by David Berens
Troy Bodean Box Set
Tropical Thrillers 4-6
David Berens
Contents
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Dark Wave
I. Brush Strokes
1. Paint By Numbers
2. Catch Me If You Can
3. Dragon Reign
4. Samantha Smiling
5. Alain’s Meltdown
6. Becky’s Snowshoes
7. Outta Sight
8. It Ain’t Me
9. I Like Your Hat
10. Pay To Play
11. Bobo Skee Otten Dotten
12. Dead Artists
II. Hard Lines
13. Late Lattes
14. Off And Running
15. Here Kitty, Kitty
16. Ain’t That A Peach
17. Gotcha!
18. Touchy-Feely
19. Who’s Coming To Dinner?
20. Not This Again
21. Plain Sight
22. G.P.S.
23. Downtown
24. Curiouser And Curiouser
25. Missin’ You
26. Make It Rain
27. Time Is Fleeting
28. Cracking Up
29. I Know A Guy
III. Finishing Strokes
30. Pumpkin’ Chunkin’
31. Seal The Deal
32. It Ain’t Me…Again
33. Snap, Crackle, Pop
34. It’s Me Again
35. Distribution Office
36. Mariner Grove
37. Ninja Challenge
38. Alibi Hunting
39. I’m Walking’ Here
40. Layin’ It On Thick
41. But Now I See…
42. Puzzled
43. Didn’t See That Coming
44. Bang, Bang
45. The Last Campaign
46. Savannah Smiles Again
47. Sailing Away
Skull Wave
I. I’m On A Boat
1. Yes, I Am A Pirate
2. Tuesdays And Thursdays
3. Practice Your Chops
4. Jamaica, Mon
5. Baby, You Can Drive My Carr
6. Thai One On
7. Peace and Blessings
8. The Thrill Is Gone
9. Now That’s A Knife
10. Deep Cuts
11. Butterflies
12. Strangers In The Night
13. Oops, I Did It Again
II. A Knife And A Nudist
14. Thunder And Lightning
15. All My Bags Are Packed
16. Naked Truths
17. Tastes Like Chicken
18. I’m On A Boat
19. Face To Face
III. Avast Ye Land Lubbers
20. Tug-Tuggin’ Along
21. Crash Into Me
22. Off Into The Sunset
Shark Wave
I. Some Beach
1. Quiet Vineyard Haven
2. Prosperity Returns
3. Room To Room
4. Bank On Frank
5. Guns And Money
6. Gone Baby Gone
7. Black Dog Tavern
8. I’m Talkin’ About Sharkin’
9. Country Roads
10. Campaign Central
11. Dance With The Devil
12. Help Wanted
13. Cabana Day Dreamin’
14. The Biggest Balls Of All
II. Pool Balls
15. The Man In The Cellar
16. Frank ‘N’ Buff
17. Santa Banks
18. Florence And The Pool Boy
19. Two Peas In A Pod
20. Prison Shank
21. A Stitch In Time
22. Déjà Vu All Over Again
23. Testes One Two Three
24. Dropping Like Flies
III. Low Tide
25. Finding Prosperity
26. Bank On It
27. Cat And Mouse
28. Take The Money And Run
29. Fifty Grand
30. Catchin’ Some ZZZ’s
31. Partners In Crime
32. Yer Fired
33. Body Talk
34. I’m Your Ice Cream Man
35. Private Enterprise
IV. Waistin’ Away
36. We Oughta Regatta
37. Smoke On The Water
38. The Great Escape
39. Campaign Stop
40. Moving On
Epilogue
Read More
Also by David Berens
Afterword
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Dark Wave
A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller #4
Part I
Brush Strokes
“Every brush stroke is, in a sense,
some kind of an accident.”
-Raphael Soyer
1
Paint By Numbers
The painting hung in a simple frame with no alarm sensors attached, no laser beams crisscrossing the room, and no iron gates to crash down if it was removed from the wall, all of which made it maddeningly simple to take it down, remove it from its frame, and walk casually out of the building with it rolled up in a long cardboard tube tucked nonchalantly under an arm. It would’ve made for a really boring heist movie, that’s for sure. Had this been a more important work, perhaps a Monet or a Renoir, the security would’ve resembled something only Tom Cruise could handle. That said, a work of that caliber wouldn’t be at the Jepson Center anyway. What the rest of the world didn’t know yet, however, was that the artist was already dead… and the value of the painting would likely skyrocket once this was discovered.
