by Alex A King
“It’s not a criminal.”
A criminal I could handle. Well, not handle exactly. Let’s go with tolerated. This was so much worse. This was the stuff of nightmares.
As though my gaze was tapping on the tasteful pinstripe of his expensive suit, the blond man turned around, until I was staring at Todd Burns, eater of human hotdogs, sampler of sausages, cheating bastard, and my former fiancé.
At first I hadn’t recognized him. Todd shared a lot of traits with mashed potatoes. Both were bland and comforting and white. He was tall but not too tall. Fit but not too buff. Attractive in a way that made people instantly trust him with their money. Todd Burns was cornfields and baseball and July Fourth rolled up in a human skin and lightly toasted in a sun bed.
“Kat?” he said, incredulous.
“Never met her,” I said as I slid further under the table.
“Katerina, what are you doing?” Whyatt called out. “If it’s some kind of mime, I like it. We could incorporate it into the Hipster Burger experience. Mimes are so ironic.”
Ironic wasn’t the word I’d use for mimes but whatever. Right now I was having an existential and personal crisis. For years I’d avoided Todd—Portland was a pretty big place and I didn’t lurk around places where semi-closeted gays with impeccable taste gathered. But now he was here, polluting my ecosystem with his pricey suit and his excellent posture.
“Kat?” Todd said on repeat, damn him.
A pair of shined-to-glass shoes stopped beside the table. I couldn’t help taking a look at myself in their sheen. Wow, this mustache really amped up my resemblance to Dad.
My adrenal gland flipped out. Recently I’d managed to evade a hodgepodge of bad guys, most of whom wanted me dead, so one sleazy ex should be no big deal. Right?
Think, Kat. Crawl to the door and run for your life.
I wasn’t the woman Todd cheated on. Okay, technically I was, but I had evolved. The original Kat Makris came with two accessories: a box of tissues and a bag of chips. Kat 2.0 was somewhat armed and semi-dangerous. In Greece, Grandma had refused to give me a weapon. Instead of a sleek machine that spit bullets—or were they called rounds? I still didn’t know—she gave me Dad’s old slingshot. At the time I was bummed out. Until I realized a person with good aim and a handful of rocks could do some serious damage. Great aim eluded me, but there were rocks everywhere. And when there weren’t, I had a pouch marbles from Baby Dimitri’s shoe and souvenir shop.
My hand moved to my pocket.
Nothing. No slingshot. It was in my handbag, damn it—my bag that was out back with my regular clothes and my regular no-mustache.
Maybe I could flip the table and run. Escape was still possible.
Too late. Todd crouched and peered under the table. “Hey, Kat. What are you doing under the table?”
“Cleaning.” The table and mustache muffled my voice.
“Cleaning?”
“It’s filthy under here. Probably a health hazard. You should leave before you catch salmonella or scabies.”
He winced. “Didn’t this place just open?”
“Yes, but it was more of a soft opening with germs. They’re saving the real hygiene for the grand opening.”
Todd didn’t look worried. He did look amused. What was so funny, and why wasn’t he leaving? This wasn’t his domain, it was mine, damn him to Hades.
He offered his hand. I slapped it away because there was more dignity in crawling out and bashing my head on the underside of the table as I unfolded my body.
“What do you want, Todd?”
He glanced up at the menu board, which was basically a giant metal sheet covered in a preschooler’s magnetic letters and numbers. “I’m thinking a burger, maybe some fries. Do you have onion rings?”
Boy did I have news for him, and all of it bad. My ex fiancé was a neat freak. Ten out of ten, he’d flip when he realized he would have to construct his own meal of messy burger fixings on a slab of newspaper that other hands had handled.
“That’s not what she meant.”
Someone had tossed me a lifesaver—the boat kind, not the candy kind, which was lucky because I’m not a fan of hard candy—and that someone was the shady yet unconventionally handsome character standing next to Todd. Another suit. Short. Dark. Compact and stocky. A nose so metaphorically crooked that I was shocked that he wasn’t wrapped in a suit with serious sheen and a bulge that said he was concealing a shoulder holster.
