Godsend_a gripping, fast-paced thriller

by J. A. Marley

  “Thank you for both your time and your co-operation, Mr Franklin.”

  “Please, call me Danny. The pleasure has been all mine.”

  “Mr Franklin, if you are going to drive that jeep, can I recommend you get that taillight fixed, it looks cracked. I wouldn’t want to have to write you up a ticket.”

  “There might be worse things…”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “I mean, there could be worse things I had to fix on my jeep.”

  “Oh, okay, well, good evening, sir, and thank you again.”

  As she walked back to her cruiser, Danny watched, taking in the way she moved. She was tall, just a little shorter than him. Dark hair, some of which had escaped the confines of a severe ponytail, had been moving lazily along the curve of her jaw in the breeze. Despite the bulk of her bulletproof vest and the various bits of kit that hung from her utility belt, he could tell she was fit; a runner’s habit was obvious from her size and shape. And then, to top it all, her eyes. Dark, but with a light in them. Something about them had caused him to stare a little.

  At the same time, Danny was feeling pleased that he had taken the precautionary measure of parking his truck in a rented garage he kept down in Key West. He knew he had to do a few other things, now that his knee-jerk reaction to boredom a few nights earlier had brought him unwanted attention, and so quickly.

  Why had he enjoyed toying with her so much? Was it another case of anything to break out of his boredom?

  He watched as she turned her squad car in a wide circle, driving away, him wondering if she’d taken a moment to watch him in her rear-view mirror.

  “Step in toime. Look lively, step in toime,” he said gently. “I don’t think you’re finished with me yet, Deputy Sosa… not just yet.”

  Colt was staring idly at the mosquitoes that were dancing around the sole spotlight that illuminated the car park in front of the Tom Thumb convenience store where he had just worked his last ever shift.

  He thought his job had been secure (after everything that had happened in the attempted robbery), especially when that nice lady cop had spoken to Mr Komaski, telling him not to fire him. However, that evening, Mr Komaski had come right in and sacked Colt’s ass, telling him the only reason he hadn’t done it earlier was that he knew he didn’t have anyone else to cover the shifts. Now, he had found some other bozo, Mr Komaski’s words, not his, it was time for him to get the hell out. Motherfucker!

  Colt was so intent on watching the dancing flies that he didn’t notice the figure standing in the shadows just behind his old beater of a car.

  “Hey, Colt…”

  Colt nearly lost his guts right there and then. The voice scared the shit out of him, his nerves still jangled from all his troubles and the considerable amount of weed he had dedicated his life to for some time.

  He was then doubly afraid when he recognised the voice. It was that Brit dude… the one who had just about ruined his life this week.

  “Awww, no, no, no, no… not you, no way, man… noooo.”

  Colt was fumbling with his car keys, dropping them in his haste to get the fuck away from this guy. He’d had enough trouble to last a lifetime already. Plus, since he had told the cop about the dude, in a very rare moment of lucidity, it had occurred to him that it might have been a mistake. A bad one. And now, here the guy was. Probably ready to beat the shit out of him… or worse.

  “Hey, Colt… calm the fuck down.” Danny didn’t move from his spot in the shadows. He had been careful not to be caught by the security cameras as he waited for the young clerk to come out.

  “I didn’t… I… I didn’t tell nobody nothing, dude… Okay?”

  “Colt… Chill. The. Fuck. Out. Okay, I know you spoke to the police. They came to see me. I’m cool with it… no problems from my end, sunshine… okay?”

  “Why are you standing back there? In the dark… I mean… creepy…?”

  “Listen, I need to talk to you. Just clear this all up… Take me for a drive.”

  “I’m not, you know… stupid. You’re gonna kill me.”

  “Oh, Colt. For fuck’s sake, mate. I’m not going to kill you. Stop being so dramatic.”

  “Dramatic? You just cost me my job, you… you… son of a bitch.’

