Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (27 page)

“She’s a lot of
things.”

“Jesus, she is so damn hot,” Heidi said
, leaping to her feet clapping and
letting off a shrill whistle with two fingers in her mouth
. Apparentl
y
,
I wasn’t fully aware of all
her perversions.

“You like her?
”

“
What? Oh listen you, this n
ight
j
ust might be salvageable, but you sh
ould get me
another drink,”
she said. Then thrust
her empty glass
over
in my directi
on
again
,
n
ever ta
k
ing
her eyes off Emma Babe circling the track.
“You go girl, whoo-hooo.”

She was on her fifth, or was it her sixth
vodka? It was a minute or two before the intermission. Heidi was on her feet yelling and
trying to whistle
, along with half the auditorium. The difference was most of them weren’t weav
ing back and forth and
slurring their words.

I thought I’d spotted Manning’s
shiny,
bald, pink
head in one of the aisles about
fifteen minutes ago, but
I
couldn’t be sure. Heidi had just
finished
slos
hing vodka all over my trousers, but by the time I got her
settle
d down I
looked back
,
and
the guy had disappeared.

“
I need a
nother
drinky
,
burp
, please,
” Heidi
said, as the lights came up
in the auditorium
signaling
the intermission. With her right hand she thrust her empty glass toward me
. She wasn’t so much standing as she was leaning against the wall, using her left hand for added support. She was looking in my direction,
weaving slightly,
but I wasn’t sure she c
ould see
me at this point in the evening.
She ran her hand through her hair,
pushing it
over the back of her head. The
n
blew
air up over
her forehead, a sure sign of the direction the night was headed.

I knew where this was going. I’d been with her a half dozen times over the years when she’d become this
intoxicated. The opportunity for any
sex had passed three drinks ago
. There was no point in arguing
with her
,
just
get
the drink, s
he
was beyond finishing the thing. W
e were in babysitting mode at this point
. I’d
sit back and let her pass out
. Then, hope I coul
d get her back to the hotel and put her to bed.

I wa
lked over to the bar, opened
another
airline bottle and poured the vodka into her glass. I set
the empty on the counter
with the others
, that made seven
.
I opened another
Grain Belt, my second and returned to the
recliner
next to my charge.

She was sitting
now, her head w
ove from side to side. She looked like
she could see things about six inches past her nose, after that it was anyone’s gue
ss. I set her vodka in the cup holder of her recliner
and took a sip of my beer.

The guy a few rows below us with the bitchy wife stood and looked up toward our box. He gave an understanding shake of his head suggesting I knew his predicament or, he understood mine.

Hei
di had slumped back in her recliner
and let out a loud snore. I waited three or four minutes until her snoring became a solid pattern the
n
grabbed my Grain Belt and left the private box.
Crowds were hurrying down the corridor to restroom
s
, the concession stands or both. Destiny was leaning against a wall
a few feet away
. She
stood up and
came toward me
as soon as she saw me.

“Is everything okay, Mister Haskell?
Do y
ou
, like
need anything?” she asked.

“Everything’s fine, just going to stretch my legs for a bit, Destiny. Listen, keep an eye on our door, will you. Help yourself to anything in the box, my date jus
t closed her eyes for a minute. She’s had a
long day.”

“Yeah, we get a lot of that here, long days,” she said, then winked
her left eye, it was a little unnerving with the pound or two of metal imbedded in her eyebrow.

“I’ll be back shortly,” I said.

Chapter For
ty-Two

From time to time
in
my life
there has been
a
little voice in my head that has told
me what to do or not to do. I’ve usually ignored the voice, invariably with disastrous results. This
night
was no exception.

I walked down the corridor, flowing with the crowd. Aware that just three stories below the locker rooms of both team
s were about to empty out. T
he girls
would line up and skate
back into the arena for the second half. I though
t
it might be a good idea once they returned to the arena if I checked things out
in the locker room
. That
litt
le voice in my head told me
this was a very
, very
stupid idea.

