The clock got out of hand and daylight chased after it. I’m grabbing forty winks over my desk with my noggin resting on crossed arms. I’m jolted awake. In the dark an eerie feeling seizes my spine. 

I look up just as the office door creaks, then swings open. A shaft of hallway light illuminates a sleek torso, fitted into a silvery sheath like a piece snug in its holster. Ivory stiletto heels gleam in the light like pearl handles. The garish light casts a long shadow that moves closer, evolving into a feminine shape. A round of hip rotates into place with every sensual step.
I flick on the desk lamp. My visitor advances with a resolute stride, her head at a belligerent tilt. She speaks—not in your typical sentences, but in sharp, armor-piercing bursts.

“You the private eye?”

“Slim O. Wittz, Private Investigations. Neat, Complete and Discreet, at your service, ma’am.” I try to smile, but it comes across more like a grimace.   

“Got a case?”

Her wise-ass reading of my weak professional situation annoys me, so I answer, “No, I don’t have a case of the measles or flu.” 

“You know what I mean.”

“I’ve got a few cases,” I lie.

Her dark angry eyes aim down on me from a round Asian face, barreled in by a perfect cap of jet-black hair. No makeup, which gives her a sincere no-nonsense appeal. “Got one now,” she fires at me while slipping into my client chair.

“I’ll have to check my day book, ma’am, and see if I can fit you into my busy schedule.”

“No need,” she shoots back. Then, after reloading , “You will take my case.”

I’m thinking this dame don’t take no for an answer, so I stop with the dumb busy charade and tell her, “I get two-hundred smackers a day plus expenses.”

“Agreed.” She pops just a crack of a smile.

“Now then, how can I help you, Miss uh…?”

“Cheung, Bunny Cheung. It’s about my brother, Lee.”

“And what about your brother, Miss Cheung?”

 “He’s dead. They found him this morning with 210 pounds of barbell across his windpipe. Strangled or crushed, I don’t know which. They said it was an accident—he shouldn’t have been pushing iron without someone spotting for him. The police agreed quickly, too quickly.”

“Who are the they you mentioned and where did this take place?” I ask.

“Sam Briar, one of the so-called trainers at Bold’s Gymnasium. He found Lee when he opened the place at 5:45 this morning, The police think it must have happened some time last evening.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t an accident, Miss Cheung?”

“My friends call me Bunny, Mr. Slim.”

“Sure, Bunny.”

“Lee has been using Bold’s for years and knows all the rules. First, he wouldn’t have been pushing iron without a spotter. Second, a week ago he bragged to me that he’d reached 170  pounds. Two-ten, that’s way too big a leap in one week.”

“What makes everyone so sure he didn’t have a spotter?”

“They all said so.” Her voice softens, and a lone tear hangs from feathery lashes. She makes no move to wipe it away, and that ploy bugs me, pulling the helpless damsel thing. But I do have to agree with her about too much of a barbell weight jump, and I wonder why the police eliminated the possibility of murder so quickly. Something smells bad here and it ain’t all gym sweat. I’m convinced enough that I’ll have to go there and sniff around some for myself. I get her to put her Jane Henry on my standard contract and we shake hands. She gives me the address of the gym, and I tell her I’ll start first thing in the morning.
 
Morning arrives with all the neck cricks and backaches from sleeping on the office Castro Convertible. You see, I’m saving on rent these days and living where I work. I don’t need a nerve-jangling alarm clock, because the Caf? Patisserie on the ground floor sends a waft of heaven to my second floor office at precisely six a.m. every morning.

Vo, my secretary, picks up blueberry muffins and cheese Danish there. Her real name is Voluptuous, but if I call her that, she starts throwing things at me. “Just Vo!” is the way she puts it, even though the doll does fit that name to a tee. She’s one-quarter secretary, three-quarters lawyer and a hundred percent smart. Vo speaks legalese all the time now. That’s because the dame goes to law school classes three nights a week. It’s like having a built-in councilor on my staff. Officially, she doesn’t do coffee, windows or any of those menial tasks, but she breaks the coffee rule when we have breakfast each morning.

