I didn’t bother trying to crack that particular nut. Instead, I looked at the limo, which everyone was ignoring. It pulled away, and I caught sight of its license plates.
“FOREST 1”
The windows were tinted, but I wanted very much to see if there had been another passenger.
After striking out at Aloeus’ home base, I had done the rounds of the obvious interviews. Eyewitnesses, public servants, including an eerie conversation with one of the divers who’d chained the body to the Coast Guard cutter. The only obvious person I couldn’t get hold of was Egil Nixon, the County Coroner, just voice mail saying he was out of the office. Didn’t matter all that much, I had his write-up on the dragon.
At this point, late in the afternoon, my story had gone through another three drafts, and I was sequestered in the periodical department at the Main Cleveland Public Library. It was a quiet place where the computers outnumbered people. There were still microfilm stacks, which held everything up until the turn of the century, but everything recent was in a computerized database. Local conditions made digital archiving a necessity. It also made a researcher’s job easier. With the combination of OCR software that could “read” just about any type of printed text, and search algorithms pioneered for the Internet, the user could parse millions of scanned pages with any keyword—not just a list of subjects that some database programmer thought was important.
Which worked well for me.
Aloeus, like the rest of his kin, avoided the press. There wasn’t much about
him
in the archives. I did find one article, however, that had him involved in a strange “welcoming” ceremony with Mayor Rayburn in the first few months after the Portal’s opening. This dragon was the first paranormal critter to meet with anyone in an official capacity. It was also shortly after this meeting that the city set in motion the legal mechanisms to recognize the nonhuman creatures coming through the Portal as beings with rights. That movement reached up as far as the state level so, currently, the United States—for the first time since the Civil War—had states that disagreed on the legal definition of a human being.
Aloeus met with people on several levels: city, county, state; judicial and legislature; public sector and private. Rarely did his name dominate the stories. It was always this particular official enacting some initiative, and the dragon’s name would be mentioned in passing. Discussions were talked about, but rarely the contents of those discussions.
I had
written
some of these stories.
Very, very good at keeping a low profile. The perception from the articles was that his involvement was slight, almost beneath mention. The volume of text belied that. I tried to remember some of my own thoughts about some of these stories. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t focus on any thoughts about Aloeus’ involvement. The emphasis was always on what the
humans
were doing, what the government and the people in it were doing. Which Councilmen were winning, which were losing, what city departments were going to get money, which will lose funds. . . .
Did I ever once wonder about what these “paranormal citizens” did, or thought?
Only insofar as it became grist for the political mill on Lakeside.
I didn’t like where the self-examination was going, so I buckled down and tried to find a connection between Aloeus and Forest Hills Enterprises.
Jackpot.
The thing about the legal status of dragons is that they only had rights as individuals within the state of Ohio. While other states had to recognize some aspects of that legal truth—contracts binding in Ohio were binding in California and so on—that didn’t mean, for instance, that Aloeus had property rights in Nevada. Aloeus couldn’t sign a contract drafted under the rules of any other state. He couldn’t have personal assets in an out-of-state bank.
Since dragons liked to accumulate wealth, that was a bit of a handicap, even if they couldn’t physically visit the places whose laws didn’t recognize them.
The solution was to incorporate. A dragon, or any creature recognized as having legal rights under Ohio law, could form a corporation under Ohio state law and that corporation would exist under the laws of every state as well as those of the federal government. The corporation would have more rights than the person who owned it.
Dragons pioneered this technique to sidestep the nation’s refusal to deal with them as people. Aloeus, Inc., was formed twenty-four hours after the governor signed the law granting Aloeus the right to own property.
And Aloeus, Inc., had a lot of real estate.
All of it seemed to have been bought through, or from, Forest Hills Enterprises. Besides the Cleveland Trust Building, there were properties dotting the city, and several thousand undeveloped acres in—of all places—Mexico. Leo Baldassare was making a lot of money off of Aloeus Inc.
I decided that I was going to have a talk with Baldassare about a dragon.
♥ Uploaded by Coral ♥
CHAPTER FIVE
L
EONARDO Baldassare and I knew each other. He had been a high-level unnamed source for a number of my stories in the past. I was one of a select few who had his personal cell phone number, a privilege I never abused. Baldassare was much too valuable a resource for me, and he was very much aware of it.
In general, he was willing to talk to me for the usual reason: to stir the pot of his political enemies, and sometimes his allies. In return for allowing myself to be fed those stories, he would occasionally allow me to probe issues that were on my own agenda.
He once told me, “I talk to you for two reasons. One: I never saw you print anything that wasn’t true. Two: you’ve never used my own words against me.” The former was good journalistic practice. Always confirm your facts. The latter was due to the fact that Baldassare was too smart to hand over ammunition to a reporter. A fact that made him twice as smart as any politician that has served in this town in the last twenty years—except his political ally, Mayor Rayburn.
I think the real reason he was willing to talk to me was because I never quoted him, even as an unnamed source. Any information I got from him I confirmed from a couple of other sources before it went into print. Kept us both honest.
So I wasn’t completely surprised when I called him for a comment and he invited me to his estate for a private chat. I made it down to Hunting Valley at a little after six in the afternoon.