The Jepson Center in Savannah, Georgia was home to the beautiful painting, titled Savannah Smiling, for a short run highlighting the stunning artwork of the up-and-coming young artist, Tayler Evan.
Jepson was often home to artists attending the local Savannah College of Art and Design. Normally, though, those young artist’s works would be relegated to a back room or a side-wall in a little-used hallway. However, Savannah Smiling was displayed prominently… in front of more established artists with far more pieces. SS, as the museum’s curators and workers began to refer to it as, was Evan’s only artwork on display. But it truly was a beautiful piece, comprising the timeless melancholy of an Andrew Wyeth, mixed with the raw emotion and power of a Claire Tabouret.
Savannah Smiling was a portrait of a young black girl wearing a yellow dress and standing under a weeping willow. A dangling tuft of Spanish Moss draped over one shoulder, and sunlight fell across her face, illuminating a smile that would soon be compared to the enigmatic visage of the Mona Lisa. In contrast, in the distance beyond the girl the landscape was burning. Not in open flame, but ashes smoldering everywhere. The effect it had on viewers was layered. First, you saw the beauty of the image and the quality of the technique used to produce it. Fine brush strokes that you could see, but which slowly became invisible as your eyes focused more on the subject matter. And then came the symbolism… beyond the fact that this was a black girl, standing in front of a burning field and who may or may not be smiling – that was still up for debate – there was her left shoulder. The infamous dark patch of skin on that shoulder had many convinced she was bruised there, while o
thers claimed it was only a birthmark. Some said it was a shadow, though there was nothing represented in the painting to have cast one.
Scholars had come from far and wide to discuss the meaning and metaphor behind the painting, and so many theories had been floated that the piece was quickly becoming a cult-like interpretation project in art schools around the country. Art lovers everywhere had been captivated by the symbolism and beauty of the two-feet by three-feet oil on canvas painting.
The work’s estimated value, as established by the curator of the museum, was probably in the neighborhood of ten-thousand dollars – not too shabby for a new artist. But the thief knew the real money was to be made from the work of dead artists – even contemporary dead artists. Without the money to procure a piece that was already priceless due to the artist’s expiry, the thief hatched a nefarious plot to select an artist generating a lot of buzz over limited works, and orchestrate their death.
And upon reading the piece by local art critic Mortimer LeFleur in the Savannah Morning News, the thief knew immediately that Tayler Evan’s painting fitted the bill perfectly.
Nestled between the photo gallery proudly displaying the Heels-N-Halligans Night at Pooler Wild Wing Café, and the dreary news of Savannah’s new downtown shuttle plan, was a small section dedicated to Mr. LeFleur’s column. As a professor at SCAD – the Savannah College of Art and Design, often said with derision by its students – Mortimer was constantly exposed to many works of art that were neither exceptional nor valuable in any sense of the word. Most of his columns were two paragraphs calendar entries detailing new displays at local museums. However, his piece on Tayler’s Savannah Smiling had been different. Waxing lyrical, LeFleur went on and on about the beauty and social commentary of the piece. He even compared it to the great works of the past and the hottest contemporary artists around the art world. He wrote three passionate paragraphs of exposition on the qualities he believed would make the painting a classic studied for decades to come. And, by the way, it will be on display at the Jepson for the next month. Be sure to check the museum’s hours, and as always, group discounts are available.
Careful planning was essential to make young Tayler Evan’s death appear to be a suicide. It might take a week or so for his body to be found, and until then, no one would notice that Savannah Smiling no longer hung in the Jepson Center. The thief had simply replaced the painting with a poster print of the image, initially bought for ten bucks in the gift shop. It didn’t have the texture of the brush strokes, but the giclée printing technique the thief had used was high enough definition to fool most casual patrons. It was easy to tell it was a print if you got close enough and knew what to look for, but a dangling velvet rope kept most viewers a few feet away and limited their view… and all the thief needed was a week before it was discovered missing to get the painting sold.
Poor Tayler was hanging by his worn out brown American Rebel belt from a gorgeous weathered beam in his downtown loft.
The easy part had been getting an invite back to the young artist-in-heat’s place for a nightcap after a rambunctious celebratory night out at the bar. Heady with excitement over the growing furor around his painting, his new contract to produce labels with some wine company in Amsterdam, and the first sale offer of a few thousand dollars for Savannah Smiling, Tayler had been tossing back shots his friends kept buying for him all night. His judgment was impaired to say the least.