I’ve got a clean shave and a fresh shirt on by the time Vo shows up at eight. I push some paperwork aside so she can set breakfast down on a corner of my desk.

“We’ve got a case, girl,” I announce proudly, raising my extra-large Styrofoam coffee cup to touch hers. A paying case—I start this morning.” She’s pleased, as this means she’ll have a paycheck this month. By the time I finish explaining the case, there’s nothing left but crumbs, which I brush into my palm and toss back into my mouth. I take the last swig of joe, swish it around in my mouth and swallow. I’m in a good mood, so I kiss the top of Vo’s head quickly and move toward the door.

“Try that again, Mr. Slim O. Wittz and I’ll start harassment proceedings.”

I have to turn back to face her to see that she’s kidding me. She’s grinning from dimple to dimple.
  
I keep my car in a lot two blocks from the office. Well, that’s not exactly right. In reality, Fish-Face Eddie keeps my ’92 Buick Regal hostage two blocks from the office. That’s because I still owe the larcenous pit bull three months back rent. He enforces the holdout with an eighteen-inch tire iron and a nasty grin that breaks into a sneer. Vo worked out an arrangement with this gonif whereby I get to rent back my own car at five dollars an hour with the first hour paid in advance. It’s still cheaper than a taxi. Four wrinkled ones and some assorted change later that includes ten pennies, I get behind the wheel. The driver’s side door handle is busted. Trying to keep the door shut with my elbow hanging out the open window is something of an art. So I loop the front and rear door handles together with a granddaddy of a rubber band. All set, I turn the key. After some choice words coaxing the engine to turn over, I drive across town to one of the newer strip malls and park in front of Bold’s Gym on Kennedy Avenue. My first reconnoitering tells me this sweat factory occupies three storefronts in the mall.      
 
As soon as I let go of the noiseless glass door to Bold’s Gym, I see a fetching blonde receptionist busy at her desk I’m thinking she isn’t paying attention to me, so I try slipping past into the gym itself.

“Just one minute, buster,” she calls out like a booming fishmonger. She doesn’t look so cute anymore. “Let’s see your membership card.”

“I don’t have one. I just wanted to speak to a friend of mine in there.”

“Sorry, the gym is for members only. It’s that privacy thing, you know.”

“How do I go about becoming a member?” I ask in a somewhat timid voice.

“You’ll have to fill out one of these forms and then be interviewed by one of the trainers,” she declares in a less imposing tone, sweetness added, too.

I take the form to a chair with a built-in desk and hastily scribble the first thing that comes into my noggin in each of the blocks. I use a phony name, address and cell phone number. Roughly ten minutes later she takes the form back and scans it. “And how do you want to pay, Mr. Johnson?”

“You can bill me monthly at that address.” Good luck on that, I tell myself.

Suddenly, a smile dances across her face. She picks up the phone and stabs a few buttons on the base. “Hey Charlie. We got a new customer out here who needs to be interviewed. Andy’s available? Wait! The customer’s trying to get my attention.”

I stop my wild waving to tell her a friend of mine recommended Sam Briar. “Is there any chance I might have my interview with Sam?” She nods and passes my request along to Charlie. A minute or two pass, and I receive a thumbs up.

With my eyeballs glued to a pair of lovely gams and a caboose that snaps to and fro, I follow the blonde through the gym to a nearby office. I always tail a good-looking dame that way. Yeah, it’s one of those expertises you pick up as a private eye. A pirouette later, she’s gone.

A shirtless Sam in gym shorts rises from his swivel chair and greets me with a pile-driving handshake and loudness fit for the hearing-impaired. “Hi, Philip Johnson. (That’s my new moniker.) Welcome to Bold’s Gym.” He’s a six-foot-three Adonis with biceps the size of prize hams and metallic-looking abs.

We sit while he peruses my application. Then he asks me to stand up while he examines all my excessive pudginess. Poking here and pinching there, he asks who it was that recommended him.

“Lee Cheung,” I tell him just as he reaches my spare tire. “Ow, that hurts. Take it easy,” I complain.

