Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Box Set 2

by David Berens

  She didn’t make any move to take the cooler, invite him in, or send him away. She just stood there smiling oddly.

  “So…I’ll just leave this on the table?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  She pulled her arm down and waved it behind her into the trailer.

  “C’mon in. Everybody’s done left, but we can sit a while if you want.”

  “Maybe I’ll just leave the shrimp and let you be.”

  She grabbed his elbow and tugged him inside.

  “No, no, no. Don’t do that,” she whined. “I wouldn’t be able to eat all that shrimp by myself and it ain’t a night to be lonely neither.”

  Troy groaned as he stepped up the aluminum stairs into the Grateful Dead caravan vehicle. Inside, he found almost exactly what he expected. Trixie had lain down on the Aztec pattern sectional sofa…or at least it had been a sectional at one time, but the shorter section was missing. The tank top had slipped dangerously down off her shoulder and exposed most of her leathery left breast. She had her legs crossed in a strangely demure fashion and was holding a cigarette lightly between her lips.

  “Came up a little late, did ya?” she winked at him as she asked.

  “Uh, yeah.” Troy cleared his throat and sat the cooler down on the kitchen counter, which incidentally, was in the same room as the living area. “Actually, I can’t stay. Got a…um…previous engageme—.”

  “Mhmm.” She interrupted him and pointed toward the kitchen table. “Hand me that lighter, would ya?”

  Troy grabbed the lighter and flipped it over to her. He clapped his hands together and edged backward toward the trailer door.

  “Okay, then, enjoy yer shrimp.”

  “You wanna beer? I got Coronas in the fridge left over from the party…er, I mean, the memorial.”

  Troy glanced down at his wrist where he hadn’t worn a watch since Afghanistan.

  “Nah, it’s gettin’ late.”

  “Hell, Troy, we both know you ain’t got nowhere to go. Yer just scared of what might happen if you stay.”

  She tugged on the edge of her boxers and what might’ve been the ears of a rabbit tattoo peeked out over the waistband. There was no sign of a tan line and Troy wondered how long she’d spent in the tanning bed over the course of her life.

  “Well, maybe just one.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” She flicked the lighter and her cigarette flared to life in a puff of smoke.

  Troy opened the refrigerator and, sure enough, there were a couple of Corona longnecks left in a wet cardboard container. He pulled them out, found a bottle opener lying nearby on the counter, and popped the two tops off. He almost asked for an orange slice, but then realized he hadn’t seen anything else in the fridge besides the beer.

  He took a swig of his and handed the second one to Trixie. The beer hit his stomach and it made a strange groan, but then quieted quickly. She took a long slug of hers and patted the couch indicating that he should sit down. He scooted down to the end as far from her as he could and sat. She licked her lips and puffed the cigarette. She didn’t say anything, but leered at him under what she must’ve thought were sultry eyes. Troy couldn’t help but think of the drag queens back in Savannah.

  “Dang shame,” he said finally.

  “What’s that?” she arched an eyebrow.

  “Ya know. Kimberly…and Dana.”

  For a second, she just stared. She looked for all the world like she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “The murders.” Troy reached up and tipped his hat back as he said it. “Your daughter and Kim. It’s a dang shame what happened to ‘em.”

  She shook her head and suddenly seemed to realize what he was talking about.

  “Oh…oh yeah. Damn shame.” She took a sip of her beer and an odd look clouded her face. “Can we not talk about that tonight?”

  “Sure. I just thought on their memorial night—.”

  “I get it. Yer just tryin’ to change the subject.”

  Troy opened his mouth to ask exactly what subject he was avoiding when his stomach rumbled again and a sharp pain stabbed him in the gut. He slowed his breathing and realized he was sweating a cool sweat. His mouth wanted to clench shut, but worse than that…so did his bowels.

  “You got a bathroom in here?”

  “Down the hall, only door on the left.”

  “Much obliged.” Troy started to stand up and felt a heat in his bowels that could not be a good sign.

  “You gon’ be all right?” Trixie asked, apparently just starting to notice his distress.

