by Joseph Badal
The village appeared to be deserted, not unexpectedly considering the time of year, the time of day, and the Greek custom of taking siestas. The main street through town was paved, but was no wider than would allow two small cars to pass at the same time. The cross streets they passed were unpaved. A few gnarled, ancient olive trees occupied places of honor in yards that fronted the main street. A mixture of wrought iron fences separated some of the residences from the pavement. There were no sidewalks.
Panagoulakos stopped at a small establishment called Taverna Bacchus, a whitewashed affair with blue window trim and a blue door that faced the street. He left the car in a small dirt lot on the right side of the property and walked down a driveway toward the back of the building. John followed him into a small, flower-bedecked courtyard, half-shaded from the sun by a trellis burdened with the arms of a twelve-foot tall grapevine. In that shade, a gray-haired, ruddy-faced man of about fifty-five, with an enormous belly slept in a hammock.
The inspector looked over his shoulder at John and put his finger to his lips. He pointed at a small table set in the middle of the courtyard and they both took seats. Then Panagoulakos nodded toward the sleeping figure. “The old man who owns this place has a very beautiful, very young wife,” he said conspiratorially but loudly. “He keeps her on a short leash. Never lets her out of his sight. But, if we’re careful, we should be able to sneak into the house without him knowing. Maybe grab a quick kiss. Are you game?”
John certainly knew that messing around with another man’s wife in Greece could get you killed. But, before he could respond, a voice came from the hammock.
“If you, motherless dog, take one step toward my house, I’ll be forced to protect the good name of my goddess-of-a-wife and turn you into a eunuch.” The man spoke without opening his eyes. When he did open them, and looked at Panagoulakos, he said, “Oh, never mind. It’s only that runt police inspector. What harm can he do? He’s so short, he couldn’t hump a Chihuahua.”
He rolled out of his hammock, laughed, and walked over to Panagoulakos, grabbed him around the chest, and lifted him out of his chair. He hoisted him in the air so that the inspector’s feet dangled two feet above the ground. They both laughed uproariously.
Panagoulakos introduced the man to John. “This arkoutha’s name is Pericles Vlacopoulos.” Pericles took John’s hand in both of his, making John’s hand disappear, and shook it enthusiastically.
John thought the inspector’s referring to Vlacopoulos as a bear was plenty appropriate. The man stood about six feet, four inches tall, had shoulders so broad he looked as though he wore football pads under his shirt. His head seemed too large even for his already oversized frame. Only his enormous paunch seemed to go with his skull. Despite the man’s stomach, he exuded power.
Pericles laid a hand on Panagoulakos’s shoulder and led them inside to a large table in the middle of the taverna’s main room, served them wine, and then left them alone for a minute. When he returned, he had in tow a gorgeous woman who appeared to be twenty years his junior. She had olive skin and green eyes, and her lush, wavy auburn-colored hair hung just past her shoulders. Her figure was full.
“This is Marika, my wife,” he said to John. “Marika, our guest is John Hammond. I hope you won’t hold it against him that he is accompanied by our midget Kojak.”
Marika Vlacopoulos looked confused and, after she said hello to John and hugged Panagoulakos, asked her husband in a whisper, “Who is this Kojak?”
Vlacopoulos laughed at his wife’s question and dismissed it with a wave, as though to say, “It’s not important.” He took her hand and led her back into the kitchen.
After only fifteen minutes, the Vlacopouloses carried in dishes loaded with Greek delicacies: taramosalata—fish roe puree, spanakopita—spinach pies, tiropitakia—cheese pies, melitzanosalata—eggplant dip, tzazeekee—yogurt and cucumber dip, eliesse—olives, pita bread, and kaseri cheese, and bottles of Monte Nero red and Robola white wines. The simple lunch John had offered to buy Panagoulakos threatened to become an orgy of food and drink when the first serving dishes were removed and Marika replaced them with plates and bowls of chicken, green beans, potatoes, and pastitsio—macaroni and meat casserole. John’s past experience with Greek hospitality told him there would be no way he’d be allowed to pay for the meal, as he’d offered to do. When Vlacopoulos introduced John to his wife as his “guest,” he meant it literally. Panagoulakos had set John up.
At some point during the meal—probably after the second bottle of wine and two glasses of Ouzo each—John realized he’d stopped calling Panagoulakos “Inspector,” and the cop had stopped referring to him as “Mr. Hammond.” It was now Christo and John. Pericles sat down with them about halfway through the meal. There they were, Pericles, Christo, and John—life-long friends.
“How do you know about Kojak?” John asked Pericles. “Were the episodes of that old cop show shown here in Greece?”
“No, no,” he said. “I spent twenty-eight years running my own restaurant and bar in the States. God knows I couldn’t make a living here in Greece. Between the taxes and the bribes for the bureaucrats, I don’t know how any business survives over here. This restaurant is nothing but a hobby. I used to watch Kojak on the television I put on the wall behind the bar at my place in Boston. Never missed a show. I still love Telly Savalas.”
“So, what brings Samos’s top cop to our pissant village?” Pericles asked.
“We’ve had a murder in Vathi. Our friend John found the victim just before he died.”
