Razor Girl (5 page)

“Tell Sonny I'll trade him a hair sample for my detective badge.”

“Listen, he's the one who cut the sweet deal that kept your ass out of jail, and he's the one who got you another job. Or did you forget already?” Burton was getting aggravated. “Swear to God, Andrew, your own worst enemy is you.”

It was not Yancy's first exposure to the concept. He said, “You're lucky I sleep with a forensic expert.”

He removed one of the collection baggies from the refrigerator, walked outside and presented it to Rosa on the sundeck. She looked up from the chaise lounge and said, “For me? This is more romantic than roses.”

“Please? We need to know if it's beard hair.”

“If you weren't so earnest, I'd pop you in the balls.”

From the doorway Burton said, “Rosa, I swear, this wasn't my idea.”

She opened the bag and gingerly lifted a salt-and-pepper tuft. “I would say it's from a white male, middle-aged. My guess is facial, but you'll need to put it under a microscope to make certain. Beard hairs are grooved and they look triangular in cross-section. By the way, I don't want to hear the story behind this disgusting little treasure. I'm serious.”

Rosa had been a rising star with the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office until she burned out on autopsies and quit to go work on live patients.

She returned the mystery follicles to the bag and said, “Do you have some Purell, Andrew? You've got exactly thirty seconds.”

He sprinted for the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, handing the baggie to Burton as he flew past.

Buck Nance's mistress wasn't part of the TV show. He'd been faithfully married to the same woman for almost thirty years is what America had been told. Krystal Nance was hefty and hardspoken and loved Buck truly, but she didn't put up with any BS from him or any of the brothers. It had all been laid out in the script for the pilot. Krystal Nance was tough as nails.

Buck's girlfriend went by the porny name of Miracle though she had a master's in computer science from Florida State. Buck had met her at a popular Pensacola oyster bar, where she worked as a second-string shucker. A month later he bought her a condominium overlooking Escambia Bay, a transaction opposed by Jon David Ampergrodt, Lane Coolman and the entire management team at Platinum Artists. However, they stood powerless against Miracle's allure, which was exclusively sexual. Her favorite position was called “The Wet Wolverine,” which played deviously to Buck's Wisconsin roots. One night he shredded an ACL attempting to carry her mid-coitus from the ironing board in the condo's pantry to the futon in the living room. The injury—portrayed to Krystal as a post-hole-digging accident—forced a hasty rewrite of a
Brethren
segment that had called for Buck to kick in the door of Clee Roy's brand-new Durango.

Miracle was needy and also short of patience. She reacted melodramatically when feeling ignored by Buck, and her tantrums were a source of peptic anxiety for his handlers. With trepidation Jon David Ampergrodt had phoned her to ask if she'd heard from Buck in Key West.

“Not for thirty-seven hours,” Miracle replied with homicidal chill.

Amp told her what happened at the Parched Pirate, and encouraged her for verification to check out the YouTube clips. “We're all a bit concerned for the big guy,” he added, hoping to dilute her anger with worry.

“Why? He's just off chasin' pussy.”

“No, he's not. He probably got scared shitless by the crowd, and now he's hiding in a dive somewhere.”

“Deep in strange pussy is where he's hiding,” she said.

“Miracle, listen to me. Nobody's heard a word from him—not his brothers, not his mom, not Krystal, nobody.”

“That's because he and Lane are too busy whorehopping.”

“No, no, Buck would never—”

“Hey, he whorehopped me, didn't he?”

The line went silent. Twenty minutes later somebody hacked the official
Bayou Brethren
Facebook page and posted a close-up photo of Osama bin Laden side-by-side with a head shot of Buck. The caption said: “Two epic beards! Yo, maybe I should join the Taliban!”

By lunchtime, the bin Laden item had galvanized a horde of patriotic bloggers who didn't know the difference between the Taliban and al Qaeda but were nonetheless infuriated by Buck's apparent flippancy. One even accused him of sculpting his facial hair in homage to the dead terrorist.

Informed of the crisis, Jon David Ampergrodt became so engrossed in damage control that he was answering his private lines without checking the caller ID, which is how he ended up speaking to an unrecognized number in the 305 area code. It turned out to be a rare pay phone in Key West, with Lane Coolman on the line.

“Amp, I escaped!” he shouted. “I got away from those crazy fuckers!”

“Got away from who?”

“You're kidding, right?”

“Oh…shit, yeah, I almost forgot. Sorry, dude, it's been manic around here today. You won't believe what—”

“You forgot I was kidnapped?” said Coolman.

“No…I mean, of course not. It was at the top of my to-do list. The ransom, et cetera—we were putting together a totally solid counter offer. But then, dude, Miracle pulled one of her bipolar freak-outs—”

“Unbelievable.”

