Sea Monster's Revenge Read online

  Katrina took a business card from her tiny clutch purse and handed it to the sea monster. Sylvia tucked it away in her own sparkly blue clutch and leaned over to kiss Katrina's cheek, probing the woman's health in the brief moment her lips touched. It was good but Sylvia sent messengers into the woman to boost her health closer to perfection.

  "Oh, and I wanted to talk to that woman from the jail, the one in black who threw a blanket over me and gave me a pillow."

  Katrina, who'd been grinning, sobered. "Wanda. She's not working tonight. Her pimp beat her up for something."

  "Tell me how to visit her. I'll make sure the doctors have treated her right."

  The other woman looked at her for long moments. "Her man might use a gun on you. And even if you scare the shit out of him, he'll just take it out on Wanda once you're gone."

  Sylvia said. "I'll be very cautious." And if worse came to worst the monster would see that Wanda's man became shark food.

  Wanda's voice over Sylvia's cell phone was cautious when she answered her phone.

  "Hello, Wanda. This is Dr. Sylvia Connelly. Remember me from the jail cell? Jungle Jane?"

  The woman answered brightly. "Yeah! Sure. How have you been?"

  "Just fine. I'm in the neighborhood and Katrina said you might not mind company."

  "Oh. Yeah. Uh.... Sure. She gave you my address?"

  "I hope you don't mind. "

  "No. It's fine. Come on by. I'll buzz you in."

  The apartment was one of several on a suburban residential street lined with tall trees. It had seen better days but was still being kept up if one judged by the close-cropped green lawn in front of it and a paint job not more than two or three years old.

  Wanda's apartment was on the top of four floors. Buzzed in, Sylvia walked through a gate into an interior court that included a small swimming pool surrounded by a low iron fence. A late-evening party of a couple of dozen residents and their visitors were splashing in the pool and talking and eating barbecue cooked on a back-yard barbecue grill at one edge a bit distant from the pool.

  An elevator took her up to a long green-carpeted hall and to an open door halfway down its length. Wanda stood in the doorway looking toward the elevator. She waved and the monster waved back.

  The woman was dressed in a long robe colored black. She walked past Wanda who shut the door and flipped a locking lever. Black seemed to be the woman's signature color, as all the furniture was black or occasionally white like the walls.

  "Would you like something to drink?"

  "Sure. Just water would be fine."

  Immediately inside the door to one side was a brightly lit white kitchenette with the usual amenities: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, microwave, small electric oven, sinks, and a counter top. Wanda took a glass from a glass-fronted shelf and poured water into it from a plastic water bottle taken from the fridge. She handed it to Sylvia.

  "You want to sit down? That easy chair is comfortable."

  The living room contained a couch positioned against a wall opposite a flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. An easy chair on each side of the couch framed it to form a shallow U-shaped seating area. At the focus of the U was a low glass-topped coffee table.

  Sylvia set her glass on a coaster on the table and curled up in the farther easy chair, slipping off her heels as she did so. Wanda sat gingerly on the couch and put her legs up on it, facing Sylvia.

  "Katrina told me what happened to you. Are you OK?"

  "I will be. Don't look at me like that. This is the first time he's ever done this. He apologized and said it would never happen again."

  Sylvia said nothing but Wanda reacted as if she had.

  "I know, they all say that. I told him if it ever happened again that I'd stick a knife in him."

  The sea monster sipped from her glass.

  "I'll be alert next time. And if he tries anything I really will hurt him.

  "Say, whatever happened to that woman who you took care of in the jail?"

  Sylvia told her about Serena being championed by the monster's lawyer and let off on probation. That led to the bail-jumping brothers then more mundane topics.

  When Wanda seemed to have gotten comfortable with her Sylvia brought up the reason for the visit.

  "I have a...friend who is trying to trace young girls kidnapped here in Puerto Rico and who are shipped to South American countries to be sex slaves."

  Wanda looked wary. "Is she police?"

  "No. She is working for an organization that wants to destroy the trade." Sylvia used the word "organization" so that anyone who'd heard about the Organization of whores might think they were behind the search for kidnappers.

  "Is there a reward for information? "

  "No, Maria—that's my friend's name—says that a reward would just encourage people to lie to get the money."

  "I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of these kidnappers. If I knew anything."

  "It's purely voluntary. Maria won't tell anyone her sources, even her bosses. She will meet you anywhere you want. As an excuse she can bring you a bottle of pain-killer or something else. Or maybe pick up some laundry for you.

  "Or just call this number. You don't have to meet to tell Maria what you know." Sylvia took a blank business card from her purse. Scribbled on it was a phone number and the name "Maria."

  "Or don't give her any information. Just pass the word along and this cell number."

  Wanda glanced at the card and set it on the coffee table.

  "Just out of curiosity, what does Maria look like? In case I decide to meet her. Or just see her around."

  "She's about my height but more muscular. Her figure and face are about average. She has black hair and strong black eyebrows. She doesn't use makeup, so she looks a little unfinished. If you can imagine that."

  "You should caution her to be careful about meeting someone she doesn't know. If the kidnappers get this phone number they might meet her and hurt her."

