Pumped for Murder (10 page)

“Let’s put you through your poses,” the Lizard said. Kristi nodded agreement.

These were not runway-model poses, but highly structured ways to show off muscle development.

“Front double biceps pose,” the Lizard said.

Debbi pressed her heels to the floor, flexed her calves and hamstrings and raised her arms.

“Push your glutes back slightly,” the Lizard said.

Now the Alien jumped in. “Raise your elbows until they are slightly above your shoulders. Now squeeze your biceps hard. Harder! No, you’re shaking. Keep your legs flexed and try it again.”

“It’s not enough to have a good body,” the Lizard said. “You have to know how to show it. Do it again. Keep your chin up and smile.”

Every muscle was gruesomely defined. When Debbi moved, she was an animated anatomy chart. Helen could make out the lean muscles in her jaw and forehead even from a distance. Mountain ranges of muscle jutted along the young bodybuilder’s shoulders and down her arms. Helen was tempted to pound out a xylophone tune on her corrugated abs.

The two trainers put Debbi through the six major stage poses for more than an hour.

“I’m exhausted watching her,” Helen said.

“It’s intense,” Carla said. “Like tai chi for the chiseled.”

“Poor Debbi,” Helen said. “It’s sad she needs those two to tell her she’s good.”

“Somebody has to,” Carla said. “Her mom works two jobs, and her father was worthless. He couldn’t even die right. He killed an innocent grandmother and ruined Debbi with that same shot. She feels like she has to atone for his crimes.”

“I wish she’d do it at college instead of in a gym,” Helen said.

Carla shrugged. “We can’t all be college students. Debbi has made herself special. She’ll win that championship.”

Debbi’s two mentors finally stopped the exhausting round of poses.

“Good, good,” Kristi said. “Now, smile and keep your chin up, Debbi.”

“But don’t get a big head,” Tansi told her. “You’ve got a long way to go before you’re in our league. Relax, concentrate, look the way you do today and you’ll be in the Fantastic Fitness Hall of Fame.”

The mentors started double-teaming their protégé with advice.

“No food this close to the competition,” Kristi said. “And no more water to drink.”

“Can I at least suck on ice cubes?” Debbi asked.

“Sure, if you want to lose the trophy,” the Alien said. “Too much water can bloat you.”

“I’m so thirsty,” Debbi said.

“Think how good you’ll feel when you have that trophy,” Tansi said. “We’ll take you out for a big dinner afterward to celebrate.”

“No guts, no glory,” Kristi said.

Helen wondered why bodybuilders were so fond of slogans.

“You don’t want to eat your way out of a trophy,” Tansi said. “We have too much at stake. We don’t want to lose our investment. We’ll build our pro training business on your success while you pump up your career and grab the prize money and product endorsements.”

“What about my special medicine?” Debbi asked. “Do I need another dose?”

“I may have some in my car,” Tansi said.

“I’ll go out with you to get it,” Debbi said.

“Me, too,” Kristi said. “I could use some fresh air.”

Helen and Carla watched the three women head out of the gym, a solid wall of muscle. Acne spotted their backs like malign polka dots.

“Squeezing those overbuilt bodies into Tansi’s Neon will be a real feat,” Carla said. She checked the gym clock. “Three o’clock. Right on schedule. They’re going outside to shoot up steroids. Stay away from them until the competition is over. They’re as unstable as old dynamite.

“I hope you understand that ninety percent of women won’t develop the kind of muscles you see on those three,” she said. “It takes more testosterone than women normally have. They’ve been chemically altered. I love these women who come in here and are afraid to lift two-pound weights because they’ll get huge. Heck, their purses probably weigh more.”

The gym doors whooshed open, and Paula entered in shining perfection.White light surrounded her. Bits of overstretched spandex barely covered her body. Her white silk hair shimmered. If she was suffering jitters over the upcoming competition, Helen saw no sign of them.

Once again, Paula was oblivious to the line of admiring males sweating on the treadmills. She swept triumphantly down the aisle as if she were at the bikini competition, accepting her trophy.

E
ven the makeup couldn’t hide Debbi’s mustache. It was thick as cake icing. The layers seemed to emphasize the dark hair on her upper lip. The acne lurked underneath, making her look like she was being eaten by a deadly disease.

