Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach

by Colin Cotterill

  Chompu pressed the phone to his ear and coughed.

  “Hello, Jimm? It’s me. Can you hear me?… Yes, of course I got that Blue Streak DVD you asked for. But that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve got good news. I broke into rug-head’s house like we planned.”

  The knife lifted a few centimeters, as did Chompu’s pitch.

  “I mean, Lieutenant Egg’s place … That’s right. You remember where it is?… Third building after the hospital turn-off. Set back from the road. I’ve been looking around, and I found something you’d really want to see … Yes … Yes … That’s correct. Can you get here soon? It’s really urgent … Where are you?… OK. It should take you thirty minutes to get here then. Ring the doorbell. I’ll come down and let you in … Right. I love you too.”

  He handed Egg the phone.

  “You know?” said Egg. “You really are a little girly. You’re a coward. I don’t know who you twiddled with to get into our man’s police force, or how the hell you got to the rank you are, but I’m ashamed to be wearing the same uniform as you.”

  “May I speak?” Chompu asked.

  They all laughed.

  “She’s so polite,” said Socrates.

  “What?” asked Egg, drawing the knife face across Chompu’s skin.

  “You might have to put off killing me. She’s going to call again when she arrives on the street. If she doesn’t hear me, she won’t come in.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Egg. “There are so many better ways to kill time than just doing away with you. That’s far too quick.”

  He leaned over and punched Chompu in the face three times with all his might. The third blow broke the lieutenant’s nose. Chompu didn’t make a sound and didn’t take his eyes off his attacker.

  * * *

  Sissi and Mair were interrupted by the wind-chime version of “Mamma Mia.”

  “What’s that?” Sissi asked.

  “It’s Jimm’s cell phone.”

  Sissi burrowed into her bag.

  “Why’s it in there?” Mair asked.

  “Jimm thought she’d be out of cell-phone range soon so she left it with me to coordinate the ground troops. Do you know someone called Lieu?”

  The name on the screen didn’t mean anything to either of them. Sissi set the phone to speaker.

  “Jimm’s phone,” she said.

  “Hello, Jimm? It’s me.”

  “Who’s me?”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, but you don’t seem to be hearing me. I’m not Jimm. I’m—”

  “Yes, of course I got that Blue Streak DVD you asked for. But that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve got good news. I broke into rug-head’s house like we planned.”

  “It sounds like Chompu,” whispered Mair.

  “The gay cop?” asked Sissi. “Jimm said he’d be checking out that other lieutenant’s house.”

  “I mean, Lieutenant Egg’s place,” Chompu continued.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” Sissi asked.

  “That’s right. You remember where it is?”

  “No.”

  “Third building after the hospital turn-off. Set back from the road. I’ve been looking around, and I found something you’d really want to see.”

  “Is somebody there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. That’s why you can’t talk. Is the DVD relevant?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many of them are there? One … two … three?”

  “That’s correct. Can you get here soon? It’s really urgent.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the Internet shop in Pak Nam.”

  “OK. It should take you thirty minutes to get here then. Ring the doorbell. I’ll come down and let you in.”

  “Listen. Tell them I’m going to phone you again in twenty-five minutes just to make sure it’s safe. That should keep you alive a little while longer.”

  “Right. I love you too.”

  “You should be so lucky.”

  Sissi turned off the phone and stared at her mother.

  “It sounds serious.”

  “He’s in trouble,” Mair agreed. “Does the DVD mean anything to you?”

  “Blue Streak. It was a Martin Lawrence movie. He impersonates a police officer.”

  “So, we should call the real police?”

  “Except we don’t know who it is who’s impersonating a police officer, Mair. He might be at the police station. It might be a warning to stay away from the police. I’ll have to do this myself.”

  “You certainly will not.”

  “Not what?”

  “Do this by yourself. I’m not about to lose all my children and my father in one evening.”

  “It’ll be dangerous.”

  “Have I not told you about the time I used a chair to beat off a knife-wielding drug addict?”

  “You were younger then.”

  “It was last October.”

  “Even so.”

  “You are not going alone.”

