Pushing the elevator button to descend, he put on his most confident smile.
“I’ll most likely find her by ten o’clock tonight,” he said as the doors slid open and he stepped in.
Jack just nodded and raised his glass. It looks like whiskey, thought Remington, who drinks whiskey this time of the morning… actually, who drinks whiskey at all… ugh?
Troy Bodean woke up alone in his bed. The sheets were tossed off him and the fan was sitting right next to him, blowing as hard as it could… and he was still sweating. The apartment was provided by Don Henderson’s beach services company as part of Troy’s employment. It was intended to be shared by two of the company’s workers, but when Eduardo got deported, the apartment became Troy’s alone. He’d given up a chunk of his pay to keep it that way. Small as it was, with only three rooms—bedroom, bathroom, and combo kitchen, dining, living room—it wasn’t half bad. He had a futon in the living room, a twin mattress on the floor of the bedroom, and a plastic chair and TV tray in the dining area of the kitchen. No television, just his phone. But it was good enough for catching up on the Dolphins, and occasionally, the Braves.
The heat was stifling, even at six in the morning. With no air-conditioning and the slatted, jalousie style windows, there was very little air-flow and the ceiling fan had died a few days ago. Thankfully, his next-door neighbor had loaned him a box fan and it did a terrific job of pushing the hot air around the apartment. The good news was it was Monday and he was off work. He thought he might even take a dip in the pool.
The miserable little three-story apartment building he lived in was shaped like a horseshoe. In the center of the horseshoe was a small, oval shaped pool. Because of the shape of the building, it was eternally in the shade—which was nice when it was so dang hot. Troy grabbed his beach towel (a five-finger souvenir he quietly lifted from the Ritz) and walked out his door. The inside of the horseshoe was the walkway connecting all the apartments and various stairwells leading down to the ground floor. Troy’s place was right in the center. He looked down the three stories to the pool and saw it was empty except for Auggie.
Auggie was his octogenarian Jewish neighbor. He had retired from a home shopping network ten years ago and used his entire life savings to buy one of the ratty top floor apartments. Naturally, he worked as a Walmart greeter to supplement his Social Security.
Troy padded down the metal stairs and walked toward the pool. He dipped his toe in the water. It was frigid. Auggie was leaning against the shallow end of the pool, arms spread akimbo as if he was basking in a hot top. His body was covered with masses of salt and pepper hair, so much that he looked like he was resting in a sea of aging kelp. Troy shivered internally but smiled on the outside.
“How’s it going, Auggie?” he asked the old man.
Auggie didn’t open his eyes. He just raised one hand in a hello gesture, and said, “It doesn’t go, ya gotta push it.”
“That right?” Troy dipped a second toe in the water… it was still freezing.
He was pulling off his shirt to take the plunge, hoping that he would get used to the chilly pool, when his cell phone beeped.
“Dat’s gotta be you,” Auggie said, “I ain’t had one in twenty years.”
Troy laughed as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
-Beach in 10?
The number wasn’t a contact in his phone. Troy was puzzled by it, but couldn’t resist.
-Who is this?
-Oh, c’mon now. You haven’t forgotten me already have you?
Troy arched an eyebrow. Before he could type a response, the next message pinged.
-It’s Mindy, silly. C’mon down. It’s better than your crappy pool I’m sure! LOL
Coupla things, Troy thought, how’d you get my number? And how the hell did you know about my pool?
As if she’d read his mind, her next text spelled it out.
-You’re probably wondering how I got your number. Gino gave it to me. And you told me about your place. Probably trying to get me to come home with you. LOL
Oh, dangit. Troy mentally face-palmed himself. That’s not good.
-I’m kidding, Gino told me where you lived. No biggie, just get ur ass down here. No cavorting, I promise. The beach is awesome today.
He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not, but he took a look at Auggie drowning in his own body hair and tapped out his reply.
-On my way.
-Good. I need you to put sunscreen on my back.
