Razor Girl Page 3

  “So is rum.”

  “—and totally gluten free.”

  “I love gluten. I always order extra.”

  “This is in no way funny, Andrew.”

  Yancy pointed at something in the vat. “That’s your emergency, correct?”

  Clippy nodded somberly. “We were slammed tonight. He must’ve snuck in the back door when the chef was busy. You need a bag?”

  “I brought my own, thanks.” Yancy donned a pair of latex medical gloves. Rosa had smuggled him two boxes from the E.R.

  “What kind of monster would do something like this?” Clippy said with a world-weary groan. “Neil took one look and got ill. I sent him straight home.”

  Yancy handed a Ziploc baggie to Clippy. “Hold this open for me, please.”

  “He used our herb scissors, too! You’ll need those for evidence.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” The shears were a top-of-the-line German brand. Yancy set them aside, thinking Rosa might need a pair.

  Then he reached into the vat and began to remove the offending adulterant—damp clumps of wiry hair. The strands were silvery gray flecked with black, and they smelled of stale booze. Yancy ended up filling three baggies.

  Clippy whispered, “Please tell me it’s from a human.”

  “That, or an alcoholic opossum.”

  “God, this is so revolting.”

  Yancy was sympathetic but firm. “You’ve got to eighty-six all the quinoa for tomorrow.”

  “Well, certainly.”

  “Then spray down your countertops and nuke this tub at, like, a zillion degrees.”

  “Done and done,” Clippy said. “Neil told me to tell you we definitely want to prosecute. Your lab people can get the DNA from the hair, right?”

  Yancy suspected that the Division of Hotels and Restaurants employed no laboratory techs, and had zero budget for genetic testing.

  “You can nail him for trespassing, obviously,” Clippy was saying, “tampering with food products, malicious whatever they call it…‘misbehavior.’ Throw the book at this perv.”

  “I’ll let you know if we come up with an ID.”

  “Dust the shears for fingerprints!”

  “Of course,” Yancy said, knowing it wasn’t going to happen.

  Clippy, who apparently watched every CSI show on television, would have been crestfallen to learn that the roach patrol held no police authority. Yancy could shut down a restaurant for gross health-code violations, but he couldn’t throw anybody in jail. Nor was forensic work part of his job description, unless counting mouse turds qualified.

  “You should probably file a police report,” he suggested to Clippy.

  “What—and see it all over the news? Neil would never forgive me, Andrew. It would devastate our business.”

  By the time Yancy drove back to Big Pine it was two in the morning. He placed the bags of vandal hair in his refrigerator and drifted off to sleep. At some point Rosa called to tell him about her night in the E.R., another rough one. For months he’d been trying to persuade her to relocate to the Keys, where assault-rifle wounds and spousal eviscerations were rare.

  But Rosa was a city girl.

  “I miss your legs,” Yancy said.

  “Are you behaving?”

  “Some moron dumped like a kilo of dirty hair in the kitchen at Clippy’s.”

  “Thanks for the visual,” Rosa said.

  “He used the steel bowl as a mirror while he gave himself a trim. Hey, you need some herb scissors?”

  “Night, Andrew.”

  He fell asleep while writing his report. He dreamed of tarpon rolling in Pearl Basin until he was awakened by a knock. It was a harsh intrusion, so soon after sunrise. He stalked cursing to the front door and flung it open.

  The woman who’d lost her diamond engagement ring was standing there. Her eyes crawled up and down Yancy, who was nude except for his reading glasses.

  “I’ll take that cup of coffee now,” she said.

  —

  It was assumed by locals that Buck Nance had made his way to the airport, hopped a chartered jet and fled the island. Everybody figured that, like all celebrities, he employed savvy handlers to whisk him away whenever a crisis occurred.

  The incident at the Parched Pirate didn’t make the morning print edition of the Key West Citizen, but a headline was bannered on the newspaper’s website along with two videos of Buck’s brief performance, provided by disgruntled bikers with iPhones. Soon the whole Internet was crackling. What Buck had considered harmless saloon jokes were now being denounced as racial and homophobic slurs. The network vice president in charge of Bayou Brethren told the vice president in charge of corporate relations to release a statement expressing dismay at Buck’s crude remarks. An overcooked apology was made to gays, African Americans, women and anyone else who might have been offended.