Greece had made me paranoid. Probably he was a decent guy with a career in a respectable business that didn’t involve racketeering, money laundering, or assassinating competitors.
Todd’s new man toy, or a fellow accountant? Either way, I was grateful for the intervention. I just didn’t show it because my old grudges were mine, damn it, and I wasn’t about to let them go without a fight. If Todd’s pal seemed miffed at my snub it didn’t show. He plastered on a big smile—possibly a real one—and offered his hand.
“Kat, good to meet you. I’m Francis.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Is Francis your first name or last?”
“Yes.”
A smart ass, eh? Normally I appreciated a good smart ass. Today wasn’t a normal day, thanks to the Todd invasion. “Would you look at the time? My break is over.”
Todd’s eyebrows tried taking a hike, they really did. Unfortunately they’d had a recent run-in with what I suspected was Botox. Aunt Rita loved her Botox, but on her it worked. Todd looked more like he walked through life with a constant wedgie. “You work here?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that if I do I might suddenly realize this is real and not a bad dream.”
Francis cracked up. What was he laughing at anyway? I was serious.
Todd had questions about my employment situation. “What happened to bill collecting?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just leave it at that.” I made little sweeping gestures at the door. “Shoo. Scram. Skedaddle.”
“But I want a burger,” Todd said.
Whyatt appeared beside me, a gaunt apparition in flannel and facial hair. “Are you trying to get rid of customers? Because that’s not cool.”
“No, but is it ironic?” I asked him. “Imagine if Hipster Burger shunned paying customers. People might throw money at you to get rejected.”
“I need to think about that,” my new boss said. He wandered off again.
“Let’s go.” Francis jabbed Todd with his elbow. “We’re making Kat uncomfortable.” He turned to me. “Or do you prefer Katerina?”
“Katerina Makris, with an s.”
“Where does the s go?”
“On the end.”
“So that’s a silent s then?”
I golf-clapped. “Give the man a Snoopy.” My attention cut back to Todd. “Even your Narnia-loving dude-bro here recognizes a good idea when he hears one. Go away. Far, far away. Then drive at least a hundred more miles.”
Todd looked as confused as a Botoxed man could. “Narnia?”
“She thinks I’m in the closet,” Francis explained. “So far in the closet I’m in Narnia.” He looked to me for confirmation. “Isn’t that right?”
“Partying with Mr. Tumnus but not the beavers,” I confirmed.
Francis winked at me. What was that all about? Weirdo.
Before Todd could do any more damage to my psyche, I conjured up some middle grade excuse about needing to wash my hair—and condition it, too—and bolted out back.
Tabitha looked up from a block of Velveeta she was melting with an ionic hair dryer. “Who’s the cute guy?”
“My ex.”
She made a face. “Awkward.”
“I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me with a mustache. Although now that I’m thinking about it a mustache would make me more his type.”
“Sounds like my ex,” she said. “Except he left me for a girl with a forest of nipple hair.”
A horse-faced girl with a sheet of beige hair dangling dangerously
close to the grill scowled at her. “I’m not a girl, I’m a natural woman.”
Tabitha pointed the hairdryer at her. “That’s Sandy.”
“Forest Nipples?” I asked.
“She’s the one.”
Wow. And I thought my situation was uncomfortable. At least I didn’t have to punch a time card with Todd.
Sandy waved. Her hair touched the grill. The stink of sizzling keratin filled the kitchen.
“Not again, Sandy,” Whyatt called out. “You have to tie your hair back, it’s the law.”
“It’s discrimination and sexism,” Sandy hollered back at him.
That shut him up. He skulked back to the front of the restaurant and returned a moment later. “Your friends ordered two Hipster Burgers with double guacamole and manchego cheese. They ordered to-go.”
“Can I spit on their food?” I asked.
“That’s not hygienic.”
“You let Sandy wear her hair down.”
“Fine, but only in the cheese. Tabitha gets it hot enough to kill anything too virulent.”
“Look on the bright side,” Tabitha said. “It’ll burn his lips off if he eats it too soon.”
