“Sam,” she said, “you’re forgetting something—I’m no longer sixteen.”
He nodded his head slowly. “I haven’t forgotten, “he said. “I’ve watched you grow the past four years from a gangling teen into a beautiful, young woman.” She blushed and lowered her eyes. “But you’re better off staying in Thailand,” he said. “Why don’t you go down to Koh Samui? The island makes for a nice January holiday. The beaches are clean and safe, and the snorkeling is out of this world.”
Her face collapsed into a scowl. “We went there last year and the year before that.”
Seabury’s lips formed a small, round circle. “Oh,” he said, nothing more.
A breeze blew up and stirred leaves in the trees beside the house. He could feel that the conversation was ending and that she wanted to go back inside.
“Of course,” he said, “I’m only offering advice. I’m not the one making the final decision. If it were up to me, I’d definitely say no.”
He saw the start of a subtle smile. Light glinted in her eyes, and on her face was a slight look of superiority. It saddened him to think that she had a clear advantage over all his protests.
“Fair enough,” she said, getting up. She excused herself and went back inside.
After consulting with her parents, Robert and Vanessa Hong, Victoria let Seabury know a half hour later than he’d been overruled, and they’d agreed to let her go. There was nothing more he could do. He’d learned long ago not to interfere in family matters. In private, however, he shook his head in disbelief, astonished that they would allow her to holiday in Laos after he’d warned them about the danger lurking there.
Alone that afternoon, in the dappled sunlight of the backyard, he felt a dark, disturbing premonition spread over him like the shadow of a night-time prowler. He had this strange, numbing feeling that something tragic was about to happen to Victoria Hong.
Chapter Four
Victoria came downstairs and entered the living room wearing sneakers, denim shorts, a white blouse, and a red silk scarf. The sight of the velvety shroud looped around her soft, white neck hit Seabury like a punch in the gut. He almost doubled over the moment he saw the heart of red silk fibers beating at her throat. He felt his knees weaken as he slipped back into the shadows unnoticed. At the bay window, the Hongs—Robert, Raymond, Vanessa, and Victoria—stood in a group with Greta Krause. They waited for the limo that would drive Victoria and Greta to the airport to arrive in the driveway outside.
Victoria wore red, and that scared Seabury, because the color always left him feeling uneasy. It was a strong, vibrant color most people loved to wear, but to Seabury, red always brought to mind things he wanted to forget—like death.
He wasn’t superstitious—of course not—but he wondered about her choice of scarf. Why was she wearing it, now? He shook his head and sighed. It was silly for him to feel this way. Victoria couldn’t possibly know the bad luck red had brought to the girls in the area or what it meant to him. He promised himself not to go dipping back into the past just because the sight of the color red took him there.
Stop! The quiet, inner-voice reminded him. Now! Before you get started! But how could he stop? His eyes were tiny, metal pilings, and the scarf was a powerful magnet that pulled his eyes across the room toward it.
As he stared at the scarf, he remembered how he’d stared in much the same way at his dead fiancé, Dao Suttikul’s red dress in the chill of the ocean one evening long ago.
The boat had just turned around the peninsula leading to Dead Girl Beach, and the collar of Dao’s frilly, red sundress flapped in the breeze coming from the sea.
“I’m glad you took me up here. In a morbid way, I wanted to see all of it—the terrible place where all those girls were murdered. But once is enough. I’d never be caught dead up here, again.”
Her words were prophetic, because five months later, while he was out to sea, Dao had been abducted and killed on that very beach with the chilling name that she promised herself she’d never set foot on.
The sound of laughter startled him. At eye-level now, Seabury saw Victoria turn around. She tossed her head back and giggled at her girlfriend. Greta had her blonde hair pulled back tight to the scalp in a fierce-looking ponytail which drew attention to her high, jutting cheekbones and her slim, straight nose. Dressed in blue jeans and a red halter, Seabury noticed a tiny yellow butterfly tattooed on her left shoulder.
