Dead Girl Beach (8 page)

The lumpy Louis Vuitton handbag lay just inside the opening of the tent. Greta reached inside to check on the Berretta on top of the pile of junk in the bag, where she'd told that useless bum husband of hers to put it. She had to admit that Parry was a screw-up for forgetting something as important as the goggles. T
he damn goggles, for Pete's sake. Can you imagine that
? She found herself muttering.
How could he forget them?
Time was racing by, and she needed to get the job done on the girl…and Parry, Parry, Parry—that bastard Parry was screwing up everything by forgetting the goggles.
He's as useless as balls on a heifer
, she thought as she ducked back outside. Still fuming, she stared across to make sure her hostage hadn't tried anything funny, like trying to escape when she turned her back for a second.

Greta had killed five women on Dead Girl Beach, but there was another woman not included in that body count—Elizabeth Liu, her secretary at Langer Enterprises Limited in Bangkok. Elizabeth Liu had a boyfriend, she remembered. A gangling, twenty-something shiftless bum with no future who lived off the salary Greta paid her. There toward the end, Elizabeth was lax in her job and started showing up late with the smell of late night sex reeking from the pores of her tall, slim body. She staged the whole thing and remembered how it all worked out—perfectly.

Elizabeth was on her way home after work. A dark night with no one around, and no dogs barking in the alley. Nothing moving except for Greta's old, beat-up Nissan. Greta sped up in the alley behind Elizabeth. She gunned the engine, drove over her, and watched in the rear view mirror as the body rolled under the tires and bounced…
thump, thump, thump
…beneath the undercarriage before it came out behind—battered, broken, and dead. That's what happened to Elizabeth Liu. Greta dumped the car in a mango swamp far out of Bangkok after finishing it.

Shortly after Elizabeth's death, Greta hired Lawan Songsiri. Something about the girl smacked of efficiency…and she didn't have a boyfriend. Greta was aware of what she was doing late at night on the streets of Bangkok, turning a few tricks and looking classy at the same time. Lawan wasn't like the drug-riddled prostitutes hanging out all over the city. She targeted businessmen from swank, upscale hotel bars along Sukhumvit Road, between Nana Plaza and the Asoke Street Junction. She knew what she was doing.

Now, Greta finished the beer she'd brought over, crushed a sandaled foot down on the can, buried it in the sand, and sat down on the mat next to Suma. In the firelight, the darkness concealed half of Greta's face; light exposed the other half of her face. The part exposed to the light showed a lean, tapered cheekbone near a flared nostril, a bulbous, blue eye, and waxy strands of blonde hair brushed back and tied in a severe ponytail. She stared down at Suma with a changed expression. No longer hostile, but strangely calm and reflective.

“Most of the time, I don't mind.” Greta chuckled. “You just have to know Parry. He and I go back a long way. I married him on a ranch in East Texas. We never had kids. I got cysts on my ovaries and had to have them removed. I ended up sterile.” She looked at Suma's tummy. “I bet you ain't sterile, are you?”

She touched Suma's leg an inch below the hem of her red glitter mini.
This girl…she's plain…but I'll take ‘em plain just as well as beautiful
, she said to herself as Suma moved away. Greta chuckled and removed her hand. Her foul mood gone now, like a vanished smile.

“I bet you can make a lot of babies,” she said. “Up there, inside your womb. It's a special gift a woman has. I call it a baby-maker. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. She tapped a finger to her heart. “I feel it sometimes—right here—every time I think about not being a real woman.” She stared off, and her eyes looked dark and distant. “Maybe, that's why I'm as mean and ornery as a man.”

Greta turned back and went on. She felt trapped under a spell of pent-up emotion, and this seemed the time—
yes, why not?
—to release it. “I thought I'd have a lot of kids,” she said. “Shucks, a whole, big Texas family. Tall, blonde-haired athletes like me. I won the hundred meters in high school and was captain of the track team. Parry was a part-time track coach, then. We married right after I graduated from high school, back in Kilgore, Texas. Home of the mighty Bulldogs.
Ruff! Ruff! Growl!”
She made a bulldog face. “We were pretty good, too…won championships while I was there.”

