Sea Monster's Revenge Page 24

  Sure enough on their left the forest gave way to cleared land and a large lake came into view, disappearing further left, toward the east. Sylvia recalled a map she had memorized of the area. The lake was more than a dozen miles long. It had a serpentine shape with numerous branches leading away from the main body.

  At least a dozen sailboats and motor boats plied the water, sharing it with several jet skis trailing long rooster-tails of white water, a cheery sight under the blue sky. Their road went further west alongside the shore then turned south. It crossed over a long bridge under which water poured down from a dam underneath the bridge.

  A village, first glimpsed in the distance, expanded as the bus came nearer. They passed through a part of the village which was warehouses and small-industry buildings. Then they passed through a downtown area with all sorts of small shops and restaurants. Finally the bus made a left turn toward the lake. A block further and they rolled into a parking lot surrounded on three sides by a two-story motel.

  Everyone piled out and retrieved their luggage from the bin under the bus, helped by the bus driver. Sylvia had only her one small pull-along suitcase and was among the first to enter the small lobby, following Diane closely. As that woman was checking in the women Sylvia interrupted.

  "I'll take the first single cabin close to the water."

  Diane, annoyed, said, "You'll take what we give you."

  "No, I won't. I'll go somewhere else if I don't get what I ask for."

  "You can't...."

  "Look, Diane, I hate to give you trouble. But I'm part of a different deal. Talk to Carlos if it's a problem for you."

  Diane frowned but gave in.

  It took no more than ten minutes to unpack, hang up her few clothes, and lay out her toiletries in her bathroom. Her Candy passport and some cash and a couple of credit cards she locked in a small safe bolted to the floor of the closet. She also opened up a cavity in her belly and stashed in it a passport for her Sylvia Connelly identity, two credit cards, and five folded new one-hundred dollar bills. The other valuables might get stolen; these would not.

  Then she tucked her room key into a pocket along with a credit card and some cash and left the room.

  Passing a door opened into a motel room she heard Luz call out to her. She turned into the room and saw the two women putting clothing away into a closet. She sat cross-legged on one of the two beds and watched.

  The two women from long acquaintance worked well together, Genie unpacking and Luz hanging up the clothing, not without some good-natured criticism from Genie.

  They were soon done and Luz went into the bathroom to freshen up while Genie came over and lay down on the second bed. She propped herself on an elbow.

  "I heard what you told Diane. What's your deal with Carlos? Sister and I were so busy giving you advice we forgot to ask you much of anything."

  Sylvia considered briefly. It was just as well she gave the women her cover story. They had been getting a little too protective, thinking of her as an innocent.

  "I'm a freak. If I don't have sex for a couple of months I go back to being a virgin. That's a marketable asset for someone who looks as young as I do."

  The blond woman was almost physically taken aback. Then she rallied. She looked closely at "Candy."

  "Girl, just how old are you?"

  Luz stepped into the room in panties and bra and leaned on the door jamb of the bathroom.

  "Older than I look. And I may have been around more of the tougher parts of the world than you two. Do you realize Carlos is going to turn some of you into whores?"

  Luz said, "No surprise there. We did our research. To give him credit it's mostly in their soft-porn films. They really do get some girls jobs in other kinds of films."

  She paused. "Are you a whore?"

  Plain speaking apparently was the order of the day.

  "I suppose. I take rich perverts for all they can spare—which is usually more than they want to give up. But, hey, if they make trouble for me I make them disappear."

  "You kill them?"

  "That's rarely necessary."

  The two women were silent for long moments. They did not exchange significant glances, but Sylvia guessed there would be much discussion after she left. About whether she was fantasizing, or telling the truth. She sat and watched them.

  Genie sat up cross-legged on her bed. "But you've killed before?"

  Sylvia shrugged. "Let's just say: I've training in several self-protection skills."

  She got up, went to the door, and turned back to the two women.

  "I'm going to wander along the beach front. Round about 5:00 I'll come back to this area and be in one of the restaurants on the beach. If you want to eat with me you'll find me there."

  Chapter 27 - Exploration

  The beach was perhaps two miles long and the village, Puerto Bossetti, stretched north and south along it. It was artificial, sand brought in from (Sylvia guessed) Argentina's very long coast. One end had several piers stretching into the water. A variety of boats were moored there. Most were smaller sail and powered vessels, but a few were expensive yachts. One large sleek vessel was an ocean-going craft out of place on a mere lake, but it seemed more a residence than a ship. She wondered how they had gotten such a huge craft here.

  The middle half mile was finer pure white sand about a hundred yards wide. Thousands of people lolled, strolled, and played along the white sand and in the green shallow water. Sylvia found out why the fine sand was here when she discovered a two-story mansion with a veranda facing onto the sand. She walked up the half-dozen steps in its middle and passed through the open double-doors beyond.

  Inside was a luxurious residence but much of its contents were in locked glass cases. Near the back of the "parlour" was a large illuminated painting of a woman, blond, attractive, perhaps 40, and dressed in a long blue silk gown. She recognized Eva Perón.

  Sylvia vaguely recalled the details of the woman's life. A small booklet on a table refreshed her memory.

