“It did! Soumba explained that Andy can’t be a spy. He has the wrong clothes.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Rachel asked.
I pointed to my Tevas. “Also the wrong footwear.”
“We drank tasty orange sodas with him.” Nikos smacked his lips. “They hit the spot.”
“That’s why we needed the Piraiki afterwards.”
“It takes a lot of work to get rid of an orange soda aftertaste,” Nikos said. “It’s worse than garlic.”
I raised my bottle in an imaginary toast as I imitated Soumba. “But of course, the island is full ‘for’ foreigners. Why they would know the difference?”
Eleni nodded, trying to assess our level of inebriation. “Amirosian Sunset is a winner. This is for sure. But what about the newspaper article?”
Nikos exhaled audibly. “You know Soumba’s cousin better than I do.”
“Gregos has blown things out of proportion since grade school.”
Nikos opened a final Piraiki. “What the hell? Maybe that’s the only way he can sell enough papers to stay in business. Hey, Rachel! Want one?” He started to get up, but Rachel motioned for him to stay seated.
“Too early. I’ll get myself a Coke.” She got up and headed for the refrigerator at the back of the room.
“Will Rachel be disappointed if I’m drunk?” I whispered to Eleni.
“No,” she whispered back.
“That’s lucky.”
Eleni counted the empty bottles on the table. Nikos and I had been making an artistic line with our dead soldiers, but they’d broken rank when he’d rattled the table. “Quite lucky.”
“This morning was a lesson in priorities,” Nikos said. “You have to enjoy yourself. Live a little each day. Keep things in perspective.” He swayed as he talked.
Eleni shook her finger at him. “Is that why you work so hard?”
“When we got married, I took off a whole week. In the summer!”
“That was a month ago.”
“I spent all winter relaxing with you and the boys.”
“You spent the whole winter planning how to make more money at the café. What did I hear you say about living a little every day?”
Nikos circled Eleni and put his arms around her shoulders. “How about living a little right now?”
She squirmed. “I am not sure this is the exact moment I had in mind.”
“Are you afraid?” he started kissing her neck. She only fought for a moment before letting him propel her to her feet. They marched in tandem to the back of the establishment.
Rachel dodged them on her way back from the kitchen.
“Should we leave?” I asked.
She pointed to my half-drunk beer bottle. “Tzt. No rush. There’s a storage closet. They like a challenge.”
Eleni and Nikos disappeared behind a door. Moments later we heard the smack of cans scattering on the tile, followed by giggles.
“Are they okay in there?”
“Eleni does yoga,” Rachel said. “Tell me about the police station.”
In a jumble of memories, I detailed what I could remember. By now what I remembered the most were two grown men laughing at me while working their way through terrible orange sodas. Rachel nodded as if she suspected I was exaggerating.
I indicated the array of empty bottles. “Sorry. We got carried away.”
“You’re on vacation.”
“I feel childish now, but I was worried the police would leap to conclusions.” I didn’t dare share the images I had of myself behind bars and my brother having to fly in from L.A. By now they seemed way too silly.
“People trust Soumba because he’s reasonable. That’s why he’s an effective police chief.”
“Back home I don’t even know any police officers.”
“This is a small community. Everything is on a different scale.”
The community in Squid Bay hadn’t been large either, but it had been integrated differently. I had known all the local musicians, many of the other people who worked in entertainment venues, and a few of my neighbors, but no one else. Perhaps that had been my problem. Since my world was so narrow, Louloudi had comprised too large a part of it. I was more thankful than ever that Rachel had provided an escape route.
“Now maybe my vacation can actually begin.” I took Rachel’s hand and tried to draw her closer, but she stood and moved off.
“Your vacation can’t start that way. So that Eleni and Nikos can spend some time alone, I volunteered for us to pick up the boys from their grandmother’s.”
She led me out the back door. As we slipped past the storage closet, we heard another crash.
***
I accompanied Rachel to the taverna that night with a sense of celebration. After two days of bad news, I felt unburdened. I sat out of the way at a side table where I could alternate between watching the musicians and the customers. When thoughts of Louloudi sneaked into my head, I shook them out. I awarded thoughts of Hari the same exorcism. They were in the past, and they needed to stay there.
I told myself to concentrate on Rachel, and for the most part I was successful. I flirted with her while she sang, shaking her concentration. She must have realized I was undressing her with my eyes. I had all kinds of plans for how we should spend the night together. Watching her work was the best kind of foreplay because there wasn’t anything either of us could do to speed things up.
By the time the customers finally cleared out, it was almost two a.m. As the musicians wiped down their instruments, I waited impatiently for them to divvy up the tip money. Rachel kept turning back to look at me and I knew why. She was in as much of a hurry to leave as I was. It wasn’t merely desire that cranked my heart rate. I was grateful to be in the company of a woman who was on the same page that I was. No games, no baggage. Simple desire.
