Disorganized Crime

by Alex A King

  I hugged the wall.

  Chapter 8

  Which is how my grandmother found me in the morning.

  "Are you a vampire?"

  I shook my head. Maybe I kind of whimpered, too.

  "Is that American jazzercise?"

  "No," I squeaked.

  She had her hair up in curlers and a thin black robe loosely belted, not a bra in sight, proving that one could potentially fling them over their shoulder like a continental soldier. She was a glimpse into my future, and the future was hardcore droopy.

  "Then what are you doing on the wall?"

  I looked down. It was a miracle I wasn't standing in a puddle.

  "The Baptist was here."

  The curlers shook; the boobs, too. "Nobody can come into the compound, Katerina, my love. You had a bad dream."

  "Nuh-uh. It wasn't a dream."

  I peeled myself off the wall, unhooked the shutters and threw them wide. The goat was back, feasting on the thorny corpses of Grandma's rosebushes. What I expected was a footprint, a business card, something to prove I wasn't a nutpie. But there was nothing except the goat, which was on a whole other level of bonkers.

  "He was there, I swear. I'm not crazy. Also, the cute goat ate your roses."

  "Ha," Grandma said. "Then the joke is on him because soon we will be eating goat."

  My mouth dropped open. "You're going to EAT the goat?"

  "What for do we want to keep him? You cannot milk a boy goat. You can try, but that would make him very happy, and he would never forget the happiness after that."

  "I'm not eating the goat. It's adorable. I don't eat adorable things I know personally."

  She shrugged. Her bosom heaved itself all over the room. "Then you will be very hungry that day." She nodded to my feet. "And put some shoes on, my love. Otherwise people will think you have no money."

  "I kind of don't have much."

  "If you are poor, you must pretend to be rich. If you are rich … it is better to pretend you are poor." Then she shut the door, leaving me alone.

  I stuck my head out the window. "Hey. What she said, forget about it. Nobody's slapping you on a sandwich."

  "We are Greek." Grandma's voice floated through the door. "We do not eat sandwiches. We have souvlaki."

  "Trust me," I whispered to the goat. "No souvlaki."

  Breakfast was me, Aunt Rita, and for some inexplicable reason, Xander. Aunt Rita was playing L.A. Confidential's version of Kim Basinger, in a long, waist-nipping pale mauve robe paired with a bright slash of red lipstick. Grandma was a bucket of coal. Xander was dressed for lounging at a beachside bar. If he was headed for Hawaii anytime soon, at least he had the shirt.

  "From this moment, Xander is going to be your bodyguard," Grandma said, flipping fried eggs onto plates. Somewhere between the shell and the skillet, the poor things had drowned in olive oil. "Wherever you go, he goes, too."

  "I don't need a bodyguard." The words trotted off my tongue on autopilot. I knew I kind of, sort of, maybe needed one after the whole The-Baptist-outside-my bedroom thing, but I wasn't about to admit it—not with Xander sitting here across the table at me. The man looked good—too good—even with a faint smirk and a Hawaiian shirt. I wondered what he'd look like wearing just the smirk.

  Mentally, I punched myself in the ovaries to make the visual vanish.

  "Oh," Grandma said. "I am so glad you are giving me an answer when I did not ask a question."

  I tilted my head. "Was that Greek sarcasm?"

  "Greeks invented sarcasm," she told me.

  Aunt Rita took a swig of juice before commenting. "Mama told us you had a dream about the Baptist."

  "If I say it was a dream do I still have to have a bodyguard?"

  "Yes," Grandma said.

  So much for that.

  "Wasn't a dream," I said, pushing aside the oil in search of eggs. "He was outside my window."

  "Dream," Grandma said in a knowing tone.

  I gave her a sharp, pointy look. "Not a dream. He said he came to give me a number."

  The spatula screeched across the skillet, before skittering out of her hand. "What! Why did you not say?"

  My aunt crossed herself frantically. "My Virgin Mary! If he gave you a number you are already dead."

  "If I'm dead, how do I know these eggs are way too greasy?"

  Aunt Rita glanced at my plate. "They look fine to me."