  Born María Eva Duarte, she had married Colonel Juan Perón before he became President. She'd had a number of positions in his government and, upon his death in 1951, succeeded him as President for the rest of his term and for two terms afterward. Sometimes referred as Evita, even la Santa Evita, she was revered by many Argentines till this day.

  She'd retired from political life but devoted much of her long remaining life supporting art and health, especially for poor people. This mansion, far from the rest of Argentina, had been her home till her death from old age. She'd loved beaches, but not oceans, and she'd had almost a mystical fascination with the Iguazú Falls.

  Sylvia wandered through the museum with several other people, many dressed in beach wear. They were watched discreetly by museum attendants but not bothered by them. Occasionally when Sylvia stopped for a longer time than most people at a particular exhibit an attendant would give her a little lecture on it.

  She saw the kitchen (quite large), dining rooms (two, one large and one small), several bedrooms, a ballroom, and other rooms. One especially interesting one was an art gallery, with paintings on the walls and a few sculptures scattered around the floor.

  One attendant wandered close while she was examining several paintings.

  "Impressive, aren't they? It's hard to tell, but they're not the originals. At her death those went to the national museum."

  "Do you ever get someone trying to steal these?"

  "A few times, but the security is good and the word got around that these are copies. It helps that we have the signs just outside." Sylvia had noticed those, one on each side of the door. In English and Spanish they said REPRODUCTIONS ONLY, Miniatures for Sale.

  After a brief tour of the gallery Sylvia left and walked the rest of the way north from the mansion to the end of the white sand. Beyond the village became more service-oriented. She retraced her steps southward and passed the mansion. The white sand gave way to tan and grey and the village became residences.


  In between on the white sand were hundreds of beach umbrellas in all shades of pink, gold, green, blue, and purple. Thousands of people on this Sunday afternoon made some areas of the fine sand tricky to walk through. There were kids of all ages, older people, and those in between. Most of the women wore bikinis, and many of them were topless. None of the men stared at them, or else they hid it so well that even the monster could not detect it.

  She ventured occasionally into the shopping area. Lots of food, already prepared or prepped on the spot, trinkets, a few electronics shops for supplies and more expensive items, curios, a memorabilia shop heavily loaded with Evita items—all these and more was evidence that this tourist spot generated lots of money.

  Every hundred or feet or so was a boom box, separated so that she walked surrounded by music but never by overlapping music. The marine biologist side of her recognized the spacing as an automatic mechanism like the way fish in a school kept very much the same distance from each other. The music was mostly heavy on a beat, but occasionally there were tango selections with its own march-like background beat and lyrical overlay.

  By 5:00 (4:53 by her internal clock) the sea monster felt that she had a good enough of a feel for the area and she settled on the veranda of an Italian restaurant just off the beach and near the motel.

  A waiter appeared in a red tank-top over black shorts nearly hidden by a white apron. He was wearing flip-flops like almost everyone else in sight. He plunked down a menu and a lemon water with sides trailing melting frosting and disappeared.

  Several minutes later her two "mommies" joined her. One wore a purple bikini, the other a lime green one. Both wore little belt pouches, flat and matching in color with their belts and bikinis. They settled into seats which, like Sylvia's, gave them a good view of the beach scene.

  The waiter appeared again, bringing two menus and two lemon waters and disappeared again. Business was beginning to pick up as the sun sank toward the west. He was quite busy.

  Genie and Luz smiled at her but ignored her for a few moments while they perused the menus and argued over which items to order. They came to a quick decision which would allow each to sample the other's choices.

  They put their menus down and looked out over the crowd. Three giggling teen-aged girls passed by, topless and their bosoms bouncing.

  Genie nodded at them. "I'm surprised you aren't following their examples."

  "My girls will give way to gravity soon enough. I'm not going to help it along."

  Luz said, "Ain't it the truth? Besides, show it off and men may enjoy the view but they get used to it quick enough. Cover it up and they get all interested in getting it off you."

  The monster said, "It's a biological imperative. Men are drawn to explore novelty."

  Sylvia's remarks had been deliberately out of character for a girl of 16 years. The two women (visibly to her more-than-human senses) settled into a newer perspective of her character, tentative up to now.

  Sylvia said, "What are your plans for tomorrow?"

  "We've both got a briefing from Diane and job interviews. Same for most of the rest of the week. What about you?"

  "Nothing much. Carlos said it may take a few days to find a buyer for me rich enough for me to accept."

  She laughed. "It was quite a shock to him to find that I insisted on that last. He's not used to women going against his wishes.

  "I plan to get out on the lake a lot. I love the water and will likely rent a sail boat."

  They were quiet for a moment as a plane landing at or leaving from the airport roared over them.

  "Be sure to wear a life jacket."

  "I will, but I swim like a fish. I'll probably be doing a lot of that, too.

  "And I want to visit the Cataracts. Speaking of which, did you know that Eva Perón used to live here? She was superstitious about the Falls."

  She told them a little bit about the mansion/museum. From there she led them to talk about themselves. For whatever reason, they did not try to find out more about her—or her Candy persona.

