by David Stukas
“Oh, Monette, after Frank’s call, I did a little researching on the Internet and guess why Frank is so willing to hand over so much money for the photos.”
“Because he doesn’t want it known that he’s unkind to models?”
“No, because he has an IPO about to happen.”
“An initial public offering? You mean someone is about to give that daffy queen a bunch of money in exchange for stocks in his company?”
“Yes, Monette. To the tune of two hundred and fifty-seven million dollars.”
“No!”
“Oh yes. He’s going to branch out into home furnishings, cars, luggage, even baby strollers. When Frank is done, this country is going to look like everyone is on active duty. So what should we tell Frank?”
“What do you mean, what should we tell him? We tell him we don’t want money, but we’re not releasing the pictures, either.”
“Can’t we just ask for a little money? Like, fifty thousand. He’d pay that without thinking about it. He probably spends that much on eyebrow pencils each year.”
“Robert?”
“Yes, Monette?”
“I’m going to hang up the phone now and call you right back. When you pick up the phone, I want to be talking to the lovable, neurotic Robert Wilsop that I remember.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be talking to the slightly wealthy Robert who can afford to take you out to great dinners and send you away to lesbian summer camp?”
Monette, never one to make idle threats, hung up the phone with a polite, but firm click. Exactly three seconds later, my phone rang.
“All right, all right,” I sputtered into the receiver, “we won’t shake Frank Addams down for the money, even though he is a prissy loudmouthed butt wipe who deserves to have every horrible piece of clothing he’s ever made shoved down his fat little throat ... his fat, fat, fat throat.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Monette agreed, although it wasn’t Monette’s voice: It was Frank Addams.
“Holy fuck!” I said to myself. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!” I again told myself—as if once wasn’t enough.
Frank was overlooking my little faux pas because we had something he wanted. “RobertIknowIdidn’ttreatyouand Monetteverywellinmyofficetoday.Iwanttomakeituptoyou two.Howaboutsomethingfrommyclothingcollection?”
I couldn’t picture myself in an orange and red stretch chemical warfare suit, nor could I do the same with Monette. I politely declined the offer.
“Look Frank, Monette and I don’t want anything ...” I started to say, but stopped myself. “What I began to say was the only thing we want are straight answers to a few questions.”
“Straight?You’reaskingthewrongperson.I’msogayIcan’t eventhinkstraight.”
You could almost hear the snare drum rim shot: pa-rump-pump-pump.
“No money, but I want to remind you, if you don’t answer the questions we ask you, you’ll be on the Internet faster than naked pictures of Brad Pitt.”
“Anythingyouwant.Justholdontothosepictures,” he pleaded.
“I will call you back in a while, Frank. I have to talk to Monette. How about tomorrow, twelve noon?”
“Ican’tIhave ... no,twelvenoonitis.”
Frank had a well-deserved reputation for being difficult, but I’d underestimated how much he wanted those pictures because he’d acted so nonchalant about them at lunchtime. Once he got over himself, he must have realized how much damage the pictures could do to his career.
As soon as I hung up, the phone rang again. I decided this time to make sure who I was talking to before I assumed anything.
“Monette?”
“Of course it’s Monette. Who did you think it was?”
“That’s the problem. I thought I was talking to you and it turned out to be Frank Addams.”
“So did you give him our message?”
“Yes, I did. Then I also did some fast thinking. I told him we wanted to ask him some more questions and that if he didn’t give us straight answers ...”
“To which he replied, “Baby, I can’t even think straight.”
“Something to that effect. You must be clairvoyant.”
“Not really. It’s easy to predict the predictable.”
“Oh, right,” I replied. “Anyway, Frank said he’d see us at twelve noon tomorrow.”
“Great! What do you have on tap for tonight?”
“I think I will just stay in at Michael’s, watch a movie on TV, and go to bed. I’m trying to lay low.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Monette said. “I’ll meet you downstairs in the lobby of Frank’s building at eleven forty-five tomorrow. Tonight, I want you to draw up a list of questions that you think we need to ask. We’ll compare lists before we go up see him.”
“There’s only question I want to ask him,” I replied.
“And what’s that?”
“How long would it take you to get half a million dollars in unmarked bills?”
“I thought we decided that the money thing is a dead issue.”
“I guess so,” I admitted. “Well, I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning at work.”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
I hung up the phone and thought to myself: What’s the real dead issue here—the money ... or me?
10
I Enjoy Being a Girl
“Half a fucking million dollars and you’re not going to take it?” Michael shouted. “Just for giving some queen with a sewing machine a CD with some pictures on it?”
I knew it was a mistake to mention our current situation to Michael since his view on the subject would coincide with mine—an occurrence that rarely happened. The last thing I needed right then was to have someone vehemently agreeing with my idea to take the money and run.
“Robert, if you don’t grab that money, you’re a fool. I mean, what can happen? Addams is not going to tell anyone about the pictures because he wants to keep things quiet. You give him the CD, take the money, and go buy yourself some decent clothes.”
“So why are you so vocal about the money, Michael? You have all you could ever want.”
