The Paper Mirror (3 page)

*

The pizza had just arrived when we got to the apartment, so we ate right away, then Jonathan and I got ready. Jonathan had already given Joshua his bath and put him in his pj’s so that Craig could just put him to bed when the time came.

We left the apartment around seven thirty and headed back to The Central. As I suspected, parking was a real problem. Having been built in the early part of the century and, as an elementary school not needing student parking, the parking lot beside the old T. R. Roosevelt Elementary building would be ample for day-to-day use, but hardly for a large gathering like this one.

We managed to find a spot a block and a half away, and walked back to join the impressive number of people going in. A nice-looking guy, in his early thirties but walking with a gold-handled walking stick, though with no sign of a limp, was coming toward us, heading in the opposite direction.

“‘Evening,” Jonathan said pleasantly as we approached him. His head jerked slightly as though he’d just been insulted. His lip curled into a sneer and he passed us without a word.

Jonathan merely shrugged. “Friendly guy,” he said, not looking back.

We turned our attention to the building just ahead of us. It did look great. I’d been watching its progress over the past couple of months, and merely sandblasting and tuck-pointing the exterior gave it a whole new look of elegance. Some consideration had been given to simply building an entire new facility, but they could not have done nearly as well as they had by going with the renovation. The old carved-stone “T. R. Roosevelt Elementary” had been removed from above the main door, replaced with a matching stone engraved “The Burrows Library.” It really was a feather in the gay community’s cap to incorporate its own archives with the prestige of the Burrows Collection.

The bulk of the restoration had, of course, been in the building’s interior, which had been largely gutted and redone. The original wide stairway leading up from the entrance to what had been a first floor hallway sided by classrooms now led to a huge open space—a large two-story reading area in the middle, with a circular service desk in the exact center of the room, and a couple of informal smaller areas off to each side with comfortable chairs and sofas beneath open stairways leading to the second floor—flanked by rows of open stacks on either side of the main room. This space was devoted largely to the existing archives brought over from their old home off Beech. It was estimated that only a small portion of the Burrows Collection would be readily available to the general public.

The second floor would house the more esoteric and valuable works of the archives and the Burrows Collection, and access to it would be limited and supervised to prevent theft or damage. The basement, which was off-limits during the opening because it housed the largely as-yet uncataloged manuscripts and documents, would never be open to the public. From what I’d heard, it roughly duplicated the layout of the main floor, but the large center area was where the cataloging took place. When the Burrows cataloging was completed, part of the room would be set up in individual cubicles for researchers to work privately. There were plans to start a personal history department, seeking the personal letters of gays and lesbians, so the cataloging would be largely an ongoing project even after all Burrows’ material had been cataloged.

Two attractive young women, each in a white blouse and floor-length black skirt stood at either side of the top of the stairs checking the invitations. We showed ours to the one closest to us, who smiled and said, “Welcome to the Burrows.” Passing her, we entered the main room. Two small bars had been set up for the opening ceremonies, one at each side of the room, and a long table of hors d’oeuvres was in front of the service desk. All were doing a brisk business, and there must have been well over a hundred people already there when we arrived, with more coming in every minute. Off to one side of and slightly behind the hors d’oeuvre table was a raised platform with a lectern, apparently set up for the official opening speeches.

I recognized probably half of the people there, if not from knowing them personally then from having seen them at various events over the years. There were several, however, that I’d never seen before—further evidence that the community was growing rapidly. Jonathan spotted Jared and Jake—they were pretty hard to miss in any crowd—near the bar to the left, and we went over to join them. I’d never seen either of them in a shirt and tie before, and they looked terrific.

“Hi, Jonathan,” Jake said with a grin when he spotted him. He gave me a winking nod, then turned his full concentration back to Jonathan, saying, “You’re looking particularly hot tonight! Why don’t you ditch the old man, and we can go exploring the stacks together?”

Jake had learned some time ago that Jonathan flustered easily under sex teasing, especially coming from someone as spectacularly sexy as Jake, so he did it every chance he had.

We exchanged handshakes all around, and Jonathan, seeing Jared and Jake had full drinks, stepped to the bar to order a coke for himself and a bourbon-Seven for me.

“Quite a crowd,” Jared observed with a slight gesture of his glass to indicate the entire room.

I nodded. “Yeah, the cream of the crop. I imagine just about everybody who is anybody in the gay community is here, or will be before the evening’s over. Where are the Burrows heirs?”

Jake gave a heads up nod in the direction of a large cluster of people near the other bar across from us. “They’re the two in the tuxes.”

Jonathan, who had rejoined us, handed me my drink and said, “See? I told you!”

“You’re right,” I said, “two hundred people, two tuxes. You wanna go home and change?”

He reached over and grabbed my ass, giving it a quick but painful squeeze.

“And look!” he said excitedly, indicating a tall, handsome man about 40 with salt-and-pepper hair, standing in another group not far from the Burrows heirs. “There’s Evan Knight! I recognize him from his books!” Definitely looked like an author to me. “Can we go meet him?”

“Sure,” I said. “But let’s wait a bit. He’s obviously busy now.”

“Well, yeah,” Jonathan said a bit impatiently, “but I’ll bet he’ll be busy all night. He’s a famous
author
.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Let me see if I can get Glen to introduce you.”

“Us,” Jonathan corrected. “
Us
. Don’t you want to meet him, too?”

Frankly, my one previous run-in with a famous author had not been a particularly pleasant experience. But that was then and this was now, so… “Sure,” I said.

We all made our way over to the buffet table, and were joined on the way by Tim and Phil, both looking as though they’d stepped off a magazine cover. It never ceased to amaze me how much Phil had changed from the day I first met him when he hustled me at Hughie’s. He was a diamond in the rough even then, and he’d polished up nicely. And I don’t know what there is about a large group of good-looking guys dressed to the nines that raised their sex appeal through the roof.

