Razor Girl (19 page)

For wine Trebeaux selected a French Chardonnay, and for an entrée he chose poached yellowtail on a bed of quinoa. The server stopped by the table no less than a half-dozen times to ask if everything was all right.

It was Blister's first ride in a limousine. Giddily he lunged for the minibar.

Buck Nance used Lane Coolman's phone to call Krystal. “Baby, I'm coming home soon,” he said.

“Who's this?”

“Aw, don't be like that.”

“Wait…now I remember,” said his wife. “You're the scumbag husband who keeps a whore on the side.”

“She's just another stalker. I swear to Christ.”

“Is Miracle her real name, or is that what her pimp tagged her with?”

“She's a total psycho, Krystal. You can't believe a word she—”

The line went dead. Buck tossed the phone back to his manager. His life was a war zone—first his mistress and now the entire family had turned against him. Krystal was the only one who had a legitimate cause for being mad. To Miracle he'd made no promises; she knew the score. It was the disloyalty of his three brothers that was so galling; Buck had been the steering force of their careers, from Grand Funk Romberg to the Brawlers to the
Brethren.
Without his guidance, those ungrateful jerkoffs would still be dragging their accordions to dairy festivals, opening for the bull-semen auction. Buck vowed to use his homecoming sermon at the Chickapaw Tabernacle to address in an evangelical context the betrayal by Junior, Buddy and Clee Roy. He told Lane Coolman to put a writer on the project ASAP.

The gun on Blister's lap reminded Buck that technically he was still a captive. Blister was finishing his second Jack-and-water, and he would have gulped a third had the drive to the airport not been so short. Blister fit the gun in the front of his waistband before they stepped out of the limo. The butt of the weapon was hidden by the white
guayabera
that Coolman had bought for Blister so he wouldn't look like some vagrant meth head loitering on the tarmac.

Buck got suspicious when he saw the plane taxi to a stop. It wasn't the jade-striped Gulfstream that Platinum Artists usually sent; this jet was somewhat smaller, and flat gray in color. Blister, however, was impressed. He tried to snap a picture with his phone but the battery had croaked.

The person who walked off of the aircraft was not Jon David Ampergrodt, another unsettling surprise for Buck. Coolman introduced the traveler as Cree Windsor, a senior vice president of Platinum.

“This is Spiro Nance,” Coolman said to Cree Windsor.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Spiro. I've heard good things.” Cree Windsor held out his right hand, which Blister eyed as if it were a steaming cowpie.

“So you ain't the main man?”

“Mr. Ampergrodt really wanted to come, but unfortunately a personal matter came up at the last minute. He sent me instead, with his regrets. I brought the latest draft of the terms we'll be presenting to the network.” Cree Windsor brandished an oxblood briefcase as evidence of his authority.

“What kinda personal matter?” Blister asked. “Death in the family?”

Cree Windsor glanced at Coolman for backup and said, “Well, yes, sadly.”

“Was it his momma or daddy that passed?”

“Um…I believe it was an aunt.”

Blister said, “That ain't good enough. He oughta be here, goddammit.”

“Mr. Ampergrodt and his aunt were extremely close.”

“You mean they was, like, doin' it?”

“What? No!”

Short, trim and soft-shouldered, Cree Windsor was preternaturally pale due to an exotic melanin imbalance that defied all tanning sprays. Often he had a hard time convincing clients that he lived in southern California.

Coolman assured Blister that Mr. Windsor was a major player at the agency, Amp's second-in-command. Blister stomped around in a huff but nobody heard what he was muttering because a 737 was rolling down the main runway.

When it was quiet again, Buck Nance asked Cree Windsor to show them the paperwork Amp had sent.

“Is your lawyer here to review it?” Cree Windsor asked.

“Not yet,” Coolman interjected. “I'll do the first pass.”

Blister fidgeted. “But this dude ain't even the top man!”

Cree Windsor balanced the briefcase on one knee and took out a three-page letter, which he handed to Coolman.

“What's the story with your hair?” Blister demanded.

Cree Windsor was rattled. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“It don't move.”

Buck saw the situation disintegrating fast. “Okay, let's chill out. The guy flew all the way across the country to get this thing done.”

