The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  “Not now, Pepe,” Remington whispered into the edge of the bag.

  Thankfully it seemed to work, and the animal quieted down. Remington crouched behind the last shelf unit in the cooler and stilled himself. He strained to hear any sounds coming from beyond the closed door. Over the unit’s condenser humming continuously, he could barely hear the footsteps coming closer and closer.

  “Misther Rethginald,” the man in black called from outside the door, “there isth nowhere to hide. I have you trapped insthide this room and it will not end well for you if you continue to try to ethscape.”

  The cooler apparently achieved its desired temperature and clicked off for a second. Other than a small orange glow coming from a light switch inside the door, Remington had no way to see his surroundings. He felt around for a weapon of some sort, not sure what good any of these confections would do against the man’s shotgun. He briefly considered throwing a box into the man’s face and trying to shove past him out the cooler door, but that likely wouldn’t work. He’d probably be expecting something like that and would just deflect the box and promptly blow a hole clean through Remington’s chest. The stainless-steel shelves looked as if they might provide a pole or shelf bracket that could be used as a weapon, but upon trying to loosen one, he found them too well put together. The metal wouldn’t budge.

  Remington began to feel as if this was it… the end. And out of nowhere, in the dead silence of the dark cooler, his cell phone began to ring. Loudly.

  Shit, shit, shit, Remington said, searching frantically in his bag for his phone to shut it off.

  Outside, he heard the assassin laugh.

  “It stheemths that you have a cthell phone call, Misther Rethginald.”

  Dammit, Remington thought as he pushed Pepe aside, found the phone, and silenced it. Looking at the number briefly, he saw it was from a contact he’d entered in his phone as G.D. Gil Dickerson. Most likely, the Governor was checking to see if his hitman had completed the job. On top of all of this, Pepe began to chirp wildly, apparently tired of being trapped in a messenger bag.

  “Thisth game is over, Misther Rethginald,” came the man’s voice, just outside the cooler door now.

  And suddenly, a plan flashed into Remington’s mind. He was reminded of the first time he’d met Pepe, back in his apartment… and how incapacitated he’d been by the smell of the skunk. He heard the man’s hand take hold of the cooler door handle and the slight creak of the hinge.

  “Sorry, Pepe,” Remington said softly.

  He closed the messenger back flap over the top of the skunk, positioned himself in the center of the cooler in front of the door, and waited silently.

  The door clicked and then the man hesitated.

  “I’m going to open thisth door, Misther Rethginald,” the man said through the crack, “and we’re going to talk thisth out like stheriousth adulths.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Remington said, holding the bag out in front of him.

  He crouched low to the floor in a sprinter’s stance. The door swung open and Remington pounced. He leapt forward, keeping below under the man’s shotgun barrel. The blast went off above him, deafeningly loud inside the cooler, sending the skunk into hysterics.

  Remington shoved past the man, tumbling him backward. As he jumped over him, he opened the messenger back and dumped the enraged and frightened skunk onto his head. He could almost feel Pepe loading up for the mother of all stink blasts, but he didn’t wait to see what would happen—he just ran as fast as he could for the front door.

  Behind him he heard a scream and thought at first that it might be Pepe… but the longer it went on, he realized it was the assassin.

  He had no idea what was happening in the cooler, but he could suddenly smell the skunk spray, and it was strong, even out here. He burst through the front door and ran to his car.

  Opening the glove box, he reached in and grabbed his .22 pistol. It wasn’t much, but at least he had some kind of weapon.

  Inside the store, he heard bodies thrashing and things smashing, and it sounded as if a bull had been let loose inside and was destroying everything in its path.

  Within seconds, even from behind the store’s glass door and windows, the reek of skunk began to drift out and Remington knew it would be impossible to breathe inside. He pointed his gun at the door and waited.

  The noise continued inside, as did the screaming. Suddenly, the front door slammed outward and the assassin came charging out, his shotgun in one hand while the other hand was tugging at his face.

