by Alex A King
“A survivor. Wherever he is, the other guy is losing.”
“You know him well?”
“Nobody knows him well. But I know him enough. He’ll turn up.”
“But if you had to guess where he is?”
“Thessaloniki.”
“Thessaloniki?” I thought about it. “He’s with Grandma.”
“My guess is he’s up there in the shadows, making sure nobody hurts her.”
I though about what she had told me about his past. “He’s devoted to her, isn’t he?”
“She raised him. He’ll never forget that.”
If Melas knew about the plastic card Xander carried on him, he didn’t leak a word.
We’d already reached the driveway. Melas’s car was parked between the fountain and arch. The front windows were down. He put the boxed eyes on the passenger-side floor, out of the sun.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Check if they’re Harry Harry’s. Dust the box for prints. If we find any I won’t be surprised if they match Periphas Dogas.” He gave my body an approving look. “You going to tell me about that bet?”
“What bet? There’s no bet.”
“There’s a bet.” He slid behind the wheel, smirk firmly plastered on his lips, the delicious bastard.
“No bet. You’re imagining things.”
“There’s a bet,” he repeated, as he rolled away.
Damn him, there was a bet. But I wouldn’t be telling him about it.
* * *
NIGHT SKULKED in like a dog that had finished digging up the prized garden and was hoping you didn’t notice its dirt-caked paws. The oncoming darkness didn’t escape me, or the thickness of its shadows, but my brain was too busy vibrating in my head for me to get up and open the shutters to let the cooler air flood through.
Two men had died today—one of them inches away from where I’d been sitting. My memory kept hitting the rewind button, sometimes replaying the shooting in slow motion. There’s no way to snatch the remote control away—not when your brain is the one mashing the buttons.
The house was an empty kind of quiet. On the kitchen counter the baklava steeping in its syrup looked as lonely as I felt, so I ate a piece, for solidarity.
I tapped out a Facebook status on my phone, attached a picture of the sheep tsunami from yesterday, and assured my friends and acquaintances, some of whom I’d even met, that Greece was amazing and I was in it.
My eye twitched. The little people-shaped blob at the top of the screen was red. People wanted to be my virtual friends. Lots of people. Fifty-three of them.
Who gets fifty-three friend requests in one hit?
A Makris, that’s who. Which I discovered when I clicked on the blob and watched half my family’s names scroll past. The Family wanted to claim me—online and off.
Not now. Not tonight. I clicked away, opened a browser window.
I didn’t log on or in, whichever was correct, to the Crooked Noses Message Board. I didn’t have to. Because my stupid phone remembered I’d been here before and gave the super-secret digital handshake before I had a chance to jab the button. And before I had a chance to hit the get-me-outta-here-I-want-to-be-anonymous button, my gaze hooked itself on the red envelope at the top of the screen. I had message. Or messages.
Tap.
Message. One single, lonely message. A bit like me.
Sender: BangBang.
Did you find what you were looking for?
My insides began to ice up, starting in my fingers. It spread quickly. In seconds my entire body was flash frozen. My mind skated back to our previous conversation, the one where I’d clicked away because I’d thrown a clue to my identity on the screen. Now here was BangBang asking if I’d found what I was looking for.
He or she knew I was Katerina Makris. I could feel it.
Several options fanned out in front of me.
Delete my account, sending these messages spiraling into the ether—or more likely, some database somewhere on a server, where, theoretically, anyone with a warrant or significant technological know-how could sift through my words and divine my identity.
Walk away; never go back.
Reply. Ask BangBang what they want. Promise riches, if need be.
Reply. Feign stupidity.
A smart woman would walk away, never to darken the board’s virtual door again. So I fired off a message, because I’m the kind of person who can’t resist squeezing a pimple until I’m left with a purple-red volcano where there used to be a humble zit.
But I compromised: I feigned stupidity.
Huh?
Succinct. Functional.
