“Dangit,” he muttered.
31
A Really Böhring House
Man’ti stood in the living room alone. He was studying the tasteful and obviously expensive oil painting of a white egret hanging over the tufted linen couch. From somewhere down the hallway, he heard something that sounded like a whip crack and then a scream. The mister must not be happy with the missus. He sniffed and cracked his neck with a small smile. Bitch probly had it comin’.
Hearing the clip-clop of shoes coming, he turned to see Victor Böhring enter the room. He had a handkerchief out and was wiping his hands. Man’ti thought he might’ve seen a little blood on the cloth.
Victor shrugged. “Vell?”
“She ain’t talkin’,” Man’ti said. “Ah dunno where this Troy is and I dunno if she’s gonna tell me.”
Victor walked to the kitchen, took a small glass tumbler from the cabinet, and filled it with water from the refrigerator. He took a sip and licked his lips.
“Are you telling me,” he said flatly, “zat you are unable to make zees girl talk? Big man, wit zee tattoos, and a little girl is keeping secrets from you?”
Man’ti could feel the heat rising in his face. “You said not to kill—”
Victor slammed his hand down on the kitchen counter. “I know vat I said.” He inhaled slowly, a frown growing on his mouth. “You do not ave to kill her to make her talk, no?”
Man’ti nodded. “Ah’m actually not sure she knows where he is.”
“Make her tell you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And eef she doesn’t tell you, get rid of her.” Victor took another sip of his water.
Man’ti turned to go. “Oh, and theyahs a few cops down the way. Seen ‘em come in this morning.”
Victor raised his eyebrows. He seemed to consider this for a long moment. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled his key ring out and tossed it to Man’ti. “Get her out of here,” Victor said, and waved his hand away from them. “Take her to zee apartment. Make her talk or make her go avay.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And for God’s sake,” —Victor finished his water— “don’t get any blood on my car.”
“Ah’ll use a tarp.”
Victor stuck out his hand, palm up. “Vatever you need to do, do it.”
Man’ti nodded and walked out.
He didn’t want to kill the girl, but if she wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know, he’d shoot her in the head. And no one would find this body like they had found Rick Hairre’s. He clomped down the stairs to the storage room underneath the Böhring house.
Karah Campobello shivered in the darkness. It had been hours since the huge man had left her here. She was cold, achy, hungry and scared. Her hands were still zip-tied behind her back and her wrists were swollen and bleeding from the restraint’s bite. Duct tape was strapped over her mouth, but she had screamed until her throat was raw. It didn’t seem loud enough for anyone to hear.
After several unsuccessful attempts to kick the door down, she’d cried for most of what she guessed was the entire night. She was sure she was dead. She’d probably be raped and murdered and no one would ever know how or why. All because of Troy ... she had no idea why, but it seemed like the man holding her here wanted to get to him.
Without warning, the door screeched open and bright sunlight blazed into the room, blinding her momentarily. Silhouetted in the light was her captor.
She edged back into the corner of the room, her tears coming again. He moved into the room and came toward her. Without hesitation, he grabbed the edge of the tape on her mouth and ripped it off.
She yelped uncontrollably with the sudden pain.
“Please don’t,” Karah cried hoarsely. “I told you before, I don’t know where Troy is.”
“Lies,” the brutish man said simply.
He touched her cheek and she shied away. She could see the wolfish glint in his eyes and terror flashed its way into her heart.
“No ... please ... ” she whimpered.
“Ya got ten seconds, sweetheart,” the man said, “ta tell me what I wanna know. Otherwise, we’re going on a little trip and one of us ain’t comin’ back.”
“I swear to you, I have no idea where Troy is,” Karah said through fresh tears. “I was supposed to meet up with him yesterday, but he never showed up.”
“Right,” the muscled man said, smacking the duct tape back over her mouth, “guess that settles it.”
He stood quickly and without so much as a grunt of effort, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She kicked wildly, screaming against her restraints, but he ignored her. He carried her out the door and into a carport. A carport exactly like the ones under the houses on ... Holy shit, we’re still on Pawleys Island, she thought.
