Biceps Of Death

by David Stukas

  “Robert, come back to earth,” Monette said, breaking in on my pleasant daydream. “I can tell you’re tripping off on some fantasy. Hello?”

  “I’m here,” I sadly admitted, savoring that last bite of grated Gila monster gonads sautéed in sage butter before I came back to reality. “So what’s my next step, Monette?”

  “Did you make a backup copy of the disk and store it somewhere safe?”

  “Yup.”

  “And the copy is where?”

  “On the Internet in my extra-large Yahoo mailbox.”

  “Good, because you’re probably going to have to turn over the original to the police as evidence. You might consider putting the copy in the bank temporarily—in a safe-deposit box. You might consider renting one.”

  “I already have a box at the bank,” I said proudly.

  “I’ll bet you have all your insurance papers there, a videotape of your possessions, your will, and the U.S. savings bonds your granny gave you when you were three that have grown from twenty-five dollars each to eighty thousand dollars apiece.”

  “My grandmother didn’t give me savings bonds. She was from the Old Country, so she gave me old calendars with the Pope’s picture on it. She was afraid to throw them away because they were like holy relics to her, so I ended up with them—like I was going to frame them or something. Just what I wanted on my bedroom walls, Pope Pius grimacing down on me from the year 1957. He still gives me nightmares.”

  “Are you through?”

  “Am I ever?”

  “Okay, Robbie my boy, you need to contact the police with your information—if they aren’t on their way to you right now. Actually, I’d make another copy of the disk and give the original to the police ... and handle the real one carefully so you don’t smudge the fingerprints on it.”

  “I think that ship has sailed. Michael was pawing it like Rush Limbaugh after a bottle of painkillers.”

  “Okay, get off the phone, call the police, and tell me what happened later.”

  Click. She didn’t even wait for me to say goodbye.

  I picked up the phone book and looked through the dozens of police phone numbers precinct by precinct. Should I be calling the precinct the gym was in? Or where Eric was murdered? Shit, I forgot how high up on Madison Avenue Eric lived. What if Eric’s apartment was in one precinct, but when he hit the pavement, he ended up in another? Or should I call the precinct where I live? By the time I figured out the proper precinct to call, I could be murdered.

  I picked up the phone and dialed 911. I informed the operator who answered my call for help that this wasn’t an emergency per se, but it was extremely important. I was bounced from precinct to precinct, from department to department. Then I finally neared my quest. An officer told me to hold the line—he would put me in contact with the detective assigned to the Bogert murder.

  The phone was answered by a man with a gravelly voice that had undoubtedly been mellowed and seasoned by years of whiskey and cigarettes. Was I talking to Philip Marlowe? Or was it Sam Spade?

  “Detective McMillan here. How can I help you?”

  Short, to the point, I thought.

  “My name is Robert Wilsop ...” I began to say, expecting that he would pick up the trail and run with it, telling me that he knew all about me, where I’d been to lately, what clubs I couldn’t get into, and how many of my former dates had criminal records. But there was nothing of the sort.

  “Yes?” he offered.

  “I have the CD-ROM that Eric Bogert gave to me ... the one with all the photos on it.”

  “Oh, that!” he exclaimed as if he had forgotten something important. “Yes, yes, I would like to meet you ASAP. Can you meet me at the Club M gym in half an hour? I’m doing an investigation there.”

  Before I left, I made a copy of the original disk and left it on my work desk next to my computer. Then I grabbed my gym bag and workout clothes, and headed down the stairs.

  The gym was the last place on earth I wanted to go, especially with a CD-ROM that half of New York wanted to get their hands on, but felt it would probably be safe with policemen everywhere. This erroneous thought was probably the same one that Lee Harvey Oswald had had just moments before he met up with Jack Ruby.

  Holding my gym bag tightly, I walked out of my building to take the subway downtown. The moment I stepped out into the street, I knew that my life would never be the same again. I was hit by hundreds of tiny flashes, blinding me. It wasn’t a bomb or even a gun—it was much worse. Dozens of members of the press stood outside like a school of starving barracudas. The questions started flying like shrapnel.