None the less, five
m
inutes later I was downstairs, one
level below
the track. I was in the
hallway just outside the locker room area. Overhead I could hear the roar of the crowd and the announcer
’
s voice as the bout got underway. I waited almost ten minutes,
lurking in the shadows, but there seemed to be
no activi
ty in the hallway so I
ducked into
the corridor labeled ‘
Visitors Locker Room
’.

The last time I’d been her
e
some of
the Hustlers clubbed me
to the ground
with their
helmets. This was where
I’d gotten into the shoving match with Emma Babe and her boobs. I put an ear to the locker room door, strained to hear anything
, which
was impossible
to do
with the noise
coming from the crowd
over
head.

I knocked on the door,
waited,
then opened the door, knocking as I did and calling,
“Hello, hello, anyone in here?”

Nothing
except the
barely audible drip
coming
from the shower room
.

I waited another
moment, then stepped inside
,
but held the door open
just in case. I
repeated the process, “Hello, hello, anyone here?”

Still nothing.
I quickly closed the door and began
to look around.
The lights were
somewhat
dimmed and I had to take a moment to let my eyes adjust.
That little voice went off again inside my head asking
me, ‘W
hat did I expect to find in here besides a lot of women’s underwear?
’
I quickly walked through the room, glancing left and right at the lockers
and the towels scattered over wooden benches
. I
rounded the corner, came in front of
an empty locker, empty except for a
black
framed
, 5 X 7
photo of Fiona, a black ribbon
was tied
across the upper right hand corner of the
frame. A small, red vigil light flickered
in front of the frame
, the flame reflected off the glass
. I
star
ed at it
for more than a few seconds, then
was about to move on when I
caught something on the glass. There, smeared ever so faintly across
the glass someone had written the word ‘Bitch’.

It looked like it may have been done with just a fingertip. You’d never have seen it in normal light.
I picked up the frame and ang
led it back and forth closer to the
flickering
flame
. The
writing seemed to have a
feminine quality to it. J
ust
as I returned
the frame to the shelf
there was a knock on the
locker room
door.

I panicked, looked around, decided against the bathroom stalls and ran toward the door
. I stepped behind it
just as someone rapped on the do
or
again, a little louder this time
and the
n turned the steel knob
. I pressed myself against the cinder block wall as the door
slowly opened and a
vaguely
familiar voice called out.

“Anyone in here?”

I
stopped breathing and willed myself into the wall. T
he door s
wung wide and
stopped, whoever it was
took
a tentative step into the
room
, held the door open,
like I had
a minute before
and called again. “Anyone in here
? It’s the head bull
,
the main man
,
”
t
he
voice
half laughed.

There was a long pause as he listened for any sound. I held my breath
, afraid he’d hear my heart pounding
and then
Security Sergeant Wayne took four
quick
steps and stood
in front of the first locker. He reached for a large bla
ck leather purse hanging over a pair of
jeans and began to rifle through it. I recognized his receding hairline crew cut and the heart shape of his fat
, flat
ass.

His back was to me, and I saw the creas
es on his neck,
the fat rolling down his side and hanging over
his tooled black belt. He was
thoroughly involved st
uffing dollar bills and
a couple of credit cards into the side pocket of his uniform trousers. The pock
et was cut on the back side of the
navy blue stripe that ran down his trouser leg.

I could probably
make it out the door, but I’d never ge
t out of the corridor before Sergeant Wayne
would be able to catc
h a glimpse and
identify me. That left only one option.

I had about a three step running start before his thick head
slowly
rose up f
rom
rummaging around inside
the purse. It was l
ike he’d heard something, but maybe wasn’t quite sure
. His head was up,
turned
about
a quarter of an inch to cock an ear. H
e was still looking straight ahead into the locker
.
I was in the air after step four and slammed into
Wayne
full force, catching him right at the base of his neck with a blast from my elbow
as I landed
.

Wayne
’s
thick
forehead bounced off the edge of the upper shelf in the locker, jarring the wooden shelf loose and collapsing
Wayne
down onto his knees
. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head and then he sor
t of slowly sank forward, like
some massive
garbage
scow
sinking
beneath the waves
.
He hung onto the
pair
of jeans dangl
ing from a
hook,
and
then slowly pulled
them on top of him
as he sunk
down on all fours, shoulders and head
deep
in the locker
.