He picks up my application again like he’s studying it, stalling for time. “How do you know Lee Cheung?” he finally asks.

“I used to date his sister, Bunny Cheung.”   

He raises one bushy eyebrow. “You mean Dragon Lady?”

“Not when you get to know her. She’s really sweet.” I have this policy of defending all my clients.

“You’re too damned old and fat for the looks of her.”

“Hey!” I bark. “You gonna stand there and insult me or you gonna help me build some muscle?”

“Sorry about that. All the excitement here yesterday, I haven’t gotten over it. How tall are you and how much do you weigh?”

“Five-eleven, two-twenty-three,” I respond, shaving the weight by twenty pounds and boosting the height by an inch. He jots down the figures. “What kind of excitement are you talking about?” I ask.

“You mean you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“About Lee Cheung, one of our clients” Sam says, as if I’m the world’s biggest dummy.

“What about him?”

“He’s dead. Poor guy dropped a barbell on himself and suffocated. We had the medics and the police here most of the day. Quite a commotion—I went home with a gigantic headache.”

“Good grief,” I exclaim, putting on my best surprise mask. “I gotta call Bunny as soon as I leave here. She must be a total mess over this.”

“Yeah, she is. I talked to her this morning to offer my sincere condolences.”

“When did the accident occur?”

“Must have been night before last, just before closing,” Sam replies. “Ten-thirty maybe.”

“Wow! And no one discovered him until the next morning?”

“I was the first one in, so I found him. Guess we unknowingly locked him in the building.”

“We?” I ask.

“Yeah, Charlie Hess, the manager, and Andy Pike and myself. Charlie went around and turned out the lights, and we all left together at eleven as usual. As far as I knew, everyone else had left at ten forty-five.”

Sam Briar gives me another once-over. I think for sure I’ve asked too many questions and blown my cover. I got that wrong because he pokes me in the gut one more time and says, “Phil, you need a major renovation job. When can you start?”

“Right away, I guess. I’ll need to pick up some shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt.”

Sam flips open a large book and runs his fingers across the page, “Andy has some time at one-thirty this afternoon. Can you handle that?”

“Sure!” I reply, trying to act enthusiastic. “I’m thinking I want to get a closer look at the gym and its equipment, especially the weight-lifting station where Lee died.”

“Andy will work out a schedule from there.” Sam shakes my hand, and on my way out, I catch another exceptional glimpse of the blonde receptionist—she’s working the bottom drawer of the file cabinet this time.

Sitting behind the wheel of the Buick once more, I decide to check in at the office. I flip open my cell phone and tap in the necessary numbers. Vo answers in her sexiest voice, “Slim O. Wittz, Private Investigations. Neat, Complete and Discreet. Can I help you?” It sends chills down my spine the way she does that.

“Hi, Vo. It’s me. Any calls?”

“Yes. Your ex-brother-in-law, Elmer, called a few minutes ago and said it was urgent.”

Oh, no! Not again. Urgent to Elmer means he’s found another way to make a quick buck off me.

“Thanks, Vo, see you later.”

I remember the time when Elmer tried to sell me shares in a freight car full of bananas and another when he wanted to unload a gross of fake Rolexes. Turned out they didn’t have batteries—or innards at all. Just numbers painted on the watch faces. I’m about to close the phone when my curiosity hits me up the side of the head. I strike the numbers on the keypad and wait through two ring tones of “My Dog Has Fleas.”

Elmer picks up. “Elmer Platz’s house. Elmer ain’t here right now. Can I take a message?”

“Cut the crap, Elmer, it’s Slim. Pick up, I know it’s you. What’s so urgent this time?”

“Oh. Hi, Slim,” he responds in out-of-breath words. “I know where I can lay my hands on a great buy. Hardly used Kevlar vests, but ya gotta act fast, ’cause they’re selling like hot cakes. It might be just the thing for you, Slim. You being a private eye and all.”

“It’s nice of you to think of me, Elmer. But used? What do you mean used?”

“Hardly at all. There’s a few small holes where they pulled slugs out, but you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for them. The ones with the holes clean through you can cover up with black electrical tape and nobody would ever know the difference. And don’t worry about the fit—one size fits all.”

