Free Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen Page B
Authors: Carl Hiaasen
all that,” said Merry. “The mob guys think you’re at the bottom of the sea, and Zeto doesn’t give a shit either way. So let’s go grab a bite.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Here you are, all showered and peppy. I approve this new look.”
Self-consciously Coolman reappraised the orchid print shirt and cantaloupe-colored Bermuda shorts that he’d paid for with the money that Amp had wired him.
“Just leave me the fuck alone,” he said to Merry Mansfield.
“Don’t you want your phone back? I’ve still got it.”
“Then give it here!”
When Coolman reached for her handbag, she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, spinning him on the sidewalk. The tourists, unfazed, trudged past like zombies.
“Let’s get a basket of conch fritters,” said Merry. “I want to hear what you’re up to—a day in the life of a big-time Hollywood talent manager, whatever.”
She let go of his arm. Coolman tried to act like it was nothing, like they were just fooling around, but he was shaken by how tough and ballsy she was. Dropping his voice: “Just let me have my phone, please. I’ve gotta find Buck Nance.”
“Want some help?”
“No!”
“Oh yes you do, Bob.”
She took his hand, nudged him with her hip, and that was that.
SIX
A n artist friend met Yancy for lunch at Clippy’s and, working from photographs, penciled a sketch of what a clean-shaven Buck Nance might look like. Clippy said the face on the napkin resembled Keith Urban twenty years down the road, while Neil the mayor said no, the chin was totally David Duchovny.
Neither Clippy nor Neil admitted to watching
Bayou Brethren,
but Yancy’s straight artist friend said it was his second-favorite reality show after
Mud-Wrestling Supermodels: Cancún.
Buck’s celebrity status didn’t impress Neil and Clippy, who vowed to prosecute him for shearing his gnarly growth into their acclaimed quinoa, if the DNA test proved positive. They also hinted at the possibility of a civil lawsuit, citing “mental anguish.”
Yancy stopped by the city police department, where a detective who’d once helped him catch an albino ATM robber told him that all the road officers were on the lookout for Buck Nance. Sheriff Sonny Summers had made a call to the chief. Yancy skimmed the latest incident reports to see if Buck had committed any more crimes against hygiene. Most of the night log was routine Key West turpitude—drunken fistfights, inept dope deals, a handful of auto burglaries, one halfhearted domestic assault (the husband was struck with a bag of frozen snapper chum) and seven unsolved cases of public urination.
A spate of shopliftings caught Yancy’s attention because of their exceptional pettiness—an $11 tee-shirt filched from a store on Simonton, a pair of black board shorts taken from a dive shop off of Caroline Street and a Panama-style hat snatched from a window mannequin at Fastbuck Freddie’s. In each instance the theft had been witnessed by other customers who described the shoplifter as a white middle-aged male with a choppy facial burr.
If Buck Nance was the perpetrator, such smallish crimes indicated he was roaming the streets dead broke. A second thumbing of the police reports turned up a break-in at a motel room where the only articles stolen were a pair of size 12 flip-flops, a score that would pretty much complete Captain Cock’s island wardrobe.
Yancy spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Old Town. He spied several crisp Panama hats though none of the noggins belonged to Buck Nance. At an upscale guesthouse Yancy interviewed one of the shoplifting witnesses, a soft-spoken widow from Philadelphia. She addressed him as “detective,” making him pine for the days when he carried a real badge. The widow said the napkin sketch “sort of” resembled the person she’d seen swiping the surf shorts except there were dark bags under the thief’s eyes. “He looked more homeless,” she said.
It mystified Yancy why Buck
“Are you kidding?”
“Here you are, all showered and peppy. I approve this new look.”
Self-consciously Coolman reappraised the orchid print shirt and cantaloupe-colored Bermuda shorts that he’d paid for with the money that Amp had wired him.
“Just leave me the fuck alone,” he said to Merry Mansfield.
“Don’t you want your phone back? I’ve still got it.”
“Then give it here!”
When Coolman reached for her handbag, she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, spinning him on the sidewalk. The tourists, unfazed, trudged past like zombies.
“Let’s get a basket of conch fritters,” said Merry. “I want to hear what you’re up to—a day in the life of a big-time Hollywood talent manager, whatever.”
She let go of his arm. Coolman tried to act like it was nothing, like they were just fooling around, but he was shaken by how tough and ballsy she was. Dropping his voice: “Just let me have my phone, please. I’ve gotta find Buck Nance.”
“Want some help?”
“No!”
“Oh yes you do, Bob.”
She took his hand, nudged him with her hip, and that was that.
SIX
A n artist friend met Yancy for lunch at Clippy’s and, working from photographs, penciled a sketch of what a clean-shaven Buck Nance might look like. Clippy said the face on the napkin resembled Keith Urban twenty years down the road, while Neil the mayor said no, the chin was totally David Duchovny.
Neither Clippy nor Neil admitted to watching
Bayou Brethren,
but Yancy’s straight artist friend said it was his second-favorite reality show after
Mud-Wrestling Supermodels: Cancún.
Buck’s celebrity status didn’t impress Neil and Clippy, who vowed to prosecute him for shearing his gnarly growth into their acclaimed quinoa, if the DNA test proved positive. They also hinted at the possibility of a civil lawsuit, citing “mental anguish.”
Yancy stopped by the city police department, where a detective who’d once helped him catch an albino ATM robber told him that all the road officers were on the lookout for Buck Nance. Sheriff Sonny Summers had made a call to the chief. Yancy skimmed the latest incident reports to see if Buck had committed any more crimes against hygiene. Most of the night log was routine Key West turpitude—drunken fistfights, inept dope deals, a handful of auto burglaries, one halfhearted domestic assault (the husband was struck with a bag of frozen snapper chum) and seven unsolved cases of public urination.
A spate of shopliftings caught Yancy’s attention because of their exceptional pettiness—an $11 tee-shirt filched from a store on Simonton, a pair of black board shorts taken from a dive shop off of Caroline Street and a Panama-style hat snatched from a window mannequin at Fastbuck Freddie’s. In each instance the theft had been witnessed by other customers who described the shoplifter as a white middle-aged male with a choppy facial burr.
If Buck Nance was the perpetrator, such smallish crimes indicated he was roaming the streets dead broke. A second thumbing of the police reports turned up a break-in at a motel room where the only articles stolen were a pair of size 12 flip-flops, a score that would pretty much complete Captain Cock’s island wardrobe.
Yancy spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Old Town. He spied several crisp Panama hats though none of the noggins belonged to Buck Nance. At an upscale guesthouse Yancy interviewed one of the shoplifting witnesses, a soft-spoken widow from Philadelphia. She addressed him as “detective,” making him pine for the days when he carried a real badge. The widow said the napkin sketch “sort of” resembled the person she’d seen swiping the surf shorts except there were dark bags under the thief’s eyes. “He looked more homeless,” she said.
It mystified Yancy why Buck