The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  So, the thief had been to the museum… big surprise. They drove past the Jepson and passed more likely destinations; The Savannah Theater, SCAD’s Bradley Hall, and eventually the Colonial Park Cemetery, a frequent hangout for the artsy-fartsy community around the college. Eddie pulled over and pointed at the G.P.S. unit.

  “Gimme a new one,” he said to T.D.

  The big man punched a few buttons and scrolled through a list of addresses. He clicked one with his finger.

  “Let’s try this one,” he said. “It’s pretty close by.”

  “Sounds good ta me.” Eddie pulled the car back into the lane.

  As he did, a big red Jeep slammed into the side of their silver rental car.

  “Holy geezus!” yelled Eddie.

  “Ooof,” T.D. grunted as their car tipped up on its side, but then fell back down on all four wheels.

  “What the ever-lovin’ hell?” Eddie punched the steering wheel.

  It honked loudly and then, apparently stuck in the on position, honked continuously.

  “Make it stop, boss,” T.D. said with his hands over his ears.

  “Donchu think I would if I could?” Eddie said and smacked T.D. on the shoulder. “Just get out.”

  The Jeep was sitting a few feet away, but there was almost no damage to it. The front bumper had a little silver paint on it, but that was the only evidence of the crash. Inside, Eddie could make out two female figures, both blonde, and could hear their voices screeching at each other.

  “Why’n the hell’d you go and do ‘at?” one voice demanded.

  “Cause, he done pulled out in front a me!”

  “Well, hell, why donchu watch whar yer goin’?”

  “If’n you din’t have at damn music up so loud, I could think better.”

  “You ain’t thought better ever in yer life, Daisy!”

  This continued for a minute before Eddie reached the driver’s side door of the Jeep and rapped hard on the window.

  The driver, a not-quite-pretty blonde woman, smiled broadly at him. He noticed the girl in the passenger’s side seat was an almost exact copy of her. Twins. In the back he saw a little boy quietly working on a coloring book, or something like that. Poor kid, he thought.

  The window rolled down and the woman grinned at him.

  “I hope to hell you got insurance,” Eddie barked to her.

  “Oh, we got insurance, right, Ellie Mae?” The woman laughed and looked at the twin.

  “You wanna see it?” the girl – Ellie Mae, he gathered – asked him.

  “Well, that is how things like this wo—”

  Before he could get to his next thought, the woman in the passenger’s seat had stood up, turned around, pulled down her pants, and mooned him. The girl in the driver’s seat put two middle fingers up in his face.

  “Eat that insurance, why dontcha!”, and as she said it, she stomped the gas and the giant Jeep screeched away, running over the tip of Eddie’s left toes.

  “Sonofabitch!” he yelped and grabbed his left foot, jumping up and down on his right. “Ow, shit, ow, shit, ow, shit…”

  T.D. jumped out of their car and ran over to him. “Boss, you okay? What the hell happened?”

  “Those bitches ran over my goddamn foot!”

  “Oh, damn,” T.D. said, scratching the back of his neck, “do you need to go to the hospital?”

  Eddie smacked him on the shoulder. “Hell no, you idiot. All they can do is tape my toes together and give me some aspirin.”

  T.D. shrugged. Eddie put a hand on the huge man’s shoulder.

  “Here,” he said, limping gingerly on his damaged foot, “help me back into the car. You drive this time.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” T.D. said, helping Eddie over to the car.

  The Honda was smashed pretty good behind the passenger door with part of the fender rubbing against the wheel.

  “Shit,” Eddie said, eyeing the damage, “did you get the insurance?”

  “Uh, yeah, boss.” T.D. laughed nervously. “Course I did.”

  “You better have!”

  “Don’t worry ‘bout it, boss,” he said and waved a hand, “it’s all good.”

  Eddie Vargo wasn’t so sure, but that didn’t matter right now. All he wanted to do was track down the asshat who had swindled him out of a bunch of cash and a crazy valuable painting.