  Colt said the last bit in a way that made Danny think it was probably the bravest thing Colt had ever done in his life.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Put it right. I’ve caused you nothing but trouble. Now, I want to make it up to you.”

  Colt paused, as if unsure what to do. Danny stepped up to the passenger door of Colt’s car. Out of force of habit, Colt slipped the key into the old car’s lock and opened it up, instantly thinking, Why the fuck did I do that?

  Danny slid into the car. Quickly, Colt did the same.

  He looked at Danny and wailed. “Mother… fucker… how did you… how did you make me…? I mean… Jesus H. Christ…”

  “Colt, shut your bleeding mouth. Drive this hunk of crap out of the car park will you… please.”

  Once they were on the road, Danny sat at an angle, looking directly at Colt as he nervously steered the car.

  “Where do you want me to go?”

  “Anywhere, Colt. I only want to speak with you.’

  “Are you a spy?”

  The question made Danny laugh. “Jesus, Colt. How did you guess? I mean, how have you seen through my cover…?”

  “I knew it!” Colt thumped his steering wheel for emphasis. “I told that nice lady cop, you reminded me of that spy dude out of the movies… who else but a freaking spy knows how to punch like you do.”

  “Calm down for a second and listen. I am here on official business, which is why I need to keep a low profile. Talking to police officers is not low profile. You hear me?”

  ‘Yeah, dude… I’m sorry I had to… had to tell her something, she was gonna search my ride… That’s not righteous…”

  “Stop worrying about that now. Listen, they could still come back and ask you to identify me. I can’t have that happen. My cover is in enough trouble already.”

  At that point, Danny laid an envelope on the seat between him and Colt. The flap was half open, a thick sheaf of dollar bills showing inside. “Colt, have you got family?”

  “Only my maw, but she lives up north, Fort Lauderdale. I ain’t seen her in an age, on account of that asshole she’s living with. He’s not my dad.”

  “So, how about this. How about you take a trip? Somewhere nice. Somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.”

  “I can’t afford to go nowhere, especially as I… you know… ain’t got no job no… no more.”

  It was at that point that Colt noticed the envelope.

  “And I feel responsible for that, Colt. I truly do. So, to put it right, there’s fifty thousand dollars in that envelope…”

  Colt swerved the car, other drivers blaring their horns as they moved to avoid him. “Holy shit! Fifty thousand… Holy shit…”

  “Colt, Colt… you’re supposed be chillin’. Careful, man!”

  “Oh, sorry… yeah, sorry… dude… but… come on! Fifty thousand!” Colt struck his steering wheel. He hit it twice this time to show Danny he was truly in awe.

  “And all you have to do, Colt, is let me drive you home, get packed, and then, I’ll drop you at the airport, and you can go wherever you want.”

  “I’ve always… always wanted to go to Colorado.”

  “Yeah? I hear the mountains are beautiful…”

  “Screw that. They made… they legalised… marijuana…”

  “Of course, they did. What a fine state.” Danny was smiling. “This is going to be easier than I thought, man. You’ll be happy there, and my cover will be safe. At least now I know I don’t have to kill you.”

  Colt nearly crashed the car again.

  Danny roared. “Relax! I’m fucking with you. Okay, so let me take you home. You can pack a case and I can drive you to the airport.”

  “Oh�
�� oh… I ain’t got no case. Don’t have that many clothes so I’ve never needed a case. Any… anyways… I never been nowhere, so never needed no case. We can… we can go straight to the airport…”

  “Straight to the airport it is, then, Colt. Straight there…” Danny celebrated his luck.

  “Can I… can I ask you a question, mister?”

  “As long as it’s not about my mission, Colt. Go ahead, sunshine.”

  “Does your car have… you know, have… machine guns in the fender?”

  At about the same time as Danny was starting his chat with Colt, Deputy Sosa was cruising Highway One in her squad car. Another shift, another night where the most exciting thing that happened was rousting a local using the central median of the road to pass a tourist out of sheer frustration. That’s if you didn’t count meeting a mysterious Englishman.