  Pepe was clinging to the man’s head and appeared to be biting and clawing and spraying wildly. Blood ran down the man’s cheeks in dark rivulets.

  “Get thisth mother fthuckin’ thskunk the fthuck off of me!!” he yelled and a random blast roared from his shotgun.

  Remington pointed his tiny gun at the man. He aimed low to keep from hitting Pepe. He fired once, and the shot punctured the man in the right thigh. He stumbled to a knee and howled in pain. But it wasn’t enough to stop him. Pepe was circling around the man’s head scratching and clawing, and the swirl of hair and blood almost made Remington gag… or maybe it was the stunning amount of spray coming from Pepe.

  He sprayed and sprayed and sprayed… all over the man’s head. Remington knew he was a little more immune to the smell than most, but it was strong… very strong. As if on cue, the man yelled and vomit spewed from his mouth in wild arcs.

  “Oh, damn,” Remington muttered.

  He raised his pistol, now almost hoping to put the man out of his misery, but he was still afraid of hitting the skunk. He aimed at the man’s chest, as high as he felt he could without aiming at Pepe. He pulled the trigger and the man jerked backward as if he’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.

  He laid on the ground groaning. Pepe was sitting on top of the man’s chest, licking the blood off his paws. Remington kept the gun pointed at the man and walked closer.

  The gory sight of the man’s head was pretty gruesome, and Remington didn’t take long to examine it… but this guy wouldn’t be coming after him anymore. It looked like both of his eyes were clawed out, the assassin likely blinded. The smell on the man’s head was staggering. Remington had no idea Pepe could eject that amount of pungent spray. It almost knocked him over as he checked the man over. His nose was a bloody pulp and his mouth was covered in bile and foam. He convulsed and vomited again. Remington grabbed the man’s shotgun and opened the messenger bag on his shoulder. Pepe jumped in.

  Remington left the man moaning in pain on the sidewalk by the grocery store. He jumped in his car, wondering if the guy would survive or not, but not waiting around to find out. In the distance, sirens began to wail. Someone had called the police upon hearing the gunshots. Remington screeched out of the lot and clicked open his phone. He dialed the number labeled G.D.

  The familiar voice of Governor Gil Dickerson came onto the line. “Is it done?”

  Remington was furious. He felt like screaming, but he held his composure. After counting to ten, he calmly answered.

  “Oh, it’s done alright,” he said. “Your political life is done, I mean. Your private life is done. Everything you’ve started is done. You are finished. You’re going to jail… or maybe worse, before I’m through with you, Governor Dickerson.”

  The line was silent for a time, and Remington could almost see the shock through the phone.

  “We had a deal,” Remington said. “Everything was going to work out just fine. But no. You had to screw everything up by sending a cut-rate hitman to try and take me out.” Remington heard Gil start to stammer on the other end, but he continued. “All you had to do was appoint me to a cabinet post. Hell, I would’ve even negotiated what post, if only you had come to me before sending this asshat to kill me.”

  “But I—” Gil stuttered.

  “Shut the hell up,” Remington interrupted him. “But no. Now it’s all over. I’m going to release everything I have, and it’ll be all over the news by
tomorrow. Say goodbye to your wife, say goodbye to your friends, say goodbye to your life.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Remington wondered if the man was having another heart attack. He’d seen on the news that the man had what they were calling an incident.

  Good riddance, he thought. But then Gil came back to the line, wheezing raggedly.

  “But I didn’t send him,” he whispered. “I had nothing to do with it. You have to believe me. It was Hardy, he sent the Snake.”

  Remington almost laughed. The Snake. Like a bad movie villain… the Snake had a lisp… He had no idea who this Hardy was, but he didn’t care.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass who sent him,” he growled. “You’re going to jail, Governor.”

  “Wait!” Gil shouted. “Just wait. Give me a second to think.”

  Remington started to hang up, but then decided to see what could be salvaged out of this cluster of a situation.

  “You s-s-said you didn’t c-care if it was another p-p-position,” Gil stuttered, “I can think of something. I haven’t f-filled them all yet.”