Helen shifted her eyes away from Debbi’s damaged face down to her black suit and saw something worse. Round craters appeared at the tops of the bodybuilder’s thighs where they joined her stringy torso. They looked as if someone had peeled back the skin and scooped out the tissue underneath with a melon baller.

Helen wasn’t sure how to react, so she pretended nothing was wrong. “Hi, Debbi. Eight days until the East Coast Physique competition. Bet you can’t wait.”

“What are you, stupid?” Debbi asked. “You think I can compete looking like this? Where is that pair of dildos?”

“Which ones?” Helen asked, and then regretted she’d answered.

“Tansi and Kristi, my so-called mentors. Their ‘advice’ ”—Debbi sliced the air with angry finger quotes—“helped me right out of the competition.”

“Uh.” Helen was afraid to say they were upstairs in the freeweight room.

“Never mind,” Debbi said. “I can see them myself.”

Helen was relieved when Debbi charged up the steps. Carla, the curly-haired receptionist, said, “Hunker down, girl. Somebody miscalculated her steroid dose. That caused the facial hair and acne outburst. Debbi also depleted her carb and water intake, which made the—well, I can’t say fat because I don’t think she has any—whatever that is under her skin collapse. She won’t be able to compete after all that work and it can’t be fixed in time. Expect an explosion any moment.”

Debbi’s rage started on cue:
“You dipwads,”
she shrieked.
“I was perfect! Perfect! Look at me now. I can’t compete like this.”

All activity in the gym stopped. Treadmills no longer ran to nowhere. Bicycles didn’t whirr. No one grunted in the weight room or sweated on the benches. Even the televisions seemed silent. Logan and the other salesmen tiptoed out of their area to see Debbi’s epic fury.

Debbi had cornered her two trainers upstairs in the weight room. From where Helen stood, she could watch them behind the room’s glass partition, like a giant television. Debbi was standing by the weight rack, rows of weights arrayed like ammunition.

Her muscle-bound mentors made sure they had a massive weight machine between themselves and Debbi before they started talking. “Calm down,” Tansi said. She looked like a lizard coming out from under a rock. “Getting angry will just make it worse.”

“Worse! How could I possibly look worse?” Debbi shook with rage.

Good question. Angry acne mountains pushed their way through the layers of makeup. Rivers of sweat ran between them.

Debbi lumbered toward the pair, an uncontrollable force deformed by her rocklike outcroppings of muscle. Her screams ripped through the weight room: “Can you make this go away in time for the competition?”

The trainers stayed silent.

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you both. Everyone will know what you did. When I finish, you won’t be allowed to train a poodle.”

Debbi hurled a fifteen-pound metal weight at Tansi as if she were flicking a Q-tip. The reptilian trainer deftly dodged the weight, and it slammed on the floor beside Evie. The small, gray-haired woman had been quietly pumping two-pound weights.

The mouselike Evie stood up and roared, “Hey! Watch it! I wasn’t bothering you.”

Helen was stunned by Evie’s sudden display of anger. It was as if a butterfly had grown fangs and attacked.

Evie drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much. In her sagging sweats, she looked like an animated ragbag. Debbi pushed her aside, and Evie fell against a black bench.

The two mentors could have easily subdued Debbi and protected Evie. The overbuilt cowards stayed barricaded behind the weight machines while Debbi focused her rage on Evie. Helen could see the little woman was shaking with outrage and adrenaline, but her burst of courage was spent. Evie was too frightened to run. She was frozen by the bench.

Debbi looked crazed and ready for another attack.

“Carla, get Derek, quick!” Helen said. “I have to rescue Evie before Debbi kills her.”

Helen ran upstairs to the weight room, dragged the cowering Evie away from the bench and pushed her toward the door. “Have a soothing glass of water in the lounge,” she said.

Debbi grabbed another weight, ready to lob it at Helen.

“Put that weight down,” Helen said. “Evie, go!” She shoved Evie through the door. The escapee scuttled downstairs toward the women’s locker room.

Helen turned to Debbi. “Don’t take out your anger on Evie. She never hurt you.”

“Shut up!” Debbi’s voice rose to a siren wail as she repeated, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She couldn’t stop shouting those words. They turned into a chant.

