Copyright © 2010, 2011 Ernest Bloom.
Looking ahead, the canopies and awnings appeared to be very closely jammed together in the last dash to the Hyatt. There came a clothing and souvenir shop, the River Grill (lacking a menu alongside the door, they passed it by), a great ductwork snaking all the way down from the top of the building like a plundering python, a little whitewashed clothing boutique with its window behind a rather serious-looking security grill lying underneath a series of large and abandoned, sickle-like brackets protruding up toward the dark sky where a number of balconies had been removed, another more appealing boutique up a few steps from the sidewalk and tucked away under a massive brick arch, Vic's On the River with its potted palms ("Sounds hoity-toity and pricey," Nora said) side by side with a tiny salon and gift shop whose open doors teemed with pirate tee shirts (a sign at the bottom of the door proclaimed: HAUNTINGS TOUR TICKETS SOLD HERE), another noisy bar with a few tables out front blocking the walkway and a series of lacy iron balconies stretching away overhead without any floors, another candy store, this one much larger than the one they had seen earlier, fronted by a line of wine casks bursting with palms. They passed by the River Boat Ticket Office and came to a large, brightly lit Greek restaurant with blue doors, its long blue and white striped awning glowing luridly and wrapping all the way around the far corner of the building. A short, cobbled alleyway with a paved brick lane down the center bent back to the south there, illuminated by a line of tall and slender lamps on the far side of the street, running away for a block to the back side of City Hall, its windows set at staggered levels between a symmetrical pair of downspouts, all topped by a twenty-four carat gold rotunda and a clock face shining down toward the Savannah River. Directly ahead of them the Hyatt Regency also threw itself forward toward the water, leaping completely over the centuries-old boulevard so that River Street was compelled to pass underneath the hotel through a boxy, tunnel-like affair. On the further side of the street some statue was raised on a pedestal, and the river ebbed slowly forward on its effortless course through the Georgian night.
"Now what?" Nora asked.
"Well. . . .I guess we go back to the Cotton Exchange, if that's okay with you."
She nodded. "It's fine."
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