by Alex A King
“Dog,” I said.
“Dog?”
“Woof woof.”
“I know dogs. Dogs don’t come in that size.”
“Sure they do. This one is a cross between a Newfoundland and a Great Dane. When she was born she was already the size of a sofa. Her poor mother.”
He took off, peeling away from the curb at a speed that would have scored a regular person a speeding ticket.
So much for my intruder with decorating issues.
To the couch I went. Except the couch was currently occupied by my bear, who’d decided against the police hors d’oeuvre and for snoozing on the couch. That left one of two chairs for me. I scrunched down in my chosen chair, knees to chin, and whipped out my phone. Melas had called while I was working. Now it was too early to return his call.
Greece and I were out of sync.
I stared at the ceiling for a solid hour. I’d been staring at it a lot lately. Even with my own mini zoo the house felt big, empty. Had I made a mistake?
No. This was what I’d wanted. Sanity. No constant game of cops and robbers, where I wasn’t sure which were the goodies and which were the baddies.
What about someone sending you exploding mail? the voice in my head said. And what about those notes? Your life is a disaster. Call Grandma. She can make all this go away. Plus she makes Greek cookies.
My stomach growled. It remembered Grandma’s cookies.
“No,” I told it. “No cookies for you.”
I hit the internet and ordered a pizza. Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang.
Boy, that was service.
I slid over in my socks, feeling taller than Tom Cruise in Risky Business, and yanked open the door.
It wasn’t pizza.
“You’re not a pizza,” I said.
The man on the porch peered over my shoulder. “Animal Control. A cop buddy of mine told me you had a bear stashed away here.”
I opened the door wide so he could get a load of the bear on couch. “Does she look stashed away?”
He gnawed on that a moment. “She looks pretty damn comfortable if you ask me.”
“You’re not going to take her?”
“Not me. I don’t do bears. I just wanted to see if it was true.”
The bear raised her head. Her nose twitched.
“Oh shit,” he said and took off. Boy, people around these parts were weird about bears.
Pizza came. Secure in the knowledge that I was gainfully employed, I wolfed down three slices, then a fourth for good luck. Yoga pants don’t complain about overeating the way jeans do, so without any buttons to pop, I flopped down on the pillows and flicked over to the local news. Firefighters were battling a blazing building. T’was the season for cats who knocked over candles, and other pyromaniacs. The place looked like a goner. Good thing it wasn’t somebody’s house.
“… Home to the Meow Meow Ruff Pet Food Company …” the perky, toothy anchor was saying.
Holy crap in a chamber pot. I gawked at the television.
“… Arrested for arson …”
As I watched, they flicked over to a shot of Bryan, my former and current boss, in handcuffs, doing his best to work the walker. “I didn’t do it!” he yelled. The camera shifted to a toothy field reporter with the requisite sock bun and North Face coat conducting an interview with Meow Meow Ruff’s receptionist.
“It was only a matter of time,” she said cheerfully. “We all wanted to die—even Bryan. I wouldn’t be surprised if he snapped and accidentally-on-purpose dropped a match. If he did it, he did us all a favor. Although now I suppose I have to find another job.”
Mind racing, I flopped back in the chair. Where was a bookie when I needed one? What were the odds on two of my work places burning down within twenty-four hours of each other?
“Fifty-fifty,” Takis said when I called Marika to ask. It was morning there now. Barely.
“That high?” I said, dismayed.
“There are people who want you to suffer and die, in that order, because of who you are,” he said.
Wow, that was cheery. But I was unsurprised. It only confirmed what I already knew. “They don’t even know me.”
“So? People do not have to know a person to hate them. Imagine how much they would hate you if they knew you.” He cackled until Marika’s hand appeared from off-screen and slapped the back of his head. “Ouch! Gamo …what are you doing, woman?”
Marika snatched her phone back from him. “I will spit in his patates later.”
I left them to their bickering and grabbed supplies before climbing the ladder to the roof again. The night was cloudy and cold. After the double whammy of mysteriously appearing Christmas decorations and my new-new job burning to the ground, I was jumpy.
Through binoculars I scanned the neighborhood. Eleven o’clock and everything looked normal.
I didn’t trust the night one bit. Someone was out there putting up decorations, setting fires, blowing up stuff, and sending me mean notes. Maybe not the same somebody. Maybe at least two somebodies. What if there were more?
How long would Greece chase me when I didn’t want to be chased?
My phone rang. Even Melas’s handsome face couldn’t warm me up tonight.
“You on the roof again?”
“What gave it away?”
“The stars and the shivering.”
“I’m not shivering.”
Lies. I was totally shivering.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” His voice dipped down to that low, warm place that reminded me of cozy fireplaces, hot chocolate, furry throws, and not many clothes. Parts of me started tingling. Parts that moments ago had been too cold and too shaky to be interested in men.
“Fine,” I grumbled, and told him all about it.
When I was done he was silent—probably because up until now he hadn’t been able to get a word in edgeways.
“Say something,” I said.
“Okay.”
Time passed. A lot of time. I waited for more words to join their unaccompanied pal. Nada.
“Was that it?”