  She was thinking about taking her meal break when her radio chattered into life.

  “Sosa? You got your sweet ass ears on?”

  “Annie, this is Deputy Sosa. Go ahead.”

  “I’m about to go off shift, Honey. Got some Hush Puppies in the refrigerator with my name on ’em. But thought you might like to know something before I get the fuck outta here.”

  Sosa winced, but her curiosity demanded she follow up. “Go ahead, Annie. But the clean version, eh, por favor?”

  “Honey, do you want to know about the fancy pants Miami lawyer who just turned up, flashing dental work that cost more than my goddamned condo?”

  “Miami legal?”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s what I’m telling you, girl. Talked to the captain for about twenty minutes. He called the jail sergeant and those two girlies from the drive-in? They’s in the wind, sister.”

  “Huh? But there’s reasonable suspicion…”

  “The fancy lawyer must’ve had some moves on him… Charges dropped… They are gone… like my water retention… did I mention getting old sucks donkey… oh, hold on… you wanted it clean.”

  Sosa had pulled her car to the side of the road so that she could sit and stare at her radio, not quite believing what she had just heard. Miami legal muscle? Someone had money, and influence, to burn. Or just money… lots of money…

  It was late when Danny arrived back home. He had seen Colt off at the airport, waiting until he saw him hand his boarding pass to the lady at the end of the jetway to be sure he had gone to Colorado. Danny then had to stop on Highway One at the convenience store that had the one last public telephone for at least twenty miles. He rang the cell phone number, and his lawyer confirmed that he had worked his magic, and he would pick his fee up the next time he drove to the Keys for a little R and R. Which would be soon… Danny paid well and in cold hard cash.

  All in all, he was pleased with how quickly, and tidily, he had managed to shut down the lady cop’s line of interest. There was now nothing in South Florida to connect him to the convenience store incident, and he could go back to living that low profile again.

  But something was gnawing at the edges of his instinct. Something… or someone was coming. He could feel it. His powers of intuition were always stronger than most, and even though there had been little call for them in a long while, it surprised him at how keenly he could feel an oncoming storm. And feel it, he most definitely could.

  And, as if he needed it, some physical proof showed up almost immediately.

  He was fantasising about a large shot of Blanton’s Bourbon with a little ice as he climbed the steps of his house, fumbling with his key fob to unlock the door, when he kicked something with his foot. It made a metallic rattle as it pinged across his porch. Danny looked. In the gloom, he couldn’t spot what he had connected with. When he flicked on his porch light, his breath caught in his throat. No wonder he couldn’t quite see it in the dark. It was black. It was metal. It was a small toy car. A little model black London taxi, complete with yellow light on the top and an advert for the famous Hamleys toy store on the side.

  Danny knew a message when he saw one. And as he picked the model car up, he noticed his hand was shaking. Then, the sweats came, and suddenly, his mind was convulsing, dread rising in his chest. A panic attack consumed him.

  As he sank to his knees, he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  8

  Sins of the Flesh

  June had to be very careful.

  But she knew exactly how far to push things. Many of her female friends back home would have been disgusted, but she thought it was terrific. After all, it meant that she had to do relatively little.

  Plus, if she was really annoyed, it was a great way to purge irritations out of her system. And lately, her husband had become increasingly annoying, to the point where she had to remind herself “Be careful.” She was never allowed to leave any marks.

  So, as she angled the candle over her husband’s prone torso, she counted out only five drips of the hot wax onto his, admittedly still slim, belly. He writhed where she had earlier secured him to their bed. She couldn’t hear his protests, as he was gagged using a rubber ball they had bought online encased in one of her stockings. A blindfold and ear plugs completed his sensory deprivation.

  She watched as his erect member twitched at the burn, wondering, for the umpteenth time in her marriage, how anyone could find this erotic. But Vincent surely did… and besides… it meant she didn’t have to fuck him. Not that she had wanted to do that for a very long time. That didn’t mean to say she didn’t enjoy sex. She preferred it a little less weird and with men who were a little younger, fitter and who didn’t pray to Jesus each time they orgasmed.