“Windy as hell,” Blister fumed, “and not one fuckin' hair on his head moves.”

Plaintively from Cree Windsor: “It's just product, man.”

“Product? Is that the same as jizz?”

Coolman said, “Why don't we go sit in the limo where it's quiet? Have a drink while I look over these deal points.”

Buck said, “Liquor sounds like a damn fine idea.”

“I got a better one,” Blister sneered, raising his
guayabera
so that Cree Windsor could see the butt of the pistol. “Get back on that motherfuckin' airplane and go tell your boss I ain't doin' bidness with nobody but him. Tell him hurry up and plant his dead auntie and get his ass down to Key West.”

Buck felt like grabbing the gun and plugging the moron. What held him back was the fear of blowing his lucrative new network contract; until the ink dried, Blister was Buck's negotiating leverage, his ace-in-the-hole. Where would Buck find another phony lost twin on short notice?

“Now, boys, this is gettin' a little craaaaazy,” Lane Coolman said. “Let's not forget we're all on the same team.” His dedication to the agency stopped short of stepping into the potential line of fire between Blister and the shaking Cree Windsor.

“I ain't crazy. All I want is respect.” Blister plucked the letter from Coolman's hand, dropped his pants and wiped himself with the pages, which he then returned to Cree Windsor's briefcase.

“What the fuck?” said Buck Nance, clutching his head.

Cree Windsor kicked the briefcase away and loped toward the jet.

“Tell Amp we'll be waiting!” Coolman shouted after him.

None of this nonsense was witnessed by Andrew Yancy and Merry Mansfield because Yancy's car had been pulled over on White Street for running a red light, which Yancy agreed had been necessary to keep sight of the Cadillac limousine. Merry showed the cop one of her many driver's licenses, and he let her off with a warning and a wink. Yancy guessed that the limo had been heading to the airport, and he was correct. Unfortunately, by the time Merry pulled up to the private-aviation terminal, the big black stretch was already departing. Its tinted windows prevented Yancy from seeing that the passengers were still inside.

He and Merry stood at the chain-link fence watching a gray business jet take off and assuming that Buck Nance, Lane Coolman and Benny the Blister were on board. Yancy entered the terminal, where his roach-patrol laminate failed to impress the attractive silver-haired woman behind the desk. She pleasantly declined to tell him who owned the aircraft, or where it was going.

When they were back in Yancy's car, Merry said, “Let's you and me go celebrate.”

“What would be the occasion?”

“Our last night together.”

“Dinner's on me,” said Yancy.

They stopped on Duval so Merry could buy some radical cutoffs that offered a crescent glimpse of her bumblebee tat. Yancy put on the Panama hat that he'd saved from the wreck of the
Wet Nurse.
They were walking hand-in-hand to Clippy's when Rogelio Burton finally called back. Yancy gave him the tail numbers of the gray jet. Having a real detective badge, Burton would have no problem obtaining the passenger list. Wherever the plane landed, cops would be waiting for Benjamin Krill.

Case closed,
thought Yancy.
Back to the vermin beat for me.

At the restaurant they were personally seated by Irv Clipowski, who thanked Yancy for allowing him and the mayor to reopen. They had decided not to sue Buck Nance over the beard clippings because his talent agency had spontaneously donated twenty-five thousand dollars to Neil and Clippy's butterfly preserve in Belize.

“Straight from the heart,” said Yancy. “What's the pouchie situation?”

Clippy said there had been no new sightings of the Gambian goliaths on the premises. “Not one turd, Andrew!”

Yancy detected a tense hitch in the pronouncement. He ordered Barbancourt-and-Coke. Merry had a vodka tonic. At another table sat a light-haired, fleshy, fish-lipped fellow who was dining alone. Yancy noticed him eyeing Merry, though not in the way most men did.

“I know that guy,” she said, and rolled a fingertip wave. “Hey, Martin!”

The fleshy patron turned away and called to get a server's attention.

“What's his story?” Yancy asked Merry.

“My last job. Obviously they didn't break his kneecaps, which is huge. The people who hired me, I mean. They were heavy dudes. Poor little Marty was slow to catch on.”

“So that's the driver of the
second
Buick you bashed.”

