“Are you saying he knew who you were when he introduced himself to you?”
“I’m sure he did. It’s my curse.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He said his friend from The Beach Club had just told him he’d need serious security if he planned to open a club on Mykonos, and that the best person to ask for a recommendation was my husband.” She took another slug.
Yianni waited until she’d finished drinking. “So, the owner of The Beach Club suggested to his friend, Pepe, that he introduce himself to you in order to get you to ask your husband for a recommendation on which security service to use for his new club?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened when you told your husband that The Beach Club owner was behind Pepe’s request for a recommendation?”
She shook her head. “You’re not listening. I never told my husband about any of that. I told my husband that a man I’d met at lunch said he was opening a club on the island, and I suggested he needed security. When he asked me for a recommendation, I said I’d ask my husband.” She drew in and let out a deep breath. “My husband thinks I’m not capable of thinking for myself. I wanted to show him that I could, and that some people—like Pepe—valued my advice.”
“When did you ask your husband for a recommendation?”
“That same day.”
“He recommended the Colonel?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you give the name to Pepe?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean you didn’t?”
“I’d lost his business card.”
“Then you never told Pepe about the Colonel?”
“Not directly. A couple days later I was back at The Beach Club and saw the owner’s son. I told him to tell his father to pass along to Pepe that my husband recommended he use the Colonel as security for his new business. Whether he or his father did that, I do not know.”
She downed her drink, stood up, and stepped toward the edge of the pool. “That’s all I know about the Colonel, and I’ve never spoken to Pepe or anyone else about any of this since passing along that message. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m terribly hot and must take a swim. Fair warning. I don’t want to ruin my suit by wearing it in the water, so if your sensibilities will be offended by seeing me au naturale, I suggest you leave now.”
Yianni stood up. “Thanks for the heads-up. I better leave and if I have—” Before he’d finished she’d dropped her top and bottom and dived into the pool. “...any more questions I’ll get back....” His voice trailed off as he watched her glide effortlessly through the water away from him. He turned and headed in the direction of the steps.
My first day back on the Rock and already a naked interview. Yianni shook his head. Lord knows what’s coming next.
Andreas sat in his office, patiently listening to Yianni describe his just-completed interview with Mrs. Despotiko.
“Sounds like you had an interesting morning.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Now why don’t you tell me what really happened?”
“We ripped off each other’s clothes and went at it like rabbits.”
“That’s better.”
“In truth, I think I’m gonna need a few more days to get back in the Mykonos swing of things. I’m still figuring out what it means to be a cop there in this day and age.”
“Meaning?”
“The local chief seems a likable enough guy, but he’s the head cop in a bordello run by police. My guess is that he and his crew don’t bust people for doing what their jurisdiction’s establishments advertise as freely available. He also likely keeps its most influential citizens in the loop.”
“That sounds like Telly.”
“Telly?”
“That’s the local chief’s nickname, based on his resemblance to Telly Savalas, a Greek-American actor who played the title role of Kojak in an American television cop show popular long before you were born.”
“You know him?”
“Yeah. He knows how to go along to get along.”
“Are you saying he’s dirty?”
“I’m saying he’s like many of our brethren who struggle to find a way to make it through to their pensions in treacherous times. I’m not excusing him, just saying it like it is. And on that fine point, permit me to mention that I doubt the police run this particular bordello. It’s under new management.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Yianni.
“Do you remember what happened to the island’s last chief of the Harbor Police?”
“Sure, he lost his job when one of his lieutenants was caught mixed up in narcotics trafficking.”
“Correct. Yet everyone on the island knew the ex-chief was cracking down hard on drug dealers, and the big traffickers were desperate to get rid of him. That’s when someone in the know came up with a simple plan to game the system and get rid of the chief, without having to raise a finger directly against him.”
“I don’t follow. His lieutenant was dirty, caught dealing red-handed.”
“That was the beauty of their plan. It even won the public relations battle. They found the weakest link in the chief’s command, compromised him, then set him up to be caught in a buy orchestrated by national drug enforcement cops. There was absolutely no evidence tying the chief to his lieutenant’s drug trafficking, but ministry rules were firm. If one of your lieutenants is caught up in that sort of thing, you go down with him. Period, end of story.”
“Damn.”
“That little intrigue also had the effect of sending an unequivocal message to his successors: play ball or we’ll find a way to cost you your position, too.”
“How do you want me to handle him?”
“To be fair, Telly’s likely up to his eyeballs battling organized watch-snatchers, break-in artists, pimps, prostitutes, and private-security types thinking they can run the island any way their clients want, but murder crosses a line I can’t believe he’d tolerate if it’s somehow tied into his jurisdiction. Especially where a high-ranking ex-cop was the victim.”
“I repeat. How do you want me to play it with him?”
“Tell him only what he already knows.”
“Would you mind putting that in Greek?”