She paused before continuing. “People started to gossip right away, wondering if Parry and I were doing it while I was still one of his students. Well, let me tell you. We made love like jackrabbits every time we got the chance. My foster mother went out of her mind trying to control me. She never stood a chance. That was over twenty years ago.” Her eyes wandered off dreamily into space. “The time…it just seems to fly by.”

She turned back and looked at Suma. The thought that Suma was barely listening changed her mood. Greta leaned in close. She looked at Suma. A grim smile compressed her lips into a thin, straight line. “I can see it all over your face,” she said. “Up there, locked inside that silly head of yours. Thinking, ‘I need to get away…but how, how?' Well, let me tell you. It wouldn't be wise.”

Suma swallowed hard, terrified by this harsh, overbearing woman. Her own temper and penchant for anger now held in check. “I don't understand why you won't let me go. I'm not Lawan—or whoever this person is.” A little, white lie to protect her sister. Suma hesitated and went on, “I don't know why I'm here…honestly, I don't.”

“Nice little act.”

“It's not an act.”

“Watch that mouth. In case you haven't noticed, there's no one around to help you.” Greta pointed at Suma's injured arm. “You want a repeat performance…huh?” Suma shrank back from the harsh edge in Greta's voice. “I'd say you're up a creek without a paddle,” Greta said. “Back home in Texas, we use that expression a lot. Here's a solid fact. The nearest inhabitants on the island are Full Moon party animals partying down the coast. They're far enough away, so there's nobody here to stop me if I start in on you, again—which could happen any time. Just remember that.”

In a sudden change of mood, Greta had escaped the plains of East Texas and switched topics as easily as she took her next breath. “Do you know what that place is…that bar? Well…do you?”

“Yes,” Suma said, deciding to play along with her.

“That bar—it's a stinking cesspool. That's what it is.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

A corner of Greta's mouth turned up in a faint smile. “Then, you stole the money?”

“Uh…yes.”

“You stole the money, or you didn't. Which is it?” Greta looked at her. “Don't play me.”

“I stole it.”

“Okay,” Greta said. “I get the money, you can go. Where is it?”

“With my brother, Arun.”

Greta shook her head. “That jailbird loser!” She laughed out loud. “Your brother's a bum. Why would you go trusting a bum like that…with money you stole from us?”

Suma said nothing.

“Okay. Where's Arun?”

In a wild instant, Suma felt brave once again. “Not so fast. It was lottery money—$200,000—that Arun won legally. Don't call him a bum, either. He's my brother.”

Greta ignored the remark. In the firelight, her face twisted into a look of confusion. “Lottery money. What are you talking about? I'm talking about money you stole from my office up in Bangkok. After all I've done for you, this is how you show your gratitude? Ransack my safe and then shag that little ass of yours down here, never thinking I'd find you. Forget about the lottery money. Where's the money you stole from my office?”

Suma's heart raced. A lump lodged in her throat. She was getting in deeper and deeper with the play-acting, like a liar trying to cover up lies.

Greta's raw, red skin bristled in the firelight. “Where's the money? It better be good, too.” She stared at Suma's arm. “While you're at it, watch that smart mouth, unless you want more of what you got before. Only this time, I'll rip your heart out and make you eat it right here on this beach if I have to.”

“Okay. Okay. The money's back at my cabin,” Suma said.

Greta stood thinking, her eyes skittering from side-to-side.

“Okay, when Parry gets back, we'll go over and get the money.”

“Then, you let me go. Is that the plan?”

“Sounds good to me,” Greta lied. The girl wasn't going anywhere. She'd kill her and get the money off Arun.

Greta walked her over to the fire. Tiny, spade-shaped flames licked around the edges of a pile of burning embers. Greta lowered a pile of bamboo shoots onto the flames, fanned them, and watched the fire leap higher. At the same time, she saw something move. She caught it out of the corner of her eye. She looked up. The man with the porkpie hat had come up to the fire, pointing the Beretta Tomcat at them.

“Now!” he shouted. “Both of you, down on the ground.”