“He told me he deals beach sand, Andrew. He said you can call him up, order a whole freaking beach, and he delivers it on a great big boat. Who ever heard of a gig like that?”

Yancy said, “It's like printing money. I'm serious.”

They watched the man named Martin pay his bill and scurry out of the restaurant. He didn't wave or say hello.

R
ick's career track to nightclub bouncer included Purdue University's football team, the Cleveland Browns, the Oakland Raiders and finally the Miami Dolphins. He was cut for the last time at age thirty-one, and decided he preferred the climate of South Beach to that of Pontiac, his hometown. It had been a similar path for his friend Rod—University of Iowa, the San Diego Chargers, the Dolphins, the Atlanta Falcons and then back to the Dolphins before blowing out a knee. Like Rick, Rod found no reason to leave Florida after his football days.

Both men ended up working at a club on Collins Avenue, where they connected with a wealthy weekend customer named Brock, who said he was a lawyer. The bouncers' first freelance assignment was to terrorize a landscape architect that Brock suspected of teaching Tantric techniques to his fiancée. Rick and Rod visisted the man, who soon afterward shut down his nursery, moved to Clearwater and took a job sculpting hedges for the Church of Scientology. The next time Brock contacted Rick and Rod, he asked them to go chat with the manager of a Hialeah impound lot, where one of Brock's pristine Porsches had been towed. The vehicle was released after a meeting that lasted barely long enough for Rick to demonstrate the versatility of a common crowbar.

A scenic drive to Big Pine Key would be the highlight of their third and final mission for the lawyer, a tune-up job for which they'd each been promised a grand. The bouncers had been sent to persuade some hardheaded fool to sell his house to Brock. They were unaware that the recalcitrant homeowner was an ex-cop, or that he might be reckless enough to take on two ex-NFL linemen whose combined weight was five hundred and twenty-five pounds. Through no fault of their own, Rick and Rod arrived unprepared for resistance.

Brock had supplied a for-sale sign to plant in the homeowner's front yard, which they did. Brock had explained that the sign was meant to galvanize the man's decision-making, which made sense to Rick and Rod. Visual aids were often helpful. They were seated on the man's comfortable new sofa when a car dropped him off and sped away. The man didn't come inside right away, which should have tipped off the bouncers to trouble. In their defense, it was extremely rare for anyone—even the drunkest jerks at the club—to do anything but wilt when facing Rick and Rod in tandem. As a result, their reflexes were rusty.

The man they'd been sent to rough up sneaked into his house through a rear door, sprinted yowling into the living room and whacked Rod from behind with the for-sale sign. The wood placard loudly broke apart, leaving Rod slumped unconscious and the attacker holding the sign's sturdy metal stems, one in each fist. Rick was struggling to elevate his heft from the sofa cushions when he received the first blow. Numerous others followed. He awoke sometime later on the floor, his thick wrists Zip-tied to those of his torpid partner. Their shiny South Beach trousers had been removed and knotted around their ankles.

Rick noticed that the man who'd overpowered them was tall though not very muscle-bound. He wondered how such a routine dude could have hit them so hard. Possibly the man was high on crystal meth or bath salts. That's what Rick intended to tell his friends at the gym, when they asked what the fuck had happened to his face.

The man, wearing a brimmed straw hat, said he was sick and tired of people breaking into his home. “By the way, that diamond ring you're looking for? It's gone,” he said. “The first set of assholes took it.”

“What diamond ring?” Rick asked. “What assholes?”

“Wiseguys from up North. They were pros, not like you. Ask Brad about 'em,” the man said, “when you call him from jail.”

“You mean Brock?”

“Tell him my house isn't for sale and he needs to get over it.”

Rod awoke to the wail of approaching sirens and lifted his blood-caked head. “You called the law?”

“Paramedics, too.”

Rick said, “What for? Shit, we're not hurt.” Then: “
You
didn't hurt
us.
No way.”

“Your friend is bleeding from the ears.”

“
One
ear. Big fuckin' deal.”

The sheriff's cars got there first, followed by a pair of ambulances. Rick and Rod were examined, EKG'd, bandaged, cuffed, questioned and gang-hoisted onto stretchers. As they were being lugged out of the house, a Subaru sedan squealed to a stop out front. The driver was a tall breezy redhead in short, short jeans.

