“Okay, look, enjoy your evening. I’m going to be with the Hustlers at breakfast tomorrow morning. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Thanks Dev.”
“Goodnight, Spankie.”
Chapter Eight
Breakfast with the Hastings Hustlers consisted of a feeding frenzy billed as a buffet. Platters of bacon and eggs, side dishes of French toast and pancakes treading in pools of maple syrup topped off by caramel rolls and muffins were inhaled by the ladies and then washed down by about fifty pots of tea.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked.
Jimmy nodded.
Emma moved her neck around like she was warming up for a boxing match.
“Just fine,” Harlotte said.
“The girls have a light warm-up this morning, we’ll leave here about half-ten,” Jimmy said.
“Is that nine-thirty?” I asked.
“No, I think you’d say half-past-ten. We’re back here for lunch at half-one. They take it easy, rest up for tonight’s event and we’re back on the bus to Chicago immediately after that.”
“What time will you be going back to the arena?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah”
Emma excused herself and headed back to the buffet trays.
“Just after six,” Jimmy said. “I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind staying there, at the arena, keeping an eye on the locker room. Staff over there said they would, but my experience is they’ll be running around attending to last minute bits and bobs, and won’t be bothered.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea.” I was thinking it might make even more sense if I was in there while the Hustlers showered and changed.
“We can post you outside the door once the team arrives,” Jimmy said, shattering my dream.
Emma returned with a plate of pancakes buried under about two pounds of bacon.
“You’ve spoken with your police?” Fiona asked.
“I spoke with them yesterday. I plan to contact them again today, while you’re practicing, really just to touch base. I’ve a point of contact in the homicide division,” I said, trying to impress.
“Who’s that? What’s the chap’s name, just in case?” Jimmy said, he’d pulled a pen out of thin air and sat ready to write in a small notebook.
“Detective Norris Manning.” I gave Manning’s phone number to Jimmy. I was sure a phone conversation with Manning would do nothing for international relations.
“Hopefully, I won’t have to talk with him,” Jimmy said.
“Hopefully.”
At ten-forty-five I was following the Hustlers bus on I-94 into downtown St. Paul. I kept glancing in the rear view mirror checking for anyone who might be following. If anyone was, they were too good for me to spot. I spent the entire practice session sitting inside the Hustlers locker room, exciting as that may sound, it wasn’t.
I placed a call to Manning in homicide, just to touch base. I waited the requisite ten minutes before a voice came back on the line.
“He’s ahhh, busy right now Mister Haskell. Is there anything I could help you with?”
“No, not really, if I could just leave the message I phoned. I’m with the Hastings Hustlers, I just wanted to check in.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know you’re with the Hastings Hustlers.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” I said, getting the distinct feeling Manning was sitting next to the guy probably on his second or third donut.
I toyed with the idea of hiding in the locker room until the Hustlers were all in the shower and then jumping out, but with my luck Emma Babe would be there and break my arm just for fun. Jimmy opened the door and saved me from myself.
“Okay, Dev, the team’s on the way in, so you can stretch your legs outside here. Once they’ve cleaned up we’ll get them back on the bus.”
The locker room door opened wider and a couple of the Hustler’s began to roll in. I twiddled around for another few minutes hoping for a cheap shot that never happened and then Jimmy led the two of us out.
“I know,” he said, as we leaned against the wall outside the locker room, “after a while I don’t even notice they’re naked I’ve seen so much of it.”
“They weren’t” I said, disappointed.
The remainder of the afternoon proved to be just as exciting. The Hustlers returned to the hotel, had lunch, and then adjourned to their rooms to watch soap operas or whatever they did. I busied myself sitting in the locker room back at the auditorium reading a brochure about things to do while in St. Paul. Half the things to do turned out to be in Minneapolis, I did note that assault by frenzied dancers at the Dew Drop was not listed.
At six-twenty the team was loaded on the bus with their luggage and drove back into downtown St. Paul. I was napping on a bench when they arrived.
Chapter Nine
Even downstairs in the bowels of the auditorium, standing outside the locker room you could hear the crowd overhead. Not a roar, but a constant hum. I was waiting with Jimmy in the hallway. He’d escort the team out to the track and remain with them out there. I’d post myself in the locker room, again, until they returned at halftime.
“So far so good,” Jimmy winked.
“That’s why I make all the big bucks, this excitement,” I said.
“Any time now, gentlemen,” some sort of official called down the hall in our direction.
Jimmy nodded and knocked on the locker room door. A moment later the Hustlers began to roll out. On wheels a number of them were my height or taller. I nodded at anyone who made eye contact. During practice earlier in the day they wore sweat pants and grungy sweat shirts. This was a far cry.
They had black and pink stripped stockings pulled up to the knees over fish net hose. The uniform was black, a sort of sleeveless one piece that formed into really tight hot pants. There were pink letters across everyone’s ass that read ‘Stay-Up’. Emblazoned red and yellow flames shot up their thighs. Their names, printed in pink, Gothic style script, ran across their shoulders.
Harlotte Davidson was in the lead. Her make up was a bit on the severe side, eyebrows penciled to an arch, rouged cheeks, hot pink eye shadow that drew to a point somewhere off to the side of her face. Ruby red lips outlined with a darker red. Not what I usually liked, but sexy in a different sort of way.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Thanks,” she shrugged and smiled back.
Emma was close behind her, rolling her shoulders back and forth.
“Good luck, Emma,” I said.
She grunted back, but never looked at me.
“All right,” Jimmy called, “just like always follow me, stay close, let’s go.”
They rolled out of the hallway and I could hear the growing roar of the crowd as they skated into the auditorium. I waited for a minute or two, then knocked on the locker room door. When I didn’t hear anything I opened the door and called into the room.
“Anyone in here?”
All I heard was the crowd overhead and the unintelligible voice of an announcer. I walked into the locker room and sat on one of the benches. I looked around at the individual locker areas. It was and wasn’t like other locker rooms I’d been in. The sinks and showers were at the far end, white hexagonal tile on the floor with glazed brick walls. I thought I could hear some water dripping, all that seemed to fit.
I heard the national anthem playing overhead.
Maybe it was the various frilly lace items hanging from hooks, or the fact that the room smelled reasonably nice. Maybe it was the thousand dollars worth of hair care products on the upper shelf of each locker area. I don’t know, there didn’t seem to be that sense of abandoned litter and trash so common in men’s locker rooms. I’m not sure any of the girls in here would ever get snapped with a wet towel or have their clothes stolen while they were taking a shower.
I heard the crowd roar overhead and more muffled announcer commentary. The bout must have started. There was a big part of me that wanted to watch Spankie and the Bombshells take on Harlotte Davidson and the Hastings Hustlers. Instead I was down here guarding a locker room full of woman’s underwear.