  “Just get me to the next address,” he said. “I’ll check on my foot when we get there.”

  “Right, boss,” T.D. said and pushed the gas.

  A metallic screeching and a grinding sound followed them all the way to the next destination… which was exactly 1.1 miles away. Two turns later, they pulled into The Coffee Fox – a local competitor to Starbucks. Eddie had no freakin’ idea why someone would pay so much for a cup of coffee, but he could feel his foot swelling badly in his shoe, so he decided to get a drink and some ice for his foot.

  32

  It Ain’t Me…Again

  Eddie and T.D. walked… well, T.D. walked, Eddie limped… into the café and he slumped down at the first table.

  “Grab me something strong,” he said to T.D., “and a bag of ice.”

  “You got it, boss.” T.D. jogged toward the counter.

  Eddie looked around. Typical. Bunch of hippie artist types hangin’ out discussing all things etherical and esoteric. Bullshit, if you asked him. But the thief had come here at least once, so it had to be important.

  With great care, he reached down and unlaced his Bostonian dress shoe – a great choice for getting run over in – and eased it off his foot. For a second, the pain flashed into his foot and he was sure he was pulling his actual toes off… but he wasn’t. They were all still inside his sock. He rolled the top of his sock down and was about to pull it off when T.D. returned with two cups of coffee and a small baggie of ice.

  Eddie grabbed his cup and took a sip. Damn, that’s pretty good shit, he thought. He took another sip to brace himself for the toe reveal that was about to happen. He rolled the sock down his foot gently until he was able to slide it off his toes. They were all there and were all pretty swollen, but not too bad for having just been smashed by a Jeep. Freakin’ bitches, he thought, wondering who the hell they were. He laid the ice on the darkening toes and the cold felt painful, but good. He was pretty sure he’d recover from this quickly.

  “So,” he said to T.D., “the bastard thief came here, right?”

  “Looks that way, boss,” T.D. said while looking around the place.

  Eddie couldn’t help but do the same. There were more than two-dozen people sitting around, at least half of which were college-aged kids. None of them looked smart enough to pull off what the thief had done to them. The rest were divided between professionals; lawyers, doctors, secretaries, and professors – and blue-collar workers; waiters on breaks, landscapers, trash collectors, and mechanics. None of them seemed likely candidates, either.

  And nobody in the entire place seemed at all interested in them… the giant football player and the man with his sock and shoe off, icing his foot.

  “Dammit,” Eddie said under his breath, “nothin’ here.”

  “I dunno, boss,” T.D. said, sipping his coffee. The paper cup wrapped with a cardboard band seemed ridiculously small in his hand. “S’gotta be somebody at the college, right?” he asked.

  “That’s what I was thinkin’,” Eddie said, “but a student ain’t smart enough probly… and a professor… not ballsy enough. Nah, it’s somebody with a connection to the school… but I dunno what kind of connection.”

  “Yeah,” T.D. said.

  “It’s somebody with some serious knowledge of the arts,” he said. “I mean, I dunno… maybe it is a professor.”

  “Nope,” a voice from a nearby table spoke up.

  Eddie turned to see an older woman looking over at them. “S’cuse me?” Eddie arched an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know what exactly you gentlemen are speaking of,” she said, “but I can vouch for the professors at the col
lege, and I know that none of them would do any such thing that would get them labeled as a thief.”

  Eddie was shocked that they’d been talking loud enough for anyone to hear them. As if realizing what he was thinking, she pointed to a hearing aid over her left ear.

  “I can hear a gnat wiping his ass with this thing,” she said.

  “Good for you,” Eddie said.

  “Anyway,” she said with a shrug, “just thought you should know. Whoever you’re looking for isn’t likely to be a professor at the college.”

  “And who the hell are you to say that?” Eddie demanded.

  “Victoria Ermaline,” she said, extending her hand, “Dean of the Savannah College of Art and Design, at your service.”

  Eddie stared at her hand for a second without taking it.