Victoria stopped giggling long enough to part a straw-colored curtain and look outside. A sleek, black limo pulled up in the driveway. Through the window, Seabury caught a glimpse of the dark uniformed chauffer outside. The guy closed the door on the driver’s side and moved around the back of the limo. He opened the door to a massive trunk and rummaged around inside then straightened back up. He saw the driver look up toward the house and start up the walk toward the front porch.
Victoria headed out into the hall with her family, the strap of a teal backpack strung over her right shoulder. Bolts of laughter broke from the shadows of the alcove and rocked the house. The leaves of tall, potted plants swayed back and forth under the polished brass of a large fan that whirled around above them on the ceiling. Seabury followed close behind the group out toward the front door, as sense of foreboding nagged his senses.
In the hall, Victoria listened to her mother’s non-stop advice about what to do and what not to do on the trip. She was a thin, brown slip of a woman with gray-coiffed hair and pearl earrings. Robert Hong, small and gaunt, stood by talking to his son Raymond—a lanky, bespectacled man of thirty. Seabury glanced at Greta’s turned up nose, and a crafty almost spiteful grin tugged at the corners of her mouth and cast a niggling of doubt about her.
Victoria listened patiently. Gone now was the cool reserve, the defiant outer edge she had used three nights ago as a person of privilege to brow-beat two Thai cops and send them scurrying on their way. Like anywhere in the world, Thailand’s grapevine worked like wildfire. It hadn’t taken long for the news of her altercation with the cops to reach his ears. Thankfully the news hadn’t reached the Hong mansion.
She was a different person at home, it seemed. Now suddenly, Victoria Hong played the role of the docile, obedient daughter, aware of her position in a Chinese household, where obedience was the norm and excessive, emotional outbursts strongly discouraged.
Seabury watched the red scarf as she slipped through the shadows toward the front door. It wasn’t long before he felt a tug of emotion stab at his heart and rip him beyond the present, back into the past.
He remembered how the coroner had rolled open the metal drawer containing Dao’s dead body. He saw Dao lying there, horrified as he nodded his head and turned away, numb.
The cop’s square, thick hands had snapped open a cell phone outside the morgue. In a grim voice, the bleary-eyed cop had radioed for a cruiser. One of Dao’s brothers had asked him, My God, why? but he was mute and withdrawn. Even a veteran merchant seaman like him knew when to speak and when to keep quiet. He had no explanation why a girl like Dao, in her mid-twenties, had to die so young, or why God would allow such a thing to happen.
Far off in the distance, a ferry boat dipped over the horizon, and the water inside the bay took on the color of crimson. The fleeting image vanished from his mind like a puff of white smoke.
“Are you okay?” Robert Hong said, nudging his arm. “You seem a little quiet.”
“Fine, no problem.” Seabury saw the elderly man’s concerned smile fade into the shadows as Robert turned back to the group. Standing in the background more as a spectator, Seabury was left in a wake of spontaneous laughter that turned quickly into hugs and kisses at the door. Raymond pulled the door open and ushered the group outside. Victoria and Greta stepped out onto the front porch. The shadow from the tamarind tree at the side of the house spread out across the tiled surface beneath their feet.
They moved down the steps, off the porch, and onto the walk. Greta followed the driver out toward the limo, while Victoria tu
rned back. Holding her right hand up to shield the sun from her eyes, she flashed a quick smile, dangling a little finger-wave back at them—and then, she was gone.
For the first time since he’d seen her wearing the scarf, Seabury began to feel the weight of a dreadful fear press down heavily over his heart. Could the whole, dreadful business be starting up, again?
Chapter Five
The plan was simple enough, so why tell Navarro? Fat, useless Navarro Lopez, whose Thai visa was about to expire, and he’d have to go home to that shithole he crawled out of somewhere outside Needles, California, on the road to Vegas. Hyde Greer mulled over these thoughts in his head as the two sat smoking a joint near the marsh on the west side of the Chao Phraya River where Bangkok’s ground level sank into the sea.
“It’s opportunity, man.” Greer took a puff of the joint, followed by a swig of beer.
