by Alex A King
“Grandma knows,” I said. “Grandma knows.”
“You told Baboulas? Gamo tin mana sou, what is wrong with you?”
“You are what’s wrong with me.” I paused. Thought about it. “One of the things, anyway. No more Youtube.”
“Vine?”
“Vine is for losers,” I said.
Donk snickered. “He looks like a loser.”
Takis bared his teeth. He pitched his straw at Baby Dimitri’s nephew. “Say it again, I can have you killed.”
“You could do it yourself,” Stavros reminded him.
“Or I could do it myself.”
“You can’t do that,” Donk protested. “Don’t you know who I am?”
The Makris men nudged each other using their elbows. “Why else would we want to kill you?” Takis said.
With a shake of his legs, Donk untangled himself from the overzealous canines. My goat was there, too, chewing on the band of the teenager’s underwear. That’s what he got for wearing saggy pants.
Intervention time.
I clicked my fingers and hoped the goat understood. After a quick, friendly head-butt, it redirected its attention and mouth to a purple cluster of grapes dangling from a vine.
“My uncle will kill you back,” Donk said.
“He could try,” Takis said.
“Enough,” I said. “Donk, what are you doing here?”
Still fixated on Takis and Stavros, he scowled. “Looking at garbage.”
My cousin’s cousin’s cousin held up a finger. “Keep it up, I will throw you in the dungeon.”
“Takis,” Stavros said, the warning clear in his voice.
Several feet away, Donk’s eyes lit up. “You have a real dungeon? Can I see it?”
A creep crawly sensation of dread clambered up my spine, one tufted foot at a time. Donk was awfully interested in the idea of a dungeon, and here was Takis blabbing like everyone knew Grandma had a dungeon. Okay, so the accommodations were plush, and they had board games and books, but a dungeon is a dungeon is a dungeon.
“That’s what Takis calls his living room,” I said. “You really want to hang out with his kids?”
“They’re not so bad,” Donk said. He didn’t sound convinced, but I wasn’t sure if he didn’t buy my dungeon story or his own estimation of Takis and Marika’s sons.
“Want to go for a drive?” I asked him. “Maybe get an ice cream.”
He shrugged. “I like ice cream.”
“Everybody likes ice cream, malaka,” Takis said.
I folded my arms, looked him in the eye—hard. “You want to bet on that? Because I heard you like making bets.”
He grinned like a guy who’d just been found out and didn’t mind too much. “Which bet did you hear about, eh?”
“I think you know,” I said.
“You want to do me a favor, sleep with all of them, and I will be a rich man.”
“All of them who?” I yelped.
His face shuttered. “Uh, never mind. I thought you said you knew.”
“Ugh!” I grabbed Donk by the back of his tank top (Nike) and pushed him toward the archway. “What flavor do you want, kiddo? Because I’m thinking about death-by-chocolate. I need death-by-chocolate. And if I don’t get death-by-chocolate, then it’ll be death-by-Katerina for Takis.”
Donk shot me a worried look. “Is it that time of the month?”
#
After ice cream there was napping. I embraced the siesta. Embraced it all the way to almost midnight. I cast aside the thin cotton sheet, shimmied into a bikini, then threw a dress over the two-piece because I wasn’t one hundred percent committed to swimming. I had a short history of sitting on the edge, swishing my legs into the ripples of water and light while I put all my energy into thinking.
The pool wasn’t empty. Xander was there, doing his nightly laps.
I stood there like a big dummy, wiggling my toes in my flip-flops, watching him slice through the chlorinated water like he was part fish. Nothing got in his way, it seemed like, not even physics.
Xander. Friend or foe? Family guy or sleeper agent?
The allegedly fake NIS identification he carried around bothered me. A lot.
Rubber soles slapped my feet. I crouched at the end of the pool and watched one lap bleed smoothly into the next. Lies wiggled through my head provocatively, each one more ludicrous than the last. I wasn’t really ogling Grandma’s bodyguard. I could quit if I wanted to. I could quit right now.
Or right now.
That damp stuff around my mouth? Not drool. Nope, not at all.
Eventually, Xander stopped, bobbing in place. He gave me a look that said, “Were you staring at me?” and I gave him a look back that said, “Dream on, dude,” and he lobbed one back that said, “You know you want this,” and I rolled my eyes and said out loud, “Get out of the pool, Xander. We need to talk.” Then, because my parents didn’t raise me to be a jerk, I tacked on a decorative “Please?”
The courtyard was dim but his skin glistened. He nodded once, then exited the pool.
It paid to be nice; literally, if you were a bill collector.
Now that I had him out of the pool I wasn’t sure what to do with him. Answering questions wasn’t his thing. On the upside, neither was asking them. It felt good to hang out with somebody who wasn’t full of questions or orders. If Xander wanted me to sit and stay, he made me sit and stay. There was no waffling, no shadowboxing. He was a man of actions and deeds.
