Trafficked!

By J.W. Boynton

Follow Steve Bliss on his desperate quest to save his beautiful kidnapped girlfriend from human traffickers, before she disappears into their seedy underworld. Amazingly, clueless Bliss brings a comedic touch to this serious subject.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483424170

Book preview

Boynton

Copyright © 2014 J.W. Boynton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Trafficked! is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue and places portrayed in this book are the products of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.

Cover design by Kerry Mara

Author photograph by Mary Ann Boynton

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2418-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2417-0 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 4/10/2015

Contents

Ambition

Temptations

Angel

The Winnie

Heartbreak

Skip Townes

Stake Out

Dinner at Impetigo

Man Hunt

Larry Crooks

Contraband

Taken

Walmart

Missing Misty

Innocent

Captive

Otto Trafficant

Stakeout

The Impetigo

Reporting In

Angel

Reunion

Judge Justiss

Seeking Misty

Lydia

Nocomprende

Misty

Skip and Lydia

Trafficked

Where’s Beef?

Garbage

Case Closed

Legalities

Justiss

Luga

Freedom

Backup

Crooks

Wet Work

Freedom House

Gator Feed

Epilogue

Appendix

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Mary Ann and Matt for their encouragement, insight, editing, and support.

Dedication

Trafficked! is dedicated to the innocent victims of the horrific Human Trafficking scourge afflicting our world; and to those committed professionals and volunteers who work every day to identify and help these victims find freedom and meaningful lives.

Chapter 1

Ambition

I think life is good, but not Misty. She says her life is not enough, something’s missing. She needs more. But what?

Misty Turner is a beautiful girl and a beautiful person. She’s five-foot-five, with thick brown hair that falls down past her shoulders, when she lets it, and a body that you would definitely take notice of in a crowd. She has smooth tanned skin and these sparkling green eyes that grabbed me the first time I walked up to her teller station at the bank back in Massachusetts. Her smile and teeth could be in a tooth paste commercial, except maybe for the space in the front.

She is polite, treats everybody with respect, including herself. She can be shy, but she’s also not afraid to speak her mind and opinions on things she cares about. We have a lot of discussions and arguments, and she usually wins. I can’t really say exactly what love is, but it might be the way I feel about her. The problem is, I’m not sure if she feels that way about me. She kind of keeps her feelings inside. Wish I knew for sure.

Anyway, me and Misty, we’re both thirty-five, and we’ve been together off and on for two years now. I don’t really know what she sees in me. I mean, I’m short, kind of skinny, and nobody ever called me handsome. They say my eyes bug out a little, like Don Knotts or Steve Buschemi, and I’m going bald. Actually, the only hair I have left is on the sides. I hope it hangs on there, but what the heck, Demi Moore fell for Bruce Willis didn’t she?

I was the last of five kids in my family. My parents called me the caboose. Sounds like one of those Indian words. Anyway, they told everybody I was a mistake and my mother should have had her tubes tied, whatever that means. My dad was out of work a lot. He was a bus mechanic for Greyhound and some other companies, but I guess he wasn’t too good at it, because he kept getting fired or laid off. Maybe it was because of his drinking, I’m not sure, but anyway, we had to move around a lot. I didn’t mind that much, but my mother hated it.

We were always short of money. The only ride I had as a kid was my sister’s old, rusted bike. I never went to summer camp, and nobody ever threw a birthday party for me. I wore mostly hand-me-down clothes and there was never much under the tree at Christmas. My friends said they felt sorry for me, but not enough to share any of their presents. Well, actually, my friend Scooter gave me a knit hat one year. He said it was too small for him.

My parents used to fight all the time, and sometimes my father would end up leaving the house for a few days. My mother seemed happier when he was gone, and I was too, because he wasn’t around to slap me on the head like he used to do with his belt buckle. But one day he left and didn’t come back. My mother said he left her and us kids with nothing but bills. I was glad at first, because I hated all the yelling. But then my mother drove me out to my grandparents’ house in this dirty little mill town in Western Massachusetts. When we got there, she put me and a suitcase on the sidewalk in front of the house. She gave me a quick hug and drove off. I never saw her again. I was twelve.

I don’t think Grams and Grampy were too happy about taking me in. They tried, but they were too old to be raising a kid, especially a wise-ass teenager like me. I got mad and yelled at them if they asked me to do anything. Wasn’t much they could do about it. Things were definitely tense around there, especially if I didn’t get my way.