Hunting Valley is an enclave of the landed rich. Unlike the golf-course developments that have multimillion dollar homes ready-furnished for the latest executive VP import, there’s a sense of permanence to the estates here. The residents have an unbeatable combination of wealth and a desire to keep things as they are. We’re talking a suburb so rich that it doesn’t need to collect property taxes. A suburb where the city itself buys up property to keep it from the developers—though anyone coming to the city asking for commercial development, or even a multifamily zoning variance, would be laughed out of City Hall.
There are roads in Hunting Valley where you can drive for a few miles without seeing a single house.
The Baldassare estate was true to that model. It lived out of sight behind a split-rail fence, a row of pine trees, and about two dozen acres of horse pasture. The only indication of who lived here was a small wooden sign that said Long-Run Farms. Below that, it bore the ubiquitous Hunting Valley icon of the foxhunter in mid jump.
There wasn’t a gate, or even a sign warning off trespassers. The only sign of how high class this place was, was the fact that the road wasn’t gravel or asphalt, but cobblestone.
I turned down the driveway and followed it past the stand of pines. The split-rail fence paced me on both sides. A pair of horses stood off in the distance, watching me with bored curiosity from the center of the pasture. I lost sight of them when I rounded the trees.
The impact of the estate sort of sneaks up on you. When you reach the trees, you have a disarmingly bucolic setting. Then you enter the woods and drive about fifteen seconds, and suddenly the realization strikes you. This is
all
one estate. A single man owns
all
this. Then you reach the second gate.
This is the point where you realize that this guy is a billionaire.
The wall was about eight feet high, built out of stone carved and beveled like a jigsaw puzzle. The gate was wrought iron with twisted gargoyle shapes. Imbedded in the lattice of the gate itself were about a dozen semiprecious stones the size of my fist. The stones glowed faintly red in the evening light. The wards didn’t need such a visual display; the glow was there to let you know that the wards existed.
As my Volkswagen approached, the gates opened inward. The benefit of being expected.
I followed the road. I emerged from the woods and followed the driveway down one side of a reflecting pool larger than my condo. I pulled to a stop outside Baldassare’s house.
I was looking at concentrated personal wealth, distilled and molded into a Tudor mansion that covered more square footage than the field in Baldassare’s stadium.
Somewhat incongruously, I saw Baldassare on his flagstone patio, waving from over a barbecue grill. I waved back to acknowledge him and stepped out of the car. The evening air was pleasantly cool, and the wind was blowing the odor of mesquite toward me.
Baldassare wasn’t as big as his name. He was a head shorter than I was, and about fifty pounds lighter. At first glance he looked like one of those background guys that disappear through life. Then you made eye contact with him, and something about that impression changed. You had just started sizing him up when you realized he had already sized you up, decided what you wanted, what he was going to give you, and what you were going to pay for it.
“How are you doing, Kline?” he said, smiling at me. He presented the kind of aura of easy camaraderie that was unsuccessfully aped by most politicians and used car salesman.
I shrugged. “Same old, same old.”
“That isn’t quite true.” He flipped a steak on the grill. The steak was an inch-thick porterhouse, and the grill was a cavernous stainless-steel barbecue that probably cost more than my Volkswagen. “It seems you’re taking a step or two off the political beat.”
“Yes and no.”
He turned and pointed a two-foot-long barbecue fork toward a bar on the far side of the patio. “Feel free to grab a drink.”
“Thanks.” I walked over to the bar and poured myself a seltzer water. “I appreciate you seeing me.”
“I was interested in where your questions were going.” He tonged a steak out of the grill. “You want one? I got four going.”
I shook my head and didn’t ask why he was cooking four porterhouse steaks at one time. From what I could tell, we were the only ones here. He must have seen the question in my eyes, because he said. “Clara’s off doing some charity thing in California, and I only get one night off a week to cook.” He looked at the meat and said, “I know it’s a sin to microwave steaks, but if I vacuum-pack these babies right after I grill them—and don’t freeze them, God forbid anyone freezes them—got dinner for the rest of the week.”
I nodded and sipped my soda water. I felt a little nervous. Baldassare was not just any source. I’d been cultivating him since Rayburn’s first mayoral campaign. He was invaluable as long as I didn’t alienate him.
“So, to what do we owe your change in the subject matter?”
“Maybe you heard about what happened to Morgan?”
A small grin crossed his face. “I hear he was a sight—so
you
got his beat?”
I shook my head. “No, just the dragon. Which isn’t far outside my bailiwick, after all.”
He raised his tongs. “Hold that thought.” He proceeded to pile four medium rare steaks on a platter. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Baldassare walked toward the French doors that opened onto the patio with his pile of steaks. He bore a brief resemblance to a server in one of those old-world Little Italy restaurants. He left me outside to sip my drink.
He came back without any steaks. When he saw me looking at him, he wiped his hands on his apron and said, “Oh, I’d already eaten.” He shut down the grill and shed the apron on the back of a wrought iron chair. He walked over and fixed himself a drink. “So, Kline, since when did dead dragons become political?”
“Since the dragon was political.”
“A little outside the City Hall beat, isn’t it?”
“A little,” I agreed. “You knew him.”
“The dragon?” For a few long moments he looked introspective as he sipped an unstirred vodka martini. “No, I didn’t know Aloeus.”
I arched my eyebrow enough so he’d know that I knew of his business relationship with Aloeus.
He acknowledged me with a shake of the head. “I’m not saying I didn’t meet him, negotiate with him, do business with him, even. But I never
knew
him.” He gave me a half smile, and I knew that he was having a chuckle at my expense. At how transparent I was and how easily he faked me out.