  Sylvia grinned. "She would like nothing better. Imagine me but ten times as dangerous."

  "I'll have to think about this."

  The sea monster stood up. "I'll quit bothering you. But before I go— Have you seen a doctor?"

  Her hostess stood too. "No. I didn't want to explain what had happened."

  "I'd like to examine you. I'm not a medical doctor but I know the basics almost as well as one. "

  "Sure. It can't hurt."

  She stood and dropped her robe on the couch. She was wearing a bra and panties. Sylvia drew her away from the coffee table and took her pulse, listened her to her lungs with an ear near the woman's open mouth as she took and released several deep breaths, and placed an ear against her back and belly, bending over in order to do that last. She also examined her eyes and fingernails closely. She also prodded the woman's bruised belly and ribs, drawing winces from Wanda but no protests.

  All of the exams were centuries-old means of investigating a patient's health, but they were camouflage for the submicroscopic messengers the sea monster sent into and read out of the woman's body through the several skin contacts. Plus Sylvia had developed a sort of radar or deep sonar sense which gave her a mental image of someone's insides. The sense seemed to be a variation of her esoteric sea-probing perception.

  Sylvia then sent more messages into the woman's body than the one general "get-healthy" message sent during the beginning of her visit. These targeted the woman's specific ills.

  "Get dressed." As Wanda re-donned her robe Sylvia continued speaking.

  "You're in good shape except for the bruising. Without an X-ray I can't be sure, but you don't seem to have any broken ribs. Your spleen and liver seem to be OK, but again it would take an X-ray or other diagnostics to be sure.

  "Just take it easy for a few days, continue to apply ice packs or ice cubes inside baggies and wrapped in towels. Drink a lot of fluids and only a little alcohol. Eat right. Sleep a lot if you can. Continue taking these pain pills. They have an anti-inflammatory eff
ect." She had picked up the over-the- counter plastic bottle and read its label.

  "Is this going to be a problem with What's-His-Name?" said Sylvia, looking closely at Wanda.

  "No. I don't think so. As long as I can work this coming weekend."

  "I'd advise against it unless you can just give blow jobs and hand jobs. But you know your business best."

  Sylvia left her business card with her personal number penned on its back, telling Wanda to call her if her health took a turn for the worst. She also reminded the woman that a medical doctor was a better person to call in that case, and that Sylvia lived on Space Island and took at least 45-minutes to an hour or more to get to the mainland.

  The monster felt bad that she couldn't do more for Wanda, who seemed to have a good heart despite her profession. She reminded herself that she had given the woman better treatment for her hurts than even the most modern medical facility could. And from this day on she would have perfect health.

  Was this how that long-ago hypothetical Irish shapechanger had become the creator of the Organization of whores? Good intentions leading her astray?

  Sylvia met with Katrina and Wanda in her alternate identity dark-haired Maria Callahan. She had changed her throat to sound like someone else and adopted a barely noticeable Texas accent to which she had become accustomed when visiting her older brother while he was going to school in Texas. Neither gave any evidence of recognizing her as Dr. Sylvia Connelly.

  She spent more time building her alternate identity. It was more work than she had anticipated. She wryly concluded that she had been unduly influenced by all those superhero comics her two brothers had loved when they were young. Those books had made it seem so easy.

  The easiest had been changing her body to look more muscular. She just imagined her highly compressed fat, which was both armor and high source of energy when her body needed it, expanding a bit. This gave the illusion that her muscles were much bulkier. Being super-efficient her muscles did not need to be impressively large like those ridiculous body-builder shapes of comics superheroes. Her Maria didn't look like a superhero. But she did look very much a jock.

  Changing her hair color and style and face was also easy. She just stood in front of a mirror and tried out several looks until she got one she liked. She used body fat to make her cheekbones a little more prominent so that she looked as if she had Slavic ancestry. She made her lips bigger, more lush. She added wrinkles to suggest a thirty-something age and a modest scar on one cheek. She also spent a good deal of time playing with her finger- and toe-prints in case she was arrested.

  Clothing was more of a problem. The outfits she had stored in the bus-station locker only gave her one formal and one casual look. She bought more clothing, most of the casual items from used-clothing stores. She had to rent a larger locker and seriously thought of renting a small apartment in one of the poorer parts of Ponce.

  Hardest was identity cards. She had heard from some of the prostitutes she occasionally met of someone who sold fakes. She got a driver's license for an address in a small East-Texas town. Then she used that address to get an address change and thus a new and legal license for an apartment in an apartment building in San Luis .

  Lastly with the license and a good forgery of a birth certificate she got a passport, legally. Once she found out the South American location of the slavers she hunted she would need it to go there.

  Phone calls on her anonymous cell were few the week after "Maria" met Katrina and Wanda, who had promised to pass on the number. The calls began to pick up, then dropped off. In a month she had dozens of names to look into and places where kidnappings had taken place. Or were said to.

  Unlike obsessed avengers on TV or in films Sylvia could not spend all her time investigating her leads. She had work during the day and a few work events in the evenings. And she had friends to spend time with: the dolphins, Prinny and her family, other ArgenSpace employees. She was an especial favorite with the space pilots, starting with Leoni. Occasionally the two of them went partying together at clubs in Ponce.