  Meanwhile, the show’s prime-time advertisers were under attack in the blogosphere, and by midday the ACLU had called for a boycott of all fishing flies tied with rooster feathers from the Nance farm. Word of the backlash sent the network vice president in charge of Bayou Brethren lunging for a pre-lunch Xanax. He couldn’t fathom why neither Buck nor his manager, Lane Coolman, would answer their cell phones.

  The whereabouts of the other Nance brothers—Clee Roy, Buddy and Junior—had been ascertained. They were chilling at the forty-acre Pensacola estate leased by the network and used as an outdoor set for the fractious family barbecue scenes that closed each episode. Down the road a stretch was the rooster farm, which the clan avoided except during taping days because of the stench. The writers had decided that Buck Nance’s brothers should refer to him as “Captain Cock” when quarreling on the show, and inevitably the sleeveless tee-shirt bearing that nickname became the top seller of all Bayou Brethren merchandise.

  Buck had been wearing one onstage at the Parched Pirate, but now the shirt was in a dumpster on Whitehead Street and the remains of his famous beard were in a bowl of ricey gunk at some restaurant he’d ducked into while fleeing the imaginary lynch mob. The puny kitchen scissors had left him with nappy bristles exposing a weak jawline that he hadn’t seen in years. His bare face looked pasty and shrunken, and in no way resembled the imposing Moses-like visage on his TV show.

  Which was good, in a way. Buck Nance feared that if he were recognized on the streets of Key West, he would be set upon and sodomized by militant homos, Negroes and other socialist-leaning minorities, a rioting of godless heathens.

  His survival plan was to blend with the common civilians until he could be safely extricated by Lane. The night was spent in a banyan tree listening to stray cats scrap and screw. Buck didn’t sleep a wink. At dawn he climbed down shivering and walked to Mallory Square, where he dozed off on a public bench. Soon he was jarred awake by the horn of an arriving cruise ship. The sun felt warm on his shoulders, promising a better day.

  Having lost his phone in the fray at the Parched Pirate, Buck entered a shop on Duval Street to purchase a disposable. There he learned that, despite the island’s laid-back reputation, shirtless men with fresh scrapes and bruises aren’t welcome in all establishments. He also discovered that his engraved sterling money clip had apparently fallen from his trousers when he scrambled up the banyan tree, meaning he had no cash or even credit cards, which he always tucked between the hundred-dollar bills.

  Somewhere on Simonton he shoplifted a random tee-shirt that bore a nonsense caption: WHERE IS BUM FARTO? He darted into a bougainvillea-fringed courtyard to put on the shirt, and out of habit he tore off the sleeves. An artist sitting languidly before an easel offered Buck fifty bucks to pose nude, and Buck’s response was to punch a fist through the blank canvas and stomp off. The artist considered calling the police but decided on a nap instead.

  —

  Florida’s beaches erode pitilessly, the unstoppable rise of sea level presenting a nightmare scenario for waterfront hotels, coastal developers and real-estate agents. Once upon a time you could get away with sellin
g submerged land to faraway rubes, but those days were over. Now buyers wanted to visit the property first, and not by paddleboard. Likewise, high-end vacationers to the Sunshine State derived no tropical enchantment from the sight of waves crashing through their hotel’s lobby.

  Climate change created a boom for a hurricane-spawned industry known as “beach renourishment,” a process by which thousands of tons of sand are dredged from the sea shallows and dumped onshore to replace the acreage washed away by nature. The enterprise is as costly as it is futile, though for a few glorious months the shoreline appears authentic if not pristine. This fluffing of public beaches is funded by helpless taxpayers, while privately held oceanfront is often augmented at the expense of the property owners. Either way, beach-renourishment deals are fabulously profitable for the contractors because the job never expires—every grain of sand you dump gets washed away.