The beer excited him, the joint made him feel mellow. So, he was trapped in a quandary of emotion as he explained his plan—he didn’t know why—to Navarro.
“She’s rich, she’s got money up the ass—or rather, her politically connected, Mafioso father, Robert Hong does. He runs that phony pharmaceutical business in Hong Kong as a shill for how he makes his real money…off drugs. Sure, he makes plenty from manufacturing pills, but not the kind he makes off heroin, Y-ice, and hashish. He warehouses the shit and distributes it all over Bangkok, and the cops look the other way. I know from working with Stark how these people operate. Hong smiles for the camera and loves everybody, but his eyes are the eyes of a black mamba. He’ll bite your ass the first time you cross him.”
“Then, why you wanna go crossing him?” Navarro asked.
“Opportunity, man. Opportunity.”
“Yeah, I know how this guy operates, amigo,” Navarro said matter-of-factly, sucking down his favorite Mexican beer, burping a little as he finished swallowing. “Didn’t Hong run Jarrett Stark out of Bangkok Chinatown?”
Greer drank more beer. “Yeah, the Triad boys came up from Hong Kong and wacked some of Stark’s goons. Shot at least three of them that I know of. Remember that guy Hans Stoltz, the German used to work for Stark? Well, he ended tits-up during the turf war, along with a couple of Stark’s other guys who were shot up and looked like pieces of shredded beef. Talk about hazardous duty. So now, Stark’s drug operation is confined to a small corridor on Sukhumvit Road. Shit! He’s left with crumbs off the table now that they ran him out of Chinatown.”
Greer stared out across the river. A freighter slipped by in a dark silhouette set against lights from the opposite shore. The vessel steamed south toward the Gulf of Thailand. He turned back to Navarro.
“Like I said, there’s money here. Lots of it if we pull the deal off. Victoria’s going up to Vientiane with her lesbian lover, which you already know about.”
“I didn’t know they were Lesbos.”
“So, now you do, and don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. I’m going to kidnap Victoria and demand a ransom. That’s the plan. You want in?”
Navarro’s eyes went wide inside his fleshy face. “What you talking about, dude? Kidnapping? That’s crazy, amigo!”
“Yeah.”
Navarro laughed. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“A million dollars is a good ransom figure. What d’ you think?”
“What do I think? I think you’re insane, man. You get caught over here, you end up dead. You won’t get off on a charge of Man-One, like you did last time for stomping that Filipino’s brains out in that alley behind the bar in Waianae. It was in all the papers. I read about it a week before they brought you into Oahu Correction Land and gave you the cell next to mine. I know you were raised by your mother in Laos after your dad died, and then, you came back to Hawaii for a while before you went back to Asia. That’s your bio, bro. But you get caught messing around with Victoria Hong over here, the Triad boys gonna keel that white ass and nobody will ever find you. So, don’t get me involved. I don’t want no part of it. No fucking way.”
Greer took another swig of beer and looked sternly at the Mexican.
“I’m not worried about no Triads,” he said. “I see an opportunity, I take it. A million dollars, I could be on an island somewhere in the Caribbean living like a king. Ever think of that?”
Navarro shook his head. “It’s crazy. Too risky,” he said, looking up at Greer.
“Besides, my visa’s up the end of the month. I’m a little short on cash. You can maybe help me out a little, my friend.”
“Well, I was thinking about that—how you ain’t my friend no more, Navarro. I saw you laughing when that blonde dyke muff-diver. Greta Krause was telling me to go play with myself, remember?”
Navarro lowered his eyes. He said nothing.
“So, I figure you ain’t never been a friend of mine.” Greer’s face flushed hot with anger. “So, fuck you, Navarro. Who the hell needs you?” Greer slipped a hand into his hip pocket and came out with a switchblade. Navarro’s eyes popped wide open. He froze in fear as the blade clicked open. “See, bro. I’m calling this payback time. Nobody gonna laugh in Hyde Greer’s face and live to talk about it.”
