Biceps Of Death

by David Stukas

“Frankly, no. I just wish you could tell me where I can get some of that currency.”

  “Robert, just because you told off that old coot doesn’t mean you’re going to get me to vote for the Democrats.”

  “Michael, your voting is something I will never understand. Why do you do it?”

  “I vote with my pocketbook. The Republicans are the party of the rich. I’m rich, so I vote for it.”

  “You vote to protect your money?” I asked, aghast.

  “Of course, what other reason would there be for voting Republican? Their hypocritical moralizing and social policies are atrocious.”

  “Michael, you have an army of tax lawyers and accountants that help you avoid ever having to pay a penny in taxes. What about all the conservative judges the Republicans are getting into federal seats? Laws prohibiting gay discrimination will take giant steps backward. And gay marriage will never be approved!”

  “For crying out loud, Robert! What gay man in his right mind would want to get married?” Michael retorted with horror. “The whole point of being gay is that you can sleep with anyone you want, anytime. Why are these politically correct gays always trying to force us into adopting the hetero lifestyle and sell us the virtues of living in cute little bungalows with picket fences and monogamous relationships? I like being able to sleep around and sample different men. Why are people always trying to pee on my parade?”

  Overlooking Michael’s unfortunate and pathetic metaphor, you could now guess that Michael’s political leanings were driven by the two great forces in his life: his libido and his checkbook. Traditional political labels didn’t apply here. Michael was what you would call a conservative slut. Because of his beliefs, he was accustomed to offending people in some of the most egregious instances, which, personally, I think he enjoyed. It was the power thing. He liked knowing that he could get a rise out of people and it didn’t matter that it sometimes meant occasional hardships for him. For instance, the tires on his Hummer were routinely slashed by eco-terrorists, members of animal rights groups routinely hurled drinks and insults in his face because of the exotic and endangered animal skins that were turned into elegant and expensive footwear on his behalf, and neighbors on Fire Island never forgave him for the time he almost swamped one of the ferries full of queens when he raced past it in a rented yacht at full speed in order to be first into the dock on a Friday night. Let them eat cake.

  “Could we take a cab, Robert? We’ve done enough walking.”

  “Michael, it’s, like, ten blocks to your apartment. Plus remember, we still don’t have any money.”

  “But—”

  “Walk, Michael. Remember how it works? One foot in front of the other until you get to where you’re going.”

  Michael grumbled and groaned, but gave in reluctantly.

  The pedestrian walk light had just come on for us and we were preparing to cross the street when a car came around the corner with such ferocity that there was little doubt of its intention: The driver meant to run us down. But being seasoned New Yorkers, we waited that extra millisecond, knowing that running stoplights was a popular local sport, especially at the beginning of rush hour. It all happened so quickly that we didn’t have time to be scared or even shocked—it just happened. The one thing I did take note of, however, was that the vehicle was not a blue van.

  “That guy tried to kill me!” Michael exclaimed.

  Me. Kill me. A narcissist to the end.

  “Michael, I think he was out to get the both of us,” I reminded him.

  “Oh no he wasn’t. He was after me. Fuck! I wish I hadn’t sent those e-mails ...”

  Something was rotten in the state of Denmark and it wasn’t their stinky cheeses.

  “Michael, what have you done?!” I demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, you did! You thought that car was meant for you. Why?”

  “Well ...” Michael said, hastily preparing a story in his feeble brain. You could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Clink, clink, clank, clunk.

  “Michael!” I shouted.

  “Oh Robert, you know how I am. I mean, me being kind of opinionated—I make enemies easily.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Well, people try to kill me all the time, so when those two incidents happened the other day, I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “What incidents?”

  “A car tried to run me down. Twice. I guess that’s why I hesitated in crossing the street just a few minutes ago.”

  “I noticed that. I also noticed that you let me go into the street just slightly ahead of you.”

  Michael reached over and playfully rubbed my head. “Aw, my trusty little human shield.”

  “Thanks for the flattery, Michael, but you haven’t told me what you did to deserve this?”

  “Will you look at that jacket!” Michael exclaimed about a leather coat in a storefront window.

  “Michael!”

  “Oh so what, so I made a copy of your CD and called the guys on it and asked for some money in exchange for the pictures.”

  Now I was shocked.

  “Michael, how did you get a copy of those photos? I never downloaded the pictures to your computer.”

  “My computer recorded the keystrokes you used to get to your mailbox, and I just repeated them.”

  “Keystrokes?”

  “Yes, remember that hot guy who used to clean my apartment?”

  “Jake? The one who was arrested for wire fraud and grand larceny?”

  “Yeah, him. I know he was using my computer to scam people, so I had some techie nerd install a program that records every keystroke someone makes, so later I could figure out what he was up to.”

  “So you followed my trail, downloaded my photos, and then used them behind my back to make money because you can’t control your spending?”

  “That’s about it. Boy, you are good.”

  “Michael, if I didn’t need a place to stay, I would have you drawn and quartered right in front of me for what you just did.”

