Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (17 page)

Dan was unsure where he’d stand should he be forced to choose. Perhaps with the ambiguous presence in camel-hair in the middle of the room. A large, sweaty man came up and saved him the bother of having to decide.

“What school did you go to?” the man asked, wiping his brow with a napkin.

“Sudbury High.”

“Sudbury what?” the man exclaimed with a shocked look. “Is that a private school?”

“No,” Dan said.

“I thought everybody here went to a private school!” He eyed Dan as though he might be an impostor. “Did you have a choice?”

Dan shook his head. “No.”

The man looked around, sucked the ice at the bottom of his glass and said, “Neither did I. I never went to private school.” He made it sound like the greatest loss he’d ever had to endure.

“We’re probably better off for it,” Dan said.

“Oh, no!” the man exclaimed. “Don’t fool yourself.” He whirled abruptly and extended an arm that took in the entire room. “These are the people who run our country — or who will be running our country in a few years. Look at them.” Dan obliged the man by turning to look at the crowd. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

Dan wasn’t sure what he found so amazing. “Politicians are anything but amazing when you get down to it….”

“I’m not talking about politics!” the man exclaimed. “I’m talking about who really runs things — the entrepreneurs, the business class. This is it, gathered in this room.” He shook his head. “Just imagine! If this boat sank, the country would lose half of its ruling elite.”

“Do you think they’d be missed?” Dan said.

The man thought about this. “Maybe not,” he conceded.

A band started up in another room. An assured voice crooned a line from a forties tune. Trevor caught Dan’s eye and came over. Dan introduced him to the other man, who said a few words before leaving to join the ranks on the far side of the room.

“I guess he thought I was straight,” Dan said with a bemused grin. “How’s it going? The social register keeping you busy?”

Trevor laughed. “You know, there are some things that are a given in life. I know, for instance, that I’ll never be half as rich as most of the people in this room, just as I know I could never dedicate myself to the kind of work that would make me that wealthy. And just as I also know,” he glanced toward the room where the music came from, “that I will never like Michael Bublé.”

“You’re not a jazz fan?”

“
Au contraire,
” Trevor said. “I
am
a jazz fan. But let’s not slag the local talent — it’s beneath us. Besides,” he took a good look around, “there are far more deserving targets right here in the room. Look at these people. Most of them have suits instead of personalities.”

Bill suddenly reappeared clutching a glass. He looked around with a frown and headed toward Dan. He saw Trevor and paused.

“Here comes the boyfriend,” Trevor said with a smile. “I’m going to mingle with the lions and tigers. Wish me luck.”

Bill nodded curtly at Trevor as he left. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all. Finished your best man duties already?” Dan asked.

Bill shook his head impatiently. “Apparently I wasn’t needed.”

“Oh?”

“I gather I was keeping Thom from getting in one last fuck before the wedding.” He took a gulp of his drink and looked around the gathering. “Quite the dog and pony show, isn’t it?”

“Who are all the suits?” Dan asked, glancing across the room.

“Business associates. Thom’s mother made them come.” Bill smiled grimly, his voice louder than necessary. “Interesting woman, Lucille Killingworth. It seems money can buy quite a bit of loyalty in her world. It can even make your colleagues attend the wedding of your gay son and his Latin Lothario.”

“You’re getting drunk,” Dan said, trying to keep out a note of disapproval.

Bill looked at the glass in his hand. “Not drunk enough,” he said, tipping the glass back to empty it. He reached out and grabbed Dan’s crotch. “I want you to fuck me silly tonight.”

A few feet over, an older couple turned their heads then quickly looked away.

Bill tinkled the ice in his glass, oblivious to the attention he was getting. “I can’t believe he’s marrying that mail-order gigolo.” His voice carried across the room.

A strained look passed over Dan’s face. “Do you need to be so loud?”

“Why? Getting touchy?”

Dan shook his head. “Just sensitive.”

“Right. I forgot you were bought and paid for once.”

Dan’s shoulders sagged. “That’s really uncalled for….”

“Don’t mind me,” Bill mumbled. He looked toward the bar. “I need a refill.” He glanced at Dan, contrition covering his face. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how difficult this is for me.”

