by David Stukas
Outstanding Praise for the Mysteries of David Stukas!
Biceps of Death
“Fans will be clamoring for this new title ... Stukas has an acid wit and his humorous writing style is in full form.
—The Lambda Book Report
“Stukas’s fourth campy cozy tickles rather than titillates. The mystery hangs together quite nicely, though it’s largely secondary to the slings and arrows with which Stukas skewers the gay, the straight and the twisted.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fans will welcome his newest.”
—Bay Area Reporter
“Sexy, catty and hilarious.”—
Wearing Black to the White Party
“Mystery buffs of all sexual persuasions will find much to amuse in Stukas’s third novel to feature gay straight-arrow Robert Wilsop and his narcissistic sidekick, Michael Stark. The author provides plenty of suspects and a plausible enough crime scenario, which will leave most readers as bewildered as Robert is, until Monette reveals the truth. But the campy antics of the principals, plus the interplay between the long-suffering Robert and the shallow Michael, supply the most interest.”
—Publishers Weekly
Going Down for the Count
“A trendy, madcap comedy.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“Fans of Joe Keenan’s laugh-out-loud novels Blue Heaven and Puttin’ on the Ritz, and mystery buffs who enjoy a fast-paced, highly amusing yarn should rush to their favorite bookstore for a copy of David Stukas’s Going Down for the Count. Stukas has a great gift for fast-paced funny dialogue, laced with memorable similes ... his prose is light and he keeps the story moving swiftly, keeping the reader turning the pages, eager to learn more about New York’s A-List Gay World, which he brings to life with such precise hilarity.”
—Bay Area Reporter
Someone Killed His Boyfriend
“This breezy page-turner is laugh-out-loud entertainment. Irresistible.”
—Booklist
“A clever combination of mystery and social satire with a dash of fantasy ... Those readers who miss Joe Keenan, both gay and straight, will appreciate this promising and witty writer.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Stukas has a natural, fluid style that makes this first novel a quick and easy read.”
—I Love A Mystery
Books by David Stukas
SOMEONE KILLED HIS BOYFRIEND
GOING DOWN FOR THE COUNT
WEARING BLACK TO THE WHITE PARTY
BICEPS OF DEATH
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
BICEPS OF DEATH
David Stukas
KENSINGTON BOOKS
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Outstanding Praise for the Mysteries of David Stukas!
Books by David Stukas
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1 - Oh Baby, Oh Baby
2 - If Life Hands You a Hot Potato, Make French Fries
3 - My God, Your Apartment Is a Mess!
4 - Watch That Last Step—It’s a Doozy!
5 - How the Hell Did That Get Up There?
6 - The Law of Falling Bodies
7 - Nice Kayak You Have There!
8 - Riding Miss Daisy
9 - I’ll Fight You for That Dress
10 - I Enjoy Being a Girl
11 - Robert Scores!
12 - The World Cup
13 - To Catch a Thief
14 - Robert and Michael Get Taken for a Ride
15 - I’ll Pray for You, Your Assholiness
16 - Monette and Robert See the Light
17 - Send in the Clowns
18 - A Huntin’ We Will Go
19 - I’m Getting Closer, I Can Feel It
20 - How to Curry Favor from an Ex-Boyfriend
21 - If This Is Heaven, Then Why Does It Smell Like Urine?
22 - You Can’t Go Home Again—But Who Wants To?
Copyright Page
This book is dedicated to Gil Tripp, who never gave up when the going got tough—literally. Put the boots on Gil, and let nothing block your path.
Acknowledgments
To John Scognamiglio, my ever supportive and patient editor; Alison Picard, my agent; and to my copy editor, Joan Matthews, who trembled every time she rewrote something, but still managed to hold her red pencil steady enough to make my book and even better one.
1
Oh Baby, Oh Baby
“PUSH!” Michael hissed through gritted teeth.
“I can’t!” I pleaded from a slightly disadvantageous position on my back, legs in the air.
“Push, I’m telling you!” Michael barked. “If you don’t push right now, you’re going to be sorry.”
“It hurts, Michael!” I screamed back.
“C’mon, just arch your back and give it one big thrust!” Michael drilled me.
“I can’t take this!” I screamed, begging for mercy. Sweat was rolling down my face and stinging my eyes.
“Listen, keep those legs spread wide! If you don’t, you’re not going to feel the full force!” Michael said, grabbing my legs and pulling them farther apart.
“Michael ... I ... I ... think I’m ... I’m going to explode!” I growled, the words rising up from deep inside my gut and rushing out in a torrent. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
My body convulsed and shuddered as it released a lifetime of tension.
“Four hundred and fifty pounds! I knew you could do it,” Michael said triumphantly.