  Near sundown the three paid their bills and returned to the motel. There was a party planned at the club house and they persuaded her to join them. It would help to better establish her teenaged persona. She danced with several of the men who came to the party but showed none of them preference.

  The next morning Sylvia arrived deliberately late at the motel's somewhat Spartan breakfast buffet. Most of the women of the group were leaving at that time and she only had to wave at her two friends as they hustled out to a bus awaiting them.

  This was good. She could eat her fill of the buffet. She had not had the chance for a few days to top off her enormous bodily resources.

  A Monday morning did not show the beach at its best. Not only were most people working but it was near the end of the tourist season for people here on the southern hemisphere, as its summer was coming to an end. And it was too early for most people living above the equator to take their summer vacation.

  Sylvia wore a tee-shirt, shorts, and tennies. She had small purse with a long strap over a shoulder. It held her hotel room key, some cash, and a credit card. She rented a small motor boat, signed an accident-release waiver, put on the required loaned orange life jacket, and walked out to the boat. It was the old gasoline-powered kind rather than the newer ones with a super battery. But that was fine with her. She intended to go only so far as to be out of sight of land.

  That was only a couple of miles. Lago de Evita was a winding reservoir cut out of a mildly hilly land. There were few residences and most of those were at the end of one of the many "legs" off the winding serpentine body of the lake.

  She moored the boat with a water anchor. The boat began rocking, but only mildly due to the modest swells of a small body of water. This was very unlike the larger swells of an ocean. Even on an ocean, however, the sea monster's reflexes and precise muscle control gave her a perfectly stable platform for observing the land and water with her binocular vision to see if she was being observed.

  Seeing none she peeled off what she was wearing and slipped over the side of the boat. She converted quickly to her shallow-water form.

  Immediately she noticed differences. This was the first time she'd been in a freshwater rather than a seawater environment as a water breather. The water allowed through her invisible "force-field" membrane tasted different to her gills. The appearance of everything under water was different. And the subliminal vibrations caused under water by the surface waves were "quieter" and less forceful on her skin.

  Still her underwater "gravity radar" (or whatever it was) worked the same. She could see well over a mile in every direction, coarsely at far distances, finer closer to.

  The plants were different, with shorter leaves and less prone to swaying because underwater pressure waves from the surface were gentler. The fish were on the average smaller and less nimble.

  She caught a few fish and one underwater eel and made a leisurely brunch, surfacing to do so. To her rough tongue with its tiny barbs to better abrade flesh the flesh tasted different, in several ways, not just less salty.

  Her hunger satisfied she began to swim eastward to do a quick underwater survey, building up a three-dimensional picture in her mind the way a forester might when surveying his domain.

  In nearly two hours she ranged the entire twenty-plus miles of the reservoir. Then she took twice that long returning to her boat, cataloguing the plant and animal life, indulging her scientist's curiosity.

  Back at the boat she dressed and returned to the village, taking her time and pushing the little craft to its acrobatic limits with violent maneuvers and nearly exhausting its fuel. Till finally she sedately pulled up to the dock at the rental agency and moored.

  It was still too early for Genie and Luz to have returned, so the monster did a more leisurely tour of the shops, eating a few junk-food items along the way. She wasn't particularly hungry but still had plenty of spare capacity in her body, so she took advantage of
it, becoming ever denser and heavier but still looking to be a slight though tall nymphet.

  At a little after 5:00 the bus returned. Sylvia was waiting on an open-work metal bench just outside the door to the lobby. When she saw Genie and Luz she got up and met them.

  "How'd it go?"

  "Pretty good," said Luz. "Tell you more when we've freshened up. You want us to meet you at your apartment on the way to eat?"

  "Sure. Or I can wait in yours."

  "Come along then."

  Sylvia lay on a bed and watched the two women work easily around each other, Genie removing makeup in the bathroom while Luz undressed from interview-type clothing and redressed in casual evening wear, short-shorts and a tee-shirt and tennis shoes. Then the two swapped, Luz changing her "face" while Genie dressed. Genie donned long shorts, but not before the monster saw something she'd missed the day before: the woman had an dimpled scar on one thigh.

  That is a fucking bullet wound. And suddenly several barely-noticed details fell into place. These women were law-enforcement of some kind. Or possibly spies, though that was less likely. From what little she knew of the subject spies never got into the gun fights movies depicted them as doing every third day of the week. Staying inconspicuous was their stock in trade, not fighting.

  Sylvia said nothing. The women's business was nothing of hers nor hers of theirs. Letting them know she knew what they were up to might prompt them to hinder her. Nor did she want to interfere with their jobs. God knew there were more than enough bad guys in the tri-state to go around!

  This time the three chose a restaurant which served all sorts of meats. Argentines were big meat eaters, being one of the biggest exporters of meat to the world. Sylvia chose liver and tripe because her body told her she would get some particular enzymes from them .

  Genie shuddered at her choices. "Girlfriend, you have got a strong stomach."

  "Candy" grinned. "Which is why I need stomach meat." She prodded her dish of tripes with a fork.

  "Urkh," said Genie. "Now I've lost my appetite." Nevertheless she enthusiastically set to cutting her steak.