by Alex A King
Doomed before I even reached the gate.
"Are you going to stop me?"
No response.
"Did you leave something on my bedside table?"
Nothing.
I held up the map on my phone. "What am I going to find if I go here?"
He kept staring straight ahead. I could have been a ghost, for all the attention he was paying me.
"Why not give it to Melas?"
He mumbled a name—Sofia—and began to snore.
Sweet zombie Jesus, the poor guy was asleep. Who could blame him? He'd been watching me almost around the clock, a bit like my own personal Greyfriars Bobby. I felt bad for the man. He was the one who'd bear the brunt of Grandma's anger when she realized I'd escaped her coop.
Unfortunately for Xander, my sympathy didn't outweigh my curiosity. So I climbed the fence, and dropped almost silently to the other side.
Suddenly, I froze.
Delayed reaction.
Maybe he didn't—or couldn't— speak when he was awake, but Xander had definitely spoken in his sleep, and the word he'd spoken was a woman's name. The mysteries were stacking up around here. It was beginning to look like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
When I recovered from that revelation, I resumed the sneaking. The dogs ignored me—they knew I was friend, not foe. The cats ignored everyone, unless they were in need of a lap. My goat was decimating a decorative bush. The night was one of the darkest I'd seen so far, with only a hint of moon. During daylight hours Greece wore perfect blue skies, but tonight she was a widow.
Out front Stavros was watching over my car.
"Katerina!" he hissed. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Escaping Baboula's protection."
Huh. He had me there. "That's pretty much true."
"You can't do that!"
I felt around under my car for the transmitter. When I found it, I tossed it to Stavros. "I need you to stay here and hold this. Or I can shoot you."
"You don't have a gun."
Every inch of me hurt but I managed to lift my shirt at the back to show him. "Say hello to my little friend," I said, sounding like Pacino on Helium.
"Virgin Mary, Katerina, you cannot just run away. Baboulas will kill me."
"Am I a hostage?"
"No, you are family."
"So she won't kill you. Worst case she'll revoke your internet privileges for a while."
"What will I do for fun?"
"Get a girlfriend."
"I can't afford a girlfriend."
I wasn't sure we were having the same conversation. That happened a lot around here. "Got to go."
The guard stopped me at the gate. He was on the outside and I was stuck on the inside. His name was Spiros, and he'd inherited a jumbo-sized version of the family nose. "Sorry, Katerina. I can't let you leave."
I leaned out the window and showed him my gun.
He showed me his.
His was much bigger—damn it—so I put mine away.
The gates loomed. They seemed taller at night, giant iron guardians that wouldn't let anybody pass, unless they were in possession of a good riddle or a super-secret password. I didn't know any riddles or passwords—except password, 123, my birth date, and God—which left me with threats.
"If you don't open the gate I'll ram it with my car."
He winced. "If you do that Baboulas will kick my kolos."
"So, open the gate and tell her I threatened to shoot you."
He pointed to the security camera that had captured the other guard's ding dong in solitary action. "She'll know I'm lying."
"Damn it." I chewed on a hangnail. "She thinks of everything."
His shoulders slumped in defeat. "Tell me about it."
"Okay, let me think." I sat there chewing while he waited, then I had a bright idea. I got out of the car, peered into the guardhouse. Nothing fancy inside. A smallish television, a computer, a wastebasket filled with takeout wrappers and today's paper. There was a smaller gate next to the big gates—one for foot traffic—and it wasn't locked. So in a jiffy I was on the other side of the gates. No car, but it was a starting point.
"Do you smoke?" I asked.
"When I want to look cool."
We'd have to talk later, Spiros and I. But right now I needed his lighter. When I asked for it he ponied up the plastic safety lighter. I flicked the flame on and tossed it into the wastebasket. Then I hit the button that opened the gates, raced back through the small gate, and jumped into my car.
