by Alex A King
I pulled him aside. “Look, you’re right, I’m going to see Grandma. I can’t tell you why. I won’t tell you why. But I need to go.” In fact, I could have driven there with all the time I was wasting here.
He focused on some point past my shoulder. Nodded. “How many does the plane hold?”
The groan slid out of me.
Stavros piped up. “There are enough seats for all these assholes.”
“What about me?” Melas asked.
“You’re not coming,” I yelped.
“Why not? Flying is fun.”
“This is business. Family business.”
Two palms up. “So take care of your business. I’m tagging along.” He grinned. He’d gotten one over on and me, and he knew it. “For fun.”
Fine. Anything to get off the ground sometime soon.
I trotted over to tell the assassins what was up.
“We’re not getting on a plane with a cop,” Lefty said. “What if he arrests us?”
I swung back around to look at Melas. “Promise not to arrest anyone?”
“If they promise not to do anything that gets them arrested.”
“Promise?” I asked them.
Lefty glanced at the others. They all shrugged, except Vlad, who didn’t seem like shrugging was his thing. “Okay, we promise.”
“Promise?” I asked Melas.
“Sure, why not.”
“Okay. Everybody saddle up!”
* * *
I WAS STUCK between a window and Melas. He’d planted himself next to me, ejecting Stavros from the aisle seat first. From the air, Greece was brown and an exhausted shade of green.
Melas nudged me with his elbow. “You going to tell me why we’re going to Thessaloniki?”
“We’re not—I am. And no, I’m not telling you.”
“Okay,” he said. “I was curious. Have they given you permission to see her?”
“The lawyers were trying.”
“I might be able to get you in if they can’t.”
“Really?”
“I can’t promise they’ll go for it, but they will if they want my cooperation again.”
The plane dipped. Almost time to land. We’d been in the air fewer than ten minutes.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take any help I can get.”
“Katerina,” he said. “What ever you do, don’t say anything that could incriminate you in any way or get Baboulas into more trouble. They’re looking for an excuse to throw away the key.”
My eyes misted. A lump wedged itself good and hard in my throat. The words couldn’t push past.
He took my hand, and I let him.
* * *
GRANDMA WASN’T in the lockup facility at the Thessaloniki Police Headquarters. She was gone. My heart squeezed all the juice out, then relaxed when I realized they didn’t mean the dead kind of gone. I tried to process what the boys in black were telling me, in the brightly lit interrogation room. The periodic, and almost imperceptible, flicker of the gas-filled tubes kept me hovering on the edge between nervous and nuts.
But I played it cool; hard not to when the air-conditioning is set to late October. There was no austerity in this building. Even the coffee was the good stuff, served American-style.
“What do you mean she’s not here?”
The guy slouching against the wall, arms folded to keep away the criminal cooties, was the same guy who’d hauled Grandma away. He’d witnessed my dumb act; now he was getting the real dumb deal.
“We had to let her go. Look, we know she sprang Dogas out of prison, but she had too many alibis who swore otherwise.”
“Who?”
He looked pissed. Not a man used to losing to a woman—or anyone else. “A whole village. Every one of them claimed she was at a church thing at the village square at the time. They all saw your grandmother there. I couldn’t crack a one of them.”
Well, well, well. Makria had come through for her, for better or worse, for lawful or not. Mostly not. Completely not. But they had come through for her.
I measured and cut my words carefully. “If they say she was there, she was there.”
“The hell she was. I know it, they know it, you know it.”
The door opened. A suit stepped in. I recognized him from the compound on the day of the raid. He had a face like a stack of unfinished paperwork: smooth, line-free, and completely without character or little doodles in the margins.
“I don’t know anything except that my grandmother isn’t here. How did she leave? Did you put her on a bus or what?”
“She had a ride,” the cop told me. “One of her men. An Alexander Dimou.”
Was it my imagination or did he press a subtle emphasis upon her? He flicked a glance at the suit. Repulsion skittered across his face, and then it was gone, leaving him about as readable as the Voynich manuscript.
“All yours,” he muttered. Through the door he went, leaving me with the guy in the suit.
I shivered. He didn’t. But then one of us was wearing fewer clothes.
“So you’re the granddaughter,” he said.
I said nothing. He had made an observation, that’s all. There was no hook at the end of his comment to suggest a question had taken place.
“How is the search for your father coming along?”
Okay, so that was a question.
“Things would be moving faster if law enforcement would cooperate.”
Not so much as a twitch. “Not our jurisdiction.”
“What is your jurisdiction?”
“Greece.”
“Are you Hellenic Police?”
“Yes.”
He was good; I’d give him that. The lie rolled out without a squeak. But his eyes darted left for a fraction of a second before reattaching themselves to mine. Probably he was cursing himself internally for that glitch. Men like him did training to rid themselves of tiny tells. They wound up excellent at poker, but not at life.
“We can help you—we want to. But you have to help us.”
“How?”
“You’re in a unique situation. You’re closer to Baboulas than anyone.”
“I’m living in her house. There’s a difference between physical closeness and intimacy. She doesn’t share anything with me.”
“Then get her to share. Your father’s life could depend on it.”