“Don’t tell him the owner of The Beach Club suggested to Pepe that he persuade Mrs. Despotiko to ask her husband for a security recommendation. If she was telling you the truth, you and I are the only ones who know that little detail. I don’t want Telly passing that snippet on to Despotiko and getting Despotiko thinking that the owner tried setting him up.”
“So, you agree it makes no sense for the owner to have put Pepe through the exercise of getting a name from Despotiko, when the owner already knew he’d name the Colonel?”
“For sure. Let’s not forget who owns The Beach Club. It’s Angelos Karavakis, the most powerful club-owner on the island. He’s not in Despotiko’s league, but he’s still part of that virtually untouchable class of Greek underworld criminals the press likes to call ‘the world of the night.’ Everyone knows what they’re into, but no one dares stop them. Karavakis is big into prostitution and for sure has a hand in drug trafficking and money laundering, if only as part of his club business. There’s no question he knew the Colonel was the only security game in town.”
“Do you think Karavakis was involved in the assassination?”
“At this point, anything is possible. But since the only bad guy with a solid presence on the island who’s tougher than Karavakis is Despotiko, let’s not take the chance of doing something that might get them fighting each other.”
“Yeah, an island gang war in the middle of tourist season would likely wreck your summer plans with Lila and the kids.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Ke
en investigative instincts.” Yianni paused. “You asked Maggie to set up your computer to work remotely from outside the office, and she asked me to meet with the technician who’d be doing the work at Lila’s parents’ house.”
“Lila just called to tell me she’ll be there Friday. I’m going to try to make it over with them.”
“I doubt I’ll be done by then.”
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room.” Andreas coughed. “Besides, babysitters with your qualifications are hard to find on the island this time of year.”
“I’d rather be spending my time with Tassaki and Sofia than chasing down the parade of assholes involved in this murder.”
“Any idea who those assholes might be?”
“Nope,” said Yianni. “It just doesn’t make sense that a major player like Karavakis would attempt to implicate Despotiko in the murder of an ex-cop colonel in such an amateurish fashion. He left a trail leading straight back to him that a blind man could follow. Only Despotiko’s wife’s vanity kept her from telling her husband that Karavakis was the one who set everything in motion. If she’d told him, it might have already triggered a war between them, one Karavakis was certain to lose. And there was no way Karavakis could have anticipated that she wouldn’t tell her husband.”
“All good points. And all in need of answers.”
“Why do I sense you’re about to ruin my plans to spend the rest of my day working on my tan?”
“As a matter of fact, Detective, suntanning is precisely what I was going to suggest.”
“Please, drop the other shoe already. The suspense is killing me.”
“Why don’t you stop by Karavakis’ Beach Club and see what he has to say about all of this?”
“Terrific.”
“Interview him in a matter-of-fact way. But be delicate. Nothing serious or accusative, and certainly nothing to get him thinking he might have been set up to look like the one who tied Despotiko into the hit on the Colonel. Just make it seem as if you’re following up on his introducing Pepe to Mrs. Despotiko and see where it leads.”
“With any luck, to some serious beach time for me.”
“Just be careful not to get burned.”
Chapter Five
Yianni had been raised in Athens, amid its own form of driving insanity, but here on Mykonos virtual reality met bumper cars, and he never dared take his eyes off what was coming down the road. Afternoons in high season were a particularly treacherous time on the narrow mountainside roads winding down to the popular beaches. He often wondered why it seemed the more popular the beach, the narrower the road and the sheerer the drops.
Yianni was used to maneuvering the island’s potholed, uneven roads, but tourist season added a serious additional challenge to the Mykonos driving experience. Now you had to share the roads with drivers who’d never imagine in their wildest dreams behaving at home as they did here, regularly passing around blind curves, turning two-lane roads into one-way whenever it suited their direction, and treating stop signs and rotary rules as advisory only. Toss in drugs and alcohol—and officials who considered it bad business to destroy a vacationer’s blissful fantasy of invulnerability with reality—and you had summertime driving on Mykonos.
During Yianni’s ski-jump-like final descent toward The Beach Club, a crew of post-adolescents, too busy hanging every which way out of an oncoming Jeep Wrangler and shouting the island’s name in sing-song fashion to notice his marked police car, wandered into his lane. Thankfully, he saw them coming and made way for the party crew to pass.
At the bottom of the slope, he steered into a packed, football field-size parking lot. He pulled up to the main entrance and parked next to a row of palm trees directly in front of a large NO PARKING sign. The place had changed a lot from what he remembered of his off-duty, rookie-cop days bouncing from one beach party venue to the next. Then, too, so had his age, compared to that of the new round of youthful partiers discovering the island for themselves.
The palms hadn’t been there when Yianni was here last, but that was a few years back, and palm trees now were in fashion. So, too, were the high stacks of empty champagne bottles arranged pyramid-style around the bases of the trees bordering the entrance to the club. Most visitors took them as a sign of the abbondanza partying atmosphere awaiting them inside, but Yianni saw it as a cleverly improvised hide-in-plain-sight, bottle warehouse for champagne-counterfeiters.
