Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (3 page)

“Okay, as long as you’re sure.”

“Yeah,
nice to hear your voice, I was going to give you a call.”

“Well, actually that’s maybe why I’m calling
. I mean I made some team calls this
morning,
we’d like to talk with you
,
see if we could hire you for a security
gig,
that is
if you
’ve
got the time. I
’m
really
sorry, but i
t’s
on
pretty short notice
,
we’d need you in two days
. For maybe a day and a half
, tops
.”

I looked at
the pile of job a
pplications I had yet to verify. I
stared at
the
dart board
hanging
on th
e wall
, two darts imbedded in the wall about three inches to the right
. The mail man had
already
come and gone, nothing for me
except a grocery store circular
, again
.

“In t
wo days? I could probably adjust some things. I’d have to make a couple of phone calls
, but I’ll just put them off and reschedule
.”

“You sure? I mean we were hoping we could sit down with you tonight, go over some stuff.
I’m sorry this is all coming so fast.
”

“
Tonight?
I think that could
work
, I’ll make it work
. You tell
me where and when, let me make
some calls and I’ll get back to you this afternoon
if there’s a problem
.”

“You sure? I don’t want to…”

“Justine, I’m moving you up to the top of the list. Can I call you back this afternoon?”

“I really appreciate it, thanks Dev,” she said and hung up.

I wa
ndered over to The Spot for a liquid lunch.

There were five
of
them sitting around the table
when I arrived, teammates from the Bombshells
having a beer
. Not a Cosmopolitan in sight.
Justine intr
oduced them using their Roller D
erby names.

“
Helen Killer,
Maiden Bed
,
Brandi Manhattan
and
Cheatin Hart
,” she said.

Each woman nodded at me as Justine
pointed. They were all attractive
,
very attractive.
I had the fee
ling I was about to land the cake
walk job of all time.

“Nice to meet you, ladies. Justine, I don’t think you ever told me your
Derby
name.”

“Spankie,” a chorus trumpeted back.

“Really? Ladies, just call me Dev. So, Justine, I mean Spankie
,
mentioned you had a need for my services.
”

“We’ve got the Hasting Hustlers coming in Thursday and there have
been problems wherever they go.”

“
Hastings
, you mean the
town eight miles down
river
from
St. Paul
?” I asked.

“No
, not really. More
like the town in
England
, where the B
attle of Hastings took place in
ten-sixty-six, Harold the Second and William of Normandy. It changed British History
, well and the rest of
Western Europe
.
”

I th
ink it was
Maiden Bed
who just gave me the school
lesson,
but
maybe I was
mixing her up with
Cheatin Hart
.
I suddenly couldn’t remember
names
, well, except for Spankie.

“Define
‘
problems
wherever they go
’
,” I said, thinking some
sexy creature
with a nickname like
Nasty Nicki
or Lotta Luv
and I was
going to get paid
to watch
them
while they
s
howered
.

“Their
big name star is Harlotte Davidson,” Helen Killer said. I remembered
her name
because she was the first girl introduced to me.

“Big draw,
”
someone said.

“Huge,” one of the other girls added.

“We’re lucky to get them in here. It’ll just about make our year with this one bout. Anyway, one of the things they require in the contract is security.”

“Security?”
I asked, thinking it might make a lot of sense to be with her in the shower room.

“She’s had some sort of stalk
er after her for almost a year,
now.”

“Stalke
r?” I said.

Nods all around the table.

“What does
he do, hang around in the hotel? T
r
y and get into the locker room and
leave
her
love letters
or take
naked
photos
?”

“If only,” Justine said.

“Spankie?” I asked
.

She shook her head
then
seemed to shudder
almost imperceptibly.

“Well
,
he mailed a couple of fingers.”

“Fingers?” I half shouted.

“Then you guys remember, he slipped that one under h
er door?” I think
Brandi Manhattan
said that.

“That was
down
in
Chicago
,
” Justine added.

“Has anyone
contacted the police?”

