Meg stepped into the restaurant, glanced over her shoulder just to be sure she hadn't been followed, and said, "I'm meeting someone," to the maitre d'.
"Certainly, madam. Would you care to wait at the bar until your party arrives?"
"If you don't mind, I'll just wait here."
He smiled at her and said, "You'll find comfortable chairs over there, and you'll have no trouble seeing the door."
She nodded, walked into the little waiting room, and took a seat.
She was still angry—she was angry that people had tried to kill Dan, but her anger extended far beyond that. Those killers felt they could make liberal North Carolinians stop supporting equal rights for the Hellraised by eliminating him. Once again religious fanatics and right-wing hate groups wanted to dictate the actions of others, but this time they were going to fail. She was going to turn the whole thing around on them.
She saw Puck drive into the parking lot a few minutes after she did. He came in wearing a pair of dark glasses that hid his eyes—the last sign that he was one of the Hellraised. He spotted her quickly and strolled over. His expensive silk suit, elegantly cut to emphasize his broad shoulders and lean waist, and the professional cut of his hair, which fell boyishly across his brow while still giving an impression of style, went a long way in disguising the fact that he was still quite ugly. If you look rich, Meg thought, ugliness starts looking a lot like good breeding.
"He hasn't arrived yet?"
"Not yet."
"Then we have a little time to discuss this."
"Not much. Stay within earshot, but out of sight. I don't want him to realize you've been in the restaurant the whole time. When I say I've asked a friend to join us, wait five minutes, then come over. I want him prejudiced in your favor when he meets you."
Puck nodded. "I'll just get a magazine and wait until the two of you are seated—then I'll find a convenient place."
"Fine."
Puck moved off, settled into a chair, picked up a magazine, and seemed to disappear. Meg saw him sitting there, but he managed somehow to give the impression that he was a part of the decor, not someone who ought to be noticed. It was a pretty good trick, she thought
She waited only a few minutes more. Then a good-looking man in his mid-thirties came through the doors. He was alone, and like Meg, he checked just to be sure he wasn't being followed. Sandy-haired, bearded and muscular, he looked vaguely uncomfortable in the dinner jacket and tie that he wore. Meg could imagine him in hiking boots, khaki shorts and a Save Our Wetlands T-shirt. Probably carrying a picket sign. In fact, she thought she recognized his face from one of the multitude of mailers she'd received from Forever Wilderness.
She sighed. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows, she thought.
She stood, and he glanced over at her and gave her a tentative smile. "Ms. Lerner?"
She smiled back. "The same."
"Kyle Haversham. I'm president of Forever Wilderness, Inc."
They shook hands, followed the maitre d' to a table, then ordered. They engaged in small talk until the entrees arrived, or rather, Kyle engaged in small talk while Meg basically engaged in small listening. He discussed his success in locating and acquiring a large tract of forested land in Connecticut; the pending legislation that would mandate an annual tax on all firearms—Haversham hoped fervently that it would pass and Meg forced a smile and agreed with him; and the recent criminalization of tobacco use in California.
"That's one law I'd like to see spread everywhere," Haversham said.
Meg nodded. Politics, she thought. Strange bedfellows. She said, "Certainly," and hoped her smile didn't look as forced as it felt. Evidently it didn't, for Haversham kept talking.
"These conservative North Carolinians shout about the right to personal choice, but I don't see where smoking is a right. It's like seat-belt laws—if people can't be trusted to act in their own best interests, then the government needs to step in and act for them."
Meg wondered if she could throw up on Haversham on her way out without blowing her deal. How could he be so blithe about giving the government more power to encroach in the lives of its citizens? But of course he assumed it would only encroach in the ways he wanted.
With the arrival of their meals, though, their conversation took a turn toward business.
"The Vaillaird Bank consortium has been in touch with you about buying your Fender County holdings," Meg said.
"As far as I know, it's been in touch with every officer of Forever Wilderness. We aren't interested in selling."
Meg nodded. "I know. And I do understand your position. You intend to hold the land as a wild preserve in perpetuity, which I think is noble. And a wonderful cause. I donated to your organization once," she added, feeling like a creep for using such a cheap ploy to curry favor. She intended to do worse, though, if she had to.
"Then you understand that once we buy a piece of property, we must retain it."
"Under most circumstances, yes. In this instance, however, I think you'll find that you further your own cause by selling."
He raised his eyebrows and started to argue, but Meg held up a finger.
"Hear me out. I know where you stand on this. According to the head of the consortium, all of your people were appalled by the archconservative stance of most of the consortium members."
"Do you realize that, collectively, the group that wants to buy that land has invested in almost every capitalist sweatshop operation around the globe?"
Meg said, "I know several of the members of the group fairly well. While I like some of them a great deal as people, I find their politics and moral stances on issues repugnant." As repugnant as I find yours, she thought. "However, I think you'll find it interesting to know that the consortium is acting as a middleman for another interested group."
"Really?"
Meg nodded. "And this is strictly confidential, but if you're interested, I'd be willing to disclose the identity of the actual buyer."
"Of course I'm interested. You think this other buyer will change my mind, hmm?"
"Let me put it this way. The final buyer is a hell of a long way from being an archconservative." Meg smiled, "Have you been following the local furor over the Great Devil Makeover?"
"Of course. I think everyone has."
"How do you feel about it?"
"About what?"
