Bombshell (Devlin Haskell 4) (26 page)

“Private
b
ox?
” Heidi said
,
her eyes brightened
and
she hung even tighter on
my arm
, rubbing against me as we walked
.

The jig was up when we stopped at the ticket window.

“I’ll need a picture I.D. please.”

“Devlin Haskell, two tickets, it’s
for
a private box
,
actu
ally,” I said to the young Goth—
looking woman o
n the other side of the counter, then flashed my driver’s license.

Heidi
continued to ha
ng onto my arm
,
but leaned back to read the ‘Veteran’s Auditorium Tickets’ sign above the window.

“Private box for the Bombshells and Hastings Hustlers,
right,
” the woman nodded. She had what looked like the better part of
a car grill pierced through
her left eyebrow
and along the upper ridge of both
ears.

“There better be a lot to drink in that private box, Mister,” Heidi said, then pinched my arm
, hard
.

We rode up two escalators, which gave a lot of
roller
derby enthusiasts
a chance
to be enthusiastic about
Heidi’s
dress
or the lack of it
.
She
was too busy looking at tattoo
s
and cursing me
to seem to notice or care.

Our private box
was midway down a corridor and attended by a
nice little red
headed girl
who looked all of twelve. She had
tattoos covering both he
r
arms from the wrists
up to and beyond the short sleeves
on
her
white
blouse. She opened the door and stepped aside so we could walk in.

“If there’s anything you guys need just let me know, I’m Destiny,” she said.

“I’ll
start
with a vodka martini,” Heidi said. “Better make it a double.”

“Actually
,
there’s
like a totally
full bar, blender, ice, mix, beer and snacks in the box, you can just help yourself,”
Destiny
smiled.

“Good,” Heidi said, and strutted past me to familiarize herself with the bar.

“We’ve got your credit information so we just charge you
r card
for what
ever
you use,” Destiny continued to smile.

“Thanks, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” I said
,
then took a deep br
eath and turned to face Heidi once
Destiny closed the door
behind her
.

Chapter Forty
-One

The private box had
two rows of tier seating made up of l
arge, orange upholstered recliners that
could rock back and forth while you
looked out over the auditorium.
Both arms on the recliners had black plastic cup holders imbedded in them.

Th
e box jutted out into s
pace above the upper rows. T
he bar
area
was along the back wall behind the recliners
. Really nothing more than a refrigerator, a coffee pot and a wood grain Formica counter stacked with a couple bowls of pretzel
s, plastic cups
, paper plates and
white paper
napkins.

“Well,
you can
just
tell your little friend
we will definitely
be needing more Vodka.
”
Heidi
had just cracked
the top off an airline sized bottle of Smirno
f
f
and was emptying
the contents into a plastic
glass
full of ice cubes
.

I stood a safe distance away and watched.

“You are not allowed to have any of this,
the
cheap beer is on the bottom shelf,
”
she said, then
brushed against me
on her way to a recliner
as a reminder of
what I was going to miss out on. She took
a seat over
looking the banked
track down in the center of the auditorium
floor
and sipped
.

I
skipped the cheap stuff and grabbed a
bottle of
Grain Belt. I
counted at le
ast eleven
more vodka’
s
in the fridge.
I
twisted of
f
the
beer
bottle top
, then cautiously settled into
the seat next to Heidi. She had kicked her heels off, placed her feet
up on the window sill
, looked down at the arena
,
and sipped aggressively.

I
t looked to be a full house. A
guy a couple of rows down was
making his way past people standing
up
so he could get
to his seat
somewhere in the middle
. His date, maybe his wife
,
appeared to be bitching about something
. She wor
e a green and red hockey jersey;
b
ased on her body language
and the sneer on her face
it looked to be a long night. He look
ed up in our direction, studied Heidi’s inner thighs
spread open on the window sill for a long moment
until hockey jersey glanc
ed up at us, slapped his arm and indicated his seat. He gave me the knowing raised eyebrows
look
,
then
shook his head and
sat down.

“I never said we were going to Lionel Richie.”

