Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem by Jonathan Woods Read Free Book Online

floor next to Tony’s body. Next to the pearl-handled .22-caliber revolver with the initials A.M. engraved on a silver inset.
    The photo was of two men, naked.
    One of them was Tony.
    You get the rest.
    Screams echoed in my head. They were mine.
    From out of pitch darkness, streaks of light lashed across my retinas. I opened my eyes. I was back in the present. Naked. On the beach to one side of the shoebox house. The sea breeze whipped my hair across my face. My hands bound in loops of rough sisal held aloft above my head, the rope looped over a tree branch and tied off somewhere behind me. My toes barely touched the sand.
    A blond Aryan type with deeply tanned wind-scoured skin stood in front of me, hands on hips, watery blue eyes feasting on my nakedness: von Richter for sure. Behind him, Poe sat in a deckchair, his feet propped on a canvas valise as fat as a pregnant sow.
    “What are we to do with you?” queried von Richter. “In other circumstances, I’m sure we could find some piquant diversions to pass the time. But your presence here puts everything in jeopardy. No doubt your friend Ariel is using every available resource to hunt you down.”
    He reached out his veiny hand and touched my left nipple. It hardened like a pink tessera. It was impossible to avoid his caress.
    “Is that the four million dollars?” I asked, flicking my eyes in the direct of Poe and the canvas bag.
    “How very astute.”
    “So it was you who murdered Tony,” I said.
    “Me?” von Richter laughed with genuine glee. “Did you hear that Poe? The little bitch thinks I killed her lover.”
    Poe just looked nervous. “I’ll get the truck,” he said. “We need to go quickly.”
    He pushed himself up out of the chair and, gripping the satchel, walked toward the Shogun.
    “Yes, of course,” said von Richter, his voice drifting on the wind gusts off the ocean. When his eyes focused on mine, they were as cold as a January morning on the Baltic Sea. “You must look deeper inside yourself to unlock the riddle of Tony the Microbe’s murder.”
    That’s when I remembered the razor in my blood-covered hands.
    The explosion of a high-powered rifle split the afternoon into a million fragments. My eyes darted in the direction of the SUV in time to see Poe flail backward, then fall like a felled trunk of a mahogany tree.
    von Richter curled into a crouch, a large ugly pistol suddenly in his hand. He lurched behind me, one arm wrapped across my belly. My flesh crawled. I felt the twelve below zero muzzle of von Richter’s weapon against my head.
    “Give it up, von Richter!” boomed an amplified voice. “There’s no way out.”
    The thup-thup-thup of a helicopter filled the sky. I was afraid von Richter would pull the trigger in a panic, blowing my brains to kingdom come on a perfectly nice afternoon in the tropics.
    But suddenly he burst away, running low and fast toward the seaward edge of the beach, zigzagging to avoid the sharpshooter’s methodical sweep. His thin wiry physique sliced into the surf. Then he was through the tumbling spume and cutting across the billowing surface of the briny deep with a powerful Australian crawl, heading for one of the outlying mangrove cayes.
    No further shots rang out.
    The rhythmic thumping of the copter became the entire world. Sand swirled, stinging like tattoo needles against my skin. When the tumult of the helicopter’s landing subsided, I opened my eyes to see Ariel and two of his camouflage-bedecked minions coming toward me. One of the latter used a Bowie knife to release me from bondage, while the other retrieved the valise from where it had fallen from Poe’s grip.
    Ariel threw an oversized military shirt across my shoulders. Buttoned, it hung to my knees.
    In no time we were airborne: Ariel, me, the pilot, his two troopers and the satchel containing US$4 million.
    I looked at Ariel. His face was as empty of emotion as a cigar-store Indian molested by stray dogs.
    “What about von