The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  “Who do I gotta bang to get a shot o’ that whishkey around here?”

  Rusty acted like he was going to turn the old guy down, but Troy nodded to him and made a motion to put it on his tab. He poured the drink for Mel and walked down to the other end of the bar. The night crowd was starting to roll in and Troy realized he’d been there longer than he’d planned, but this was too good to pass up.

  “Pissin’ off Duval Street, just behind The Bull,” Mel blurted.

  “Huh? Troy and Jack asked in unison.

  “Yeah, that’s what they got me for. Indeshent exposhhure, my ass. Cop claims I wasn’t actually outshide at the time of the pissin’, but I know myself and I wouldn’t do that shit. Anyhow, I got fired from the job when they found out about the bogusshh charge. And I figured if you can’t pee on the street in Key West, I don’t wanna live there anymore. So, I headed up north, got me a job on a little tourist fishin’ boat out here. It was pretty good, until I accidently peed on that one lady.”

  He nodded his head and held up his empty shot glass. “Hey, can’t a guy get any shhervice around here?”

  “Mel, you might want to ease up. Seems like you’ve had enough.”

  Troy waved Rusty off as the bartender started to grab the whiskey bottle.

  “Where are you stayin’ tonight? Why don’t you let me and Jack get you back to your place before it gets too late?”

  “Stayin’? I’m guessin’ they probly got a nice drunk tank in thisshhh shithole. I figured I’ll stay there for a day or so till my new job heads out in a coupla days.”

  “That’s no way to plan a night out, Mel,” Troy said wondering what sort of job he’d be able to do in this state.

  Jack stepped up and added, “Bro, we can do better’n that. They got a hostel. I know we can get you into a bed that ain’t made of stainless steel.”

  Troy arched his back and it cracked up and down his spine as he remembered where he’d been last night.

  “Now, that sounds pretty damn good. Get me one more for the road. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where you goin’?” Troy asked watching the man walk toward the kitchen.

  “Gotta take a leak.”

  Troy jumped up and grabbed him before he could make it past the swinging doors. He steered him toward the bathroom and made sure he walked in without any detours. When Troy got back to the bar, Jack had ordered a couple more beers and a shot. He was saying goodbye to someone on his cell.

  “No worries.” Jack smiled as he hung up his phone. “I got an Uber on the way to take him down to the hostel. He’ll be good to go there. Plenty of drunks crash over for the night out there.”

  Troy slid the beer toward Jack and tipped his Outback tea stained straw cowboy hat.

  “Why don’t you keep that one, I think I’m gonna hit the road too. Gotta get up early and chop up some fish.”

  “Solid plan.” Jack winked at him as he said it. “Look me up later this week, we’ll get out to my favorite fishin’ hole.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And dude, be sure to call Meira.”

  “I will. I will.” Troy held up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute.

  “And if you two get together, don’t forget—.”

  “I know.” Troy shook his head as he opened the door. “Be sure to get a look at the boobies.”

  “Right on, brother.”

  5

  Baby, You Can Drive My Carr

  Meira Carr was jogging north along Virginia Dare Trail shortly after midday when her Apple Watch alerted her that someone was calling. She chose not to take the call because she was close to making her best time for the thirteen-mile run from Jennette’s Pier to the Avalon Fishing Pier. There and back made it an almost perfectly flat marathon. Several times she had come close to getting the whole twenty-six miles and change done in under five hours, but hadn’t done it yet. The conditions today turned out to be absolutely perfect with just a light wind blowing behind her on the home stretch. She checked her pace on her watch again and was excited to see she was ahead of schedule. Pushing harder, she passed the four hour and fifty-five minute mark only to have her left calf seize up in a painful cramp.

  “No, dammit, no!”

  She hobbled to the edge of the sidewalk and knelt in the sandy grass. She rubbed her knotted leg furiously. If she could get it to let go, she could still beat the time. But when she tried to stand back up, the right calf jerked her back down. She wasn’t sure why this was happening. She’d had plenty of fluids for a couple of days and had lain off all alcohol and caffeine, but her body was defying her.

  From where she sat on the path, she could see her finish line marker, Jennette’s Pier, ahead. Looked like maybe fifty yards or so. Her watch pinged as the timer clicked to the five-hour point and raced past it. She wasn’t going to beat her goal today. The longer she sat there, the worse her cramps got until she realized beating her time wasn’t going to be the only problem. Getting back home was looking like a long shot. She punched her watch to call her daughter, but someone was calling in at exactly the same moment and she accidently connected the call with them.

  “Shit, hello?” she said wincing from another jolt of pain in her legs.

  “Yes, ma’am. My name is Troy Bodean and I got your number from a friend.”

  “Okay, look, Troy,” she said as she realized it was a business call. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

  She hung up before the man was able to leave a message. She quickly dialed home and waited as it rang and rang. When the voicemail picked up, she hung up and dialed again. She did this four times before she realized Riley wasn’t going to answer. On her last try she decided to leave a message.

  “Riley, this is your mother. When I get home, you are grounded for life.”

