Going Down For The Count

by David Stukas

  “And what’s that?” I asked, not completely agreeing with her sunny take on things.

  “I learned how to say ‘Where is the nearest lesbian bar and do attractive women frequent it?’”

  12

  Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Dyed Hair

  We were told by Herr Taucher to go back to the count’s palace and stay put until further notice. The police would accompany us back, conduct a search of the premises, then let us stay for a few days in the castle until they could figure out what to do with us.

  When we arrived back at the palace, we were asked to stay in the cavernous music room on the second floor until the police were satisfied with their search of the house. And not that it meant anything, but guards were posted around the palace, and especially outside our door—to keep the press away, Herr Taucher said. I suspected they were there also to keep us from leaving the premises.

  I sat around until it was daybreak reading magazines. Monette was dozing on a large couch by the window and Michael was nervously pacing the floor.

  “Jesus, when are they going to finish searching the place so we can get out of here? I feel like Rumplestiltskin trapped in a fairy-tale tower.”

  “Rapunzel. You’re thinking about Rapunzel,” I corrected.

  “Whatever. I just want to get out and meet some guys while I’m in Berlin.”

  “Thank you for your genuine concern for the situation I’m in right now. But as for being trapped inside, tell me about it, Michael. I’ve been to Monte Carlo and Berlin and I haven’t seen much more than the inside of this palace.”

  “The ceilings is more like it,” Michael corrected me.

  “Right,” I said.

  I was just beginning to nod off and dream of Russell Crowe when I saw something that caused me to become very much awake. In fact, my eyes opened so wide, my eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets.

  “Monette, Michael, come here quickly!” I said, motioning for everyone to come look out of the window.

  “Uh-oh!” Monette exclaimed.

  “Oh, fuck!” Michael added.

  What we were all seeing was a body being carried out of the palace on a stretcher. And I mean a body.

  I was the first to speak. “Monette, please tell me it’s a German custom to cover living people with a white sheet.”

  “No, Robert.”

  As the police were busy loading the body into a waiting ambulance, another car pulled up to the gates of the palace, and a woman got out and approached the police who were posted at the entrance to keep the press at a respectable distance. Cameras flashed like mad as the woman was admitted to the grounds and the palace.

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, it did. The woman was Mrs. Stark.

  In less than a minute, she appeared at the door to the music room.

  “What’s the big excitement?” Julia said, thumbing toward the corpse outside and acting as if having bodies on your premises was a normal thing. Considering the accidents that occurred on Julia’s doorstep in Newport, maybe it was.

  “Count von Schmidt was murdered last night. At a party,” Michael said.

  “Count von Schmidt, Count von Schmidt,” Julia repeated, trying to jog her memory. “Was he married to Princess von Thiessen?”

  “No, Mother. Count von Schmidt was Robert’s boyfriend. You met him in Monte Carlo.”

  “Oh, that one! Dead, huh? I’m so sorry, Robert,” she said with the amount of emotion that would make Martha Stewart look like a borderline schizophrenic with Tourette’s syndrome.

  “Thank you, Julia. It’s easier to bear the pain when I know people like you care,” I said, wiping the sarcasm that dripped from my lips.

  “If you need anything—anything—I’m here,” Julia said while searching her purse for nothing in particular.

  Monette, who was glued to the window, suddenly shouted, “That’s where I saw him before!” and strode toward the door the way only a six-foot-four lesbian could. “I need to talk to Herr Taucher immediately! I have information crucial to the murder,” she said to the polizei at the door. He related this information to another officer, who presently returned with Herr Taucher. Monette told Taucher that she wanted to step into the hall with him to discuss something private. Taucher agreed.

  Monette was gone for what seemed like an eternity, but returned in a mere ten minutes.

  “Is everything OK, Monette?” I asked when she stepped back into the room, smiling.

  “Everything is more than OK. Herr Taucher has agreed to work with me and tell me what his department has uncovered.”