  “Yeah, yeah. No problemo,” Troy said realizing that there was definitely going to be a problemo.

  In between pains, he was able to clench enough to stand safely. He shuffled down the hall and hurried into the tiny bathroom.

  “Light a match,” Trixie called from the living room.

  Troy spent the next fifteen minutes with his knees pressed against the bathroom door in a stall the size of those he thought belonged on an airplane or a Greyhound bus. It was then and there that he swore off any Thai food for the rest of his life.

  He flipped the knobs of the sink to try and mask the sounds with running water, but when he twisted them, nothing happened. No water. He thought about coughing a few times, but that might be worse. Eventually, he decided relieving the horrible pain in his belly was more important than any embarrassment he might feel from the noises he was making. The smell was awful, so he reached up and opened the sliding glass window next to his head.

  “You okay in there?” He heard Trixie call from down the hall.

  “Yup. Right as rain.”

  When he was sure his stomach had emptied itself into her pint-sized commode and he’d exhausted her meager roll of toilet paper, he reached behind him and pushed the lever. Nothing happened.

  “Oh, dangit,” Troy murmured.

  He’d forgotten that for some reason, the trailer had no water. It wasn’t going to flush. Times like these back in the war, he’d had to make snap decisions. It was either fight…or flight. He wasn’t going to stay and fight this out with Trixie, so he decided on the latter. Popping the screen out of the sliding window, he elbowed himself through and landed softly in the gravel below. He tiptoed around the front end of her wildly painted trailer.

  Inside, he heard her banging on what he guessed was the bathroom door.

  “What the hell is goin’ on in there?” he heard her shout. “Just come on out and we’ll-oh…my…God!”

  The gig was up. Troy began to jog away and rounded the front end of the trailer when the side door slammed open. Catching sight of him, her face twisted in rage.

  “There ain’t no water in here, you sonofabitch!”

  Committed to his plan of flight, he took off running as fast as his bad knee would let him. He didn’t turn back, but he could hear her shouts echoing through the Decharmarnel RV Park. As he passed the first trailer in the row, he stumbled over the lazy golden retriever he’d seen licking the grill earlier. His knees hit the gravel and he rolled to keep from falling directly on the dog. It ambled over to him and licked his cheek.

  “Sorry ‘bout that, boy.” Troy patted the dog on the neck. “Peace and blessings to you, buddy, but I gotta be goin’.”

  The dog seemed to shrug its shoulders and lay back down.

  8

  The Thrill Is Gone

  Barry Olsen Barron was just about as bored as he’d ever been playing his game. He slammed the VR goggles down and shut the game off. The mayhem and rampaging and violence in the exquisitely rendered world of Bladehammer just didn’t…do it for him anymore. No matter how hard he tried, he kept picturing her face…the girl from the gaming store. He wondered if regular people would imagine dating her. He was imagining something much darker. He opened his mom’s piece of crap laptop and logged onto the neighbor’s Wi-Fi. Idiot never changed his password and Barry was able to connect for his VR game and any surfing the net he needed to do.

  He
clicked over to Supersharp.com, a website he’d used before and scrolled through the pictures of various knives and swords listed for sale. He’d found that a Dadao or a Chinese saber worked best for his work down at the pier gutting and slicing the massive fish brought in from the deep ocean. Anything smaller was done as easily with a smaller blade. And he found that a really sharp Dadao would cut through a neck in one swipe…but it had to be really sharp. He’d worked his last one so much that it went through Dana and Kim’s neck without hesitation. He grinned at the thought.

  A few pages later, he clicked on a beautiful blade made of heat treated high carbon steel and a red and black leather wrapped grip. It was hand forged, so it was a custom piece. He scrolled to the bottom.

  “Sheeee-ittt,” he said as he saw the price button. “Two-hundred and thirty-nine damn dollars? It ain’t made of damn gold.”

  He almost slammed the screen down when he saw the consignment button at the top. That’s the ticket, he thought. Maybe get a used one and tune it up.

