His brother.
“Hey, bro,” he continued, “I know it’s been a long time and I know I kinda disappeared without giving you a proper explanation, and one day, I promise I’ll tell you that story. But right now, I need a pilot!”
Troy reached the traffic signal at Ocean Highway. It was red. He pulled to a stop.
“I’ve just bought a seaplane business. It’s a tourist-y kind of thing, flying people around the Keys. Look at the seashells, look at the waves, blah, blah, blah. Easy shit like that. And the money’s amazing!”
Troy huffed to himself.
“Anyway, I just lost my pilot and I’ve got trips on the schedule for this weekend. So, get your ass down here A.S.A.P.!”
R.B. left the address and hung up.
The light changed to green. Troy didn’t move. He just stared out the window. A minivan behind him honked twice and he startled out of his shock. He put on his blinker and turned left, heading south.
He cranked up the Eagles and rolled his window down.
“Cayo hueso,” he said as he turned, “here comes Troy.”
Afterword
I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this first installment of the Troy Bodean Adventure Series. I had an amazing time writing it, and as I typed the last few lines, I knew I’d be back for more. Continue reading after this for an excerpt from Book 2 in the Troy Bodean Adventure Series, Ocean Blue.
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www.DavidFBerens.com
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Deep Wave
A Troy Bodean Adventure #2
Prologue
G.P.S.
Hector Martinez crept onto the boat in total, blackout darkness, thinking the two passengers had passed out from a long day of fishing and drinking. His intention had been to quietly steal their G.P.S. unit and be gone with it before they woke. He was unscrewing it from their boat’s dashboard when a young kid, maybe college-aged, appeared from down below holding a plate with a sandwich and a beer. In one startled second, Hector grabbed him and tried to pin him down. The kid was quick and strong, shoving him backward, almost off the boat and yelling out to someone presumably still below deck. Another kid, maybe a year or two younger, jumped up the stairs two at a time as Hector regained his feet.
“Who the hell are you?’ he demanded.
“I have no beef with you,” Hector said breathing heavily, “but I need your G.P.S.”
“Dude,” the older kid stepped toward him, “you need to get the hell off our boat.”
“Not without that,” he said, and pointed toward the dashboard.
As he turned to look, Hector drew his knife and slashed him harshly in the throat. Blood spurted high into the air, so much of it that it was obvious his jugular had been cut.
“Holy shit!” the younger boy screamed and lunged toward him.
Within seconds, Hector had killed them both. It was that simple. He hadn’t meant for it to go down that way, but he really didn’t care either. He wiped off his knife and finished the job of unscrewing the G.P.S. Sitting on the dashboard next to the navigation unit was a blackened metal bowl that the boys had clearly brought up from below. It wobbled around unsteadily because of a weird ring on the bottom. He’d been instructed to get rid of anything they’d brought up, so he hefted it into the water. It disappeared with a plunk into the black surface. He jumped back aboard his boat having turned on the trolling motor of the boys’ rented boat and steering it to the west… away from the Keys.
Julie Matthews, Channel 7 news anchorwoman, had plenty to say about Hurricane Daniel; wind rotation, water temperature, velocity, but the man watching the report was only interested in one thing; the storm’s direction.
It looked as if it was going to track northward toward Cuba then head a few miles south of Key West, close enough to do some serious damage… probably just after next Wednesday. If the storm kept up its current category four strength, it would certainly scatter and bury the evidence.
The man muted the droning weather report and clicked open one of his three secured cellphones.
“It looks like we have an answer to our problems,” he said to a voicemail that always picked up with no courtesy message. He closed the cellphone and waited.
Exactly two minutes later his landline rang. He picked up the receiver and listened.
“Yes, Papa,” he answered the caller, “I have someone on it.” Then he hung up the phone.
Too many loose ends, he thought. He believed he’d had them all tied up when his last Cuban friend had shot down the drone, plunging it into the gulf. And then those damn boys started bragging about finding something out there. That loose end was being tied up tonight.
Far too many people getting far too close to the wreck. He ticked off a mental checklist and when he was satisfied he’d taken care of everything, he clicked the remote and turned the volume back up on the television.
The weather girl was now warning the residents of southern Florida that there was a possibility of a non-local evacuation as early as Friday, and given the storm’s intensity and potential track, there would likely be a total evacuation by Monday.
The man turned off the television when the current weather report became predictable, going on and on and calling for rain, rain and more rain. He re-lit a cold cigar and pulled a few strong puffs. He stood up and strode over to his desk, picked up a long rolled up piece of paper, and carefully unfurled it until a map of the Gulf of Mexico lay in front of him. He moved his stapler onto one corner and his ashtray to the other to hold the map open, then drew a line roughly representing the path of Hurricane Daniel.
“Anywhere within a hundred miles of that oughta do the trick,” he said through a puff of cigar.
He traced the line up toward Key West and drew an X about sixty miles southwest of the island. He tapped it with his pen a couple of times.
“Do your worst, Daniel,” he said, clicking off the desk lamp and throwing the room into blackness.