  “MR. WILSOP, WERE YOU FRIENDS WITH THE MURDERED PERSONAL TRAINERS CODY WALKER OR ERIC BOGERT?”

  “DID YOU AT ANY TIME HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH ANY OF THE TWO MURDERED PERSONAL TRAINERS?”

  “MR. WILSOP, MR. WILSOP ... COULD YOU GIVE US THE NAMES OF ANY OF THE PROMINENT NEW YORKERS WHOSE PICTURES ARE ON THE CD YOU HAVE IN YOUR PROSSESSION?”

  Now I knew how Princess Diana felt. The reporters rushed me, shoving microphones in my face and clamoring for answers. The only difference between me and the late princess was that I didn’t have a single member of the British Secret Service to push the phalanx away from me. One of the reporters actually grabbed my belt and tried to keep me from running away from the questions she peppered me with. I was going to whack her red talon-finger away from me, but I spotted the television cameras capturing my every move, so I thought it best not to strike the bitch down. (My belt-grabbing reporter was clever enough to keep her tether on me hidden from the cameras—she must have been a seasoned pro.)

  I felt that I should say something, but every time I saw someone on television utter “No comment,” I assumed they were guilty as hell. So I said nothing. I was going to take the subway, but opted for a cab, since I doubted that the wolves would give chase. They didn’t. On the ride down, I tried to unruffle my feathers, smoothing my shirt and pants and discovering that when I ran my hand over my ass, my wallet was missing. I decided that the cursed CD was bringing me nothing but bad luck and I wanted nothing more than to ditch the goddamned thing as soon as I could.

  When I arrived at the gym, the police were swarming all over the place, going over everything with a fine-tooth comb. I asked several policemen as to the whereabouts of Detective McMillan and was finally told that he hadn’t yet arrived. I asked them to inform McMillan that I would be on the treadmill when he showed up.

  Not wanting to waste good gym time waiting, I went into the locker room and changed into my workout clothing, then trotted (healthy people trot) to the treadmill for some cardiovascular exercise. As I bobbed up and down on the treadmill trying desperately to drop some extra carbs, I realized that I was about to tell a New York City detective that I was turning over the only copy of the CD-ROM when, in fact, I was keeping the ability to make thousands. The more I thought about it, the guiltier I felt. I was turning into Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray in Double Indemnity. The guilty can run, but they can’t hide, and it would only be a matter of time before the police surrounded me, ordering me to drop my weapon. I would burst out of the locker room in a desperate attempt at freedom, whereupon I would die in a hail of bullets. The chief lieutenant, lighting up another Lucky Strike filterless cigarette, would roll my lifeless body over with the toe of his black-and-white wing-tipped oxford and proclaim that if only I had given up all copies of the CD sooner, he would have put in a good word for me so I wouldn’t get life in Sing Sing, playing boy-toy to an inmate named Mugsy.

  There was a loud bang and I dropped to the floor faster than a government informer in Sicily, which wasn’t as simple as it may seem. Since I was on a treadmill, I fell on the moving belt and was ungraciously ejected off to the rear of the machine with a great series of clattering thumps followed by a skin-burning skid. Ow.

  I wasn’t shot. Nor was anyone else. The guy next to me had dropped the book he was reading, and like books have a tendency to do, it had landed flat
as a pancake on the rubber floor and produced a deafening crack. I looked at the title of the book: Wearing Black to the White Party. I instantly hated this book and wished ill on its author.

  One of the investigators came running up to me, asking me if I was all right and helping me to my feet. He was everything I thought a homicide detective should be. His jaw was square and hard—with a five-o’clock shadow thick enough that you could grate parmesan on it. His hair was thick, black, and wavy—the kind you could run your fingers through during a bout of passionate lovemaking. And his eyes ... they were as blue as Lake Tahoe on a placid day. His olive complexion hinted of Italian-American roots. I could even overlook something that normally bothered me—hairy knuckles. On him, they seemed the very essence of a man engaged in dangerous work. Plus, there was always electrolysis. He was also the right age. I guessed him to be about forty, maybe forty-five. Very sexy, very mature—very tempting. McMillan was not my usual cup of tea, but for some reason I felt very attracted to him. He helped me up.

