“Don’t, Dev,” she said, then grabbed my arm again. This time she placed some excruciating pressure on my wrist using just her thumb and forefinger.
“Ouch, okay, okay, man let go that really hurts.”
“It’s supposed to, you might do well to remember that, now don’t look over there again, I’m going to call this in,” she said taking a cell phone out of her purse. She pulled what looked like a wanted poster out, nodded at the thing as if to confirm, then dialed.
She had her back to me, phone up against her right ear and a finger in her left as she talked.
“They should be here shortly,” she said, once she hung up and turned around. “I think I’ve got time for another Cosmo.”
“Don’t you want to go strap on a Kevlar vest or something?”
“No, I don’t think so, but it might be a good idea to get out of the way and move down toward the far end of the bar.”
She sat sipping her Cosmo at the corner of the bar, back near the rest rooms. I can’t recall what she was talking about for the simple reason I wasn’t paying any attention. I figured if things got hot I’d just jump behind the bar, pull the fat bartender on top of me and hope for the best. Linh’s cell rang about twenty minutes later. I could hear her giving directions to whoever was on the other end.
“Yeah, five tables back, in the corner, he’s wearing a blue shirt, sitting with a blonde woman. She looks kind of bitchy and she’s got fake boobs. No I’m not kidding. You can’t miss them. Yeah, I thought you’d like it,” she chuckled then clicked her phone shut and reached in her purse.
“Dev, do me a favor and step back here, will you?”
“Hunh,” I said, then glanced down and saw her little hand demurely wrapped around the grip of some sort of snub pistol.
“Get your ass behind me, now,” she said.
I didn’t need to be told a third time and moved behind her just as three Swat officers burst in the front door. A second later three more ran in through the back entrance. They had weapons drawn, and were screaming, it seemed like deja vu all over again for me.
“Everyone down, down,” they yelled charging into the far back corner of the Dew Drop.
“Get ‘em up. Get ‘em up.” They yelled at the blue shirted guy sitting at the corner table.
He had longish hair and what looked like about a three day growth of trimmed beard, just the right amount to be cool. Some guys could pull that off, I can’t. If I tried, it would just look like I’d been on a three day bender.
Mister Cool moved left, right, turned around and then just stopped and raised his hands above his head. Linh was moving toward him in a shooters stance with her pistol pointed directly at the guy, sexy and cat-like.
One of the Swat guys had stepped in and was placing handcuffs on the guy, none to gently. I recognized the cop as the jerk who’d pulled me over the stair banister and cuffed me in my own house.
The bad guy’s date was on her feet, shaking her head back and forth screaming at the cops. “No, no there’s been some mistake. Stop this, stop it.” She was stomping her foot, then jumping up and down screaming, “Stop, stop”.
Linh had been right the woman did have fake boobs. I recognized their bounce and her bitching, Carol. I knew it was her the moment she stomped her foot. And there, cuffed and being read his rights was my French friend, Nicholas. Pepe le Pew. Oh man I thought, he’s guilty, he has to be guilty.
“Look Dev, I’m sorry, but I have to go downtown. We’ve been looking for this guy forever. I hate to do this to you, our first date, but, well do you understand?” As she spoke she was shoving her snub back into her purse.
“Actually Linh, I can’t tell you how you made my day, really.”
Linh turned back to watch the excitement for a moment.
“No you don’t understand, you’re not listening to me…” Carol screamed, following behind the Swat team as they led Nicholas out the door and into a squad car.
“Thanks for understanding, Dev, gotta run, maybe latter,” Linh said, then reached up and kissed my cheek.
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
Chapter Fifty — One
The phone rang and kept ringing. After a while I stumbled out of the four poster bed made my way to the end table and the offending noise.
“Hello,” I said sitting down on the couch half wondering why room service was calling so early.
“Well, well, Mister Haskell, I hope I woke you.”
“Hey, Detective Manning, how’s it going?” I said, then used my foot to shove a pair of open toed shoes off to the side.
“Not so well.”
“Oh?”
“There’s the little matter of a hotel bill that came across the department’s desk yesterday. Does the term city-wide budget cuts mean anything to you?”
“Hotel bill, mine?” I picked up the little off-white garment from the coffee table, arranged it neatly over the back of the couch.
“Have you been getting spa treatments and massages every damn day?”
“Well, see…”
“Ordering room service morning, noon and night, hundred dollar bottles of champagne?”
“I suppose…” I looked at the champagne flutes over on the large table one of them sported a half moon of red lipstick.
“Did you run up a tab for close to eight hundred bucks on two tickets and a fully stocked bar at the Roller Derby bout?”
“Yeah I suppose, but actually that led in a way to an arrest and you guys…”
“It’s eleven-fucking-o-clock, Haskell. Check out is at noon,” he said and slammed down his phone.
“Who was that?” Linh called, her head was still underneath the pillow.
“Feel like going somewhere for lunch?”