  “Why ever would he do that?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Because I saw him at the party,” Monette replied.

  “I did too, Monette. I saw him come in with his polizei buddies,” I added, not knowing what she was trying to get at.

  “No, Robert. He was there long before that. Dressed as the Eiffel Tower. Dress made from the French flag, makeup that wouldn’t quit, and topped off with a four-foot wig that had a model of the Eiffel Tower soaring above it all.”

  “I saw that costume—how could you miss it? So how did you know it was him?”

  “I saw him come into the ladies’ room when his cell phone went off. He ran in there, scrubbed the makeup off, and probably ran to his car to make a quick change so he could meet his buddies at the gate. That’s why his face was so red when he walked in with his department. Practically rubbed off his outer layer of epidermis.”

  “Whew,” I exclaimed. “So he was afraid you’d tell his buddies about his being a cross-dresser?” I surmised.

  “That’s part of it. What got him really worried was that I would tell his wife.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “His wife?”

  “Yes. She’s caught him cross-dressing before and she said if she caught him again, he’d be wearing a dress in divorce court.”

  “So that’s what did it, huh?” I asked.

  “Well, that and the fact that I also saw him using his tongue to check out the dental work of a very young guy on the dance floor earlier in the evening.”

  “No!” I said in disbelief.

  “Yes!”

  “So he’s agreed to work with you, huh?”

  “Apparently. He’s already given me what he knows about the body they just carted out.”

  “So what did they find?”

  “Remember those doors in the basement that were locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, behind them is a stairway that leads to an even lower basement, complete with walk-in freezers put in during the Cold War. I’ll give you one guess what was in them.”

  “A Popsicle? One about six feet high?”

  “Right you are, Robert,” Monette replied, slapping me on the shoulder for getting the correct answer.

  “So who is he?”

  “They’re not sure yet, but Taucher said he’d let me know when they found out.”

  Michael, who had been thumbing through the latest issue of Stern magazine, had, up to this point, been edging closer to eavesdrop without our knowing. When Monette and I realized what he was doing, we both turned and moved farther away.

  “I know this comes at a difficult time for you, Robert,” Michael said, trying to convey some sense of concern, “but when are we going to eat?” He then turned toward me and, in a voice low enough that his mother wouldn’t hear, said, “I need to take another hit of steroids.”

  Monette, who naturally took charge in matters of grave importance (probably because Michael couldn’t get his mind off sex and I was a nervous wreck), replied like the official spokesperson for Herr Taucher.

  “Herr Taucher said they should be through searching the palace within the hour. There are a few rooms they’re going to put under lock and key and guard until they can search them with a fine-tooth comb. So soon, we can feel free to mill about the house, but they’re asking us to stay in the palace—all of us—for the time being.”

  We all staked out positi
ons on the oversized couches and napped for some time until we heard a knock on the door. Michael sprang from the sofa and leaped to answer the door so quickly I didn’t even have time to think about getting up.

  Michael opened the door a few inches to ascertain who was knocking. When he could see it was Herr Taucher, I heard Michael say, “Could we go out into the hall? Everyone’s sleeping,” even though a quick glance around told me no one was.

  In a few minutes, Michael sneaked back into the room, all eyes on him.

  “It was Herr Tower . . .”

  “Taucher,” Monette corrected him.

  “. . . yes, Torcher. He said we can move about the house and enter any room except those with a guard posted at the door.”

  “It’s about time,” Julia complained loudly. “I was just about to call the American consulate to protest this unfair and illegal incarceration.”

  I don’t know why Julia would say such a thing. I doubted she would ever stoop to going through legal, diplomatic channels to get what she wanted. Those avenues would be too achingly slow. Why not just place a call to the head of the Stark Pharmaceuticals office in Germany and have several of the guards in the palace disappear from the face of the earth? While she was at it, why not have Herr Taucher demoted to a department that ticketed errant dog walkers for not picking up their doggie deposits? Even more disturbing was the question that had never bothered to get answered in all the commotion of the last few hours: Why was Mrs. Stark here?

