Disorganized Crime

by Alex A King

  Xander stopped at the mouth of the narrow alley that ran behind the factory and its neighbors, and plonked me on the ground. It was empty aside from the dumpsters cozied up to the walls. The air was lifeless. Here the stench of garbage was almost physical. Every breath I took meant I was inhaling someone's decaying leftovers. Guess the sea breeze couldn't stick its finger in here and stir.

  Xander dragged me into the upright position, slammed my back against the crumbling stucco and stone wall. My skull bounced once. When reality swam back in I saw his face was painted with anger, his eyes were black and cold.

  He said nothing—he never did—but his meaning was clear: I was an idiot for going into the factory alone. He was right, but I'd rather lick the ground in this alley than admit it. Instead of a verbal beating, he shook me hard enough that my teeth bit down on my tongue. I tasted metal and salt.

  "I hate you," I said in two languages, wishing I knew a third.

  A door opened several feet away. My entire body seized. It wanted to run, and would have if it wasn't busy being pinned to a wall.

  "I thought I told you to go home."

  Detective Melas. He stepped into the alley, no sign of his uniform this time. He was in ass-kicking boots, jeans, and he'd topped it off with a T-shirt that proclaimed his love for the Scorpions.

  My humiliation was complete. I blame that for what came out of my mouth next.

  "It's your fault I'm here."

  Normally I'm not one to point the finger. I go through life wearing my big-girl panties hitched high. But that's back home, where people threaten to wring my neck but lack the technology to do it via the phone. Here I was going commando.

  "What the fuck were you thinking?" he demanded.

  "I was doing your job." I shot Xander my best stink-eye, then swiveled it left a few inches. "And yours. No one else is looking for my father."

  "Did you find him?" Melas asked.

  "No."

  "Of course you didn't. Your father's not here. He never was. And George Kefalas is dead." He looked at Xander. "He's floating in one of the vats. All that saline, it's like the Dead Sea."

  "That's what he said."

  "Who?" He shot an inquiring glance at Xander, but Xander was busy not talking.

  "The Baptist," I told him. "He told me Kefalas was dead."

  "Jesus Christ." He rubbed his forehead. "The Baptist."

  "What? Who is he? Besides evil. I got that part already."

  "Jesus Christ. This I need. Of all the people you could have antagonized …"

  "Hey!" I was pinned to the wall but I could still point. And I did. I pointed so hard I almost punched a hole in the air. "He antagonized me. I wasn't even looking for him. He just … happened to be here. Did he kill Kefalas? Because it kind of sounded like he did."

  Xander dropped me. I landed with a small thump, then shook myself off, straightened my clothes, tried to regain some dignity. But it's so hard to look cool when you've been hand-stapled to a wall.

  Detective Melas shrugged. "Don't know yet. But somebody killed him."

  "So, we done here?" I crab-walked along the alley, aiming for the sunshine I knew was in the street. "Thanks for the rescue, guys." Then I stopped. Turned. "Wait a minute …" Now that the adrenaline was ebbing, my clarity was flooding back. Math happened and the answers seemed right. "Were you two following me?"

  "He was," Melas said, nodding to the other guy.

  My eyes narrowed. "What's your excuse?"

  "None of your business."

  "If it's about my father's kidnapping, it kind of is my business."

  "It's not," he said. "Take her home." That was for Xander. "And by home I mean America. Take her to the airport and make sure she gets on a plane."

  "I don't have a passport, remember?"

  "So get one."

  "You're not the boss of me."

  "I'm not, am I?" His eyes grazed my body as he said it. "We'll see."

  "Can't be the boss of me if I'm back in America."

  A wicked grin spread itself slowly across his face. "Honey, once a man's the boss of you, he's the boss of you anywhere. Oceans be damned."

  My mouth fell open. I could feel it hanging there in the thick, stagnant air. If I didn't snap it shut soon the drooling would start. He'd take that compliment. Melas struck me as that kind of guy.

  Get away from him, that's what I had to do. Not only did I stink, but now my ass was seriously chapped.

