged herself endlessly, and became the soul of pampered self-absorption. She spent most of her day in bed, holding court, drinking martinis and pink ladies, and playing with her white toy poodle, Lulu.

As much as Serena detested her former in-laws, she reveled in her connection to them. She never tired of telling people that the bed she lay in had once belonged to Algernon Dawes, the steel millionaire. Photographs of Daweses and Cabots stood sentry on the night table. A full-length portrait of her hated mother-in-law hung in the dining room, just as her own Cecil Beaton photographs adorned the walls of her bedroom. Serena thrived in this museum of her former self. She had a wardrobe that consisted mostly of shortie nightgowns and peignoirs. They revealed her still-shapely legs and discreetly swathed her upper half in clouds of feathers and silk chiffon. She dyed her hair flaming red and painted her fingernails and toenails dark green. She bullied and wheedled; she railed and purred. She drawled and cussed and carried on. For emphasis, she threw objects across the room-pillows, drinks, even Lulu the poodle. Every now and then she would sweep the Daweses and Cabots off the night table with an oath and send them cras.h.i.+ng to the floor.

Serena did not choose to mingle in Savannah's society, nor was she invited to do so. But Savannah's elite never tired of talking about her. "She has no couples as callers," said a woman who lived a few houses down Gordon Street, "only young men. You never see ladies going into her house at all. She is not, as far as I know, a member of any garden club. She's not neighborly." But after a fas.h.i.+on, Serena loved Luther and Luther loved Serena.

The una.s.suming, shy, and hapless Luther Driggers had a darker side. He was possessed by inner demons who showed themselves in disturbing ways. Chronic insomnia was one of them. Luther had once gone nine days without falling asleep. Sleep, when it came, was rarely peaceful. Luther usually slept with his teeth and his fists tightly clenched. By morning he would awake with sore jaws and little crescent-shaped cuts in his palms. People worried about Luther's demons. But they were not so much concerned with the uneaten breakfasts or the lost sleep or the bleeding palms. They were fearful about something much more serious.

It was rumored that Luther had in his possession a bottle of poison five hundred times more deadly than a.r.s.enic, a poison so lethal that if he ever dumped it into the city's water supply it would kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah. Years back, a delegation of nervous citizens had informed the police, and the police had searched Luther's house without finding anything. That satisfied no one, of course, and the rumors persisted.

Luther certainly knew all about poisons and how to use them. He was a technician at the government insectary on the outskirts of Savannah. His job required that he sift through jugs of barn sweepings, sort out the weevils and beetles, and raise them in colonies so that he could test various insecticides on them. The difficult part of the job was the requirement that Luther inject insecticide into the chest cavities of the individual insects. This operation demanded the dexterity of a watchmaker. It was hard enough to do sober; with a hangover and tremors it was nearly impossible. "G.o.d, it's tedious work," Luther said.

Sometimes, to relieve the boredom, Luther anesthetized ordinary house flies and glued lengths of thread to their backs. When the flies awoke, they flew around trailing the threads behind them. "It makes them easier to catch," he said.

On occasion, Luther walked through downtown Savannah holding a dozen or more threads in his hand, each a different color. Some people walked dogs; Luther walked flies. Now and then, when he visited friends, he took a few of the flies with him and let them loose in the living room.

At other times, Luther pasted the wings of a wasp on top of a fly's own wings to improve its aerodynamics. Or he made one wing slightly shorter than the other so it would fly in circles the rest of its life.

It was just this side of Luther, his quirky tinkering, that left people with a lingering uneasiness about whether he might one day pour his bottle of poison into Savannah's water supply. They worried about this most of all when his well-known demons got the better of him. And whenever Luther walked out of Clary's without eating breakfast-which he had been doing of late-it was a sign that his demons were stirring.

This concern was uppermost in my mind, in fact, when Luther was explaining why I should scrub my toilet bowl with a brick. He was telling me about, of all things, Savannah's water supply. Savannah's water came from a limestone aquifer, he said. It was rich in calcium bicarbonate, which loses a molecule and turns into crystals of calcium carbonate when it dries. "Hey, listen," I wanted to say, "what's this I hear about you and a deadly poison?" But I didn't. I just thanked him for the advice.

The next morning when he sat down at the table next to me, I leaned over and gave him the news. "The brick worked," I said. "Thanks."

"Good," he said. "You could have used a pumice stone instead. That would have done just as well as a brick."

Ruth put Luther's breakfast in front of him, and as usual he began to stare at it. I noticed a bright green thread tied to the b.u.t.tonhole of his lapel. It hung loosely down the front of his jacket. As Luther stared at his eggs, the green thread became taut; then it swung counterclockwise and came to rest along his left shoulder. It stayed there for a moment, then lifted into the air as if caught in an updraft. It hung aloft, still anch.o.r.ed to his lapel, then floated down and lay across his chest. Luther was oblivious to the movements of the thread and to the antics of the fly at the end of it.

