The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  7

  Outta Sight

  RayRay Tishomura’s name was not actually RayRay. He went by an Americanized version of his real name, Leiko, which, with the unfortunate mispronunciation of the L sound, became Reiko, which was then made into the endearing RayRay. In what might’ve been the greatest example of irony ever known to humankind, RayRay was introduced to Play Doh at the age of five, which was coincidentally the same year his eyesight began to degrade.

  His parents didn’t notice any difference in his ability to see until he began school. The tell-tale signs of squinting at the blackboard at the front of the room, and the headaches he would come home with at the end of every day, led them to finally seek out an eye doctor.

  The optometrist immediately suggested RayRay wear glasses, and all was well for about a year. Then the strength of his prescription doubled. And the year after that, it doubled again. Soon it became clear RayRay was not only losing the ability to see details, he was also losing the ability to pick out color and contrast. Everything was going gray.

  As the world in front of him began to fade away, he found he enjoyed working with the Play Doh, as well as modeling clay, and also enjoyed ceramic pottery making. His hands became the source of his primary sensory input.

  When he turned ten, his folks began to provide more and more tools for RayRay to develop his skill at sculpture. His creations became increasingly more detailed and expressive. By the time he was thirteen, his work was being commissioned through an agent who falsely reported his client’s age as fifteen. He made thousands and thousands of dollars on statues, sculptures, and various other works… until the I.R.S. figured out what was happening. They agreed not to send RayRay to jail as long as the funds were turned over to them. Unfortunately, his parents had already spent over ninety percent of what he had made.

  RayRay’s parents and his agent went to jail, and RayRay’s only living relative, his Uncle Michael (also not his real name), lived in Japan. He would either have to become a ward of the state, and be sent to an orphanage or a foster home, or be shipped to Japan.

  His uncle basically disavowed him as a damaged human being, and left RayRay bouncing around from foster home to foster home. Dealing with a blind kid was more work than some were able to handle.

  During this time, RayRay was completely cut off from his art. Not one home offered to provide the clay or sculpting materials… in fact, no one even asked RayRay if he wanted anything of the sort. His skill began to fade as quickly as his sight had. His social skills faded too, as he was relegated to home-schooling and had little or no contact with other kids. And finally, he discovered role-playing games.

  The fateful day that his Medieval Studies teacher had mentioned he would be late for his Thursday night campaign, RayRay had asked what he meant.

  “I run a Dragon Reign game for myself and three other professors,” he’d said. “We all played when we were younger and found a common interest. So, we collected all of our old gaming dice and manuals and started a new campaign.”

  “Is any of this available for,” – RayRay hesitated – “for the blind?”

  “Hmmm…” His professor scratched his chin, which RayRay couldn’t see at all, but could hear the sound of his stubble. “I’ll check into it and let you know.”

  Three weeks later, his professor had come to their lesson with some gifts for RayRay; a braille edition of the Dragon Reign campaign module, a portable braille typewriter, a cup full of gaming dice with braille numerals, and a twelve-inch-tall figure of a dragon.

  “I’m guessing you’ve got about four hours,” his professor had said.

  “Four hours?” RayRay asked. “For what?”

  “To get your character sheet prepared for later.” The professor was clearly smiling.

  “Excuse me, sir,” RayRay said, “but my foster parents surely won’t—”

  “I’ve already checked it out with them,” his professor said. “I’ll be by at six-thirty to pick you up. Oh, and I’d suggest you start with a thief. Nobody wants to be one, but we always end up needing one.”

  RayRay was stunned. He spent an hour going over the dragon figurine, tracing every carved scale and every embedded jewel with his fingertips. The artistry was divine, clearly handmade. He kept it nearby and began to study the manuals. Making a thief character was pretty simple. They didn’t start with much, but by their nature, they would acquire the things they needed quickly.

  RayRay spent the next couple of years attending the Thursday night gaming sessions, even when he had moved on from that professor’s class. He bought new manuals, upgraded his characters, and began to map out campaigns of his own.

  For his sixteenth birthday, his foster parents had purchased the one and only thing he had asked for: a sculpture kit. It came with two pounds of professional grade clay that could be used over and over, two acid brushes, a wide fine brush, a small fine brush, two gauges of armature wire, four cuticle pushers, one double ended wire-wrapped rake, one double ended saw tooth rake, one kemper W21 combo wire and wood tool, black beads (for eyeballs), reticulating foam, and a couple of pre-drilled six-by-six MDF sculpting boards. In short, everything he needed to get going on his sculpture again.

  His first sculpture had been a model of what his thief character would look like, a short, wiry little fellow with anime styled hair and – naturally – narrowish, Japanese shaped eyes. He had thought it was good, but the people in his campaign group were stunned. They said that the level of detail was unbelievable and that they had never seen anything so good. His professor mentioned that he should check out an art college since he was nearing graduation. Another said he’d heard about a college in Savannah, Georgia that was top notch.

  RayRay wrote to them and found they were ridiculously expensive. Disheartened, he returned the next Thursday night somewhat down in the dumps.