  With a few more clicks, he found it. The blade looked good enough, no serious gouges, nothing too bad. The leather grip was shredded and dangled off the hilt in several places. No biggie there. He figured with a couple good days work, he could have it looking new and sharp as a mother. The price button said sixty bucks, but on consignment deals, you could enter a bid. He tapped a few keys and entered a bid of forty-five. He smiled as he pushed the send button and the whoosh sound indicated his bid was in. Nothing to do now but wait to see if he won the auction.

  “And now I’m bored again,” he muttered to the empty trailer.

  He jumped when his cell phone rang. He looked at the number and didn’t recognize it.

  “Damn sales calls.”

  He didn’t answer, letting the call go to his voicemail. After a minute, the phone chirped to let him know he had a message. He tapped a few buttons and the message played back.

  “Good evening, Mista Barron,” a deep, resonating voice boomed. “This is Sam DeFur. I’m the Chief of Police here in Nags Head and I’m lookin’ into the disappearance of the two girls you worked with at the Fish Company.”

  Barry’s pulse quickened and he wondered how the hell the cops had traced the killings back to him. Shit, he thought as he began to plan a mad dash out of town.

  “Now, we know it’s been hard on all you kids, but we don’t have a whole bunch of information and we’re tracking down everybody who knew these two fine young ladies.”

  Barry’s heart slowed a little. It didn’t sound like the chief considered him a suspect…yet.

  “It would be a big help if you could talk to us about the last time you saw both of them. We know you were working the night they were killed, but there might be something they said to you, or you overheard that would lead us in the right direction. Anyway, give me a call down at the station and we’ll talk.”

  The line went quiet, but didn’t disconnect. The chief inhaled on the line.

  “Barry, we know that you’re probably still shook up about this, but we need your help. We got nothin’.”

  Then the call was ended.

  Barry wondered if the chief was playing him. Did he know something? Was he a suspect? Was he being played here? He didn’t think so. He wondered if not calling the man back would make him look guilty though.

  He resolved to call the chief tomorrow and by then, he would have a complete story worked out about leaving work that night, coming home, and playing video games all night. Maybe he could even get Riley to say she’d been online with him. Thinking of her, he looked down at his phone. The time read: 10:01PM She’d said not to call after ten…but it was barely after. He texted her.

  -Ok to call you?

  He waited for a minute. Nothing. He figured she was probably not going to text him back when his phone dinged.

  -Yeah, but just for a minute. I’m about to go to bed and I think my mom’s on the way home now.

  He felt his pulse quicken again.

  -Can you get online?

  -No, I’m grounded. She won’t give me the Wi-Fi password.

  -Shit. I can prob figure it out. What’s her birthday?

  -Already tried that.

  -Anniversary?

  -That too.

  Barry thought for a second.

  -Your birthday?

  There was a pause and then.

  -Crap. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’m on.

  -I’ll be on in a sec.

  -Cool. I’ll wait for you at the tavern.

  A new message pinged on his phone and he saw he had an email. He grinned as he read the note that his bid had won the auction. The blade was his! Hot damn, he thought, this day is getting better and better.

  Barry grabbed his headset and logged into his Bladehammer game. His excitement grew, as did the bulge in his pants. He was getting aroused just thinking about having his way with Riley…and he wasn’t thinking about sex. He was thinking about his new blade and her lily-white neck. The thought of cutting her thrilled him. He might even spring for overnight shipping.

  If he got it tomorrow, he could have her by Sunday night. He started thinking about how he’d lure her over to his place. As the magical world of Bladehammer came into view and he took on the form of the orc warlord, Tryon the Tyrannical, he felt better than he had in days…better than he had since the night with Dana and Kim anyway. He stomped his way down the dirt path toward the tavern to meet Riley.

  9

  Now That’s A Knife

  Troy finally felt good when the sun came up after his bowels had completely emptied themselves. He swore off Thai food and doused the flames in his gut with a couple of fresh ice-cold Coronas he’d grabbed from the 7-11 last night. The gentle rocking of his boat wasn’t as comforting as usual, but it wasn’t quite enough to upset his tender belly. The warmth of the day on his skin made him feel so good, he decided he might just hang out on the deck doin’ nothin’ all day. But a distant rumble and a dark mass on the horizon told him that the fishin’ had to get done before the storm came.

