by Paul Moomaw
Pray concentrated on trying to skip a rock across the whitecaps. “Greece,” he said.
“What’s in Greece?”
Pray paused. “Julian,” he said at length. “At least he’s supposed to be.” He sailed another rock into the surf. It sank as soon as it hit the water. He turned to his father.
The older man stood stiffly, staring at the Atlantic, his hands jammed into the pockets of his trousers. Shadows whose meaning Pray could only guess at flickered briefly across his face, then disappeared. Homer Pray paced across the sand to a low, fat cairn of loosely piled rocks, and sat on it. “Got a neighbor that’s a Greek,” he said. “Name of Datsopoulos. He talks real loud and wears a lot of gold. Always talking about how wonderful Greece is, and how this place is too wet, or too cold, or too expensive.” He snorted and kicked at the sand. “But I notice he stays right here in Bethany Beach.” His mouth lifted briefly into a tight smile. “What’s Julian doing in Greece?”
Pray shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“He just said come, so you come?”
“Just like that.”
The older Pray banged lightly on the rock pile with his heel. He wore an old pair of dress shoes, run down but looking as if they had been polished that morning. Pray wondered if his father owned any other kind.
“I guess he still has his head full of dreams,” the older man said.” He was always like that.” He kicked at the stones again. “He built this, you know? Something about pirates, or explorers. We used to come out when he was small, and he always wanted to pretend we were story book characters.” He scratched his head, stared at the water. “I didn’t see any harm in it then. Now I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have refused to go along. But he never was too big on reality. Everything always had to have a happy ending.”
He stood up stiffly and pulled one of the smaller rocks off the cairn. He tossed the rock up, caught it again. “I remember the last time we came out here. It was just after the war.”
That meant World War Two, Pray knew—the only war that counted for his father, the Good War, the one he had fought in a pinstripe suit and gray hat as an FBI agent.
“We found a bird, one of those little ones with long legs that chase the waves in and out. It was hurt, and Julian wanted to take it home and make it well. Hell, I think it had a wing missing. I tried to explain to him that things die, things go wrong. But Julian didn’t care. He wanted that happy ending.”
Pray’s father replaced the stone on the cairn, examined it, then shifted it slightly.
“We left the damned bird on the beach, and Julian never came here again.”
Pray tried to imagine his brother as a little boy, crying over a bird, but the image would not come. It didn’t fit the happy giant of his memories.
“Let’s go back,” his father said.
Pray nodded. “Julian must have been a good builder,” he said, running his hand across the cairn. “This has held up pretty well.”
“Oh, I come out every now and then and sort of put it back together,” his father said. He quickened his pace, striding ahead of his son, his eyes held firmly on the ground just in front of him.
Chapter 6
On his own turf, the Old Man blended in, looked as if he had sprouted from the oversized leather chair that dominated the tatterdemalion Langley office with its scarred wooden desk and nondescript, gray metal shelves; but here, in an ornate Paris hotel room filled with gilt Louis XV replicas, he was like something the sea had spit onto the beach.
Terry Parker held out the martini he had mixed under the Old Man’s watchful, reptilian eyes—heavy on the Bombay gin, and no olive. The Old Man thought olives were effete.
“I hope you find the time for some pleasure on this trip,” Parker said.
“I never travel for pleasure,” the Old Man said. He took the martini and wrinkled his nose over it. Parker hovered, suspended in a half-bow, until his superior sipped the drink, nodded, and settled into the chair.
“Bring me up to date,” the Old Man said.
Parker sat down across from him.
“Everything is go,” he said. “Fugger wasn’t happy at first. Said the furnace on his ship could only handle two thirds of the waste we intend to pass to him.” He paused and watched as the Old Man sipped at his martini. He wanted a drink himself, badly, but the Old Man did not approve of case officers drinking on duty.
“You used your great powers of persuasion, I gather,” the Old Man said.
“I told him we don’t care if he burns the stuff or uses it for bait. And I let him know that we can run interference for him if any nosy authorities get too interested.”
