I have a double-header for you today on the Curse Merchant Photo Tour, both in Dorian’s neighborhood.

First, the properties that Dorian owns. Here’s an excerpt:

“I peeked through the eyehole to find the tall, spindly frame of Abraham Carter lingering on my concrete stoop. Abe was one of the tenants from the block of row houses I had picked up ten years ago when I had moved back to the States. Real estate wasn’t expensive in West Baltimore, and I bought the properties embarrassingly cheap. It took a couple years to fill them with reliable tenants like Abe, and since then I hadn’t had to think much about them. Which was why his showing up at my door on a Sunday morning worried me.”

West Baltimore is a maze of row houses, most of which are in some state of disrepair. It’s one of the two worlds you’ll find in this city… an underclass and the glass towers.

Second, Dorian’s favorite place to spend his mornings…

“I felt the need to start boxing up my possessions, but the enormity of the task pressed into me. I elected instead to grab my coat and walk down to the café. The rain had stopped long enough for me to find an outside chair. It was damp, but I didn’t really care. I needed to be out in the open, on the street, perhaps for the last weekend. I sipped a cappuccino as I watched a homeless man panhandle his way down Fayette. He locked eyes with me and kept moving on. I must have been giving off the ‘not worth the hassle’ vibe.”

As it turns out, this real world café is just two blocks away from the real world red brick house I posted yesterday to represent Dorian’s house. I wrote the book before I ever laid eyes on this café, but it certainly fits the bill nicely!

Tomorrow we’ll take a stroll down the freeway to visit the Swains!