The light next to BangBang’s name was green. He or she was online.
Dogas’ hiding place. You seemed concerned about it last time.
Be cool, I told myself. Be casual. Pretend you’re not a crime lord’s granddaughter.
Oh, that? I’d already forgotten about it. Watch any good football lately?
No such thing as bad football.
Hahahaha. Got that right.
No. Got that wrong. Football sucked.
Which teams do you support?
Be enthusiastic. It’s all part of the diversion. Remember, Kat, you want him to forget about the America flub.
All of them, I typed.
I held my breath.
Nobody supports all the teams. That’s not how human nature works.
I do. So obviously that’s exactly how it works.
I signed out. Closed the browser. Tossed my phone on the bedside table. Then I made a trip back to the kitchen counter for another diamond-shaped wedge of pastry, nuts, and syrup.
Solidarity.
I ate and tried not to miss Dad.
But what I really wanted was my mom. I would never be too old to wish she were here.
* * *
DAWN POKED her nose through the shutters around 8 AM. Really it was almost mid-morning but I felt less lazy if I lied to myself and called it dawn. My bladder shot a flare. I needed to go and I needed to go now.
Barefooted, I dragged myself outside. Without Grandma here I could go barefoot without her disapproving and slapping slippers into my hands. Feeling like a rebel, I stretched my arms up over my head and yawned.
No sign of the morning’s usual cool edge; I’d slept through it. Perfume flooded the air as the sun poked its fingers at the gardenias. Not far away, someone was splashing in the pool. Top 40 music trickled out of an open window.
For a moment this almost felt like college.
“Aunt Katerina?”
Argh! I whipped around, hand on heart, half expecting to get clubbed over the head by a maniac. What I got was little Tomas looking up at me, worry etched on his cute face. He’d made himself at home on the ground, where he’d been dissecting flowers. The parts were neatly separated into scientific piles.
Technically I wasn’t his aunt, but in Greece respect often trumped biological accuracy.
“It’s okay, I didn’t pee my pants,” I said, more to myself than him.
“My dentist appointment is tomorrow at ten,” he said. “Can you still take me?”
“Want me to swing by and pick you up or do you want to meet by the fountain out front.”
He giggled, reminding me that he was in fact a child and not a man in a boy suit. “By the fountain.” Then he ran off, abandoning his flowers.
I was contemplating some downtime, maybe hanging with my goat, when Aunt Rita swung into Grandma’s yard. She had topped a short denim jumpsuit with a curly blond wig. The fake hair was as big as hair got. Take her to a concert, people would hurl beer bottles at her head to knock down the skittle.
“It’s party time,” she said. “And by party time I mean business.”
“Oh God. Hit me with it.”
“You have meetings. People who want things.”
“Do they want me to kill people? Because I won’t kill people.”
“No, some of them will expect you to hurt p
eople.”
“I can’t do that either. Can I give them advice instead?”
“You can try,” she said.
Chapter 18
I WASN’T a Grandma-level baker, and my thumb was more black than green, so I took Grandma’s meetings under the umbrella near one of the courtyard’s fountains. If I was lucky the running water would make the other parties want to pee, so hopefully they’d take their advice and shoo, without expecting me to hurt, kill, or con anyone.
I had armed myself with my new phone and a frappe, so I’d have an excuse to run away and pee, or take an imaginary call, if they expected me to kill someone.
My goat was chilling out nearby, crunching on a pool noodle.
“Jesus,” I said. “Don’t eat the pool noodle! I don’t know if it’s non-toxic!” He sort of rolled his eyes and shifted his attention—and teeth—to a deck chair.
Goats are the ultimate omnivores. If they can ‘vore it they will.