  Vincent grunted, a feral noise that she couldn’t quite understand. Was it their safe word? She couldn’t be sure. As she poured more wax, this time onto his favourite bit of anatomy, the moaning and the groaning convinced her it had not been. He was almost at that point. The point. The moment when she could just leave him frustrated and on the edge for at least half an hour. She reached up and violently gripped his hair, yanking it so his head was pulled back further into the pillow. She could see a snarl form at the edges of his mouth, her stockings protruding as his teeth and tongue pushed them. With her other hand, she savoured the swish as she brought the one-dollar fly swat they’d found in a Wal-Mart in Coconut Creek down with vicious intent. The contact was firm, enough to make Vincent squirm. Mind you, it was his balls she was swatting. That had to hurt. His fists were opening and closing frantically. They always did in these moments, and, not for the first time, June wondered what he was imagining those hands doing? It never looked gentle.

  She felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket. It gave her an idea, but then, she brushed it aside. Lately, she had been in no mood to indulge her husband any more than she had to.

  No, he was cooked for the moment. She took the phone from her jeans and walked towards the door leaving him to his mixture of frustration, anticipation and difficult breathing for the next thirty minutes or so.

  She wanted to read her text message. It simply said, Call.

  June made her way to the kitchen of their cavernous house which overlooked Tampa Bay in Tierra Verde. The huge French doors opened up onto a terrace and garden that sloped down to the water side. It was a view she loved and never intended to tire of. That was why she was making the phone call as instructed.

  The cell phone only needed to ring once before it was answered. And in her ear, she heard the words she was hoping for, delivered in a rough London accent:

  “I’ve found the man I told you about. The one we can work with. You will go and see him.”

  Danny realised he had to start asking questions. He was in trouble, and he knew it. The attacks were getting more frequent and severe. Sooner or later, he would have to try to seek help.

  If someone had found him, he needed to know who. It was time to ask around and see if any strange faces had appeared on the scene. He needed to get a fix on who liked leaving toy taxi cabs on his front step.

  He had been keeping
a low profile since his arrival in the Keys, but it didn’t mean that he hadn’t done his research. He knew where to go when you needed to talk to someone with a flexible attitude towards law and order. He had assumed that, sooner or later, he would have to plug back into that community, so, occasionally, he had let his presence be seen and known as someone also flexible when it came to matters of the illegal kind. Not too many details, but enough.

  And where did you go when you wanted to get a little information from the types who liked to push the boundaries of the law? Danny knew exactly where. You went to where you could see one of the most extraordinary sights in the whole of Florida… possibly even America.

  Woody’s was a ramshackle strip joint right on Highway One in Islamorada. An establishment of questionable taste that proudly sold itself as the only nude and full liquor joint between south Miami and Key West. It should, Danny thought, be equally proud of the sight that was one of their dancers… the improbably monikered Slow Tina. And what was so remarkable about her? Tina was well into her seventies, hence the reason why she was called slow. She still danced nude… but at a much-reduced pace. As well as being a local legend, Danny had heard that she was a mine of information about the Keys’ more dubious residents. He had made a point of befriending her.

  Ducking into the neon lit interior of the bar, Danny was surprised to see how busy it was. Tina only danced the early evening shift these days. She couldn’t handle the late nights anymore, and normally, her audience would be in single figures, but that day was a little different. She was in the middle of the crowd, managing to look regal and aloof despite her surroundings. Danny caught her eye.

  Tina sidled up to an empty bar stool and Danny took the cue, he joined his favourite septuagenarian.

  “How come it’s crowded, Tina?’

  She took a moment to rearrange the string bikini and sarong she was wearing, then took a sip from some hellish-looking blue drink. Danny tried to keep his eyes at shoulder level and above. Anywhere else led to madness.