by David Stukas
Another flash of discovery between the two of us.
“Drake, could you tell us what role he had in Cirque?” Monette said, beaming like she was on the cusp of a great discovery.
“He was a contortionist. You see, he was Asian and had a very small frame. He was, like five-feet-four or something like that. He could climb up poles with just his hands, pulling his body up without even using his feet. And he could fit inside tiny boxes they used in the act, which is unusual for a man since women are usually contortionists. It has something to do with the way the female body is constructed.”
Monette was frothing over with excitement. I wasn’t as hot on the trail as she was, but I could sense the general direction her logic was taking her.
“Drake,” she continued, “do you know if John is still with this guy?”
“His name’s Michael. Michael Lau. Yes, I’m sure he is. You don’t see a lot of them together. Michael stays in the background because he was fired from Cirque for not showing up for work ... he trained and trained with the circus, then turned into a big no-show. I guess once he became boyfriends with John, he no longer had to work. John, if you didn’t know it, is stinking rich.”
“We did some research on John,” I added. “He’s quite the adventurer, isn’t he?”
“That was part of what put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship—besides Michael Lau, that is.”
“And how was that?” Monette inquired.
“Oh God, he was always off with his buddies, whitewater rafting some river in Chile, kayaking some lake in Argentina, spelunking some cave in Hawaii,” Drake reported.
“And you didn’t want to join him on his outings, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, Robert, I could care less about John or being outdoors. It didn’t matter anyway since he dissuaded me from accompanying him and his buddies.”
“His buddies?” Monette asked in surprise.
“Oh, like I was cuckolded or something? No, I don’t ever think he had sex with these guys, although I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”
“Why was that?” I asked.
“Oh, they were ex-cops, mountaineers, real athletic guys.”
“I see,” Monette said through a haze of deep thought. “Drake, I have one last question for you, and I need an accurate answer, so think very carefully and if you’re not sure, call me back when you have the answer.”
Drake looked amused, as if the answer to a single, simple question would be so earth-shaking.
“Yeah, go ahead,” he answered with a slightly nervous chuckle.
“Where was John on December seventh, 2002?”
“Oh, that’s easy. We were in Amsterdam for our anniversary. . . an anniversary I will never forget—our last.”
“And why is that?” Monette asked.
“Because he got me drunk and I slept the whole night. Then after we got back to the States a week later, he broke up with me. Some anniversary, huh?”
Monette shook her head in sympathy. “Yeah, some anniversary.”
We finished our lunch hurriedly, paid the bill, and thanked Drake graciously over and over. Monette grabbed my arm and dragged me to the street curb, furiously flagged down a cab, and pulled me inside.
“We’ve got work to do,” she said breathlessly, as if there wasn’t a moment to lose. “We’ll go to Michael’s apartment and I’ll spill everything. Then we need to call McMillan and tell him everything.”
I sat staring out at the buildings rushing by while Monette bit her lip and tapped her hand nervously on the cab’s window ledge. We arrived at Michael’s apartment, walked right past the sleeping doorman, and were whisked up the elevator, where Monette practically tugged me down the hall and broke down Michael’s apartment door in excitement.
“We need to look at the CD again. Let’s go down to the computer room!” she said, barging through the door and surprising a naked Michael in mid-jerk, webcamming with another naked guy on the plasma screen in front of him.
“Michael, could you leave us, please! This is an emergency!” she said, pushing him out the door of his own room and throwing a T-shirt at him that he’d left behind in the rush, inscribed with the caption, IF I WANT YOUR OPINION, I’LL TAKE MY DICK OUT OF YOUR MOUTH AND ASK YOU.
I could hear Michael grab something out of a hall closet, followed by a loud slam of his apartment door, indicating he had gone out in a rage.
Monette was on a mission. Her fingers pecked on the keyboard like a frantic chicken and brought up the infamous photo CD.
“So I suppose you’re going to tell me what this is all about?”
“All in good time, my pretty, all in good time,” she shot out of the corner of her mouth as she tapped away.
“There! See!”
“Yeah, it’s a picture of John Bekkman having a fantasy in the living room of his apartment. I don’t see what’s so important about it.”
“Remember what you said about some sinister organization in the background?”
“Yes,” I said, peering at the photo. “I don’t see anything in the background that looks sinister.” I squinted at the walls and furniture, trying like the dickens to see a hidden swastika, hammer and sickle, or even a freemason’s logo. “All I see are a bunch of paintings.”
Monette put her finger on her nose while pointing another at me; her sign for “on the nose, buddy boy.”
“Whaaat?!” I stammered. “The guy collects art and donates it to museums. I don’t see what’s so special about that.”
“That painting you see there on the wall,” she said, pointing to a Van Gogh, “was one of two pictures stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam during the early morning hours on December seventh, 2002.”
My mouth opened but no sound came out of it. I remained silent while the enormity of the thought sank in.
“OH SHIT!” I eventually managed to eke out.