My sisters were all grown up by then, living in different places. They had their own problems I guess, and they didn’t have any time for me. They usually did send me a birthday card though. I loved getting those cards, and I still have them all in an old shoe box.

Misty says she doesn’t have a father. I mean, she must have one, but she just doesn’t know who he is. Don’t think her mother knows either. She was a dancer who worked at a men’s club in Lynn, Massachusetts, a grimy city outside of Boston. I guess that’s a nice way of saying her mother was a stripper. She must have felt good about her job though, because she named Misty after one of the other girls at the club, Misty Rain.

Misty had to pretty much take care of herself growing up. You know, wash clothes, clean the apartment, do the dishes, and all the shopping. She says she had to get herself ready for school without making too much noise, because her mother was still in bed in the mornings, sometimes with men she brought home from the club. Guess you gotta do what you gotta do. Misty says she felt neglected, unloved, and angry. She started hanging out with a wild crowd in high school, doing the wrong stuff, like parties, drugs, drinking, and other things she’s not proud of. A high school counselor told her she was acting out to get her mother’s attention.

Misty’s mother moved to upstate New York, married some guy up there, but they split up after a few years. She’s a waitress now in an Italian restaurant in Rochester. Misty checks in with her every once in a while now, but they aren’t close.

So I guess you could say me and Misty are both damaged goods. Even so, we moved on, and now we live on Pine Island in sunny southwest Florida. It’s mostly palm tree farms there, not that many houses or stores. There’s just one supermarket, a bunch of bars, and lots of retirees. It’s quiet here, though. I like not hearing cars, trucks, and ambulances out on the street all the time, like when I was living in that apartment up in Maynard, Massachusetts.

Me and Misty live in a cozy little cottage on Pine Island Sound. It’s only thirty minutes by boat to the Gulf of Mexico. It has a kitchen and a small living room, just big enough for a couch, a chair and a TV. There’s a bathroom and a bedroom in the back with no view, and a porch on the front of the house that looks out on the sound. We watch some beautiful sunsets there after dinner and I spend a lot of time sitting out in my rocking chair when I’m not at work or out fishing.

There’s a few other little houses around us. It’s not a fancy neighborhood at all, just retirees and normal working people. Well, except for Bokeelia at the north end of the island. There are some nice condos there, a marina, and two restaurants. There’s a public dock and a small boatyard right across the street from our place, with these big metal racks for storing boats. They also do repairs there. People that want to visit the islands out in the sound can take the ferry service out of there.

One of the smallest post offices you ever saw sits down the road from us. This old woman, Gertie, runs the place along with her son, Bones. He’s that thin. He does all the mail deliveries, pickups, and maintenance. One of those old rusted silver diners sits nearby. It looks like it’s been there a long time and it’s popular. We like the owner/cook, Bart. He always has something to say to you through the kitchen window while he’s cooking. His food is pretty good and the price is right.

There is a steep hill right behind our cottage. You don’t see many hills on Pine Island, but this one is special, because it’s made out of shells. They say the Calusa Indians used to live there a thousand years ago. I guess they would dig up clams and oysters to eat, and then throw the shells on the pile. The pile got so big they moved their village to the top of it! That must have been a good place to be when hurricanes and tsunamis hit! These days, tourists come by to visit the little information booth and walk up it.

I work at the Matlacha Marina on the next island over. People park their boats there and you can rent twenty-foot runabouts for fishing and to just cruise around. It’s a small place, but things can get pretty busy in season. Mr. Hull owns the business, but I’m his right hand man. I keep the rental boats clean and fueled, check the renters in and out, and do errands and anything else he wants me to. He’s kind of serious most of the time, but a good guy.

You wouldn’t say I’m that educated. I barely got through high school up in Massachusetts and never even thought about going to college. There’s a lot of schools down here and I decided I would try to learn a few things. So now I’m on my third night course at Cape Coral Junior College. I’m hoping to get a degree there someday, for whatever good it will do me.

My first course was called ESL, I think, something like that anyway. I took it so I would speak better English, have better grammar, but it didn’t work out. The other four people in the class were Mexicans and they all spoke Spanish or Chicano. Then I took a course on comic book super heroes. The one thing I have read is comic books, so it was easy. And now I’m learning about American history. We just finished the part about the Pilgrims and how they sailed over to Massachusetts to get away from the King of England. I don’t know what he was doing, but it was bad enough to force them into that long trip over the ocean, stuffed into little wood sail boats. I doubt I would have done it.