He rubbed his forehead like it was a lamp and he was hoping for a genie with a bouquet of wishes. “Come home. At least we can protect you here.”
“I am home.”
“Are you?”
His question poked me in a place I didn’t want to be poked. I did what cornered animals did: I deflected. “Did your mother and Grandma burn shoes yet?”
He gave me a funny look. “No.”
“What?”
“Mama spoke with her, and Kyria Katerina gave her some excuse. Said she was sick.”
Fear rippled through me. Was Grandma’s cancer back? She’d fought the big C before and won … although she’d exaggerated and prolonged certain aspects of the illness to manipulate her enemies. There was no denying Grandma and the rest of the family had been weird lately. What was going on that I didn’t know about?
“Sick?”
“A cold. Nothing too serious.”
I relaxed. A bit. Even a persistent cold could take down someone Grandma’s age. “She sounded fine when I spoke to her.”
Across the street, my new neighbor approached her house, arms swinging, home from another walk. She paused at the end of the driveway for several long moments, then let herself in through the front door. The porch light flicked off. Another moment later, the curtains went dark.
From up here I got a good gander at all kinds of things. Prowling cats. Flashing Christmas lights. An ownerless dog pooping on a lawn that wasn’t mine. A black van parked around the corner, out of the streetlight’s range.
Had it been there earlier? Reggie mentioned a black van, four men, and a whole Christmas worth of decorations. Was this the same van? The coincidence was too coincidence-y for my liking.
“Kyria Katerina should send someone to watch you,” Melas was saying. “I cannot believe she sent you alone. She was irresponsible, and that woman did not get to where she is by being irresponsible.�
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“Why does everyone have a problem with that?” I grumbled. “I’m fine. I’m safe. Yes, there was one explosion that killed my boss, and one fire that led to the arrest of my other boss, but I’m fine. Probably it’s a coincidence. Fires happen all the time.”
“And explosions?”
“Those happen all the time too.”
“Now, sure. But before you came to Greece, when was the last time you saw or heard an explosion?”
“Does July 4th count?”
He sidestepped my quip, probably because he was a cop and cops take things like explosions and fires and deaths seriously. “Come back to Greece or get a bodyguard. Please. I do not want anything to happen to you. I like you, and my world would be a worse place without you in it.”
“Because Kyria Mela thinks I’ll be her grandchildren’s mother someday?”
“If you are lucky.” He said it with a half smile and a full dose of seduction. I didn’t bite. My attention was laser focused on that van.
In my experience—and boy, did I have some these days—black vans meant trouble of the law enforcement variety or the Family kind. I already had government agents sniffing around. No way would I be surprised if they put me under surveillance, hoping to shake a laundry list of crimes out of me.
But what about the Christmas decorations? Law enforcement didn’t provide that particular service. Family, on the other hand—my family in particular—excelled at certain services, especially if someone needed killing—say, a dealer who shortchanged them, or a rival who decided to ooze over the edges of their designated territory. But did they provide a decorating service? Probably not. I didn’t have old shoes for them to burn.
I tried to concentrate on Melas, which was harder than it should have been.
“I like the world with me in it, too. And I like that you like me being in the world. Hold on a minute.” I stuffed my phone down my coat, into the neck of my sweater.
“What are you doing? It got dark.”
“You’re in my sweater and I’m climbing down the ladder.”
He made a low growling sound. “I like being inside your sweater.”
Forget shivering—his growls made me sweat.
“Pervert,” I said with far more nonchalance than I felt.
“Woman, you have no idea.”
Winter got hot fast. I was this close to being distracted from my mission. “Cool it. I have a thing to do.”
“Tell me it involves taking that sweater off.”
I laughed. “Quiet. I have to be super secret.”
“Then can you take the sweater off?”
I slipped through the side gate, doing my best to be stealthy. “Quiet or I’ll mute you.”
“Okay, okay, I will be quiet.”
He was true to his word as I casually avoided the streetlights’ bright halos. Thankfully the neighbors had slacked off on the greenery pruning over the cooler months, which helped with camouflage. I tried to blend. Mostly I succeeded. I saw nobody and nobody saw me except one of the neighbors’ cats. The tuxedo kitty watched me sidle up to the black van before scampering away. Probably it was embarrassed for me.
After a long dramatic moment where I stood in the shadows staring at the van, I scooted closer.
Regular Oregon plates. New or newish, judging from the condition of the paint and the body style. Good tires. No decals. No phones number. So why was it here, loitering on my suburban street? We weren’t a black unmarked van neighborhood.
Holy goats, I sounded Greek. Most likely the van belonged to a neighbor or a neighbor’s friend or family. Christmas was the season for visitors, welcome and unwelcome. Chances were this particular black van had nothing to do with the van that spat out four men and an overabundance of Christmas cheer. Chances were some nice person with four or more kids wasn’t a fan of SUVS or minivans so they had opted for this shiny black abduction vehicle. No big deal.
That didn’t stop me peering through the passenger window. My transformation into a Greek security camera was almost complete.
The van was as empty as empty gets. Showroom clean. No discarded fast food wrappers littering the unremarkable interior. No paper cups wedged in the cup holders. No sign of guns, knives, or surveillance equipment.