Finally Rachel and I went out to the near-empty parking lot, which was naked under the thin electric lights. I slipped behind Rachel on the Vespa, an old model remarkably similar to my battered model back home, and we rolled out onto the street. She’d offered to let me drive, and by now there was hardly any traffic, but none of the roads were well lit, and she knew where to dodge the potholes. Sitting behind her gave me the excuse to squeeze her waist. Given my height, I could nestle my chin on her shoulder, let her hair bounce into my face, and enjoy the remaining wafts of her perfume. We snaked through the countryside while a half moon provided a dim, silvery glow. If Rachel had suggested driving back and forth between Eleni’s house and the port for the rest of the night, I wouldn’t have protested.
We were on the first stretch of the back road between Amiros Town and the cluster of houses where Eleni and Nikos lived when I heard a car far behind us. Its rumble was obvious because since leaving the port, we’d been the only ones on the road. As the car neared us, I kept expecting its lights to shine on my back. Instead the vehicle merely got closer.
Finally I glanced back. A dark blob was behind us.
“Cut your lights,” I said.
Rachel couldn’t hear me above the engine.
“Flash your lights on and off! They’ll realize they’ve forgotten theirs.”
Rachel did as I asked, but the car’s headlights did not come on. As the vehicle gained on us, I waved my arm, signaling for it to pass.
Bing!
I heard a metallic whiz. I didn’t have to waste time wondering what it was.
The last time I’d heard a gunshot, I’d been in Squid Bay with Louloudi. The scene flashed before me as I felt the same sense of helpless panic.
Bing!
I heard a second whiz. As much as I could, I wrapped my body around Rachel’s. “Hurry!”
By now Rachel too sensed danger. Acting instinctively, she cut our own lights and accelerated, flooring the scooter to capacity. She bent to the wheel like a racer. I bent with her, ducking the wind.
Up ahead a side road veered to the right. Before I could advise Rachel to take the curve, she nosed into it, calculati
ng the highest possible speed she could travel without losing her balance.
Bing!
A bullet grazed the back fender as we completed the curve, tipping us off balance. Rachel took her foot off the accelerator, but the scooter wobbled so wildly that she lost control. We zigzagged back and forth across the road a few times before tumbling off.
Mid-air I spread my arms. When I hit the ditch, I rolled, ending up in a skid that laid me flat on my back. My hips hurt sharply from the pebbles that had blended with my skin, but I wasn’t seriously hurt.
We were left in silence because the car had continued down the main road.
“Rachel?”
“Yeah?”
She was several yards away. I crawled in her direction. “Are you okay?”
She was lying on her side. “I don’t know.”
My heart pounded. “Did you hit your head?”
“No. Or maybe I did. I landed on my arm.” She sat up gingerly, using her left hand as a crutch and cradling her right. She caressed her wrist but winced in pain. “Do you think it’s broken?”
I bent to look more closely. In the dim moonlight, her wrist appeared normal, but I wasn’t convinced I could tell a break from a sprain. “I don’t think so.” I exaggerated my optimism because I didn’t want her to panic.
“You’re all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Scraped up. Believe me, I’ve had practice falling off motor scooters.”
Rachel continued to caress her wrist. “Did you see the driver?”
“I barely saw the car.” It went without saying that I hadn’t seen the license plate either.
Rachel held her arm and shut her eyes. “Check the scooter?”
Our trusted steed was on its side. The handlebars were twisted, but the motor was intact. I set the scooter upright trying to determine whether or not we would be able to ride it when I realized the ignition no longer had a key. Face to the ground, I inched around in ever-widening circles, hoping the moon would pinpoint the metal.
“That wasn’t an accident, was it?” Rachel called out.
“No. Do you think we were attacked by kids on a joyride?”
“On Amiros? No.”
Rachel struggled to her feet. I went over to steady her and hugged her gently, mindful of her arm. “Are you sure you should walk?”
“Maybe not. I’m pretty shaken.” She plopped back down on the road, bending her head towards her lap.
“Should I try to flag down a car?”
Slowly she raised her head. “The Vespa won’t run?”
“It might if I could find the key.”
She lay down. “Let me stay here and rest for a minute.”
Feeling useless, I redoubled my efforts. Rachel needed assistance, but we were a mile from the nearest house and a couple of miles from our friends. The sliver of moonlight was a poor flashlight.
“I don’t suppose you’re carrying a cell phone?” she asked.
“I didn’t think I’d need one tonight.”
“Well, me either.” She heard me scrambling in the brush. “Eleni has an extra key. Don’t worry about it.”
“It has to be right around here.” Given the scooter’s current position, I tried to calculate the most likely direction of flight.
“We can walk.”
“Shhhh!” I heard a car coming. As it approached, it slowed down. “Quick!” I pulled Rachel to her feet, and we retreated to the scraggly shrubs a few feet back from the road.
Sure enough, the car turned down the side road. This time, the lights were on.
It was probably a sedan. A black one.
Behind a bush, I lay on top of Rachel, trying to shield her, wishing I had worn a black shirt instead of a light blue one.
The car stopped a few feet from the Vespa. A man got out of the passenger side. I raised my head, but I couldn’t identify him because he was bent over, studying the ground. Despite the warm night, he wore a jacket.
After he circled the Vespa, he kicked it. He spoke quickly in Greek, spitting the words to his companion. Then the man got back in the car, and the vehicle roared off.