  Martin Trebeaux had purchased a fleet of marine barges using the proceeds from a poshly falsified BP oil-spill claim. He named the new dredge company Sedimental Journeys, and before long he’d locked up the replenishment rights for eroding beachfront in five Florida counties, ninety-seven miles in all. Flagrantly generous to local politicians at election time, Trebeaux was repaid by the hundredfold when the bids fell his way.

  As a cutter of corners he soon got in trouble for dredging too near the shore. The bulky equipment and piping were unsightly, and the pumping method churned the surf to a murky hue that offended tourists, who came to Florida expecting the Atlantic Ocean to be somewhat blue. Trebeaux’s heedless bottom-sucking technique also killed catfish, littering the newly buffed beach with bloated whiskered corpses that deterred all but the hardiest of sunbathers.

  Over time, companies such as Sedimental Journeys vacuumed so much sand from Florida’s coastal seabeds that Trebeaux and his competitors were forced to search elsewhere for product. The Bahamas seemed the obvious choice because the sand there was of superb quality, and the barge trip across the Gulf Stream was short.

  Trebeaux rented a plane and scouted digging locations along the Bahama Banks, less than eighty nautical miles from fast-sinking Palm Beach. A lawyer in Freeport obtained the necessary permits in exchange for a modest commission based on the tonnage shipped.

  Everybody involved was rolling in dough until the commonwealth abruptly terminated its arrangement with Sedimental Journeys. An international enviro group had produced a scientific study showing that the sand collection operation had silted the reefs, suffocating the coral and dispersing the tropical marine life that tourists paid so dearly to see. Disheartening underwater footage was provided to all major media outlets, including the BBC. The Bahamian government, which is sensitive to negative publicity in the same way kittens are sensitive to firecrackers, immediately shut down Trebeaux’s dredging rigs.

  With orders backing up, he turned to a Miami rock-mining proprietor who assured him that a credible approximation of telegenic beach sand was abundant in a borrow pit being excavated on the eastern edge of the Everglades. This claim turned out to be spurious. The texture of the load delivered to Trebeaux more closely resembled shrapnel than sugar granules. He spread it anyway.

  Among his disgruntled clients were the municipality of Boynton Beach and the Royal Pyrenees Hotel and Resort, whose guests in unmanageable numbers were complaining of lacerated feet and—among small children making sand castles—shredded fingers. Martin Trebeaux could safely ignore the half-assed threat of litigation from the city’s attorney, but he was foolhardy to brush off the outcry from the proprietors of the Royal Pyrenees.

  The hotel had been built with union pension funds controlled by the Calzone crime family, which continued to manage the property and take an avid interest in the cash flow. Viral videos of bloodied tourists with their wailing toddlers were bad for business, and the Calzone organization believed that Martin Trebeaux was obligated to replace the defective beach behind the Royal Pyrenees immediately. This view hardened after a geologist hired by the hotel reported that the newly deposited sand was actually a slapdash mixture of crushed limestone, recycled asphalt fragments and broken glass. The whitish gleam of the grit was attributed to industrial bleaching.

  While the mobsters appreciated a novel fraud when they saw one, they did not enjoy being its victims. A capo named Dominick “Big Noogie” Aeola left a message on Martin Trebeaux’s phone instructing him to appear at the Royal Pyrenees on a certain morning at ten sharp. Trebeaux, who was partying on South Beach with a decertified yoga instructor, listened to the voicemail but opted not to call back. Instead he sent a text saying he had to leave town on a family emergency.

  Big Noogie was doubtful, and an experienced stakeout man was dispatched to Trebeaux’s condominium building on Collins Avenue. Once Trebeaux’s lie was verified, a plan was devised to snatch his ass and reorder his priorities. For a sawbuck the doorman at the high-rise offered up the information that Trebeaux would be departing the next day for Key West in a rented silver Buick, due to the fact that his Lexus coupe was in the shop.

  From a safe phone Big Noogie placed a call to a person known as Zeto, who agreed to arrange a bump-and-grab on the Overseas Highway. Zeto bragged that he used a chick driver who was the best in the business.

  Yet somehow the job got screwed up, and the sand man remained at large. Big Noogie was irate. The county had roped off the beach behind the Royal Pyrenees as a public health menace, and droves of limping guests were checking out of the hotel. The bosses in New York demanded an explanation.