  My grandmother grabbed me by the shoulders. "What number did he give you?"

  "Five-oh-three. He said he'd be back after he was done with five-oh-two. Who's five-oh-two?"

  "Who knows?" Her expression turned to steel. "Bodyguard or no bodyguard, you are not to leave the property. Xander, she goes nowhere."

  Xander nodded, the wretched brown-noser.

  I shook my head. "No way. I have to find my father—your son."

  "We will find him," she said.

  Maybe the bodyguard wasn't such a bad idea. If the Baptist came looking for me after he'd finished off unlucky five-oh-two, at the very least Xander would be a diversion, maybe giving me enough to run and hide.

  What I really needed was a gun. I so needed my own gun. No way was I going to rely on Xander to shoot straight. He'd missed the Baptist last time.

  "Can I please have a gun?"

  "No," Grandma said.

  "If you don't give me a gun, I'll buy one."

  With no clue about the logistics of purchasing a firearm in Greece, I was already psyching myself up for the possibility of being forced to buy a gun from someone with a lengthy rap sheet. Maybe Baby Dimitri would know where I could find one. He looked like a guy with a trunkful of guns, serial numbers buffed to smooth metal.

  "You cannot just buy a gun in Greece," Grandma told me. "They do extensive background checks and every gun is registered. This is not America."

  "Crete is different," Aunt Rita said.

  Grandma nodded. "Crete is Crete."

  "But once they check you out here," my aunt said, "you can open carry."

  I rescued a piece of egg and chewed. "I need protection, and I don't mean condoms. The guy was here in this allegedly impenetrable fortress."

  I hadn't needed the other kind of protection in a while. We're talking serious dry spell here. At this point, I fully expected my woman parts to pack up and leave for someplace where the getting was good and frequent. Probably Mykonos. Everybody got lucky in Mykonos.

  "No condoms and no gun," Grandma said, snatching up the spatula. "No sex unless you are married. Nobody in this family has sex until they are married, unless they are a man. It is different for men."

  I did, Aunt Rita mouthed, behind her mother's back. I was pretty sure she didn't count, seeing as she was a man before she was a woman. And I wasn't about to deliver the bad news that my virginity had been lost thanks to a game of Go Fish.

  "Fine. What about something non-lethal? Pepper spray? How about a Taser?"

  "I love Tasers," my aunt said. "Pew pew. It's too funny watching them flop around like fish."

  I grabbed the table's edge, leaning forward eagerly. "I've never seen it in person, only on YouTube."

  "It's fun," she said, as if we were sharing a girlish conspiracy. "I will show you later on one of the cousins. Probably Takis."

  "Cool."

  "YouTube." Grandma cracked four more eggs into the skillet, where they began to swim for their lives. "Nothing but the pornography."

  Pretty sure she had her websites mixed up. I reached for the toast, saved the egg by scooping it onto the bread. "Well, Baptist or no Baptist, I want to see more of Greece than Grandma's house. What do you say, Xander? Beach?"

  He kept right on eating, ignoring me.

  "Come on, Mama. Let the girl go for a swim. Xander will protect her." Aunt Rita wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "And the beach is full of witnesses."

  Witnesses. That didn't sound reassuring. Surely she meant sunbathers, but whatever. I wanted to go to the beach … and from there, to the next name on my list. But wh
at to do about the bodyguard? He was guarding my body, but his orders all came down from the grandmothership, which was a problem.

  Think, Kat. Think.

  "Fine," Grandma said. "Go to the beach, but do not come crying to me when you are dead. Xander—" She pointed the spatula at him. "Be careful."

  Did he look worried? Nope. He kept on eating. The guy was a walking, eating ice cube. Unless somebody messed with the music in his car.

  "It would be better if I had a gun. Just in case."

  Grandma sighed like I was busting her chops. "Xander, take Katerina to the armory. Give her Michail's old piece."

  Score!

  No bikini. No beach clothes. And I was down to my last clean T-shirt.

  "I have to go shopping after we get my gun," I told Xander. My grandmother had moved him into the third bedroom, wedged between her room and mine. I'd previously mistaken the room for a cupboard. Harry Potter's room under the stairs was a palace compared to this space. Under different circumstances I'd offer to swap rooms with the guy, but I hadn't forgotten that he'd handcuffed me to his car.