  "I'm going now." On one boot heel, I swiveled and exited the alley stage right. It took all my restraint not to flip them off.

  They followed. Of course they did. So predictable and overbearing.

  My everything hurt. Belly-flopping onto the concrete will do that. But there was no way I was going to show these two my sissy card. I girded my woman loins, adjusted my girl-balls, took strong confident steps when my knees were on red alert, warning me of their imminent collapse. Still it wasn't a struggle for the men to keep up.

  I turned the corner.

  Blinked.

  Rental car?

  Gone.

  Nothing left of it but a Yaris-sized patch of fresh air and sunshine. That didn't slow me down. I stomped over to where I'd left the car, stood there scratching my tender scalp. All that hair pulling, I was lucky to have hair left.

  No doubt about it: somebody had David Copperfielded my ride.

  "I hate Greece," I said to no one in particular.

  Melas leaned against a different car, one that wasn't mine, big grin on his face. "That's what Xerxes said. He got smart and went home."

  I turned in a small circle. No sign of the car. No sign of Xander. Somewhere between here and the alley he'd vanished.

  Not for long. A car pulled up alongside us. Motorcycle gone to the racing track in the sky, Xander was now driving a black bullet. Some kind of vehicle I didn't recognize. Lots of smaller cars here. Fuel efficient. Even smaller than the cars we loved in Portland.

  Home … I wanted to go there.

  "Tell me something and try not to lie," I told the cop.

  "I never lie."

  "Except when you do, right?"

  Palms up. "Sometimes it comes with the job."

  "What does he do for my family?"

  "The quiet guy?"

  Quiet? Oh no, no, no. Xander was more than quiet. The man was a silent movie.

  I nodded.

  "What doesn't he do?"

  "That sounds like a warning."

  "Honey, your whole family should come with a warning label. And I'm not convinced you shouldn't, either."

  Xander reached across the passenger seat, flung the door open. He didn't tell me to get in, but the hardness of his expression screamed, Get or I'll get you in.

  I flopped into the seat. Xander reached over me with the belt, clicked it shut. Was he wearing one? Nope. Double standards sucked.

  Detective Melas went to slam the door, but I shoved a boot into his path.

  "Wait. Where's my car? I bought insurance, but—"

  "The car's fine. Stay in your grandmother's house until you can get to the airport. If you father's alive, we'll find him."

  Acid bubbled into my stomach, turning my mood even more sour. "And if he's not?"

  "Then he'll probably find us. These guys like a good game of show-and-tell."

  "But where's my c—"

  "On its way back to the rental place." Then he slammed the door. Conversation over.

  I turned to the silent knight in the driver's seat. No longer glaring at me, he was focused on some distant point.

  A moped putt-putted past, then Xander chucked a U-turn, taking us back the way I originally came.

  "My father's not dead."

  Silence.

  "I'd know if he was."

  He reached over, flicked on radio. Greek music filled the car. Lots of tinny bouzouki and a wailing alto voice only a cat in heat could love. The lyrics I understood—something about a sea captain catching squid—but … ugh, the aural assault.

&nbs
p; With one finger, I stabbed the tuner, feeling satisfied when it leaped to a Top 20 station.

  The car jerked to a stop. Xander climbed out.

  When the car started again, I was in the backseat, cuffed to the handgrip. I couldn't even spit on the radio tuner from here.

  Chapter 7

  Grandma was cooking up what was looking to be a normal storm. Fried whole fish by the dozens, each of them no more than four inches long. I looked at the fish. They looked back.

  What was it with Greeks leaving the eyes in their food?

  "Katerina, my love, why would you go to see George Kefalas?"

  "Google told me to." I reached for one of the twisty koulouraki cookies stacked on the counter.

  "Tell this Google he almost got you killed. the Baptist, that is what he does. Kill, kill, kill." Grandma smacked the cookie out of my hand. It skittered across the countertop. Weren't grandmothers supposed to be kindly and sweet? Mine was shaping up to be somewhere between Mary Poppins and that hose-beast from Flowers in the Attic. "If you eat koulouraki, how will you be hungry for lunch?"

