Biceps Of Death (4 page)
Authors: David Stukas
“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 pounds. 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.
O
n 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.
n 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.
Adrianne was one of those frightening women that straight bodybuilders seemed to attract. The dyed-blond hair was poofed up and sprayed even though we had entered the twenty-first century years ago, the skin, perma-tanned, and the waist was just big enough to allow her stomach and upper intestines to pass through to her lower extremities. Fingernails were painted an unearthly shade of white—as if she had been clawing at chalky walls with her fingers. You get the idea—not the kind of girl you’d find on an Outward Bound camping expedition. Being a gay man, I had no attraction to this type of woman—or any, for that matter. But I just couldn’t see why men were attracted to these life-size Barbie dolls. I suppose it was their forced, hyperfemininity. Me, I preferred tough but sophisticated women like Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, and Katharine Hepburn, who were smart, self-assured, and knew how to make an entrance in a stunning gold lamé gown at a rooftop nightclub—not someone who was proud of the fact that she knew the difference between a 1991 Camero and one built in 1992.
“Adrianne?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to express my condolences about Eric,” I said in tones that would make an undertaker sound like a cheerleader at a UCLA football game.
“Yeah, well, it was so sudden, like.”
The babe was from Brooklyn—and apparently, hadn’t ever left it except to come to a gym in New York. I had to think up some bullshit to keep Adrianne’s attention. I though of swinging a tube of Maybelline lipstick in front of her face, but decided it would be too rude. It would do the trick, but it would be rude.
“I just wanted you to know that I always respected his ... training abilities ... with his clients ... here ... here in the gym ... and he always dressed nice.”
“Oh yeah, tanks. I’m shu-wah Eric would’ve been happy to heer dat,” she managed to get out, then sniffled into a tissue, blowing her nose at the finish like you’d expect a miniature poodle to sneeze: quick and tiny.
“He was always on time, you know—ambitious,” I added, running out of adjectives.
Sniff, sniff.
“Oh yeah, he was ambitious. He had big plans. He was just about to come into a lot of money from a great awnt,” she said, giving the word
aunt
such an out-of-place British accent that I almost started laughing. The Brooklyn returned as quickly as it had gone. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn ...
aunt
such an out-of-place British accent that I almost started laughing. The Brooklyn returned as quickly as it had gone. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn ...
“Just about to inherit?” I repeated. “That’s so sad.”
“Well, I guess I’ll get his Hummer. Almost new. A really nice car ... great sound system ... sad-e-lite guidance system. . . seats dat adjust a hundred ways ... not dat any of dat stuff will replace Eric!” she added, remembering that while she would never dress like a grieving widow, she should at least sound like one.
The thought of this bubblehead driving a car of immense weight around the streets of New York and Brooklyn made me shudder. From that moment on, I would walk as far away from the curb as possible.
“Well, I thank you for your time, Adrianne. Again, my condolences.”
“Yee-ah, well, tanks,” she said, and I left the building.
I had just learned a valuable piece of information: that Cody wasn’t the only personal trainer who seemed to be making more money than was possible for a personal trainer to make.
I
got on the subway and rode it to work. There, at the entrance to the building where my agency was ensconced on floors fifteen through twenty-three, were the reporters again. Instead of rushing me like they had at my apartment, they stood waiting for me to come into their gaping jaws like a great white shark too lazy to chase its prey. They knew, after all, that I had to enter the building this way and I’d have no other choice but to confront them.
got on the subway and rode it to work. There, at the entrance to the building where my agency was ensconced on floors fifteen through twenty-three, were the reporters again. Instead of rushing me like they had at my apartment, they stood waiting for me to come into their gaping jaws like a great white shark too lazy to chase its prey. They knew, after all, that I had to enter the building this way and I’d have no other choice but to confront them.
But again, I said nothing. The embarrassing thing wasn’t that I was being made to feel like a criminal, but that dozens of my colleagues at work passed by and saw the reporters trying to extract information from me. Clearly, I had something to hide or had murdered someone. I waded through the crowd and entered the building with camera flashes popping from behind the glass lobby doors while I waited for the elevator. And if all this wasn’t enough, when the elevator arrived, people feigned excuses for not riding up with me. So up I went alone. Great.
I spent the day writing several ads for a new feminine hygiene napkin that promised thirty percent more absorption. After a day of this kind of thing, it made being thrown out the window of a thirty-second-floor apartment look inviting. But I did it day after day, five days a week, because like ninety-nine percent of the population, I didn’t know what else to do—and because I was too afraid to try something else. I was the master of inertia. At five-thirty, my energy returned and I flew out of the building, got on the subway, rode it up to the Ninety-Sixth Street Station, and walked the three blocks home.
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