  He gave me one of those looks that said he'd rather face a firing squad.

  "Fine. Since we're going to the beach, I'll just go topless."

  His mouth was silent but his face said that wasn't an option.

  Obviously the physical attraction was one-sided, which was fine with me. I'm not picky about what a guy does for a living, but even I had standards. And I'd drawn a squiggly line at 'henchman'.

  Wherever we were going first it was on the compound's grounds, into what I thought was a greenhouse or conservatory. It was a conservatory—but not merely a conservatory, as it turned out. All the usual suspects were inside: plants mostly, and comfortable outdoor furniture twisted into elegant shapes. The air was thick and soupy. It wanted me to choke and die on its dampness.

  Xander lifted a tiger-striped orchid and retrieved a key dangling from a green ribbon. Then he rolled aside what I thought was an ornamental boulder, revealing a metal trapdoor that was masquerading as a square drain.

  Through the glass I saw Grandma disappearing through the arch, accompanied by Takis, Stavros, and Aunt Rita. They were dressed for a funeral. George Kefalas's funeral. It had to be. And they'd left me behind, the rats.

  Xander stuck the key in the lock, twisted, and lifted the door. Down we went—ladies before gentlemen.

  I've never seen an armory offscreen. What I expected was a large, bright space, walls plastered with steel shelves and stands to hold foreboding, yet impressive, firearms and artillery. What I got was the equivalent of a root cellar, with thin helpless light, doing its best to escape from the single yellowing bulb dangling from the ceiling's center. The shelves were ancient wood, the floor dirt. Stacked along one wall were crates stamped with Cyrillic letters. Russian maybe. Definitely Slavic of some flavor.

  "This is it?"

  Xander shrugged.

  "What's in the crates?" They were nailed shut, so I couldn't sneak a peek.

  This time he ignored me. He pulled a box from one of the shelves. Flipped the lid. Dumped a Y shaped stick in my hand. The stick had a strip of red rubber wound around each arm, and a leather pocket to hold a projectile.

  It was a Biblical moment, until I remembered David had felled Goliath with a sling, not a slingshot. I stared at it for several seconds, then took a long hard look at the low ceiling, in case I was on one of those hidden camera shows.

  Alas, no camera. This was real life—my very real life.

  "A slingshot," I said, disbelieving. "You want me to protect myself with a slingshot?"

  That won me another shrug.

  The toys my parents chose for me came with guarantees of safety, provided I was within the proper age range. They'd never let me run with knives, and my scissors came with a rounded tip and a plastic guard until I was in my teens. A slingshot was definitely not on the approved list. Now I find out my father had been the pot telling the kettle none of the other kitchenware was allowed be black.

  Which was weird, now that I thought about it. You'd think Dad would have gone Spartan and prepared me for war.

  "Ammo?"

  He looked at me. Then he crouched down, scooped up a handful of dirt and stones, sprinkled it in my hand. The wiseguy was a wiseass.

  But not bright.

  The second he turned away, I loaded the slingshot, pulled back on the rubber band, aimed it at his butt.

  Alakazam! By the Power of Numbskull!

  Splat.

  Xander spun around, snatched the toy out of my hand, shoved it into my back pocket.

  "Good thing you didn't give me a gun."

  We went in yesterday's car. I rode in the backseat—no cuffs this time. Lucky me. The beach was fifteen minutes or so away, but Xander cut to a different road, one leading into Volos itself. The port city had a long strip of waterfront land, but no beach. The whole thing was rocks and cement. Perfect for a harbor, not so much for swimming. For that we'd have to hike east to Agria, which was the first of a chain of villages that stretched all the way around the peninsula.

  Incidentally, Agria was where the Kefalas Olives factory was located.

  Obviously Xander had something else in mind besides swimming. Pointless asking. I'd never get an answer.

