Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (8 page)

“Tell me about it.”

“I, in fact we
,
have been advised not to have any contact with you. So that’s the only reason I
’m
calling, to tell you I’m not talking to you.”

“Well, at least they’re in
Chicago
, so you can get back…”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?
They’re still here
, the Hustler’s
.
Chicago
cancelled. Seems what with the fin
ger thing and now the assault f
r
om
a local nut case
up here
,
Chicago
just doesn’t
need the hassle. So t
hey canceled. I’m sure the remaining
cit
i
es on the tour will follow suit before the day is over. Nice job Dev, we’ve worked years to build
up
the image
,
do all sorts of good
and you managed to destroy everything in about
fifteen
seconds.”

“
Hey, how was I supposed to
know…
Hello. Hello? Justine?”

There was probably nothing positive to be gained by calling back and suggesting we’d been cut off.

I figured if I
phoned Jimmy McNaughton he’d either refuse to see me or contact Justine and
then
refuse to see me, so instead I drove
over
to
the
Hustler
’
s hotel. Jimmy was in the dining room
drinking a cup of tea,
he is English
after all
. From what I could tell the Hustler
’s
were grazing on double cheeseburgers, double orders of fries and washing it all down with diet cokes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here? I’m about to call your police,” he said
the moment he
saw me
.

“Jimmy, I want to explain. I didn’t do anything last night, I was just
protecting myself.
I’m sorry things developed the way they did. It wasn’t my intention…”

“Developed the way they did? You make it sound like you spilled a glass of wine on the carpet. Our
tour is about to fall apart, the team
enforcer has a
sprained shoulder and a bone chip in her heel and you don’t like the wa
y things developed? Bloody hell,” h
e
was
red faced, heading toward purple.

“I was just trying to block her kick.”

“You stupid little wanker,
s
he kicked you because you grabbed her boobs.”

“I didn’t grab her boobs. She spit on me, grabbed me by the throat, told me to piss off and pushed me against the wall. It was just my natural reaction to p
ush back. That’s all I did. T
he next thing I know she came
flying back with some sort of Karate kick, I just blocked
her and down she went. If she hadn’t tried
to kick me how in the hell do you think I got hold of her ankle?”

He seemed to think about that for a moment.

“She said
piss off?”

“Yeah, as a matt
er of fact she said, piss off, Y
ank. Not a reason to assault anyone, I agree, but put it all together, it’s just what happened. I’m the one who was attacked here, not her.
Then they
clubbed me over the head,
knocked me out,” I said looking aro
und the room. All the girls
suddenly
seemed to be
making themselves scarce.

“
I’m not going to press charges or anything. I’m sorry if she’s injured, I just wanted to apologize and set the record straight. That’s all.”

“Piss off, Yank,” he said absently. “Yeah, sounds
a bit
like her
.”

M
y relief must have
been obvious;
Jimmy seemed to be deep in thought.

“Is there some way I can still help you?” I asked.

“Well, I think for the time being
,
we better have you stay away from the team, they m
ight want to cut off more than your
finger.”

Not the first time th
e thought had crossed my mind, staying away
sounded like a good plan to me.

“Have you had any other incidents, any notes
, phone calls,
any more
fingers?”

“No,
as of last night
most of our time has been taken up with the likes of you.”

“Let me see what I can find out on the finger front, all right?”
I said.

Jimmy seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.

“
Just a
s long as you stay away from the team. They’ve enough on their plate right now
with things going all to hell
.
”

“You got it, thanks
,
Jimmy,” I said
,
then held out my hand.

He took it, shook with a firm grip.

“Now please, let me finish my tea in peace.”

The logical place to
start seemed to be The Spot bar. I strolled
in for a late liquid lunch of
Leinenkugel beer.

“Dev, you fall down on the job last night,” Tommy asked as he poured my tap beer.

“H
unh?”

“Didn’t you tell us you were going to be hanging around that bunch of English girls, providing security? I read in the paper one of them was attacked by some nut case last night. Cute little thing, had her picture in the paper
with some kids
. You see it?”

“The paper? No, haven’t had the chance
,
yet. I wasn’t at the auditorium last night.”

“How’d you know it happened there if you didn’t see the paper?” he pushed my beer in front of me, waited for my reply.

“Heard
a couple of them talking about
it
when they got back to their hotel. That’s where I was all night. Just came from there as a matter of fact, planning strategy.”