Neat freak, or a sign of psychopathy?
“Check this out,” I said, pulling Melas out of my bra. I angled the phone this way and that so he could take the whole thing in. I wanted a professional opinion.
“What am I looking at?”
“Van.”
“Looks like a van to me.”
“A suspicious van or a regular van?”
“A big van. You could transport a lot of livestock in a van like that.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“Americans drive big cars.”
“Not so much in Portland. Our parking spaces are tiny and we’re trying to save the planet, one Toyota Prius at a time.”
A car swung around the corner. I put my head down and faked power walking back to the house. Safer to grill Melas indoors where there were no witnesses. I got the door and stopped.
An envelope clung to the painted wood, dangling from a single strip of tape.
How long had it been there? Sometime between pizza arriving and now, someone had skulked up the path, sidled up to the house, and slapped mail to my door. Without me hearing so much as a footstep.
I ripped it open and read my fortune.
Choke on a bag of donkey dicks, you stinky skank.
Wow. As far as fortunes went that sucked. I was hoping for something more upbeat and encouraging. Plus it was a lie. I didn’t stink. My post-Greece funk didn’t extend to skipping daily showers.
A freeze that wasn’t winter’s fault rippled along my spine, radiating outwards until I shivered. I looked around. The street was dead. Not a single light on in Reggie’s place. Even my weird power-walking neighbor had quit pounding the sidewalk for the night. It was just me. Alone.
“Katerina?” Melas said.
Alone-ish.
“Still here.” My tongue felt numb, and it was suddenly hogging up too much real estate in my mouth. “What did you make of it? The van, I mean.”
“Besides being big and clean?”
“Did you notice any details?”
“The driver is tall. The seat was pushed all the way back.”
“I haven’t seen any tall people around lately.”
True story. Everyone in the neighborhood was average or lower. The tallest guy I knew was Xander, and he wasn’t here. Probably he was off doing henchman stuff. Or government spy stuff. With Xander it could be both. Xander, Grandma, and Dad, all wore multiple hats at the same time.
“I would laugh and call you paranoid but your workplace burned down—twice.”
I groaned. “Me having to find yet another job isn’t the worst thing about this, but it’s definitely a thing.”
“You have a job here. Gus never stops talking about you.”
Before I could pitch my rebuttal, an incoming call cut me off.
“Grandma,” I said. “Talk later?”
“Later. If she offers to send someone, accept her help.” He vanished, leaving me staring at Grandma’s best stink-eye.
“Another explosion, Katerina?”
“Relax,” I said, not feeling remotely relaxed. “It was a regular old fire this time. No boom.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“But does it make you feel warmer?”
She stared at me. Hard. Until the air between here and there had the permeability of a colander.
“I am sending someone.”
“We’ve had this conversation. We’ve had it so many times that we could have it in our sleep. You’re not sending anybody.”
“They would be discreet. Nobody would know they are there until it was too late for them.”
“That’s the thing, Grandma. I came back here so I wouldn’t be thrust into any mandatory bodyguard situations. Yes,
there was an explosion. Yes, there was a tiny fire that burned down a whole warehouse. But have I been shot at? Kidnapped? Has anyone faked my death?” I took a deep breath and lied out of my tush. “Explosions and fires don’t bother me. I was in the wrong jobs at the wrong time. Actually, I was in the wrong job but in the right place because that warehouse went up in flames after I left.” I suddenly remembered what Melas said about Grandma’s health. “Are you sick?”
“What?”
“Sick. Are you sick? Melas’s mother said you dodged the shoe burning because you were sick.”
“Po-po … that was nothing. I told her I had a cold. Do you know how many years Helena and I have been burning shoes together? Too many. This year I wanted to do something different. I made up an excuse. At my age I cannot say it is woman problems.”
“Really?”
“I am fine, which is more than I can say for my only granddaughter. Go nowhere. I will send somebody to watch over you.”
“What’s that?” I said. “You’re breaking up.”
Tap. I ended the call and dropped the phone on the end table in the living room. On the television the nightly news had moved on. Not me. I was stuck in the past—ten minutes in the past to be precise when I’d plucked that envelope off the door. Were the messages and the fires connected, or was I dealing with two crazies? That’s if the fires had anything to do with me at all. Coincidences usually weren’t coincidences at all, but what if this time they were?
So far I had a pile of notes, including this one. All of them vaguely threatening but light on details. Was the note-writer planning to kill me? Or was this one of those situations where they’d wait for convenient opportunity to strike? Clap their hands if a bus hit me? Cheer if lightning used me as a target?
I had too many questions, no answers, and an overabundance of people who wanted me back in Greece. But I did have a seasonally cheerful house and yard, thanks to a mysterious yet creepy benefactor.
A packet in the kitchen rattled.
My goat was cruising the pantry for something softer than canned goods.
I led him back to the garage. That was another thing I had too much of: pets. Many—if I wanted to be grammatically correct about it. But the pets were company. Not good company exactly. More like something warm and living to fill the dark corners of the house I’d known my whole life.