I couldn’t help sneaking a peek at Todd and his buddy as they grabbed their to-go bags and meandered out like they had all the time in the world. Must be nice to take long lunches. Actually, it was nice. A few weeks ago I was taking those long lunches. Greek custom suggests—nay, demands—everyone eat a huge meal and spend all afternoon napping.
Now I was stuck working ten until—
“When is quitting time?” I asked Whyatt.
“Six o’clock.”
Now I was stuck working ten ’til six, with only a few minutes to build a burger and knock it back while I video chatted with Marika. But now it was my life, my choice. All my decisions were mine, even if I wound up living under a bridge next to the dodgy guy who sells guns out of his trunk. No puppet master—Grandma—yanking my strings. Nobody to cover the property tax bill, except me and my paycheck from Hipster Burger.
Whyatt sidled up to me. “Now that your drama has left the building, you can go take some orders.”
I moseyed on over to the cash register, where a teenage kid was perusing the menu on the wall above my head. While he did that, I watched Todd and Francis exchange words. Todd eased into the driver’s seat of a late model Audi. The men didn’t kiss, didn’t hug, didn’t so much as shake hands.
“Is that your real mustache?” the kid asked me.
“Is that your real nose?”
His eyelashes fluttered. “What?”
Todd backed out. With a wave, he left Francis standing on the sidewalk, holding a bag of newspaper wrapped burgers. Strange guy. Definitely shady looking. Probably had a Sicilian last name and a grandmother with a hunchback and potty mouth.
As though he were reading my mind, Francis turned around. Through the tinted glass, somehow, he made eye contact. His free hand rose. He pointed a finger gun at me, but instead of shooting he raised it in a salute at the last second.
Despite the heat rising from the grill at my back, I shivered.
Chapter 3
Throughout Greece, Grandma’s nickname was Baboulas. Translation: the Boogeyman. But although I knew my grandmother was the Greek boogeyman, whose coping mechanism involved baking up a storm and marathon gardening sessions, in my twenty-eight-year-old heart I believed a different boogeyman was still out there, and it wasn’t anyone’s baklava-baking grandma.
While I’ve personally never met anyone who lost a child to the boogeyman of the English-speaking world, I suspected he, she, or it was hiding in my bedroom’s walk-in closet right now, waiting for me to peek out from under my covers. That boogeyman, or boogeywoman, was making noises, barely perceptible yet there.
Ha. Fat chance that would happen. I’d been sleeping this way—hidden under the covers, without so much as a toe jutting out—for close to three decades. No way would I mess up and shatter the habit of a lifetime.
I heard the noise again. A light scuffle. Air shifting. I wasn’t alone.
“Stay in your lane, Boogeyperson,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
My fingers darted out to the bedside table, snatched up my phone, hauled it back under the sheet, comforter, and blanket. With all this bedding, I definitely meant business. I did what any sane person did when they suspected someone—or something—was in their closet: I called the cops. Well, Melas. I called Melas.
He answered immediately. A slow, sexy smile sprawled across his face, hungry for something that wasn’t the souvlaki in his hand. “What are you doing?”
“I’m in bed,” I said. “Before you speak, I want to know where you got souvlaki at nine in the morning.”
“I am the law,” he said.
“Was that ironic? I’m working at a place called Hipster Burger and it broke my irony meter.”
He gave me a seductive look and waved the souvlaki in front of the camera. “Do you want my souvlaki?”
I did. I really did. Burgers are delicious but they’ll never be souvlaki.
“Where did you get it?” My voice was almost a whimper. Good souvlaki had that effect on me.
His attention slid away. “Mama.”
My saliva dried up. My everything dried up. “She made it?”
“No—”
The cop car’s door opened and the view shifted to a compact woman with helmet hair and a birdlike beak. She looked at me the way cats look at bird feeders and fish tanks. “Katerina, is that you?” Kyria Mela demanded. “Where is your grandmother?”
“At home?”
Boy, I hoped that was the correct answer. Kyria Mela gave me the willies.