“Man, what’d I do? All I done was say I don’t want no part of no kidnapping. ”
“No? You laughed when Greta laughed at me. That really pissed me off. I don’t like nobody rubbing dirt in my face. I snuff a guy…he pulls that crap on me.”
Stumbling to his feet, the Mexican staggered back into the night as Greer sprang at him. For a man his size, Hyde Greer was as quick and agile as a basketball player. He grabbed hold of Navarro’s shirt and yanked the fat man toward him, plunging the knife deep into the side of his neck. Navarro squealed in pain as the blood spurted out like a punctured garden hose. Stepping to the side quickly, Greer avoided getting blood on his clothes and stabbed Navarro twice in the heart, then kicked his convulsing body into a pool of water at the edge of the marsh and watched him bleed out.
Voices came across from the other side of the river now, but they were far away and trapped inside a halo of glowing light on a dock where fishing boats were moored for the night. It was late. The area was secluded. No one had entered the marsh. Greer finished his beer, grabbed Navarro’s bottle and his own, and swept the area clean. In less than an hour, he was on the road driving north to Vientiane.
Chapter Six
As he drove through the night, Greer thought about how he would put his plan into action. It should be easy. His mind went through the events, as if he were looking at a movie running back at him in slow motion. He would knock on the door to their room. If his calculations were right, he’d get there around six o’clock and surprise them. They’d be happy to see him in Vientiane, ready to party. Surprise. Surprise.
No, the minute Greta Krause opened the door, her face shriveled into a dark, ugly mass of hatred, and her eyes stabbed at him like tiny, poisoned darts. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Good Christ,” he said, bristling against her tone. “What are you going on about? I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“As happy as falling into a pit of snakes,” she called back over her shoulder. “Hey, Vicki. Guess whose here? Our worst nightmare.”
He produced a brown paper bag containing a fifth of good whiskey and a couple of bottles of Lao beer, swinging the bag back and forth in front of her face. Perhaps, the peace offering might change her mood. She stood there in her bathrobe and bare feet with a face as cold as a block of ice.
“We were busy. You interrupted us.”
He shrugged and grinned even as anger churned in his gut. He pushed it down and forced humor. “Can I come back later, then?”
He could tell she was about to give him the boot when Victoria came to the door, her cheeks flushed and her eyes relaxed and dreamy. He waved the sack in front of her, revealing his booty.
“I told him to go away,” Greta said.
“No, it’s okay.” Victoria stepped aside and Greer entered the room.
Greer held his glass high in a toast. “To my best friends,” he said, laying on the charm.
Greta stuck a finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. With a flick of her hair, she went into the bathroom and closed the door. A moment later, the shower came on. A repulsive smile twisted across her mouth, and her body shook uncontrollably in loathing and disgust. .
Victoria shivered as her whiskey went down, and she poured another. “Why’d you show up here?” she said. “Can’t you see how you’ve upset Greta by showing up here? Now, I’ll have her mood to contend with. You probably don’t care, do you?”
“I thought you’d be happy to see me. Now, I feel like a round peg in a square hole. Is this any way to treat a friend?” he replied, trying to make her feel guilty. It was easy to do that with Victoria. She was too nice, too susceptible to charm.
She sat down on the end of the bed facing a colored television in a cabinet, next to a desk and chair. A large wardrobe filled in the rest of the wall. Her bathrobe had split open, revealing a lot of thigh. It was obvious she wasn’t wearing anything under the robe. A pay-for-view movie had just ended, and a picture was frozen on the screen. He could tell the movie was a porn flick by the sultry brunette spread-eagled at the edge of the screen.
“How was the movie?” he said, trusting his luck.
“We didn’t watch much of it, only to the part about driving to the beach. This bi-sexual French girl had just broken off a relationship with her boyfriend and was experimenting. Her girlfriend, an Ethiopian cougar, tutored her. It was the French girl’s first time with another woman.”
“I get the picture. Did you get off?”
She blushed. “Sort of,” she said.
He grinned.
Ransom Drop Page 3