“Oh hell,” Troy mumbled out loud, “no cavortin’ indeed.
He pulled himself out of the pool and nodded to Auggie.
“Check you later, Aug,” he said.
“Ah, good,” the old man smiled. “I could use a check!”
He slipped on his flip flops and headed out the rusty gate.
3
Canal Point
Senator Gil Dickerson of Florida could feel his smile turning into a leering ogle as his young intern untied the strings on her bikini top. She handed him a bottle of cocoa-butter, some European crap sunscreen promising the darkest tan money can buy.
“Do my back?” she said, smiling coyly over her bare shoulder.
Gil pointed the bottle at her back and squeezed. It spurted out all over her already dark skin and she giggled at the dirty innuendo.
“Naughty boy,” she said as he rubbed it in.
He applied enough pressure to let her know he got the message she was sending, and that he was more than willing. Sure, he was older by three decades, but when you were famous, none of that mattered. And Gil was in great shape for his age. Standing at almost six-feet two-inches, he was tall enough to appear confident, but not so tall that he appeared overbearing… perfect for a politician. And his salt and pepper hair and beard combined with a slightly olive complexion were enough to garner him a Sean Connery lookalike comparison. And he played it up for all it was worth, even affecting a slightly Scottish brogue.
While attending Harvard Law, he found the actual study and eventual practice of law to be tedious and boring. But he did it well enough to make the Harvard Law Review. At one of the swanky banquets the review was known to host, he shook hands with several influential people. Some of them took notice of his physical, social, and commanding spoken presence in the room. When he spoke, more people listened than didn’t. And thus, the grooming began.
It began innocently enough, with speeches at small functions—tests for his crowd appeal—and grew into introductions for higher officials at political rallies. He was ushered along the political path of backroom deals and slightly shady support functions until they were sure they had their boy. And he loved it. Along with the under-the-table support came money, women, and power. Power quickly became his most desired benefit. The women came and went, all in search of a golden ticket, until Sandra. A staffer in his first campaign, she spent hours working on getting him elected, and though it was only for a small-town Representative’s seat, it showed her ability to make Gil into the perfect candidate. At several of his meetings with backers, it became clear that he was going to marry Sandra, whether he wanted to or not. She was going to be part of the package. Every politician needs a First Lady.
Gil didn’t mind; he and Sandra had enough in common that they enjoyed each other’s company. They had sex, but it was forced and dull. He was careful to conceal the fact that he was uninterested… so as not to hurt her feelings. Some of his colleagues began to suggest that he find enjoyment elsewhere and laughed when he asked what they meant by that.
“Staffers, man,” said James Hardy, Senator from Vermont, “why the hell you think they’re all sweet young college girls?”
The others in the room slapped each other on the back and plenty of winks and nudges went around the group. It wasn’t long before Gil was personally selecting his interns… just for such purposes. He got good at spotting the girls who knew what they were there for, and had them in bed after a few trinkets and gifts. He felt confident that Sandra never knew about
any of it, and even if she did, she knew enough to keep her mouth shut.
On the night they celebrated the start of his campaign for Governor of Florida, he was presented with a piece of paper rolled up like a scroll with a red ribbon tied around it.
“What’s this?” he asked, feeling the corners of his mouth turning up into a grin.
“We got ya a little something special,” said Harry Turnbull, Senator of Maine, and winked at him and smacked his back a few times. “Enjoy, Senator Dickerson. And I’ll be appreciating your vote item numba one-fifty-three.”
Gil laughed as he untied the ribbon. “You had me at something special.”
The paper curled open and he could see it was a resume. He held it up and shrugged his shoulders.
“What the hell am I sh’posed to do with thish?” he said in his best Connery accent.
James Hardy grabbed his elbow and squeezed it, bobbing his eyebrows up and down. “Whatevah the hell you wanna do, Senator.”
