He reached down and turned the key, silencing the tractor. He was about to get off when he saw a leopard print suitcase come tumbling down the stairs and flop out into the gravel parking lot. The lid flew open and clothes went flying. Ladies underwear in all manner of colors and glittery sequins that would’ve made a stripper blush exploded out of the case as it popped open. Shortly after that, a woman red patent leather stilettos clip-clopped down the steps with the grace of a newborn calf. Troy half expected her to tumble as well, but she managed to make it to the bottom without incident.
Then he heard the door open again and another, smaller, matching suitcase sail over the railing and crunch down in a heap next to the woman. The assortment of bottles, cotton balls, tubes, sponges, brushes, and other unidentifiable objects that rained down around the busted luggage was more than Troy thought should have been able to occupy the small space. He took off his hat and wiped his brow. It was already hot and the sun hadn’t risen above the surrounding mangroves yet.
So much for gettin’ another cool morning in the Keys, he thought. As he walked toward the woman, she bent down and started tossing the strewn toiletries back into the case. He couldn’t help but notice the curve of her backside in the skin-tight white denim shorts she was wearing. As she leaned further, he saw the tell-tale blue-black ink of a lower back tattoo peeking out as well. Mamacita.
Under her breath, Troy could hear her grunting curses in Spanish and English and halfway in between. She gripped a blue toothbrush in white-knuckled fist dotted with hot pink nails. Her eyes squinted and she stood up, arm raised toward the upstairs door.
“This is yours, you pig,” she shouted.
She spit on it, threw it in the dirt, and ground her foot on top of it, smashing it into the gravel.
“Might I be of assistance, ma’am?” Troy asked, raising his hands in surrender fashion.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, whirling around to face him.
“New maintenance man.”
Troy saw her eyes flick up and down his body, appraising him. Her left eyebrow twitched up slightly, and the corners of her mouth might have raised a little.
“Is that right?” she said. “Well, I feel sorry for you having to be around that asshole.”
She lifted a fist and shook it at the doorway above the stairs. She looked back at Troy and once again, her eyes lingered on his chest. He cleared his throat and nodded toward the road. A black, Chevy Tahoe was pulling into the lot. It made a circle to face back out the driveway, and thrown open the passenger door as it stopped. The windows were too dark for Troy to see in, but the music rattling the cars panels was distinctly Spanish.
“Yo, Manuela,” a voice called out over the din. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Good luck to you and Señor jackass up there,” she said, raising her middle finger and shaking it vigorously. “I hope he treats you better than he treated me.”
“Or at least as good as you treated the last maintenance man?”
Her eyebrows lowered and her mouth flew open presumably to unleash a torrent of anger at Troy, but the voice in the car yelled again and the horn honked.
She flipped Troy off, wrapped her arms around the two broken suitcases and stomped on wobbly legs toward the Tahoe. Underwear and cotton balls dropped out like a fairy tale candy trail behind her. She slammed the door and the SUV hit the gas. Gravel flew up from the wheels and Troy ducked his head, dodging the hail of rocks. When it hit the pavement, the Tahoe’s tires squealed on the asphalt and they tore away North on the Overseas Highway in a storm of furious maracas and suspiciously pungent smoke.
And that’s when Troy heard the gunshot from the apartment above the pro shop.
5
Goin’ Back To Miami
Troy didn’t think twice, he just ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time. His not-so-great knee protested, but he ignored it. The torrent of obscenities and the manic screaming reminded him of Afghanistan. On more than one occasion, his fellow soldiers had displayed an artistic command of the more foul words found not only in the English language, but at least three others as well.
Troy saw the door was open, and as the wailing inside intensified, he rushed inside. He fully expected to see that Lucas Walsh had shot himself—or failed at the attempt causing agonizing, scream-inducing injury. What he saw instead was not only shocking, but slightly embarrassing as well.
The suddenly estranged tennis pro was standing in the middle of the probably canine-shredded brown carpet, drenched in sweat, pointing a pistol at the door. Troy stopped short and threw his hands up.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa now, partner,” he said, seeing the man’s fingers clinch around the grip of the revolver. “Don’t shoot. Let’s just take it down a notch.”
“And why the hell should I do that?” Lucas yelled and jabbed the barrel toward the open door. “My girl has, in the space of a couple of weeks, screwed the maintenance man, and as you probably just witnessed, run off with her asshole, drug-dealing cousin from South Beach. And you think I should take it down a notch.”
Troy shrugged his shoulders. “I do.”
Without blinking an eye, the man raised the pistol to the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The blast stabbed Troy’s ears with pain as chunks of drywall and fluffy pink insulation showered them both. A shrill ringing echoed in his ears and he raised his hands to cover them though it was too late. Lucas fired again and more debris fell around them.
Troy yelled at the man, but his hearing was so muffled, that he could barely tell what he was saying himself. The man shook his head and wiped his dusty, tear-streaked face with one hand. It was at this point that Troy realized the dude was naked except for a t-shirt ironically printed with a bright yellow logo that read: Fuzzy Yellow Balls. No pants, no underwear, no socks, and no shoes. Just fuzzy balls of a different color.