He saw that I was watching him. "I dunno," he said with a sigh. "Sometimes I just can't face going through with breakfast."

"I've noticed," I said.

Luther blushed at the thought that his eating habits had been observed, and he started to eat. "I have a deficiency of stomach acid," he said. "It's not serious. It's called hypochlorhydria. I'm told Rasputin had the same condition, but I wouldn't know about that. All I know is that at times of stress, my gastric juices just quit on me and I can't digest food. But it pa.s.ses."

"About these gastric juices," I said. "Have you been under a lot of tension lately?"

"Well, sort of," Luther said. "I'm working on something new. It's something that could make a lot of money, if it works. The problem is, I haven't got it to work yet." Luther paused for a moment, considering whether to let me into his confidence.

"Do you know what black lights are?" he asked. "Those purple fluorescent lights that make things glow in the dark? Well, you know, a lot of bars have fish tanks illuminated with black lights. The Purple Tree down on Johnson Square does. I got to thinking what a shame it was that goldfish didn't glow in the dark. So I'm trying to find a way to make them glow. If they did glow, they'd look as if they were floating in air like giant fireflies-just the kind of weird vision a guy getting drunk in a bar could spend hours looking at. I know I I would. Every bar in America would have to have them. That's why I want to find a way to make them glow." would. Every bar in America would have to have them. That's why I want to find a way to make them glow."

"Do you think you can?"

"I'm experimenting with fluorescent dye," he said. "The first thing I did was dip the goldfish directly into the dye, and it killed them. Then I took a slower approach and poured a teaspoon of dye into the fish tank and waited. After a week, a faint glow appeared on the gills and the tips of the fins, but it wasn't enough to make much of an impact in a bar. Little by little, I poured more dye into the water, but the fish didn't glow any brighter and the glow didn't spread to any other parts of the fish. All that happened was the pH factor of the water increased, and in a couple of days the fish were dead. That's where I'm at right now."

The fly had alighted on Luther's eyebrow. The green thread dangled down his cheek as if it were attached to a monocle.

Driggers's Golden Glowfish. Sure, why not? Fortunes had been built on less. "I like it," I said. "I hope you can make it happen."

"I'll let you know," said Luther.

Our conversations over the next few days were brief. Several times Luther just waved and gave me the thumbs-up sign. On one occasion, I thought I saw a small horsefly hovering over him. I could not tell whether it was attached by a thread, but it followed him up to the cash register, and when he left the premises he appeared to hold the door open for it.

One morning, when I came into Clary's, he waved me over. "I'm trying a new approach," he said. "I'm mixing the fluorescent dye with fish food, and I'm beginning to see results. The gills and the fin tips are glowing pretty good, and there's even some fluorescence in the eyes and around the mouth."

Luther told me he planned to go to the Purple Tree later that evening for the first public tryout. I was welcome to join him if I liked. I could meet him at the home of Serena Dawes at ten o'clock, and the three of us would proceed to the Purple Tree together.

At ten o'clock sharp, Serena Dawes's maid, Maggie, came to the door of her townhouse. She showed me into a front parlor, which was furnished in the grand manner-French Empire furniture, heavy swag curtains, and plenty of gold leaf. Then she disappeared to the rear of the house to attend her mistress. Judging from the sounds coming from that direction, Serena's appearance would be some time off. I could hear the high-pitched strains of a one-way conversation: "Put it back! Put it back!" back!" she screeched. "It doesn't match, G.o.ddammit! Now hand me that other one. No, dammit, she screeched. "It doesn't match, G.o.ddammit! Now hand me that other one. No, dammit, that that one! I can't wear these shoes. Maggie, you're hurting me! Well, be more careful next time, and listen to what I say. Did you call the police like I told you to? Did they catch those nasty little redneck b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? Did they? They oughta shoot 'em! Kill 'em! They nearly blew the G.o.dd.a.m.n house down. Luther, darling, hold the mirror higher so I can see. That's better. Lulu, come to Mama. Come to Mama, Lulu! Oooo! Mama's little love, Mama's little kissy-woo! Maggie, do something to my drink. Well, can't you see the ice is melted!" one! I can't wear these shoes. Maggie, you're hurting me! Well, be more careful next time, and listen to what I say. Did you call the police like I told you to? Did they catch those nasty little redneck b.a.s.t.a.r.ds? Did they? They oughta shoot 'em! Kill 'em! They nearly blew the G.o.dd.a.m.n house down. Luther, darling, hold the mirror higher so I can see. That's better. Lulu, come to Mama. Come to Mama, Lulu! Oooo! Mama's little love, Mama's little kissy-woo! Maggie, do something to my drink. Well, can't you see the ice is melted!"