Folding chairs had been set up around the upper deck. A tarp stood nearby in case of rain. The guests filled the rows until the entire deck was occupied. At the last moment, Bill took his place beside Thom while Daniella stood next to Sebastiano. As promised, she’d donned a tux and gelled her hair back in sophisticated lesbian attire, though Dan doubted she was one. With the change of wardrobe, her mood had reverted to her casual laughing self. To Dan, she was nearly as handsome as her nervous, elegant brother.

The minister, a stout, dark-haired woman in a cleric’s outfit with a bosom like a shelf, exuded a stern no-nonsense-on-the-job demeanour, though Dan suspected she was probably a lark in her off-hours. Her carefully inflected reading of the ceremony carried an air of respectfulness that many traditional weddings lacked. Her jokes, though few, were appropriate and her solemnity solemn enough without being too serious. If he and Bill were ever to marry, Dan thought, he’d look her up.

The couple exchanged vows, looking elated as they leaned together to seal them with a kiss. Their blue eyes seemed the connecting thread between the light-haired Thom and the dark-haired Sebastiano. Bill, whatever his hidden sorrows, more than looked the part of supportive best man to his best friend.

They stayed on the upper deck for pictures as the boat headed through the Adolphustown Reach and on toward Lake Ontario. Other vessels passed, exchanging greetings and horn tootings as they recognized the nature of the ceremony, though a face or two looked perplexed at not being able to locate the blushing bride in her fancy meringue outfit alongside all the handsome men in black and white.

After the reception line, the guests filed below deck to a dining room. Dan found himself seated with three straight couples who all seemed to know one another. Once past the introductions, they ignored him in favour of exchanging gossip about people he’d never heard of. They endured the various speeches made by and to both grooms. Dan carefully measured his intake of wine. Bill was drinking enough for the two of them. Thom and Sebastiano mingled with the guests. At one point, Thom plunked himself down beside Dan with a satisfied smile. “All good?”

“Very nice. Congratulations — it was a terrific ceremony.”

Bill drifted over and sat, placing his hand on Dan’s knee. Had he thought Thom was making a move on Dan? Was that what Bill’s difficulty had been earlier? Surely he knew Dan better.

Thom playfully squeezed his best man’s shoulder. “Thank you for loaning me Billy for the day,” he said to Dan.

“My pleasure.”

“Not a bad turnout,” Thom continued, looking over the assembled guests.

“Where is Sebastiano’s family?” Dan asked.

Thom pointed out a small dark-haired woman seated near to the bar. “There. That’s his Aunt Naida. His mother’s sister.”

“That’s it?”

Thom shrugged. “That and Daniella. The other side hasn’t really accepted it yet.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “You’ve got the bull and you own the barn. Who cares if you’ve got the pedigree or not?” He stood for a refill, pausing to look over the room. “They sound like a dreary lot anyway. They should be grateful you’re rescuing their son from his squalid life.”

Across the room, a woman in a yellow dress with a light green scarf threw Thom a smile. Had Catherine Deneuve’s younger sister been kidnapped as a child, this woman would have made a good candidate for the title of foundling. Her laughter carried to them from the group she was addressing.

Thom followed Dan’s gaze. “My mother,” he said.

Where some women faded with age, others grew into it with vigour and self-assurance. Not as the result of chemicals and operations, but through inner discipline and will. Lucille Killingworth was one of these.

“She’s beautiful,” Dan said.

“And deadly.” Thom smirked. “Don’t be fooled. Her approval is necessary, so I try hard to stay on her good side.”

“And keeping your brother in check is part of that?”

Thom gave Dan an appraising stare. “Bill never told me you were so perceptive,” he said.

“I don’t think he’s noticed yet. But I do my best to please.”

Thom’s eyes narrowed. “I like a guy who likes to please.”

“I take it Sebastiano’s a pleaser.”

“In every way. And I’m always happy to reward the men who please me.” He glanced sideways, chipping the ball back at Dan. “I don’t suppose it would be wise of me to make a pass at you?”

Dan couldn’t help smiling at the smoothness with which Thom had done just that. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. You’re not the type, are you? Or maybe I’m not your type.”

Before Dan could answer, the clinking of silver against crystal caught them off-guard. Ted stood, drink in hand.

Ted had removed his sunglasses. His eyes glittered weirdly in the light. “I’d like to propose a toast to the men in my illustrious family,” he said.