Aunt Rita appeared in the archway with a sweaty man, his threadbare pants hitched under his belly. He was old enough to have fought in Vietnam—if the Vietnam War had been on Greece’s radar—but young enough to never have been promoted past corporal. And he had a nose that could open cans. He stopped when he saw me, muttered something under his mustache I couldn’t hear. He and my aunt exchanged words, some of them bordering on volatile, judging from the arm waving on both sides. Any more flapping and one of them was bound to take flight. Finally they seemed to reach an uncomfortable consensus. The man slouched toward me, following my aunt’s clicking heels.
“This is George the Sheep Lover,” she said.
“On account of how he …?”
“I love sheep,” George said, glowering.
“As friends or …?”
The glare didn’t dim. “Family.”
Which answered none of my questions, and also brought to mind some of the worst places I’d been on the Internet.
“What can I do for you, Kyrios George?”
His scowl softened at my respectful addition of the Greek “Mr.” to his name. How bad could I be if I understood respect?
“It is about my sheep.”
I indicated for him to sit, but he chose to stand, his hat in hands. All this standing weirded me out, so I stood, too. Maybe Grandma wouldn’t, but I wasn’t Grandma.
“What’s wrong with your sheep?”
“It’s that malakas Yiannis the Sheep Fucker! He stole one of my sheep!”
My mind was officially boggled … and seriously grossed out. “Do you have proof?”
“He has my sheep.”
“Did you ask him to return your sheep?”
“No, I did not think of that.”
“Maybe you should try—“ I started.
“Of course I asked for my sheep! That was sarcasm!”
Old George the Sheep Lover didn’t strike me as the sharpest balloon, so I’d failed to catch his meaning. Mental note to self: old Greek men are snarky.
“Okay, so what other steps have you taken to recoup your lost sheep?”
“Not lost. Stolen.”
“Your stolen sheep, then.”
“I stole it back.”
“And?”
“He took it again.”
“Did he trespass on your property? Because I’m sure that’s a crime.” I looked at my aunt. “Is that a crime here?”
“Sure it’s a crime. Is a crime the police care about? No. Not unless it’s something old.” She nodded at George. “He doesn’t count.”
“Hey,” George said. “There was no trespassing. He lured my sheep with magic.”
“Magic?” I leaned closer. “I suppose you’re a muggle?”
“What is she talking about?” he implored my aunt. “I don’t know what she is talking about. Where is Kyria Katerina? I want to speak with someone who can get my sheep back.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll help you. But if this Yiannis is doing magic …”
“He gave my sheep a love potion and whispered sweet words to seduce her away from my flock.”
“What kind of weirdo seduces a sheep?”
“It happens,” my aunt said. “All kinds in this world.”
Aunt Rita was a kind of her own, so I figured she knew what she was talking about.
What would any self-respecting problem-solver do? Grandma probably had her own way of dealing with this—club the thief, take back the slutty sheep—but I wasn’t her. I was doing to do this old school.
“Where does he live? I want to talk to him.”
“Good idea!” George boomed. “Break his legs.”
“No, the leg-breaking isn’t a metaphor. I’m going to talk to him.”
“With a gun or a knife?”
“Uh, with my mouth?”
“And you think I am strange.”
“I’m going to speak to the man. Using my mouth. And words. Maybe a few hand gestures, if necessary.”
He looked at me. My meaning wasn’t soaking in. The Family did crime. If there were words, eventually there would be bullets or lead pipes mashing kneecaps.
“Do I have time to talk with this guy?” I asked my aunt.
“There is someone else waiting, then you can go.”
I pointed to George. “You’re coming with me. But first could you wait? Maybe over there.”
He wandered off to another shaded table, muttering.
The next person to ask for counsel was a familiar face. Kyria Koufo wore the same pinched mouth, the same stormy eyes. She didn’t warm up as she approached. I could sympathize. Her husband had fallen into another woman’s vagina. My ex fell facedown, repeatedly, on a dick. Although, as far as I knew, Todd hadn’t made any plans to have me killed, unlike Mr. Koufos.