  I let this question come up at breakfast, which we all headed down to immediately. Fortunately, Helmut needed the money and reported to work, despite hearing about the count’s death on the morning news—he figured he would get paid, count or no count.

  “So what brings you here to Berlin, Mrs. Stark?” I asked, trying to put her on the spot.

  “I thought it would be good for Michael and me to get to know each other better,” she said.

  Monette looked up from her omelet in shock.

  I was pretty surprised by this act of tenderness on Julia’s part, too. I would be less surprised if Will and Grace closed a deal to play reruns on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

  Even Michael looked at her. “Gee, Mother,” he started, “I think that would be a great idea, but can it wait until later this afternoon? I would like to take this walking tour of the historic buildings of Berlin.”

  Michael taking a walking tour of Berlin? First of all, Michael didn’t walk anywhere, anytime, unless he was cruising for sex. When he was back in his beloved Manhattan, he even took cabs to the gym, which was only three blocks away. And second, how could history matter to a man who couldn’t even remember who he had sex with the night before? No, Michael was hot to trot and nothing was going to stand in his way—not even his mother, who held the purse strings to his expensive lifestyle.

  “If you’re going to go off walking around,” Julia said with complete distaste in her voice, “then I think I’ll go down to Potsdam today. I want to see if the Communists have left anything worth seeing in what was once a great town.”

  “I’ve heard that Sans Souci, which Frederick II built, is supposed to be quite something,” I said. “He’d leave his wife, Charlotte, in the city and go to Sans Souci with his boyfriend. I even hear his royal guard had to be a certain height—for reasons that were never explained,” I commented, mentally thumbing my nose at Julia.

  “It’s a summer house, Robin! I’m sure it’s pretty if you like quaint, drafty houses,” she said, tossing off one of the great palaces of Europe like it was Section 8 low-income housing. “And what are you two going to do today?”

  I wanted to do a little shopping along the Ku’damm, but Monette forcefully answered for the two of us.

  “I think Robert and I will stay here and just sit in the gardens and read.”

  What Monette said and what we did were two different things. In a matter of an hour or so, when everyone else had left the house, Monette and I found ourselves in the basement of the palace, walking through the halls, methodically searching room after room, until we came to one we had been in before.

  “Shhh!” I said, motioning to Monette to approach with caution. “There’s someone inside. Plus, it sounds like there’s a television going. Well, I think this is very weird,” I whispered. “Everyone’s on the town and Helmut and Karl are accounted for. I think we need to get to the bottom of this,” I said, grabbing the knob and flinging the door open.

  Inside, on a small bed, was Michael Stark and one of the guards—caught in the middle of a very delicate situation. I hastily closed the door and pushed Monette away.

  “What? What did you see, Robert?” Monette speculated.

  “Uh, something I didn’t want to,” I said, turning beet red at the same time. “All will be clear in a moment or two,” I said, telling Monette to be patient.

  A few minutes later, the door to the room opened and a police guard crept out, his shirt still unbuttoned and the laces from his tactical boots flapping wildly as he walked.

  “Michael’s in there, I suppose?” Monette correctly guessed.

  “What gave you your first clue, Monette? Let’s give him another minute to get dressed before we go in.”

  “Right.”

  We waited a minute at the door, hearing zippers being zipped and pants tugged on.

  “Michael?” I asked. “Are you decent?”

  “Am I ever?” came the reply from the other side of the door.

  We entered and Michael was slumped on the bed acting as if he had been doing nothing more than crocheting a shawl for his feeble grandmother. The fact that I had caught him playing hide-the-Wiener-schnitzel with an on-duty policeman didn’t enter the picture. I had to envy Michael sometimes. He seemed to have no morals and only one purpose in life: pleasing himself. I, on the other hand, waited at the end of the long line of self-indulgence, finding that when I finally got up to the front, the window said closed or come back tomorrow. Why couldn’t I stand up people for dinner dates I had just confirmed, throw tricks out without breakfast, or smash into unattended parked cars with my Range Rover without leaving a note on the victim’s windshield containing my phone number? I’ll give you one reason: I was too guilt-ridden, too Midwestern, and too Catholic. I had more baggage than American Tourister.