  No words were exchanged between us for the next block or two, then I decided that Michael was Michael. It was foolish of me to expect anything else from him. The problem was that you couldn’t anticipate how dastardly he could be. Or how stupid. Uh-oh.

  “Michael, when you asked for money from these guys on the CD, you didn’t give them your phone number or address, did you?”

  “What kind of idiot do you think I am? My phone number—no.”

  “You didn’t mention your address! You didn’t!”

  “How were they supposed to deliver the money to me? Oh, stop worrying, Robert. I live in a doorman building.”

  “Ferguson? He couldn’t stop Stephen Hawking from getting past the front door.”

  “Oh, so what. You know what kind of security system I have in my apartment. Plus, the elevator doesn’t stop at my floor unless you have a key.”

  True, Michael’s apartment was armed with sophisticated burglar detection equipment that could sense a gnat crawling along a picture frame, but the catch was that you had to turn on the system in order for it to work.

  We finally made it to Michael’s building; passed Ferguson, who was staring blindly into space as Michael and I walked through the front doors (Michael was pissed that we had to open the doors ourselves); got into the elevator; and rode up to his apartment, where the doors opened on his floor, no key necessary. I made Michael promise to use the key from now on and to use the alarm system even when he was in the apartment.

  I got on the phone and called Monette at her office, but she had already left for the day. I made Michael give me the copy of the CD he had downloaded and erased it. Then I used a hard drive scrubber to make sure what was erased stayed erased, then went on Michael’s computer, erased the keystroke recording software, and changed the passwords on my mailbox.

  By the time I’d finished, Monette called back. I told her about our encounter with George Sheffield in hi
s limo and about Michael’s pathetically amateurish attempt at blackmail. She, it turned out, had some news for me.

  Allen Firstborn had finally returned a call to her and wanted to meet us tomorrow in a church on Lexington Avenue, where he’d be praying. Oh brother, I thought. Monette also said she had done some very heavy thinking about my predicament and something was not adding up, at least when viewed from the perspective that we had. Like thunder in the distance before the storm, I could tell something was going to happen. She was on to something, even though I couldn’t quite see what it was.

  I then called Marc in Palm Springs.

  “So someone’s tried to run you over twice, your apartment had been broken into umpteen times, you have a police detective who’s got the hots for you, and you don’t think I need to come to New York?”

  “I can take care of myself, Marc. Really I can,” I protested.

  “Of course you can, and you’ve done such a great job already. Listen, something doesn’t add up in this whole matter. It seems like it’s one thing being desperate enough to break into someone’s apartment to steal an incriminating CD, but it’s far different to murder two people. I think there’s something behind this that isn’t clear yet.”

  “Like what?”

  “I know! Maybe there’s a ring of hustlers all connected by some organization of personal trainers. Maybe Gold’s Gym is really Golddigger’s Gym.”

  “You know, Marc, as outrageous as that sounds, you might be on to something,” I agreed. “Killing two bodybuilders would be nothing to keep a huge prostitution ring secret.”

  “I don’t know, Robert. There’s just something not right about this. I lay there in bed last night thinking about what it is that bothers me. But believe me, I will solve this because I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Awww, I thought. I felt all tingly inside. Then he proceeded to make me feel all horny inside, the details of which I will spare you, dear reader.

  “Before I hang up, Robert, I just wanted to let you know how proud I am of you.”

  Another awww.

  “For my bravery?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “For my amazing intellect?”

  “No.

  “For what then?” I asked.

  “Your fame.”

  I was completely confused. “My fame?”

  “Yes, you’re the only boyfriend I’ve ever had whose balls have been seen the world over.”

  15

  I’ll Pray for You, Your Assholiness

  We met Allen in the Park Avenue Baptist Church of the Living Waters of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was really on Lexington Avenue. We entered the church and wandered up the aisle like the two heathens we were and approached Allen Firstborn, who was praying like a madman (and looking out the corner of his eye to see if we were watching how hard he was praying).

  “Allen, I’m Monette and this is Robert.”

  He shook his head violently to let us know he was coming out of a trance.

  “Sorry, my fellow brethren. When I’m talking to God, I leave my body. It’s so difficult to come back to this sinful earth.”

  Monette and I both looked at each other.

  “Mr. Firstborn, does that ever work on anybody?” was Monette’s slap-in-the-face retort, which I think was fair. After all, he started it.

  “Monette, I’m not sure what you are getting at. So what can this Lord’s servant do for you?”

  “Well, for a start, you can tell us about these photos of you with a hose stuck up your bum.”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re getting at,” Allen responded with a great, big fake smile on his face.

  “Don’t tell me you were going to Cody Walker for therapeutic high colonics. From what we’d found out, you’d been playing doctor with Cody for some time.”

  There was a flood of crocodile tears.

  “It started when I was a little child in God’s eyes. My dear, sweet mother, God rest her precious soul in the arms of our most precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, gave me enemas to flush the demons from my bowels.”

  Monette was thunderstruck. “What was wrong with fiber?”

  “The Bible says to honor your father and your mother,” Allen admonished us.