  But I had to resist temptation. I was still in a cross-country relationship with Marc Baldwin, the event planner in Palm Springs with whom I had struck up a relationship after my last visit less than a year ago.

  “I’m Detective Luke McMillan, homicide,” he said like he was a member of Dragnet.

  “Robert Wilsop,” I said, “clumsy gym member.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he began. “Mr. Wilsop ...”

  “Robert, please,” I corrected him.

  “Robert ... sorry I didn’t connect your name with Eric Bogert’s murder right away. So tell me, Robert, how did the press get hold of your name so quickly? Did you call them?”

  “No, it was a complete surprise when I saw my name in the story.”

  “Happens all the time. When I get to a murder scene, the reporters are often there before me. Bad apples,” McMillan replied.

  “Apples?” I questioned.

  “Inside the NYPD. They tip off the press for cash.”

  “And you think that happened to me?”

  “It could have,” McMillan said, leaving me feeling rather exposed. The big, bad city really was big and bad. “Did you bring the CD with you?”

  “Yes, it’s in my gym bag in the locker room. C’mon, I’ll give it to you.”

  I led the way with McMillan looking around the gym as if he had never seen anything like it. When we entered the locker room, he let out a slow whistle.

  “This is some place!” he commented in awe.

  I had to agree with him. Club M was so nice, you felt bad when you sweated on the floor. The weights were changed regularly when they got bumped or chipped, the machines were so state-of-the-art, I didn’t even know what half of them did. And the locker rooms were soft and cushy with deep-pile carpet and subdued lighting and soothing music playing over the hidden speakers. The showers had private stalls with sandblasted glass between them, allowing you to see shapes moving next to you in the nearby shower stall, but not any details. Michael found it sexy while I felt it was expensive and disconcerting—like a peep show where you were the stripper and you couldn’t see your audience. But overall, it was a touch of luxury courtesy of Michael Stark and, I guess, Stark Pharmaceuticals.

  “I’m going to be so glad to get the thing out of my hand. It reminds me of the Hope Diamond—so much evil attached to it.”

  McMillan followed me to my locker and I reached up to spin the dial on the combination lock when I noticed that the lock had been cut—someone had gotten there before me.

  “Fuck,” I said, pointing to the lock that was hanging there pitifully.

  McMillan grabbed my hand to keep me from touching the lock further. He took a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and gently lifted the lock from the locker hasp, then pushed open the locker door to reveal my gym bag, its contents spilled out on the floor of the locker. He poked through the contents and surprise—no CD.

  I couldn’t believe it and I said just as much. “I can’t believe it!”

  “Someone is really serious about this CD. The place is crawling with the police and they managed to know you were in here, with the CD, and brought a bolt cutter with them.”

  “Maybe they didn’t have to bring the cutter with them,” I suggested. “All gyms have metal cutters in case someone loses the key or forgets the combination to their lock. It would’ve been easy for someone on the staff to know I was here, since they read my membership card with their computer when I came in. They could have easily slipped into the locker room with the cutters, done their job, then made off with the disk.” I was proud of my theory and couldn’t help feeling triumphant once I heard it with my own ears. I decided to venture further out on a limb. “Since Cody and Eric both trained here, there may be one—or several—accomplices on the staff.”

  McMillan seemed to mull this over, then took me by the arm, and led me down a hall toward the gym offices. “I need you to come with me where we can talk more in private,” McMillan told me.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good, we’d like to get some statements from you, plus a description of the guys who were following Eric yesterday.”

  Off we went to the gym office, where he invited an officer with a tape recorder to preserve my observations. I told him about the way Eric was carrying his gym bag closely around the gym, how he became visibly shaken when the two men arrived, and I gave a description of them.