“Oh shit is right,” Monette said, the tone in her voice echoing the heavy atmosphere that descended over the room. We were up against a conspiracy that involved dollars that made Eric’s pitiful blackmail scheme look like eating a few grapes at the local Safeway without paying for them.
“But I didn’t see the painting when we visited John ... come to think of it,” I said.
“You’re right. Neither did I—at first. Remember when I commented that the wall had been painted recently because it smelled of paint. In the photo here, the wall behind the painting is a vivid yellow, like in Van Gogh’s masterpiece. But when he put up a Kandinsky in its place, he had the wall painted red to show the work off to its best.”
The light was dawning on me finally.
“So when John had Cody photograph him in a sexual scene in his apartment, he was probably so in the heat of passion that he forgot about the painting. Plus, he was blindfolded at the time, so he wasn’t thinking. Afterwards, he either realized that he had made a big mistake or Eric gave him a sample of the photos—it doesn’t matter since the cat was just about out of the bag. The thing was, if John were able to contain the number of people who viewed the CD, he had the hope that no one would notice the stolen artwork on his walls. And to be truthful, few people would.”
“I got you so far, Monette, but what made you start thinking that John was our man?”
“Robert, it was so simple. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get into your apartment. Clue one: a very elaborate break-in. Clue number two: Once we discovered that someone shimmied down between two walls—probably to keep the number of burglars to a minimum because of the reporters—I suspected that John was involved. After all, John was an adventurer, he had a taste for dangerous sports, like kayaking, skydiving, and—”
“Mountain climbing,” I said, finishing Monette’s thought. “Of course, how could I have been so stupid?!”
“You see what I meant about the little clues being important. If you examined how someone broke into your apartment, it could tell you far more than why they did it.”
“Okay, her
e’s something that’s been bugging me: How did my idea of a sinister organization get you thinking about John? Did my comment get you thinking about a ring of art thieves?”
“No, it wasn’t that at all. The only word that made me think of looking at the pictures more intensely wasn’t your idea of a sinister organization in the background—just the word background. You see, I know the blackmailees had a lot at stake, but not enough to kill two people and set their target on a third, fourth, and maybe more. I felt that there was something we couldn’t see in the photos that merited going on a killing spree, so I sat down and started looking at everything item by item, what was in the room, what was visible outside windows, what people were wearing, who was doing what, and when I saw the artwork in various apartments, I started thinking. Was some of it stolen? Was some of it forged? So I looked up each piece on the Internet, and before long, eureka!”
“Well, I, for one, think we should get on the phone to McMillan and let him know we’ve cracked the case.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Monette echoed.
“You talk to him, Monette, since you figured everything out.”
So we got McMillan on the phone and Monette gave a breathless account of how she’d unraveled the case of the Flying Personal Trainers. McMillan asked all kinds of questions: How did we find out about John Bekkman’s ex-boyfriend, how did we know of John’s whereabouts the day of the break-in at the Van Gogh Museum, and how did we figure out how John or an accomplice entered Robert’s apartment without leaving any traces?
McMillan must have complimented Monette and I one hundred times, because Monette kept saying “thank you” or “we’re flattered” or “it wasn’t anything two insanely intelligent geniuses couldn’t do.”
“Yes, well, thank you, Detective. I think that we’d be flattered and glad to have a celebratory dinner,” Monette said into the phone. “Champagne, oh, Robert and I have never had enough, but I’m warning you,” she laughed, “you’d better get our statements before we have that magnum of champagne! Okay, fine, Robert and I aren’t doing anything else the rest of the day. Great, see you downstairs in one hour.”
Monette hung up the phone and was absolutely glowing.
“So I take it he wants us to make some statements at the station, then he’s taking us out to dinner?”
“You got it. He said he’s a little embarrassed that he missed such obvious clues, but I told him that we wouldn’t tell his department that we solved the case since it would probably mean a promotion. He’s going to be indebted to you for this, Robert.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“What do you mean?”
“It complicates the situation, Monette.”
“What, are you having feelings about McMillan?”
“I don’t know. I can’t seem to separate whether I’m interested in him because he’s interested in me, or whether it’s the real thing. Marc is still very much in the picture, Monette. It was just so much easier when I only had one guy to worry about. Now I’ve got two to choose between.”
“Robert, I would kill to be in your position. The only thing I have to choose between is my vibrators. Hmm, the Tornado or Earth Mover?” she said, weighing the aforementioned devices in her hands like scales of pleasure. “Robert, I have tried to stay out of your situation because I’m sure you will make the right decision, but I will give you one piece of advice.”
“And that is?”
“Just let things play out. Sometimes, you don’t have to make the decision—the decision is often made for you. Just give it time and enjoy yourself. Remember, life is not a dress rehearsal.”
I walked up to her and gave her a hug that lasted a long, long time. Just then, we heard Michael’s key in the door. Being mechanically inept, it took Michael close to a minute of struggling, rattling of keys, followed by a volley of cussing before he was able to open the two locks protecting him from the outside world.
Monette released her hug on me, then quickly relayed a few words of caution from McMillan. “He asked us not to tell anyone about solving the case just yet. He’s got to get a court order to put a wiretap on Bekkman—he wants to get the whole gang in one fell swoop. So not a word to anyone, especially big-mouth Michael.”