  She hung up and took a deep breath. She tried desperately to stand, but it was a no-go. Her legs refused to cooperate. Cab, she thought, I’ll call a cab. Scrolling through her contact list, she found a number and dialed. The man that answered had a thick accent and she could barely understand him, but the gist of the conversation was that his only cab was out on a long run to the airport. He would send it right away when the fare was over.

  Meira felt the pain in her legs start creeping up into her thighs. It was getting worse. She opened the Uber application and found that there were exactly zero drivers near her.

  “Dammit,” she muttered as she stretched her legs out to try to ease the cramping.

  There were a few cars passing by, but none seemed to see her waving frantically. The nice breeze that had been helping her run had stalled leaving her to roast in the afternoon heat. Her watch rang again. She tapped it.

  “Riley, I swear, I’m going to kill you when—.”

  “Ma’am, I’m not sure who Riley is, but I think forgiveness is the better part of valor.”

  “What?” Meira blurted out as she realized she wasn’t talking to her daughter.

  “Well, ma’am, this is Troy Bodean calling again. I was just thinking I’d leave you a message. Didn’t expect you to pick up and yell at…whoever Riley is.”

  “She’s my daughter. Look, I’m sorry, Troy. I think you must be calling about business, but I’m just going to have to call you back. I’m sitting in the hot sun, my legs are cramping so hard I can’t walk, my daughter won’t answer the phone, and apparently there’s not a damn cab to be had in Nags Head.”

  “Dang. That sounds like a tough spot alright.” The man on the other end of the conversation went silent for a second. “Where ‘bouts are you in Nags Head?”

  “I’m not sure I’m comfortable answering that question right now, Mr.—.”

  “Call me Troy, please.”

  “Okay, Troy.” There was something in his voice she couldn’t pin down, something safe, something trustworthy. She figured she was probably making a huge mistake but at this point she didn’t have many options. “Where are you right now?”

  “Can’t say exactly, but I reckon I’m fifty yards or
so off Jennette’s Pier.”

  She arched an eyebrow and looked around suspiciously. “If that was the case, I think you’d be staring me in the face.”

  “Oh, I’m not inland, ma’am. I’m on a boat.”

  “I see.”

  She shifted around so she could see the ocean, but there was no sign of a boat in her line of sight.

  Before she could say anything else, Troy said, “you just hang tight. I’ll be there in a jiffy. We’ll get you back on your feet before you know it.”

  The call disconnected and Meira took a deep breath. She hoped her instincts were right about this Troy character being a decent person. In her line of work, she made enemies on an almost daily basis. Either a cheating spouse or a runaway who didn’t want to be found, they almost all had something to hide. Private investigators rarely had cases for clients who were happy with their situation. She tried Riley one more time and predictably, got no answer.

  “Grounded,” she mumbled through dry lips. “For life.”

  Riley Carr sat motionless on the floor at the foot of her bed. Her eyes were covered with an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. It had been expensive, but it was well worth it. She could escape the world of the mean girls from her school and become the princess she always dreamed of becoming. Over her ears, she complimented her amazing visual experience with a cheap set of Bose earphones she’d gotten from Craigslist. She planned to update these eventually, but the headset had drained her allowance for the time being.

  Inside the headset, she was transported to another world. A world where the boys at school who laughed at her because of the lies the mean girls told them meant absolutely nothing. A world where she was somebody important. A world where she could be beautiful.

  Her mother said she was beautiful in the real world, but Riley knew that was just the crap mothers were supposed to say. She enjoyed the character she had created for herself because she was not only gorgeous with long shimmering blond hair, but she was an elf skilled with a knife. Her fighting skills in the game had gone through the roof when she had found the mystical artifact and it had bonded with her. Riley enjoyed the fame that had come with owning the artifact and learning to wield its magical knife. She had given herself the quest of finding weaker players inside the game and defending them, killing any who would bully them…be they real, or computer-generated.

  It was pretty exciting, but the real thrill had come when she’d heard of the Orc who was terrorizing Bladehammer. He was high-level…highest she had ever seen. But in her experience, the higher they were, the farther they fell. And today, she was hunting him. At one point, she thought she might’ve heard the phone ring, but it couldn’t have been anyone important, her mom was out running and she was always gone forever. That and the fact that she’d discovered where the Orc was today and she’d tracked him into the small village of Haw Ridge.

  The details were gruesome, but in the end, she was left holding the Orc’s head, having bested him at hand-to-hand combat. Her magical blade was impossible to beat. Naturally, he re-spawned on the spot, but the rules of the game were that he couldn’t attack her for twenty-four hours. It was different this time, though. He came back as his avatar, or his computer representation of what he supposedly looked like in real life. He was cute and looked to be about her age.

  He said he came back to congratulate her on her victory and invited her to the local tavern in the game to have an ale or two. Riley could feel the excitement of having a cute boy pay attention to her and, for all practical purposes, ask her on a date. Even inside a virtual world, she was thrilled. As they sat and drank the virtual ale, she decided she like him…a lot.

  “So,” he started as he drained his third cup. “Is this what you really look like?”