  McMillan stopped me to clarify an observation.

  “Mr. Wilsop, you described the men who chased Eric as both dressed in black?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you said that they were wearing gym clothes?”

  “Not gym clothes,” I said. “I know this is going to sound funny, but they looked like they were on a SWAT team or something. They wore cargo pants, black T-shirts, and those police boots ... the ones made of leather and nylon and the big rubber treads on the bottom ... for traction.”

  McMillan cleared his throat. “They’re called tactical boots. Mr. Wilsop, how do you know they were police boots?”

  “My friend Michael, the one who was with me when Eric gave me the CD, has a lot of police uniforms. So I know.”

  McMillan looked lost. I didn’t blame him.

  “Is Michael a policeman?”

  “Not exactly. He just likes to wear uniforms ... on dates.”

  “I see,” McMillan responded. Clearly, he didn’t.

  “Is there anything else, Detective?” I asked.

  “Not right now,” he replied. “Here is my card. If you think of anything more about what you saw, call me. Or if you have any trouble, call me anytime day or night on my cell phone,”

  “Trouble?” I asked. “What trouble?”

  “Well, two people have been murdered. We don’t know if there’s a connection between the two, but Cody and Eric both were personal trainers, both worked at the same gym, and Eric gave you his CD because he wanted to keep it out of the hands of the two guys who were following him.”

  I felt like the stupidest person on earth. In all the excitement and drama, I never once stopped to think that even though I had given up the CD—or intended to, anyway—it wouldn’t matter one iota to the person—or persons—who murdered Cody and Eric. They wouldn’t know I attempted to give it up, and it might not matter anyway. Like just about anyone would’ve done, I looked at the pictures on the CD. And like any even remotely computer-savvy person, I made a copy of the CD. I was in deep shit.

  I got up to go, but McMillan stopped me cold.

  “One last thing, Mr. Wilsop,” McMillan said, firing one more fright-inducing thought across my bow.

  “Yes?”

  “What floor do you live on?”

  The man was trying to see if I were thrown out of my window, would I splatter?

  “I’m on the fifth floor,” I said.

  McMillan stared into the space over my right shoulder and I could see him making mental calculations. Five feet eleven inches, around one hundred and eighty poun
ds. Five floors, seventy-five feet. Hmm. Head might come off if he hit a fire escape on the way down. No, no, probably would just hit and the organs would come out. Skull would probably show orbital fractures with some brain ejection from occipital region. Well, not as messy as a thirty-second-floor jumper.

  Since I had already catastrophized the situation out of reality (a specialty of mine), I at least wanted the validation that I had seen through his glass head. “Why?”

  “No, no—nothing. Good locks on your doors?”

  “The best. Two vertical deadbolts with pick-resistant locks.” I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

  “Bars on windows?”

  “Just on the fire escape windows. Again, the best.”

  McMillan nodded.

  “Am I in real danger?” I asked. I figured if anyone knew about danger, it would be a man who faced it every day.

  “No, no. Just keep your doors locked and windows fastened.”

  “Thanks.” I said as I left the office. My fate was clear. I was going to end up in the alley space behind my building with a fractured skull and rats eating my face. A pity, I thought. All those Estée Lauder for Men skin-care products going to waste.

  On my way out of the gym, I was going to stop at the front desk to ask if anyone had had a lock cut off their locker lately, when I heard Eric Bogert’s name being dropped several times by a bimbo in red workout tights that were—true to their name—tight. Obscenely. The bimbo was conversing with the staff member at the front desk. As I stood patiently waiting my turn, I determined that the Bimbo’s name was Adrianne and that she had been Eric’s beau—her word, not mine. I studied Adrianne’s outfit and felt that it was clearly going to waste in a gym that was almost ninety-percent gay, but anyone who dressed like she did obviously didn’t get it and wouldn’t get it any better if Mr. Blackwell himself stepped into the gym, ripped off her offending garment, slapped her in the face for her sartorial transgression, then entered her as number one on his list of the worst-dressed women.