“So we have a lock on him?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. His fancy incinerator costs too much to operate. He can’t beat the market price for toxic waste disposal. Without us to hide behind, his operation is a money loser.”
“I hope you’re right,” the Old Man said. He drained his glass and held it out to Parker for a second martini. “Because the French have asked a price for allowing us Marseilles as a shipping point. They have a large problem with the nuclear waste they used to dump into Great Britain and the Eastern Bloc. The Greens have Downing Street scared, the Czechs have other ways to obtain hard currency these days, and East Germany doesn’t exist any more.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“In terms of volume, not a lot.”
“But in terms of radioactivity?”
“You don’t want to know.” The Old Man accepted the second martini and sniffed as warily at it as he had at the first. Suspicious old fart, Parker thought.
“Fugger will have to handle it,” the Old Man said. “What is he doing with what we’re giving him now?”
“Dumping it into undersea caverns. He hired a man to locate usable spots for him.”
The Old Man cocked an eyebrow. “Anyone we know?”
“His name is Julian Pray. He’s been drifting around the Med for a few years. Has a little ketch, hires out for odd jobs, looks for antiquities. Pretty much on the fringe.”
“Pray.” The Old Man fingered the rim of his glass and gazed at the ceiling. “We had a Pray, yes?”
Parker nodded. “Adam Pray. Brother, as a matter of fact.” Score one for me, he thought, happy he had checked the relationship out before his chief’s arrival.
“He didn’t last,” the Old Man said.
“Inherited some money and bailed out.”
The Old Man shook his head. “No dedication any more,” he said. “It’s just a job, these days.”
“Not to me, Sir.”
The Old Man stared at Parker, his rheumy eyes floating just above the martini glass.
“But you have your own agenda, don’t you?” he asked.
“Just to do the best job I can,” Parker said.
“Bullshit,” the Old Man said. “You want my job, Maybe you’ll get it some day.” He drained the glass and rose heavily from his chair. “In the meantime, you’d better make this work, or you won’t have any job at all.”
Parker knew he had been dismissed. “Not to worry, Sir,” he said, and hoped to hell he was right.
Chapter 7
Someone was following, and probably had been from the moment Adam Pray had left his hotel and started walking toward the Golden Gull, guided by the light atop the New Fort perched high above Corfu Harbor.
The tavern, seedy and sour-smelling, had been a dead end. When Pray had identified himself, and asked for Julian, the bartender had given him an odd look, gone to the rear to use the telephone, and returned to say Julian would not “be available.” Then he had walked away and left Pray staring after him.
Pray had left the Golden Gull and now wandered without direction, not sure what to do next, but not wanting to return to his hotel. A side street beckoned, narrow and devoid of people, filled with the aromas of dinners being cooked, and sporting only occasional, puny street lights. Pray turned into it. Whoever trailed him would have trouble hiding here. A
young couple came out of a side door and marched in step toward him, arms wrapped around each other against the autumn chill, the woman’s spike heels clicking on the pavement. Pray used their passage as an excuse to turn and scan the road behind him. Other than the couple, no one. He started walking again.
“If I were a thief, I wouldn’t bother with me,” he muttered, and glanced down at his dirty running shoes and faded jeans for reassurance.
The street turned sharply left, traveled another ten yards, and stopped at a two-story building that merged with its neighbors to form a box canyon of stone and brick. Two tall, shuttered windows stared down at him over a scarred wooden door. Pray tested the door. It was locked. He turned and waited.
A man rounded the corner and stopped, a slightly darker silhouette against the shadows of the street, bulky and menacing. Pray waited, breathing carefully, sending orders to his body to calm itself. His body responded, perversely, with an urgent need to piss.