“What did he say?” I asked Rachel.
“They think we started down the road.”
“Do you want to try to walk to Eleni’s?” I asked.
Rachel didn’t answer. She was already making her way through the brush.
Chapter Nine
“I do not see any purpose in their wanting to scare you,” Eleni said.
“Me neither,” I answered, “but I can’t think of anything else.”
Eleni and I were sitting in her kitchen in the soft light of dawn. She’d heard us arrive a couple of hours earlier when a farmer’s truck stopped outside the house. After she learned what happened, she immediately got up to attend to us. She tested Rachel’s wrist and came to the same conclusion I had; it was probably sprained rather than broken. Then she’d washed our scrapes with an antiseptic.
I needed an antiseptic for my active imagination. I was too stressed to consider sleeping. Eleni had spent the last hour trying to calm me down, but so far she hadn’t gotten anywhere.
“Someone who saw my picture in the paper believes I’m involved with Hari,” I said for the third time. “They must know that I went to the police.”
Eleni slashed an orange into four sections and pushed a wedge in my direction. “Perhaps they think to test your level of involvement. If Hari is not so important to you, you will not try to find out any more information about him.”
“All I did was speak to him for a few minutes.”
“Maybe they considered him dangerous. Were you sitting near Hari on the boat? Perhaps they saw you together there.”
“I saw him, but we didn’t speak. We were both stretched out over a couple of seats, trying to get some rest.”
Eleni pulled the orange from its skin, squirting juice in several directions. “When you were at the café, you never actually saw Hari touch the parcel, did you?”
“No.”
“Perhaps it was there from the night before.”
“Don’t the waiters take the chairs inside at night?”
“Nikos and I do because the chairs are plastic and easy to carry off. Himena’s are metal, remember?”
“I remember the plastic seat cushions.”
“They remove the cushions, but they don’t bother about the chairs.”
“Why couldn’t somebody come along late at night and steal the whole lot?”
“The café has been in business since before I was born. Every inhabitant of the island would recognize that metal design.”
I swallowed an orange section. “You’re suggesting the parcel wasn’t Hari’s.”
“You saw how lazy Himena’s waiters are. The parcel could have been there for a day or so. If someone left it on a chair, maybe it took a couple of days to bounce to the ground.”
I hadn’t considered this angle. I’d been so sure that the package belonged to my fellow traveler that I hadn’t allowed for any other possibilities. I had to admit that Eleni was right, however. I hadn’t seen Hari with the engagement ring. I’d operated on a hunch.
“What about the message signed with an H?” I said stubbornly.
“Coincidence.”
“The waiters are lazy, but I still think they would have noticed.”
“I am not saying it is likely that the parcel was there overnight. I am saying it is possible.”
She bit into another orange section as if it were perfectly reasonable for houseguests to wake her in the middle of the night after having been ambushed by motorists in big cars. I wanted to match her nonchalance, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it.
Zombie-like, Rachel entered the room. She was pale and unsteady, but she wasn’t in visible pain.
“How are you feeling?” asked Eleni.
Rachel plopped down before the table. “The shower helped. I think I did hit my head.” She rubbed a place above her left ear.
“Should I make c
offee?” Eleni asked.
“I’ll try to sleep.”
“How’s your wrist?
“Swollen. I can bend it, but I’d rather not.”
Eleni peered at her friend’s arm. “The hospital will be open soon. I can take you down to have it checked.”
“The hospital closes at night?” I asked.
“Tzt. The hospital itself is open, but from midnight to six, they do not admit new patients.”
“What if there’s a serious emergency?”
“You ring the bell to wake someone up. Rachel, we could go down there right now if you would like to.”
Rachel fingered her wrist. “It can wait for another hour. I don’t think I even need a doctor, but I’ll have to ring Spiros. I doubt that I’ll be able to play a guitar tonight.”
“You should not try to,” said Eleni. “You might make your wrist worse and then need a longer rest. Send Andy instead.”
“Me? Last night was the first time I listened closely to Greek music. And I’m not very good on guitar.”
“The chords are straightforward,” Rachel replied. “You’ll see. Besides, you can help with the international repertoire. You heard us do the Spanish-language songs. You know all of those. Kostas and I also sing a couple of Beatles tunes. You’ll remember them.”
I’d hardly ever sung in English, but Rachel was right; at least I would know the chords. “I’ll be glad to try to help out.”
“Perfect,” Rachel said. “Even if you can’t contribute to every song, the moral support is important. I hate to leave the guys short-handed.”
I knew exactly how she felt. I’d often been in the same situation of scrambling for substitute players although I was usually able to get my brother, who did not normally work as a musician, to fill in. “I dragged you into this mess. I owe you whatever I can do to get you out.”
“I’m the one who panicked and lost control of the scooter.”
Eleni shook her head. “There is no way to plan for such situations. You should both feel lucky that nothing more serious happened.”
I shuddered at the sobering thought. We could have both been in the hospital with broken limbs or concussions instead of sitting in Eleni’s kitchen eating oranges.
Island Casualty (Andy Veracruz Mystery Book 2) Page 6