Good guy Spiros was too busy kicking the flaming wastebasket onto the driveway to stop me. His primitive animal brain took over, and to a primitive animal brain fire trumps runaway cousin.
I'd make it up to him later.
If I made it back.
Chapter 22
My heart was pole dancing in my chest. What the heck was I doing driving up into the olive groves on Mount Pelion alone and at night? At the very least I should have stuffed Stavros into the trunk as backup. Grandma had a smallish army at her disposal—an army that could have been kind of, sort of, mine had I woken her and showed her the coordinates.
If she wasn't the one who'd left them for me.
I didn't even know what I'd find out here. Could be the Baptist, could be Dad. I was hoping for Dad, alive and well and ecstatic to see me.
I chewed my hangnail the whole way, until my cuticle stung.
The Beetle left the main road for a narrow vein of dirt and stones. The headlamps cast strange, thin light on the olive trees. In response, the trees' fingers extended ominously, as though they wanted to snatch me off this road, out of this world. I turned off the high beam to quit freaking myself out. The tires bumped and crunched. It wasn't long until the lowered lights pointed out a shack—not unlike Aunt Rita's safe house, but with even less charm—hiding between the trees. To call it dilapidated would have been a major exaggeration, like calling four inches eight.
I killed the motor, sat there breathing fast, wondering if this was hyperventilating, and if so would a plastic bag work as well as paper? My phone buzzed. Incoming text from Melas.
What are you doing?
I didn't know exactly, so I stuffed the phone back into my pocket, undid the clasp on the golden cross, hung it from the rearview mirror. It wasn't fuzzy dice, but all the same I felt like a mullet would have been more appropriate than this ponytail. The gun snuck up my right leg and hid in my boot. I got out of the car. Leaned against the hood. Then—heart clanging, blood whooshing, adrenaline pumps spiking into the 'She's gonna blow!' zone—I stuck my thumb and finger in my mouth and blasted a wolf whistle any young Greek guy would be proud of.
Someone might wonder why I didn't park further away and hoof it to the shack. That same someone might speculate that a much smarter woman would be sneaking around in the night, playing peeping Tom before revealing herself. And that same preachy, judgmental jerk might also be wondering why I hadn't brought backup. The truth was I figured whoever was in inside was expecting me. That and I was tired of dodging invisible opponents. I wanted five minutes of face-to-face with someone who wasn't trying to run my life their way, even if they were the enemy.
Although, if they had engineered my visit then they were also manipulating me.
Gah!
The lights stayed dark but I could feel movement inside. The kraken was stirring, but would it come out to play?
And if it did, who would walk through that door?
My head wanted the Baptist to reveal himself. My heart wasn't convinced. It was doing a lot of protesting, and it had help from my churning stomach and my shaking knees. Really, my heart just wanted my daddy. Some mobster's granddaughter I was. Any other time I'd be grateful I was missing the criminal gene, but tonight I could have used its help.
One word drifted through the night. The sound of my name coming from this man's mouth sounded like an obscenity and a threat. He wanted to do bad things and he wanted
to do them to me.
The Baptist.
"Where's your Greek hospitality?" I called out, with fake-o brass balls. "I came to see you and—what? No coffee, no cake?"
A thin laugh wafted my way.
The anticipation was killing me.
Then the front door banged open. A figure stepped out, but it was much too small to be the Baptist. He was a big guy; the second person wasn't big or—judging from the curves—a guy.
"Katerina?"
I squinted into the darkness. My sunburn winced. "Dina, is that you?"
What was he doing sending out his hostage? Gears clicked in my head. Was she working with him?
As she inched closer, her details became distinct. Dad's loony ex was wearing a floaty dress that was last fashionable when the 80s was a newborn. The way fashion was, if she held on to it another year or two it would be downright trendy.
"Nice dress," I said.
"It was your father's favorite when we were together."
Yikes. We were already entering the TMI zone. I was sorry I'd said anything.