After a long disgusted silence, I answer, “Thanks, Elmer, but I’m short on cash right now.”

“I’ll take your IOU, good buddy.”

“I’ll pass. See you around.” I flip the phone shut and start the car.
 
It’s one-twenty that same afternoon when I finish changing into my workout clothes in the Bold’s gym locker room. There’s a full-length mirror on the door, so I grab a quick gander before stepping out into the gym. At first, I see my expansive gut hanging out in space, so I suck it in defensively. Then I recoil at the hairy legs and knobby knees the guy in the mirror has. I figure there’s nothing I can do about them, so I push through the door to the gym proper. I’m immediately struck by the row-on-row of machines just waiting to torture and devour me. I wonder what happens to all the excess fat people lose working out on them. Does it lie on the floor until the cleaning lady comes through with her vacuum cleaner? Is there a market for used fat?

Andy remains in the office until he sees me. “Hiya, Phil, Andy Pike here.” His friendly pat on the back sends me three feet forward before I come to an awkward halt. He’s broad-shouldered, shorter than I expect, black hair with streaks of gray, and has this little round beard sticking out from his chin.

“Let’s start you on the stationary bike and we’ll see what you can do.”

Andy has to lower the seat before I can even mount the one-wheeled monster. Even then, he has to do it once more so my feet can reach the pedals. I try to push down with my left foot, but the pedal doesn’t budge.

“Adjust the loading,” he tells me.

The digital readout is “Nine,” so I turn the LOAD knob clockwise. I still can’t move the damn thing. The readout now shows “Ten.” Andy clears his throat, and I turn the knob the other way. The pedal barely budges at “Five,” so I continue to “Three” and find I can actually move the pedals there.

“I hear you had quite a lot of excitement here yesterday,” I say, trying to sound about as casual as a weightlifter’s grunt in these environs.

“Yup.”

“Did ya know the guy?”

“Yup.”

“Were you his trainer?”

“Yup.”

“Did you work with him that day?”

“Some.”

“Was it near closing time that night? Were you the last person to see the guy alive?”
“Could be.” Andy begins flexing his shoulders and elbows. Not in any threatening way. More out of nervousness, I think.

“What time was that?”

“You shore do ask a lot of questions, Phil. Who or what are you, man?”

“Just your usual rubbernecker at an accident scene,” I say. “Now don’t you get your junk in an uproar. I don’t mean nothing.” The odometer says I’ve already covered an eighth of a mile, and my knees confirm it. I fail to read Andy’s newly acquired, squint-like expression and I’m getting the feeling I’m on dangerous ground ’cause my nape hairs are tingling.

“Look, why don’t I try the treadmill now,” I offer, attempting to change the subject. I straddle the moving rubber mat while Andy sets the speed to a crawl. Once on board the mill, my feet acclimate to a longish stride. Every few minutes he kicks it up a notch until I’m stumbling somewhere between a horse trot and half-run.

“You a cop? Why are you here?” Andy asks.

Our roles have switched—he’s the one asking the questions now. I’m wondering how much faster this contraption can go before I fall on my keester and shoot out the back end.  

“No, not a cop.” Huff, huff and puff. “I’m a private shamus investigating Cheung’s death.” Huff, huff and another puff. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The sweat is dripping off my head and down my face. From stress or exercise, take your pick.

“Who’s your client, chump?” Andy’s mouth is fixed in a grin, but his eyes are cold as an iron barbell. 

“Can’t tell you.” Huff and puff. “Wouldn’t be ethical. Privacy and all that, you know.” I’m looking over my shoulder at him and seeing him reach for the speed control again.

“Wait, wait, the hell with ethics. It’s Bunny Cheung, Lee’s sister.”

Andy cuts the speed by half and glares. “Why me? Why all the questions for me? I don’t have anything to do with the two of them.”

I straddle the moving mat once more and stand on the stationary rim before dismounting the run-away treadmill. “Them, you said two of them. Who did you mean, Andy?”

“More questions? Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?