Rummaging happened. She seized her son’s phone and swiveled it until I was staring at a large nylon mesh bag bulging with what looked like discarded human skin. “What am I supposed to do with these, eh? Tell me, what?”
Yikes! “What is that?”
“Shoes! Old shoes! How else am I supposed to banish the kallikantzaroi?”
Greeks and their superstitions. On the outside their crusts were Christian, but on the inside they oozed with ancient beliefs that periodically required the sacrifice of old shoes.
“Donate them to people who need shoes?”
From across the ocean, and through a complicated net of various satellites, her glare bored into my face, probably burning out trillion-dollar equipment on the way through. Even now, governments were scurrying around, trying to figure out which enemy had ruined their pricey technological marvels.
“My milk went sour this morning. These shoes have to be burned before more disasters befall my family. Do you want to be responsible for the kallikantzaroi destroying my life and everyone I love?”
Was her milk really sour? It was hard to tell with Greek milk. They didn’t really do dairy farming the way English-speaking countries did. Even in its freshly squeezed state, Greek milk was suspect.
“I told her it was shoe-burning time,” I said, wondering if I could fake a dropped connection.
She turned her hawkish gaze on my surroundings. “Where are you, and what is wrong with your face?” She pointed to her lip.
The mustache and its dastardly adhesive had left me with a rash. “Allergies,
I said. “And I’m in bed.”
“With the blankets over your head because you think the baboulas will snatch you?”
“How did you know?”
She snuffled. “You are too old. The baboulas only takes children. It grabbed my Nikos once when he kept sticking his feet out of the bed. I told him, but did he listen?”
“They were too hot,” he said. “And it did not grab me, it tickled my foot.”
There was sound from the closet again. Creepy. Crinkling. Otherworldly.
“Meep,” I said.
Kyria Mela’s eyes narrowed. “Did you go meep?”
“There’s something in my closet. If it’s not the baboulas then it’s probably just a serial killer.”
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“Probably,” she said.
“You’re not supposed to agree with me!”
“Mama,” Melas said. He turned the phone so I could see him. “Call the police—your police—if you are worried.”
“Mama what?” Kyria Mela said. “That is the life she lives now as Katerina’s granddaughter. Serial killers will always be hiding in her closets and under her bed. I would not be surprised if her walls are filled with men holding weapons, waiting for a good time to sneak out and attack. Most likely while she is sleeping.”
My adrenal gland kicked out a fresh batch of flight-or-fight juice. “Are you talking about serial killers or cockroaches?”
“If I were you, I would get up and look,” she said. “The serial killer will get you anyway. This way will be faster.”
Melas swiped at his phone. His mother was too quick for him and swept it out of his reach. “Mama!”
“What? I am a practical woman, Nikos. I cannot believe Katerina sent her granddaughter back to Greece without a bodyguard. She must not care about the girl as much as she led us to believe.”
I raised my hand as much as I could without disturbing the covers. “Right here. I can hear everything you say.”
Kyria Mela snorted with disgust. “You are still hiding like a little child? Get up like a woman and look in the closet. Maybe take something heavy with you to use as a weapon if you need it.”
I considered my options. Mostly what I had was furniture, pillows, and a Disney princess musical jewelry box. What else? “I have a lamp.”
“A lamp is good,” she said. “You can destroy a man’s skull with a decent lamp.”
“This one came from Walmart. I’m not sure it qualifies as decent.”
“What is the Walmart? I do not know this Walmart, but I know lamps. Take it and go.”
(Greece doesn’t have Walmart or any equivalent. But they do have Roma hawking chairs and melons from the back of rusted pickup trucks … so that’s not even remotely the same thing.)
Kyria Mela was some kind of sorceress. My brain didn’t want me to slide out of bed and seize the rickety lamp I’d bought to replace the sturdier Disney lamps that had preceded them—those were currently stowed in the crawlspace above me, with other remnants of my childhood—but my body decided to follow her orders. No wonder she’d rocked the hell out of being Grandma’s torturer. Grown men probably made up stuff just to keep her happy after they were done spitting out their teeth.