by Alex A King
“This is a live feed,” Francis said. “You’re looking for Sotiris. He’s scheduled to be here sometime today.”
“And what happens when he shows up?”
“Transcribe everything you see—and anything you hear if you hear it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
As far as challenges went, this wasn’t one. “Okay. I can do that.”
“That’s why I hired you.”
Nothing happened on the screen. Not for three hours. People came and went. They shopped. Drank coffee. Gesticulated wildly as they argued over whatever it was they were arguing about; in Greece, it was most likely sports or politics. No sign of Sotiris Papadopoulos or his blatant display of faith. I knew guys like Sotiris. On Sundays, nobody did church harder. They were making up for the rest of the week when they did their sinning loud and proud. Wherever Sotiris was doing his sinning it wasn’t in this particular village square.
“You can go to lunch whenever you’re ready,” Francis said. At his side was a skinny young guy in a t-shirt that read WHAT UP MO PHO. He waited for me to stand, then, shooting me a terrified glance, he slid bonelessly into my chair and shoved a pair of Air Pods into his ears.
What was his problem? That one tiny accidental murder aside, I was as scary as a kitten.
I wandered past the cubicles. Most of the other workers—there were a dozen or more—seemed to be monitoring some kind of website or sites. The remainder were glued to surveillance video. Everyone was quiet and self-contained. Very Umbrella Corporation. Look how that turned out.
Something caught my eye. I took a step backwards until I was level with a cubicle filled with cat knick-knacks and cutesy inspirational sayings. Anything was possible if I just believed and invested in cats. But cats and platitudes hadn’t made me stop. The website on the screen looked familiar. Really familiar. Out of context it triggered my curiosity.
“That’s the Crooked Noses forum,” I said to nobody in particular.
‘Technically the Crooked Noses Message Board,” Cat Lady said.
“Why are you monitoring the Crooked Noses Message Board?”
She looked at me like I’d casually tossed away my last marble. “We are the Crooked Noses Message Board.”
Wait, what? That was information a certain somebody didn’t disclose at my brief orientation. “Francis skipped that part.”
She snorted. “I bet he did. Probably didn’t want to get himself murdered.”
“I’ve never murdered anyone!”
Not intentionally.
“We know who you are,” she said, and on that nasal note I was dismissed.
With a pile of accusations accumulating in my head, I went to find Francis. He was in his office, staring thoughtfully at his computer screen. Lunch was in progress. A stack of pastrami barely contained by two thick slides of toasted rye bread. The pickle on the side looked firm not flaccid. He raised two eyebrows in my direction.
“We need to talk,” I said.
He swallowed. “So talk.”
I picked the most-likely-to-be-accurate accusation. “You’re BangBang.”
“No.”
Damn it. I was sure I was right.
“Are you sure?”
“I told you I wasn’t.”
“So can I meet him—or her?”
“BangBang isn’t a local.”
“But this is the Crooked Noses’ home base?”
He leaned back in his leather office chair, folded his arms. “Correct.”
“Feel free to interject with more detail at any moment,” I said.
“Why? I’m curious to see how much you’ve figured out.”
“You people are paranoid—the Crooked Noses.”
“Yes, but usually we’re right.”
“Because you spy on people and spread gossip.”
“No. We observe people in public, we scour the news, and we report what we see to our members, if they don’t already know what’s up. They’re an astute bunch. Take you for example. You’re no dummy.”
There was no point denying my membership status. I knew about the board, therefore it was logical that I was also a member.
“You know who I am? On the board, I mean.”
“FarFarAway Girl. It’s not like you even tried to hide your name.”
Regrets: I had them. “I guess the IP address gave it away, too.”
“You’re underestimating your grandmother. None of you ever leave the compound without a secure device. Even if we could locate your specific devices I’m sure we couldn’t crack them.”
Grandma only played a criminal at her day job, so it made sense that she had cyber protection out the wazoo. But Francis didn’t need to know about Grandma’s super-secret identity.
“Your board says awful things about me.”
“We report what we know. If something is blatantly false the boss squashes it.”
I perched on the edge of the spare chair. “You post crappy photos of me.”
“They happened. They’re news. We post the YouTube videos, too. If they were fakes we’d ditch them. By the way, whose account is that? The YouTube channel, I mean. It has to be somebody important to get that close to you. Your personal bodyguard?”
As usual I wanted to kill Takis. That YouTube channel of his was a pain in my butt. “Oh, nobody. Just a dead man walking around with an ass for a head. Why did you hire me? It can’t be so I can sit in front of a computer screen taking notes on random hoods.”
“You have unique insider information. The job offer was a way to get you in the door and on our team.”
“So the job offer isn’t real?”
“It’s plenty real. It’s just not the job you signed up for. You’re a Makris. You’re royalty around here.”
Ha. The joke was on him. Nobody told me anything. Usually I found out stuff by accident when someone was trying to kill me.
“No way am I betraying my family.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m hoping you’ll become a sort of special correspondent. People will talk to you when they won’t talk to us.”
“So you want me to talk to people? That’s it? Just talk?”
