Wayne nodded, then yanked my arms up behind my back to unlock his handcuffs.
“Ouch, Jesus, will you watch it. What the hell’s wrong with you, Wayne?”
He pulled me close, hissed at me. From his breath I guessed he’d spent a good part of the night protecting the Bratwurst stand.
“I better not see your worthless ass in my auditorium, ever again.”
“Your auditorium? God, get me out of here, Manning, come on, please.”
Chapter Twelve
“Look Dev, trust me on this, as your personal legal advisor I’m telling you it would be a really bad idea for me to get my fat ass down there tonight. I’ve had a couple of drinks.”
Louie Laufen, my attorney, was slurring his words. Even over the noise from the jukebox in whatever bar he was in, I could hear that much.
“Louie, can you call someone else to come down and get me out of here tonight? I don’t want to spend the night locked up in a jail cell.”
“No, no what’s the score…” I guessed he was talking to whoever was seated next to him at the bar.
“Louie!”
“Hello, who’s this…”
It was close to eleven the following morning before I was released.
“Look Dev, what are you pissed off at me for? I came as soon as you called?” Louie said. We were standing on the sidewalk outside of the Ramsey County Jail, cars were backed up along Kellogg Boulevard in both directions due to the road construction.
“You came as soon as I called? Louie, I called you last night.”
“You did? When?”
“After they brought me in, as soon as I could get to a phone.”
“No shit, well why didn’t you leave a message?”
“A message? I talked with you, man, but you said you couldn’t come down.”
“Mmm-mmm, actually, that was probably a pretty good idea, me not coming down. No, I don’t think I would have helped last night. Well, no real harm done,” he said and slapped me on the shoulder.
“No real… I spent the night in jail, Louie.”
“Not the first time, Dev, can I drop you somewhere?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, if it hasn’t been towed I have to pick up my car at the Veteran’s Auditorium.”
“That’s not exactly on my way, I was…”
“No real harm done,” I said, then slapped him on the shoulder and glared.
“Okay, okay, come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
My car hadn’t been towed, but only because they hadn’t gotten to it, yet. It was ticketed for a tow, parked in an overnight spot you weren’t supposed to park in overnight.
“Damn it, a hundred-and-twenty-five bucks,” I said, tossing the ticket into my front seat.
“Count your blessings, it would have been two-twenty-five if they towed you over to the impound lot,” Louie said, then waved and drove off, Mister Positive.
I drove home to shower, change and use a bathroom where I could close the door. I was getting undressed and pulled my phone out of my pocket to set it on the dresser. I had four messages and a-half-dozen texts. All had come through while I had been in custody. The first text was from Jimmy short and to the point, ‘U’r fired’. The next five were from Justine, but I didn’t have the heart to read them. I deleted them all and moved onto the messages.
They were all from Justine, too. I was about to learn she could be a woman of few words.
“Dev, you okay?”
“Dev, call me.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Don’t call me.”
I called her, and had to leave a message.
“Hi Justine, Dev. Look there seems to be a slight misunderstanding about last night. I’d like to explain, please call. Thank you.”
I took a long, hot shower. I hosed off the woman’s locker room, the assault, my interrogation, a night in the cell next to the drunk tank and the fifteen minute ride in Louie’s car. In the shower I discovered a knot on the top of my head where one of those reactionary English chicks had clubbed me with her helmet.
Justine didn’t return my call. I got dressed and drove to the office. I stuffed two quarters in the slot and grabbed a copy of the morning paper from the box on the corner, climbed the stairs and made some coffee up in my office. I poured what amounted to barely half a cup then opened up the paper. There, in the bottom corner of the front page, Local Man Assaults English Girl, story page 3. Wonderful.
The article, written by a James Tarbox, was three paragraphs long. I couldn’t recall talking with this hack. It was accompanied by a photo of Felicity Bard; AKA Emma Babe. In the photo she was bending down, resting her hands on the shoulders of three cherub-like children at a London Heart Hospital. In the photo Emma looked like an innocent fourteen-year-old with big boobs. The article gave all the pertinent details, she weighed one-hundred-and-seven pounds, stood five-feet-two-inches and was over here fundraising at her own expense so the hospital could purchase a CT scanner for children. She’d been hospitalized overnight for observation. Mercifully my name wasn’t mentioned. I was simply described as “a local man known to police”.
My phone rang, dragging me out of the daydream where I was shoving Emma in her roller skates off a ramp and into the Grand Canyon.
“Hello?”
“I’m returning your call.”
“Justine, thanks for calling.” I waited a very long moment for a response, there wasn’t one. “Hello?”
“I’m returning your call.”
“Thank you. Look, I just wanted to explain. I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand last night. God, it seems like everyone has just jumped to a conclusion and…”
“Jumped to a conclusion? For your information there are about a million witnesses. We were all hauled in to talk to the head of security at the Veteran’s Auditorium…”
“That lard ass Wayne guy?”
“I don’t know, he’s the sergeant in charge, to tell you the truth we were all just a little too shocked to get his name.”
“He’s not some sergeant, that’s just the name of the security company that…”
“I don’t know that any of that is really important right now, we’re looking at a potential lawsuit here. I’ve spent the better part of last night and all of this morning doing damage control with the media.”
“A lawsuit?”
“We were stupid enough to hire you and put you in touch with the Hastings Hustlers. You said it wouldn’t be a problem, you’d just move us to the top of the list, thanks a bunch. You failed to mention it would be your shit list. I’ve been talking to lawyers all morning.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I, in fact we, have been advised not to have any contact with you. So that’s the only reason I’m calling, to tell you I’m not talking to you.”
“Well, at least they’re in Chicago, so you can get back…”
“Oh, haven’t you heard? They’re still here, the Hustler’s. Chicago cancelled. Seems what with the finger thing and now the assault from a local nut case up here, Chicago just doesn’t need the hassle. So they canceled. I’m sure the remaining cities on the tour will follow suit before the day is over. Nice job Dev, we’ve worked years to build up the image, do all sorts of good and you managed to destroy everything in about fifteen seconds.”
“Hey, how was I supposed to know… Hello. Hello? Justine?”
There was probably nothing positive to be gained by calling back and suggesting we’d been cut off.
Chapter Thirteen
I figured if I phoned Jimmy McNaughton he’d either refuse to see me or contact Justine and then refuse to see me, so instead I drove over to the Hustler’s hotel. Jimmy was in the dining room drinking a cup of tea, he is English after all. From what I could tell the Hustler’s were grazing on double cheeseburgers, double orders of fries and washing it all down with diet cokes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here? I’m about to call your police,” he said the moment he saw me.
“Jimmy, I want to explain. I didn’t do anything last night, I was just protecting myself. I’m sorry things developed the way they did. It wasn’t my intention…”