Michael was under the delusion this beautiful Thursday morning in May that my recent dedication to bodybuilding was entirely due to his efforts to “make me see the light” of his theory that in order to get a man, you have to have the right bait. And you can’t look like live bait either. You have to have pecs with deep clefts, arms bigger than most people’s heads, and thighs that rub against each other as you walk. Forget trying to develop a witty and agile mind, impeccable taste, and a captivating personality—these take too much time to develop, force you to read books, and keep you out of the gym. Michael isn’t alone in his thinking, either. It seems that the majority of gay men have swallowed this mode of thinking hook, line, and sinker. You only have to pick up an issue of those free gay rags that have sprouted up in every major city to realize that the cult of the body has taken over the gay world. If you don’t have a killer body, then you better capitalize on your offbeat looks or have plenty of money. This line of reasoning takes us into a predicament that will rear its ugly little head in my life soon enough, but we’ll get to that in a matter of a few pages. Stay tuned.
While I decided it was best to let Michael think he alone had been the motivation for getting me into the gym, the reason lay three thousand miles to the west in California. Palm Springs, to be exact. Yes, dear readers, Robert Wilsop, professional hand-wringer, obsessive-compulsive, personal doormat, and whipping boy (not literally), had snagged a boyfriend. And not just any boyfriend, but a warm, caring, sensitive, tasteful individual who didn’t insist on wearing a ski mask during sex. (I confess, Darrin was exciting at first, but after a while, you get tired of being abducted whenever you just want to have sex. I dropped him after he wanted to meet me in a Brooklyn shipyard, throw me in the trunk of his car, and take me to an undisclosed location in upstate New York—call me old-fashioned.)
I got up from the leg press machine to let Michael take his turn. He threw his Frette towel down on the vinyl seat, scribbled in his workout diary made of Crane handmade paper, and proceeded to make a big and loud show of adding a handful of forty-five-pound plates to the machine. I—and eve
ryone else in the gym—was supposed to look on in awe, but no one did. Michael was by no means the biggest guy in the gym.
Michael released the safety catch and the titanic weight stack creaked slowly downward like a marauding tank, but it was no match for Michael’s overdeveloped quads, which inflated with a rush of energy and repelled the weights back to their starting point. The battle was over—the weights had lost. Michael did eleven more reps, the blood rising to his face so alarmingly, I waited for his eyes to shoot out of his head.
“Michael!” I exhaled. “Are you sure you should be doing that much weight? It looks dangerous.”
“Danger is my middle name,” he replied.
“I thought it was Slut.”
Michael laughed briefly at his own reputation. “Call me anything you like, but it’s because of my good looks and wild reputation that that huge bodybuilder trainer over there can’t keep his eyes off me.”
“I think he’s looking at you because he never saw anyone wearing leather workout shorts before,” I commented.
“Aren’t they great? They’re from Frank Addams. Feel the leather, Robert ... it’s like butter.”
Michael grabbed my hand and placed it squarely on his crotch. “Rub your hand over it so you can really feel it. What do you think?”
“I think that mine isn’t the only hand that has been there lately,” I responded, making an observation that was no shot in the dark. “Michael, why are there teeth marks on the crotch of your shorts?”
“Where?” he said alarmingly.
“Right there,” I said, pointing. “Near the zipper.”
“Goddamnit,” he complained. “I told Bob to watch his teeth! Oh well, now they’re broken in.”
“I am not even going to comment on your comment, Michael.”
“Yeah, and if I were to have things my way—and I always do—I will have another set of teeth marks on the crotch of these shorts by the end of this workout.”
“And whose, pray tell?”
“That big ol’ bodybuilder trainer over there,” he said, gesturing with his eyes.
Michael placed total confidence in his ability to seduce men—for good reason. He almost always got what he wanted. His talent was unlike any other I had ever seen. Of course, it wasn’t just his dark, good looks, his six-foot-one-inch frame that was ripped with muscles, or his piercing blue eyes that reeled the men in. The sizable income he received from his family’s pharmaceutical concern helped put him over the top. After all, there’s nothing sexy about a muscle god if he can’t pick up the tab at an expensive restaurant.
“Oh, did you read in the paper about the trainer who used to work here?” I said.
“No, what happened? His posing strap get lodged up his ass crack?”
“No, it seems that he leapt off the terrace of his thirty-second-floor Madison Avenue apartment.”
“Oh my God, is he all right?”
“Yes, Michael, he’s nursing a sprained ankle at Cedar Sinai right now.”
“Oh, right. Dead, huh?”
“I would hope so,” I added. “Wait a minute ... what’s a bodybuilder trainer doing in a Madison Avenue apartment? Do they make that much money training overweight men who want them to do squat thrusts over their face?”
Michael looked at me like I had grown up in the Midwest, a fact to which I plead guilty.
“My God, you’re naïve, Robert!” Michael reprimanded me. “Do you think that someone who earns one hundred dollars an hour is going to be able to afford an apartment with a terrace on upper Madison Avenue?”
“Are you suggesting that this guy had a sugar daddy?”
“Jesus, who taught you about life in the big, bad world, Robert?”
“Certainly not my parents. Their motto was: ‘Denial as a way of life.’ ”
“Well, wise up. Most of these trainers make a fantastic side living hustling their clients, acting as escorts, or selling steroids to clients who want to get big really fast. The training bit is just a cover for their other businesses.”