He wanted me to betray Grandma. Be the leak in her trireme and sink the Family. And here I was, the woman who said she’d do anything to get Dad back. Was that true, would I do anything? Or did my anything have edges like any other box?
“Think about it,” he said, shunting the decision-making to one side, for now. “I’ll be in touch. He pushed the door outward, held it open with one flat palm. “If you stay on this road, you’ll discover uphill and downhill are the same direction.”
“I’ve studied the great philosophers,” I said. “You’re not one of them.”
Then I left while I could.
* * *
“SHE’S GONE,” I told Melas. He was waiting downstairs, firing birds at smirking pigs on his phone. He shot me a surprised glance.
“What?”
“They say it takes a village to raise a child. Apparently a village can also yank a crime lord’s feet out of the fire. She has alibis.” I told him what Thessaloniki’s finest had told me.
He pocketed his phone, stood with his hands on hips while he stared off into the distance, somewhere over my shoulder. I waved my hand in front of his eyes.
“Xander picked her up,” I said.
“Yeah, I figured he was here. He goes where she goes, unless she tells him otherwise. You okay?”
“Relieved. Worried. This isn’t over.” It felt like someone had popped the lid on a tube of Pringles. There would be no stopping until the last chip was eaten, and so far the cops had only licked the powdery flavoring on top. “Also, I realized you’re beating me in Angry Birds.”
Melas molded his hand around the curve of my nape. My hormo
nes shot hot glitter and streamers. But beneath the hormonal fanfare was a warm, reassuring glow. He wanted to get a better look down my front, yes, but he also had my back.
“I don’t mind that you’re a loser,” he said.
He reeled me in, pecked me on both cheeks, then gave me a quick hug.
Afternoon traffic was light in Greece’s second biggest city. That’s the power of the siesta. I leaned back in the rental car’s seat, closed my eyes. And when I opened them again we were at the airport where Grandma’s jet was waiting.
Takis and Marika were arguing off to one side in the shade. The assassins were slumped against the small terminal building, smoking. But not Mo. He was swinging his Aladdin sword, making swishing noises with his mouth.
Oh, God, he was pretending to be a Jedi, wasn’t he?
“Is he pretending to be a Jedi?” Melas asked me.
Great and terrible minds.
“I think so.”
“You keep some weird company.”
I looked him up and down. “Tell me about it.”
He grinned. “Just so you know, I want to kiss you right now.” Then he smacked me on the butt and swaggered off toward the plane, leaving me to cool off in the sun.
Takis and Stavros didn’t ask questions. They knew the business meant knowing when to keep quiet. They’d pounce on me when we shed the assassins and cop.
Not Marika. She began to fire questions as soon as we boarded the plane. I tried to answer using an array of creative grunts and hums, but she had four kids and Takis; noises weren’t going to satisfy a Greek wife and mother.
Finally Takis stomped back from the cockpit. “Shut up so I can concentrate!”
The jet dipped.
“Who’s flying this thing?” I asked.
Two palms up. “The autopilot.”
“Po-po,” Marika said. “You have one job on this plane, and even that you can’t do.”
Takis pointed at his wife, then the finger swung toward me like I was due North.
“No more, you two. No more spending time together, having women’s adventures. You go home and cook. You,” he told me, “learn to cook.”
“I’ll tell Grandma you said that.”
“Heh. Maybe I spoke too hastily. I have to go land the plane.” He hurried back to the cockpit.
“Being married to Takis is a life sentence,” Marika told me.
The jet swooped lower.
“Gamo ta pethamena sou!” Takis muttered from up front, threatening to sexually violate someone’s dead bodies. “Some malakas is parked on the runway. Who parks a car on the runway?”
“In India sometimes they have cows on the runway,” Stavros said.
“Cows on the runway …” Takis snickered. “Nobody listen to Stavros, he is an idiot.”
“It’s true,” Stavros said in a low voice. “The planes have to fly around until the cows move.”
Mo stuck his head over the seat. “The moron is right, they have cows.”
“Nobody asked you,” Takis yelled from the front. “Why are you here? Your employer is dead!”
“I wanted to ride on the plane,” Mo said. “It’s the same as a Persian plane.” He sounded disappointed.
“Why don’t they put a horn on jets?” Takis went on. “Leather seats they have, plush carpet they have, but no horn.”
“The jet engine noise is usually warning enough,” I told him. “You can’t really miss it.”
“Except this malakas missed it.” There was a short pause. “Definitely a malakas. It’s Xander.”
“Is Grandma with him?”
“Hard to say.”
I got out of my seat, worked my way to the cockpit.
Takis shot me a dirty look over one shoulder. “What are you doing? Get back there. Nobody is allowed in the front except me.”
I scuttled backwards.
“If you are going to stand there, be useful, send Xander a text message and tell him to move his kolos off the runway.”
* * *
XANDER MOVED THE SUV. Takis landed the plane and we all piled out. My gaze cut through the bodies, hunting for Grandma.
“Where is she?” I asked Xander.
He tilted his head toward the SUV. The windows were up, the engine running. I beelined for it. I yanked the driver’s side door open, boosted myself into the driver’s seat, turned sideways to look at Grandma.