“Whoa! Sorry about the hard-nose, but this is the way I make my living.”

“Charlie Hess is—I mean was—Lee Cheung’s bookie, and this Cheung guy was into him in a big way. You’d get much better answers from Hess. He’s over in the weight room now, just finishing with a client.”

Finishing with a client? Or finishing him period? I don’t really want to hear the answer. I pass the bulked-up client, who’s just leaving as I enter the weight room. I see yellow police crime tape wrapped around the weight bench next to the light switch. Hess looks up from some paperwork at the adjacent bench. “Hey, aren’t you the new client, Johnson?” 

“Yeah, Phil Johnson. I’m looking for some beginner tips on bench pressing.”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I’m a bench press expert. Charlie Hess at your service.”

Hess is as broad as he is tall, with chiseled muscles attached to rippling muscle all over his body. Even his face bears that sculpted look. Sweat shines on everything from his balding hairline down to the thick black curls on his chest.

“Isn’t it customary for a trainer to assist someone lying on their back bench pressing? I think they call it spotting,” I say in my most unschooled voice.

“You got that right,” he answers.

“Maybe you could demonstrate the proper way to position yourself on the bench so I can receive the bar without hurting myself.”

Hess complies, pulling on a pair of black lifter gloves and stretching out on the bench before me. There are two fifty-pound disks and one ten-pounder on each end of the barbell—220 in all, resting in the cradle above his head.

“Is that too much?” I ask, gesturing at the collection of weights on the bar.

“Oh, no!” he answers. I can do that easily.” His open gloves grip the bar, and I help to lift the collection off the cradle. He lowers the weights to his chest and slowly executes five complete presses, blowing air each time, and then attempts to put the bar back in the cradle.

As he gets close to the cradle, I nudge the bar away, so he must continue to either support the total weight or lower it to his chest. Four grunting tries and four wave-offs later, he’s convinced I’m not your ordinary client.

I take my cue from his hard breathing. “Why’d you kill Lee Cheung, Charlie?”

“You’re crazy, Phil, or whatever your real name is.”

“The name is Slim O. Wittz and I’m a private investigator looking into Cheung’s murder.”

“You’re gonna have a hell of a time proving that lie,” he gasps out.

“It’s no lie, Charlie, and I can prove it.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Lee was alive at ten-thirty when Andy last saw him. If he was alive at eleven when the lights went out, don’t you think he would have complained, shouted or something? Besides, you couldn’t have missed him stretched out on the bench right next to the light switch.

“Andy could be mistaken or lying. He could have done it.”

Charlie Hess makes another grunting attempt for the cradle, and I push it away. I pull a couple of rubber exercise bands from the wall and tie his legs to the bench so he can’t roll off. I know it’ll  be awhile before he tries again. I also add another twenty-five pounds to each side, and he lets out the yell from hell when his elbows buckle and shoulder cracks.

“Okay, okay, I did it. Get this friggin’ weight off of me. My right shoulder and rotator cuff are busted. It was an accident, but it didn’t go down like it looked.”

“I’m listening,” I say. Sam and Andy are also listening as they burst through the weight room doorway in response to Charlie’s yell.

“I didn’t set out to kill him. I didn’t mean to.” Tears welled up in Charlie’s eyes. “I only wanted to scare him into paying something on his gambling debt. He owed me over $8,000 and kept putting me off to the next week, and the next week, on and on. Like I can carry that much in my small book operation. I held the bar over his head as if I was gonna drop it. Only he grabbed my hand, and I accidentally let go. The bar did hit him across the windpipe.”

I shout to Sam and Andy, “You guys watch him while I call the police. Remember what you just heard and witnessed.”

I fish my cell phone out of the gym locker and call Vo. She, in turn, calls the law and my client. Then the whole kaboodle shows up at the crime scene. The two trainers release Hess from my heavy-handed workmanship, and the police take him into custody.

Satisfied, Bunny writes me a healthy check, and Vo takes it into custody. I endorse it. She’ll actually get paid this month. How will I eat and pay my rent? That’s easy. I’ll borrow part of it back from her.