My eyes widened as big as Le Creuset saucepans. “Wow” was all I could say. I looked across the gym at a trainer named Eric and saw him in a whole new light. He wasn’t just a freakish monster with two snake tattoos winding and climbing up his enormous arms. He was now a cunning steroid spider, beckoning unwitting clients into his web of carnal deceits.
“So you’re telling me that Eric over there,” I said, pointing discretely at sequoia thighs, “is probably a hustler?”
“Not probably,” Michael said, uttering a blast of air and doing a set of leg presses. Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff. “He is,” he added, finishing his set with a tremendous clank of the weights for all to hear. Still no eyebrows were raised.
“Oh, Michael, how you do know that for sure? I thought he was straight.”
“Yeah, straight to bed.”
“Really?” I asked.
“I invited him home for sex one day and he had the nerve to try and charge me five hundred dollars an hour.”
“Did you pay?”
Michael was aghast. “Why should I pay for something when I can get it for free?”
“Did you say give or get?”
“Plenty of guys would pay more than five hundred dollars an hour just to sleep with me,” Michael boasted.
“Then why don’t you?” I answered. “This might solve your chronic shortage of money.”
“I can’t, Robert. I don’t want to look like a whore.”
I bit my tongue so hard, I could taste blood. Just let this one go, Robert. Too easy.
“Five hundred dollars an hour, huh?” I wondered out loud.
Michael looked into my face and read it clearly. “Don’t even think about it, Robert. You as a hustler? I don’t think so. You’re so law-abiding, you’d make your clients give you 1099s and report the income.”
“Why not become a hustler, Michael? I’d make a lot more than I do in advertising. Plus, it’s pretty much the same thing.”
Michael gave me a withering glance. “Just remember that you can’t sell from an empty pushcart.”
“Well, for having nothing for sale, it looks like Eric is giving me a lot of eye.”
“No way!” Michael exclaimed.
“See for yourself, Michael.”
Michael hopped off the leg press machine and squinted in Eric’s direction. “Well, I’ll be. He’s probably looking at you because he senses that you’d make a good candidate as a sex-for-pay client.”
“Ha, ha. That’s weird. Look at his gym bag.”
“What’s so weird about it, besides the fact that it’s made of cheap leather?” Michael asked.
“Look at the way he’s holding on to it. You’d think he has a million bucks in there.”
“It’s probably filled with steroids or human growth hormones. I wonder how much he charges for a thirty-day cycle?”
“Michael! Those things will kill you! Promise me you’re not taking steroids again.”
“I’m through with those. Right now, I’m on this new stuff—it’s a hemodilator. I take four of those twice a day, combined with HMB, creatine, glutamine once a day, androstenediol three times a day, X2 I-don’t-know-how-many-times-a-day and a whole bunch of M3, and Metamucil.”
“Michael, a meth lab uses fewer chemicals. Do you really think those supplements do any good but line the pockets of the companies who make them?”
Michael was incredulous. “Of course they do! Just look at me!” he said, flexing his biceps for extra emphasis.
“Michael, that’s because you have no real job to speak of and you work out seven days a week for two hours a day—even Drew Carey would be buff. Plus, why does everyone that you even deign to talk to have to be VGL—very good looking? Can’t you see that if you constantly build your relationships around physical attraction, they end up shallow and short-lived.”
“Well, duh-uh! I want shallow, short-lived relationships. I’m perfectly happy with my life and my roomy penthouse apartment in the
Village. The last thing I want is some guy moving into my comfortable bachelor life, sharing my underwear drawer, and using my rejuvenating creams.”
“Michael, the only time I have ever known you to wear underwear was when you caught crotch rot from the guy who worked for the phone company.”
“Hey, don’t knock him!” Michael warned me. “I broke several phones just to get this guy to come back and fix ’em.”
“Can we get back to the subject at hand?” I implored. “Er, Eric ... and the two big guys who just came in,” I said, pointing toward two men who had recently slipped into the gym and stood watching Eric from the sidelines. The way they observed Eric, it was clear that they weren’t there to admire his muscles. Plus, the way they were dressed suggested that they were working for the police or some special tactical division. They had black cargo pants, black T-shirts, and those special boots you see cops and armored car money carriers wearing—the ones that the pants were often tucked into. They leaned against a pillar and stared lazily at Eric as if they had all the time in the world.
The sudden attention that the two men were paying Eric had the most profound effect on Mr. Musclehead. He struggled to keep his attention on his client, but he kept looking over at his watchdogs. In no time, he broke a sweat that I could see from across the gym where we stood. This couldn’t be good.
“Michael?” I started, looking at my wristwatch grandly. “Could we end our session a little early? I think my legs have had it,” I said, hoping to get into the locker room, retrieve our gym bags from the lockers, then split before someone started shooting. I’ve lived in New York for over a decade now, but I will never get used to the idea of bullets entering my body.
For once, Michael agreed to leave a gym without having a gun pointed at his head.
“Might as well ... no good men here today,” he lamented.