The man took a shuffling step forward. Pray sprang at him and lashed out with a left roundhouse kick. The other man shifted with deceptive speed to one side, and Pray’s foot found only his shadow. Before Pray could retract his leg, his opponent slammed a heavy forearm into it, sweeping Pray off his feet. He landed on his hands, coiled up, then uncoiled and slammed a foot into the other man’s midsection. The man grunted, air whistling between his teeth, and sat down all at once. Pray leaped to his feet and stood, trying to decide whether to finish his attacker off, or run like hell. The other man decided the question for him, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a large, semi-automatic pistol that glistened menacingly in the dim light. Pray stood very still and waited.
“Move and you’re a dead tourist,” the man said. He spoke English with an almost, but not quite, American accent.
“I believe you,” Pray said.
The man brought his legs up under him and, using his free hand, began to raise himself to a standing position. As he did, the gun wavered off its target. Pray’s foot shot out and caught the other’s wrist. The gun flew into the dark, and Pray started running, followed by curses, this time in Greek. Just as he thought he was home free, his foot landed on something round—a can or bottle, he never knew which—and he was somersaulting backwards toward the street. He had a moment to wonder how hard the pavement would be, and then his head exploded in a flash of bright light, followed by soothing darkness.
* * *
The world returned as a dark blob surrounded by a halo of blinding light—a blob that moved from side to side in time with waves of pain. As Pray’s vision cleared, the blob resolved itself into a face, hovering over him. He was on his back on something hard, in a brightly lit room with white walls. He closed his eyes, and the pain receded.
He sensed movement, heard the scrape of a chair, and dared to open his eyes again, just a crack this time. The face was gone.
“You’re gonna have a sore head for a while, and my ribs hurt like hell, so I guess we’re even.” The voice belonged to the man in the alley. It was deep, and loud, and it hurt Pray’s ears. He turned his head toward the source. That hurt, too. A man sat in the chair, wearing a shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a patterned tie in reds and yellows. He smiled, and revealed a broken front tooth that peeked out jaggedly from under a bushy, black mustache.
“Are you a doctor?” Pray asked.
“The doctor has gone to the bathroom, Mr. Pray. His name, for when you write him a check, is Spanos Astarkis. And you don’t want to cheat him, because he is half Turk.”
“And who are you?”
“Inspector Agamemnon Londos,” the man said. He pulled a leather wallet from his hip pocket, flipped it open so that Pray could see the badge and identification photo it contained. “Do you usually attack the police in strange cities, Mr. Pray?”
It sank in that the policeman had used Pray’s name, twice. Pray reached for his jacket pocket, and realized for the first time that he was in shirt sleeves. Londos held up a dark blue passport and waved it.
“This is safe, Mr. Pray. So is your money.” He laid the passport on Pray’s chest.
Pray slipped it into his trousers. “Do the local cops usually stalk innocent tourists?”
“To tell the truth, I’m not even local, Mr. Pray. I’m from Athens, just here on a temporary assignment. But I’ve got this habit, you see, of checking tourist arrivals whenever I visit another town. I figure it as a service to my hosts, because a lot of the time I recognize an unsavory character and alert them.”
“How did I qualify?”
“Just your name, Mr. Pray. It’s the same as someone else I’ve been interested in. So I say to myself, what’s this all about, and I’m going to pay you a visit at your hotel, and all of a sudden off you go, headed for the docks, in the dark, which is not typical tourist behavior. So naturally, I’m curious.” He rubbed his side and winced. “Curiosity. I never learn.” He leaned forward and raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Is Julian Pray a relative of yours?”
Pray sat up carefully. “Am I under arrest?” he asked.
Londos shook his head. “I suppose I could charge you with assaulting an officer. But then you’d call your consulate, and accuse me of police brutality.”
“Then I assume I’m free to go?”
“Sure,” Londos said. He pulled open a drawer in the side of the examining table. “Your money’s in there.”
Pray retrieved his wallet and flipped through it. Everything seemed to be in place.
Londos stood and stretched. “You’ll like the Hotel Cavalieri,” he said. “It’s small and quiet. No air conditioning, but who needs that in October?” He walked to the door. “You want a ride?”
“I’d rather walk.”