“Here?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, we got the usual, we can pay one of their off duty guys to hang
around
outside the door, that sort of stuff. They said they’ll keep an eye out, but there isn’t much the
y can do. I mean most of it has come
through the mail. Not like there was a return address you could drive over to
and ask some jerk
what the hell he was thinking
.”

“Except for
Chicago
, when it was slipped under the door.”

“Fingers?” I asked
,
again.

“Yeah,
and
always the middle one
, like he’s giving her the finger or something.”

“Creepy,” Helen Killer chimed in.

“Does she have security? Someone with the team, that sort of deal.”

“Yeah, but they want us to provide someone local. I mean I get it, it makes sense. Their guy can watch Harlotte,
he’ll know
the practice routine, the hotel, all that sort of stuff
,
but he’s
not a local guy.”

I was still stuck
a few paces
back
thinking fingers? What the hell?

“Fingers,
and
always the middle one?”

Nods all around.

“This happened more than twice?”

More nods.

“I think two
through the mail, then
Chicago
,” Justine said.

“So I’d just follow her around, with the Hustlers’ security, that it?”

“Maybe, you tell us, you’re the Private Investigator. What would you normally do?”

“I’d just follow her around, with the Hustlers’ security.” I detected a slight widening of their eyes
so I embellished
. “Work as the local interface
with the police. I know most of the players on the force. Talk to the Hastings Hustler’s
security
about what they’ve been doing thus
far. Find out what they’re worried about
, deal with
any of
their immediate concerns
.”

“Worried about? They’re worried about some nut case sending human fingers through the mail an
d
finally getting bold enough to slip
one under the door.
I mean right under the damn door, t
hat’s
what they’re worried about.”

“
Y
eah, I get that. But are they worried the same guy is going to take a shot at her during the bout. Where do you skate? Are there metal detectors
? Is this
finger deal
just centered on
their star
attraction
, Harlotte? O
r
,
have her teammates received threatening letters or phone calls
, too
. Look, we can sit here all night and go over what we might do, might not do and at the end of the nig
ht we could be completely wrong,
”
I said.

“So now what?” Justine asked.

“
I’d like to contact these people,
talk to them before they arriv
e, maybe
get some things lined up in advance. The better prepared we are the better off everyone will be.
You got a phone number where I could
reach them?
”

“I can have th
at information for you tomorrow
morning
,
” Justine said.

Her condo was on
the fourth floor of a five story building. A red brick Victorian sort of thing with
gargoyles,
black trim, stain glass and gables
, built in eighteen-eighty
. It was the p
erfect
place
for
a
Halloween
party
.

“You want a beer or something stronger?” Justine asked.

She
kicked off her shoes at the door,
tossed her
purse on a black leather couch
one of two
sitting perpendicular to a fire
place
, there was
a
glass topped
coffee table between them
. The room was long with a three panel bay window at the far end and a stain glass win
dow above that in some kind of f
lower pattern. The streets light from four stories down cast colored reflection
s across
her living room ceiling.

“Beer’s just fine for me.”

A hallway ran strai
ght ahead along
the length of the
condo, exposed
brick on one side and doors to
various rooms on the other.
Track lighting along the ceiling lit the hall and highlighted three framed paintings hung on the brick wall. The paintings
were roller derby scenes. Girls
skating around a banked track
wearing hot pants
, you cou
ld feel a
sense of speed and action
just by
looking at the things, the paintings.

“You do these?” I asked, staring briefly at the paintings before following her into the kitchen at the far
back
end of the hall.

“No, some
California
guy. That’s me in them, in the purple jersey. He did ten of the things if you can believe it, gave me a deal. He had a show and everything, I guess it wen
t pretty well.” Her voice was
muffled as she bent over and reached into a gigantic refrigerator.

“Here’s to you
,”
she said a moment later and handed
me a bottle.

A few beers later w
e ended up on one
of the couches, legs resting across
the coffee table. A couple of table lamps with stain glass dragon flies on the shades dimly lit the room.
Light from the lamps reflected off the glazed fireplace tiles.

“You think there’ll be any trouble?” she asked.

“You mean with Harlotte Davidson and the fingers?”

“No, I mean because I’m almost out of beer, yes with Harlotte
and the fingers
.”