Misty works in the Matlacha Art Gallery, selling these crazy sculptures made of Coke cans, driftwood, old nuts and bolts, and other junk her boss and his artist friends find in dumpsters and junkyards. He also sells these paintings of, well, nothing as far as I can figure out. They’re just paint splashed all around on the paper. I used to do that with my fingers in kindergarten, but nobody ever paid me for it.

Anyway, Misty likes working there, so I guess that’s all that matters. The owner is Otto Trafficant. He is older than us, in his fifties. He has a long, white pony tail, like Steven Segal, but he’s not ripped. It looks like he only shaves every few days, like all those young Hollywood studs, because he always has stubble on his face. He’s a serious man and Misty says he’s the smartest person she ever met. She likes working for him. She says she learns a lot from him and he respects her. Like I don’t?

By the way, Misty doesn’t have to work, and I don’t either, as long as I’m with her. It’s kind of complicated, but it’s about the two million dollars she has in the bank. It’s the money she was going to steal when she was a bank teller up in Massachusetts. She did take it out of the vault, actually, but she gave it back. Before she gave it back, I convinced her to let me invest it with this Russian gangster in the apartment downstairs from me. He told me he could double the money in a drug deal before the bank closed, and he did, except he kept all the profit for himself. Guess I should have known.

Anyway, he gave me the original money back and Misty returned it to the vault on time, but a bank vice president was watching her. She would have lost her job, and maybe worse, but she opened up her blouse and he fondled her. That’s a no-no in the work place. She hired a lawyer, a drunk one right off the street that did it for nothing, and won two million dollars in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the bank.

That Russian asshole wanted his share of it (all), so we decided to take the money and split. Thought we were safe fifteen hundred miles away, but he tracked us down in Ft. Myers. Misty ended up killing him first, with his own vodka bottle. It was a clear case of self-defense, at least that’s what we thought, but the county DA said Misty murdered him. Plus he said I helped her! It took some doing, but we finally got off after I found out the D.A. was in-the-closet gay.

Then Misty almost lost the money again. I convinced her to invest it with this hot shot that turned out to be a scam artist. Baldinado was going to keep it, but he gave it all back after I found some dicey files in his briefcase he didn’t want anybody to see, especially the cops. Leary, Misty’s alcoholic lawyer, came down from Massachusetts to Ft. Myers and put the screws to Baldinado. Made him pay the money back. Leary didn’t kill him, though. The pissed-off wife of this other scam-artist Baldinado screwed on some deal did that by running her SUV over him outside a strip club. As I said, it’s a long story, but things worked out good in the end. Now me and Misty don’t have to work, but we do anyway, because we’d be totally bored if we just did nothing.

So it’s a sunny Sunday morning in March. We were out late bar-hopping in Ft. Myers last night, and me and Misty are sitting on our comfy porch chairs, getting the cobwebs out with this vanilla bean coffee she likes. It’s a little sweet for me, but I drink it anyway.

We’re looking out at Dave Fishman in his blue and white flats boat. It only needs a foot of water to operate, and that’s the best place to find certain fish. It’s a lot like the eighteen-foot flats boat Misty bought me last year after Leary got her money back from Baldinado. Anyway, Dave’s coming down through this narrow little channel in a manatee zone. You have to keep your eye out for those annoying sea cows, because of all the animal-lovers. I don’t know why, but the tourists also love the manatees. Far as I can tell, all those fat slugs do is float around in the warmest bath water they can find, munch on sea grass, fart out air bubbles, and make babies. They don’t even make good eating, or so I’m told. They’re useless, but you can get fined big-time for nicking one with your boat prop or bothering them in any other way. Like this one guy that had a few too many one night: they caught him shooting an air gun at the manatees over by the power plant in North Ft. Myers. Don’t know if he hit any, but they say he ended up in jail for thirty days.

As we watch Dave come idling in, I’m wondering about how his fishing day went, but Misty’s thinking about something else.

Steve, she says, I was thinking about the manatees.

Yeah?

Well, we’re a lot like them.

Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one.

Well, you know, they live fat and happy, just grazing slowly through the water, not doing much. It’s an easy life, but what do they ever accomplish?

Not much, but what’s that got to do with us?

"Well, we get up in the morning, drink coffee, go to work, come home, eat, drink, go fishing,