[Kat Makris 01.0] Disorganized Crime

by Alex A King

  The pallbearers had a tough job squeezing through the crowd, even with a battering ram-slash-coffin. Once they reached the front they set down the box, lifted the lid so that the dead man could see the altar. My guess was that his eyes would stay shut and he'd miss the show, but maybe Greeks did death differently to the rest of the world.

  I'd bet money my father's kidnapper was sweating alongside the rest of us, probably in a shiny suit. I scanned the faces—the ones I could see—but they were a damp ocean.

  Prayers were said, kisses were delivered one final time, then we all hurried back to our vehicles to tail the hearse to the cemetery, where we all clumped in groups, according to allegiance. That's how my aunt put it.

  "Here we go," Aunt Rita said, elbowing me, when the priest was done saying his Latin piece, graveside. "Watch the sister."

  She gave great mourning, I'll give her that. With the acting skill of Streep, Cookie's sister hurled herself upon the coffin's almighty lid and howled, shoulders heaving, legs kicking. "Why, God? Whhhhhy? Oh, my brother, come back to me! I will even let you hold the remote!"

  "Stick around a few hours, he'll be back," Papou hollered.

  The grieving sister quit wailing for a moment. Her head snapped up. "Who said that?"

  Everybody pointed.

  "Don't mind me," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "Keep on doing what you were doing. You are very good at it. With those skills you could be a professional."

  "I am going to kill you," Grandma muttered. "Not in your sleep—that is too good for you. From now on when you eat, be afraid."

  "Why wait? I welcome death. Do it here. There is a coffin over there and it will be vacant soon."

  Melas was right: Cookie's sister went nuts for the funeral feast. And her koliva was out of this world. The boiled wheat was shot through with sweet sultanas and those tiny silver dragées. It reminded me of a low-key rice pudding.

  A bald guy with back hair (visible through his shirt) sidled up to me with his pack in butt-sniffing distance. He was too young for me and I was too old for his games. "Hey, Katerina," he said. "Are you having a good time, baby?"

  "It's a funeral," I said, my mouth full of boiled wheat.

  "So? You can still have fun at a funeral."

  "How do you know my name?"

  He shrugged. "Everybody knows." He gave me the full body scan, toes to tits, leaving me drenched with invisible slime. "You want to come to the bathroom with me? I'll let you hold it."

  I set my fork aside on the tiny crystal plate, took a good look at his smirking entourage. "Are your boyfriends coming with us?"

  "If you want. We can even take pictures."

  Damn. I wasn't expecting that. Time to reload the snark shooter with different ammo.

  "That could be a problem. I don't show up in photographs—or mirrors."

  Sasquatch Jr. hurried away, hand on his neck.

  I looked around until I spotted Xander. I grabbed his arm, pulled him closer. Nobody hit on me after that. The young guys were friendly, but distant. I couldn't stop them from leering across the room, but at least they didn't suggest quickies in the bathroom.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "You're welcome," Xander replied.

  Just kidding. The man didn't say a word. The edges of his lips twitched, though. I wouldn't swear to it, but I think he wanted to smile.

  Dad's buddies were all present again. They waved me over and doled out business cards—all except Jimmy Pants, who said I could swing by the school and get an extra workout with his classes anytime I wanted. I wanted to ask about the Baptist, but there were too many hands pulling me away.

  Melas was there again, too. Apart from a brief and mutual nod, we didn't interact. He watched me though, his gaze dark and penetrating and unreadable.

  I mingled, talked to people who were more interested in meeting Grandma's granddaughter than answering questions. They were tightlipped and wary when it came to the subject of my father. They'd heard the news of his abduction but … eh, that's the business.

  "Did you learn anything?" Grandma asked me on the ride home. We were in the limo again. Takis was driving and Aunt Rita was riding shotgun with her hat and veil. Xander and Papou were in the SUV behind us. Papou was in time-out for asking Cookie's sister what time she expected him to rise from the grave.

  "Sure," I said. "I learned a lot of things. Mostly that Greeks don't like answering questions."