“You know how cr
azy I am about him,” Heidi said, then sipped more vodka.

I k
new a lot of things about Heidi. I knew about
her business,
her house, her car. I knew all
of
her
perversions. I knew she changed her hair color
almost
weekly. I knew she went through men like
candy. I knew her
favorite foods, I knew she had a sweet tooth, was the world’s worst cook and
that she
shouldn’t drink more than two-and-a-half glasses of wine, ever. I didn’t
have the slightest idea
she was a Lionel Richie fan
.

“This isn’t going to ruin our evening is it?” I asked.

“Let’s just
say I’m thinking of erasing this
whole affair from my memory,” she said
,
then stared at me
over the rim of her
plastic
cup, titled her head back and drained the last of the
vodka.

“Look, to be honest I tried to get tickets
to Lionel
,
but they were sold out,” I lied.

“
Oh, r
eally?”

“Yeah, honest,” I said
, and then
contentedly
sip
ped
my beer, feeling I was back in safe territory
.

“So
,
the fact that you’re involved in this Roller Derby murder, and working with the police, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with us being here, is that right?”

I sat forward and almost spit
beer.

“Yeah, exactly
what I figured,” she said
.
“
I don’t care about Lionel Richie,
I’ll get the CD if I want,
but don’t lie to me, Dev. And don’t tell me this is a special night out for us when you’re probably taking me along just to provide some sort of cover for
another
one of your idiotic,
lame br
a
ined,
stupid
private eye
stunts
.
Get me another,
”
she said, then thrust her cup toward me causing the ice cubes to rattle.

Fortunately
,
the lights dimmed and the announcer
’
s voice came over the PA system
as I returned
. He sounded like the same guy I’d heard the previous week
when I’d been
sitting
down
in the Hustlers locker room.

“Oh
,
good Lord,” Heidi said,
and
then followed up with
a few
more
swallows of
vodka.

Both teams rolled into
the
spotlights illuminating the center of
the
arena
, music sta
rted to play, something that sounded
familiar
to me, but I couldn’t remember
the name of
the tune. T
he crowd roared. More than a few Union Jacks
waved around the auditorium. As the noise died down
the announcer
came a
cross and
said a few words about Fiona, then
asked for a minute
of silence
,
“
in honor of
someone who gave so much, who made the ultimate sacrifice, our darling
Fiona Simmons,
the one, the
only
,
Harlotte Davidson
”
.
A number of the Hustlers hugged one another
, I tried to find her, but couldn’t see
Emma Babe anywhere on the arena
floor
.
I did spot Jimm
y McNaughton, off to one end
leisurely scanning the crowd.

I saw Justine, AKA Spankie
,
standing in the middle of the Bombshells. I could pick
out Helen Killer,
Maiden Bed
,
Brandi Manhattan
and
Cheatin Hart
, the four teammates Justine had introduced me to at our meeting that
right
now
seemed
like it was
a century ago.

Heidi looked
over
at me
,
glared,
then
gulped down the remainder of her
vodka.

Mercifully she didn’t cause
an incident during the minute of silence. After the national anthems the place went
completely
dark and then spotlights circled the track as
a lone figure
appearing to wear
very little began to race round and round
the track. The crowd became more and more frenzi
ed as she zoomed faster and faster around the banked turns
. She held orange
flares
or torches
in such a
way that made her appear
to be rocket propelled. The
shadows caused by the
circling spot
light
s
made her
look
almost naked.

Cheering
and screaming filled the auditorium. Heidi leaned forward,
suddenly
fascinated, “Oh wow, this is really cool
,
I
had no idea. Look at her, Dev.
Are those rockets? How can she even see where she’s going
? Who the hell is that?
”
Heidi said, then thrust her empty cup toward me
.

I sat back and wa
tched
while the woman rocketed
round
and round
the track
,
going faster and faster, flames seemed to propel her,
the undisputed center of everyone’s
attention.

“Get me another, Dev,” Heidi said and rattled the ice cubes in her empty cup. “Who is that?”

“Her name is Felicity Bard, she skates under the name,
Emma Babe,” I said.

“
She sure is.”