Mike Faricy: Bombshell

“We’ll maybe make an exception,” the other hotel guy said, “under the circumstances.” He was a black guy, maybe mid-forties. Not muscled in that ripped sort of way, but solid looking, like he’d been a farm kid or done heavy construction. His nose had that particular ‘S’ curve suggesting he’d been involved in animated discussions a couple of times. He seemed to have the assurance of an ex-cop or maybe a military type. Someone used to calling the shots and not having a lot of people present alternatives.

The guy who said room service might be closed was already on the phone, getting coffee sent up. “How many you think?” he asked, like we were planning a party instead of arresting Emma Babe for kidnapping, waving a gun around town and probably the murder of Fiona Simmons.

“Couple of pots, sounds like we’ve more coming,” he said into the phone, then looked over at me.

I nodded in agreement.

“Got some doughnuts, coffeecake, sweet rolls, something like that?” Then he nodded some more in response to whatever he heard. “That’ll do, sooner the better,” and hung up.

“I want to speak to someone from the British Embassy,” Emma half shouted again from the floor, still tied up.

“Ma’am, we’ll get to you in a moment. Probably the best advice I could give you for right now would be to just sit there, quietly,” Andretta said.

She huffed, wiggled back and forth a couple of times, but didn’t say anything else. I noticed there was a puffy swelling along her jaw line and the beginnings of some discoloration where Heidi had clocked her.

I was barely into my story before Manning appeared. I was giving the long version, playing for time, starting at the very beginning. I’d barely gotten to cooling my heels in the women’s locker room last week during the practice between the Hustlers and the Bombshells.

Both uniformed officers suddenly appeared very cautious in front of Manning.

He had arrived with a bit of an entourage, two more officers, one a sergeant, not Security Sergeant Wayne. The blonde, female detective that had been in the interview room a while back followed the two officers. I couldn’t remember her name, but Manning took care of that.

“You’ve already met Detective Schumacher,” he said, by way of reintroduction while not giving away any details to the others. He didn’t bother to introduce the two uniformed officers who’d arrived with him. He busied himself taking a long time looking around my penthouse suite, since his department, compliments of the SWAT team, was picking up the tab I thought that seemed okay.

Coffee arrived, along with a large tray of doughnuts and sweet rolls. Manning shot me a glance then went for the tray without missing a beat, he took a large bite from some sort of caramel affair and seemed to be lost in thought as he chewed.

“We were still processing the scene over at the Veteran’s Auditorium, when I got LaZelle’s call,” he said once he swallowed. He wiped his hands on a cloth napkin, then glanced at Emma tied to the bedpost.

She seemed to think better about demanding to see someone from the embassy.

Manning studied her for a moment then turned back to the assembled group although he seemed to be talking for my benefit.

“We were processing an incident in the locker room, the Hustler’s locker room,” he said and awaited my reaction.

“Really?” I acted surprised, and got the distinct feeling Manning was in the process of reassessing the information he’d already compiled.

Eventually he nodded at me and his blue eyes seemed to bore through my thick skull.

“The girls beat up some other innocent in the hallway?” I asked, trying to move things from inside the locker room.

“Something along those lines.” Manning didn’t go into any further detail. He set his coffee down, then looked me in the eye. “So what you got here?”

I told him my story, starting with our walk over to the Veteran’s Auditorium and Heidi suddenly becoming the world’s biggest Lionel Richie fan. I left out the part about putting the tickets on the penthouse room charge. I forgot to mention my little trip down to the Hustler’s locker room or shooting a Taser into Sergeant Wayne’s fat ass. I didn’t see any point in mentioning I told Destiny to clear out the bar in the private box.

I did mention Heidi drinking a little too much after a long, tiring day. Soft pedaled a little when it came to wheeling her out on the two wheeled dolly. Then I launched into Emma Bitch coming out of the dark and shoving a pistol in my ribs, threatening to kill both of us and appearing desperate to get away from the Veteran’s Auditorium. I told Manning that along the way Emma dropped her line about stuffing a finger “in with all those bits and pieces and paint cans”.

Manning nodded, said, “That would explain the finger from her purse, tonight in the locker room,” but didn’t go into any further detail.

“Finger? From her purse?” I asked.

“That the dolly there?” Manning said, ignoring my question and pointing toward the red, two wheeled dolly next to the bed. The words ‘Veteran’s Auditorium’ were stenciled in black letters across the back.

“The red two wheeled one, yeah. The other dolly, the one in bed, is Heidi,” I joked. Manning looked at me, but didn’t smile, blue eyes back to lasers. Schumacher never even blinked she just stood in the background, I couldn’t tell if she was even breathing.

Manning finally nodded, glanced over at Emma, and then said to the uniformed sergeant, “Place her under arrest, read her, her rights, and then put her in a holding cell. We’ll move her to an interview room once we get down there.”

Aaron walked in just as Manning went over and stood in front of Emma.

“Miss Bard, we’re going to place you under arrest. For the moment we’re charging you with kidnapping and I’m also tacking on use of a fire arm in the commission of a crime which makes everything a bit more serious in this state. There most likely will be more charges to follow,” he said.

Emma looked as if she was going to say something, but Manning’s bald head started to go crimson and he held his hand up like he was stopping traffic.

“I’m aware you’re a British citizen, we’ll get in touch with the Consulate down in Chicago in the morning. Okay, Sergeant,” he said, and then returned to the rest of us as the uniforms moved.

The four uniforms surrounded Emma, Andretta was on his knees, handcuffing her before he untied her. In short order she was pulled up on her feet and led out of the room. The Sergeant was reading her rights as they walked past. Her head was bowed, shoulders slumped and she appeared a substantially paler shade than just a few moments earlier. An officer walked ahead of her, one each held her arms, the Sergeant followed behind. The hotel security guys walked out behind them.

“So,” Aaron asked, looking from Manning to me and then back to Manning.

Manning gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Look’s like she might well be responsible for the death of Fiona Simmons. I just want to keep everything contained until we’ve an airtight case,” he said.

Aaron nodded.

Manning turned to me. “We’ll need a statement from you and Miss,” he glanced toward the four poster bed where Heidi was snoring softly.

“Miss Bauer, Heidi Bauer. In all honesty, she’s been passed out the entire time.”

“But yet she somehow managed to knock Miss Bard unconscious?” Manning asked.

“Yeah, it was a reaction to being slapped on the ass.”

“Slapped on the ass?” Aaron said.

“Come here,” I said and they followed me over to the bed where Heidi snored. I pulled the covers back. She seemed to react somewhat, snorted once or twice, and then went back to her rhythmic snoring. Her rear was more exposed than not and there was the unmistakable deeper red shape of a hand, with maybe just the beginnings of purple along the edge.