Mike Faricy - Bombshell

An older neighbor lady I’d seen many times before slowly walked past with her dog, little, with curly white hair, the dog that is. On the other hand, she was rather large, swathed in a sort of paisley tent affair with hair dyed a shade of red not found in nature. Her rouged checks seemed to flush with even more color as she glared at me.

“Good morning,” I smiled, Tyler and Baby Face were on either side of me, holding my handcuffed arms as we marched down the porch steps.

“Oh, I’m not surprised in the least,” she growled. As she spoke she shook her plastic bag full of dog shit at me then waddled away.

“You always have that effect on women?” Officer Tyler asked. Then he casually took a card out of his pocket and began to read me my Miranda rights. “You have the right to remain silent…”

I couldn’t help but think this total waste of taxpayer money seemed to be an overreaction to the assault charge Emma Bitch had no doubt gone ahead and filed. I thought it best to wait until I was officially charged before I called Louie my lawyer. He’d mention the withdrawal of seventeen witness statements and we’d see where things went from there.

We were seated in interview room number three. A trendy little affair if gray cinderblock walls and damp air conditioning holding just the hint of nervous sweat was your thing.

I had been left sitting in there for close to two hours, the past thirty minutes with Louie Laufen, my lawyer. I was still handcuffed although the cuffs were no longer behind my back.

“Oh, God,” Louie half burped, then screwed the top back onto a plastic blue Malox bottle. “I don’t know what I ate last night.”

“A bottle of Jim Beam from the smell of that burp,” I said. “Louie, can we get back to the matter at hand here, hello,” I said, then raised my handcuffed wrists.

“Yeah, yeah, sure Dev, just sort of not quite a hundred percent today, that’s all.”

“Oh great.”

I had no doubt Manning was probably watching through the two way mirrors on the wall behind Louie. Probably a number of them, all enjoying the little fun-fest they were having at my expense.

“So tell me again,” he said, burping more bourbon fumes. He looked down at the half page of notes he’d scribbled on the yellow legal pad.

“It was the halftime, the girls came into the locker room all pissed off, swearing, then Emma…”

“Real name Felicity Bard, correct?”

“Yeah, correct. Then Emma begins slamming her helmet against one of the lockers, again and again. She seems to be the most pissed off, says something about kicking a redheaded American bitch’s ass.”

“Typical locker room stuff,” Louie said.

“Pretty much, she, Emma that is, just seems the most pissed off, is my point.”

“Then what happens?”

“Jimmy, their security guy, calls me out into the hall, the girls come out maybe ten minutes later, Emma goes nuts on me. I defend myself, they keep her overnight for observation in Regions Hospital. At the request of my contact…”

“This Justine woman?”

“Yeah. She asks me to call Jimmy McNaughton, arrange to meet and try and smooth things over with Emma.”

“Now as far as you know, at this point all the statements regarding the incident in the hallway have been withdrawn?”

“Yeah, well accept for Emma’s. So, I apologize to her, then as I’m leaving she yells she still might file charges, and here I am.”

“Sounds like the proverbial slam dunk,” Louie said.

“I can only hope.”

With that the door opened. At no surprise Detective Norris Manning came in, bald head shining pink. He attacked the proverbial piece of gum with his front teeth, cracking it as he approached. There were two other people behind him. One I sort of recognized, guy about forty, curly salt and pepper hair, wearing a sport coat and loose tie. He had one of those five-o’clock shadows some guys permanently have and dark bags beneath his eyes. I couldn’t put a name to him.

The other individual was a woman, attractive in a tough looking way, not beat up, but more sort of, no nonsense. She wore black slacks and an off white blouse. She was blonde, with a tight jaw line, a nice figure. She had very dark eyebrows and brown eyes that seemed to bore into me. I guess it was a nervous sort of reaction, but I couldn’t help but think the drapes didn’t match the rug.

“Mister Haskell, Mister Laufen,” Manning said sitting down, laying a file on the table in front of him.

I nodded.

“Detective Manning,” Louie answered.

“This is Detective Franco, Detective Schumacher,” Manning introduced his accomplices.

Franco rang a bell, that was the name. I’d worked with him on a lottery scam a couple years back, met for all of twenty minutes. Schumacher, the woman, I’d never seen before. Both nodded as Manning said their name but remained leaning against the wall.

“Where to begin, where to begin,” Manning said, making a dramatic act out of opening the file and then giving a long sigh.

“Maybe you could begin with the charge against my client,” Louie said.

“Or the withdrawal of seventeen sworn statements,” I added.

Louie gave me a look suggesting I should just be quiet, but I knew better and decided I was going to enjoy this.

“You know as well as I do that this is bullshit, Manning.”

“Dev,” Louie cautioned.

“Ask any of those English girls.”

“Dev.”

“Ask their security guy Jimmy McNaughton. Ask any of the Bombshells.”

“Dev stop it.”

“Go ahead, ask Fiona Simmons, the one they call Harlotte Davidson, she’ll tell you that I…”

“God damn it, Dev, shut up,” Louie yelled.

“Yeah, if I could get a word in edgewise here. I mean we’re all interested in what you have to say Mister Haskell. No really we are, it’s just that, well, in order to check with Miss Simmons, well I’d love to, but someone fire bombed her hotel room and she’s in the hospital right now.”

“Hospital?” Louie and I said in unison, then stared wide eyed at Manning.

“Well hard as it may seem to believe this, I’m still having a problem with your story.” Manning said to me.

We’d been a number of hours in the interview room, but it felt like weeks. Franco and Schumacher hadn’t done so much as blink. In fact they’d done nothing other than lean against the wall and occasionally adjust positions.

That was okay with me, Manning had been piling it on just fine without help from anyone.

“So let me get this straight, you told Miss Justine Dahl that you intended to light a fire under that bitch’s ass, referring to Miss Bard. Is that correct? Are those your words? Light a fire under that bitch’s ass?”

“Well, yeah, I may have said something like that, sort of, but it was just a phrase.”

“And during the same phone conversation you suggested to Justine Dahl that Felicity Bard was in your words a real bitch? Is that correct?”

“No, not exactly, see Miss Bard’s roller Derby name is Emma Babe, E-M-M-A,” I spelled it out. “I was just doing a little play on words suggesting it should be Emma Bitch, see? Sort of making a little joke.”

“A little joke?” Manning asked.

“Well, maybe more to make a point,” I said, before Louie could stop me.

I think I was the only one in the room who got the play on words.

“So then to add to the joke, to make your point, you fire bombed the hotel room of Fiona Simmons and Felicity Bard.”

“No.”

“Miss Simmons is hospitalized and Miss Bard has been released and is recovering, again. A hundred and fifty hotel guests were evacuated, just to make your point, as you say.”