Part I
Something In The Water
“Life is like a swimming pool. You dive into the water, but you can’t see how deep it is.”
-Dennis Rodman
1
The Ride
Troy Clint Bodean woke up with his cheek stuck to the dark aged wood of Captain Tony’s Bar. It was a hot tourist spot, but still a crusty holdover from old Key West. On any given night, one might find a sexy sorority kitten sitting next to Barnacle Bill. With its open-air front, dirty floors, never-level coin operated pool tables and mid-forty-something rockers desperately holding on to their stringy manes of bleach blonde hair on stage, it painted a portrait of a must-see location… but once is usually enough. Troy’s fingers were still wrapped around a shot glass full of sticky brown liquor. His Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat was propped backward sitting on the crown of his head.
“Oh God,” he muttered and tried to lift his head.
Twelve months in. He’d suffered through twelve long, slow, hard months in this dang place. God, Pawleys Island had been crazy and he’d wanted to slow down, but this was ridiculous. He’d been dulling the boredom with more drink than usual lately; shots of this and shots of that had become a bad habit… a habit he needed badly to kick.
Hangovers must be extremely heavy, he thought, because once they got into your skull; it seemed immensely difficult to lift his head. But with great effort he finally sat up on the barstool, peeled open his eyes, and searched the room. Two other people were sitting at the bar across and diagonally from him.
Noticing him stir, one of them got up and strode over to him with a damp bar towel. A just beyond middle-aged Italian man Troy knew as Vince the bartender took the shot glass of liquor and poured it into the bar sink.
“Hey,” he protested weakly, “I wasn’t done with that.”
“Okay, Troy,” he said to the groggy patron, “you don’t gotta go home, but ya can’t stay here.”
“Right, right,” Troy rubbed his eyes and ran his hand through his matted hair, “what time is it, Vince?”
This was not the original owner of Captain Tony’s, but a newly retired fishing expedition guide out of Islamorada who took a job as a bartender in Key West for extra cash. Before that he’d been in Chicago and no one really knew what he did for work there, and no one really cared to know.
He had jet-black hair with streaks of grey over each ear slicked back roughly from a deeply tanned and line forehead. A stray scar from what looked like skin cancer surgery broke up his receding hairline. His hands were meaty and rough and sported rings on the left and right little fingers. Vince looked at his Tag Heuer watch.
“It’s four-thirty in the mornin’, Dude” he said.
Troy shook his head and slowly wobbled himself up off the barstool. He took a step toward the front door, swayed hard back toward the bar barely catching himself before crashing into a mixed drink blending machine.
“I got it, I got it,” he held up his hands waving off the nearly diving bartender trying to avert a drunken mess on his bar.
He stumbled again, this time catching himself on a floor-to-ceiling column that was covered in vacationers’ business cards, pictures and even a couple of bras. That must’ve been a fun night he thought to himself. He looked at the myriad of cards and focused his eyes on a particularly bright looking card. It was a picture of a purple to orange sunset over ocean waves. The text simply said Megan Simons, Ocean Biology and Marine Historian. It said something about the love of ocean legend and blah blah blah… phone number. Good.
He looked over his shoulder to see if Vince was looking and plucked the card from the column. He shuffled out of the bar and made his way to Duval Street.
At this muggy but cool time of early morning, the crowded street was home to stoners, bohemians, flamboyant homosexuals and transsexuals, people who didn’t fit the mainstream life at the north end of US 1. He was not surprised to find it bustling with South Florida socialite kids as well, stumbling about paying way too much for beer. It seemed that everyone here was running from something, and they simply ran out of road.
In the eighteenth century it was pirates, the nineteenth century brought soldiers and the twentieth century introduced smugglers. Any of those would be better than the cracked-out, Miami weekenders that flooded into Key West every Friday night.
He hiked over to where he thought he’d parked his scooter. Not there. He looked around unsteadily for a minute and still saw no sign of his ride.
“Mmmkay,” he muttered, “guess I’ll take the bus.”
Buses, bikes and scooters are the major modes of transportation for locals in Key West. Taxis are for vacationers with lots of money to burn on such things. He walked to the nearest bus stop and plopped down on the bench. He was out as soon as he hit.
“Yo,” a rising voice woke him from a dream about a man, a boat and a fish, “you need a ride, sugar?”
Out of the fog in his head and the fog of the morning, he could see a bus driver, a black woman he’d ridden with many times. She probably outweighed Troy by one hundred and fifty pounds and her arms jiggled underneath from her elbow to her shoulder. She had corn-rowed hair pulled back from her smooth forehead down to her shoulders and a white and pink floral bandana tied on top of her head. The sundress she wore, if you could call it that, was draped over her body in pale yellow with a swirling orange pattern of vines, flowers, moons and stars.
Glowing chestnut eyes smiled at him from a face that was round and smooth. She looked soft and comfortable and safe, like the beloved nanny of some rich, white southern Georgia family. On his frequent rides with her he’d learned that she was new to Key West displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, a Cajun chef from a well-known gumbo café. She had promised him many times to make him a Louisiana meal he would never forget. He could barely remember his time back in Louisiana on the boats… another lifetime.