  “You never cease to amaze me, Michael. An on-duty cop,” I said. “How did you do it? I mean, tell me how you seduce guys the way you do.”

  “The same way you get people to tell you what’s going on in confidential police investigations: blackmail.”

  Monette looked at Michael in horror. “You didn’t!”

  “Yup, I told Herr Tobler . . .”

  “Taucher,” Monette corrected him again.

  “ ... yes, Taucher, that he needed to arrange a liaison between me and the hunky cop who was eying me earlier—or maybe Taucher’s wife would like to know why those pantyhose she found in the closet never seemed to fit her.”

  Just what I said. No morals. When it came to getting something he wanted, Michael had no compunction in revealing how he pulled off something completely underhanded. It was almost as if he were proud he’d finally found a use for his mind.

  “What are you watching?” I asked, looking at the television and seeing a man on the screen sitting in a chair, eating. “And I thought American television was bad.”

  “This is a videotape, Robert!” Michael said. “I met Rainer here—that was the cop’s name—and I thought a little porn would help things along.”

  “Where was your trusty blindfold and rubber gag?” I asked, knowing all too well the sex toys Michael often employed.

  “Can you believe it? I left them at home—and I never travel without them! But, you know, traveling with Mother.”

  “Traveling with Mother what?”

  “I was traveling with my mother during the first part of this trip. Or don’t you remember?” Michael asked exasperatedly.

  “I remember. But what’s that got to do with things?”
<
br />   “Mother searches all my luggage. She always does. So I couldn’t have any sex toys in there.”

  “She does this whenever you travel together and you think this is normal?”

  “Robert, my mother decides in her mind what is normal and I let her think I’m obeying. But she knows I cheat. I knew she’d go through my stuff, so I left a few items in there to show I was a good boy.”

  “Like what, for instance?” I was intrigued to know what Julia would fall for.

  “A Bible. Um, a book ... Homosexuality: Myth or Reality? ... and a picture of my mother in a silver frame.”

  Monette was appalled. “And she actually fell for this?”

  “We both play a game of constant deception. She lets me know in no uncertain terms she wants a straight, upstanding son and I let her think she has one. But we both know it’s all a big lie. As they say, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

  “So you and your friend got aroused by watching a videotape of a man sitting at a table eating?” I asked, squinting my eyes to figure out who the man in the video was.

  Michael gave me a surprised look. “Robert, this video is probably hard-core porn compared to the stuff you insert into your video player.”

  Monette closed in on the TV screen. “My god! It’s Siegfreid! Eating!”

  “So? I’ve had dozens of videotapes of me taken before!”

  “Yeah, but not of you eating ... I take that back. Never mind,” I finished, realizing that one more word and I would be pulled down into the depths of another Michael Stark depraved sex-ploit.

  “I know you’re sad and all that, Robert, but this count was a real narcissist. I mean, who would have all these tapes taken of himself eating, talking on the phone, having cocktails with people? This guy was really stuck on himself!”

  I didn’t even touch this thought. Too easy. Just let it go, Robert.

  Monette stood staring at the TV screen as if in a trance. “I don’t get it. The tapes are black and white and look as if they were taken with a surveillance camera.” She turned to speak to Michael. “Why did you think they were porn tapes, Michael?”

  “Because of the labels on the side of the videotape boxes. See, here,” Michael stated, grabbing a handful from a shelf. “Check out these titles: Flesh Puppets, Berlin Buttboys, Foreskins Away!, and Hot Rods. Look at the size of the rod on this one,” Michael said, gesturing to the picture on the back of one of the explicit boxes. “Too big, even for me.”