To hug or not hug, that was the question.
Grandma’s fingers were busy with a crochet hook and smooth white yarn. Her eyes were bright, alert, and completely focused on me. How she could crochet without watching her hands was beyond me. Sometimes I glanced down to make sure I was nailing the whole walking thing—and I’d had nearly twenty-eight years of practice.
She hitched an eyebrow into the sardonic position. “Are you catching flies with your mouth?”
No hug.
“Nuh-uh. Are you okay?”
She made a vague noise, waved her hand as though slapping away my inquiry. “Where did you go with my plane?”
“Thessaloniki.”
“Rescue mission?”
“I had questions.”
“Questions.” She laughed. “Go ahead, ask.” Her head went back to bending over the hook and yarn.
“Are you planning to assassinate Kyria Koufo?”
“No.”
The knots in my shoulders fell into loose skeins.
“Did Tony Goats really try to hire someone to kill her?”
“No. Roll down your window.”
I did as she asked. She leaned over me, called out to Xander.
“Katerina is coming with us.”
* * *
GREECE WAS TWO COUNTRIES, the new superimposed over the old. Except, the new was smaller, and like a midriff top it had a hard time covering Greece’s ancient underbelly. It yanked, pulled, tugged, but old bits kept popping out.
Tony Goats’ office was new, shiny, where well-off people sent their children to get their teeth inspected and drilled. But behind the building was a grimy alley that had been here since long before an architect thought up the structure out front. The alley contained all the elements present in every alley throughout history, across the globe: dumpster, fried rice, stray dog, screeching cats, and a corpse. The dead man had been clubbed over the head with a twelve-inch statue of Athena, an item found in every souvenir shop in Greece. Now the goddess of war, wisdom, and lots of things a feminist would be proud of, was taking a dip in the red pool around Tony Goats’ head.
“Katsikas,” Grandma said. “Katerina, call the police.”
I called Melas. My voice crackled as I debriefed him.
“Jesus,” he said. “Who fries rice?”
“Never mind the rice. It’s the universal law of alleys, there’s always fried rice.”
“I’ll be right there. Don’t go anywhere.”
I turned to Grandma. “He’ll be right here. He said not to go anywhere.”
* * *
WE WERE GOING SOMEWHERE. Grandma told Xander to wait for the police, while we went to take care of business.
I launched a minor protest. “Melas said not to go anywhere.”
“I heard you the first time,” she said. “And we are not going somewhere—you are. I am coming along for the ride.”
Inwardly, I sighed. “Where am I going?”
“To Varvara Koufo’s house.” She tapped on the GPS. The talking map immediately began interrogating me, demanding to know where I wanted to go, in a sterile, saccharine voice designed for maximum condescension. “Tell it to go to Varvara’s house,” she said.
“Why me? Can’t I press a button or something?”
Not only did I not like the talking map’s passive-aggressive personality, but I also wasn’t one of those people who socialized with Siri—not when I could type stuff and get a silent, accurate result.
“No. Tell her where you want to go.”
Her. Like the tin woman had a job and feelings.
“No.”
> “Tell the map where you want to go.”
“Disney World,” I said clearly.
“Do you mean Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.; Disneyland, Anaheim, California, U.S.A.; or Disneyland Paris, Marne-la-Valée, France?”
“Florida,” I said.
“Calculating distance and route.” The tin woman wandered off to play with her calculator. A moment later she was back. “Unable to calculate distance and route. Please choose an alternate destination. Preferably someplace realistic.”
Sarcasm from a machine. What a world.
“Varvara Koufo’s house,” Grandma said, flicking her gaze sideways at me. The map adjusted itself to accommodate her command. No sass, no sarcasm this time.
“Why did we go to Tony Goats’ office?”
“To give him an alibi,” she said. “Now I will go to see Varvara Koufo, to let her know her husband is dead.”
“Are you going to kill her?”
“With what, Katerina? Do you see a gun? I have my crochet, that is all.”
I had a feeling a crochet hook was a deadly weapon in Grandma’s hands. Not that I knew much about killing people, but I was sure you could make a decent garrote using yarn and a hook.
“Why would Tony need an alibi?”
“He was Michail’s friend. A good boy. I did not want a good boy to go to jail for a crime he did not commit.”
“What crime?” I repeated my earlier question. “Are you going to kill her?”
“Only if talk fails—and I do not believe it will. We are old friends who do not always face the same direction when it comes to business. This is one of those times.”
* * *
HALF AN HOUR MEANDERED BY.
You’re not supposed to leave pets, kids, or adult grandchildren in the car with the windows up, so I had rolled everything down twenty-nine minutes ago. Greece was being uncharitable today: no breeze, no flirtatious hint of rain in the near future. There was shade sulking here and there, but it seemed to shift whenever one of Kyria Koufo’s neighbors tried to hide in its lower temperatures.
A little fishwife had set up shop in my head. She was yelling at me to quit being a moron. Grandma should have been back by now, and even the voice in my head knew it. Cold sparklers waved inside my gut, making pretty, icy patterns in my last cup of coffee.