"I have been waiting for him," she went on. "Pistof said he would come for me."
Pistof? That was the Baptist's real name? "My father?"
She nodded. "He promised when you arrived Michail would come, for certain."
Lightbulbs flashed on in my head. "He didn't kidnap you, did he?" Poor desperate cow, she'd have listened to anyone who promised her another shot at Dad's heart.
She jerked her head up and made a tst sound. No. "He said I have to search you for weapons and wires."
Better her than him. If he put his hands on me I'd die fighting him off. "I'm unarmed," I lied, hoping if push came to shove, she'd be on my side.
"I have to check. Pistof said so."
There was a slingshot in one boot and a gun in the other. Melas's handcuffs were tucked into my back pocket. Dina would find them, but would she blab? Her hands travelled over me like I was a map and she was lost and trying to find her way. My breath caught when she reached my boots, but she patted both shapes then stood.
"All she has is a phone," she called out.
"Bring it to me," he said from inside the dark rectangle. Dina trotted back like a good minion. She vanished into the box of concentrated night, then something fell. Metal and plastic splintered. All that money I'd spent on insuring the thing, now probably I'd be too dead to score a replacement.
"Walk towards my voice—slowly," the Baptist said.
Knocking knees. Frantic pulse. Fast breathing. I was a heart attack waiting to happen. But I walked.
Pistof stepped out of the dark, into the slightly lesser dark. He leaned in the open doorway. "You came."
"As if I'd do anything else."
So he was behind the note. If he didn't leave it himself, someone must have helped him. I wondered if he knew that same someone had left me a gun.
He flipped the light on. The cabin was stripped down to essentials. A bedroll on the floor. Empty pizza boxes. Empty cola bottles lined up along one wall. All plastic, no glass. In one corner sat a metal trough filled with water. No need to guess what that was for. Drowning in the trough were my cell phone's shattered bones. It looked like he'd been hiding here for some time.
"No wire?"
"They gave me one. It's gone. I do things my way." It was my Eric Cartman moment: I'm Katerina Makris, I do what I want. "Why are you doing this—any of this?"
"Who else is there? The police can't. They're cuffed to the law. You want to clean up shit, you have to do it outside the eye of the law."
"So what if you break the law doing that—right?"
"There is shit and there is shit."
"Let me guess. You consider yourself a higher form of shit?"
He shook his head like the disappointment was mighty. "Why you want to get yourself mixed up with those people? If you had stayed in America you would be safe."
"I don't think so. You've got no way to get to my father without me." I nodded to Dina, sorry that I was about to smash her feelings. "He dumped her years ago. She's the last thing he'd come out of hiding for—if he's hiding."
Dina burst into tears. "He loved me. He never said it, but I could tell. He always called me his girl."
"He called a lot of woman his girl, including my mother—his wife. This one—" I tilted my head towards the weeping woman. "—was just a good time. You're a man, you know what it's like. Once a man is done with a good time, he moves on to another good time."
"I'm not a bad man," he said. "I would have left you alone. But you had to come here."
My laugh was humorless. "I didn't have a choice. My cousins drugged me and threw me onto a private plane. But I get it. I do. You want to be the hero, do the right thing, win the war against crime."
He was nodding. "That's all I've been doing. Cleaning up shit."
"Hey, I get it," I said. "You think I want to be a mobster's kid? All my life I thought my father was a truck driver. I'm not exactly thrilled he's been lying to me since I was born. I want him to show up so I can kick his butt."
He liked that. The gleaming tombstones lined up in his mouth said he liked it a lot. "Even his daughter sees he is shit. Good."
I wasn't thrilled about a psycho calling my father shit, but truth was I wasn't exactly overjoyed that Dad had let me find out about my family the hard way. A bit of warning would have been nice. A little, 'Hey, Kat, your grandmother is a crime lord, and by the way, the safe is stuffed with money, alternate identities, and a gun,' over our weekly dinners would have gone a long way. Still, this nut didn't get to call my father names.