  “I cannot go,” he had told them, “as it’s too expensive. My fosters would love to send me, but they can’t afford it.”

  “But RayRay,” one of them had asked, “have you checked into any scholarships? I gotta believe there’s something out there for bli— er, for sight impaired students.”

  “That absolutely has to be true,” his former professor said. “I’ll send some emails, see what I can find out. Meantime, let’s get some pics of your sculpture up on the Dragonshoppe website. Lots of gamers will spend big money on commissioned statues of their characters.”

  “Really?” RayRay asked. “How much money?”

  “I paid two-fifty for mine,” one of the other players said.

  “Wow!” RayRay exclaimed. “That is a lot.”

  Later that night he did some math based on the money he thought he could earn on sculptures, and found that he would need to complete four-thousand, two-hundred and forty-seven of them… per year… to be able to afford the school in Savannah.

  He immediately fell back into despair. His dreams were being crushed again. And that’s when his professor called.

  “RayRay,” he said, “good news. I just got an email from SCAD. I’m sending you some paperwork to fill out. You’re gonna shit a brick when you read it.”

  The email dinged into his inbox and he printed it on his braille printer. Running his fingers across it, he did indeed nearly shit a brick. The offer from SCAD was for a fellowship grant that would pay his entire tuition for at least the first year. The only thing RayRay would be responsible for would be room and board, books, and incidental supplies. With a few more calculations, he figured he’d need approximately just two-hundred commissions to pay for those things.

  Within a month of posting photos of his sculpture online, he had over one thousand requests for commissions. He worked so hard on them that he broke several of the beginner’s set tools and had to order new, professional grade replacements. To say he was rolling in the dough was an understatement.

  He enrolled in the Savannah College of Art and Design the next year, and paid cash for everything not covered by his fellowship. His pro
fessors immediately discovered his talent and put him on a fast track into three-dimensional artwork – skipping all the beginner crap. His work was widely regarded as the best in the school and many were jealous of his talent. He was shunned almost universally. With no friends and lots of time on his hands, the commissions continued to roll in and RayRay made more and more money.

  And that’s when the I.R.S. stepped in again. RayRay hadn’t realized that there were independent contractor taxes due on his commissions, and since they had all come through the Dragonshoppe website, there existed a record for every transaction.

  Once again, his money disappeared overnight. Luckily, he was still receiving fifty or more commissions every week and he was able to at least pay his remaining college bills.

  He mainly kept to himself until he met Alain. RayRay had enjoyed Alain’s paintings because the paint was thick – too thick for what he was trying to capture – but the texture was just right for a blind person to enjoy. They discovered that they were both misfits at the school, one shunned due to his immense talent and the other due to his immense lack of talent.

  They spent hours at the coffee shop drinking lattes and discussing their respective work, and for a short time they were actually roommates, until a single room became available for RayRay.

  Soon, Becky and Samantha had been folded into the group as fellow misfits, and they shared each other’s woes. RayRay often had a completed sculpture with him ready to be shipped to its new owner, and Becky had asked him about it once. He explained that they were commissions for gamers who took part in various dragon, superhero, and fantasy role-playing games.

  Within a week, they were involved in their first game, Dragon Reign. They finished it quickly and decided that their coffee meetings would become gaming opportunities. Soon, they began to play on Thursday nights… just like RayRay had done back in his home-school days.

  RayRay was packing up his things from tonight’s session when Samantha and the others reached the door.

  Samantha’s phone rang; he knew it was her by the ringtone, something new by Beyoncé.

  She clicked it and said hello. She then fell silent and he heard her stumble over the doorjamb.

  “Sam?” Becky asked. “Is something wrong?”

  He could almost picture the scene. He imagined Samantha turning around to look at Becky. The look on Sam’s face must’ve been devastating – he could sense the quaver in Becky’s voice.

  “Oh no,” she said. “What is it?”

  He heard the rumpling sound of Samantha sagging to the floor, her phone tumbling from her hand. He heard her sniff, as tears must’ve begun streaming down her face.

  “It’s Tay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “He’s dead.”

  8

  It Ain’t Me

  Troy Bodean was once again sitting in a jail cell. This time it was in Savannah’s Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, in connection with the apparent suicide of his roommate, Tayler Evan. He wasn’t being booked for any crime; he was just waiting to be interviewed. In fact, though the cell door was closed, it wasn’t locked.

  His input would only be used to establish Tayler’s mental state, his ability to commit the act, and a timeline of when the act had occurred. At least, all that was true until they found a tiny piece of blue latex wedged under the buckle of the belt Tayler had used to hang himself.

  This fact was not altogether unusual, as many painters at SCAD used latex gloves when they were painting, or if not then, when they were cleaning up their brushes, easels, and palettes. The piece had been sent to the crime lab, but had not yet come back with a result.

  The sheriff had immediately suspected Troy was involved, but there ended up being too much evidence exonerating him. The coroner had established the time of death as somewhere between three-thirty and five-thirty in the afternoon, which put Troy on the boat doing tours. Papa and Mama Cass had been found, and had both signed affidavits stating they were with Troy all afternoon.