She screamed against the tape again, but her voice was still raw from crying out last night. Suddenly, the big man slapped her ass ... and it wasn’t in a good way. It felt like he’d cracked her tailbone. She cried out again and kicked as hard as she could. The man was impossibly strong. He clicked a set of car keys and a nearby Mercedes SUV beeped as it unlocked. He opened the back and threw her in. She watched as he walked around and got into the driver’s seat. She kicked the door with all the effort she could muster, but with bare feet, she wasn’t doing much damage. He started the car and pulled them out onto Myrtle Avenue.
Looking out the back window, she was shocked to see that they were literally right next door to her cousin’s house. She sobbed as she watched it get smaller and smaller as they drove away.
When they reached the causeway, the man turned onto the bridge and sped up. Karah had given up on screaming and slumped down in the rear compartment of the expensive looking car. She realized she was sitting on a large green tarp and next to the tarp was a bag with a spool of rope. There were also four, forty-five pound weights, like the kind she remembered seeing in the gym at school. He was taking her to kill her and dump her body in the water somewhere.
Her mind raced. She needed to get out of here. With no obvious solution at hand, she decided to save her strength. If her feet ever hit the ground again, she was going to run as hard and fast as she could. This dude was big, and big dudes weren’t usually very fast. She closed her eyes and tried to bring her heart rate down to calm herself.
Darren wondered how much he looked like a zombie trudging down Myrtle Avenue. With the bandages on his head, hands, and legs all dirty with old dried blood, and his limp from his bad foot, he was sure he resembled the living dead. God knows he felt like the living dead. His hand throbbed and his leg was on fire. Though he’d been to the hospital and taken the antibiotics, he felt sure the infection was back and raging through his system.
His mind was bleary and ravaged by all the losses his body had been through. Fingers and toes were missing, both his eyes were severely damaged, and his nose was crushed almost flat. He grinned to himself. But ah’m still kickin’! He coughed out a laugh, but didn’t even notice the blood that trickled down his chin.
He urged himself to keep walking, just a few more steps to Victor’s house. He didn’t plan on knocking, he’d just open the storage shed underneath the house and kill the girl. He decided he wasn’t going to shoot her, he was just going to choke the ever-lovin’ shit out of her until she died. And then he was gonna choke her some more ... and maybe after that he’d shoot her. Hell, he might even tear her fookin’ head off. He laughed again until he sent himself into another coughing fit.
As he walked into the carport, he thought it odd that Victor’s ostentatious Mercedes was gone. A late model gold Toyota Corolla was parked in the driveway—he had no idea whose car that was—but shielding his eyes and looking through the back-seat window revealed a bucket and cleaning supplies. Must be the maid’s car. He walked under the house to the back of the carport where the storage shed was located. He stopped short. The door was open. Shit, he thought. Inside he heard a faint scraping sound. Somebody was in there. He grinned. Maybe the
girl was in there, and she was still tied up and couldn’t escape.
“Come out, come out, wherevah you are,” he sing-songed as he entered the door.
A woman in a blue dress was pushing a mop, and she stopped suddenly upon hearing him come in.
“Oh, señor,” she said, and raised her hand to her mouth as her eyes darted from one of Darren’s blood-soaked bandages to another.
“Wheyah ... is ... that ... fookin’ ... bitch?”
“I don’ know what you are talking about, señor.”
Darren raised the pistol and shot her in the head twice before she fell. The red burning sensation came back. He walked out of the shed and headed up the stairs into the Böhring’s beach house.
Victor Böhring was sitting on the couch in a ridiculously tight bathing suit, flipping through what looked like a German newspaper. His bright orange swim trunks reminded Darren of the shorty-shorts that he’d seen the waitresses wearing at a nearby Hooters wing place. It had looked teasingly tantalizing on the girls, but not on the old man. Darren laughed out loud and realized it sounded a little crazy.
“Vat in zee hell happened to you?” Victor barely looked up from his newspaper.