“Yeah, she's a major thundercunt.”

“I'm not talking about
her,
Amp.”

“Point is you got away from the shitheads who snatched you, which, nice work, double-oh-seven. You saved the agency some serious bank. Plus you're okay, which is the most important thing.”

Well, not really the
most
important thing, but Jon David Ampergrodt perceived that Lane Coolman needed to feel some love.

“I'm just totally stoked to hear your voice,” he said. “Tell me everything that happened, blow by blow, but not right now. The
Brethren
Facebook page is basically in flames, thanks to Buck's bimbo.”

“Yeah, well, I spent my morning as a fucking crash-test dummy,” Coolman said. “Now I'm standing in a phone booth that doubles as a public urinal. No cash, no credit cards, just the stinking shirt on my back. Get me on a plane back to L.A., okay?”

“Absolutely, buddy. Soon as Buck turns up, we'll send the G5.”

“No, I want out of here now!”

A message from Amp's assistant flashed on his desktop: A reporter from Al Jazeera was on line two seeking reaction to a Taliban statement condemning Buck Nance for mocking Islamic custom. Motherfuckers!

“Lane, I gotta grab this call. We'll book you a suite at the best hotel on the island. Have a shot of tequila, take a hot shower. I'll send money and plastic.”

“Seriously, Amp. Bring me home.”

“I
am
serious. Buck's your ticket.”

T
he next morning they ate breakfast at a diner on Sugarloaf where Rosa broke the news. She was going to Europe for a couple of weeks—Stockholm, Düsseldorf and Oslo.

“Why Oslo?” Yancy asked.

“The rain forest, of course.”

“Be serious. It's freezing cold there.”

“Winter, yes,” said Rosa. “But at least nobody's getting shot.”

“Is that even true?”

“They've got actual laws against walking around with loaded guns on the street. Same in Sweden and Germany.”

The proprietor of the diner approached to ask if their meals were all right. Yancy had once written him up for an eggs Benedict infraction (under-refrigerated Hollandaise sauce), but overall he felt he'd been treated fairly. Yancy told him the food was excellent, and the man happily headed back to the kitchen.

To Rosa, Yancy said: “Sometimes I'm dead slow on the uptake. Are you inviting me to come along on your trip?”

“I need a break from all the blood, Andrew.”

He'd traveled a few times to the Bahamas and once long ago to Canada on a walleye expedition with his father, but he'd never been overseas. He asked Rosa when she was leaving.

“Tomorrow.”

“Aw, come on.”

“The travel agent got me a great package. I know it's last-minute, I'm sorry.”

“But my passport—it's expired, remember?”

“Still?” She didn't look up from her omelet.

It was impossible to get a passport renewed in twenty-four hours. The other obstacle was Yancy's job; during the high season Tommy Lombardo never let roach-patrol inspectors take vacations, only funeral leaves.

“The hospital's cool with your leaving on such short notice?”

“Not at all,” Rosa said. “I resigned yesterday.”

“Boom. Okay.”

“Andrew, could you please pass the Tabasco?”

Later at his house they made love, though the moves seemed mechanical. Yancy had no intuition about the fragile arc of relationships, so he was accustomed to being blindsided. Still it always hurt. He was fairly sure that Rosa was dumping him, whether she was aware of it or not.

Obviously she'd planned her trip knowing he couldn't accompany her. His lapsed passport was the reason they'd canceled a dive outing to Eleuthera a few weeks earlier.

She said, “I'd better go home and start packing.”

“When you get back from Europe, you should move down here and open a practice. There's a critical shortage of sultry, multi-orgasmic doctors.”

“I bet.”

“This sucks,” Yancy said as he walked her to the car.

“It's got absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“Gosh, I've never heard
that
one.”

“Be good,” she said, and kissed him.

After watching her drive away, Yancy went inside and poured a tall glass of Haitian rum. While searching for limes in the refrigerator he encountered the fish dip concealing the diamond belonging to naughty Deb. Soon the dip would go bad and he'd have to find a clever new hiding place. Another option was to quietly give it up. Pretend he'd never seen the damn ring—just toss it over the fence. Eventually Deb or one of the construction workers would find it on the scorched lot.

From his backyard deck Yancy observed activity on the property—two men conferring as they walked the property lines. The older of them wore a trucker's cap, jeans and work boots, and he carried a set of cardboard tubes. A builder, Yancy concluded glumly. The other man appeared to be in his early forties, like Yancy. He wore tailored camel slacks and a shiny shirt undone perhaps one too many buttonholes. His face was supernaturally tan, his blowfly sunglasses were ultramarine, and his hair glistened like barbecue. Yancy made the shallow but accurate assumption that this person was the Miami lawyer to whom Deb was engaged.