  "That is all you learned?" She sounded disappointed, as though I'd failed a test.

  "Was that a test? Because I'm not a fan of tests."

  "Life is a test, Katerina."

  "Thanks for that, Socrates."

  She laughed but the edge of it was ragged and sharp. A warning laugh. I knew what she wanted: respect. But respect doesn't come automatically with age and position in life. Other people respected and feared her, but I didn't trust her. She'd demanded a glimpse of my cards while withholding her own. That reticence made me wonder if we were on the same team, playing the same game. Something told me she was chess and I was naked Twister.

  Okay, so my game was more like Hangman. My strategy was to guess wildly at letters until either the kidnapper's name was spelled out or the noose tightened around my neck. But my game was an honest one. I wanted to find Dad. No ulterior motives, no fear of pulling the wrong string and having an empire unravel on my head.

  I angled my head so the headrest could do its job. Eyes closed, I sifted through the past couple of day's events, until I was left with one tiny flake in the pan. It had a gold cast, but there was no knowing yet if it was fool's gold or the real deal.

  Dad's old buddies knew the Baptist. Tony Goats let it slip that the psycho nut was more than just a name to them. Which made me wonder if Dad had known him, too.

  I awoke in a room that wasn't mine, in a house that wasn't home, in a country that was pretending to be my friend. The room was dark and the night had hauled in some muscle: dense clouds that kept the stars a secret. On the bedside table my phone seared the time into my retina. It was after midnight, but only just.

  My body tensed as footsteps approached my door. There was a soft one-knuckled knock, then Grandma said, "Katerina, get dressed and come to the kitchen." In the dark I felt around for old faithful jeans and tugged a T-shirt down over my head.

  Grandma wasn't alone in the kitchen. Xander was standing by the door, arms crossed, as solid and strong as a tree. His face was passive and gave nothing away. Shocking, I know. He was dressed for trouble—probably breaking and entering—in black boots, black cargo pants, tight black T-shirt.

  "What's going on?"

  Besides a crime.

  "You are going with Xander."

  "At midnight? Where?"

  "You will see," Grandma said.

  Let me tell you now, it's not reassuring when a mobster tells you to take a ride with their henchman after midnight. In fact, my digestive tract had suddenly decided it was going through a kind of menopause, with hot and cold flashes. The old woman was my grandmother, yeah, but this was someone who allegedly snuffed her own brother-in-law. But I trotted out to the garage behind Xander, because what else could I do? If I didn't move, he'd move me. He'd done it before.

  "If I'm going anywhere with you in the middle of the night it's in the front seat."

  He opened the back door. In retaliation, I folded my arms and showed him my best Xander impersonation. He remained unamused.

  Somehow—by the power of brawn, I suspected—I ended up in the backseat anyway. Alone. Again. No access to the radio or my pride. All in all, Greece wasn't shaping up to be good for my dignity.

  We were taking Xander's car. The windows were still gone but someone had thoughtfully swept out all the glass.

  "Really? You couldn't find another car?"

  He fired up the engine and we blasted out of Dodgeopolis, headed for God knows where.

  Chapter 11

  The cemetery was dark. I don't know why I was surprised, but there I was, eyebrows slight
ly raised, mouth open enough for mosquito to zip in on a quest for blood. It looked different. By day it had seemed like a peaceful place to be dead, if you had no other choice. But in the mostly moonless and cloudy night, it wore thick, black shadows and swam in swirling, churning pools of deep ink, waiting, I was convinced, to suck grave robbers and Americans to the bottom.

  This was it: my end. Xander had brought me to the graveyard to do the deed. This way he wouldn't have to go too far to ditch my body.

  "Oh God, I don't want to die. I didn't mean to steal your car and get the windows smashed."

  He looked at me like I was a few slices short of a loaf.

  "You're not going to kill me?"

  He shook his head.

  Oh. Well. "I think I'll wait in the car."

  Xander shrugged like it was my funeral and I was welcome to it. He vaulted the wall, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, which shared the same cozy atmosphere as the graveyard.

