“Did I?”
“Aloeus wasn’t
escaping
Valdis. He wanted to
replace
him.”
Baldassare nodded. “Interesting, but I’ve noticed you haven’t printed that.”
“Some editorial decisions are out of my hands.”
“Come,” he gestured toward the river. “Let’s walk.”
I followed him, waiting for some reaction.
When we had gone a way from the house, Baldassare asked, “Why does this disturb you, then? So Aloeus didn’t have pure motives by human standards. He wasn’t human. He made a cool decision that he could achieve some advantage, creating a Portal so that the elves could escape persecution. Would you condemn him because he saved the beings he sought to have serve him?”
“You’ve mistaken me.”
“How so?”
“I don’t condemn Aloeus,” I told him. I turned around and faced him. “I condemn you.”
To his credit he didn’t seem surprised. “I suppose you have an explanation for this?”
“How did Phillips know?”
“Know what?”
“Know
anything.
” I said. “The man was a fanatic. A loose cannon. He was inept and stupid. Seriously prone to overreaction. Aloeus hadn’t changed allegiances since the Portal opened. Someone had to have tipped Phillips off that Aloeus was planning a new Portal somewhere.” I looked over the river and wondered what it had looked like when Aloeus had flown over this river. I wondered if what had attracted him was the presence of a like-minded individual.
“Are you accusing me?”
“Bone Daddy gave me a message from his Oracle. ‘A villain of deeds, a villain of thoughts, and a villain of words.’”
“You aren’t expecting me to take this seriously?”
I didn’t care if he did.
“Deeds was O’Malley, the one who’d kill me—but Bone called him the least of my opposition. Thoughts, twisted as they were, that was Phillips. The mastermind plotting my undoing.”
“And I am words?”
“Fits you like a glove. You’re a master of the glad hand, the spin, the rhetorical twist. You can talk someone into knots, and you could certainly give Phillips his share of encouragement. In the words of the Oracle, ‘with only a well chosen word he will destroy one man, or empires unborn.’”
“You give me a lot of credit.”
“How did Phillips know enough to ambush me?”
“He had mages—”
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t use a mage to zero in on me. If he had, he would have been ambushing me at Squire’s Castle, or trying to. He couldn’t have found me in the ‘war room.’ The place was designed to be completely impenetrable to any
known
magical force. By definition, if Phillips or his mages had access to any arcane knowledge, they warded the place against it.”
Baldassare had stopped smiling.
“He knew. He knew because you briefed him.”
“I hope you don’t intend to print this.” For the first time in my life, I heard a hint of threat creep into Baldassare’s voice. At one point that would have intimidated me. Not right now, though.
“It got to you, didn’t it?” I asked. “Being so close to the administration, and losing control of the Portal to a dim bulb like Phillips.”
“You think I had a dragon murdered over a civil service job?”
“Power.” I said. “It is all about power. You joined in with Ysbail and the rest not out of altruism but because Aloeus had become closer to the administration than you were. I suspect you relished the idea that Aloeus’ goal would marginalize Phillips as he had marginalized you.”
“Then why would I have the dragon killed?”
“Because Aloeus wasn’t human,” I said. “For all your Machiavellian political manipulations, the dragon was a colder, more manipulative motherfucker than you could ever hope to be. You never even realized that you were the one being used. I suspect that you believed you were to hold some powerful position when Aloeus opened his new Portal. Maybe the chief liaison between his new kingdom and the rest of the planet. Am I warm?”
Baldassare was silent.
“Was it when the land deal was finalized? Did it start sinking in then? You were dealing with a creature who only understood gratitude and loyalty as tools to influence people.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t I? Aloeus had decided, like Rayburn, that he didn’t need you anymore. You decided you didn’t need him anymore.”
“Did you come here expecting some sort of confession?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to get one.”
“I didn’t think I would.”
“You don’t believe you’re going to get any of that garbage into print.”
I laughed. “I can’t substantiate any of this. And I know enough not to push a story that’ll be pulled out from under me. I know if you could get my paper to assign me to a story, you can get them to pull one just as easily.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“You ever imagine it?”
“What?”
“The last few moments. The plunge to the ground. Your body shredding to ribbons around you—”
Baldassare snorted, shook his head, and turned away, leaving me by the edge of the river. Very cool. I’ll give him that.
“You know what the worst part would be?”
He kept walking. Apparently he was tired of our little game.
I yelled after him. “You know the worst part?”
He stopped.
“Seeing it coming,” I told his back. “Seeing it coming and not being able to do a damn thing about it.”
He turned around very slowly.
“You wanted to know why I’m here?” I said.
He stood there facing me. One of the most powerful men in the city. And I saw a twitch.
I smiled. “You betrayed a powerful group of
very
patient people.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I just wanted to see your face when you realized that.” I turned around and started walking to my car.
He was silent until I’d almost made it to my car.
“Powerful . . . patient . . .” Hearing Baldassare trip over a word was worth more than several thousand expressions. “What did you tell them.
What did you tell them?”
I got into my Volkswagen and slammed the door. He still stood, halfway between his house and the river. He repeated,
“What did you tell them?”
I lowered the window and called out to him, “Ask them when they catch up with you, in a year or so. Detective Sergeant Maelgwyn Caledvwlch can be quite the conversationalist.”