“Andrew!” she cried, running toward the man who'd just tuned up Rick and Rod. The man's shirt was unbuttoned, and he was peeling a funky wrap of bandages from his midsection. The redhead kissed him so hard that she knocked off his hat.

“Wow,” she said. “I thought you were dinner, but you were the show!”

The woman stood on her toes, exposing a vivid bug tattoo beneath her cutoffs, on the creamy curve of her ass. Rick fantasized about it all the way to the hospital, where he faded warmly into darkness following a jumbo dose of Demerol. Rod was already laid out inside an MRI tube, dozing through a scan of his jolted brain. Eight hours later both men were wide awake and eating breakfast, the only inmates in the medical wing of the Stock Island Detention Center. Together they invented an exculpatory version of the night's events to tell Brock. The other topic of discussion was their NFL retirement package—specifically, whether or not the league's insurance plan covered injuries sustained while committing a felony.

Benjamin Krill grew up in Palatka, on the St. Johns River in northern Florida. His mother attributed his lawless misbehavior to breathing fumes from the local pulp mills, though Benny's siblings had inhaled the same rancid air and grown up to be productive citizens with legitimate jobs. In fact, his brother worked deep inside the plant that manufactured scented maxi-pads, and he was healthy as a boar hog. Benny's sister owned a bridal boutique and was a prodigy at pinochle. Benny, the eldest, was incarcerated regularly and upon being freed would promptly resume stealing until he got caught again. This had gone on for twenty-seven years in jurisdictions stretching from Jacksonville to Naples. Benny had been tagged with the nickname “Blister” after backing into a pot of hot chowder while burglarizing the kitchen of a homeless shelter in New Smyrna. His parboiled, abscessed buttocks had drawn raucous and mostly unwelcome attention in the showers at the Volusia County lockup, and from then on “Blister” was listed as a primary AKA on his rap sheet. The judge in the New Smyrna case, unmoved by the defendant's second-degree disfigurement, slapped him with eighteen months.

Like many career criminals, Benny Krill suffered from a deficiency of ambition that left him content in midlife to be slim-jimming cars and looting mobile homes. That is, until the night he went to see Buck Nance's show at the Parched Pirate.

When his idol bolted in panic from the bar that night, Blister's only thought was to rescue Buck and comfort him. It had turned into a kidnapping only after Buck acted surly and unappreciative. His claim that he and his brothers were actually accordion players from Wisconsin was so lame that Blister felt insulted. He and Captain Cock were plainly cut from the same Deep Southern cloth—why would the man deny it? And why the hell would he hide his Cajun accent? What was he ashamed of?

Equally upsetting was Buck's apathetic response to Blister's tribute tattoos and treasured collection of Nance-feathered trout flies. The disavowing attitude displayed by the leader of the Nances disappointed Blister, and gave rise to the boldest criminal scheme ever to spring from his stunted imagination: He would trade his two high-value hostages, Buck and Buck's manager, for a role on
Bayou Brethren
as a newfound Nance brother named Spiro.

For all its daring, the plan was also laughably, fatally absurd. Later his mother would tell reporters that it proved she was right about living downwind from the paper mills—all those toxic vapors obviously stewed poor Benny's brain cells. A goddamn squirrel had more sense.

“This is a cool-ass ride,” Blister commented, lounging in the back of the Cadillac limousine.

Buck Nance said, “You shouldn't have chased off Mr. Windsor. That wasn't too bright.”

“Is that how you talk to the man with the gun?”

“That's how I talk to the man that just wiped his ass with my future.”

Lane Coolman told them both to chill. “I left a message for Amp telling him to get here as soon as possible. Long as we stick together, we'll nail this deal. But if you guys keep stomping each other's nuts, it's game over. Amp will tell you the same thing. These network people can smell weakness.”

“Know what I smell?” Buck said. “I smell that fuckin' briefcase in the trunk.”

Not even Coolman had volunteered to wipe the shit off Cree Windsor's letter so they could review the terms of the contract proposal.

Blister said, “Don't you boys forget—I'm the only one here ever killed a ISIS.”

Coolman advised him to never again mention what happened on the Conch Train.

“We need a new ride,” Buck said grimly.