Michael looked like I had just slapped him across the face. “That shows just how little you understand about having money. No one could ever have all they could want. And for your information, you know my setup. My mother has control of the Stark purse strings. And furthermore, I can barely get by on what she sends me.”
“Michael, you get over fifty thousand a month.”
“Yes, Robert, but I have expenses most normal people don’t. My co-op fees are outrageous! Last month, one of the building’s elevators broke and you should have seen the bill! Everyone in the building is going to have pay for that in raised fees, and since I have the apartment with the most square footage, guess who gets hit the worst?”
“Michael, you broke the tenant elevator when you made the deliverymen use it to take that metal sculpture up.”
“How was I supposed to know it weighed one ton?”
“Michael, don’t make excuses. You get away with breaking most of the building rules because you have the most votes in the building. Besides your penthouse, you bought several apartments in the building just so you could have more votes on the co-op board.”
“That’s not illegal. Leona Helmsley does it all the time!” Michael protested.
“You don’t know that, Michael.”
“But I bet she does,” Michael spit back.
“Michael, your conjecturing is too easy. I could probably say that Leona stabs people, eats their brains, then tosses their bodies into a human-size grinder and makes them into hamburger that she has cooked and served up for her and I’d probably be right.”
“Well, all I can say is take the money or you’ll regret it.”
“Michael, we’re not taking the money.”
“Can I then?”
“Michael!” I was actually shocked by his comment, which was shocking in and of itself since almost nothing that Michael did could shock me a
nymore.
“Just give me the pictures, we’ll get the money, and I’ll split it with you, sixty-forty.”
“It’s really stupid of me to even ask this, but I assume the sixty percent is not my share but yours?”
“That is correct.”
“So why do you get sixty percent? The pictures were given to me.”
“Because I’ll take the blame if things get messy. I get paid for taking the extra risk.”
Feeling that this conversation—like most that I ever had with Michael—was going nowhere, I tried to finish so I could watch some television.
“Well, Michael, I’ve got to get to bed. I have to come up with some questions to ask Frank Addams.”
Michael picked up an expensive knickknack from his coffee table and examined it with dull eyes. “Why don’t you ask him why he likes to dress up as a Pamela Anderson in need of a good electrologist?”
I was amazed. “Michael, how did you know this about Frank?”
“I saw him at a fetish party at Jim Hitchcock’s in January. He likes to be forced to wear ladies’ lingerie with stiletto boots in black vinyl. Crotchless fishnet stockings when he’s in the mood. Definitely not my trip.”
“Michael, why didn’t you tell me that you saw Frank Addams before?” I asked, only too late to realize that I already knew Michael’s answer.
“No one asked me.”
“Michael, what else do you know about Frank Addams?”
“He was doing the forced-girly-thing long before he met up with Cody Walker.”
“How long ago? And with whom?”
“Oh God, years. Years. See, he was making the circuit of all the sex parties long ago. I guess he never thought he was going to be a big designer someday, so he had no problem flaunting his sexual turn-ons in front of everyone. He started as a drag queen, then I guess it grew into what he’s into now.”
“So, Michael, let me ask you a question. Frank hired Cody to ... well ... you know ...”
“No, I don’t know, Robert,” Michael said, baiting me to say what I had trouble saying.
I refused to step in that pile of poo. “You know what I mean, Michael.”
“No, Robert, I really don’t. Tell me. You have to be more specific.” A devious smile played across his face.
“Tie him up and stuff.”
“Robert, it’s called SM. Listen, if you’re going to be silly enough to turn down Frank’s generous offer and go asking questions about this whole mess, you’ve got to call things by their proper name.”
“Michael, I didn’t go to school at a whorehouse. I grew up in the Midwest, where we didn’t talk about such things!”
“Robert, calm down ... you’re starting to hyperventilate. It’s just sex. People everywhere have kinky sex. You think that because you came from the Midwest, no one ever did anything besides vanilla stuff. I’ll bet the farmer next door was boinking the farmhands on his tractor or nude-wrestled them in the mud.”
“Michael, I grew up in the suburbs outside of Detroit. We didn’t have tractors.”
“Okay, combines or whatever those mechanical corn-picking things are.”
“Michael, this may come as a shock to you and other New Yorkers who think there’s nothing west of the Hudson River besides San Francisco and Los Angeles, but we had electricity, indoor plumbing, and lived in houses built from real bricks and mortar and not mud.”
“Robert, I’ve been to the Midwest before.”
“When?”
“I’ve changed planes in Chicago many times. Isn’t that the place where they’re always wearing down coats and snowmobile boots?”
“Yes, and we’re all proud of the fact that we trap our breakfasts every morning.”
Michael smirked.
“Oh, Wilsop, I forgot to mention ... I saw your porn debut on the Internet today. You’re all over. Nice work. I didn’t know you were uncut.”
“Michael, could we get back to the subject of men in crotchless fishnets?”
“Fine. You lead ... it’s your dance.”
“Okay. Frank’s fantasies seemed to require a dominator. Did he have someone who played that role before Cody?”
“Yeah. A guy named David Bharnes.”