“Keys ain’t gonna git hit by no hurricane,” she once told him, “they been blessed by the nuns.”
It was an old legend; he knew it well. So far, it had held true.
“Yup,” Troy nearly growled with his throat now cottony dry, “a ride would be good.”
“Where you headed, baby?” she closed the door behind him as he slumped down in the first seat.
“This route go anywhere near Pepe’s?” he asked.
“You bet it does,” she pulled into motion, “right by the front door. Lookin’ for some poke chop covered steak to ease dat pain?”
“I was actually thinking about a Yuengling, but yeah, that sounds good too,” he laughed.
“Baby, stick with dem poke chops,” she scolded him, “ain’t nothin’ but the devil in dat alcohol.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Troy laughed.
The winding bus route let people on and off as they moved away from the tourist district of Duval Street. He easily drifted into sleep again. She woke him as she opened the bus door. They had arrived at Pepe’s. He took the first step down the stairs to exit the bus and she grabbed the sleeve of his shirt.
“Great things gonna come your way, sugar,” she said but her eyes darkened, “but jus’ remember dat deep is a dangerous place. You take care of yaself, Troy.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said with a grin and ran his fingers through his hair, “I’ve got a knack for staying out of trouble.”
“Now you know I don’t believe dat,” the black woman threw back her head and laughed.
She closed the door and hissed off the brakes into the slowly creeping dawn. Troy laughed to himself as he walked into Pepe’s. His head was finally clearing.
2
Treasure Daydreams
Shoving a plate of mostly finished world-famous Pepe’s pork chops away from him and sipping down the last of a Yuengling beer, Troy Bodean pulled the business card out of his shirt pocket.
“Well, Megan,” he flipped open his cellphone, “let’s see if you’re interested.”
He dialed the number on the card and waited. Two rings, three… then a voicemail.
“Hi this is Meg. Can’t get to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number and a short message, I’ll call you back,” it said followed by the obligatory beep.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Oops, it was only five-thirty in the morning. He closed the phone without leaving a message... try back later. He got up to leave and the waitress stopped him.
“Cash or charge,” she asked him sarcastically.
He looked over her shoulder and found the manager shaking his head.
“Put it on my tab, sweetie,” he winked at the girl.
“So much for my tip, eh?” she rolled her eyes.
He turned and walked toward the door.
As he opened it to the newly coming dawn he looked back at her and said, “Hey when this next one comes through, I’ll leave you a tip like you’ve never seen before.”
He smiled and walked out as the girl shook her head at his back. This scene played out every time Troy came into Pepe’s and every time he left without paying.
A dreary mile later, he unlocked and opened the door to his houseboat. Calling it a houseboat is a stretch of the term; basically, he lived in a trailer on the water. Parked at the dock was his Honda scooter with a chain through the wheel.
“Oh,” he nodded to the scooter, “that’s where I left you.”
After coming to Key West, he’d realized that his truck was a bit of overkill… nobody local drove a car and very few rode anything but a bicycle. He opted for something in between, a bright red Honda Elite with a small basket on the back.
As the sun rose over the ocean creating yet another spectacular Key West sunrise, he shrugged off his sandals and slumped down on his bed. With his belly
full and gentle surf rocking the houseboat slightly, he slipped into unconsciousness.
The blaring chirp of his cellphone jerked him out of his dreams of finding that one chest of gold buried in the deep.
“Troy, where the hell are you?!” the voice at the other end of the line demanded.
“Huh, what?” he struggled to shake off the grogginess.
“Your nine o’clock is here,” the voice was an exasperated whisper.
He glanced over at his alarm clock. Nine forty-five. Ouch.
“I’m on my way, R.B.” he clicked his phone shut and sat up on the edge of the bed.
R.B. was Ryan Bodean, Troy’s younger brother. He’d been estranged from him after returning from Afghanistan, but in an odd turn of events, his brother had bought a seaplane expedition company in the Keys and was suddenly in need of a pilot. Although a seaplane was a different animal from the Apaches he used to fly, he made a pretty quick transition.
He groaned as he lifted himself and stood wobbling slightly. He walked to the tiny bathroom and turned on the cold water in the sink. He splashed the water on his face and tried to rub some of the hangover out of his eyes. He noticed that his scruffy chin had sprouted a few gray hairs and his wrinkles seemed to be a little deeper. He splashed a little water on his hair and brushed it back with his fingers, a few gray hairs had popped up here lately as well. He thought about showering and shaving, but decided to leave that until later, after this first trip to the fort. A hot steaming shower and shave, he promised himself.
He threw on a new white shirt with the company logo on the chest, Tortuga Adventures, shoved his now infamous Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat on his head, grabbed his grey New Balance tennis shoes and slammed the houseboat door behind him. He fumbled through his keys, locked his door while trying to slip on his shoes. The scooter took two attempts but finally sputtered to life. He nearly poked his eye trying to navigate out of his drive and put on his Aviators.
The Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Series Boxset Page 22