  As Maria the sea monster worked through all the names and places, doing what any private investigator would have done: talk to people, visit places, check records of all kinds which a private citizen could. Some of the checks were done by private agencies for a fee.

  Then one night she got a break.

  Chapter 23 - Break

  Spring, 1996

  Puerto Rico, Ponce & Space Island

  Sylvia noticed the two men following her while the twilit sky was still luminous from the recent sunset.

  She was in her Maria persona walking on the La Guancha boardwalk on the edge of the Ponce harbor, trying to get a feel for how someone could be kidnapped from here, as one of her informants had claimed. On a Friday there were hundreds of people dining, shopping, sight-seeing, or listening and dancing to two salsa bands, one at each end of the quarter-mile long harbor-side boardwalk. The harbor was partly enclosed on the east by a thousand-foot dike which connected the mainland to the small Isla de Gatas island.

  Cat Island was home to the private Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club. Sylvia had been there as Sylvia, was an honorary member. It had a top-flight restaurant, various sport facilities, a private beach, and a marina with over a hundred yachts and sailing craft. The white craft reminded her of swans. They made a beautiful sight now, they and the several dozen similar craft anchored at the piers connecting to the club.

  For an instant she had thought they were here to kidnap her. But that was silly. She was in her Maria persona, not unattractive but her body was obviously well-muscled in a solid not extravagant way. She was clad in worn jeans and a tee-shirt and shoes. She moved with grace and a force which parted crowds before her.

  She was black haired and dark-eyed with bold black eyebrows. Her hair was in plaits down her back. No one with half a brain would try to force her into prostitution.

  "Maria" stopped, then stepped out of the worst of the pedestrian traffic, bringing her cell phone from a pocket up to her ear. She pretended to listen then briefly speak and closed and re-pocketed the phone.

  She crossed the street north of the boardwalk to the long row of shops and restaurants large and small facing the boardwalk, then proceeded to a side street between two buildings running north. Behind the buildings was a long parking lot which seemed completely full. Behind the lot was a hedge at least ten feet high which sheltered mid-scale homes and a few two- and three-story apartment buildings.

  A break in the hedge let the side street continue into the housing area. Cars were parked on both sides of the side street and the street lights were dim so as not to disturb the residents.

  The two men followed her as she had guessed they would. She ignored them and went far enough down the street that no one in the bright parking lot could see her. She stopped and leaned on a car, pretending to be on the phone again.

  Seeing the two men approach she put the phone away and stood waiting, back to the car, slowing time for her. Her hands became fists, her arms bent, her fists poised at waist level and a few inches forward.

  "You have been sticking your nose in where it's not wanted." One man drew a blackjack. The other drew a telescoping baton and opened it with a wrist flick. It made a nicely menacing click-clack-click as it locked open.

  Sylvia said nothing as they neared her. She was smiling. The lights were just bright enough for the men to see. They hesitated a fraction of a second perceptible only to the sea monster, then moved in from two directions.

  The monster waited for them to hit at her from two directions. At the precisely right moment she struck, rotating her forearms out and up to collide with carefully calculated force the wrists of their weapon hands. To her the actions were leisurely. To the men they were lightening fast.

  Both weapons went sailing in opposite directions, clacking and clicking to the roadway dozens of feet away.

  Her arm's rotations continued into a fist strike just below each man's ribs. Again t
he strikes were carefully calculated, to disable only. At full force her fists would have plunged entirely through the two men and out their backs.

  The men doubled over. One toppled onto the street. Sylvia bent and put them to sleep with a touch, injected a scent marker into them which would let her smell them in a crowd, and examined the contents of their pockets.

  In one pocket she found change and a laser card to a room in a local hotel. In others she found their wallets. Rifling through them she came across nothing of import except for a second laser card for the same hotel. She pocketed the second card but replaced the first card and their wallets. With luck the men would not discover her theft and would remain at the hotel.

  Then she walked quickly around the car onto to the sidewalk. There she leaped upward to stand on the edge of the parapet of the second-floor balcony of the apartment. Another leap took her to the third-floor balcony and from there to the edge of the flat apartment roof. She grasped that edge and lifted herself onto the roof.

  Hidden from the street she increased the sensitivity of her hearing so that she could hear what her would-be attackers said when they woke from the short sleep she had decreed their bodies take.

  At first it was nothing from the unconscious men. They could not even breathe for long moments. Then she heard only gasping breaths, then moans as they woke up.

  Minutes passed before the men were able to sit up and bypass the worst effects of their pain.

  "What the Hell happened?" He was speaking in Argentine Spanish.

  "How the Hell should I know?"

  There were sounds that told her they were pulling themselves upright.

  "She's gone."

  "Where to? There's nobody for three blocks either way."

  "Maybe she went inside."

  Silence.

  "Maybe she flew."

  More silence. She imagined them scanning the sky and what they could see of the roofs close by.

  She heard footsteps then. They were walking back the way they had come, toward the lights and the crowds.