  “All right. All right. But let’s think about this. There are three of them. They’re probably armed.”

  “Chompu’s in an upstairs room.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He said he’d come down to let us in.”

  “Well spotted. How long would it take us to get to the house from here?”

  “No more than five minutes.”

  “Then why did he say…? OK. We need to come up with something soon. They’ll be expecting Jimm in half an hour. If we can get there earlier, it should catch them by surprise.”

  “This is fun, isn’t it?”

  The spotty shop owner was staring open-mouthed at the discussion before him.

  “You,” said Sissi.

  “Me?” said Spotty.

  “You’re in charge here.”

  “I am?”

  He seemed delighted. Sissi explained the set-up and the ongoing maintenance. There was an external block he needed to keep an eye on to see if anyone was trying to hack into the system to shut down the site. There was also a back-up site if anything went wrong. Everything was explained in some alien nerd language and understood. Mair looked on, impressed at how wonderful her eldest son had turned out.

  * * *

  Piper Porterfield was sitting in her office at Hope for Myanmar, playing spider solitaire on her laptop. Hers was a hardship posting, and she missed decent wine bars and civilized Western culture. Mae Hon Song was a bustling northern town, but it was so rural. It didn’t even have an English-language cinema or a deli worth its salt. She invariably delayed going home to sit in her uncomfortable living room beneath a ceiling dotted with lizards and the eerie sounds of God-knew-what insects buzzing in the trees outside. Only seven months to go before a return to civilization.

  A chat box flashed in the corner of her screen. It was Pao. Pao had gone home at six but was still online doing her office management work.

  Have you seen this? was the message, together with a Web address: www.gulfslaverhunt.co.org

  Pao was into computer games. Piper was just about to dump the site, along with all the other annoying spam the girl sent her. But boredom made her cut and paste and click.

  A scene appeared on the screen. The picture wasn’t that clear. There were little pixel accidents here and there. But it was obviously a seascape looking out to the horizon. The dots of boats far away. And there was a voice-over that seemed somehow familiar.

  JIMM: (OFF-CAMERA) We should be within eyesight of the three slaver ships in under half an hour. Under cover of darkness, our chances of sneaking up undetected are increased. The large boats will have their bright lights trained downward to attract the squid, and they shouldn’t be expecting visitors. We’ve been trying to gather reinforcements. Captain Kow has been on the radio for an hour. But the karaoke finals are coming up soon, and it seems like the lives of Burmese take a back seat to those luxury consumer goods prizes.

/>   Piper looked first at the counter on the top of the screen. If it was to be believed, almost half a million people had entered this site at some time during the evening. A logo indicated that what she was watching was concurrently live on YouTube. There was a button, bottom left, that apparently led to Slaver Hunt Home. She clicked it. She was taken to an unspectacular homepage, which explained that Jimm Juree and her small band of heroes had set out at four this afternoon to rescue seventeen kidnapped Burmese from three slave ships. The Burmese were under armed guard. Jimm and her crew had just the one weapon. They were alone in the Gulf, a lawless no-man’s-land. The odds were considerably against them. Et cetera.

  To one side was a column of times. By clicking any time, you could see a replay of what had happened then. Important moments were tagged with a skull and crossbones. The whole thing looked as if it had been put together in a hurry. The artwork was shoddy. But it all did the job. The girl, Jimm, leaned a little too heavily on clichés and drama, and her English accent needed work, but there was no doubting her determination. The amateur nature of it all made it just that much more credible. This was powerful stuff.

  Piper reached for her telephone.

  Live internet feed. 20:24 P.M. Gulf of Thailand

  (COMPUTER ON NIGHT SCOPE EFFECT)

  JIMM: I’ve just worked out how to switch on the night vision. Sorry about that. In our wake you can see two small boats. One belongs to our hero of the night, Captain Kow, who bravely followed the ferry to meet the slaver ships. Behind him is the captured ferry, driven now by PI Meng, the private detective, who has asked me to point out that he’s prepared to cut his rates twenty percent to customers who have been watching this live feed. He also produces excellent plastic awnings. And there are probably those of you out there wondering why I’m resorting to advertising at such a tense moment. It’s partly because nothing has happened for half an hour, and I’m also feeling under pressure to—

  GRANDAD JAH: (OFF-CAMERA) Jimm!

