by David Stukas
“So I can see you’ve had a lot of experience in this?”
“Movie stars, TV people, church bigwigs ... since I was thirty. Twenty-five years ago. You do the math.”
“So I guess you’ve seen just about everything, huh?”
“Brad, your fantasy is about the tamest thing I’ve done for some time.”
Was this a compliment, or more confirmation that I was a prude? “Well, I have to compliment you on the way you make it comfortable for guys like me.”
“Like I said, I’ve done this for a long time with a lot of men.”
I wanted to be careful not to push too hard, too fast, for fear of tipping David off as to my real intent.
“Actually, a friend of mine, Michael Stark, said that Frank Addams was a client of yours for a long time.”
No visible emotion.
“Was,” David replied. “I turned him over to Cody Walker and Eric Bogert. They’re dead, you know. Killed themselves or someone killed them—does it matter? What a shame.”
The way David said his last sentence, it was clear he didn’t really think the loss of two hustling bodybuilders was such a terrible thing.
“Nasty competitors, I guess?”
“Cody and his steroided friend, Eric, strong-armed me into giving up some of my clients. Now that the papers say he was blackmailing society-list gay men, I’m not surprised that the two of them got murdered. You don’t mess with some of those guys.”
“So lots of rich, powerful men come to you?” I asked, then realized most of my questions were sounding like, well, questions. I needed to divert attention from them. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to name your clients ... it’s just nice to know that I’m in the hands of the David Bharnes whom the rich and powerful trust for discretion. . . and a good time.”
“Those that haven’t been wrenched from me,” David replied.
Wow. Despite David’s remarkable coolness and self-control, he was angry enough to spill some dirt about two people he didn’t think I knew.
“That’s terrible!” I said in true sympathy. “I’m sure you go to great lengths to get clients—and their trust—and someone comes and steals them away. That’s just not right.”
“I have a black belt in karate, but you can’t stand up to a two-hundred-eighty-pound mountain of muscle in a roid rage—they’re homicidal, just crazy. Enough about me. Should we get started?”
It was clear that David felt he had told me enough already and was ready to get back to business, which was fine with me—I had learned a very valuable piece of information.
“Could we talk a little more first?” I asked, hoping that I could talk my way out of my fantasy and go back to my temporary home in Michael’s apartment.
Hours later, I entered Michael’s apartment, and crossed the living area on the way to my bedroom, but was surprised when the Eames chair facing the television spun around quickly.
“Robert!” Michael greeted me. “Monette called but I told her you were out somewhere. Why are you doubled over like that?”
“I got a little too big for my britches, Michael. Why didn’t you tell her where I was?”
“How was I supposed to know? I don’t keep track of your whereabouts.”
“But I left you a note in the kitchen, Michael. A very important note!” I explained.
“There wasn’t any note in there!” Michael complained as he got up to go to the kitchen to prove how wrong I was.
I followed just to show him I knew what I was talking about.
We both entered the kitchen, and like Michael claimed, there was no note on the counter.
“I left it right here,” I said, jabbing the countertop that had somehow eaten my note. “I know I did.”
Michael went over the trash and retrieved a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Is this what you’re babbling about?”
I looked at the note: “James 9” uncut 555-8793.
“Michael, I didn’t write this!”
Michael grasped my wrist and turned my hand upside down so I could see the other side of the note: Michael, I will be at David Bharnes’ tonight in Tribeca—it’s not what you think. In case I disappear, call the police. I should have known that Michael would do something like this. I was about to take him to task for treating my note so contemptuously, but I relented. After all, I did return alive.
Michael smiled at me. “I guess David didn’t kill you. But it looks like you suffered a slight injury there, Robert,” he said, patting my crotch lightly, from which I jerked back. “Take my advice, Robert. The next time you do this, wear a little foam padding inside the cup. That’s what I always do.”
13
To Catch a Thief
The next morning at work, I was about call Monette to tell her what had happened last night—parts of it—when the phone rang. It was Monette.
“How did the meeting with David Bharnes go, Robert?”
“Oh, pretty well. I found out that—”
Just then, the receptionist beeped my phone.
“Monette, can I put you on hold for a minute?”
“Fine, I’ll be here doing a layout on cardamom pods.”
“What?” I said, confused on every front.
“Never mind, Robert. I never do or I’d go crazy.”
“Okay, Monette, I’ll put you on hold for a second. Yes, Lisa, who is it?”
“Michael Stark.”
“Did he say what he wants?”
“He’d rather not say—but he did tell me it was highly embarrassing and that it was important.”
“Okay, I’ll take it, Lisa.”
I waited, and in a few seconds, Michael’s laughter exploded out of the phone.
“So what’s so funny, Michael?”
“You are—or at least your balls are. You’re all over the Internet. The U.S., the United Kingdom, I even found pictures of your testicles on a German website where they put embarrassing photos. You’re right next to a Berlin zookeeper who got shit on by an elephant.”
More laughter.
“Michael, thank you for telling me this again because what I really need in my life right now is to know I’m the object of global ridicule. I’m in the middle of a meeting, so I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, Robby, before you go, why didn’t you tell me you had such low hangers?”
