A US woman charged with offering sex for baseball World Series tickets has denied she did anything wrong.
"I'm not embarrassed about my actions. I'm embarrassed about how I was arrested," Susan Finkelstein, from Philadelphia, told AP news agency.
The 43-year-old was speaking a day after meeting an undercover policeman responding to her ad on Craigslist. She described herself as a "gorgeous, tall, buxom blonde diehard Phillies fan. I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!" --- [BBC News site, Oct 29th 2009]
Raucous voices chanting “Four nil, four nil, four nil” could be heard receding down the lino-floored corridor, as a clump of drunken football supporters were bundled towards the custody suite by Constable Charmian Berg. To be fair, Det. Inspector Wetherby inferred the football supporters from the chanting; Berg's substantial rear aspect obscured all but their extremities from view. Wetherby shouldered open the door to his office and nodded briefly to Det. Constable Jarvis, who was unfolding his stooped and bony frame from a chair against the wall.
“I think we've got another one, sir” Jarvis said, flourishing a copy of the local paper. A hunted look in his eyes belied the would-be bravado of the gesture.
“Right-oh,” said Wetherby, “what have we got? Cup final? Test match?”
“It's... it's worse than that, sir. It's... darts”.
Wetherby gave an almost imperceptible shudder despite himself. What would they stoop to next, these desperate predators? He took the paper from Jarvis' pale hand and ran a rheumy eye down the small ads section. There, amid the motorised bath lifts and second-hand trouser presses (“buyer collects – no time-wasters”), was a paragraph circled in blue biro:
Wanted: tickets for darts final
Mature female darts fanatic -
must see Barneveld at the Lakeside.
I like big men... especially if they
can finish with a double top...
Genuine offers only – no Bull (geddit?)
Box 19-20-20
Wetherby sighed.
“Have we followed up on the ad.?”
“Yessir”, said Jarvis. He consulted a small notepad – “She'll be at the Foggy Duck, Frimley, at 19:00 hours, sir. She'll be wearing a... a... feather boa, sir.”
“All right, son”, said Wetherby gently. “Sit you down, sit you down. No-one said this was an easy beat, boy, did they? Right. You'd better get your punter's kit on and get down th...”
At that moment, the door lost a brief and uneven contest with Constable Berg.
“Awright?” Her light baritone bounced effortlessly off the walls, as she favoured Jarvis with a proprietorial leer... “Oy, Jarvis – I've got tickets later... for the snooker. You interested?”
Wetherby glared at her, putting a paternal arm round Jarvis' shoulders. Beneath the thin blue serge, he could feel the boy shiver.
“Steady there, lad... she's only having you on”, he muttered.
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