The Paper Mirror (12 page)

I could see Jonathan across the room with Knight and two other people. About ten minutes later, Jonathan left the group and came over to join me. I introduced him to Rothworth and we all exchanged pleasantries for a few more minutes before Rothworth excused himself to go get another drink, asking if we’d like one. We declined with thanks, and he left us alone by the mantle.

“So how did it go with Evan’s writing friends?” I asked.

“Great!” Jonathan said, his face brightening. “That tall one is Phillip Tanner—he writes the Grant Moss detective series. I’ve read them all. The other is Charles Beeman…he won a couple of awards for his last book…
The Ghost of Years,
it’s called. I was embarrassed that I haven’t read it, and told him I would pick up a copy as soon as I could. They were both very nice guys. I’ll try to introduce you later, if you’d like. I was really impressed.”

Again, though, I knew full well Evan Knight’s attentions to Jonathan were based on more than his being a nice guy. But I was happy for Jonathan’s opportunity to meet people he admired.

We went back out to the patio for another drink before, as Jonathan suggested, hitting the buffet table. Jake, Jared, and the guy Jake had been talking to in the pool were nowhere to be seen, and there seemed to be several more guys wandering around without their clothes. Evan was just walking away from the bar, his shirt unbuttoned to display a very nice set of pecs and a forest of chest hair.

Watch it, Hardesty
, a mind-voice cautioned.
You don’t even like the guy.

Yeah, well
, my crotch responded, paraphrasing an old standard gay joke,
I didn’t come here to fuck personality.

“You about ready to come in the pool?” Evan asked as he passed.

“In a minute,” I said.

“Shall we?” Jonathan asked. I noticed that he’d given Knight’s impressive torso a rather lingering glance.

“If you want,” I said.

I saw that there were several chairs around the pool with clothes on them.

“Don’t you want something to eat first?” I asked.

“Not if we’re going swimming,” Jonathan replied. “It can wait.”

Very un-Jonathan
, I thought, but we detoured to one of the few still empty chairs and began taking our clothes off. Odd, I’d done this a hundred times in the past without a second thought, but now that I was with Jonathan…

You don’t want other guys to see him naked
,
a mind-voice observed casually.

Well, damn it, I realized it was right. I didn’t.

But you don’t mind them seeing you?
the voice asked.

That’s different,
I thought defensively.

Oh, yeah? Like how, for example?

Get over it, Hardesty,
the voice said.
You are
not
Tarzan. Jonathan is
not
Boy. He’s
not
your possession. You don’t own him.

It was right again, of course.

We undressed and walked over to the edge of the pool, where seven or eight guys were splashing around, or doing underwater laps, or floating on their backs. Jonathan stuck one foot in. “Nice,” he said. “Come on!” and he dived in. I followed.

I must admit, it was a lot of fun. Jonathan insisted on ducking me every chance he got, and we got into a couple underwater scuffles. We weren’t even aware of the other guys around us until all of a sudden we came up for air, laughing, and Evan Knight was there right in front of us.

“Enjoying yourselves?” he asked. He was able to touch bottom, and was standing right in front of Jonathan. I saw him staring at Jonathan…and not at his face. “Ah,” he said with a big smile, “
very
nice! Just as I remember it.”

*

It was as if somebody had just kicked me in the gut…hard.

“
What the…?
” I heard myself say.

Jonathan looked quickly toward me, his face a study in mortification. “I…” he started to say.

“Oh, oh…sorry,” Knight said, his tone making it perfectly clear that he was no such thing. “No offense. But I
knew
I knew you from somewhere. It wasn’t until after you’d left the other day that I remembered from where. We met at Hughie’s quite a while ago…you’ve changed so much I didn’t recognize you at first. You’ve really filled out nicely. Dick must be treating you right.” He reached out his hand under the water, and Jonathan stumbled quickly backwards.

He still looked stunned, and then I was afraid he might start to cry.

Knight looked at me, his face a mask of fake concern. “Hey, I’m really sorry if I opened any closet doors,” he said, his eyes shifting back to Jonathan. “I rather thought that might have been how you met Dick, too. No shame in being a hustler, especially if it pays off.”

I’m not sure quite what happened next. All I know is that there were little clouds of red in the water and Evan Knight was holding both hands to his face and a trickle of blood was running down one arm and dripping from his elbow into the water. I grabbed Jonathan by the arm and we waded to the steps at the end of the pool and got out of the water. There wasn’t a sound to be heard, except music coming from the house. I wasn’t aware of anyone or anything—just a bunch of statues standing around as if frozen in time.

I grabbed our clothes and we padded through the house, dripping water across the carpet, and walked out the door, stark naked.

We stopped only long enough to put on our shorts and pants, then padded barefoot and shirtless to the car. I pulled my keys out of my pants pocket and started the engine.

As we pulled out into the street, Jonathan, staring straight ahead, said, “I’m sorry, Dick. I’m so sorry. I didn’t remember him! I swear, or I’d never have gone over there.”

I reached over and put my hand on his still wet leg. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “But don’t be hurt if we’re not invited to Evan Knight’s next party.”

I grinned at him, and after a moment, he grinned back.

*

Jonathan, Joshua, and Craig had gone off to services at the M.C.C. and I was on the couch reading the paper when the phone rang.

“Dick! It’s Jared. You sure know how to liven up a party!”

“Well, thanks,” I said. “I do what I can. We had a heck of a time explaining to our babysitter why we came home soaking wet, though.”

Jared laughed. “I can imagine. Too bad you left before the party got really interesting.”

“A good time was had by all, I assume?”

“Oh, yeah! Remember the doorman and his dressed-alike buddy?”

