Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (11 page)

“What about a hospital?”

“Sure it’s possible, but one thing.”

“Which is?” I asked, the
n
sipped.

“Hospitals don’t amputate healthy fingers. The finger would have to be damaged, severely, before they would
amputate. Of course
there are all sorts of procedures and controls for disposal, they don’t just toss the things in the dumpster.”

That seemed to make sense.

“You said someone had removed the tip of the finger, so the fingerprints couldn’t be checked?”

I nodded.

“Well unless the thing was also severely damaged, which would seem to be obvious to anyone viewing it, I don’t think the hospital or a surgery clinic is your source.”

“
My first thought was something along the lines of a homeless guy or a druggy but there’s four separate incidents of this, you’d think someone, somewhere
,
would report an attack or something.
So
I don’t know, I guess
I’m back to your end of things,” I said.

“Possibly,” An
d
y replied and sipped some more Jameson.

The following morning I
was in my office watching co-eds waiting for the
Randolph Ave.
bus across the street. They didn’t look too happy. Maybe that was just because it was morning and they couldn’t stay in bed.
Maybe it was exam week.
Maybe it was because they were nursing a hangover like mine.

I was thinking about
what Andy Lindbergh had told me
yesterday, about the difficulty someone at a mortuary would have getting fingers. Harvesting
was the term he had used. My cell phone rang, disturbing my complete lack of productivity.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Hi Dev, its Justine.”

“Hi Justine, how’s it going.”

“Pretty good, say, we got a call from Jimmy McNaughton.”

“Yeah.”
I said, cautious.

“He’d like you to give him a call, would you mind?”

“Any idea what he wants?”

“Yeah, he’s going to ask you to talk to Felicity Bard, see if things can’t be smoothed
out
and everyone can just move on. Would you mind
, terribly
?”

“She still sticking to her story?”

“I don’t know, I would guess yes
,
she is. But, I sort of understand, I mean it seems pretty obvious she’s lying, all her support
has
vanished
.
I think they’re just hoping to put the whole thing behind them and move on. We’ve scheduled a bout with them in a couple of nights, they’re trying to resurrect their schedule, get something put
together so the
trip over here i
sn’t a complete disaster.”

I felt like telling her y
es, I minded, a lot. Then ask her
what my standing was with the Bombshells? Her in particular, but I was s
till too mad to care.
Justine
and the Bombshell’s
didn’t back me when I needed it so why should I come to the rescue now?
So I said;
“I’d be happy to tal
k with her, and I’ll be happy to
call Jimmy?”

“Would you mind
,
terribly?”

Yes, I did mind terribly.

“Not a problem, I’
ll call him as soon as we
’re off the line.”

“
Oh, D
ev,
that’s great,
I don’t know how to thank you.”

I could think of a couple of ways, Spankie
, but didn’t think it wise to elaborate
. I dialed Jimmy’s number, he answered on the second ring. I had a feeling he’d been prepped to expect my call.

“McNaughton.”

“Hi Jimmy, Dev Haskell here, got a half minute to chat?”

“
I do, h
ow can I help you?
”

“Look, I’m wondering if I came over and had a heart to heart with Felicity if that wouldn’t help to smooth things over and maybe we could all get this ahhh, situation
, behind us and
move on.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea, when can you come over?”

“You name the time, I’ll be there.”

“
We take our
lunch at one, they’ve a team meeting before that. Why don’t you plan on arriving oh
,
say quarter past two. I’ll bring you up to their room, myself.”

“Would you mind
stay
ing
there, too? No offense
,
but I don’t think it would be the best of ideas to be in there alone
with Felicity
.”

“I can do that.”

“See you a little after two,
then,
” I said
.

“Best to
find me in the dining room
, I’ll be having my tea.”

I thought it would be bad form to
bring a baseball bat and beat
Felicity
across her fat head
.
So,
I arrived d
utifully a little after two. As promised, I
found Jimmy sipping tea in the hotel dining room.

“Jimmy, nice to see you again.”

“Dev, thank you for coming in, would you care for a tea?”

“No thanks, not really a
tea kind of guy.”

“Ready to have a go at her highness, then?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

We took the elevator
. N
othing
was
said on the way up
to the third floor
n
or as we walked down the hall to Felicity and Fiona’s room. I noticed the hotel security Jimmy had told me would be permanently stationed outside their room was nowhere in sight.

“You cancel the security you had outside their room?” I asked.

“Combination of things calming down and a bit of the proverbial budget crunch,” he said and knocked on the door.