  She tsked, and took her hand back.

  “I sincerely hope you gentlemen find who it is you’re looking for,” she said, wiping her table with a napkin, then stood up and walked out. Eddie watched her go.

  “Thank you,” T.D. called out after her.

  She waved over her shoulder and pushed the door open out into the street.

  “Let’s get back to the car.” Eddie swallowed the last of his coffee. “Was there another address?”

  “Yeah, boss, “T.D. nodded, “one more.”

  “Good,” Eddie said, cringing as he put weight on his swollen foot. “A little help here.”

  T.D. wrapped Eddie’s arm over his shoulder and helped him limp out of The Coffee Fox.

  The thief couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange that had happened in the next booth. Watching the two idiot art dealers arguing with Victoria and bumbling around town was hilarious indeed. The thief was now more certain than ever that the deal was sealed. The money and the painting were safely tucked away in a place no one would ever think to look. Sipping the cup of smooth black java, the thief smiled and breathed deeply. Scot-free… and rich to boot.

  It was going to be a good day.

  33

  Snap, Crackle, Pop

  Samantha Eliza Dawn felt the circulation going from her hands and feet. They were numb and icy cold. From the cool temperature of the concrete floor of the room she was being held captive in, she guessed it must be an exterior storage unit or something similar, with little or no insulation. The side of her face had been resting on the floor for over an hour as she worked her legs up and down, stretching the crack she’d made in the wooden legs of the chair by tipping it over. It creaked and groaned, but didn’t seem to want to yield. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

  “Come on, you bastard,” Sami growled at the chair beneath her duct tape gag.

  She heaved again and a louder pop told her she’d made at least a little progress. It was slow going, and it was still very dark in the room so she couldn’t see where the crack was or how to make it worse.

  The tape on her left leg seemed markedly looser, so she worked that foot back and forth more vigorously. That strategy paid off with a satisfying jerk, and suddenly her feet were free. She kicked furiously at the bottom of the chair and heard wood splintering under her heels.

  Panting, and covered in a sheen of sweat, she realized she’d been kicking air for a few minutes and stopped to assess the situation. Her legs were free, but her upper body was still strapped tightly to the back of the chair. Her hands were tied behind her back, and it also felt as though the thief had looped the tape around the chair as well.

  She caught her breath and rested for a second. When she was steady and calmer, she probed around with her feet and found a rung beneath the seat of the wooden chair. She placed both feet on it and pushed down. Just as she’d hoped, the chair back began to slide down, pulling free from the loops around her chest and arms. The tiny hairs on her exposed triceps got caught and yanked agonizingly out of her skin, but she didn’t care. The more she pushed down, the looser the bindings became… so she pushed harder.

  With one last big push, she kicked the chair free and sent it sliding away from her across the floor. Blood raced into her feet and hands and the tingling sensation as the feeling returned sent painful pinpricks all over her fingers and toes.

  She stretched out flat on the floor and paused to let the feelings subside. Free from the chair, she had plenty of slack in the tape around her body to bend her knees and wriggle her hands below her feet to bring them in front of her. Even in the dark, she was able to twist and tear the duct tape and eventually free her wrists. She carefully pulled the gag from around her face and mouth and felt tears of joy and relief streaming down her face. At least she was free of the bonds… now she’d need to get free of the room.

  She’d been in the dark for over a day, so her eyes were accustomed and adjusted well enough to find the door – a tiny sliver of light around the edge of the opening led her to it. Feeling up and down the door, she found it to be exactly as she expected, a metal garage style door like the kind you’d find on a self-storage building. She got her hands under a lip on the bottom and heaved. The door rose an inch and slammed against a stopper of some kind. Sami imagined it must be a lock on the outside.

  Slumping down on the floor inside, she took a deep breath.

  “Well, that’s it then,” she muttered to herself, “there’s no getting out of here.”