“How could I forget? You don’t see bodies like that every day.” I had an immediate second thought on that one. “Well, you and Jake do every time you look in a mirror, but for the rest of us… Anyway, don’t tell me you and Jake…”

“Both of ’em—singularly and together. Talk about ‘double your fun!’ It was quite a night.”

“Gee, I’m really sorry we missed out,” I said. Most of me was kidding, but my crotch was sincere. I really
did
miss the “good old days” every now and then.

“Well,” he continued, “I just wanted to check and see if you were okay. I never did find out exactly why you popped Knight, but I’m sure he deserved it.”

“He did. Trust me.”

“I do,” he said. “So we’ll see you next Saturday at Steamroller Junction. About what time?”

“Nine thirty okay? I’ll try to pick up the tickets tomorrow. We can meet out front.”

“Nine thirty’s fine. See you there.”

*

One thing having a four-year-old boy around the house does is to make you pretty careful what you talk about and when. Neither Jonathan nor I mentioned the party all day, what with both Joshua and…until early afternoon when we dropped him off at home…Craig always within earshot. Craig was obviously very curious about the party and asked several questions about who was there, what went on, etc. We’d given him a story about the lawn sprinklers having turned on just as we were leaving, but he was too smart to buy it, I’m sure. The idea of going to a large party where everyone was gay was something of a fantasy for him and I suspect the knowledge that some of those parties can turn into minor or major orgies would have been more than his already overcharged-hormone-driven libido could take.

As we were leaving the apartment to take him home, he asked if he could borrow a book he’d been reading the night before after Joshua’d been put to bed. I noticed it was one of Evan Knight’s books,
Fate’s Hand
. We said of course.

“I don’t remember that one too well,” I said as we left the apartment. “Which one is it?”

“It’s about this gay guy and his lover who get drafted in the war and then get separated, and what happens to them and…”

That’s right,
I thought,
remembering. The protagonist’s name was…uh…Ted, and the sailor’s name was…Scott.

I did a quick mental double take.
Scott?

*

It wasn’t until Joshua was asleep and we were in bed ourselves that Jonathan brought up the subject of the party at Evan Knight’s.

“I
really
didn’t remember him,” Jonathan said. “I guess I tried hard to put all those guys I tricked with out of my head. I’m so sorry to have embarrassed you.”

I pulled him to me. “I wasn’t embarrassed—I was pissed at him for mentioning it.”

We lay there quietly for a moment and then my Scorpio got the better of me. “Can I ask you…if this whole mess hadn’t come up and he kept pursuing you, do you think you might have been tempted?”

He didn’t say anything for a time, then said, “Well, tempted, sure. He was really nice to me, and he flattered me and made me feel important—not that you don’t, of course, but….I guess I knew all along what he wanted, but, well, it was just sort of like a game, and it was exciting. But I guess he thought because I used to hustle, I still did. He made a couple passes when we were alone together while Evergreen was working on his yard, but they weren’t serious gropes or anything, so I just thought he was playing around, like Jared and Jake do with me.”

“So you wouldn’t have…” I let my question trail off, angry with myself for even mentioning it.

He snuggled closer. “Let me ask you,” he said. “Have you ever been tempted since we got together? Be honest.”

I shrugged. “Well, yeah. Like we talked about the other day, I’m only human. I never followed through on any of it.”

“And I’m only human, too,” he said. “But what makes you think you’re stronger at resisting temptation than I am?”

Point taken.

*

I wasn’t sure exactly how long T/T would be in town and I really wanted to talk to him alone, if I could. The last time we’d seen him, he’d just come in for a one-night gig for Steamroller Junction’s opening, and he’d joined the gang afterwards for a drink. But I wanted to ask him about Taylor Cates, and murder doesn’t exactly fit into general having-a-drink-together conversation.

Monday morning, while waiting to hear from Dave Witherspoon, I called William Pearson’s office and asked to speak to him. He came on the phone a moment later.

“Good morning, Mr. Hardesty. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you might have a number where I could reach Teddy Wilson? I really would like to talk with him about Taylor Cates, and I don’t know how much time he might have while he’s in town.”

“Not very much, I’m afraid,” Pearson said. “He’s flying in specifically to do the show, then returning to Atlanta Sunday afternoon. I’m expecting a call from him any minute now, as a matter of fact, to go over some last-minute logistical details. If you’d like, I could ask him to call you.”

Good timing, Hardesty!

“I’d really appreciate that,” I said—and meant it. “And let me give you my home number in case he’s not able to get back to me until this evening.”

I gave him the number, thanked him again, and we hung up.

No more than ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was Dave Witherspoon.

“Ah, thanks for calling, Mr. Witherspoon,” I said. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“It’s Dave, please,” he said. “And we had a wonderful time. We both needed to get away. Cancun is one of our favorite places!”

Cancun?
I thought. Now that was interesting. I’d rather assumed the purpose for the trip might have been a job interview. Not many people can afford to take a vacation to Mexico right after they’d been fired.

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “So will you be available to get together today for a few minutes, then?”

“Sure. I’ve got to be in The Central later this morning. You want to meet at Coffee & for lunch?”

“That’s fine,” I said, looking at my watch. “Noon?” I suggested.

“Noon it is,” he said. “My lover will be with me… I’m sure you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. How will I recognize you?”

“Well,” he said, “unless there’s more than one black and white couple in the place, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

I laughed. “No problem,” I said. “See you at noon.”

*

Part of me really wanted to return to the Burrows and dig further into Morgan Butler’s papers, although exactly what I could expect to find in there that might have any direct application to Taylor Cates’ death, I had no idea. But for some reason, I’d really become fixated on a man I’d never known and who was long-since dead. Why? For a change, my inner voices were silent.