The tough part had been subduing him with a spiked cocktail – not too strong to suggest an intentional overdose, but strong enough to render the six-foot-one artist unconscious – and then lift his heavy body up to the beam twelve-feet above the sumptuous reclaimed hardwood floor. It had been nearly impossible, the thief’s latex gloves slick with sweat, but he was determined, and had eventually hoisted Taylor up, his belt around his throat, and hung him from the beam.
He’d stirred once, when his body realized it wasn’t receiving enough oxygen, but by then it was too late. The belt tightened dangerously around his throat, and the up-and-coming artist was suddenly down-and-going before he could reach up and grab the beam. A well-placed chair – toppled under the body – would create a believable suicide scene for the local police department. The thief considered leaving an angsty, melancholy note, but decided against it lest there were fibers and microbes and handwriting experts to pounce on any miniscule clues left behind. As it was, there were no clues at all… he’d committed the perfect crime.
The thief had stood beneath the dangling body and took a sip from the artist’s open bottle of Beaux Freres Pinot Noir. Tayler was a good-looking kid. Dark skin, wild, untamed black hair, skinny, and tall. And based on the wine choice, he also had good taste. The thief regretted killing him. But, to make the painting worth anything, the artist had to die.
And now, moments after switching the poster with the original and walking out of the anachronistic white Jepson Center building, the thief with the cardboard tube drew absolutely no attention at all. Not a single person glanced in the thief’s direction, not even the dude sweeping the floor before they locked up for the night.
It was a beautiful sunset, still plenty of light, yet…
No one… saw… anything!
The thief pulled out his cell phone. Three messages. Clicking on the phone, the thief noticed the latex gloves were still on. Pulling them off and stuffing them into a jacket pocket, he clicked out a message, jumped onto a scooter propped on a nearby light post, and puttered away into the slowly descending darkness.
2
Catch Me If You Can
Troy Clint Bodean swung the Cheetah Marine Catamaran deftly through the narrow channel. On both sides of the boat, marsh grasses three to four-feet tall created a dense corridor for his tour to follow. Startled Susie birds, as Troy called them – or Woodland Storks, as others knew them – took off alone and in pairs as the boat motored past.
Troy was more than comfortable with passenger tours, having flown his brother’s seaplane ferry to Fort Jefferson off of Key West for over a year. As he steered he launched into memorized details about the surrounding lowlands, including its variety of plant and animal life.
The part-time loading work (and sometimes sanitary engineer – janitor – if old Bobo didn’t make it in to work) at the Telfair Museum served as his primary income, but since he hadn’t found reasonably priced housing in Savannah, he’d taken this job as a secondary source of money.
His roommate had a swanky place and loved the fact Troy was almost never home. And Troy adored the downtown digs he could have never afforded on his own wages. Even if he was never there, it was a fantastic place to hang his hat.
One more turn around the channel and his last boat ride of the shift would be over. He didn’t have anything to do at the museum tonight, so he thought he might hit the Rail Pub and grab a beer and a bite to eat. He might even see if the roomie was home and wanted to hang. It was always good to have a wingman around.
Troy droned on a few more lines about the flora and fauna, and his passengers were duly impressed. The three very large people on this last trip, Mama Cass, Daddy Cass, and Toddler Cass, spent more time trying to tuck their triple chins under their life jackets than they did actually checking out the scenery. The rotund toddler had cried relentlessly for the first half hour, but thankfully she had passed out and was still asleep now. Troy commented how cute she was, Mama Cass now firmly in his fan club. Daddy Cass, however, gave Troy dirty looks for the rest of the ride.
When it was over, Mama Cass slipped Troy a fifty-dollar bill for helping to carry Toddler Cass off the boat and tuck her safely into her car seat.
“Aw, shucks, ma’am,” Troy had said, “It’s all part of the job.”
Daddy Cass thanked him for the expert information and begrudgingly slipped him a twenty-dollar bill – probably unaware Mama Cass had already tipped him excessively. Troy didn’t let on.
An hour later, after docking the boat and wiping down the equipment on board, Troy hopped on his b
icycle and pedaled down the path beside Highway 80, grabbing for his Outback tea stained straw cowboy hat more than once when the wind threatened to blow it off his head. After another thirty minutes, he cruised into Midtown and turned onto Barnard Street, where a three-story, red-painted brick building came into view. Home sweet home.