The others in the room all broke into raucous laughter. The intern whose resume he held was hired the next Monday, and their sexual interludes started on Tuesday. Sometimes they’d jump into a closet, sometimes an elevator, and often, his car in the parking garage. He was actually surprised that they’d never gotten caught. It wasn’t until they’d been romping for six months that she started to ask him to take her away on weekend trips. And that’s how they ended up sitting on the Senator’s boat at Canal Point on Lake Okeechobee at another Senator’s private lake house with barely any clothes on.
There weren’t enough people here to worry about being recognized. It was just an old man out with his daughter on a lake trip… or so Gil tried to portray. But if anyone had seen him smearing sunscreen all over her bare back, they would’ve thought it was an odd relationship at best, incest at worst. When he was through, she turned around, her top falling away completely.
“Oops!” she said, feigning embarrassment and barely covering her breasts.
He squirted more sunscreen into his palm. “Young lady, you’re gonna get an awful sunburn if I don’t put some of this on your chest as well.”
She grinned and played along, dropping her arms. She was exquisite. Perfect fake boobs and a flat stomach covered with a very slight sheen of sweat. He knew what was going to happen next. As he lurched toward her with his creamy hands, she said the first terrible thing he’d ever heard from her.
“So,” she started casually, “when you gonna be honest with yourself and get rid of that old hag you been bangin’ for the last twenty years?”
The comment struck him as rude and crass, and he backhanded her hard… too hard. Say what you would about him, but Sandra was as pure a soul as there ever was… no one was allowed to speak ill of her when he was listening. The intern screamed and turned back toward him. Her jaw was clearly broken and slightly caved in. Blood gushed from her mouth and she spit out two teeth.
“You bagghstarddd!” she gurgled, as if her mouth was full of marbles.
Gil was shocked. He hadn’t meant to hit her so hard.
“Oh my God, Sandy, I mean, um…” he couldn’t remember her name.
“Ith Jackie, you pieth of thit!” She reached across the boat to grab her phone out of a nearby towel. “I’m goirng to end yrou!”
She started punching in a number that only had three digits; nine-one-one. Gil sat paralyzed. How would this play out? Would it make the papers? Would Sandra leave him? Shit, his campaign was just getting started. The scandal would be the end of it and the end of his political career.
He leapt toward her and punched her in the face. Her phone jumped out of her hand and plopped into the lake as the scream burbled out of her mouth. The shock was replaced with terror as she suddenly realized she was in mortal danger.
Gil grabbed her towel and forced it into her face. He dragged her down into the floor of the boat and held it there until she stopped breathing. He let go of the towel and scrambled back to the back of the boat. He drove out to what felt like the center of the lake, wrapped the boat’s anchor around her ankles, and tossed her along with her belongings into the water. Panting for air, he raced away from the scene. He parked the boat, got into his car, and sped away without looking back. He made his own call to someone he felt he could trust to help him deal with the situation, Senator James Hardy—the owner of the boat.
He felt tears forming in his eyes as he breathlessly told the story.
“Shut up!” Hardy said as he got to the gory details. “Just shut up and get your ass home. We don’t need to discuss this over a cell connection. Get home, sleep with your wife, and call me in the morning.”
He ended the call and drove as fast as he could manage back to his condo in Brickell. He explained to his wife that the filibuster he’d claimed was keeping him away that weekend had ended earlier than expected. She kissed him on the cheek and had the chef make him dinner… the perfect First Lady.
Private investigator, Remington Hoyt Reginald, sat in his car with his ridiculously long telephoto lens in shock at what he’d witnessed. Senator Gil Dickerson had been having an affair with Jackie Ranchero-Doral, that was common knowledge around D.C. What wasn’t known to anyone around the senator was that Jackie flew home every weekend to her husband. Said husband had become suspicious of Jackie’s more and more frequent weekends spent with the good senator, and had hired Remington to find out what was really going down.
