Cooler Than Blood
Authors: Robert Lane
Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Private Investigator
Also by Robert Lane
The Second Letter
Copyright © 2014 Robert Lane
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0692223932
ISBN 13: 9780692223932
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014909532
Mason Alley Publishing, St. Pete Beach, Fl
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, localities, businesses, companies, organizations and events is entirely coincidental.
For my parents.
No two finer people ever walked together.
“The main trouble with being an honest man was that it lost you all your illusions.”
—James Jones,
From Here to Eternity
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
B
illy Ray Coleman had never fucked a girl in Florida, and that was going to end tonight.
In Kentucky, he had lured one behind a Stuckey’s, and things had gotten a little dicey, the little Asian bitch clawing like a feral cat until he finally shut her down. In Tennessee, he pulled off at Jellico just over the state line and befriended the redhead at the Arby’s not more than a few blocks from the interstate. It was okay, but it wasn’t the rush he’d gotten from his final act on Sally Wong, as he affectionately called the Stuckey’s girl.
In Georgia, he started to panic when he was running out of boiled peanut signs without having met his objective.
What a long-ass state
, he thought.
Didn’t some bumfuck burn it during that war? What was his name? Whatever. Didn’t do a very good job, did he?
He pulled his 2000 two-door Honda Accord with $284,000 stuffed in the trunk off at the West Hill Avenue exit in Valdosta. He knew that if he went any farther, he’d have to do a U-turn and suffer the whole damn state again. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. He found her at a fast-food joint less than a mile from the interchange. She said no. He dragged her behind some self-storage units, although he had to work hard to find an area that wasn’t covered by security lights. When he pulled out, a pothole the size of a West Virginia strip mine nearly claimed the front end of the Honda.
Billy Ray figured that his brothers, once they saw that Junior and the cash were gone, would hightail it after him. He also knew he’d head for Fort Myers Beach, same haunt they’d always gone to. No big deal. By the time they arrived, his grand slam would be over, and he planned to floor it out of the state. Might even take a Florida girl with him.
There’s a thought. I’ll get me a Florida girl. Like you see in those magazines.
Billy Ray was torqued.
Nail me a magazine girl
.
His right hand came up and rubbed his temple, and he shook his head as if he were trying to get water out of his ears. Billy Ray’s head was like a radio station in which the DJ had taken a long piss break, and two car ads were running over a song.
Just north of Sarasota, he pulled in for gas. He spotted a blonde with wide white sunglasses. Her breasts, like horizontal tent poles, pushed her thin tank top out so far that the bottom of it hung around her waist without touching her stomach. Billy Ray swore he saw the fabric move in the breeze that lifted off the hot blacktop, as if a stovetop burner had been left on. He hesitated. He rubbed his head. His hand came away covered with sweat.
No way, José. I’m hittin’ the beach. Get a plan—work the plan. Yes, sirree. Pity. Sunglasses will never know what she missed—a real national tragedy.
Ninety minutes later, he crested the Matanzas Bridge to Fort Myers Beach and took a hard right. Billy Ray checked into the same motel he and his brothers had always used, but he didn’t go to his room. He tossed his shirt into the Honda and set out to hike the seven-mile beach. The sun fried his Irish-white skin as if he were a solitary egg in a black iron skillet suspended over a bonfire.
He spotted the girl from a good hundred feet away. She had straight brown hair and a brilliant blue bathing suit with sparkles. She looked better with every step. The woman by her side, in a white two-piece, was up for consideration as well but was probably knocking on forty. Billy Ray stopped and chatted with them. Introduced himself—super proud about that. It wasn’t easy with Tom Petty beating the living shit out of his head. “Jenny Spencer,” Sparkles replied. The older one didn’t give her name, just gave him that look he was accustomed to receiving. Screw that. He moved on.
Jenny Spencer
, Billy Ray thought.
Now there’s a fine name for my first Florida fling. And that smile. That’s magazine material.
Oh, my head. My goddamned screaming head
. He slapped his head. He downed a couple of beers at a beach bar, where the bartender gave him some lotion and advised him to stay clear of the sun. He emptied the remains of the bottle into both hands and slopped it over his body. He kept his eyes on the girls on the beach. When they got up to leave, he stayed well behind.
They walked a few blocks, and Billy Ray noted the house they entered. He knew he had a few hours until dark, so he trudged back up the beach. At sunset, he drove his Honda down Estero Boulevard and parked in a public lot large enough to accommodate only a few cars. He watched the house. Billy Ray planned to wait until total darkness to yank magazine girl out. He wasn’t sure what his plans were for the older girl, nor did it matter, for Jenny emerged on her own. She headed toward the beach. Billy Ray followed.
They met at an edge of mangroves just beyond where an inlet forced walkers to forgo the coastline and track on higher land. She wasn’t difficult to follow, as she carried a small flashlight.
Jenny stepped hesitantly onto the sand. She picked her way through the mangrove roots that poked through the mashed-potato surface and threatened to impale her feet. Stray sticks littered the ground. She came upon a deserted orange towel and figured someone had either forgotten it or had discarded it for a nighttime stroll. She reached a clearing and spotted Billy Ray as he waded out of a tidal puddle.
“Hey, there. Remember me?” he said.
“No, I’m new…Oh, yeah, sure, from this afternoon. Billy…Billy…”
“Ray.”
“That’s right.”
“Nice out here at night, isn’t it, Jenny?” They stood within four feet of each other.
“Can you believe how warm it still is? Is it like this in Georgia?” She felt an odd twinge, like low volts going through her, over his casual mention of her name.
“Georgia?”
“Isn’t that where you said you were from?”
“Oh, yeah. It can be hot up there. Sherman! Yeah, that’s his name.”
“Who?”
“Nothin’. What are you doing?”
“Looking for turtles. My aunt says they come up this far.” Jenny shone the light around the sand.
“That was your aunt? Whoa, she’s hot too.” Billy Ray slapped his head.
She’s hot too?
Jenny thought.
Did he just slap his head?
Her body stiffened. She flashed her light into his face and took a step back. His red hair was dull compared to his blazed skin. Lotion smeared his face. And his eyes—they looked like he had no idea where he was.
“Ooooh, girl. Get that light out of my eyes.”
“My aunt’s a little behind me,” Jenny said, but it came out in a different voice.
“No, she ain’t, magazine girl. I saw her drive away earlier.”
Jenny hesitated.
He watched us? Should I run?
But what she would have eventually decided to do was of no consequence, as he was upon her and tugging at her cheer shirt.
Jenny screamed. Billy Ray threw a roundhouse that deadened her. He stripped off his shirt and shorts and shredded her shorts and panties. His hands groped her left breast, and his mouth found her right breast. He bit hard. She shrieked.
“Don’t make a ruckus, or I’ll do it again. You understand? We’re going to have us a good time. I got enough cash in my car to last us years. Just a block away is two hundred eighty-four thousand big ones, baby. Ain’t nothing wrong with us doing a little traveling, is there? Ooooh…what a fine trophy. They never going to believe I got me something like this.”
Jenny frantically tried to fight back into the game. She attempted to roll over, but Billy Ray’s left fist found her forehead and knocked her mind half out of her head. Jenny felt herself shut down and ignored her body like a rock ignores a crashing wave.
He can’t hurt me.
Billy Ray pushed himself up with his hands, his knees digging into the sand between Jenny’s parted legs. “Hell-ooo, Flor-ee-da. Uncle Billy finally enters the Sunshine—”
Jenny reached out. Her hand found a stick.