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Bite Me (Devlin Haskell 3)

Page 23

by Faricy, Mike


  “Yeah, well anyway, I’m gonna give this Justine a call. And, I should probably play the wounded lover with Carol, try for a final sympathy roll in the sack.”

  “God knows that doesn’t happen too often in your life.”

  “Actually, I think this could be a first.”

  I walked the half block back home from Nina’s. On my way I called Carol, ready to play on her sympathies, tell her how heart broken I was.

  “Bon Jour, I’m unable to take your call just now, please leave a message, Merci.”

  I didn’t mean to leave a sigh as my message on her cell, it just sort of came out that way. She was already learning French? I’ll give you some Merci, I thought, then climbed in my car and drove to the office.

  I had three days worth of verifying job references for a small company staring me in the face. Times being what they were the company was overwhelmed with applications from qualified people. My job was to check out employment histories and references. It amounted to a lot of drudgery and very little romance, just like life at the moment.

  I’d been looking out the office window for maybe forty-five minutes, staring at St. Kate’s coeds waiting for the bus and watching people dash into The Spot for lunch. A liquid lunch, The Spot didn’t serve food. I was telling myself I should do the same when my phone rang.

  I put on my best ‘feeling down’ voice and answered.

  “Haskell Investigations,” I said. I pictured Carol pacing back and forth in the hallway of some State building, embarrassed, afraid of what I might say. She’d probably spent the better part of the morning working up the courage to call me, wondering if I’d hang up as soon as I heard her voice.

  “Hi Dev, Justine, from last night, you free to talk?”

  “Justine? No, I mean yes, yeah.”

  “You sure, I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  Outside the Randolph bus had just pulled away. It would be at least twenty-five minutes before any more women would be waiting. On my desk I had a mountain of boring applications to wade through. I had time, plenty of time.

  “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 it’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 applications I had yet to verify. I stared at the dart board hanging on the 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 two days? I could probably adjust some things. I’d have to make a couple of phone calls, but I’ll just put those jobs 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 wandered over to The Spot for a liquid lunch.

  Chapter Three

  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 introduced them using their Roller Derby 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 feeling I was about to land the cakewalk 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 downriver from St. Paul?” I asked.

  “No, not really. More like the town in England, where the Battle 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 think 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 showered.

  “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 stalker after her for almost a year, now.”

  “Stalker?” I said.

  Nods all around the table.

  “What does he do, hang around in the hotel? Try 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 her 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 they 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 the
y’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 and finally getting bold enough to slip one under the door. I mean right under the damn door, that’s what they’re worried about.”

  “Yeah, 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? Or, 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 night we could be completely wrong,” I said.

  “So now what?” Justine asked.

  “I’d like to contact these people, talk to them before they arrive, 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 that information for you tomorrow morning,” Justine said.

  Take a moment and download Bombshell or any of my books, enjoy and many thanks.

  Mike Faricy

 

 

 


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