It had been a typical shoot some eight-by-ten glossy photos of the adulterous couple having a tryst, show the shocked spouse the damning evidence, collect the payment, shake hands and walk away kind of case… until Remington had watched Dickerson take the girl out on the boat, stay gone for an hour, then come back without her in a rush that said, I’m guilty as hell. But guilty of what? Had he dropped the girl off at another dock? Had she run away? Had he… murdered her and dropped her body in the water? Remington got out of his car and strolled casually over to the boat. He glanced around the marina like a tourist on holiday. God knows he looked like one, dressed in a cheesy beach shop t-shirt that said Lake Okeechobee Reel Legends with a picture of a large mouth bass on it, garish drug-store bought flip flops, and a pair of khaki shorts with cargo pockets… ugh, cargo pockets, for Christ’s sake. Who wore this crap? He promised himself he’d change into his Ralph Lauren outfit of desert-red, seersucker light spring cashmere sweater with horizontal navy stripes, and Bardene burlap slip-on sneakers, as soon as he hit the first gas station.
He peered over the edge of the boat and didn’t need to look hard to see the blood all over the seats in the back. With a closer look, he spotted what he thought might be… a couple of broken teeth. Jesus, Gil, he thought, what have you done? Checking to be sure no one was watching him, he stepped down into the boat, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and scooped up the two teeth. He also soaked the corner of the cloth in congealed blood in case he’d need a D.N.A. sample later.
Slumping back into his rental car, he took a Ziploc bag from his duffle and slid the handkerchief and teeth into it. Slowly, his shock at what had seemingly happened started to form into a plan. As he drove south on I-27, he began to realize just how much power he’d just been given over the senator, likely soon-to-be governor, of the state of Florida. He used the drive to organize his thoughts and how he would present the proposition to Gil Dickerson. He made a mental note to Google the cabinet positions a governor would need to fill once he took office. His gram would be so proud. Tears formed in his eyes as he thought of her.
So proud, indeed.
4
Coronas With Orange
Troy Clint Bodean flip-flopped his way down Sunrise Drive toward the ocean with a stolen white Ritz-Carlton towel slung over his shoulder. He was glad of the shade provided by his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat ‘cause it was hot… dang hot.
When his toes hit the sparkling white sand, he hopped gingerly from one foot to the other. The heat was burning his feet as he looked left and right down the beach for Mindy. His
eyes finally lit on her, waving him over.
Good gawd, he thought, careful not to let his tongue fall out of his mouth. Mindy Colpiller was wearing a tiny, but not distasteful bikini top, with some sort of paisley pattern and rope-like lace layered on top. Her Daisy Duke denim shorts were unbuttoned at the waist revealing a coordinating solid bikini bottom beneath her belly button. As he got closer to the two beach chairs she’d reserved for them, he was glad he had on his Costa Del Mar Pescador sunglasses to hide his wandering gaze. She was barely halfway through her twenties and had the body to match her age.
No cavortin’, he thought to himself as he smiled.
“So, you wear your khakis to swim in?” She arched an eyebrow and grinned.
He looked down at his shorts. Columbia PFG Half Moon shorts, a light khaki color that leaned toward olive green, complete with black canvas belt.
“They’re actually fishin’ shorts,” he said and tapped one of the side pockets, “waterproof, plenty of pouches, good for holding line and bait and such.”
She nodded and then shook her head. “Maybe I can show you something more… updated? So, you won’t look so out of place down here.”
Troy looked around. Just a few feet from them sat a man who reminded him of Auggie. Older, bulging stomach, hairy back, sagging everything, and all squeezed into tiny neon green Speedos like a popped can of biscuits.
“No thanks, darlin’,” he said and plopped down onto the chair next to her.
She followed his gaze to the man and laughed. “Not like that, silly! Something tasteful and modern—no cargo pockets.”
“That’s okay,” he said, tipping his straw cowboy hat at her, “I like my style just the way it is.”
Her smile relaxed. “As you should, Troy. It’s a good style.”
“Thank ya, darlin’,” he said reclining back on the chair. “So what’s on the agenda this afternoon?”
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 51