  The report also showed that there were no physical signs of a struggle or a fight. No bruising or scratches. And Tayler had been drinking. The empty bottle of Beaux Freres Pinot Noir they found in the apartment, combined with the drinks he’d had at the Rail Pub, provided the necessary depressants to push him over the edge.

  The last people to see him alive were his friends from SCAD, and they had been celebrating his recent signing to do labels with the wine company in Amsterdam. Witnesses saw him leave alone, and attested to the fact that he was very intoxicated.

  “Okay, Mr. Bodean,” said the sheriff, a large man with a double – maybe triple – chin. “Let’s run through it one more time.”

  Troy was staring at the man’s shirt and wondering just how long it would be before one of the buttons pinged off in his direction. If the man ate one more of the doughnuts in front of him, it was coming his way… he was sure of it.

  “Mr. Bodean?” the sheriff drawled again.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry.” Troy snapped out of his daze. “Like I said before, when I left for work Tayler was asleep in his bed, likely sleepin’ off the hangover he must’ve had from the night before.”

  “And what time was it that you left for work?” the sheriff asked, chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “Reckon it was ‘bout three o’clock.”

  “Three o’clock,” the sheriff repeated, and scribbled on a note pad. “Okay, go on.”

  “Well, when I got home,” – Troy thought about it for a second – “I’d say around six o’clock, I found him there… hangin’.”

  “Six o’clock?” The sheriff didn’t look up. “And he was already dead?”

  “As a doornail, sir.”

  Now the sheriff looked up, and he inhaled in such a way that Troy believed the man thought for sure he was guilty. He tapped his pen on his desk.

  “And the night before?” the sheriff, whose nametag read – I kid you not – Jebediah T. Hogg, asked. “Where were you then?”

  “I was unloadin’ at the museum until—”

  “Which museum?” Jebediah asked, interrupting him.

  “Jepson,” Troy said, “I was there until around ten p.m. Never saw Tayler at all that night. Guess he’d been with friends or whatever, gettin’ some drinks.”

  “That he was,” Sheriff Hogg said and leaned forward, “but you didn’t go out to meet him?”

  “No, sir,” Troy said, “I was dog tired from unloadin’ all those new boxes for the Ruben exhibit. Heavy stuff, ya know?”

  “Uh huh.” The sheriff clicked his pen several times then laid it down on the pad. “Mr. Bodean, I suppose you are free to go.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But don’t skip town or anything,” the sheriff added quickly as he stood and hiked up his pants. “We may still need more information from you before this is all through.”

  Troy nodded and tipped his hat. “Yes, sir.”

  9

  I Like Your Hat

  Troy wasn’t exactly friends with Tayler, but when the funeral plans were made and his parents had asked if he would attend, Troy said yes. He wondered if it was okay if he showed up in a linen shirt and khaki shorts… that was all he owned. As it turned out, Tayler’s father, Mic, was wearing an almost identical outfit – without the hat. Tayler’s mother didn’t come… she was too sick with cancer.

  Troy spoke to Mic briefly after the service. He thanked Troy for being there and informed him he had already paid the rent for Tayler’s place through the next month. After that, however, he wouldn’t be able to keep paying, what with the medical bills all piling up for his wife’s treatments. Troy shook his hand and moved along, letting others come through and pay their respects.

  At the back of the church was a group of kids Troy recognized as artists from SCAD, likely friends of Tayler’s. As he passed by their group, he heard them whispering to each other.

  “I just don’t buy it, RayRay,” said a black girl sitting next to a chubby Asian kid. “Tayler had everything going f
or him. He was doin’ great work, he was gettin’ noticed… heck, he was gettin’ paid. I mean, ain’t that what we all want?”

  “This is true, Samantha-san,” said the kid called RayRay, “but one never knows what is hiding in someone’s heart. Tayler may have been clinically depressed, which would have nothing to do with how well things were going for him.”

  “I don’t think that’s true either,” said a white girl sitting with them. “I never saw him take any medicine and he was always happy around me.”

  The black girl shot a glance at the white girl when she said this, but didn’t say anything.

  “I m-m-mean,” she stuttered, “he was always happy around all of us.”

  As Troy passed by, they all fell silent, aware of his presence. He nodded at them and felt sure they recognized him.

  The white girl batted her eyelashes and smiled broadly at him. Whoa, girl, Troy thought, what are you, twenty? He quickly broke eye contact with her and walked past.

  As he reached the door to exit the church, he overheard the white boy, who had been silent up to that point, say, “I bet he was murdered. Somebody killed him and made it look like a suicide.”

  Troy stopped.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Alain-san,” said the Asian kid, RayRay. “It was suicide. The police say there was no evidence of a break-in, no evidence of a struggle, and we all know that Tayler was very drunk.”

  “Yeah, Alain,” the girl they called Samantha said, “you need to shut it.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Alain,” the white girl said, “are you really saying that? Here and now? At his funeral? That’s just wrong, dude.”

  Troy edged back into the doorway so he could hear them better.

  “I’m just saying it seems like there wasn’t any reason for Tayler to commit suicide,” Alain said.

  “Is there ever a good reason?” Samantha asked.