“Is there some way I can contact him?”
“I could give you his phone number,” Michael said nonchalantly.
“Michael, you didn’t ... !”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Robert. Can you imagine me being submissive to anyone on this earth?”
“Other than your mother, no.”
“I’d just approach this guy carefully. Don’t go telling him you want to ask him questions about a murder—he’ll shut up like a clam.”
“Well, pray tell, how should I approach this guy? On bended knee?”
Michael looked at me and smiled a lecherous grin. “That would be a good start.”
The next day, I met Monette in the lobby and showed her my list of questions. She studied them carefully, then proceeded to cross off the bulk of them with a heavy black pen. I felt like I was back in third grade with my teacher, Mrs. Lacie, who took personal offense at my penmanship and made me practice my 1s and 7s hundreds of times on the chalkboard until my knuckles were bloody.
“Monette, what’s wrong with my questions? Are they that bad?”
“They’re just not focused. You see, in order to solve a crime, you need to devise a theory of what really happened, then you ask questions and chase clues that support that theory.”
“Okay,” was all that I could muster in response.
“Fine, let’s go see Peter Pan.”
And up we went in the elevator, with me trying hard not to picture my favorite childhood storybook character in crotchless fishnets. As the elevator ascended, I couldn’t help but feel that Monette had been a little harsh on my questions. I resolved to show her—somehow.
We were ushered into Frank’s office. He was actually smiling, actually looked at us, and was ...
“Sowhatdoyouwanttoaskme?” he started.
I was about to say that Frank might actually be speaking slowly enough to understand him without intense concentration—but two out of three ain’t bad. Monette pulled out her query list and began to question him—that was, before I stopped her cold.
“Frank,” I started, “tell me about David Bharnes.”
Frank turned as white as a Pratesi sheet.
“Mymy,” he said as he twiddled his thumbs. “Youhavebeen busy!” Frank admitted. “DavidBharnesandIhaveplayedbe-fore. Manytimes.”
“Did David ever take pictures of the two of you?” I continued. Monette, taken aback at first, now let me pursue my own line of questioning.
“Yesyeshedid.”
“But you’re not worried about those?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Hedoesn’tgoshootinghismouthoff.Plus,hedoesn’t takepicturesunlessmyfaceiscovered.”
“So David would never stoop to using those pictures for blackmail?”
“Nohe’snotthatkindofguy.PlusIthinkhekeepsallhisphotos lockedinabigsafe.”
“I see,” even though I didn’t. “I have another question, Frank. You said you had these sessions with David many times. Was there something special about David?”
“Hewasgood.Heplayedalongandmadeitwork—what everyouwanted.”
I was on a roll now. “If David was so good, why did you switch to Cody?”
“Davidsaidhewasn’tdoingthatsortofthingformoneyany-more, thoughthat’snotwhatIheardthroughthegrapevine.I’ve heardhe’sstillactivebutjustnotwithme.”
“Those are all the questions I have, Frank,” I said. “Monette, do you have any questions to ask Mr. Addams?”
Monette was dumbfounded. She started to shake her head, then blurted out a question.
“Frank, on the night of the murder of Eric Bogert, where were you?”
“SmokingonmybalconyandwatchingValleyoftheDolls.”
It sounded like an airtight alibi to me for any gay man.
“The whole night?” Monette inquired further.
“Yesyesyes.”
“Did anyone see you ... to corroborate your story.”
“Justthecuteguyintheapartmentbuildingacrossthestreet.”
“Thank you, Frank. You’ve been most helpful.”
“OhMissO’Reilley,couldIhaveyourworkphoneincaseI thinkofsomethingimportantlater.IhaveRobert’sworkphone butI’dliketohaveyours.”
“Sure,” Monette complied, writing her work phone number on a piece of paper for Frank.
“Thanks.IfIcanbeofanyhelpdon’tforgettocallme,” Frank said as he smiled widely.
As soon as we were safely in the building lobby downstairs, Monette turned to me and patted me on the back.
“You done good in there, partner,” she said. “Once I saw what you had dug up and where you were going with it, I trashed my questions. Yet another confirmation that Eric was probably doing the blackmailing, and that Frank is sticking by his shaky alibi that leaves him unaccounted for on the night of Eric’s murder. So where did you find out about this Bharnes guy?”
“Where do you think I get sex information?”
“Michael! Of course!” Monette said, slapping her forehead. “I should’ve known. We’ve got to find out more about him and what he knows about Cody and Eric. Do you know where we can contact him?”
“Yes, Monette, but there’s one problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“Michael told me not to go questioning Bharnes because he won’t reveal a thing.”
“So how does Michael propose getting information out of this guy?”
“He didn’t say, but I’m afraid it’s going to involve me wearing a dog collar.”
11
Robert Scores!
“Hello, David Bharnes?” I said nervously into the phone. “I’ve been referred by Frank Addams. He told me that you could help make some of my fantasies come true.”
There was a short silence on the other end of the phone that stretched off into eternity. I could almost feel his antennae reaching out, scanning me, and sizing me up over the copper wires.
“Frank, eh?”