Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen Page A

say.” Burton smiled.
    He was a good cop and a solid guy, still married to his college sweetheart. They had three kids, all soccer players, and drove them all over the state for tournaments. Rogelio didn’t screw around on his wife, never stayed out late with the hard chargers. His was a life conducted with clear boundaries and deep commitments. Yancy envied his steadiness. If Burton had been mad at Yancy for getting booted from the detective bureau, he’d kept it to himself. Throughout their friendship he’d always been the grownup.
    “Rog, I think Rosa’s leaving me.”
    Burton sat back and slapped his hands on the tabletop. “What the fuck did you do now?”
    “I’ve got no idea, but she quit her job and she’s off to Europe for a couple of weeks. We’ve all seen that movie. Weeks turn into months, and months turn into forever.”
    “For Christ’s sake, Andrew, you always assume the worst.”
    “That’s my motto. Put it on my tombstone: ‘Assume the worst.’ ”
    “What tombstone? You said you’re getting cremated. You said you want your ashes scattered at high tide in Pearl Basin. See? I remember all this shit. The rum talking.”
    “Fine, then write it on my urn:
Assume the fucking worst.
” Yancy paid the tab and followed his friend out the door.
    Burton was meeting a source, a call girl who lived on Olivia down by the cemetery. He asked Yancy to tag along. Smart cops never went alone to interview prostitutes, because that’s how rumors and occasionally true drama got started.
    “Sonny’s all over me to shake some trees, so I’d appreciate a little support,” Burton said. “Other words, let me do the talkin’, okay?”
    “So you think Buck Nance got waylaid by a hooker.”
    “Probably not Giselle, but it’s possible she’s heard something.”
    “ ‘Giselle,’ is it? My goodness, Rog.”
    “Try to control yourself.”
    Giselle had a neat wooden house with canary-yellow shutters and a spice garden in the front yard. She was getting ready for a date, hurrying between the bathroom and bedroom wearing dark hose, black panties and a matching bra. It looked like her closet had detonated, clothes flung all over the place. Burton and Yancy weren’t sure where to sit down, so they didn’t. Out of habit Yancy scanned the baseboards for rodent scat, but he saw nothing.
    After Giselle finally picked out a dress to wear, she was shown the napkin sketch of Buck Nance, along with a photograph of him fully bearded. She stated without pause that she’d never laid eyes on the man.
    Burton explained that Buck and his brothers had a popular cable television show. “Any of your girlfriends say anything about hookin’ up with a famous john?”
    Giselle smiled as she put on her lipstick in front of the hallway mirror. “That’s what we’re all waiting for, right? The Brad Pitt call.”
    “So the answer’s no?”
    “I’ll ask around,” she said. “Are we done? Because I gotta run.”
    Burton laid a fifty-dollar bill on the kitchen counter (which, Yancy noted, was cleaner than some of the restaurants on his beat) and signaled that they should leave.
    “Hang on,” Yancy said.
    Next to the bagel toaster was an empty silver money clip. He picked it up and showed Burton the ornate engraving:
Captain Cock.
    “Isn’t that the nickname of our missing shitkicker?” he said.
    Giselle turned from the mirror. “No offense, tiger, but who the hell are you? Rog, is this nosy prick your new partner?”
    “He works for the state. Officially it’s Inspector Yancy—but everyone calls him Andrew.”
    “Inspecting what—thongs?”
    It wasn’t Yancy’s fault. The furniture was strewn with lingerie that Giselle had tried on and rejected.
    “The dude who gave me that silver clip isn’t the one you’re looking for,” she said. “I took it ’cause he only had seventy-three bucks in his pocket and my price is one-fifty. He tried to give me a hard time but I said, ‘Listen, Captain Cockhead, you