Debbi tossed the twenty-five-pound weight back and forth in her hands, enjoying its heft.Then she hurled it at Helen’s head. Helen ducked, and the weight hit the glass wall. The wall broke into pieces, falling outward in one giant section until it shattered on the hard gym floor.

“Look what you made me do!” Debbi howled.

“I didn’t make you do anything,” Helen said. “Calm down, Debbi. Please, get your temper under control, for the sake of your career.”

“What career?” She pointed at her trainers, still huddled behind their metal barricade. “I could have been in the Hall of Fame here. Now I’m ruined. And I’m going to ruin you.”

She grabbed a monster thirty-pound weight off the rack as if it were made of foam rubber, and charged like a maddened rhino. Helen stepped backward and ran into something solid, warm—and human.

The darkly handsome Derek pushed Helen out of his way and stepped in front of Debbi.

“You’re out!” he said. “You’ve attacked gym members. You’ve destroyed property, which you will pay for.Your membership is canceled. Clean out your locker and leave.”

“But—” Debbi said.

“Go!” Derek pointed a finger the way God must have when she banished Adam and Eve from Paradise.

Debbi couldn’t slump her shoulders. The muscle plates wouldn’t permit that. But she slunk toward the women’s locker room. Helen watched her retreat from the top of the stairs.

Helen thought the trouble was over. Then she saw Heather, the contender in the recent TV-channel battle, bar Debbi’s way. Was Heather going to fight her rival again?

The red-haired beauty planted herself boldly in the bodybuilder’s path and held out a twenty-ounce go-cup. “I have a present for you,” she said.

Debbi looked stunned. “Me? Why?”

“Because I don’t want to exercise at a gym when someone is angry at me,” she said. “The bad vibes disturb my workout. I’ve brought you a protein shake I made myself. All natural, with real strawberries, blueberries, a banana for potassium and organic soy milk.”

“I can’t drink it,” Debbi said. “I’m not—” Then she realized her circumstances had changed. “No, I can. I’m not competing in this contest. Not this time. I’ve had a setback, but that’s all it is, a setback. Next time I’ll find real trainers, not those two losers.”

Debbi forgot she was banished from the gym, Helen thought. Or maybe she thought Derek would forgive her. Maybe he would. Everyone said she was a surefire winner.

Debbi stabbed the plastic cup lid with a straw and drank the shake in three long gulps, not bothering to hide her thirst. The straw made empty sucking sounds.

“That was so good,” Debbi said.

“Shake?” Heather asked.

“Definitely. I have to get the recipe,” Debbi said. “It’s the best protein shake I ever had. What kind of protein did you use: whey or soy?”

Heather hesitated. “Vanilla soy,” she said. Her pale skin flushed slightly. “I meant could we shake hands—like friends?”

“Sure,” Debbi said. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle. I’m trying to control my temper, but I don’t always succeed.”

Flew off the handle? Helen wondered. Debbi had destroyed the upstairs weight room less than two minutes ago.

Debbi tossed the empty cup in the trash and shook Heather’s pale hand. “I’m glad we’re on better terms,” she said. “I’m going to change.”

Helen didn’t know if Debbi meant her attitude or her clothes, but the tension seemed to lighten. Heather waved and walked lightly out the doors, as if a burden had been lifted from her.

Helen, still shaken by the encounter with Debbi, held on to the stair rail.

“Are you hurt?” Derek asked.

Helen was trembling now that the danger was over. “No.” Her wobbling voice betrayed her.

“You did a good thing when you stepped in and saved Evie,” he said. “You look shaken. Go home. Take the day off. Watch that broken glass.”

As she stepped carefully across the crunchy glass, she heard Derek chastising the two would-be trainers. “You were using steroids, weren’t you? I turned a blind eye to that. Now I’m giving you fair warning. Any hint—and I mean
any
—that you two freaks are shooting up on this property and you’re permanently barred. And that includes those little trips to Tansi’s Neon. If you get anyone here hooked on steroids, I’ll call the cops.”

“We just did what any trainers would,” Kristi said.

“No, you didn’t,” Derek said. “You took a promising bodybuilder and ruined her. Debbi is so out of control, she could have murdered someone. Do you want a list of everyone at this gym she’s started a fight with?”