  Probably it was a haunted sidewalk. For all I knew, ghosts were wafting through me right now.

  At least if I went with Xander I wouldn't be alone—right? I really didn't want to hang here solo, so I sat on the wall, swung my legs over, and hoped I wouldn't get sucked into Hades.

  Grandma's muscle tucked my hand into his, pulling me along behind him like a kid's toy. Warm hand. Nice. It shot hot sparks up my arm. For a moment I wondered if I was having a stroke or heart attack. Didn't those start with fire-like tingling? I kept walking, waiting to see if my brain or heart would short circuit, dropping me to the ground like I'd sassed an American cop.

  Xander threaded us between grave markers for what felt like miles. A July night in Greece was warmer than a July night in Portland. Mid to high sixties. Heavy and still. Air thick with ghosts and ghouls and other supernatural cooties I couldn't see. How Xander knew where he was going was a mystery. It didn't look like the death cooties bothered him. What did it take to faze the guy? Because I was seriously fazed.

  Suddenly, he stopped. I almost rear-ended him, which, for the record, isn't my thing at all. Which possibly contributed to my ex finding sexual fulfillment on the end of a sausage.

  My pupils began to dilate. I recognized where we were now: Cookie's grave. Xander trudged over to a nearby tree, a creepy, drooping long-fingered thing that wanted a piece of me. Probably my soul. He leaned against the trunk. Slid to the ground. Rested his forearms on his knees.

  Not me. No way was I going to be bait for a soul-eating tree. So I sat some distance away and waited for a dead man to rise.

  By 2:00 a.m. the sandman was tugging on my eyelids. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about Dad. He was alive, I was sure of it. I'd know if he was gone. I wasn't sure how this was going to play out. Realistically, there was no way anyone was just going to hand him over if I knocked politely on their door—just as Grandma said—and I knew it. That didn't stop me wanting it to be that easy.

  "Playing bodyguard isn't going to work. I'll never stop looking for Dad," I said. "So you can work with me or against me."

  Eyes straight ahead, focused on the grave, Xander kept right on saying nothing.

  "But I know knocking on doors isn't going to work, so I need to do something that will work." I nudged him with my toe. "I'm open to suggestions."

  Nothing.

  "How did you get mixed up with my family anyway? Please don't tell me my grandmother demanded your parents' firstborn."

  He neither confirmed nor denied it, which was meaningless.

  "I know." I sat up straight. "You've got a phone, I've got a phone. You could text your answers."

  More silence. For all I knew he had me on ignore.

  I changed positions again, stretched out on the grass. "I miss my father."

  This time Xander nudged me. I followed his line of sight to the grave, where the freshly shoveled soil was jumping.

  Yikes!

  My heart told me this was either the beginning of a zombie apocalypse or a vampire infestation, and that it was pointless to run but I should at least try, that way I could die secure in the knowledge that I done my best.

  My head said, Puhlease, it's just a dead guy clawing his way out of a grave. It happens all the time, especially when we're talking Cookie's grave. Sheesh.

  Ask me, my heart was probably right, but my head had control of my moving parts. So I sat there cross-legged and watched a fist punch through the dirt, followed by a second fist, and eventually, a head. The not-so-dead guy had his back to us.

  Cookie scrambled out, having a tough time with the shifting dirt. But he finally made it. He began dusting himself off, obviously not happy about the soil situation on his once-shiny suit.

  "Cookie," I said.

  He jumped. "Who are you?"

  "Katerina Makris."

  Christos Koulouris was attractive, but he was no Sean Connery. From here it would be downhill. Maybe he'd even been coasting down the hill for a while.

  "Makris." He thought about it for a moment, then pointed two index fingers at me. "You're Mikey Far's daughter. I heard you were here."

  Oddly enough, he didn't seem all that perturbed that we were hip to his charade. Maybe that's how he was—I couldn't say. And Xander couldn't say either, because when did he ever say anything?

  I smiled, big and wide. "It's good to meet you. I heard you were my father's best friend."