Pericles gave John a sympathetic look. “That must have been a terrible experience.”
John nodded.
“The victim apparently escaped from his murderer or murderers after they’d shot him,” Panagoulakos continued. “Some time after he got away, John found him on the marble steps by the sea. You know where I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Two men who we assume were the killers found John with the victim, and one of those men took a shot at him. It was a miracle he got away unharmed.”
“What were these men after?” Pericles asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” Panagoulakos said. “The dead man had a map on him. Stuffed in a boot. Perhaps that’s what the men wanted. But it has no information on it of any use, at least as far as I can tell.”
“Who was the victim?” Pericles asked.
“A local fisherman by the name of Vangelos.”
“Petros Vangelos?” Pericles said. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “I know . . . I knew Petros. I bought fish and sponges from him over in Kokkari. His family has lived in that village for generations. He was one of the hardest working people I’ve ever known. His family must have taken the news pretty hard.”
“They don’t know about the murder yet,” Panagoulakos said. “That’s one more task I have to perform today.”
John remembered the photograph he’d pulled from Vangelos’s wallet. “Does his whole family live in Kokkari?” he asked.
“No, one of his sons is an Air Force officer stationed at a base near Kerataya on the mainland. His daughter is some kind of professor at the University of Athens. Antiquities, or something like that. Only the oldest son, Nicolaos—Nick—lives in Kokkari with his wife and two children. He’s worked with his father on their boats his entire life. Petros has been sort of semi-retired for the last year or two. Petros’ wife, Layla, is going to be devastated.”
The mood in Taverna Bacchus had suddenly turned dark and oppressive. John was relieved when they finally said their farewells and started back toward Vathi. They’d traveled for about fifteen minutes in silence and had come to the turnoff for Kokkari. Christo stopped the car.
“How would you feel about our going to the Vangelos house?” he asked.
“In for a penny . . . .”
“Does that mean yes?” he asked.
“Sorry.
Yes!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
John and Christo arrived in Kokkari just before sunset. The road took them into the past. Christo explained that the buildings were as they’d been for centuries—flat-roofed, whitewashed, the ubiquitous bright-blue shutters. Other than the narrow main drag through the fishing village, all of the side streets were cobble stoned or unpaved. They stopped at a small house three doors from the beach. A man seated on a screened-in porch got up and came out to the car. Christo introduced him to John as Constable Raisis.
“Raisis,” Christo said, “we need to find the Vangelos home. I have the unpleasant task of notifying Mrs. Vangelos that her husband is dead. It would be a good idea if you summoned the local priest.”
Raisis grimaced. He provided directions to the Vangelos home and then said he’d find the priest.
The drive to the Vangelos property took less than two minutes. The family lived on high ground across the road from a narrow, rocky point of land that jutted about one hundred yards into the sea. A dock had been built at a right angle to this natural seawall and tied to it were an eighteen-foot motor-powered boat and a small rowboat. Then John saw another boat—a large motor-powered fishing craft—approach the seawall from around a bend in the shoreline. It looked to be about fifty feet long. The name printed on the bow read Penelope.
John might not have seen the arriving boat had he not already noticed a woman standing at the end of the seawall. She wore a white dress that made her appear wraith-like. Her slim body was visible in silhouette through the fabric of her dress, made almost sheer by the setting sun behind her. The woman’s thick, jet-black hair trailed behind her in the evening breeze off the Aegean. Her left hand shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare, while she waved her right arm in slow, exaggerated arcs as though to welcome the arriving boat, to welcome her man home from the sea. John felt a twinge of embarrassment at the sudden envy he felt toward the man on the boat. In all the years he’d been married, he couldn’t remember one time when Sonya had greeted him at the front door. As likely as not, she would come home well after he’d already arrived, down a drink or two, and head for bed. He shook his head as though to clear it of the unwanted thought and turned to look up at the house across from the sea.
Christo drove up a steep, crushed-seashell driveway to a one-story house, built on a flat spot two hundred feet up the hillside. An elderly woman stepped out of the front door and waited for them to stop. Short, heavy set, and closer to seventy than she was to sixty, she had her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a neat bun. She looked like the grandmother everyone would want to have. While the inspector drove the car closer, John saw the woman’s features were etched with worry. He recognized her from the photograph in Petros Vangelos’s wallet and thought, while he watched her stand there in her brightly colored dress, drying her hands on her apron, that this might be the last time she would wear anything but black. One more member of the Greek widows’ brigade.
The woman stared at Christo as she wrung her apron with her hands. As soon as the inspector showed his policeman’s badge and introduced himself, she turned to John, but apparently found no safe harbor in his face. She moaned, seemingly aware the news was bad. Christo and John reached out to grab her when she began to collapse. They supported her and walked her to the house.
They helped the woman to a sofa in an immaculate and orderly sitting room. Christo sat next to her. John walked into the kitchen and fetched a glass of water. When he placed the glass in front of the old lady, she cried out, “Petro mou, Petro mou,” all the while beating her left breast with her right hand. Her voice became hoarse and then her words devolved into wails. She was inconsolable. There was nothing they could do to comfort her.