I disconnected Michael and went back to Monette.
“Monette? You still there?”
“I’m here. So what did Michael have to say?”
“Oh, nothing, Monette. Absolutely nothing.”
I was interrupted again by another call from Lisa at the reception desk.
“Yes, Lisa. It’s not Michael again, is it?”
“No call. Something just arrived for you here. It’s out at the front desk.”
“Who’s it from?”
“Frank Addams ... on Seventh Avenue.”
“Lisa, I’ll come out and get it later. Could you mark it so no one else takes it? You know what thieves those art directors can be.”
“I won’t let anyone take it, Robert. Anyway, there’s a big sign on it that has your name written in four-hundred-point type.”
“Okay, I’ll be out later.” I retrieved Monette back from the land of hold. “Monette, you there?”
“Yes.”
Another beep signal from the front desk.
“Yes, Lisa, what now?”
“A Detective McMillan on the line, he says it’s important.”
“Thanks, Lisa,” I replied. I clicked over to Monette. “Monette, could I call you back? McMillan is on the other line. He says it’s important.”
“You will call me if it’s an emergency, won’t you?” Monette pleaded, the concern in her voice making me concerned.
“You know I will—gotta go,” I said and hung up the phone. “Lisa, could you put the call through?’
“Right away.”
I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I couldn’t imagine that it was going to be good.
“Hello. Robert Wilsop here.”
“This is McMillan here. We have good news. We had your apartment staked out in the hope that someone would try and get in again, and we got our man.”
“You caught the person who burgled my apartment?” I asked. It was too good to be true. Could this case be over already?
“We’ve got a man in custody at our station. We want you to come by as soon as you can to see if you can identify him.”
“But Detective McMillan, I never saw who broke into my apartment.”
“This isn’t a lineup. Maybe you saw him standing around your place, maybe you saw him at the gym.”
I agreed, but I wasn’t quite sure what I had agreed to. However, I was curious to see who broke into my apartment. Maybe with victim restitution laws, I could force the asshole to clean up my apartment and alphabetize my magazines again. As I went into the lobby to catch an elevator down, I saw a rack of women’s clothes—frilly, shiny numbers that only a loose woman would wear out on the town when she wanted to be fucked by it. I glanced at the clothes absentmindedly until I saw the huge tag that boasted my name. I ran over to look at the tag. At the bottom, after it said in screaming foot-high letters, For Robert Wilsop, was a short handwritten note that said, Gotcha!—Monette.
The elevator door opened behind me and I dashed for the elevator in an effort to get downtown, hopefully to wrap up this mystery and get on with my life. As the elevator entered freefall, it occurred to me that I could’ve had Lisa roll the rack into my office, or into a closet so that everyone in the agency wouldn’t see, but then I thought fuck it. I was completely out at work, so why did it matter? Plus, I could always tell people it was for a photo shoot.
I rode downtown to McMillan’s station and stood in the lobby, waiting to be escorted to his office. It’s strange how you can feel so unsafe in the midst of so many policemen and women. There were criminals everywhere—the kind you don’t see in the cleaned-up crime shows on television. These guys looked like they had not only stabbed their families to death, but eaten them as well.
McMillan came out and led me down several corridors to a room that looked out, presumably, through a one-way mirror to the burglar sitting there, handcuffed, in a chair facing an empty desk. It was none other than Chet Ponyweather, uberWASP. I couldn’t believe it. Civilized, impeccably bred Chet. Prep schools, Ivy League, and now detained in a shabby police station, handcuffed like a Wall Street investment banker who’d advised Martha Stewart to do a not-so-good thing.
“Do you recognize this man?” McMillan asked, scowling at Chet as if he had just been caught selling crack to two-year-old blind paraplegics.
What to do, what to do. If I said no, I might set the wheels of justice spinning backward. If I admitted that yes, I had not only seen the man before, but had actually visited his office to question him about the murder of Cody Walker and Eric Bogert, McMillan might not look too kindly on my—our—investigations (“Monette put me up to this,” I was prepared to squeal). Despite the pros and cons, I decided that honesty is always the best policy. So I admitted that I had questioned him at his office.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TELLIN’ ME?!” was McMillan’s quiet reply. “YOU QUESTIONED HIM AT HIS OFFICE! WHAT ARE YOU, FUCKIN’ COLUMBO?”
I was thinking that Monette and I had more of the charm, sophistication, and wittiness of Tommy and Tuppence of Agatha Christie fame, or Hercule Poirot and Miss Lemon, his plucky and efficient secretary. But fuckin’ Columbo? This just showed how McMillan, despite his devilishly rakish looks, couldn’t think outside the box of pop television programs.
“Why don’t you tell me what you and Monette have been doing behind my back? You two could have gotten killed snooping around! Someone is serious about this matter. They’ve killed two guys who could probably bounce the bouncers at most bars in New York. Don’t you understand? This isn’t some sort of murder whodunit weekend in Bucks County! They chloroformed two guys and threw them off balconies ...”