In the new silence of the hazy room, time seemed to slow down. It wasn’t exactly the hail of bullets Troy remembered in the incident that took Harry Nedman’s legs and, not long after, his life, but the danger felt the same. Guns are the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter where you were born, who your parents are, or what your station in life is, a round from a gun of the size that Lucas Walsh was holding, would kill … equally. And as Troy watched the man sobbing and shaking from his head down to his—well, his Fuzzy Yellow Balls—he knew he the man was on a path to destruction, destruction of himself, and possibly destruction of Troy. He lunged.
Lucas saw this as it was happening and raised the gun. The barrel swung up slowly, still caught in the slow motion of intense and deadly peril. He pointed the black, gaping hole of doom at Troy and pulled the trigger. Troy ducked his head, hoping that the Outback tea-stained cowboy hat had suddenly developed the impenetrability of a kevlar vest. The click that came from the pistol echoed in the room almost as loud as the previous gunshot. Troy felt a gasp of relief hit him just as his face hit lower than his expected target. Having ducked his head, he’d changed his planned trajectory at the man’s chest. For many years after the incident, neither Troy, nor Lucas would discuss what exactly had happened when Troy tackled the distraught tennis pro.
The part they both acknowledged—after a suitable pair of shorts were placed on Lucas—during an hour of heartfelt conversation sitting at the brown, folding card table in the kitchen was that the tennis pro still loved Manuela. Even with all her faults, he told Troy, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
“But what do I do now?” Lucas said, like a man with his fingertips clutching the edge of a cliff.
Troy’s mind drifted back to Debby. Wow, that seems like it was a million years ago. He tried to place when it had actually occurred, but couldn’t nail it down. Suffice to say, a whole lot had happened to him between now and then.
Looking at Lucas now, he wondered if he’d actually gotten as low down and broken as this guy was when it came to loving—or maybe it was hating—the hurricane that was Debby. It might have worked out after all if
it hadn’t been for that pesky detail of a husband. A tear slipped out of the tennis pro’s eye and slid down his cheek. This sure seemed like love to Troy, if he even really knew what love looked like.
He tapped the card table with a firm finger. “Ya gotta put on your big-boy pants and go get her. That’s what you gotta do.” Lucas wiped the tear away from his cheek and sniffed back the gob of mucus that was threatening to drip from his nostrils. He took a deep breath and nodded slowly.
“You’re absolutely right.”
He stood up and smacked his hand down on the card table. The wobbly leg crumpled sending the table smashing down onto Troy’s lap. He wasn’t certain, but the rusty lip of the thing might have cut his thighs. He’d check that later.
Lucas ran into the bedroom and emerged more quickly than Troy expected. He had a black, Nike duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. He tossed Troy a jangly key ring with at least a dozen keys on it. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed Troy two crisp one hundred dollar bills.
“You’re in charge. Keep the store stocked with fresh drinks and don’t screw anything up while I’m gone.” He looked down at his watch. “I’ll be back before Friday.”
And with that, he ran through the door and left Troy sitting with the table still propped precariously on his legs.
He lifted the jumble of keys and sniffed. “Well, that could’ve gone worse.”
He was surprised to see Lucas jog back into the room. The man scanned the dirty apartment, found what he was looking for, and winked at Troy. He reached down to the floor, picked up the empty pistol, and shoved it into his waistband.
“Good luck,” he said, rushing out into the night.
“Dangit,” said Troy.
END OF EXCERPT - CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE WITH A TROY BODEAN TROPICAL THRILLER #8
Afterword
I owe a tremendous debt to all the people in my family who kept urging and asking for this completed novel. Some of these characters are based on real people we met while playing cards and watching it rain one fateful vacation on Pawleys Island. If it hadn’t been for Tropical Storm Debby giving us a rainy vacation, none of this would’ve ever happened.
Special thanks to Kelly, Sarah, Robert, Linda, Jay, Debbie, and Laura, who continually helped me create characters out of thin air and give them life on the page. And thank you to my early readers who helped me catch errors of grammar and plot and other things.
Thanks be to God for my ability, judge as you may, to create these stories and record them for your enjoyment. And, if you happen to recognize yourself in one of these characters, enjoy it for what it is ... all good fun.
I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this omnibus of the Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Series. I had an amazing time writing it, and as I typed the last few lines, I knew I’d be back for more.
Please be sure to visit TropicalThrillers.com/readergroup and join the BeachBum Brigade Reader Group so you’ll be among the first to know about my promotions, events and specials!
Fair weather and following seas, my friends,
Also by David Berens
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Troy Bodean Tropical Thrillers
#0 Tidal Wave (available FREE exclusively to the BeachBumBrigade Reader Group)
#1 Rogue Wave
#2 Deep Wave
#3 Blood Wave
#4 Dark Wave
#5 Skull Wave
#6 Shark Wave
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Jo Bennett Archaeological Mysteries
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#1 Raising Prosperity
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#1 The Heart of a Hitman
Chris Collins CIA Thrillers
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#0 Rogue Enemy (available FREE exclusively to the BeachBumBrigade Reader Group)
#1 Capitol Break
#2 Shanghai Crossfire
#3 To Be Revealed
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Troy Bodean Omnibus
A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller #1-8
All Rights Reserved © 2020 by David F. Berens
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Tropical Thrillers Press 2020
Printed in The United States of America
Contact the Author at:
www.TropicalThrillers.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 136