  "I'll manage."

  There was a soft chuffing behind me. I swung around to see Xander laughing.

  My jaw unhinged. It took me a moment to snap it back into place. "You can't talk but you can laugh?"

  Grandma gave him a look and he melted out of the kitchen, cake box crammed full of koulouraki in his hands. Not fair.

  "Why doesn't he talk?"

  "If you want to know that you should ask him."

  Very funny.

  Now that I didn't have an audience, I limped to the bathroom—the toilet-less bathroom. I stripped, stood in the bathtub while hot water blasted life back into my body. By the time I got out I was as boneless as a jellyfish. My belly was already turning a purplish black, the color of gangrene. My elbows were skinned. My dignity I'd left somewhere on the olive factory floor.

  Like the aforementioned jellyfish, I drifted to the bedroom, stopping when I collided with the bed.

  Nice bed. Good bed. Who's a good bed? You are, bed. You are.

  To prove my love for the mattress, I fell into its arms belly up and began sifting through the guts of the morning, hunting for signs.

  Aside from my mother dying prematurely when I was on the verge of womanhood, life had been pretty good to me. Up until two days ago. First my father had been kidnapped—excuse me, escorted from his house in a nefarious manner—then two buffoons had somehow managed to outsmart me and bundle me into a plane without my consent. That was just the top of the slide. That spiteful little voice inside me kept yammering about how the bottom of the slide emptied onto hard concrete or gravel, not the soft, spongey black stuff or wood chips usually found in playgrounds these days, now that kids were made of glass. That same voice also mentioned that this morning's incident with the Baptist probably wasn't the slide's end point, either.

  In the moment I'd been terrified, but I'd also had adrenaline helping me out, pumping me full of bravado. It was a temporary bonus that had faded when the boss fight was over. Now, I just felt tiny and scared.

  Detective Melas and my grandmother were right: the Baptist could have killed me.

  But he didn't, because unbeknownst to me, I'd brought along the cavalry. Must have been Grandma's doing. She'd had Xander follow me.

  Not cool—although I was grateful for the bacon-saving. I was a grown woman who didn't need grandparental permission to go hunting for my own father. She wasn't exactly out there shaking the olive trees, so somebody had to. Already I'd made progress. My list had dwindled by three names. All my grandmother had achieved by sending her silent stalker was ensuring that no one in the family—or the Family—would take me seriously.

  Okay, so I was still alive, so she had achieved that, too.

  But I wasn't quitting. Car or no car, I was still hellbent on finding my father. He'd never stop if I was missing. We were all the other had.

  But next time, I was going in armed. All right, so I knew nothing about guns except which end to point at the bad guy, but I could learn. Could I do it, could I shoot someone?

  Undecided.

  I was pretty sure I could sink a bullet into a body part that didn't count too much, like a finger or toe. That would buy me a getaway if necessary, I was sure.

  On second thought, maybe the armory—if we had one—had something non-lethal. This afternoon I'd hunt down Stavros and beg him to pony up the location of the armory.

  The door flew open. Pain slapped me as I jumped up.

  Grandma.

  "What for are you still in here? Come and eat."

  Another day, another party. Most of the family had assembled itself at long tables in the courtyard. Cousins and wives, kids and animals. Dress was casual with a side of firearm.

  My grandmother noticed the guns, too. She pressed her lips together until they became pale slugs. After a long, drawn-out stretch of disapproval, during which everyone failed to take the hint, she spoke.

  "What did I say about bringing guns to the table? Civilized people do not bring guns to a meal. Not in my family. Not in my house. What are we? Turks? Put them away—now!"

  All the little soldiers scurried away to do her bidding. Their wives stayed, totally unperturbed by the interruption. Must have been a regular thing.

  Stavros and Takis were still at the table. They'd come unarmed.

  Takis looked at me with a grin too big for his face. Any wider and his lid would pop off. "Hey, Katerina, you know why a woman's holes are so close together?"