Liberated by the rum, Yancy hurried inside and from the recycle bin in the pantry he pulled three empty bottles of Stella, the import he'd bought for Rosa. Then he snatched his twelve-gauge and hurried back to the deck. The first toss was too low, and his shot missed the bottle. On the second toss, which was perfect, he blew the neck off. The third beer bottle he blasted into granular rain that harmlessly peppered his skiff, parked in the driveway.

By now, on the other side of the fence, Brock and his builder were retreating toward their respective vehicles—a Ford pickup for the builder, a sports car for the lawyer. Yancy waved amiably at the men but failed to elicit a response. They sped off without even tooting their horns.

Yancy picked up the shotgun shells and every piece of broken glass, a time-consuming chore. After refreshing his drink he stretched out on the sofa, opened his laptop and committed himself to three back-to-back episodes of
Bayou Brethren.
He wasn't too drunk to comprehend the show's appeal, and found himself wondering about the secret to Buck and Krystal's long marriage. She plainly wasn't enchanted by life on the rooster farm, barely tolerated the other brothers, and complained constantly about Buck's aversion to slow dancing, seat belts and Hank Williams. Nonetheless she remained devoted to her man, which touched Yancy in his maudlin swoon.

He pressed the Pause button freezing a close-up as Buck challenged Krystal on the subject of free-range chicken facilities, which Buck proclaimed were exorbitant and also underappreciated by the chickens. Yancy took out one of the evidence bags to compare the silver-gray wads plucked from Clippy's quinoa to Buck's long, lushly tended beard. Holding the baggie next to the laptop screen, Yancy decided the shorn hair was identical in coloration. It wasn't as definitive as the DNA test in progress, but why wait? Rosa was flying away to Europe and he needed a distraction.

Tomorrow he would go searching for Captain Cock.

Matthew Morgan Romberg and his brothers were born in Milwaukee and raised in the suburb of Whitefish Bay. They were not authentic shitkickers, although Wisconsin has its share. Their father was a successful commodities trader and their mother bred prize English setters which she sold to wealthy bird hunters. The Romberg household was politically divided to the extreme, Kathleen Romberg being a Hubert Humphrey Democrat while her husband parroted the views of Alabama's incendiary governor, George Corley Wallace. The tension was too much for the marriage, and one day Mrs. Romberg ran off with a snowmobile mechanic who reminded her of Cat Stevens.

The Romberg boys fell under the strident sway of their father, although they grew up displaying little of his vehemence and none of his business savvy. Matthew, who would one day become “Buck Nance,” attended the University of Minnesota and dropped out six credits shy of a finance degree. Bradley (“Junior”), Henry (“Buddy”) and Todd (“Clee Roy”) all went to Madison, joined the same Greek fraternity and entered the music program, which impressed a certain dreamy type of coed but somewhat narrowed their prospects for secure employment. One by one they returned to their father's house in Whitefish Bay and reoccupied their childhood bedrooms.

While mulling options the younger brothers started a band that performed accordion covers of popular rock songs. Matthew joined up after being fired under cloudy circumstances from a hard-won management position at Florsheim Shoes. He blamed reverse racial discrimination when in fact the company had caught him stealing cordovan wingtips by the gross and hawking them at a flea market near Eau Claire. It was there he'd connected with Krystal Nordval, his future spouse, who presided over a booth offering hand-blown bongs and bootleg eight-tracks.

The name of the brothers' accordion band was GFR, which stood for Grand Funk Romberg, and they kept it rolling even as they grew older, married and settled into undemanding day jobs. Mostly they played weekends at county fairs and chili cook-offs, but every once in a while they scored a wedding. The idea to grow out their beards came one summer night from Matthew while they were rehearsing a raucous polka-fied rendition of “Tube Snake Boogie.” He suggested that they work up a four-song medley of ZZ Top hits, which soon became the centerpiece of their act. Todd taught himself the bass guitar and Henry bought a drum kit at a pawn shop in Green Bay. At first their beards grew unevenly, so the Rombergs wore fakes borrowed from a local theater troupe that specialized in Nativity plays. The beards, used by Joseph and two of the Wise Men, had to be returned in time for Christmas rehearsals. By then the brothers' natural facial bloom was in full glory.