  Remington paused. Maybe it wasn’t too late. But then again, he had tried to get him killed… or at least one of his colleagues had sent an assassin. And it was pretty obvious they’d just send another one. He needed to know more.

  “Who’s this Hardy person?”

  “Hardy,” Gil said quickly, “James Hardy. Senator from Vermont. It was his boat. The one that Jackie was on when I—”

  He stopped short, probably realizing he’d said too much.

  Remington’s mind clicked into high gear. This was what had made him a top-notch, highly-paid private investigator. His mind flashed to the file he had on Gil Dickerson, and then he saw it; his way to the political office he wanted was clear.

  “Tell Hardy I’m onto him,” Remington said, and felt himself grinning. “I have pictures of the boat. All I need is to trace the registration numbers on the bow and I’ve got him. It doesn’t matter if the boat never shows up. I know it existed, and that Jackie Ranchero-Doral disappeared on it. Hell, I could probably pin the murder on him, if I really wanted to.”

  The phone was silent. Gil Dickerson was clearly chewing on this information.

  “What is it you want?” he finally said.

  Remington could hear the resignation in his voice. This had turned out better than he’d hoped. Now he had power over two powerful political figures. He didn’t know who this James Hardy was, but if the man was sending assassins, he was deep into the machinations behind the elite in Washington.

  “Secretary of State,” Remington said.

  “But I can’t—” Gil protested.

  “Yes, you can,” Remington said, “and you will. Or I take both you and Hardy down.”

  The line was silent.

  “Okay,” Gil said quietly, almost a whisper. “You win. I will do it as quickly as I can. But I just want you to know, you will be ending the respected career of Leslie Lee VanAtter. She has been the—”

  “I don’t care,” Remington interrupted him, “just do it.”

  He heard Gil breathing heavily on the other end of the line. He worried again about the man’s heart giving out. It wouldn’t do to give the Governor a heart attack.

  “This will all be over soon,” he said in a calming voice. “Once this is done, the evidence I have will disappear into a safe deposit box where it will rot for all eternity.”

  “Good,” Gil Dickerson said, then sighed heavily. “I’ll take care of it on Monday.”

  Remington clicked the phone off and inhaled deeply. Not only was he getting used to the smell of skunk, he was actually starting to like it. He looked over his shoulder to see Pepe sleeping in the back seat, curled up with the Gram doll in his arms.

  26

  The Beginning Of The End

  Governor Gil Dickerson was in his new office, typing out the order to fire his current Secretary of State—a woman who had served in that office for years with a huge favorable popularity rating—and replace her with Remington Hoyt Reginald. His hands shook as he typed, knowing he was in a no-win situation. By firing Leslie Lee, he was going to erode public opinion of his first weeks in office. He was also losing her as a valuable political ally. She would likely be shocked, and definitely hurt. Most of her supporters would follow her in opposing him in the next election, thus, Florida would likely go to the other yet-to-be-determined presidential candidate. He was committing political suicide.

  But then again, it was obviously better than the alternative. A life sentence in jail at best, the death penalty at worst. He wondered again how he’d gotten tangled up in this mess… and wondered if he’d ever get out of it.

  Suddenly his office door flung open wide and his newest intern—a young man straight out of Harvard—burst in, looking apologetic yet frantic.

  “Governor,” he said through ragged breaths, “you’re going to want to see this.”

  Gil cocked his head to the side. “What? What is it?”

  “On the TV, sir,” the intern said, and beckoned him to follow.”

  The office he’d taken over didn’t have a television in it, a holdover from the last Governor. He’d have that remedied soon, knowing how important it was to keep on top of the news. He walked into the hall, and found everyone almost jogging toward the conference room.

  “Can you believe it?” someone shouted up ahead of him. “They found her!”

  Gil quickened his pace to catch up, and pushed his way into the room. The TV was on FNN and Fox Witzer was standing in front of a giant video screen, emblazoned across the bottom of which, in huge letters, were the words: BREAKING NEWS.