Then the woman from the seawall rushed in through the front door. She glared at them and shouted in Greek, “What have you done to my mother? Get away from her right now. Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She was the most beautiful woman John had ever seen. She looked to be in her late thirties, had green eyes, a straight nose, a generous mouth, and a light olive complexion. John’s view of her on the seawall had been tantalizing. The sight of her face and swimsuit model-perfect figure from a distance of only a few feet was breathtaking. John averted his eyes, forcing himself to remember the circumstances that had brought him to the Vangelos home. But, as though possessed, his gaze reverted back to the woman.
Feeling self conscious about his reaction to her, John walked outside. He made his way across the road and down to the beach, climbed onto a boulder about half the size of a Volkswagen, and watched the bottom edge of the sun melt into the sea. He could just barely hear wails come from the house.
From his vantage point, he watched a procession of people make its way to the Vangelos home. The priest, in Greek Orthodox black robes and headpiece, and Constable Raisis arrived together. Elderly women dressed in black—the official mourning troop—also arrived.
Meanwhile, the fishing boat he’d seen earlier had dropped its anchor by the dock. A powerfully built, fortyish man climbed down a ladder to the dock. A second man stood in the boat’s wheelhouse. After he tied two lines from the boat onto dock cleats, the man on the dock walked along the seawall toward where John sat. They acknowledged one another with nods. He seemed to be about to say something, but then the sight of visitors to the house seemed to catch his attention. He sprinted across the road, up the driveway to the house. After a moment, Christo came out, spotlighted by the last of the sunset. John whistled to get his attention. Christo looked from side to side, then seemed to spot John, waved, and yelled for him to wait. He drove the car down the hill and picked him up by the side of the road.
They spoke only a few words on the return trip to Vathi.
“I appreciate you coming along,” Christo said. John could tell from the tone of his voice that he really meant it.
“Teepota,” John responded. “It was nothing.” But they both knew it was not nothing.
When they crested the hill that overlooked Vathi, the lights of the town sparkled below and provided a small lift to John’s spirits.
Christos stopped outside John’s hotel.
“Please join me for breakfast tomorrow. Our breakfast this morning was interrupted, and I don’t want you to eat anything at your hotel.”
John smiled and promised to come by the police station at 9:00 a.m. He waved at Christo as he drove away and turned to the hotel entrance. He made it halfway to the front door before he remembered he’d left his jacket, with the copy of Vangelos’s map in its pocket, on the back seat of the police car. He turned, but the taillights of Christo’s car had already disappeared around the corner at the end of the block.
John climbed the stairs to his second-floor room and pulled his room key from his pants pocket. He was about to insert it into the lock when he noticed a light under the door. He thought for a moment he’d forgotten to turn off a lamp in his haste to get to the police station that morning, or perhaps the maid had left a light on. But, after all that had already happened, he hesitated and wondered if he should call the police. He remembered the old saying, “You may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone hiding behind every bush.” He began to think he was being ridiculous, when the door suddenly flew open.
“Ah, is it Mr. Hammond? Please come in and join us.”
John noticed the pistol in the man’s hand, then the size of the man wielding it. The guy was enormous, like Arnold Schwarzenegger on steroids.
“You can’t know how much we’ve looked forward to meeting you,” the man said as he stepped into the hall and waved his weapon back at the room.
John walked into his room. A second man, seated in the chair by the balcony doors, calmly smoked a cigarette and lightly tapped what appeared to be a matte-black sap against his thigh.
“Yes, please join us, Mr. Hammond,” the second man said.
John had a sudden re
alization that these were the men who had murdered Petros Vangelos. Their accents and size, the gun, their presence in his room.
“Mr. Hammond,” the seated one said, “we think you have something that our employer wants very badly. We’ll give you one opportunity to tell us where it is. If you are smart, you will do so quickly, with no bullshit.”
John looked from the one in the chair to the man with the pistol, and back again. Something told him that all the cooperation in the world wouldn’t make one iota of difference. These men had the look of hired guns and they were not about to leave a witness who could identify them, especially after they murdered Vangelos.
“I would be happy to give you whatever it is you think I have,” John said, “but I can hardly think with a gun pointed at me.”
“Josef,” the seated one said, “please put away the pistol. I can see that Mr. Hammond is more than willing to help us. Isn’t that so, Mr. Hammond?”
John nodded his head and made a show of swallowing. Just a thoroughly frightened, middle-aged man who was not used to being threatened by gun-toting assassins.
“Good, good,” the man said.
John saw out of his peripheral vision the man behind him shoulder holster his weapon. He wheeled, lowered his shoulder, hit him square in the chest, and drove him backward past the foot of the bed and into the closed entry door. The sound of cracking wood exploded in the small room. John slammed a fist into the side of the man’s face, grabbed the front of his shirt as he started to sag to the floor, and spun him around to block the path of the second man. John knew he only had a second or two to make his escape. He lurched for the door, grabbed the door handle, and jerked the door open. Then something vise-like clamped around his ankle. The one with the gun was stretched out on the floor, arm extended, fingers wrapped around John’s ankle. John tried to wrench himself loose but the man was too strong.