Meg had to be careful how she worded this. She wanted the most anticonservative wording she could find; she thought Haversham would respond to that better than he would to the moderate phrasing she herself would have found preferable. She said, "About the general North Carolinian refusal to grant any sort of rights or protections to people who, through no fault of their own, have been forced to live here and are incapable of living anywhere else?"
He looked a little surprised. "To tell you the truth, I hadn't looked at it in quite that way."
Meg hadn't thought so. "No? I'm surprised. I've been looking at it that way for a while, so of course it seems obvious to me." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on either side of her plate, and said, "I do family practice. But I saw this tremendous injustice being done, so I sat down with some colleagues of mine who work for the ACLU. I presented work I'd done toward the initiation of a class action antidiscrimination suit against the state."
Haversham grinned at her. "That's terrific."
"Thanks. But that's a slow, slow process. Meanwhile, discrimination—at least discrimination by conservative and religious elements in the state—prevents the Hellraised from finding gainful employment, buying property, or becoming productive members of society."
"I can see that."
"The Hellraised want to buy this land. They'll use it to employ themselves."
"Damn." Haversham sighed. "Look, under the circumstances, I'd almost consider selling it to them. But you see, they approached us about it before. They want to build an amusement park on the site—and we simply can't permit that. If they wanted to buy the land to maintain as wilderness . . ." He shrugged.
They can't employ themselves running a wilderness, you idiot, she thought. She was going to have to crawl a little lower. "How many conservatives live in Fender County?" Meg asked. "And religious fundamentalists? How many of those?"
"The place is full of them."
Meg nodded and leaned back. "How do they feel about your organization?"
"They hate us."
"Are they tolerant of you?"
"Hell, no. Those polluting money-grubbing cigarette-smoking Jesus-shouting gun nuts fight us every time we turn around."
"How do you think they'd feel about having a Hell-run amusement park in their back yards?"
Haversham laughed. "They'd shit."
"I know."
She smiled at him.
He smiled at her.
She said, "It's a rather petty thought, isn't it?"
"Pretty petty. Yes." He kept smiling.
Meg worked the corner of her cloth napkin into a tube and rolled it forward and back across the table. Forward and back. Forward and back. She looked at the napkin while she said, "They aren't going to be tolerant of their own free will."
"No."
"Not of you. Not of the Hellraised. Not of anyone who's different than them."
"No."
Meg glanced up at him. "I'll paraphrase something you said, if you don't mind. If they won't do what's good for them of their own free will, then someone should make them do it. They won't accept the Hellraised on their own. Make them accept."
"I like it." He paused, glanced out the window beside them at the steady flow of traffic, then looked back at her. "I'm curious, though. I can see why you're involved with this—I can tell you're the sort of person who cares. Who is willing to take on causes. Who pays attention to global concerns, and won't just watch the world be swallowed by the money mongers. But I get the feeling there's more to it for you than just the obvious."
"Of course." Meg gave him a candid smile. "Someone sent Dan Cooley a letter bomb the night before last. I was with him when it went off. If I hadn't been with him, he would probably be dead now."
"Dan Cooley . . . Dan Cooley . . ." He frowned. "I can't say the name rings a bell."
"Dan Cooley. Also known as Gunga Dan."
His eyes widened slightly. "Gunga Dan the DJ?"
"Yes."
"I heard about the bombing. Well, who hasn't? You know him?"
Meg smiled. "We're good friends."
"I'm impressed." Haversham took a sip of his water and leaned back in his chair. "I'm also inclined to recommend to the rest of the committee that we go with this deal. Before we can even think about it, though, we'll have to have a couple of concessions."
"Such as?"
"We get an equivalent grant of wild land somewhere else in the state."
"That should be quite simple."
"We stay completely out of the public eye. The consortium who bought the land from us will have to take any pressure for selling it."
"I thought of that. That's why the Hellraised were willing to work through a middleman this time. The middleman will serve as your buffer; the consortium doesn't care what anyone thinks of them, as long as they make their profit."
"Isn't that the way?"
Meg nodded. "It is. Anything else?"
Haversham's eyes got a shifty look. "I'd like to meet one of the . . ." His voice dropped. " . . .one of the Hellraised before I take this back to my colleagues."
Meg smiled. "Of course. As luck would have it, I invited Puck to join us. I thought you'd like to meet him. He's running late—he has quite a busy schedule, between public appearances and doing radio promotions—but I'm sure he'll be along soon."
Five minutes later, Puck strolled up to the table, led by the maitre d'. Haversham seemed surprised to find the devil so urbane and charming. Meg, pleased at how well they were getting along, excused herself for a few moments. Puck had asked Meg when she called him to enlist his help if she wouldn't mind letting him talk with whomever the Wilderness Foundation sent, just for a while. When she returned, they were deep in conversation. Puck glanced at her and hung one hand below the table to give her a thumbs-up sign. That sign meant he could take it from there.
"Gentlemen," she said, "I hate to eat and run, but I have some late work to do on a divorce case for tomorrow morning. Kyle," she shook his hand, "the consortium will be in touch with you tomorrow. If you'd like to talk with me again . . ."
"No, no." He smiled, the smile entirely too broad and toothy. "Not at all. We'll be, I think, more than happy to sell the land. I've been discussing details with Puck, and Devil's Point sounds Wee a wonderful place. No one mentioned to me that they were bringing back extinct species."
She smiled. Good of Puck to think of that angle. It seemed to have been the clincher.