  The conference room was full of staffers and interns, and the chatter was loud. Gil couldn’t hear what Fox was saying.

  He grabbed the remote and turned it up as he said, in a raised voice, “Quiet down, people.”

  Fox Witzer was animated, but still retained his news anchor cadence. “Just moments ago,” he said, “Jackie Ranchero-Doral, the missing intern from Gil Dickerson’s senatorial staff, took the stage from Raulerson Hospital in Okeechobee, Florida.”

  Gil froze. The remote dropped from his hand. The room full of people fell dead silent.

  On the video screen behind Fox Witzer, an image of a press conference appeared. The woman hadn’t started speaking and the anchor was still talking over the feed.

  “She is alive and well, apparently recuperating from a boating accident on Lake Okeechobee.” Witzer looked down at his notes. “We have confirmation that she has several broken and missing teeth, a broken jaw, and—”

  He stopped and put his hand to his ear. Behind him, the woman at the podium covered with microphones had begun speaking.

  “Let’s go live to Raulerson Hospital and listen in.” Witzer stepped away from the video screen and the image enlarged to full screen.

  Gil Dickerson could not believe what he was seeing. It was her, Jackie Ranchero-Doral. The woman he had brutally punched—apparently breaking her jaw and removing teeth—and then tied up and sent to the bottom of Lake Okeechobee. He wondered if he was having a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. He had watched her sink to the bottom of the lake.

  “Geezus Christ,” he mumbled.

  One of the interns near him said. “It’s true! It must be a miracle!”

  Gil faked a smile and nodded.

  Turning toward the screen, he watched in horror, waiting for this woman to nail him to his cross. It was over. She would tell the world what he had done to her and that would be the end of it all. He would go to jail for attempted murder, and spend the rest of his days rotting in a cell.

  He inhaled deeply. It was almost a relief… no more lying, no more hiding. It was all about to be out in the open.

  He pulled out a chair from under the large conference table, and sat down. The intern put his hands on his shoulders and tapped them in a celebratory rhythm. Gil watched as his future unraveled.

  “Thank you all for coming,”
Jackie said, dipping her head toward the microphones. “It’s been an unbelievable couple of days and I’ll try to fill you all in on what’s been going on.”

  She didn’t sound like the jaded intern Gil remembered. She didn’t sound like the Jackie that urged him to rub sunscreen all over her body. She sounded… like a nice girl.

  “Several days ago,” she continued, “I woke to see the sun streaming into my room at the Raulerson Hospital. Thanks to the doctors and nurses, I was kept alive after an unbelievable accident.”

  Here it comes, thought Gil.

  “Apparently, I had been out boating on Lake Okeechobee and lost control… or hit a buoy, or something like that. Anyway, the boat is gone, probably at the bottom of the lake. I sustained massive injuries to my head and face, all of which have been painstakingly repaired by the fine staff here at the hospital.”

  It was true, she looked amazing, considering the damage he’d done to her face.

  “And as far as I know,” she said, “I spent a long time under the water. As in… I drowned.”

  A few hands shot up from the reporters in the crowd. She dismissed them by holding up a hand.

  “I was clinically dead when I was pulled from the lake.” Her voice cracked slightly. “My body was recovered by two young men—thank you, Nathan and Justin—who performed CPR on me.” She paused for a moment and waved to the two boys in the crowd. “And, by some unbelievable chance,” she said, “they were able to expel the water in my lungs and get my heart beating again.”

  The crowd cheered and some people slapped the boys on the back.

  “I remained in a coma after the rescue, and the doctors were sure I had sustained brain damage from being under the water for such a long period of time. Basically, they were waiting for me, for Jane Doe, to die,” she said, exhaling deeply. “And that’s when I saw the light.”

  She gestured to a man standing behind her with the doctors and nurses. He had his hands folded behind his back and smiled toward her.

  “Brant Reginald brought me back to life,” she said, and urged the man to step forward.