  (CAMERA SWINGS CLUMSILY TO THE FRONT OF ED’S BOAT, WHERE WE SEE WAEW, BEUNG, AND GRANDAD LOOKING AHEAD THROUGH BINOCULARS.)

  GRANDAD JAH: That’s them.

  (CAMERA SCANS THE HORIZON. ZOOMS IN ON THREE SMALL DIAMONDS OF LIGHT.)

  JIMM: It’s true. That must be them.

  ED: All right. I’m turning side on. The other two boats can stay behind me. If the slavers do look this way, they’ll see just the one squid boat out of its depth. They won’t think too much about us.

  JIMM: Why not?

  ED: Because this is spawning ground. We’re twenty kilometers out of the legal fishing zone. We’re all criminals out here.

  (CLOSE-UP ON JIMM)

  JIMM: And so, our target has been spotted. The clouds have blocked the moon, so it’s like sitting in a velvet glove out here. Soon we will advance on our prey. May the force be with us.

  In a half-empty house you can feel the vibrations of a loud front doorbell.

  “It’s her,” said Ben rat.

  “It’s not her,” said Egg. He was standing at the upstairs window in the front room with the lights off. He had a clear view of the concrete front yard. It was lit by the porch lamp. “It’s a couple of hookers.”

  Ben and Socrates rushed in from their room and joined Egg at the window.

  “Did you two…?” Egg asked.

  “Nah,” said Socrates. He glared at Ben. “You?”

  “No way,” said Ben indignantly. “I don’t need to pay for it.”

  The bell rang again. There was nothing to see in the yard below until one of the hookers took a few steps back out of the shelter of the porch roof. She looked up at the window, and all three men instinctively took half a pace back. Short skirt. Heels. Low-cut top. Peek-a-boo hairstyle. Beautiful smile framed in crimson.

  “I’d give that one,” said Socrates.

  “Me too,” said Ben. “If it was free, of course.”

  Egg turned to look at them.

  “You two do realize this probably isn’t the best time to be thinking about recreation?” he said. “We’re just about to kill a couple of people.”

  “I swear,” said Socrates. “We’ve got a number, but we didn’t call it. Not tonight.”

  A second woman stepped back and waved at the window. If it was possible, she was even sexier than the first. They were both shouting, but the window was double-glazed to keep the air-conditioning in and the traffic sounds out.

  “Maybe one of them’s her,” said Ben. “The Jimm girl.”

  “Come on,” said Egg. “You’ve both seen her. Does she look like either of those two?”

  “Be nice if she did,” said Socrates.

  “Doesn’t look like they are going away,” said Ben. “Lieutenant Egg, that one’s pointing to your bike. She knows you’re a cop.”

  “I’ll have to go talk to them,” said Egg. “We don’t want them hanging around when the girl arrives. You two stay here.”

  Egg scrambled down to the front door. The two hookers were leaning against his bike. They were a lot older than they’d let on. They wai’d sincerely.

  “Get off my bike,” said Egg. “What do you want?”

  Sissi turned to Mair.

  “See, Deang? I told you this was a police bike. I could tell by the number plate.”

  “That’s typical of you, Noy. You love to gloat about being right.”

  “Who’s gloating? I’m just telling you I know a police motorcycle when I see one.”

  “’Cause you been on the back of one often enough.”

  “That’s right. Overreact. Make everything dirty. I can’t make a simple comment anymore without you turning it into a TV drama.”

  “Me? What about you?”

  “Just leave me—”

  “Oi!” shouted Egg. “Shut up. What are you doing here? This is private property.”

  “Oh, really?” said Sissi. “And there we were thinking it was the provincial sports stadium.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, you old whore,” said Egg.

  “Oooo,” said both women.

  “Now aren’t you jumping to conclusions,” said Mair. “What, may I ask, leads you to believe my colleague here is a lady of the night?”