“Sure thing. The air will help clear your head.” Londos’ voice remained cordial, but his eyes said he would not be a man to fool with. “We like our tourists to have a good time, Mr. Pray,” he said. “I just hope a tourist is all you are.” He opened the door and motioned Pray through. “I’ll point you in the right direction for your hotel. It’s only about a dozen blocks from here.”
The walk helped. Here, closer to the central commercial district, the streets were filled with people and cars, talking, laughing and honking. People rave about the light in Greece, but Pray’s overwhelming impression was of noise. Nobody drove without honking, and no one seemed to talk in a normal tone of voice. Even now, past midnight, the Esplanade sounded like a party. He tried to remember if the noise had bothered him as much before his skull and the pavement had been introduced, and decided to delay judgment until after a good night’s sleep.
Pray reached the hotel, and closed the door of his room gratefully. He poured a stiff brandy, changed out of his clothes and into a silk robe. The brandy and the robe were two necessities he never traveled without. The window was open, and a chill wind cut through the fabric of the robe. He closed the window, settled carefully into an overstuffed chair, and sipped the brandy. Closing the window helped make the room quieter, as well.
Someone knocked at the door. He pried himself out of the chair and walked across the room.
“What is it?” he asked through the door.
“Tilegrafima, kyrie.”
“What?”
“Telegram, sir.”
“You’re kidding,” Pray muttered. He opened the door.
A teenage girl in a starched dress stood in the hall, a yellow envelope in her hand. She dropped her gaze to the half-open robe, and held out the telegram with a flicker of a smile.
Pray took the envelope and closed the door. He picked up his glass, splashed more brandy into it, and carried glass and bottle back to the chair before he opened the seal.
The paper inside was plain, with no letterhead or anything official looking on it. Handwritten in black ink was the message,” FUGGER TIL 41 213.”
What the hell, he wondered, was a fugger til? His first impulse was to call the front desk and ask for a translation; but as he started to rise, his head throbbed
, and he sat down again. He drained the glass, poured another two fingers of brandy, and finished that. Then he shrugged off his robe, turned off the light, crawled into the bed, and pulled the pillow over his head.
* * *
Morning brought two signs that he had returned to normal. The noise, which washed over him in waves when he opened the window, didn’t bother him any more—cheered him if anything. And he was hungry. He showered quickly, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, considered socks, then slipped into his shoes without them, and headed downstairs. The thought of the message in his pocket nudged him toward the front desk, but before he could reach it, his stomach growled, and he veered toward the street and the nearest cafe.
A spinach and cheese pie, with a pastry wrapping that would win no prizes, and enough garlic to keep any self-respecting vampire away, satisfied his hunger; and a couple of small cups of the coffee Pray had always called Turkish, but reminded himself here to think of as Greek, brought his brains up to speed. He ordered a small ouzo to lubricate everything, and pulled out the cryptic message.
A shadow fell over Pray’s table and Agamemnon Londos settled himself into the opposite chair. “Forty-one is the exchange for Paleokastritsas,” he said. “That’s on the west coast of the island, across the Strait of Otranto from Italy. Very beautiful.” Londos gestured toward the waiter who had appeared with the sudden attentiveness that cops get everywhere in the world. “Ena ouzaki,” he said, and turned back to Pray as the waiter hurried off. He pointed to the message. “That’s a telephone number, see? It belongs to a man named Dieter Fugger.”
Pray gave the policeman a jaundiced stare. “Don’t I get to have any secrets?”
Londos smiled broadly. “Did you know that the word in Greek for secret is mystiko? Like a mystery. That’s you, Mr. Pray. You’re a mystery. So I keep an eye on you. And all my friends,” he waved his hand in a circle, “they help me.” He pointed to the yellow sheet of paper. “That’s how I know about that. And, you see, that other guy named Pray, the one I mentioned last night, happens to work for Dieter Fugger.” The ouzo came. Londos took a sip, then peered at Pray over the rim of the glass. “More mysteries, right? Maybe Fugger just got you confused with that other Mr. Pray.” He leaned back, grinned again, and finished his ouzo.