  Meanwhile, Martin Trebeaux was lapping a Bloody Mary on the deck at Louie’s Backyard in Key West, pondering his next move. From across the straits beckoned Havana, or rather a romanticized vision of Havana, for Trebeaux had never been there. He’d heard the music scene was sensational, the women heart-stoppingly beautiful. It was said that Cuba’s beaches put all others in the Caribbean to shame, and Trebeaux didn’t doubt that.

  Perhaps the Castro brothers would sell him some of their sand.

  THREE

  The bride-to-be said her name was Deb. She wore pressed white slacks, designer sandals and a swipe of liver-colored lipstick that matched her toenails. She said she preferred her coffee with almond milk, which Yancy didn’t stock, so she settled for cream. This was after he’d put on some clothes.

  “You’re definitely not a cop,” she said, eyeing a half-smoked joint on the kitchen counter.

  “It’s medicinal.”

  “For what—sunburn?”

  “Okay, it’s evidence,” he said. “I was field-testing for purity.”

  Deb pointed at the Remington twelve-gauge in the corner. “What do you need that for? Is it loaded?”

  “Of course. You know what they call an unloaded shotgun?”

  “What?”

  “A stick,” he said.

  “Are you the lunatic that killed the drone?”

  “Was that yours?”

  “Our realtor’s,” Deb said. “He was making a video of the property and somebody shot his little toy out of the sky. Two grand, boom.”

  “I’ve still got the pieces somewhere.”

  The real-estate agent’s drone had hovered too closely one afternoon while Rosa was sunbathing topless behind the house. With a single blast Yancy had demolished the craft and its tiny camera. It was way more fun than shooting clay pigeons. Afterward the realtor had hysterically called the sheriff’s office, which determined Yancy had broken no laws.

  “The point is you don’t want me for a neighbor,” he said to Deb. “I’m a volatile individual.”

  She set down the coffee cup. “Will you help me find my engagement ring, or not? My fiancé doesn’t know I lost it, and I don’t want him to find out.”

  As she spoke she dragged theatrically on an electronic cigarette tipped with a neon-blue light. Yancy was aching to tell her how preposterous she looked.

  He said, “So who’s the lucky fellow? What’s his story?”

  “His name is Brock. We’ve been together almost a ye
ar. He’s an attorney—product liability, pharmaceuticals mainly.”

  “Where?”

  “Miami.”

  “Home sweet home,” Yancy said.

  “He was engaged to someone else when we met.”

  “Which explains why the rock fell off your finger.”

  “Yeah, she was a chunk-muffin,” Deb said. “I was supposed to get the ring re-sized, but I’ve been too busy with the new-house stuff. Brock’ll go ballistic if he finds out what happened. He told me the stone cost two hundred thousand—just the stone. I’ve looked all over the property and I can’t find the damn thing anywhere. So, officer, can you please help me?”

  Yancy said, “I offered last night and was coldly snubbed.”

  “Well, yeah, you scared the hell out of me.”

  “And what’s changed? I answer the door naked and talk of firearms.”

  “We can reach an arrangement you’ll be comfortable with, definitely.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the greatest blowjob you ever had,” she said, the e-cig bobbing at the corner of her smile. “Seriously, you’ll be cross-eyed for a month.”

  Yancy realized he’d fallen short of his objective, which was to exude menace, not sleaze.

  “Don’t take this personally,” he said to Deb, “but I’ve reached a spiritual plateau where random sex needs to mean something.”

  “Are you some kind of freak?”

  “Save your talents for Brett, I’ll help you for free. But first tell me about the mansion you two are planning to build.”

  “His name’s Brock,” Deb snipped, exhaling whitish vapor. “Six thousand square feet under air. Two and a half floors, plus a Thai roof garden.”

  Foreseeing the loss of his uncluttered sunset view, Yancy fought an upwelling of anger. “Are you guys planning to live there full-time? Is he moving his practice to the Keys?”

  “I’ll be here. He’ll come down weekends.” Deb shrugged. “Summers we’ll travel.”

  And this, Yancy thought, is how cruel stereotypes come to be.