  "Ugh," I said.

  He hooked a thumb at Xander, who was three seats down from him. "So Xander here can carry them like a six-pack."

  His wife walloped him around the head.

  "I hate you," I told him. "Seriously hate you."

  I hate him, too, Marika mouthed.

  Takis grinned at me. "Congratulations, now you are truly part of the family."

  I wasn't sure if he meant the family or the Family, so I raised my hand, palm out, fingers slightly splayed. "High five."

  Yes, on purpose. It had been that kind of day.

  "Gamo ti Panayia mou!" Takis howled. "What did we tell you in America? Never show a Greek your open hand like that."

  Marika hit him again, this time for sexual atrocities against the Virgin Mary. "Ouch," he said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Another slap.

  "Our children are playing over there," she said, using her hands to punctuate. "Why you talk like that around children? What is wrong with you?"

  "You are forgetting your place," he told her.

  "Keep talking," she warned him. "Your place will be a sad apartment with fold-out couch. Do you want to be like Stavros?"

  "I don't want to be like Stavros," Stavros said from further down the table.

  When Marika was done with him, I got started. "You just made a joke about my body, but my jokes aren't acceptable? I don't get it."

  Takis shrugged. "Of course you don't, you're a woman."

  Aunt Rita slid into place opposite me. She gasped when she saw my injuries. "My baby, what happened to you?"

  "It was nothing. Just some guy called the Baptist."

  Conversation stopped. And by stopped I meant died, like I'd just shot it out of the air with a missile. An uncomfortable silence sat itself on our heads, settling in for the long haul.

  "The Baptist?" Takis squeaked, after a short eternity had passed.

  I shrugged. "That's what he called himself. Why?"

  "No reason." He shrugged. "Just making conversation."

  "In the old days, I used to sneak out with a girl everybody called the Baptist," Papou said, rolling into place to Grandma's left. He still had his shotgun, but the thing wasn't loaded anyway. "She could breathe through her ears."

  Nobody looked at him.

  Grandma glanced up at the sky. "God, Zeus, whoever is listening, now would be a good time to take him."

  One by one, the chairs refilled as the family men returned, sans weapons. All but
one.

  That one empty seat was to my right.

  "What's with the empty chair?" Suddenly, everyone was busy ignoring me. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing is going on," Grandma said in a breezy sort of voice that convinced me she was a lying hound.

  A vehicle crunched up the driveway, dying in front of the compound. I couldn't see it, but we all heard abrupt the death rattle.

  My eyes narrowed. "Who is it?"

  "Nobody."

  Somebody.

  "Just somebody I invited," she went on.

  A-ha! See?

  "Everybody has to eat," she explained. "What could I do, let a man go hungry?"

  The hungry nobody wandered into the courtyard a moment later, entourage at his back. He had fifteen years on me, ten inches, and zero pounds. The summer sun was on high beam, yet he was in a three-piece suit with a gangster shine. An oil-dipped comb had slicked his black hair to the left. He looked like a man who gave orders that other people followed.

  Every male muscle at the table stiffened.

  "Who is it?" I asked.

  Papou cackled into his drink. "I think your grandmother is trying to marry you off."

  She put on her innocent old lady face. "What? He is a guest. Treat him with respect. Talk to him. Maybe flirt a little, eh? And do not let him see your skinned elbows. I want him to think you are a good girl."

  "I am a good girl—uh, woman."

  Aunt Rita crossed herself. Just in case, she mouthed.

  "I don't want to be set up," I said. "I can find a man myself."

  "My love—"

  A quick note: Greeks don't say, "My love." They say, "Love my."

  Okay, back to Grandma.

  "—if you could find a man you would be married already. But here you are, twenty-eight, and still no husband."

  I stood. "Going now."

  "Fine. Go. But do not touch the koulouraki in the kitchen or I will cut off your hand."

  I sat back in my seat. Still warm. "Now that I've thought about it, I've decided to stay."

  Papou nodded at the new arrival. "Who is this clown?"