  Riley felt herself stiffen. It was indeed nothing at all like what she looked like in real life. She’d taken on the persona of an elf-princess in the game. In the real world of her mom’s apartment, she was a skinny thirteen-year-old girl with stringy, blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a very mild case of acne. She was on medicine for it and it had gotten better over the past year. But her confidence still took a hit with every bump that popped up.

  “No,” she said flatly.

  “Well, are you going to show me what you look like…outside?”

  “No.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” he pleaded. “I’ll bet you’re really pretty.”

  She thought about it for a minute. With a click of a button, she put up the avatar image that somewhat resembled her real face…only without the acne.

  “Wow,” he said. “Even better than I thought.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re really cute. How old are you?”

  Riley sighed again. This was where she became a little girl, instead of a warrior princess, in most gamer’s eyes. She thought for half a second about lying, what could it hurt? But then, she decided she liked this guy. Here goes nothing, she thought.

  “Thirteen,” she said. Then quickly added, “but I turn fourteen in six days.”

  “Nice.” he said. “I’m sixteen. Happy early birthday.”

  “Thanks.” She laughed as she said it.

  “So…,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Where are you from?”

  “Nags Head,” she said and then wondered if she’d said too much, stranger danger and all that jazz.

  “No shit?” He jumped up from the table they were sitting at in the game. “Me too!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t recognize your face.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  Riley felt her voice shake and her cheeks redden. This was it, he was asking her on a date in real life. Her mind raced. What do I do now? Go out with a stranger? He seems pretty nice. And heck, he’s from Nags Head, so I’d be close by.

  “Nothing,” she replied flatly.

  “You wanna meet me over at Leviathan? It’s a sweet gaming—.”

  “Yeah, I know what it is. Let me check with my mom. Hang on.”

  Riley slipped the visor off her head and picked up her cell. She had several missed calls from her mom. Crap, that wasn’t good. She listened to the voicemail. Grounded for life.

  She started to dial her mom, but made the first bad decision she would make today. She put her visor back on. He was still there waiting for her.

  “Okay, I’ll meet you there. But I have to be back by dinner time.”

  “Sweet!”

  She leaned closer and pecked him on the cheek.

  “You’d better be a nicer boy than you are as an Orc.”

  He laughed out loud and said, “I am. Scout’s honor.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in ten.”

  “Hey, wait,” he said as she started to sign off. “What’s your name?”

  “Riley, and yours?”

  “Barry.”

  “Nice to meet you, Barry.”

  “You too, Riley. See you in ten.”

  “Cool.”

  She slid the goggles off and ran into the bathroom. She grabbed some of her mom’s makeup and set to work trying to cover the few bumps she had on her chin. If she was going to meet this guy, she was going to put her best face forward. She couldn’t help but smile at her reflection. This day was going to be amazing.

  Barry slid his headset from his eyes. Looking around the trailer, he always felt a little sad. Bladehammer was a better world in so many ways, but at least he had found some excitement with Kim and Dana. And now he had a new fish on the hook, Riley. He’d gone forever without any action, but it looked like his luck might be changing.

  That’s when he remembered he’d lost his sweet new Dadao sword after the last two girls lost their heads. Shit, he thought as he scrounged around his mom’s trailer, no time to worry about getting a new one now. Maybe I can keep her for a while, until I can order one.

  “Now, that’s a plan,” he said out l
oud.

  He kicked aside an empty pizza box and found what he was looking for. He sniffed the black Metallica T-shirt to see if it was clean. It didn’t reek of fish. He took that as a good omen. He grabbed his mom’s keys from the hook by the door and jogged out to the beat up, fire-engine red, Chevrolet Chevette. It was all she’d left him, but it ran…most of the time. In five minutes, he was on his way to Leviathan.

  6

  Thai One On

  Troy eased the white pickup truck he’d borrowed from his closest inland neighbor around the corner and saw the woman still sitting on the sidewalk. She had a blonde pony-tail hanging down almost to her shoulders dripping with sweat, tan skin with red shoulders from too much sun, black running shorts and a black sports bra. He knew immediately this was a case of dehydration. He pulled over next to her, rolled down his window, and leaned out.

  “Meira?”

  “That’s me. Troy Bodean, I presume?”

  “The one and only. Hop on in and I’ll get you to a cool spot to rehydrate.”

  She pushed up on her knees and then slumped back to the ground.

  “Yeah. The only problem with that…is that I can’t stand up.”

  “Oh, dang, that’s right. Forgive me. Hold on a sec.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He put the truck into park and hopped out. He ran around to her.

  “You mind if I pick you up?”

  “Sure, I, um—.”

  Before she could get the rest out, he’d tucked his arm under her legs and behind her back and picked her up. From the look of shock on her face, he could tell she was surprised he’d been able to lift her so easily. The heavy lifting at the fish company had been doin’ him some good. In fact, he thought he might be in the best shape of his post-Afghanistan life.

  He lifted her into the passenger’s seat and she winced.

  “Oops, sorry. Is it cramps?”

  “Yeah,” she groaned.

  “In the calves?”