At eleven o'clock, I looked up to see a pair of pale and shapely legs supporting a tumult of pink marabou surmounted by a picture hat. Serena's fingernails were a greenish black. Her face was thrown into shadow by the wide-brimmed hat, but it still showed evidence of the vision it had once been. She smiled, and an even row of perfectly white teeth gleamed between two brilliant red lips.

"I am so des-per-ate-ly sorry to have kept you waiting," she purred in a soft, coquettish drawl. "I do hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me, but I regret to say I have simply had no sleep. The dreadful little children from across the square threw a bomb under my bedroom window in the dead of night. My nerves are still unsettled. My life is in constant danger."

"Why, Miz Dawes," said Maggie, "it wutt'n them chirrin at all. It was on'y Jim Williams shootin' off a cap pistol. You know how he likes to get your goat. An' it wutt'n no death a night neither. It was noontime."

"Decent people were still resting!" said Serena. "And it was not not a toy pistol! You don't understand these things, Maggie. It was a f.u.c.kin' bomb! It nearly tore the G.o.dd.a.m.n side off the house. I am quite sure my bedroom is structurally unsound as a result. And as for Jim Williams-that no-good, low-rent middle Georgia redneck-I will fix his wagon. You wait and see." a toy pistol! You don't understand these things, Maggie. It was a f.u.c.kin' bomb! It nearly tore the G.o.dd.a.m.n side off the house. I am quite sure my bedroom is structurally unsound as a result. And as for Jim Williams-that no-good, low-rent middle Georgia redneck-I will fix his wagon. You wait and see."

Luther appeared, carrying a Chinese food take-out carton. "Well, I've got the goldfish ready. Let's go."

Serena insisted on making the circuit of local nightspots rather than going directly to the Purple Tree. The effort of getting dressed warranted nothing less than a Grand Tour, she felt. We went first to the bar of the 1790 restaurant, then to the Pink House, then to the DeSoto Hilton. At each stop, Serena's friends gathered around. She paid attention only to the men among them, flattering and bullying them by turns and fanning herself with her c.o.c.ktail napkin. "Oh, darlin', you look so handsome. Dear me, I left my cigarettes in the car. Now, be a love and go get them for me-here, take my keys. G.o.dd.a.m.n, it's hot as a b.i.t.c.h in here. I swear I'll pa.s.s out unless somebody turns up the air. Oh, goodness, look at that, my drink's all gone! I simply must have another! Why, thaaaank yewwww. My nerves are still shattered from that bomb attack last night. Haven't you heard? A disappointed lover blew a hole in my bedroom wall. I'm still too upset to talk about it."

As the evening wore on, Luther became concerned that the fluorescence might wear off his goldfish and that they might begin to fade. "We need to get to the Purple Tree before it's too late," he said.

"We'll get there, darling," Serena trilled. "After we peek in at the pirates' Cove." Luther opened the carton and sprinkled a little more fish food into it. After the pirates' Cove, Serena insisted on a stop at Pinkie Master's. Luther added more fish food. At Pinkie Master's, several people peered into the carton.

"Goldfish," they said. "So what?"

"Come with us to the Purple Tree," said Luther. "You'll see." He put another dose of fish food into the carton. When we finally reached the Purple Tree, it was two-thirty, and our party of three had grown into a small crowd with Serena at the center of it. Luther was content to look after his goldfish and become quietly drunk. In the black-lit darkness of the Purple Tree, Serena's face was all but invisible under her hat, except for her teeth, which were all aglow. "If it wasn't a jealous lover," she said, "then it could have been the Mafia. They use explosives too, don't they? They'd give anything to get their hands on the magnificent jewels my late husband left me. He was one of the richest men in the world as you all know. After the attack last night I consider myself lucky to be alive."

Luther, none too steady on his feet by this time, stepped behind the bar. "Well, here goes," he said, and without further ceremony he poured the goldfish into the tank. They plunged into the water in a burst of bright green bubbles. Luther held his breath as the bubbles rose and the water cleared. There, swimming around the tank-brighter than the gills or the mouths or the eyes or the fins-were the glowing intestines of his six goldfish. Looping, coiled, knotty cores of light at the center of each of his fish. Luther could not believe it. Months of work had come to this. Glowing goldfish guts. He had overfed the fish.

A silence came over the patrons at the bar.

"Darling," said Serena, "what the h.e.l.l is that?"

Others were quick to add their two cents.

"That's repulsive."