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| Sentosa Beach in Singapore- not a body to be found when we visited. |
In the "story within the story," the action in the Shadow Warriors gets going when a body washes ashore on Sentosa Beach. Emma, the narrator, has gone to the beach with bad boy Peter Weber. Does he recognize whose body it is? Why is he so paranoid?
"If you ever change your mind...the world is full of lovely resorts." He smiled at me, and the invitation was still on the table.
"Peter, I'll bet you've been to Phuket under different names and invariably with a new woman on your arm."
He glanced up at the sky again, and laughed. I looked toward the water. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I saw a swimmer, but not swimming, moving, yet motionless.
Grabbing his arm, I gasped, “Jesus, Peter, there’s something--it looks like a body out there. In the surf. Look!”
“Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes, the lady sees bodies wherever she goes. It’s a porpoise or a log from Indonesia.”
He didn’t even bother to glance in the direction I was pointing.
I saw a white leg, then a round torso turning over slowly, rolling in the gentle waves. At last Peter stared at the water.
unconscious? Come on. I'm a decent swimmer."
I took Peter's hand and tried to plunge into the surf, but he didn’t budge. While I stood and tugged on his arm, he continued to stare into the water. Finally he said,
"The body out there is quite dead. Take my word; you don't want to see it up close and personal. Corpses in tropical waters get ugly almost immediately. Now, let's go for a walk instead of raiding the snack bar."
"We have to report this. What if some little kid found it? At least let's tell the lifeguard."
Peter looked out beyond the placid waves again. The body rolled drunkenly, unobserved by the little groups of sunbathers scattered along the long strand.
"Red tape in this country tends to be very sticky. Let's just be somewhere else," 
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