  “When they earn it,” Monette responded dryly. “Allen, you are evading my questions completely, giving me some drivel about your sainted mother. We’re sure that your visits to Cody Walker won’t be looked at favorably by your ministry.”

  “Miss ...” Allen began with a smile on his face that belied the fact that this guy was probably the undiscovered son of Hitler.

  “O’Reilley,” Monette supplied.

  “O’Reilley. I met Cody Walker when he was a bullrider in Oklahoma City. When I found out he was here in the Big Apple, I was overjoyed at finding him after so many years. My visits to him were purely related to my ministry. I liked to think of Cody as the lost sheep in the parable told by our Lord. My only interests in him were to guide him back to the way of the righteous.”

  “Like you, since you’re such a terrific role model,” Monette cracked,

  Both Monette and I were flabbergasted. Never since Nixon publicly declared on national television that he was not a crook had such a blatant crock of shit been served up for public consumption. It was clear that Allen had already planned his story and rehearsed it carefully, fearing that he would have to repeat it to the press. Allen was one of those people who felt that if you repeated a lie often enough, people would eventually believe it. Allen should have been working for the Bush Administration.

  Monette wasn’t buying any of it.

  “Mr. Firstborn, when Eric Bogert approached you for money in exchange for the photos of you and Cody—”

  “Miss Monette, I was never approached by anyone for money in exchange for the return of any photographs of me. My feeling is that Cody was possessed by the Devil and he doctored those pictures so that it would look like me. You see, I tried repeatedly to turn Cody toward the light of Jesus, but he wouldn’t stop in his attempts to seduce me. When I repulsed his advances, he turned on me. Cody probably knew that because of irritable bowel syndrome—from which I suffer—I had to undergo frequent enemas administered by my mother and he took advantage of my unfortunate condition with the help of some computer software like Photoshop.”

  This guy was endless. The guy had also done enough homework to conjure up an explanation for the photos that might be plausible to members of his ministry, the bulk of which no doubt regularly read the supermarket tabloids and believed that a hunter in Mississippi had mistakenly shot down a real angel from heaven, that former President Clinton had given birth to a secret alien baby while in office, and that Nostradamus had predicted Viagra.

  Monette tried again, although I could see that it was useless.

  “Allen, the night Eric Bogert was pushed to his death, you told police that you were praying in your palatial apartment.”

  “Miss O’Reilley, yes, I was praying. For world peace, and that our nation should turn back from its sinful ways and lead us back to the Christian roots that made our nation great.”

  I was going to ask Allen if he meant slavery, but thought it better not to get in a pointless argument with a man who had raised denial to an art form. I had wanted for years to advance my argument to a Bible thumper that if Noah collected two of each animal to board his ark, then does that mean that he traveled to the caves of Kentucky to rescue the blind cave-fish, which exists only there in the entire world, or how could Jonah have been swallowed by a whale, since the only whales that are not plankton feeders and could even open their mouths big enough to scarf down a Biblical figure, the sperm and the orca, are not native to the Middle East region ... but I held my tongue.

  “Was there no one with you,” Monetta ventured on, “who could testify that you were praying all night and never left your apartment?”

  “No, Miss O’Reilley, there was no one with me, except Jesus, who will be my witness.”
>
  Monette smirked at Allen. “So you were alone. Fine. I don’t think we’ll need to call Jesus in for questioning.”

  Allen was taken aback so much, that I actually saw him pull back physically in response to Monette’s very mild joke. Believe me, she was capable of better.

  “Shame on you, woman, for making jest of our Lord! Blasphemy like that will bring down fire and brimstone on the heads of your kind!” Allen was now on his feet, shouting, “An abomination in front of the Lord!”

  Although Allen didn’t say the L word, it was clear that he meant Lesbian with a capital L. This was the final straw for Monette, who exploded like Krakatoa.

  “Mr. Firstborn, you and your whole goddamn church can go fuck yourselves!” Monette shouted as she grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the church. “I’d make it a point to buy the New York Post for the next few days because as soon as we retrieve those photos from Robert’s apartment, your ass is going to be on the cover!” she added. “Literally!”

  Once we were out of the church and walking down the street, I could sense that Monette had calmed down enough for me to speak to her.

  “Fucking righteous asshole. We’ve got pictures of Allen with more medical instruments inserted inside him than Liz Taylor during a liposuction operation and yet I’m the bad girl!”

  “Well, you did shout goddamn and fuck in church!” I said, bursting into laughter.

  Monette joined me. It was sad, but too funny.

  “You know, Robert, you can’t take life too seriously or it’ll get to you and you’ll end up in a fetal position pissing on yourself,” Monette proclaimed.

  “No truer words have ever been spoken, Monette.”

  Monette was quiet for a moment, then spoke.

  “You know what we need, Robert?”

  “Hip-high waders the next time we talk to Allen Firstborn?”

  “That too,” Monette conceded. “No, I think we need to take a trip back to your apartment. There are a lot of things that you’ve told me that disturb me.”

  “The rent?”

  “That’s true. You’re getting hosed for such a dump.”

  “Yes, well, it wouldn’t be such a dump if people didn’t help themselves to my place when it suited them.”