"I do," I lied.
"There are cops who back me. Big names. Important people. They want me to score big, take out some of the major Families so they don't have to."
"I understand. We all want to bring our children up in a safe world."
He nodded. "I killed my first mobster when I was rookie. Shot him in the face. The other guys on the force warned me that killing a man was hard, that I would feel guilt for the rest of my life. You take a man's life, he sits on your shoulders until you're in the grave, they said. But that didn't happen. I felt good about it. I was doing God's work, cleaning up the streets, making Greece safer."
Pretty sure God had a whole 'Thou shalt not kill' thing going on, but I could be wrong. I had never read the Greek translation of the Bible. And to be fair, even in the English language version, the Guy did enjoy plucking out eyes and playing cruel practical jokes on people to test their faith. Ask Job: that poor guy lost everything because God was feeling needy that day.
"I let the police teach me everything they knew," he continued. "I made contacts, made friends. Raided databases. Learned everything there was to know."
"Then you left."
He nodded. "It was time. If I waited until they let me go I would have been too old."
This was his life's work. And somehow Dad and I were caught up in it, even though my father hadn't lived a life of crime in thirty years. Obviously Pistof didn't believe in redemption.
What about the money, the passports, the gun?
Shaddap. We'll talk later, brain.
"So how does the plan go next?" I asked him.
"I have let it be known that I have you and Dina. Soon, your father will come. When he comes I will kill him."
The olive drained out of Dina's skin, leaving her a greenish yellow. I felt sorry for her. She thought she'd have a chance at winning back the love of her life. Instead, she was stuck in a slumlord's shack with a psycho former cop and her ex's bitchy kid.
"What if he can't?" I asked him. "What if he was really kidnapped?"
"I don't believe it," he said. "He and Koulouris, those two assholes, they were always faking their deaths, faking their murders, pretending to be kidnapped. This is just another one of their games."
"Except Cookie is dead."
He grinned. "This time for good."
"What happens after that?"
"The funny thing about tha
t …" He wagged a finger at me. "I never intended to kill you." That finger moved from me to Dina and back again. "Either of you. I don't kill people who haven't earned their death. I'm a good man. But then I heard a story about how the old woman has plans for you to run the Family, when she's in the grave. She prefers you over her own sons for the job. And I say to myself, this is an opportunity I cannot miss. I have a chance to wipe out your Family. First your father, then you. After that, your uncles and the others. The old woman … how long does she have? Not long. She's sick."
I tried, but surprise splashed itself all over my face, giving me no time to hide.
He chuckled. His mirth grated my nerves. "Why am I not surprised she did not tell you? That one, she keeps everything clutched tight against her chest. She has the karkinos."
Cancer. Once again, that asshole cancer wanted to snatch family away from me.
"How do you know?"
"I listen and I look. I have eyes everywhere. Maybe even in your Family, eh? Not everybody is your friend in this world. So here you are, the heir to the Makris Family criminal empire. I kill your father, and you, and your uncles, and their children …" Two palms up. "… and it ends."
He was crazy. He'd rationalized the whole thing, painted himself as some kind of Spartan, hellbent on ridding Greece of the Persians. I understood wanting to end crime, but this was my family.
"Does it change things if I tell you I have no desire to join the Family business, let alone take over? I already told my grandmother 'No.' "
"You say that now but you will fall. Slowly, slowly, you will become one of them, and you will not know it until it has happened and you are the one handing out orders."
"I think you've seen The Godfather one too many times. I'm no Michael Corleone."
"You will be."
I still didn't get it: the vendetta. Why my family, why so much hate for my father? When I asked, Dina raised her hand. "Oh, oh, I know the answer to this question."
"Skasmos!" he barked. "You know nothing."
Hands on hips. "Oh really? You forget I was in school with you both. I remember. When Michail and I were together, he used to laugh about you."
"Not helping," I said.