For such a seasoned professional, I couldn’t believe that McMillan would let slip a piece of privileged information like that. Chloroform. Hmm. McMillan must have been really angry to let that pussy out of the bag.
“Oh, never mind,” McMillan said finally. He turned away from me to stare once again at Ponyweather, then he did the most extraordinary thing: He turned back, grabbed my hand, and held it.
Under the normal, paranoiac circumstances that compose what I laughingly call my life, I would have expected that McMillan was about to slap cuffs on me and drag me kicking and screaming to the bowels of the building where they beat confessions out of prisoners. But no such thing happened. Without even looking at me, he stared straight ahead and said, “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
To say I was stunned would have been understating the moment. It was surreal. Yes, that was the only word for it. For years, I have chased lunatics trying to land a decent date, and when I find a mentally stable guy in Palm Springs and get, effectively, taken off the market, the men come out of the woodwork. I would have no more thought that McMillan was gay than the man in the moon, but here I was in a darkened observation room with his hand grasping mine. Truth is stranger than fiction. You just can’t make this stuff up.
He released his grip on my hand and turned to look me in the eyes. Yes, he meant what he had just said to me. I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Me. White boy with no sense of rhythm whatsoever, from Michigan, had a hard-talking New Yawk detective in love with him. It was like Stephen Hawking and Ginger Rogers: the pairing just wouldn’t make sense. But in a crazy universe, this had happened. It was happening. There was no denying it away. No ignoring it. No escape. Curiouser and curiouser. You didn’t have to disappear down a rabbit hole to experience this lunacy—it was my life!
“Well, Luke, I thank you for your concern. It’s nice to know that you really care for my safety, and I’m not just some case to you.” I picked up his hand and squeezed it back, then let it go. I didn’t want to lead him on, but I wanted to let him know I appreciated his concern from the bottom of my heart. But then I thought, would I be committed to going to dinner with him? Then what? Sex? No, cops look at life differently. They like to go to a shooting range before sex. Bang, bang, thank you, ma’am. I then decided that I was thinking too much.
The only thing left to do was to spill my guts about what Monette and I had been up to. McMillan, with the exception of a few cringes and some saucepan eyes as I hit some exciting points, listened attentively to what I said, obviously impressed by what two amateur detectives had uncovered so far.
“Okay, listen, Robert—and Monette, wherever you are. I will let you do some investigating—on one condition: that you inform me before you do anything. And I mean anything. I think that by applying pressure from different directions, we can force the killer out in the open. But my hunch is that this investigation is going to go quiet for a long while. The guilty party is going to know that the police are crawling all over this case right now. To make a move right now would be foolish.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but Chet here didn’t seem to let a little publicity prevent him from trying to break into my apartment to get the pictures.”
“You are correct, Robert. The guy was so desperate, he was trying to jimmy your door open with a crowbar. Hardly the professional sort, huh?”
“Certainly the desperate sort, however. A crowbar, huh?” I asked. So crude, it seemed, for a man so refined.
“He made a lot of noise, so your neighbor down the hall looked out her peephole, saw Chet, and called the police. Because your address is marked, if there’s a call on it, I get alerted.”
I looked back at Chet again. “Has he said anything?”
“He’s asked for his lawyers, so we won’t get anything out of him for a while. But we questioned him yesterday about Cody and Eric’s deaths. He denies that he could do such a thing, but here he is breaking into your apartment a day later. What I don’t get is
how he knew where you lived.”
“If he didn’t get my address from the newspapers, radio, or television news, I am, stupidly, in the phone book. I’ve taken my name out of directory assistance, but I can’t do anything about the phone book. I’m sure all he had to do was look me up. Dumb, huh?”
“Not really; lots of people choose to have their phone numbers listed. I wouldn’t be too hard on myself.”
“Detective McMillan, you’re talking to the wrong person. I am a self-contained masochist and sadist—all rolled into one. I can do something, punish myself for doing it, and enjoy it.”
McMillan seemed unconvinced. “You, naw!”
“Listen, Sister Elleanor McCardle used to give me gold stars for being the first kid in our class who could properly flog himself without using a mirror.”
McMillan laughed, for what I think was the first time. Did his handholding start a thaw on that frozen exterior of his?
McMillan turned to me suddenly, proposing a thought. “Let’s pool our resources. You tell me what you know and I will let you in on a few things.”
“Your offer sounds great, but it doesn’t seem quite equal.”
“I can’t let out too much—my job, you know. You’ve got to be discreet with every piece of information I give you,” he whispered while giving my hand another quick squeeze.
I smiled back at McMillan. “Yes, but why let us in at all? You don’t even know us.”
“Oh yes I do. I’ve gone through the case files on some of the escapades you, Monette, and Michael have been involved in. You have quite an interesting life, Robert. Murder in Provincetown, Berlin, and Palm Springs.”
“I like to keep busy. Weird, huh? I’m a white bread Midwesterner who should come no closer to a real murder than Laura Bush to a gay-pride parade. But there it is. I blame it on an evil vortex that I picked up on a trip to Sedona, Arizona, years ago.”