A strained look came over Thom’s face.

“First, to my loving brother Thom, to whom I owe everything I am today.” Ted looked at Thom and raised the glass high. “Yes, dear brother — everything.” The comment was met with applause. “And here’s to our grandfather, Nate Macaulay, the old son-of-a-bitch.” Dan flashed on the portrait of the malevolent N.M. “You could say a lot about the old bastard, but you have to admit he made a hell of a lot of money!”

“You tell it, Teddy boy!” someone called out.

“For fuck’s sake,” Thom mumbled.

Over at the head table, Lucille Killingworth maintained an expression of bemused tolerance.

“And of course,” Ted continued, “we shouldn’t forget our dear father who loved us so much he spared us his miserable company for the last twenty years.” The room had gone silent, mesmerized by the matador’s sword raised over the dying bull. “I’d like to see the look on his face if he saw his baby boy getting married to another man. I’d give anything to get him in here and watch his expression.”

Thom raised his glass. “Amen to that, brother,” he said loudly and downed his drink, inviting the others to follow.

Ted looked around with a silly grin, as though he’d just pulled off a very amusing joke.

“My undying thanks to my brother Teddy for his marvellous toast,” Thom said before Ted could start up again. “I think it’s time to adjourn to the other room for some music and mayhem of a different sort.”

The scraping of chairs filled the air as people stood and headed for the ballroom.

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Thom mumbled.

The band played a gleeful concoction of trills and well-heeled themes. Rock transformed to rumba. The dancers twirled on, oblivious to the sea change as light glittered on women’s gowns and the dandruff-flecked shoulders of middle-aged men anxious to show they still had it, or perhaps just hoping they did.

Daniella came through the doors, still in her Dietrich drag. She stood watching the dancers, a martini glass held breast high. Her eyes lit on Thom and Sebastiano gyrating and grinding together at the floor’s centre. Her mouth formed a hard line. Still blue, but less than an angel. Then she spied Dan. Her expression changed as she swept across the floor to him.

“Danny! You’re so sexy!” she cried. She had a way of eliding her consonants, making one liquid syllable flow smoothly into the next, as though they’d been written just for her. “Come dance with me!”

He obliged her, but just as they reached the floor the music changed from a samba to a slow motion wave. She wrapped herself around him, glass aloft, and drank over his shoulder. Fingers slid between the buttons of his shirt, caressing his chest. She bent her head back and extended a trousered leg, the young Martha Graham impersonating a Joshua Tree. Dan felt more like a piece of sculpture than a dancer.

“Daniella!” Sebastiano gave her a disapproving look.

Her eyes flashed rebellion. She continued to dance only slightly less wildly, then downed her drink and went off for a refill. Dan watched her flit between the tables, a pale drunken butterfly, with everyone’s eyes on her. She seemed to be flirting with the entire room. At one point she nearly stumbled into a table. If not for the quick reflexes of a man standing nearby, she would have fallen. A trio of men became instantly solicitous, but she brushed off their concern.

“You ought not to drink so much,” Dan heard one of the men say. “Especially if you can’t stay on your feet.”

She glared. “I’m not drunk,” she declared then turned away indignantly.

Sebastiano broke off his dance with Thom and went over to her. They exchanged a few heated words in Portuguese. Daniella tossed her head angrily and looked away, but Sebastiano was insistent as he pulled her protesting onto the floor. The music turned from a wave to a shimmer. He tore off his jacket and tossed it aside. His slicked-back hair, sheer cotton shirt, and tightly drawn trousers lent him the contours of a matador. He stood, chest extended, the young Valentino regarding his hermaphroditic self-portrait: Rudy and Judy. They might have been twins. Dan felt a tingling of lust.

Sebastiano came alive, hands whirling overhead. He glowed, a dark angel taking flight. Inspired by the dancers, the band launched into a fiery tango. Daniella unclasped her heels and threw them beneath a chair. The music grew feverish as she moved back and forth, mirroring her brother. Sweat hung in the air. He pulled her so close they seemed to be one body.

The crowd warmed to the tempo, arching themselves into the music, though none could match the Brazilians for ardour and grace. The room broke into spontaneous applause time and again. Even Thom watched them admiringly.