“I promise, Monette.”
“One other thing, Robert. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but McMillan said he had an important question to ask you tonight.”
Marriage. I knew it! He was going to force me into a decision tonight.
“Are you two finished looking at your dirty pictures?” Michael said when he entered his apartment, taking off his expensive leather jacket and heaving it across the room in a high arc. It landed carelessly on the floor, a crumpled piece of two-thousand-dollar animal hide that would be given away the moment the new fall collections of menswear hit the racks at Barney’s.
“Yes, we’re finished. We’re going out to dinner tonight with Detective McMillan to discuss the details of the case,” I blurted out, trying to make our night sound as boring as I could. I didn’t want Michael tagging along on this, of all nights. “Just routine stuff.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Michael said sarcastically.
“Michael, I would think that dinner with a real cop would be something you would dive at,” I slid in.
“See, that’s the thing that separates you from me, Robert. I wouldn’t waste time with dinner. I’d get him in the sack right away, and I’d tell him to bring his gun, leave his leather search gloves on, and we could spend the evening doing some cavity searches. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get ready for my date,” Michael said as he sauntered down the hall to his bedroom, George Clooney, Bluebeard the Pirate, and Mae West all rolled into one.
“That’s Michael for you,” I remarked to Monette. “A Ruger .357 magnum in his pants and it’s always loaded.”
We had a drink, talked a little, then got our coats on to go out to dinner.
“Wait,” Michael said, appearing out of nowhere. “I’ll ride down with you two.”
We made Michael turn on the alarm and lock both locks, then we got into the elevator and descended down to the lobby, where the doorman was reading a magazine, barely looking up to see us leave the building. We could’ve been carrying out a television set and a stereo and rolling a rack of fur coats and leather jackets and the doorman wouldn’t have noticed a thing.
McMillan was waiting at the curb for Monette and me. Michael was going to take off on his date without even acknowledging the detective, but I grabbed hold of his jacket and at least made him say hi to Luke.
“Michael Stark, this is Luke McMillan,” I said proudly.
“Nice to meet you, Detective ... hey, I remember you ... from a long time ago.”
“I don’t see when,” McMillan said through the open passenger-side window.
“Yes, we met before!” Michael said adamantly.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. It was too good to be true. Here is a man who’s madly in love with me and I find out the night he’s going to pop the question that Michael has already slept with him.
“No, remember when that fucking creep-of-a-boyfriend of mine stole my Matisse and made off with it? You came to my apartment and snooped around, remember?”
I was somewhat relieved, but it still didn’t mean that Michael hadn’t porked the guy.
“Michael,” I said, suddenly remembering the details of that incident, “that wasn’t McMillan. The detective’s name was Rickles.”
Michael, who couldn’t remember a man’s name five minutes after he’d had his way with him, kept on, determined to wreck my budding relationship with Luke.
“I wasn’t talking about Rickles. I remember you were a cop working under Rickles in that special forces department that deals with artworks theft.”
“I don’t remember that, Michael. I handle over two hundred cases a year. It’s all a haze in my head.”
“I’m sure it was you!” Michael continued. “I tried to cruise you
, but you weren’t interested because you were trying to do your job. Such a shame. All work and no play ...” Michael trailed off, cruising my potential new boyfriend right in front of my face. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Uh, Michael, we’ve got to go now. Have fun on your date!” I said, pushing Michael down the sidewalk and away from the car.
“And you have fun on yours,” Michael responded, the words slithering out of his mouth and snaking up the detective’s pant leg.
“Sorry,” I apologized to McMillan as we got into the squad car, me getting in the front and Monette into the back. “Michael will come on to anyone,” I said, dealing McMillan an unintentional insult. “I, I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
McMillan laughed, pushing his metal clipboard notebook aside so I could sit closer to him. The damn thing was so big, I couldn’t fit it on the other side of me, so I held it in my lap, caressing the official equipment in my sweaty hands. He eased the car into traffic and pointed the car in the direction of his offices downtown.
“Don’t worry about Michael, Robert,” he said. “I get cruised by all kinds of people in my job. Men, women, even teenage daughters. It must be the badge or something. Or the uniform.”
“But you don’t wear a uniform anymore,” I replied. “Although I would like to see you in one ... someday.”
“Robert, I’ll pull it out and put it on just for you,” he said, laying a hand on my leg.
His hand made my leg warm where he touched me. His touch also caused another reaction, but I won’t go into that for now. You get the idea. Since Monette was in the backseat, I didn’t want things to get smutty in front of her. She was very silent, so I tried to get her involved in the conversation. I turned around and spoke to her through the wire grid that separated me from her.
“You look like a criminal back there, Monette,” I joked.
“Don’t joke. This isn’t my first time in the backseat of one of these,” she admitted.
“Monette! You were arrested once? You never told me that!”
“It happened before I knew you, Robert. I was protesting the building of some tract home development on a frog breeding ground.”