  He tugged on the ropes attached to his lobster traps, but then hesitated. The last time he pulled them up, they’d had two severed heads in them. Slowly, he dragged the cages out of the water and thankfully, they didn’t have any body parts in them, but they didn’t have any lobsters either.

  “Dangit,” he muttered.

  Another rumbled sounded and a cool breeze hit him. He figured the storm might bring a few schools of red drums from down south. If he was lucky, he could grab a few big ones before the squall came.

  He ambled down below, grabbed a couple of his reels, dragged a bait bucket out and tossed a few minnows in. As he took the steps up, a horn blared startling him. He almost fell back down, but managed to save himself. His bucket of minnows toppled over and the squirming fish flopped around on the hardwood floor. The horn blared again as he grabbed the bait and tossed them back into his bucket.

  “Alright, alright,” he called out and hopped up the ladder. “Hold yer horses, I’m comin’ as fast as I can.”

  As his head poked out, he saw a smaller fishing boat sidled up against his. A man in a tie-dyed bandana was holding on to the other boat’s rail smiling broadly across the closing gap between them. Jamaica Jack’s yellowed teeth opened in a laugh.

  “Brother, you look like a hammered sack o’ shit,” he bellowed.

  “Thanks,” Troy shrugged. “Had some bad Thai food last night.”

  “All Thai food is bad,” Jack, shirtless and leathery, laughed as he said it. “You look a little green in the gills, my friend. I hope you ain’t too sick to get a little fishin’ in.”

  Troy held up the bucket and his rods.

  “Perfect.” He waved Troy over. “Drop yer anchor and let’s head out. Got a guy who’ll pay a ton of money for a swordy.”

  “Swordy?”

  “Swordfish. Wants it for his mantle. Offering big bucks. I’ll split it with ya if we get one big enough. We can toss out your lines to
o.”

  Troy shrugged. He handed Jack his rods and his bait bucket. He tugged his anchor to make sure it was secure and glanced out at the horizon.

  Jack saw him look and said, “Not to worry. We’ll be back long before that storm gets here. C’mon, time’s a waistin’.”

  “You got any beer over there?”

  Jamaica Jack nodded his head. “Yup. Bought some of those sissy beers you like to drink.”

  Troy smiled and took the man’s hand as he hopped over. As he landed, Jack was already handing him an open Corona. He took a long sip. Much better, he thought.

  “Hold tight,” Jack strode back toward the wheel as he said it.

  In seconds, they were planed up and flying out toward deeper water.

  Half an hour later they had a line down and were cruising. Jack was behind the wheel with a beer in his hand and humming along with some sort of island music Troy didn’t recognize. He had his shirt off and his hard, round belly looked like a dark brown basketball sitting in his lap. After a time, he took one hand off the wheel and swiped away the copious amounts of sweat forming on his chest.

  Without preamble or so much as small talk, Jack grinned at him. “So? What did they look like? Perky? Petite? Softballs?”

  “What in dang hell are you talkin’ about, Jack?”

  “Aw, don’t gimme that.” He formed his hands into two cups and mimed a squeezing motion. “You know. The boobies. The PI. Didja get a look at them boobies?”

  “Jack, you are a dadgum hoot. No, I did not get a look at her…her chest.”

  “Well, shit, man. What the hell you waitin’ on?” Jack slapped his hands back on the wheel and shook his head. “I mean, you gotta strike while the irons are hot, bro.”

  Troy didn’t say anything; he just smiled and took a sip of his beer.

  “Wait.” Jack jerked his head around and squinted his eyes at him. “You don’t like other dudes…do you? I mean, it’s all good if you do. I just didn’t figure you for that. Hell, I don’t mind tellin’ you straight up, that fella Matthew McConaughey’s a right good lookin’ fella. But I don’t swing that way…just sayin’.”