With a towel in one hand, he regarded me thoughtfully.
My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on a hot stone. “I guess I don’t really have questions. Not for you, anyway. It would be pointless asking because you don’t answer questions. Or talk.” I folded my arms, forming a protective barrier between me and Grandma’s world. “I don’t know who to believe, who to trust. Uncle Kostas wants me to kill people. Grandma wants me to be her. Aunt Rita ... Aunt Rita thinks I’m fabulous. I’m not fabulous—I’m just me. Detective Melas wants to see me naked ...”
Xander’s eyes flicked to all my vital erogenous zones before landing back on my face. Good thing it was mostly dark and he couldn’t see the blush slopping all over my skin.
“And you,” I went on, “I don’t know what you want, unless it’s for me to shut up and go away. You’re flinging your towel over your shoulder and you’re walking away. Oh, God, you definitely want me to shut up, don’t you?” My eyes did the lost puppy routine and followed him.
Xander turned around and held up a finger.
It said, Wait there.
At least I think it did. All this dim lighting, it might have been a “Screw you, lady, you’re crazy” finger.
I scrounged up a chair and began waiting for what might potentially be the long haul.
It wasn’t long or a haul.
The earth had barely had a chance to lurch an inch closer to dawn when Xander reappeared carrying two small bowls. Two small bowls heaped with ice cream. He gave me one. I suppose it was okay that he kept the second for himself. That didn’t stop me eyeing it longingly as my spoon dipped closer to the bottom of my bowl.
“You brought ice cream,” I said, stating the obvious.
Xander nodded. He kept eating. He’d discarded the wet shorts for dry. That was all the energy he’d put into dressing. Not that I wasn’t grateful for the view—I was—but he made no effort to hide the cruel artwork on his back.
“I like ice cream,” I said. I didn’t mention the bucketful I’d sucked down earlier. Not death-by-chocolate, but close. It’d had fudgey chunks.
He ate his ice cream one agonizingly slow spoonful at a time. Meanwhile I was channeling a vacuum cleaner.
Suddenly Xander reached over and set his bowl on the table, slowly, silently. It was half full. My bowl held nothing but memories. He reached for my hand, pulled me to my feet. With the same amount of silence, he pressed a finger to his lips.
Oh. Now I got it. We were both supposed to be quiet. Things were afoot.
>
He pointed to Grandma’s shack, making a gesture like I was supposed to go back to my kennel like a good doggie.
Nope. Not happening. Xander had shared his ice cream, and now I was going to share my moral and physical support. Okay, maybe I was curious, too. He’d heard something I couldn’t hear, something that hadn’t caused a blip on the compound’s security radar. Not that I could tell, anyway.
He held me still. Pointed toward the far end of the compound, to where the wall met the orchard. Stealth mode engaged, he took off toward whatever his canine ears had picked up. Not wanting to be the one to screw up his mission, I lifted one foot then the other, slipped off my sandals. Barefoot, I snuck after Xander. Sneaking was easy for him. Me, not so much. But Greece was slowly honing the skill.
Before we reached the wall, Xander grabbed my hand. Less romantic. More leash-like. Things got more physical after that. He crouched low enough to boost me up to the wall’s flat top. Not two seconds passed before he joined me up there. We sat facing the orchard, legs swinging, watching the shadows.
Okay, my legs were swinging. Xander’s legs didn’t swing. Probably he was too cool to swing them. I wasn’t too cool. I wasn’t cool at all.
Xander pointed to his eyes with two fingers, then jabbed those same fingers at the trees. Totally unnecessary; now I could see what he’d heard. Someone out there was walking. Someone the size and shape of my prodigal uncle. No sneaking for Uncle Kostas. He ambled confidently between the trees, hands buried in his pockets, mouth puckered and whistling an unfamiliar tune.
What was he up to?
“Maybe he’s going for an innocent, totally harmless walk,” I whispered.
Xander raised his eyebrows. Really? they asked me. Is that what you think?
“How would I know? I just met the guy. Anyway, aren’t you guys tight?”
He looked at me.
“Tight,” I explained, squishing my hands together so he’d get the picture. “Close. Friends. Buddies. Amigos.”
He looked at me some more.
“You rescued me together. You did an elaborate handshake thing. That’s what guys do when they like each other. Women hug and go shopping. Men do handshakes.”
His head swiveled back around so that he was watching my uncle, who appeared to be walking in wide circles.
“Is he waiting for somebody?”
Xander shrugged.
“What do you think he’s doing? There has to be a reason we’re sitting on this wall watching him.”
Nothing.
“You don’t share much, do you? Have you thought about therapy? It’s not healthy to hold everything. Ten more years like this and you’ll be a blithering idiot, probably with a wonky heart.”