Fiona opened the door
almost immediately
and
gave me the
requisite
shrug of her shoulders along with
a smile.

“Hi, Dev, nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you,” I said, Jimmy was
already
walking into the room and I f
ollowed.

“Felicity?” Jimmy asked looking around.

“Actually, she’s not here
, Jimmy.
I thought she’d be back long before now, but
it seems she’s not.
She wasn’t at the team meeting or lunch.
You didn’t see her downstairs, in the dining room?
”

“Where the hell did she go?” Jimmy asked.

“Some sort of er
rand, I don’t know, she took a t
axi, a bright yellow one,” she said to me.

That didn’t really narrow things down. We stood there looking at one another when suddenly the door clicked open and Felicity, aka Emma Babe, sauntered in. She ignored me, nodded at Jimmy and walked over to a chair and sat down. She picked up the remote and clicked on the television, then
sat in a chair looking out the window
at the dumpster,
scowling. The television h
ad some muted soap opera
.

“Hi, Felicity,” I said.

She
gave a dismissive nod
in my general direction and then went back to staring out the window.

Jimmy smiled and extended a hand indicating the chair opposite Felicity. I was th
inking maybe I should
pick it up a
nd hit her over the head with the thing
. Not a bad idea. Instead I asked;
“Mind if I sit down?”

“Suit yourself,” she said continuing to stare out at the
navy blue
dumpster in the parking lot.

I gave Jimm
y a look, hoped it suggested her
flame was waving close to my fuse. If he picked up on my message he didn’t
let on, instead he
smiled and motioned toward
the chair
with his chin
.
I sat down, took my time getting comfortable, waiting for her to stop studying the dumpster and look at me, or Jimmy or Fiona. It
became apparent that
wasn’t going to happen.

“Felicity, Jimmy was gracious enough to let me come over and apologize to you about the incident the other night.” I swallowed down last night’s Jameson
rising up from my stomach,
gritted my teeth and
gripped the arms of the chair.

She continued to stare
out the window.

I thought if I hit the back of her head hard enough her forehead would bounce off the window and maybe that would get her attention. Into the
Valley
of
Death
.

“I hope you understand it was not my intention to touch you,
any part of you,
or hurt you in any
way. I was simply wishing you good luck and things sort of got out of…”

“That how you do it over here, grab me boobs and give t
he little cow a good squeeze for
luck?”

Jimmy and Fiona exchanged glances.

“Well, I think you know I didn’t grab you, and anything th
at happened wasn’t intentional
, on my part
.”

“Must have been my imagination
that had you
r
hands on me.”

“No, it wasn’t your imagination,
once you yelled at me to ‘piss off, spit on me and pushed me
I pushed you
back
to get you away from me, that’s all, but…”

“I know
,
you landed me in
hospital,
kept me over night, they did.”

Probably looking for a brain
,
I thought, then felt my fuse igniting.

“Yeah, and believe me if I had it to do over again I would have just let you swear at me, spit on me
and kick me, and never reacted.
I don’t know what I was thinking. So I’m sorry things worked out the way they did. I wish you a speedy recovery and all th
e best from here on for you and the entire team,
” I said, then
stood up.

I left out my condolences
to everyone who had to deal with this pain
-in-the-ass bitch in the future, but I think my flushed face and the killer glare in my eye got the message across.

Fiona’s eyes were wide, Jimmy sat there red faced.

“Nice seeing you again. Best of luck in your upcoming bouts. Don’t worry, I
can show myself out.” I said,
then opened the door
before I picked Emma Bitch
up and tossed her out the window.

“I’m really s
orry,” Fiona whispered, out in the hallway
.

“Not a
problem, best of luck,” I said
and continued down the hallway.

“I might still press charges,” Felicity called from inside the room.

I was contemplating humanity
and the terribly complex issues life presents
while
d
r
inking a Leinenkugel’s
at The Spot
, not my first
. I was
planning to
download another
porno
when
I got home and then
my cell rang. It might have been a measure of my mood that I remained on the
bar
stool and answered
,
not
r
eally caring who was calling or
that they might figure out I was in a bar.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“
Dev?
Justine.”

I really didn’t want to hear that.

“Hi Justine
, how are things?
”

“I just wanted to call and say thanks for goi
ng over and talking to Felicity
this afternoon. It really helped
.”

Helped
who or what? I wondered.

“Well, I’m not sure how much it helped, but it’s done.”

“It’s just great to get a bit of
a positive spin on things and
everything.”