“Yes, and you won’t have to sit in front of a surveillance tape if you don’t want to.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Your first assignment is an interview.”
“An interview?” That didn’t sound too bad. “With whom?”
“Your grandmother.”
Chapter 12
An interview with Grandma. For an organized crime enthusiasts’ website. My inner survivalist said Francis was nuts and I’d be totally bananas if I attempted to get Grandma to answer the list of questions my new boss had given me. The questions were a volatile mixture of fluff and hardball. Francis wanted to know about Grandma’s hobbies, her hopes, her dreams, her favorite crimes. I was pretty sure Grandma’s number one hope was that she’d never have to give an interview.
I was still reeling when I got off work for the day. Dazed, I wandered to the Jeep. Xander and Elias were right where I’d left them this morning.
“Have you two been there all day? Never mind, of course you have.”
“How was the new job?” Elias wanted to know.
“The jury is still out.”
Xander raised an eyebrow, because apparently asking questions with his face hole wasn’t going to happen with Elias within earshot.
“That’s a figurative jury, not a literal one,” I explained. My family most likely knew a thing or two about buying and selling juries, so it was best to differentiate.
I unlocked the Jeep and angled into the driver’s seat.
Discovering that I’d been headhunted by the Crooked Noses had thrown me off kilter. The whole thing was too coincidence-y. They just happened to be based here in Portland, minutes away from my family home? And Francis just happened to know Todd, who happened to be my ex fiancé?
Definitely too coincidence-y.
What was Francis
’s deal?
One person might know. The same person I never wanted to speak to ever again but now apparently had to because life is the bitchy mean girl sometimes. With a groan so loud that Elias jogged over to check on my health status, I called Todd.
“I need information and you’re going to give it to me,” I said when he answered.
“About?”
“Francis.”
“Okay, but not over the phone.”
“What’s wrong with the phone?”
“Is your family still the Greek mob?”
“That kind of thing doesn’t change overnight.”
He chewed on that a moment. “Have dinner with me and we’ll talk.”
Christ in a cattery, he thought this was some quid pro quo thing where I’d extract information about Francis, and then we’d have a cute little chat about boys and whether or not Francis liked him. Fine. Whatever. I’d go along with it if it got me what I wanted. This one last time.
Twenty minutes later we were standing outside PF Chang’s, waiting on a table. Xander and Elias came, too. Elias looked at Todd like he wanted to pat him down for weapons, and not in the way he and Stavros probably did in private. Todd was gawking at Xander in a way that said he wouldn’t mind diving for trouser sausages.
I snapped my fingers in front of his nose. His gaze reluctantly slid away from Xander, who to his credit was looking his nose at Todd like he wished Todd were on fire. His withering gaze made me feel warm and fuzzy.
“Do you know what Francis does?”
Todd shrugged. “Some kind of security. Why?”
“How did you guys meet? Bathhouse? Rave? Fashion show?”
“Starbucks.”
“Was there a meet cute?”
Todd being Todd, I didn’t have to explain the concept of a meet cute. He’d majored in romantic comedies.
His face lit up. He adjusted the messenger bag’s strap on his shoulder. “He bumped into me. We both lost our coffees. So he bought me another coffee and invited me to sit with him. Why?”
“He gave me a job.”
“Why?”
“I guess he thought I needed one. Did he ever ask you if you knew me? Or mention me in any way?”
“No—why? How did he seem? Did he ask about me at all?” His face was pinched, anxious, hopeful. Ugh.
“Why would he ask me about you? We broke up years ago after you fell on a penis. I haven’t spoken to you in years. I don’t know you anymore.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“You’re right. More like you were on the floor looking for the contact lens you don’t wear—when suddenly: a wild penis!”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Life pro tip: if an unwanted penis enters your mouth, spit it out or bite it. That’s what most people do unless their life is in danger.”
The pinched look fell away. His hopeful expression turned to hardness. He didn’t look hurt, just angry. “That was years ago. Why are you being such a bitch about it now?”
“Why are you?”
“Screw you, Kat.”
Xander stepped forward. I held him back with one hand.
“Lose the goons,” Todd said. “It’s weird. They’re not you.”
He stormed off, bag slapping his hip.
I opened my mouth to verbally decapitate him and get the last and perfect words out, otherwise I’d spend my next thousand showers crafting comebacks I wished I’d made.
Todd exploded.
Chapter 13
The force shot me backward several feet, knocked me onto the ground with a bone-rattling thump. A weight landed on my body. Cool material covered my head. My nose filled up fast with the smell of burning keratin and meat. Was it me? Was I on fire?
“Ohmygod, ohmygod!” I shrieked. “Todd?”
Hands pulled me up. The material pulled away from my face. Xander and Elias were standing there, their expressions unreadable. People around us were screaming and scrambling to get away. Todd was nowhere to be seen … and everywhere. His legs were lying several feet away, smoke curling up and away from his pants. The curb was draped with pieces of his jacket. His scalp and hair were smoldering on the hood of his Audi. There was no sign of his messenger bag.
Xander curled his arm around my waist, lifted me up, tried to remove me from the scene of the whatever this was.