“Wheyah’s the fookin’ girl?” Darren said in a low voice.
“Your friend, Man’ti, has taken her somewhere else.”
“He ain’t mah friend,” Darren said and pointed his pistol at Victor, emphasizing his point.
“Zat may be zee case.” Victor carefully folded the paper and laid it on the coffee table. “However, he is taking care of zis matter, since you could not.”
“Thet asshat ain’t gettin’ none of mah money!”
Victor sniffed. “Your money?”
“Ah’m gonna kill thet fooka, and then I’m gonna kill thet fookin’ girl.” Darren’s voice was louder now.
Victor arched an eyebrow. “And zen you will hev your money?”
“Thet seven million’s been mine since the beginning. Ah’ve paid a heavy price for it.” Darren held up his bandaged left hand and shook it.
Victor inhaled and picked up a cigar from the nearby side table. He stuck it in his mouth and rolled it around, making sucking sounds as he moistened the end.
“You had your chance, Darren.” Victor took the cigar out of his mouth. “I gave you every opportunity to retrieve zee check. You failed.”
Darren could feel tears welling up in his eyes. Everything was falling apart.
“Man’ti will find zees man, Troy, get me my check, and zen he will be taking care of zee girl.” Victor stood. “And you vill get nothing, as you deserve.”
The check ... Man’ti hadn’t found the check yet. Meaning, it was still out there somewhere, likely with Troy. The girl was the key. She had to know where he was, and Darren would get it out of her.
“Wheyah did he take the girl?”
“Zat is no longer any concern of yours.”
Darren raised the pistol and pointed it at Victor. “Ah, but see, thet’s wheyah you’re wrong.”
Victor snarled. “Don’t be stupid. Zat check was never yours, it was mine! Vat are you going to do? Shoot me? Vat vill zat accomplish? Imbecile!”
Darren aimed the pistol at Victor’s tan belly hanging over the waistband of his tight orange bathing suit. He pulled the trigger. The bang was a quick, short pop and the bullet plunged into the man’s stomach. Blood shot out of the hole.
“Jeezus Christ!” Victor yelled. “Vat zee hell are you doing?”
He jerked his hands down to cover the wound in his stomach. Darren pointed the gun at Victor’s head.
“Let’s try this again,” he said calmly, “wheyah did Man’ti take the girl?”
“You are a dead man.”
“Not yet,” Darren said through a grin, and lowered the gun to Victor’s neck.
He fired again, the bullet ripping through the soft flesh between the man’s neck and shoulder. He gasped and clutched his throat. Darren began to see the man’s bluster fall away. He was bleeding profusely from his stomach and his shoulder, fear starting to seep its way into the man’s eyes.
“God’s sake, man!” Victor held up a hand. “Okay, okay! Zee money is yours. Man’ti has zee girl. They’ve gone to zee apartment.”
Darren lowered the gun. “See now, thet wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Shit!” Victor was breathing hard and blood was pouring out of his wounds. “Call 9-1-1. I must have zee ambulance!”
Darren watched as Victor squirmed around on the couch. The beautiful linen upholstery was turning from white to red. He wondered if he had nicked an artery in Victor’s neck, because blood flowed freely from the wound in his shoulder.
“Quickly, you idiot!” he screamed at Darren, waving a bloody hand toward the phone.
“Sorry, mate,” said Darren “The Body” McGlashen, and raised the pistol and pointed it at Victor Böhring’s head.
“Vat zee fu—”
Victor’s cry was silenced by the third bullet from Darren’s gun. The bullet crashed through the man’s skull and his squirming stopped immediately as his head slammed back onto the couch. Blood and brain splattered all over the wall, and Darren couldn’t help but grin.
He knew where the girl was, and as a bonus, she was with Man’ti. Two more people were going to die today. Now, he just needed a ride.
A thought came to him as he looked around the quiet beach house; the maid’s Toyota. He shuffled around the living room until he found what must’ve been her purse—a cheap Coach knock-off. Digging around in it, he found the keys and her wallet, which he opened to find fifty bucks folded neatly in the back. Victor must’ve paid her today. He stuffed the money in his pocket and headed for the door.