Yianni headed for the entrance. Two of the club’s bouncers stood waiting for him.
The bigger one said, “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m here to see Angelos Karavakis.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“No.”
“Well, could you possibly move your car away from the entrance? It’ll spook the customers. They’ll think it’s a raid or something.”
Yianni gave him his best I’m-in-charge look. “Are you suggesting there are illegal activities taking place in this establishment?”
The bouncer raised his heavily tattooed arms. “No, not at all. Cops just make people nervous.”
Yianni smiled, and patted the man’s shoulder. “I know. And we like keeping it that way. Where’s Karavakis?”
The bouncer stepped out of Yianni’s way. “In the office, through the door in the light-gray wall out behind the bar.”
Instead of heading directly into the club, Yianni circled around to the beachside entrance. Standing with his back to the sea, he had a panoramic, dollhouse view of everything going on inside the club. Well, almost everything.
He had to give credit to the entrepreneur owners behind clubs like this one. They knew how to create and sell the magic of the island to their audiences. It was more than simply the laser lights, deejays, nearly naked perfect bodies writhing all about you, and unrestricted booze and drugs...it was the irrepressible Greek ambience of the island.
Yeah, right. Yianni shook his head at the thought. Most of the kids in here probably couldn’t find Mykonos on a map. Some likely didn’t even know it was in Greece.
As he looked in, he couldn’t help but feel like any other anonymous beach-going tourist fascinated by the wild-eyed action and actors at play inside the club. It wasn’t yet packed but still crowded, noisy, and pumping. The deejay in his booth above the bar knew when to kick things into maximum party mode. With a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the action in the club, and a panoramic view of what was happening on the beach, he was a master at managing the mob’s mood through his music.
As Yianni took in the scantily clad sun worshippers wedged in along rows of sturdy wooden sunbeds and macramé umbrellas, he realized that—in his dark trousers, pale blue dress shirt and black street shoes—he stood out like what he was: a cop at a bikini contest.
Yianni pressed his way toward the bar through a mix of barely clothed dancers lost in the beat of the music. He made it to the door in the gray wall and knocked.
“It’s open,” came a shout from inside.
Yianni opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him.
“Who are you?” said the man sitting behind a tiny desk in an equally tiny office. All Yianni could think of was barrels. Barrel head, barrel neck, barrel chest, and barrel belly, topped off in unnaturally barrel-tar black hair.
“Detective Yianni Kouros, GADA Special Crimes.” Yianni showed him his ID.
Yianni pointed at the wooden taverna chair in front of the desk. It looked purposely uncomfortable. “May I sit?”
“Of course.” Karavakis leaned back in a plush leather armchair and waited for Yianni to speak.
“I’m here in connection with the investigation into the murder of Colonel Aktipis.”
“A terrible tragedy.”
“To get right to the point, sir, I understand you knew the man who was with the Colonel the night he was killed.”
“Yes, Pepe. I’ve known him sin
ce we did our military service together, and later through the restaurant business. He’s always wanted to open a place on Mykonos.”
“Just like everyone else in Greece these days.”
Karavakis smirked. “That’s for sure.”
“So, why help the competition?”
“You’ve got to understand the business. No workable space on this island remains vacant. Someone will move in and try to compete with you. So, if you’re going to have competition, it’s better to be up against someone you know and who knows you. Someone you can work with on common problems.”
“Makes sense to me.” Yianni paused. “I understand he asked you for a recommendation on security for his new place.”
“Not exactly. I asked him how he planned to handle security and he told me he intended using his own people. I told him that wouldn’t work here.”
“Why did you say that?”
“Come on, Detective, don’t play naive with me. We both know how big the protection business is on this island. No way to avoid it. It’s pay or pray.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“That and more.”
“What more?”
Karavakis leaned across the desk. “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, Detective, but I said, ‘If you don’t use the Colonel’s goons, you’re going to find your place shut down, burned down, or blown down.’ And that’s if you’re lucky. The Colonel’s attitude toward practically anyone doing any business on this island was, ‘If you breathe, you pay.’”
“What did Pepe say to that?”
“He didn’t believe me.”
“You expressly told him to use the Colonel?”
“Of course I did. Even the dumbest souvlaki-seller on the island knew that.”
“Why, then, did you suggest that Pepe speak to Mrs. Despotiko to get a recommendation from her husband?”
Karavakis shook his head and smiled. “Like I said, Pepe didn’t believe me. He probably thought I was getting a kickback on business I steered to the Colonel. If I hadn’t known Pepe for as long I did, I’d have told him to go fuck himself.” He shook his head again. “Anyway, Despotiko’s wife was at the next table, and when she asked my waiter who Pepe was, I saw a way to verify what I’d told him.”
The Mykonos Mob Page 6