The black stretch Cadillac was drawing stares at every intersection. Blister seemed to be enjoying the attention. Coolman was glued to his cell re-reading a text from Smegg, his divorce lawyer. Rachel's team had told the judge that her husband skipped town; she was demanding a contempt order and an arrest warrant.

“I'm in deep shit back home,” Coolman fretted to no one in particular.

Blister cackled as he snatched another Jack Daniel's miniature from the limo's minibar, illuminated by an inset string of violet LEDs. “This car's a total pussy magnet,” he said. “Let's just drive 'round and see what happens.”

Buck stared at this degenerate ambassador for his own popularity wondering how many other
Brethren
fans were homicidal nut-job stalkers.
Maybe it's time to quit the show and go fishin',
he thought for the first time since Blister had removed his handcuffs.
Dump the family. Move into the condo with Miracle.
He wasn't sure how much money he had in the bank—five, six million bucks? Krystal would grab half, but so be it. An unhurried, unexamined existence looked pretty sweet to Buck. A life free from soggy collard greens, rooster shit and all those fucking TV cameras in his face.

He heard Blister Krill tell the limo driver to stop the car. “I gotta piss.”

The driver, a Cuban man with salt-and-pepper hair, began looking for a gas station.

“No, man, pull over now,” Blister told him. “I can't hold it no more.”

They ended up on a narrow street, the limo pulling over in front of a plain one-story house with Bahama shutters. From the outside they could see the wall of one room pulsing with colors from a massive flat-screen.

Blister stepped out of the Cadillac. He leaned against a fender to balance himself while he urinated, holding the gun in one hand and his pecker in the other. Inside the limo, Buck elbowed Lane Coolman, testing his interest in making a run for it. Coolman didn't respond; he was busy trading texts with Smegg.

Buck slid himself up the long bench seat until he was right behind the driver.

“Let's go,” he whispered.

“Excuse me?”

“Take off. Hurry.”

“But, sir—”

“It's all right. Go!” Buck said.

The evening stillness was broken by a flame-blue flash and an ear-splitting pop. Buck dove to the floor of the car. Coolman landed beside him, shielding his head with both arms and squeaking like a hamster.

The car door flew open and Blister Krill dove inside. He ordered the driver to hit the gas.

Buck sat up beet-faced and ranting.

Blister said, “Chill out, bro. I shot the damn mailbox is all.”

“Why in the name of fuck would you do that?”

“To see what it's like. Pullin' a live trigger.”

Buck stared incredulously. “This is the first time you ever fired a gun? And you live in
Florida
?”

Coolman scooted to the opposite end of the limo, as far as possible from the pistol in Blister's hand. Framed in the rearview mirror was the stoic Cuban driver, assessing his disorderly passengers. The driver's lips moved and Blister yelled, “What'd you say, Pablo?”

“
Están grandes pendejos,
” the driver repeated cordially.

“What? Talk American, goddammit.”

The driver, who of course spoke perfect English, said, “Where to now, gentlemen?”

Rogelio Burton hung around until the other cops were gone. “The truth, please,” he said wearily to Yancy. “For old times' sake.”

“Like I said, it was a random home invasion.”

The detective gestured at the splintered remnants of the for-sale sign. “You were attacked by marauding realtors?”

Yancy shrugged. “It's a cutthroat business, Rog.”

“You're full of shit. They're bouncers from South Beach.”

“I knew it! Pinheads,” said Merry Mansfield.

“And where were you when mild-mannered Mr. Yancy flipped out?” Burton asked her.

“Soon as we pulled up to the house, Andrew spotted somebody inside. He told me to drop him off, wait ten minutes and dial 911. I only waited five.”

Burton went to the kitchen and came back with a beer. “One for the road,” he said. “I'm going home to work on my memo for the sheriff.”

Yancy said, “Okay, Rog, you win. Sonny doesn't need to know about this.”

“Then keep talking.”

“That slimy TV lawyer who bought the land next door—name's Richardson—now he wants me to sell him
my
house, and I said no way. Apparently the Calusas had a dental clinic on his property five thousand years ago. There's sacred Indian teeth all over the place, so now Richardson can't build on the lot. What are the odds, huh?”

Burton said, “Your neighbors always have the worst luck.”