“No!” I yelped. “I’m not going anywhere! Todd! I have to help Todd.”
His grip said I didn’t have a choice.
“We have to get you out of here,” Elias said close to my ear. “Baboulas would not want us to leave you here for the police to question.”
Too late. A pair of cop cars rolled up to the restaurant. There was always a cop car cruising this parking lot, looking for trouble. Taxes in this neighborhood were higher and businesses here could afford to have the police perform a regular drive-by. As the first cop emerged, people pointed—and they pointed at me.
“He just exploded,” I said, jabbering like a crazy person at the policemen as they swaggered up to see what all the commotion was about. “I didn’t do anything. We were just talking.”
They looked around like they couldn’t figure out what it was they were looking at. For a slimly built guy, Todd made a wide and indecipherable mess.
“What happened?” one of them asked me while his partner went over to subdue the gawkers.
“He exploded!” My voice was shrill and panicked.
Portland’s finest looked confused. “Like … a suicide bomber?”
“No, he was wearing a regular suit not a vest. He wasn’t even wearing a beautiful leather coat with a bomb strapped to his chest.”
“That’s specific,” the cop said. “Did you know him?”
“Todd Burns, my ex fiancé.”
That seemed to interest him. “Ex. What happened?”
“He ate more than the recommended daily serving of dick.”
“How many is that?”
“When you’re my fiancé, one is too many.”
He checked out the pieces of Todd, then he came back with his uniformed pal. “He just blew up, you said?”
Elias and Xander were standing off to the side. Xander’s face was in neutral. Elias wore a scowl. They wanted nothing more than to stuff me into a car and drive away before sending Takis and Stavros to clean up the mess.
My teeth chattered. I was shivering from more than the cold. “Yes.”
A new set of headlights stopped a few feet away. Two bodies got out. Their car doors slammed. The feds. Because this wasn’t already the worst evening ever.
“We got a call,” the Woman in Black said.
“We got a call,” her partner echoed.
“Nobody got a call,” I said, “because you’re following me around.”
“Are not,” the Woman in Black said.
“And if we were,” the Man in Black said, “it’s because that’s our job.”
“We have questions,” she said.
“So many questions,” he said.
I was cold and tired and covered in Todd for the first time since before I unceremoniously severed our engagement. “You’ve got as long as it takes to drive me home. Somebody call Todd’s parents, and be gentle. They’re good people.”
The policemen bristled. For the next five minutes they played My Jurisdiction is Bigger Than Your Jurisdiction. Eventually the police skulked away, leaving me at the mercy of the feds.
“We win,” the Woman in Black said. “We usually do.”
I tossed the Jeep’s keys to Xander. “I’ll be okay.”
His face said I better be or he’d bang some skulls together. Elias wasn’t any happier about me angling into the back of the black sedan.
“Baboulas will not like this,” my bodyguard said.
“At least this way Todd isn’t getting all over my Jeep,” I said.
His lips quirked. “We will be right behind you.”
True to his word, Elias followed us out of the parking lot and int
o the street. Xander wasn’t so polite. He zipped up alongside the feds’ car and cut in front.
The Woman in Black gripped the wheel. Her partner swiveled in his seat to look at me. Rules were for other people so he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
“You want to tell us why someone would blow up Todd Burns?”
“You know his name?” I asked.
The Woman in Black’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “We know everything about you.”
“What’s my favorite color?”
“We don’t know that,” she admitted.
“Then you don’t know everything, do you?” I slumped back against the seat. “Todd was a basically decent person. If you want to know why someone killed him, you’re asking the wrong person.”
The Man in Black slapped me with another question, “Did he have any jilted lovers, like, say, you?”
“I wasn’t jilted. He cheated. I left. Eventually I forgot about him.”
“Cheating, huh?” The woman’s gaze met mine in the mirror again. “That sounds like a good reason to blow up a man.”
“It does, doesn’t it? But I didn’t kill Todd. I don’t know who did. Even when we were together he wasn’t the kind of person who had enemies.”
“But you do.”
“Are they really my enemies though? Most people who want to kill me only want to kill me because of Grandma. In the old days nobody wanted to kill me—not even at the grocery store.”
The Man in Black passed a photograph to me. “Recognize him?”
My hand froze, along with the rest of me. The man in the picture was Viktor, my recently deceased—thanks to me—cousin and almost-husband. “Cousin. I have a lot of cousins. What about him?”
“He’s dead,” the Woman in Black told me. “The government is not happy about his premature death. They wanted to kill him themselves.”
“Which government?”
They both shrugged. “All of them.”
Another photograph landed in my lap. “What about this one?” the male agent asked. “Know him?”
Not Viktor this time, and not a cousin either. The man in the picture was Periphas Dogas, lunatic, eagle-enthusiast, and Papou’s nephew. I didn’t say any of that because I wasn’t sure why that kook was relevant. Dogas was currently doing time—again—in a Greek prison for killing people for fun. He didn’t have a thing in common with Todd or with Viktor, unless it was that all three men at some point had wanted to marry me—two of them against my will, and the third because he thought I’d make a respectable beard.