5 Tutti Frutti (33 page)

“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 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.

Chapter Four

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 perfect 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 fireplace, 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 window above that in some kind of flower pattern. The streets light from four stories down cast colored reflections across her living room ceiling.

“Beer’s just fine for me.”

A hallway ran straight 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 could 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 went 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 we 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.”

“I hope not. I don’t think there will be. But, I’ll give you this, it’s pretty strange.”

“Yeah and not the sort of publicity we’re looking for.”

“I don’t know, you could probably get a sellout crowd showing up just to see if anything was going to happen. People dig this weird shit, look at all the folks into the whole vampire thing,” I said, then sipped.

“That is so not the sort of fans we’re looking for. We’ve worked really hard to get beyond the image of strippers on roller skates and then something like this comes along.”

“Maybe it’s someone who gets their kicks getting headlines, you know their fifteen minutes of fame sort of deal. If that doesn’t happen, if you keep it quiet, maybe the guy will just go away.”

“Or get more aggressive,” she said.

“There is that.”

“Who would let some guy cut off their finger?” she said, then shuddered swallowing her beer.

“I’ve been thinking about that. At first I was thinking, it’s him, you know some nut case doing it to himself but there are too many middle fingers for one guy. Then, I thought maybe homeless people, druggies, but that seems sort of far fetched. I’m guessing someone with ready access.”

“Ready access? To fingers? You gotta be kidding. How does that work?”

“Maybe it’s someone who works in a hospital or a morgue or a funeral home, something along those lines.”

“Oh, that’s comforting.”

“Just thinking out loud.”

“You hear back from Miss Cosmopolitan?” she asked, moving quickly away from the subject of fingers.

“No, not really interested,” I said. I saw no benefit admitting I heard Carol’s stupid French phone message. I could only hope little old Nicholas was just that, little.

“Need a hug?”

“What?”

“Get over here, stupid,” she said and took her glasses off.

Don’t miss
Bombshell
. Dev thinks he’s on his way to a sweetheart deal, hovering around a team of gorgeous women and getting paid for the privilege. As per always, circumstances quickly fly out of control and Dev ends up with a laundry list of trouble – and no answers.

Take a moment and grab another one of my books and enjoy the read and m
any thanks.

Mike Faricy