“Dinner, Heidi?” I said, pulling her chair out for her.
“You sure I’m not going to get stuck with the bill here?” she said, sounding wary as she sat down.
“Jesus, when did we become so cynical?”
“No offense, but it’s become a habit when you’re involved. Just remember, I’m usually your first call for bail money. Remember that insurance deal? Then the time you hid out at my place. There was that night you…”
“Okay, give it a rest. I thought you’d enjoy a nice dinner and a fun night out. If it’s going to be a problem, never mind. We can skip the meal and just hop in the sack and get to it.”
“Dinner will be fine, thank you.”
We had finished eating, and we were working our way through the second bottle of wine, a Chateaneuf du Pape which I had only heard of and Heidi had declared “absolutely divine.”
I came out of the bathroom and took another sip of wine. Heidi was back at the window watching the river traffic.
“Okay, finish that up, we gotta get going here.” I said.
“Get going? Where?”
“I have box tickets lined up for tonight’s entertainment,” I said.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding, what’s with all this negativity? I ask you out for a nice meal, an evening’s entertainment and you want to question everything. We can skip the show, if you want.”
“Sorry, guess I’m just not used to it. Let me run to the little girl’s room for a minute and I’ll be right back.”
I’d waited for Heidi before on her runs to little girl’s rooms. I topped up my wine glass, walked over to the windows and watched the beginning of a gorgeous sunset, counted the boats on the river, stared at the evening traffic, watched some folks picnicking across the river in the park.
“Okay, all set,” she said, coming out of the bathroom.
I’d set my empty glass on the table five minutes earlier.
“You’re sure there’s nothing else you have to do, a Jacuzzi, make up, brush your hair?”
“Does my hair look okay?” She was serious.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter Forty
It was a gorgeous evening, the hotel was only three blocks from the Veteran’s Auditorium and so we decided to walk. Besides, Heidi wouldn’t have been caught dead in my car, under any circumstances.
The auditorium stood next to the Xcel Center where Lionel Richie was appearing. In fact, the auditorium entrance actually looked like a side entrance to the Xcel Center. We were still maybe a half block away, Heidi had hung onto my arm and chatted the entire two and a half blocks, four or five glasses of wine did that to her. She was taking tiny steps in those shoes with the stiletto heels about ten inches high and seemed oblivious to the constantly turning heads and the horn honking she caused.
“Oh God, Lionel Richie, I just adore him,” she said, looking at the lighted marquee hanging above the grand entrance to the Xcel Center. It flashed two messages; ‘Lionel Richie’ in big swirling letters hung there for about ten seconds. Then, it went dark before ‘Appearing Tonight Only’ came on and in a slightly smaller, sort of bold type ‘Sold Out’ flashed three or four times.
“Well, actually…”
“God, I tried to get tickets, but he was sold out before I was even able to log on. You are so sweet,” she said, then reached up to plant a kiss on my cheek. What there was of her skirt rose up again over that perfect ass, a passing car slowed and honked at her a couple of times as a thank you.
“Let’s just slip in this side entrance and avoid the crowds,” I said, passing beneath the industrial street sign that identified the Veteran’s Auditorium entrance.
Once inside we found ourselves on a concourse that seemed to be inhabited by two completely different groups of people. There was a forty-plus, chilled white wine sort of crowd, couples in slacks or skirts, hair done, diamonds, pearls, all heading up the concourse into the Xcel Center. Or the designer jean, Jell-o shots and T-shirt crowd heading down into the Veteran’s Auditorium. We headed down stream.
“You sure we’re going the right way?” She took a quick glance over her shoulder as we moved away from Lionel Richie’s fans, but had to turn back to keep her balance in her heels.
“We have to go this way to get into our private box,” I said.
“Private box?” 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, actually,” I said to the young Goth-looking woman on the other side of the counter, then flashed my driver’s license.
Heidi continued to hang 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 tattoos and cursing me to seem to notice or care.
Our private box was midway down a corridor and attended by a nice little redheaded girl who looked all of twelve. She had tattoos covering both her 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 your card for whatever you use,” Destiny continued to smile.
“Thanks, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” I said, then took a deep breath 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 large, 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.
The box jutted out into space above the upper rows. The 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 pretzels, 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 Smirnoff 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 overlooking 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 least eleven more vodka’s in the fridge. I twisted off 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.
It 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 wore a green and red hockey jersey; based on her body language and the sneer on her face it looked to be a long night. He looked up in our direction, studied Heidi’s inner thighs spread open on the window sill for a long moment until hockey jersey glanced 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.