“Katerina is not back yet?” she demanded.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m the backup plan: Katerina 2.0.”
She stared at me, blatantly unamused. “My husband is still fooling around with that she-dog. I want to know when he will be forced to stop. How long before he has me killed, eh?”
Oh boy, she was still fixated on my push-her-down-the-stairs plan, which hadn’t been a plan at all. It hadn’t even been a serving suggestion. It was me mouthing off, being a goof.
“Have you considered marriage counseling?”
“We are Greek. We do not do counseling.”
I thought hard. “You go to church, don’t you?”
“Of course. I am Greek.”
“How about church counseling? Priests back home often guide couples through …” I hunted and pecked for an apt metaphor that had nothing to do with tossing people through windows, down stairs, or under buses. “… rocky waters. There’s no shame in needing some help from time to time.”
“You want me to speak with my priest,” she said flatly.
“It’s an idea.” And a good one, I thought.
“About our private business.”
I might have winced. Greeks didn’t really seem to have much in the way of private business. The priest probably knew what was going on—or not going on—in the Koufo bedroom better than she did. And he probably knew about the affair.
For a moment I wondered if Father Harry was her priest. Grandma had never mentioned whether Kyria Koufo was a local woman or not.
“I’m not sending someone to push her down the stairs,” I said. “That’s crazy.”
She reached out, slapped the back of my head. “Respect your elders.”
I had respect for my elders, provided they weren’t crazy. This one was crazy-cakes.
“No one is pushing anyone down any stairs while I’m in charge.”
She stared at me until I fizzled like burning celluloid film.
“We will see.”
Then she took to the skies on her broomstick.
Figuratively.
* * *
GEORGE THE SHEEP LOVER and I piled into Aunt Rita’s Pepto-mobile. Between the pink paint and the drop-top, I felt as if I were Barbie, with the wind tossing my h
air like linguini.
Yes, the Beetle was a convertible, too, but this was pink.
Aunt Rita squealed out of the driveway and out onto the dirt road, blowing up a dust storm in my deadly entourage’s faces. Guilt tweaked my nose. Elias didn’t seem like a bad guy, and Donk was a kid who aspired to be an asshole when he grew up. The other two and Cleopatra, they could eat our dirt, as far as I was concerned. Aunt Rita honked the horn and we were gone.
Yiannis the Sheep Fucker lived in a hut on the mountain, at the end of a thin track of dubious stability. George the Sheep Lover lived in an adjacent hut. Both abodes were gray stone, cobbled together any which way and topped with red slate roofs. Between the two houses, a fence hugged the slope, but it was less wire and more air. Plenty of space for an ovine Casanova to lure through a sheep of easy virtue.
Yiannis was home. He was sitting on his porch rolling cigarettes. He had wild grey hair and a faded black shirt unbuttoned to his waist, revealing the wife-beater underneath.
He didn’t look up as I picked my way across the chewed terrain. “What do you want, girl?”
“I’m here about a stolen sheep.”
“There is no stolen sheep.”
I stepped aside, pointed to George the Sheep Lover, who was hovering near Aunt Rita’s car. “Did you or did you not take this man’s sheep?”
“You cannot stop true love!” he yelled. He flung the cigarettes in my face, dived through his front door, and slammed it shut.
“That went well,” I said to the others. “I like how mature you are about this,” I told the man behind the door.
Silence.
I swung around, hand shielding my eyes. The sheep were in a fenced paddock chowing on sparse grass. Most of the time Greek shepherds and goatherds had to keep their animals on the move because the grass was so pathetic mid-summer and winter, but today both men had their flocks penned. George had told me more than I’d ever wanted to know about sheep on the drive over.
“Which one is yours?” I asked him. Because to me they were all the same sheep. Dirty, white-ish wool; sweet, docile, not-too-bright faces.
George squinted at the livestock. “That one.”
Helpful guy, that George. “Which one?”
“Eh … one of them.”