Out of nowhere, GFR received an offer to play a rodeo down in Little Rock, Arkansas. Matthew saw this as a portal to stardom, and after researching the demographics he proposed that the group change its name to “Buck Nance and the Brawlers.” The other brothers had no objections because Matthew deserved top billing, serving the triple-threat roles of lead accordion, promoter and business manager. The Rombergs were eager to gain a following in the South, as they'd become increasingly disenchanted with the so-called progressive elements on the rise in Wisconsin politics. They looked forward to reaching a wholesome, simpleminded audience that would appreciate their anti-government patter between songs. Also, they'd never been to a real rodeo.

Buck Nance and the Brawlers performed eight songs and were well-received, their barbed commentary drawing laughs and even some applause. After the gig Bradley dislocated a shoulder when one of the cowboys let him throw a rope on a calf, but the other brothers bought him a sling at Walgreens and dosed him with painkillers. Two nights later they opened at a shrimp festival in Biloxi, and two nights after that they were playing a Masonic lodge near Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Matthew's bold prediction was coming true: The band caught fire on the biker-and-Bible circuit. The Rombergs traded their Dodge minivan for a second-hand Winnebago, and said goodbye to Whitefish Bay. During the next twenty years they returned only once, to attend the funeral of their father. The old man had suffered a massive heart attack during an ice storm while covertly trying to scrape an “Obama for President” bumper sticker from a smug neighbor's Audi.

The election of a black president brought a boom in TV reality shows featuring feisty rednecks, and talent scouts began scouring the Dixie belt in a fevered search for the next
Duck Dynasty
franchise. Buck Nance and the Brawlers were discovered at a Howard Johnson's off the interstate near Chattanooga, playing a toned-down set for a Catholic bachelorette party. They were flown business-class to Los Angeles for a meeting at Platinum Artists with Jon David Ampergrodt, who pronounced the Romberg brothers “perfect” except for their superior dental work. He promised them fame and wealth, presented a two-year management contract and sent them by limousine to a Malibu orthodontist to get their front teeth darkened and chipped. Matthew was allowed to keep the stage name of Buck while his brothers chose their own from a list of homespun monikers provided by the agency.

The transition from obscure regional musicians to wildly popular television stars put a strain on the brothers' fraternal bond. From the beginning, the creators of
Bayou Brethren
felt the show should revolve around the colorful Buck character and the iron-willed Krystal. Inevitably resentment took root among the other family members—Junior, Buddy and Clee Roy also had wives who enjoyed being recognized in the supermarket, and they wanted their own story lines. Tension between the younger brothers and Buck began to worsen during the tapings, a situation which elated the director, a pragmatic Brit named Damien Poe. Soon he began placing fungo bats at strategic locations throughout the Nance compound in hopes that one of the siblings would snap while the cameras were rolling.

Buck's dalliance with sex-crazed Miracle exacerbated his brothers' jealousy while making their lives more wretched at home. Among the Nance spouses only Krystal seemed unaware that Buck was fucking around; the other wives cracked down preemptively, grilling their husbands on a nightly basis while dropping the names of notorious divorce lawyers.

Because of the family discord, the news of Buck's disappearance in Key West was not received with the utmost consternation by Junior, Buddy or Clee Roy. Like Miracle, they assumed Buck had been seduced by a female fan and was probably holed up in some nasty doublewide, waiting for his hangover to abate. In the meantime, his absence presented an opportunity for the other Nances to carve larger roles for themselves on the television show.

“What the hell. Let's just tape the next episode without him,” Clee Roy suggested to Jon David Ampergrodt during a conference call.

“Let me think on that.”

“Tell the writers to stick all this shit into the script. That Buck went and disappeared? Talk about monster ratings!” It was either Junior or Buddy speaking; Amp couldn't tell them apart over the phone.

The idea itself wasn't terrible. After a few weeks Buck could return after a staged rehab, blaming booze and pills for his coarse behavior at the Parched Pirate and apologizing tearfully to all the minorities he'd defamed.

Amp said, “That's an interesting concept, boys. I'll run it by Damien.”

Next on the agenda was Miracle's insidious online stunt using the bin Laden photo. The brothers agreed that a full-time keeper should be hired to supervise the loony bitch until Buck resurfaced. Amp said he'd already sent out a blast tweet saying the
Brethren
website had been sabotaged by Chinese intelligence agents, who feared the growing global influence of the Nances now that Netflix was streaming the show.

“By the way,” said Amp. “Can any of you guys get me Buck's toothbrush? I'd ask Krystal except her head's not in a great place right now. ”

Clee Roy said, “Damien told us not to brush again till we go on hiatus.”

“But flossing's okay,” either Junior or Buddy cut in. “Right?”

“A comb of Buck's would work just as well,” Jon David Ampergrodt said. “Toenail clippings. Snotty handkerchief. Hey, a cigar butt would be spectacular.”