Away from the fire, Bram Beckers swished the gun back and forth at them. Greta and Suma moved onto the mat and sat down. Becker—a gone-to-seed, ex-Belgian military commando from Brussels—pulled the porkpie hat off his head and wiped his forehead on the back of his arm. He was thirsty.

He motioned Greta over to the cooler and back, told her to open the bottle, and gulped the water down in a long chug-a-lug, keeping one eye pinned on the women. He was tired and thirsty from walking on the beach and waiting in the woods, spying on them from inside the trees and waiting for the right moment to strike.

He had found them quarreling. The Thai girl was getting the worst of it, pushed and shoved backward on the beach. Then, the blonde woman raked a claw down the girl's arm, leaving a splatter of blood. He had heard her mournful cry from inside the trees and waited. He watched and waited patiently for a while as animals moved through the thick underbrush. He saw the wide, bulky figure of Parry Langer arguing with his wife and heard him cursing. Then, Parry tramped down the beach toward the outboard, still cursing, and Bram had seen him go off somewhere into the night.

He'd seen all of it. While the women huddled in the shadows of the fire, he made his move. Bent over in a military crouch and staying low, he crept from the forest down toward the edge of the lagoon. Then, he doubled back and came up the beach behind them with the flames of the roaring fire concealing his approach. It was a move he'd learned from commando training years ago, and like the good ex-soldier that he was, he executed it to perfection.

Guzzling water a second time, Beckers saw Greta Langer's quick, abrupt movement. “Don't make big surprise.” He swung around. He leveled the gun on her and threatened to pull the trigger.

Greta held a hand up. “Back off, fat boy.”

She seemed unafraid of the gun. Instead, she went into the front pocket of her denim cutoffs. She brought out Marlboros in a crushproof, metal box. “Cigarette,” she said dragging one out and torching the end with her Bic lighter. “I need one.”

When she offered him one, he said,” Don't fuck around, lady. I need to know one thing. You tell me one thing honestly, and then I let you go.”

Greta looked at Suma and then back at him. “What's that?” she sneered. A stream of smoke curled back over her shoulder.

Suma watched them, hunched over, her body shaking.

Beckers moved the Tomcat closer to Greta. “Don't play game. You know.”

“No, I don't know. Enlighten me.”

“You know about lottery money. It was owed to my client but given by mistake to your husband, Parry Langer. You know the money I talk about? I am here to collect it now, yah.”

Greta gave him a repulsive look and stepped back away from the gun. Suma sat up straight on the mat, watching them, stone silent.

“I don't know anything about any lottery money,” Greta said. “What do I look like, a fortune cookie?”

“Funny.” Beckers waved the gun. “That money should have gone to my client instead of Parry Langer.”

“Yeah, you said that already.” Greta looked straight at him. “If it's that important, take it up with Parry Langer.”

She hit a high note on Parry Langer in a sly attempt to ridicule the stilted Belgian. “How long before he comes back?” Beckers ignored her chuckle. “I can't wait all night.”

 “You know Parry. It could be a half-hour or into next week. That's just the way he is.”

“Yah, Yah. Then, we wait.”

The Belgian wanted coffee. Greta got him a can of Diet Coke out of the cooler, instead.

“Here.” She handed it over. “Looks like you need to keep your weight down.”

Beckers swung his eyes onto the girl silent for a long time on the blanket.

“She always like this with the smart mouth?” he asked Suma. Suma kept quiet.

Greta's eyes leveled on her.

“Tell him no she's not,” Greta said. She squatted down and sat on the mat next to Suma. “Tell him she only acts like this when a faggot creeps up on her with a gun.”

Furious, Beckers waved her to her feet. On the way up, Greta grabbed a handful of sand and tossed it into his eyes. Then, she kicked him in the testicles. Beckers sank to his knees, and the gun went flying out of his hands. Greta picked it up and pulled the trigger—two, three, four times.

She stitched a red Christmas tree pattern across Beckers's chest and watched him go over onto his back. The porkpie hat spun off his bald head and blew back into the shadows beyond the fire. The gun still in her hand, Greta glanced across at Suma, shouting, “Come on. We gotta get this pile of shit out of here.”