  “Respectable women don’t dress up like you two with skirts up around their arses, and you know it,” said Egg.

  He’d had enough. He took his gun from his holster.

  “Oooo,” said both women.

  “So, not satisfied with insulting us, you’re now going to shoot us,” said Sissi. “That’s police brutality in its extreme.”

  She waved and blew a kiss to the two uniformed men in the upstairs window. The younger waved back.

  “And how would you explain that to the Lions Club?” Mair asked.

  Egg laughed.

  “What connection would two old slags like you have with the Lions Club?”

  “We’re members,” said Mair.

  “The cabaret, more like,” said Egg.

  “Ooo,” said both women.

  “That’s it,” said Sissi, “I’m phoning your superiors.” And she walked to the open door in a huff.

  “Stop right there,” shouted Egg and ran after her. “You’re not going in there.”

  When he reached her, she was directly underneath the porch roof. He grabbed her arm and pointed his pistol at her ear. She spun suddenly and Tasered him on the neck. He dropped like an actual egg from a chicken’s rear end. Mair smiled and walked gaily toward the porch, blowing another kiss to the boys upstairs. Once out of sight from above, she helped Sissi drag the dead weight of Lieutenant Egg into the house.

  “He’ll be out for five minutes,” Sissi whispered and shut the front door. She pulled the plastic flexi cuffs from her handbag and snapped his wrists together behind him. Then she produced a large foam ball, which she inserted into his mouth.

  “I shall have to rethink my own handbag contents,” whispered Mair.

  “Now comes the hard part,” said Sissi. “You up for it?”

&nb
sp; “Let me at ’em.”

  The rat brothers had lost sight of Egg and the hookers. Everything was quiet downstairs.

  “What are they doing down there?” asked Ben.

  “Forgot to bring me X-ray glasses, didn’t I?” said Socrates.

  “No need for—”

  “You boys!” came a woman’s voice from the lower floor.

  “They’re in the house,” said Ben.

  “What’s he doing letting them in?”

  “Perhaps he made … an arrangement.”

  “We’ve got the girl coming in ten minutes. He’s the one who said we didn’t have time for any arrangements.”

  “Boys? Can you hear me?” came the voice again. “I’m a bit lonely down here. Your lieutenant’s entertaining my friend in the front room, and I haven’t got anyone to play with. I don’t suppose one of you could help me out?”

  “I’ll go,” said Ben.

  “No, wait.”

  “I said it first.”

  “No, I mean. This doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m younger. I can—”

  “Listen, stupid. I mean it really doesn’t make sense. Egg’s not going to get frisky when we got hits to take care of. Doesn’t matter how sexy those two are.”

  He walked to the bedroom door.

  “Egg? Egg?” he shouted.

  “He’s on the job,” said Ben.

  “I don’t think so. Listen. You go down first. See if these hookers are really, you know, legit. I’ll creep down after you with the gun. Got it?”

  They walked to the upstairs balcony, and Socrates shouted, “That’s all right, young man. You go. I’ll stay up here and watch … television.”

  Lucky. He’d almost said, “watch the hostage.” It was reassuring when your intellect kicked in at the last minute. Ben took the stairs three at a time. Socrates counted to five, checked that the lady boy was still chained to his bed, and started slowly down the staircase. He paused halfway down. The door to the front room was shut. There were familiar female porn sound-effects coming from beyond it. He went down two more steps and heard “But you’re such a handsome boy” coming from the direction of the kitchen. “Come closer.”

  Socrates grimaced. He was always the damned bridesmaid. Why was it that good fortune always landed on everyone else? Hookers arrive from heaven on a door-to-door relief mission and he misses out. Typical. Well, at least he could perv. He took the last ten stairs on tiptoe and shuffled silently over to the kitchen door. He looked around the jamb expecting to find some form of laying on the kitchen table. But it was empty but for empties. He took in the fridge, the oven, then stretched his neck all the way to the sink unit. He had barely enough time to notice the legs of his partner akimbo on the kitchen floor before some big-arsed electronic python zapped him from behind and the world was soot.