  He looked past me to Xander, who was sort of looming.

  "Ignore Frankenstein's monster," I said, waving my hand.

  "I remember you," Cookie said, still pointing. He was down to one finger now, though. "You were the one who took a photo at my wake. Did I look convincing?"

  "Papou deleted it by accident, so I can't say."

  "That old bastard," he said. "He owes me a thousand euros."

  "Knowing him, you'll never see it."

  His shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I know. What's a pretty girl doing in a cemetery with one of Baboulas's apes?"

  "You were my father's best friend, right?"

  "I was. But it's been a long time. Decades."

  "He's been kidnapped."

  "I heard."

  Was it just me or was there something strange about this whole thing? Xander was doing a whole lot of nothing except standing back while I did the talking.

  Not that he could do the talking part, but still …

  My phone buzzed in my front pocket. For all I knew it was a push notification from Candy Crush, letting me know all my lives had refilled, but I had to check.

  "Excuse me," I said.

  "Don't mind me." He turned around, breathed in a big lungful of night. "I'm going to stand here and enjoy the fresh air. My God, it smells good. If you are ever trapped in a coffin, make sure you don't fart. Hold it even if you risk exploding."

  Good advice. I pulled the phone out of my pocket, checked the message splashed across the front. Consider him a gift. I looked at Xander. He shrugged, but there was a smile in his eyes.

  Well, well.

  "How did you hear about my father?"

  Cookie turned back around. "What was that?"

  "My father. How did you hear he was missing?"

  He scratched his head. "Did my sister send a car? There's supposed to be a car—there always is."

  I didn't know what happened to his ride. There was one car on the main road and it was ours. Xander folded his arms, beefed up his biceps, which were already pretty beefy.

  Mmm … beef.

  "It's a small community," he continued. "Everybody knows everything—most of the time. It is no secret that your father disappeared. Baby Dimitri told somebody, who told somebody else, and then it came back to me. That's how it is."

  "He didn't disappear. Two men took him from our home."

  "Who says?"

  "The next-door neighbor."

  "What sort of person is that neighbor? Honest? Reliable? A person who sees what they want to see?"

  "He's a former judge."

  He spat on the ground. "Lawyers. Who can trust them?"
>
  "Why did you fake your death … this time?"

  He shrugged. "Business. I screwed up. Told the wrong guy the right story. Now I've got a kolotripas chasing me."

  "The Baptist?"

  "That's what he calls himself now, can you believe it? It's a terrible name. Grandiose, dramatic."

  "He just sounds Greek to me."

  "Heh-heh. How do you know him?"

  "He wants to kill me, too." I lined up my next question. "The rest of your old gang, it sounded to me like they know him."

  "Malakas, all of them. They know nothing." He looked at his watch. "You seem like a nice girl. I have no sons, no daughters who will miss me or come looking for me if I vanish. All I have is my sister. We're the last of our line. What happens when we are gone? Nothing, that is what. You want to find your father? Who benefits if he disappears? Did anyone ask for ransom? I don't think so."

  "No," I admitted. "Not yet."

  "They won't. Ransom money is not what they want, I guarantee it."

  Frustration hooked its fangs into me. For a moment I could see it, why the CIA did what it did. Talking a person out of information was painfully slow. Why waste all that time on chit chat when shattering a kneecap can save hours?

  "What do you think they want?"

  "If he was truly kidnapped? Everything."

  Well, that was … specific. "Truly kidnapped? Do you think he wasn't?"

  He plucked another question out of the hat. "How did you know I was alive?"

  I didn't. All I had was hearsay. "Come on, how many times have you faked death now?"

  "Too many," he said woefully. "I've lost count. When we were boys, your father and I used to fake our deaths all the time. Our mothers would beat the shit out of us with the wooden spoons for scaring them. But we always did it again. We did other things, too. More than once, we pretended we had been kidnapped—even sent ransom notes to our families." He tapped the side of his head with a finger. "I wonder if that is what your father is doing now."