“Strategy?
” he seemed to consider this, but didn’t add anything else.

After lunch I went back to the office and started making phone calls. Over the course of the afternoon I spoke with the police in
Denver
,
Chicago
,
St. Louis
and
Kansas City
. I decided it might be best to work backwards so I called Denver first and ended up speaking with a Detective named Kingston Quinn who sounded decidedly more black than Irish.

“Detective Quinn, thanks for taking my call, I’m working with Detective Norris Manning up here, we
’
re looking into an incident involving an English roller derby team, the Hastings Hustlers, they…”

“Bunch of fine looking ladies you ask me. You get to talk with any of
‘
em?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I spoke with some of them as recently as last night, we’re interested…”

“Bunch of little hotties and when they talk, like to take all of ‘em home, ‘cept the wife wouldn’t be too happy with that.”

“Yeah, who could blame her, anyway, last night…”

“Yeah, saw something about
that come across here. You’re up there in
St. Paul
, right?”

“That’s correct,
see
I wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding the envelope…”

“Yeah, some head case up
there attack
ed
one of those
hot little
girls?
Listen you need any help, couple of us be on the next plan
e
get that action solved real quick. Then maybe spend a little time with the girls,
you know
just to…”

“That’s very considerate of you, Detective, but I think the media sort of blew that s
tory out of proportion, see the individual they
…”

“Little girl barely a hundred pounds gets herself attacked by some jackass, like to cut more than a finger off that dude, you catch my drift. See how tough he is after I get through with him.”

“We’ll keep it in mind. Now about that envelope taped to the door of the bus.”

Once w
e established he was available to spend time with a room full of sexy English girls Kingston Quinn didn’t have a lot more to offer.

“Waiting on the analysis reports to come back. Not sure if you got budget cuts happening up there
,
but we’re dealing wi
th that problem
in every department
,
not to mention one or two more serious issues,
you catch my drift.”

“I do, unfortunately, any guess when you might see a report, we talking another week, two?”

“No more like four to six months.”

“Four to sixth months,
”
I half shouted.

“No one
’
s called in to say they’re missing a finger. We can do some cross referencing
,
but it would only be for the greater
Denver
area. We aren’t hooked into other departments around the state, let alone the rest of the country.”

“Any
one call the Feds?”

“The FBI? On a finger?
That’s what we need, a bunch of suits coming in
here and
scre
wing up the three thousand plus
ongoing investigations
so we can see who taped a finger to the door o
f a bus
.
Not sure how you guys work up there, but we like to stay as far away as possible from those folks.
”

“Any guesses?”

“You mean who taped the damn thing to the door?”

“Yeah?”

“Some j
ackass, just like the
jackass attacked that little girl up there last night. My guess, check him out, he certainly sounded stupid enough.”

“Thanks, we’re doing that,” I said.

“Look, I get a chance I’ll make a call, see if they got any thing, but with the budget cuts and all…”

“Anything you can do would be appreciated.”

Things didn’t seem to go a whole lot better in
Chicago
.
I spoke to a Sergeant Anthony Howe
, he had
a decided south side
Chicago
accent
.

“
St. Paul
, hunh, something about that sitting on my desk when I came in this morning. You guys nail that fla
ke been sending fingers to them
English broads?”

“We
’
re working on it, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You ask me
,
it’s that piece of shit attacked one of those girls up there last night. Let me question the son-of-a-bitch for about five minutes, I’ll get you answers, the answers ya want. Still got the bastard locked up
? O
r did he get all lawyered up and he’s out on the street? Probably casing some grade school as we speak. I tell you the court system in…”

“Sergeant Ho
we, did you process that finger, the one
that was sent to the Hastings Hustler
s
?”

“Yeah, in a manner of speaking.”

“Manner of speaking?”

“I don
’t know how things are up there
maybe you don’t have
a lot of scum bags like we do. With all the bad apples we got down here, s
ome guy mails a finger, folks down here probably just worried he got the right postage on the envelope. You know? What the hell, you guys dealing with
an occasional
assault with an icicle or something, right?” he laughed at his
own
joke.

“You said you had the finger processed?”

“The one that got mailed?”

“Yeah, with the correct postage.”

“Hunh? Yeah we sent it in, ain’t come back yet. Like I said, matter of priorities. With the budget cuts and all…”

When I could get a word in edgewise I thanked him for his time. I got the same sort of response in
Kansas City
, it wasn’t a priority and with budget cuts…