  We—well, Xander, since he was in control of the steering and the gas pedal—stopped outside a row of shops. A mishmash of storefronts on a busy street, where traffic moved at the speed of whiplash. Dad used to joke that street signs in Greece were serving suggestions, more for tourists than locals. Mom and I would laugh it off, chalk it up to being another one of his tall Greek tales. Now I was seeing that all the stories he used to tell were pure non-fiction. Too bad they were turning out to be mostly true crime stories.

  The storefronts were grimy, covered in a thick layer of the city's main byproduct: smut. The signs all employed the same blocky typography in colors that didn't just clash with the rest of the color scheme, they went to full-on war.

  My silent bodyguard grabbed the point of my elbow, steering me toward the store with bikini-clad sheets of cardboard crowded together in the window display. Not a headless mannequin in sight.

  A bell let the cat out of the bag about our arrival in the dimly lit shop. Not that I was shooting for stealth, but Greek salespeople were an unknown quantity at this point. Would they leave me to shop in peace, or hover by my elbow like judgmental ghosts with verbal diarrhea?

  Dust motes drifted through the air, tiny jellyfish searching for sinuses to invade. The interior was marginally cleaner than its exterior, but the stock looked nice enough. Not one to straddle the sharp, bleeding edge of fashion, I knew enough to know the styles were current and I probably couldn't go too wrong with many of the swimsuits.

  The salesgirl lifted her head from her cell phone. I smiled and waved, but her face didn't budge. It was stuck in the whatever position. Perfect. Behind her, a black curtain spanned the width of a doorway.

  Xander snatched up a one-piece designed to cover the essentials, the non-essentials, and my ankles.

  "Seriously—no." I plucked it out of his hands, stuck it back on its hook. "Not unless we time travel to back to 1914—and maybe not even then."

  The salesgirl snorted.

  I zeroed in on something considered modest by Brazilian standards, and mildly risqué on American beaches. Two red triangles held together with thin strings and two larger triangles that tied at the sides. I waved them in the air.

  "Can I try these on?"

  "No changing room," Miss Congeniality told me.

  "How about if I try it on over my clothes?"

  "Sure," she said. "You could do that."

  I shimmied into the bottoms, tied the top, inspected myself from every angle in a mirror better suited to a carnival. I couldn't gauge if my ass was that big or if my head was really that small.

  "What do you think?" I asked Xander. He held up the suit I'd discarded for violating time travel laws and raised an eyebrow. />
  What was with this guy?

  I stepped out of the red bottoms, yanked off the red top, carried them up to the counter. Before I had a chance to whip out my credit card, dealing it a fatal blow, Xander dropped a sleek, black metal card into my hand. Nothing on it except numbers and a magnetic strip.

  I might have drooled a little. And I wasn't the only one. Miss Congeniality put the phone down slowly, eyes on the card.

  "Tell me you're not wearing that to the beach," she said, scoping out my jeans and T-shirt with a critical eye.

  "That was kind of the plan."

  "You'll look like a tourist."

  "I think I am," I said, trying to look less lame than I felt.

  "Give me ten minutes and your boyfriend's credit card and you'll look like you belong." She eyed my complete lack of a tan. "More or less."

  "Not my boyfriend," I muttered.

  "Who cares? He's standing here with a black credit card."

  "Is it your money?" I asked him.

  He jerk his head up once. No.

  "Grandma's?"

  A nod.

  Spending Xander's money was a no-go, but Grandma's? A whole different fairy tale.

  "Okay," I said to the salesgirl. "Do your worst."

  She grabbed my hand, snatched up the card, pulled me through the curtain behind her. What I expected what a storeroom. What I got was slightly smaller than a warehouse. You name it—if it was clothing, it was in this room. Everything was designer-labelled, and way out of my price range, but not Grandma's, judging from the way Xander found a wall to lean on so he could fiddle with his phone.

  "I can't afford too much," I said. "I have to pay it back. And I lost my job because of a fire."

  "Don't worry. Most of it's cheap."

  I squinted at a rack of Chanel suits. "Really?"

  "Of course," she assured me. "Everything falls off the back of a truck, and my boss is the guy who's there to pick it up when it does."

  "Enterprising," I said.

  "Isn't it?" She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, gaze scanning the racks and shelves and the hundreds of boxes stacked high. "What are you, size thirty-six?"