As he opened it, he heard something. A sniff? A cry? He strained to listen ... nothing. Just his imagination. He painfully limped down the stairs to the carport and worked the key in the maid’s car. It turned over on the first crank. Nothin’ like a Toyota, he thought. He turned on the radio as he backed out of the drive. It was blaring some sort of Spanish-language music and he fumbled the dial until he found another station. The jangly chords of The House of the Rising Sun echoed out of the tinny speakers. He cranked it up, rolled the window down, and drove off Pawleys Island for the last time.
Debby stifled the cry that had almost escaped her mouth when the man had walked into the kitchen and scrounged around in the maid’s purse. She’d been pouring a glass of orange juice when the shooting started and she’d fallen to the ground behind the counter and listened to the whole exchange. Thankfully, the children had all been sent down the beach.
She wasn’t particularly sad about Victor being shot, she was just shocked and afraid. But she’d managed to stay quiet until the man had left. After waiting long enough to be sure he wasn’t coming back, she picked herself up and ran to the phone. Dialing 9-1-1, she told the operator what had happened. Yes, he’d been shot. Yes, he was definitely dead. Yes, I’ll wait here.
She hung up. Troy. Gotta get to Troy.
She looked out the back window to see the children playing on the beach. She ran down the steps to the sand and headed to the house next door where she’d seen Troy go ... interestingly, there were three cop cars out front. Good, she thought, the cavalry is here.
32
Welcome To The Brady Bunch
Chesney R. Biggins paced back and forth on the rear deck of Troy Bodean’s beach house. He clicked his missed call log to re-dial his friend, John Dodd Welford with the FBI. As the phone rang, he glanced toward the home of Victor Böhring; nothing out of the ordinary, bunch of kids playing out on the beach ... alone ... no parents watching ...
He turned to look up at the house. The massive deck was empty, no one rocking, no one peeking out of the back windows to check on the children. He could see the carport area under the front of the house and thought it odd that there was a beat-up Toyota Corolla parked beneath. Hadn’t there been another vehicle there when I arrived? He couldn’t remember for sure, but he’d thought ther
e was at least one other. Strange ... the Toyota didn’t look like a car the Böhrings would drive.
The receiver picked up. “Well, isn’t it a fine day in Georgia when your old buddy, Chesney Biggins, picks up the phone to call?” came John’s voice over the phone. “How the hell are you, ol’ pal?”
Chesney jerked the conversation back to the business at hand. “John, did you listen to my message?”
John must’ve sensed the concern in Chesney’s voice because he snapped into his FBI analytical voice. “I did not. Didn’t realize it was a business call. What’s the situation?”
Chesney took a deep breath and recited the fact sheet he’d collected from the murder of—and possible conspiracy surrounding—Rick Hairre. He fed John the details of the current kidnapping situation and where they were with the possible connection of Victor Böhring, the Consolidated Paper Mill, the missing check, and so on.
John was quiet, but Chesney could hear the clicking of computer keys in the background.
“Chesney,” John started, “there’s a file here on Victor. We’ve been watching him and a company called ... The Traditional Department of The Interior of South Carolina ... ” As John apparently read through the file, he mumbled, “money laundering, conspiracy, yada yada yada.” He inhaled. “Ches, I don’t see anything here about a check or a murder. This is new. There are agents nearby on his case. I’m going to send them ... ”
A muffled bang rang out from next door. Chesney instinctively ducked his head. He dropped to one knee, scanning the house next door.
“Get ‘em here, fast.” Chesney clicked the phone and shoved it into his pocket.
He drew his pistol and shuffled across the deck to get a better look at the Böhring house. The kids were still playing. Being closer to the ocean, the waves had probably muffled the already quiet pop. They never heard it, but Chesney knew exactly what it was—a small caliber pistol. Someone was shooting in the Böhring’s beach house.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 25