  She turned and leaned her back up against the door and her tears of joy became tears of fear and resignation. The thief would be coming back to kill her, and there was nothing she could do about…

  Wait, she thought, there is something I can do about it. Sami realized that there was a significant difference about the next visit the thief would be paying her… she was free. When the bastard opened the door, she’d slam the thief’s skull with the chair. Then she remembered the scraping sound she’d heard during their last visit. The knife. Is the knife still here? She peered around to the room in the low light and saw a table to her left. She groaned as she stood and walked carefully toward it, hands outstretched. The table seemed to be made of rough wood, more of a worktable than anything else. She slowly ran her hands over the top of it until they found it. Not a knife, but a short machete.

  “Hell yeah!” Sami exclaimed as she found the handle and gripped it tight in her hand.

  Relief, and even a little confidence, started to creep into her mind as she clutched the weapon. The thief would have a very different meeting with her next time. She moved to the side of the door and again sat down on the cold floor. She laid the machete across her lap, not releasing grip… and waited. She even allowed a smile to cross her lips. As the day wore on, she finally heard a car pull into a gravel lot. The door opened and closed. She was about to scream, but then wondered if it was even the thief… better not.

  The desire to call out was so strong she whimpered and a sob escaped her throat, but she somehow kept quiet. The sound of footsteps crunching in the gravel seemed to come closer. It had to be the thief. And then what must’ve been the padlock on the door rattled. The thief was unlocking it.

  Sami stood as quietly as she could and turned toward the door. Raising the blade above her head, she imagined herself driving it deep into the thief’s head. And then she second-guessed herself… did she really want to kill him? She lowered the blade and made a plan to strike the thief in the leg… immobilize the…

  A metal clatter stopped her in mid thought. The lock had fallen free. She tensed up as she waited for the door to rise. And then, somewhere outside the door, a cell phone rang. Sami gasped… it was her ringtone. Bastard, she thought, using my phone. She waited for the thief to say something, but heard only silence. And then, faintly, she heard the thief push a button, and what might’ve been a voicemail started to play. She couldn’t make out the voice clearly on the phone, but it might’ve been male… maybe Alain? Or RayRay? Or maybe even Troy. Whoever it was, the message was too faint for her to hear what they’d said. She waited patiently as the thief apparently listened to it.

  34

  It’s Me Again
/>   The thief clicked play.

  “Hey there,” the message said, “this is Troy Bodean. I know who you are. I also know what you’ve done. We both know where this is headed. I’m thinkin’ we can strike a deal. All I want is Sami back. If you drop her somewhere and let her come on, I’ll convince her to drop this whole Tayler thing and you can run away with the painting.”

  A short pause.

  “Unless you’ve already sold it,” he said, “in which case, you can run away to ole Mexico or somethin’ like that. Either way, you’re off scot-free. That is… if I get the girl back.”

  The thief clicked the phone off and smiled. Mexico, eh? Yeah, that’s about right. With the score from the two black-market art dealers, the thief could live pretty well in old Me-hee-co. Dropping the lock in a coat pocket, the thief reached down to slide the garage door up and then stopped short. A light chill ran up the thief’s neck.

  “I know who you are,” Troy Bodean had said on the message.

  Could that be true, the thief thought? Nah, surely not. That bumpkin in a hat couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn – from the inside. There was no way he’d figured out who the thief was… but still… it did put a little worry in the mind. Maybe the ideal situation would be to make Troy disappear too.

  The thief shook a suddenly worried head. This was getting more and more tangled up, and more and more bodies were going to pile up. Got to nip this in the bud right now, the thief thought.

  Stuffing the phone into a pocket, the thief reached down again to raise the door. I’ll deal with you later, Bodean, he thought as the metal door screeched upward.

  Samantha Eliza Dawn waited as long as she dared for the door to rise clear of the opening. It was dusk outside, but the light was bright enough to flare in her eyes and momentarily blind her. The silhouette of the thief was right in front of her, still dressed in all black with a hoody and black blue jeans.