“Developed the way they did? You make it sound like you spilled a glass of wine on the carpet. Our tour is about to fall apart, the team enforcer has a sprained shoulder and a bone chip in her heel and you don’t like the way things developed? Bloody hell,” he was red faced, heading toward purple.
“I was just trying to block her kick.”
“You stupid little wanker, she kicked you because you grabbed her boobs.”
“I didn’t grab her boobs. She spit on me, grabbed me by the throat, told me to piss off and pushed me against the wall. It was just my natural reaction to push back. That’s all I did. The next thing I know she came flying back with some sort of Karate kick, I just blocked her and down she went. If she hadn’t tried to kick me how in the hell do you think I got hold of her ankle?”
He seemed to think about that for a moment.
“She said piss off?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact she said, piss off, Yank. Not a reason to assault anyone, I agree, but put it all together, it’s just what happened. I’m the one who was attacked here, not her. Then they clubbed me over the head, knocked me out,” I said looking around the room. All the girls suddenly seemed to be making themselves scarce.
“I’m not going to press charges or anything. I’m sorry if she’s injured, I just wanted to apologize and set the record straight. That’s all.”
“Piss off, Yank,” he said absently. “Yeah, sounds a bit like her.”
My relief must have been obvious; Jimmy seemed to be deep in thought.
“Is there some way I can still help you?” I asked.
“Well, I think for the time being, we better have you stay away from the team, they might want to cut off more than your finger.”
Not the first time the thought had crossed my mind, staying away sounded like a good plan to me.
“Have you had any other incidents, any notes, phone calls, any more fingers?”
“No, as of last night most of our time has been taken up with the likes of you.”
“Let me see what I can find out on the finger front, all right?” I said.
Jimmy seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.
“Just as long as you stay away from the team. They’ve enough on their plate right now with things going all to hell.”
“You got it, thanks, Jimmy,” I said, then held out my hand.
He took it, shook with a firm grip.
“Now please, let me finish my tea in peace.”
Chapter Fourteen
The logical place to start seemed to be The Spot bar. I strolled in for a late liquid lunch of Leinenkugel beer.
“Dev, you fall down on the job last night,” Tommy asked as he poured my tap beer.
“Hunh?”
“Didn’t you tell us you were going to be hanging around that bunch of English girls, providing security? I read in the paper one of them was attacked by some nut case last night. Cute little thing, had her picture in the paper with some kids. You see it?”
“The paper? No, haven’t had the chance, yet. I wasn’t at the auditorium last night.”
“How’d you know it happened there if you didn’t see the paper?” he pushed my beer in front of me, waited for my reply.
“Heard a couple of them talking about it when they got back to their hotel. That’s where I was all night. Just came from there as a matter of fact, planning strategy.”
“Strategy?” he seemed to consider this, but didn’t add anything else.
After lunch I went back to the office and started making phone calls. Over the course of the afternoon I spoke with the police in Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. I decided it might be best to work backwards so I called Denver first and ended up speaking with a Detective named Kingston Quinn who sounded decidedly more black than Irish.
“Detective Quinn, thanks for taking my call, I’m working with Detective Norris Manning up here, we’re looking into an incident involving an English roller derby team, the Hastings Hustlers, they…”
“Bunch of fine looking ladies you ask me. You get to talk with any of ‘em?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I spoke with some of them as recently as last night, we’re interested…”
“Bunch of little hotties and when they talk, like to take all of ‘em home, ‘cept the wife wouldn’t be too happy with that.”
“Yeah, who could blame her, anyway, last night…”
“Yeah, saw something about that come across here. You’re up there in St. Paul, right?”
“That’s correct, see I wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding the envelope…”
“Yeah, some head case up there attacked one of those hot little girls? Listen you need any help, couple of us be on the next plane get that action solved real quick. Then maybe spend a little time with the girls, you know just to…”
“That’s very considerate of you, Detective, but I think the media sort of blew that story out of proportion, see the individual they…”
“Little girl barely a hundred pounds gets herself attacked by some jackass, like to cut more than a finger off that dude, you catch my drift. See how tough he is after I get through with him.”
“We’ll keep it in mind. Now about that envelope taped to the door of the bus.”
Once we established he was available to spend time with a room full of sexy English girls Kingston Quinn didn’t have a lot more to offer.
“Waiting on the analysis reports to come back. Not sure if you got budget cuts happening up there, but we’re dealing with that problem in every department, not to mention one or two more serious issues, you catch my drift.”
“I do, unfortunately, any guess when you might see a report, we talking another week, two?”
“No more like four to six months.”
“Four to sixth months,” I half shouted.
“No one’s called in to say they’re missing a finger. We can do some cross referencing, but it would only be for the greater Denver area. We aren’t hooked into other departments around the state, let alone the rest of the country.”
“Anyone call the Feds?”
“The FBI? On a finger? That’s what we need, a bunch of suits coming in here and screwing up the three thousand plus ongoing investigations so we can see who taped a finger to the door of a bus. Not sure how you guys work up there, but we like to stay as far away as possible from those folks.”
“Any guesses?”
“You mean who taped the damn thing to the door?”
“Yeah?”
“Some jackass, just like the jackass attacked that little girl up there last night. My guess, check him out, he certainly sounded stupid enough.”
“Thanks, we’re doing that,” I said.
“Look, I get a chance I’ll make a call, see if they got any thing, but with the budget cuts and all…”
“Anything you can do would be appreciated.”
Things didn’t seem to go a whole lot better in Chicago. I spoke to a Sergeant Anthony Howe, he had a decided south side Chicago accent.
“St. Paul, hunh, something about that sitting on my desk when I came in this morning. You guys nail that flake been sending fingers to them English broads?”
“We’re working on it, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“You ask me, it’s that piece of shit attacked one of those girls up there last night. Let me question the son-of-a-bitch for about five minutes, I’ll get you answers, the answers ya want. Still got the bastard locked up? Or did he get all lawyered up and he’s out on the street? Probably casing some grade school as we speak. I tell you the court system in…”
“Sergeant Howe, did you process that finger, the one that was sent to the Hastings Hustlers?”
“Yeah, in a manner of speaking.”
“Manner of speaking?”
“I don’t know how things are up there maybe you don’t have a lot of scum bags like we do. With all the bad apples we got down here, some guy mails a finger, folks down here probably just worried he got the right postage on the envelope. You know? What the hell, you guys dealing with an occasional assault with an icicle or something, right?” he laughed at his own joke.