I kept watching for Glen O’Banyon, but only caught fleeting glimpses of him as he moved from group to group. Our own little group, brought to full company strength by the arrival of Mario and Bob, was having a great time talking among ourselves as though we never saw each other—and I realized again that we really hadn’t been all together very often since Joshua arrived.

“I suppose we should go mingle,” Jake said after another round of drinks. “I for one am not above mixing business with pleasure, and there are a couple people here I really should talk to.” We all agreed, and drifted off in different directions.

“There’s Mr. O’Banyon,” Jonathan said, gesturing toward one of the bars. “And he’s with Mr. Knight!” He immediately grabbed my free hand and pulled me toward them. I needed another drink, anyway.

“Hi, Mr. O’Banyon,” Jonathan said a little breathlessly as we reached the bar.

O’Banyon grinned. “Hi, Jonathan, hi, Dick.”

We shook hands, and he turned to Evan Knight, who was looking at Jonathan with a bemused smile that I thought had just a touch of the predator in it.

“I don’t think you know Evan Knight,” O’Banyon continued. “Evan, this is Dick Hardesty and his partner, Jonathan…” He hesitated and I realized he might never have heard Jonathan’s last name.

“Quinlan,” Jonathan added quickly, extending his hand. “I’m a huge fan, Mr. Knight—I’ve read every one of your books.”

“That’s very nice of you to say, Jonathan,” Knight said, taking Jonathan’s hand. “And it’s ‘Evan,’ please.” He cocked an eyebrow and studied Jonathan’s face. “You look familiar,” he said. “Have we met?”

I’d have thought a writer would be able to come up with a little more original line than that one.

Jonathan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

After another slow scan of Jonathan’s face, he reluctantly released Jonathan’s hand and extended his hand to me. “Nice to meet you, Dick.”

I started to say something when one of the tuxedo-wearers, looking singularly unhappy, hurried over and whispered something in O’Banyon’s ear. O’Banyon’s eyebrows rose, then dropped into a frown. The tuxedo moved off quickly, toward the front steps.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

I didn’t know whether I should ask or not, but I didn’t have to.

“It seems we have a body in the basement,” he said.

CHAPTER 2

The other tuxedo came over to consult with O’Banyon and Evan Knight. I started to excuse ourselves, assuming they’d want to talk in private, but Glen held up his hand to indicate we should stay.

“What are we going to do?” the tuxedo asked. “The police will be swarming all over the place in a few minutes. Shall we just cancel the whole evening?”

Glen shook his head. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Everyone’s here; calling it off would just stir things up more than they need to be. Unless the police have some objections, let’s just go on with it as planned.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time for the dedication to start, anyway. As soon as Zach gets back, we can begin.”

O’Banyon’s reference to Zach indicated that the other tuxedo—the one standing with us—was Marv Westeen, Chester Burrows’ gay nephew. Not a bad-looking guy, somewhere around forty. There was something about his face that I found puzzling until I realized it was devoid of lines or wrinkles…or character. The effect was rather like a nice-looking window-display mannequin come to life.

Evan Knight apparently took the announcement of a body being found in the basement as not particularly noteworthy—a form of writer’s stoicism, perhaps—and appeared to have other things on his mind…in this case, Jonathan. He’d hardly taken his eyes off Jonathan since we’d been introduced, and under normal circumstances my “Me Tarzan! Boy mine!” reaction would have fully kicked in by this point. But for some reason, I always find myself distracted by having someone turn up dead in my immediate vicinity.

Glen and Marv Westeen excused themselves to get things ready and moved off, but Evan made no attempt to go with them.

“So tell me, Jonathan,” he said, with a small smile, “are you a writer?”

Jonathan was obviously pleased that he’d think so, but said, “Oh, no. I’m just a reader.”

Knight reached out and touched Jonathan’s arm. “‘
Just
a reader’? Please, don’t sell yourself short. Where would writers be without readers? We’re symbionts, you and I.”

Gee, Hardesty,
one of my mind-voices observed sweetly,
don’t you wish
you’d
learned to read? Maybe you could be a symbiont then, too.

“What do you do, if I might ask?” Knight said, again speaking directly to Jonathan.

“I work at Evergreen Nursery,” Jonathan said. “I’m going to school for an associate’s degree in horticulture.”

“Really?” Knight said. “Good for you! Do you do landscaping?”

Jonathan looked a little perplexed. “Evergreen does,” he said. “I’m not in business for myself…yet. I’d like to be someday.”

Knight gave him a smile warm enough to toast bread. “I’m sure you will be,” he said. “I’ve just bought a new house in Briarwood, and I’m going to need some landscaping. Do you have a card?”

I had no idea whether his little web-spinning operation was as transparent to Jonathan as it was to me, but probably not. The fly seldom knows what’s going on. But the spider does. And so did I.

“No,” Jonathan said, apologetically, “I’m afraid I don’t.”

Knight gave him a little-too-warm smile. “No matter. Evergreen, eh? I’ll keep that in mind.”

I’m sure you will
, I thought. I figured it was about time to break up this little courtship dance.

“If you’ll excuse us, Evan,” I said, “we should go find our friends before the ceremony starts.”

Evan gave me a knowing smile—I thought it had just the slightest hint of a smirk, actually—into which I read volumes. “Of course,” he said. “It was nice meeting you…both…and I trust I’ll see you later.”

We shook hands, and Jonathan, totally oblivious to the fact that he had obviously just been writ large on Knight’s menu board as “Special of the Day,” said, “I’d love to talk to you about your books sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Evan said. “Very much.” He shot me a very quick glance that, like his smile, spoke volumes.