As I drove away, I left the window open so that I could smell the hint of early fall in the wind.
THE DWARVES OF WHISKEY ISLAND
Dedicated to the citizens of
Cleveland, Ohio
PROLOGUE
WHAT I know—what anyone knows—of Dominic Lloyd Mazurich’s last few hours, is pieced together from police and forensic reports, a few witnesses, and public records. It goes something like this . . .
Mazurich holds his last press conference at Cleveland City Hall at about 6:30 in the afternoon. It is in a small meeting room off of Council Chambers that is packed with reporters. The scene of the press conference, as was the City Council session that preceded it, is more hectic than usual. The Supreme Court has just issued a ruling against the city about jurisdiction over the Portal, which happens to be the city’s prime—pretty much only—natural resource. The expectation, of course, is that Mazurich will issue some sort of statement about impending federal annexation of northeast Ohio’s golden goose.
That is not what is on Mazurich’s mind.
Mazurich is a large man in every conceivable dimension. Tall and wide, with an expansive personality. He started as a union organizer, and he retains that blue-collar air. He can stand at the head of a roomful of a thousand people and make everyone feel as if he is one of them. He can give anyone the impression that he is on their side, if he wants to.
He walked out of a shutdown West Side steel plant two decades ago, and walked into City Council with a promise that he would pull his ward out of the economic depression the steel collapse had left it in. In his first three years, he pulled off a minor miracle, halving an unemployment rate that had started at nearly forty percent. By the time the Portal opened, the decommissioned steel plant had been replaced by a high-tech office park—built largely by the local labor force.
When the chaos from the Portal hit, he hooked his star to Mayor Rayburn, and managed to get the companies in his ward a major slice of the city contracts rebuilding the information infrastructure in Cleveland. When the dust settled, two years later, the unemployment rate in his ward was below the city average for the first time in a quarter century.
When Rayburn won reelection, Mazurich was elected as council president. He’s been council president for eight years, and the current consensus is that the only thing that might keep him from serving eight more would be a successful run for the mayor’s office.
Mazurich walks in frowning, an uncharacteristic expression. He steps in front of the lectern, facing the room of reporters. For a few moments, the assumption is that his displeasure is due to the Supreme Court ruling. No one in city government is happy about it. The federalization of the Portal represents a loss of jobs, money, and power for the city of Cleveland.
Mazurich clears his throat and pulls a dirty, wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket. He glances down at it and says, “I only have a short statement, and I’m afraid I will not be taking any questions.”
He takes a deep breath and deflates a little. His tie is somewhat askew, a detail picked up by many political cartoonists. Suit and tie have never worn well on Mazurich’s large frame.
“Effective 7:30 PM today I have resigned my position on City Council.”
There is, perhaps, a second or two of shocked silence. Something rare in the journalistic profession, complete, sincere, and universal surprise. There have been no rumors, no leaks, no hint of anything like this on Lakeside Avenue or off.
“Brenda Carlson will be acting councilwoman in my absence, and I have directed my staff to work with the next council president to effect a smooth transition. I have served my ward for twenty years, and it is my deep regret that I cannot serve them any longer.”
Then, of course, the questions. Everyone shouts at once in the vain hope that Mazurich—who’d been, up to his announcement, the second most powerful man in Cleveland—might break and answer a question out of frustration, if nothing else. People ask him if he plans to run for mayor, if he consulted with Mayor Rayburn—or anyone—about his decision, and, of course, everyone wants to know—
Why?
Mazurich stares at them. His expression is odd. He’s a career politician, but he looks shocked and slightly afraid, as if the attack of journalists is a surprise to him. He stands at the lectern as if dumbfounded, a state so incongruous that the questions slack off a bit.
To the consternation of his audience, Mazurich doesn’t utter a single word more. He turns and exits the room without any further acknowledgment. As the door closes behind him, the sound of shouted questions is replaced by electronic clicks and beeps as the reporters rush to make cell phone calls and e-mails to catch the next edition, and in a few cases, the next broadcast.
Mazurich dismisses all his staff around 6:45 PM. They are all loyal, and have been working for him for over a decade in some cases. The feelings range from betrayal to despair. No one understands what he is doing, and the impact leaves the half dozen city employees shell-shocked and mute. Most of them end up in a bar down the street from City Hall and remain there for the next four hours.
Mazurich’s secretary, Pam Lebowitz—who’s worked for him the longest, close to eighteen years—doesn’t join the others at the bar. At 7:00 pm, she walks into Mazurich’s office to see him sitting at his computer. Mazurich looks up at her and closes the briefcase on his desk.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks.
His answer is abrupt and uncharacteristically cold, “I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“You owe me, all of us, an explanation.”
“Owe you?” Mazurich shakes his head. “
Owe
you? I’ve given my life to this city. I lost a marriage and two kids. I gave and gave until this thankless job is all I have left. Now I’ve given
that.
How dare you. Owe?
Owe?
” He slams a large fist down on the desk, and stands up, toppling the precariously balanced briefcase. It tumbles to the floor spilling papers and CDs. “
This city owes me!
”
His dumbfounded secretary looks down at the spilled briefcase and bends over. “I’ll get that, sir.”