He nudged me with his elbow. It wasn’t a caring and sharing poke. More like a, “Hey, he’s on the move,” thing. Sure enough, Uncle Kostas had quit walking in circles and was now headed toward us. Xander jumped, landing right way up on the inside of the wall. He hadn’t made a sound. He lifted me down just as soundlessly.
My phone buzzed. Worst timing ever.
Before I could check the screen, Xander yanked me into a shadow just as Uncle Kostas vaulted over the wall and landed with a gymnast’s flourish. To be fair, a male gymnast. As he strode past us, his silhouette was a touch less jaunty. Not the form of a happy man. Whatever he’d expected out in the orchard, the night hadn’t gone as he’d planned. Before I could ask Xander for his thoughts, if he had any, Grandma’s bodyguard peeled away from the shadow and slipped into another. I watched him move from patch to patch, all the way back to his room.
My breath came out in one long whoosh. Situations in Greece (or maybe just in my family) had a way of getting tense, fast.
No longer in the mood to swim, I hoofed it back to the shack. On the way, I checked my phone. Grandma had left a message.
“Katerina,” she said, “where are your shoes? Put them back on before people think you are poor.”
#
The headline hit my eyes with an accusatory thud.
That’s what I got for cruising the Crooked Noses Message Board when sleep was a recent memory. The coffee hadn’t kicked in yet, I decided. Coffee needed to kick in before the day could really start to happen. Before then, everything was an assault.
Katerina Makri 2.0 Consults the Cups, Creates Havoc.
The headline came with a picture of me scowling in to my itty-bitty coffee cup. The second picture was a charming shot of me jaywalking, almost causing a collision, the caption read, with my antics. The third picture was me nailing Hera in the shin.
The comments were scathing. The Crooked Nosers unleashed their keyboard power, popped the lids on their Mountain Dew, dug deep in their Doritos’ (or whatever Greek keyboard jockeys ate) bags, and let me have it from the confines of their parents’ basements. I was just jealous, they wrote, of a more attractive woman, that’s why I attacked Hera. Clearly I didn’t give a rat’s hiney about Greece’s laws, which was why I’d bolted in front of traffic like it was my God-given right. As far as they were concerned I was on my way to becoming Baboulas; I even had her name.
She’s hot, one Crooked Noser wrote. I’d do her.
The others charged in, accusing him of being a ‘white knight’, which was apparently an insult.
Who had taken these pictures? Not the guy Elias chased; wrong angle, plus, at the time, he was busy running the other way.
A voice of brief reason stepped in to set the record straight-ish. The object of my alleged jealousy was an NIS agent, BangBang wrote. The NIS, he went on, were following my every move, even though my slate was clean.
BangBang was often the voice of reason around these parts. We messaged, occasionally. Sometimes I wondered if he or she was an insider, someone with more than an interest in organized crime.
There were no new replies after his—or her—intervention.
Curiosity drove me to take a sneak peak in the sub forum dedicated to the Camorra. Murder and mayhem, as per usual, it looked like, what with the Camorra being the Mafia with ADHD and a meaner streak. According to those who knew about such things—or enjoyed speculating—Aldo had gone missing, and his body was expected to float to the surface of one filthy river or another, sometime soon.
Little did they know Aldo had fled to Greece, sharing a ride with yours truly. I hadn’t seen the man since Grandma’s hospital room. I just assumed he gone on his merry way with his bag of money. Wouldn’t the Crooked Nosers flip if they knew about my inside track?
Backing up, I had a problem. Well, a lot of problems. But now I had one more. Apparently someone with a camera was following me around. A quick scroll through the forum’s older posts revealed footage of me delivering my chair-top proclamation. Another thread contemplated my alleged pregnancy, including the identity of the father. (If a cat in heat made babies with a porn star, I’d be the offspring they decided—that’s how amoral I apparently was.) Someone had dredged up my yearbook photos, filling a thread with the ghosts of bad haircuts past. I half expected to see a Q and A with Todd, my once-closeted ex.
If I wanted to move around unimpeded—and I did—I’d have to steal an invisibility cloak.
More depressed than motivated, I scrounged up some breakfast, showered, crept out to the toilet where hopefully no one was witnessing my walk of outhouse shame. The shack and its stupid outhouse were a family heirloom, passed from eldest child to eldest child. In time, I’d be the lucky recipient of this fine abode. I sure as hell hoped Grandma had plans to live forever.
“Katerina ...” a voice floated out of the bushes on the far side of Grandma’s yard. “I can see you. Are you going to the outhouse?”
I jumped. My heart crawled up into my throat, clanging frantically. One of my top ten first world fears had materialized.
“Meep,” I said pathetically.
Takis’ head appeared over the fence. The face part of his head was grinning. “What is wrong with you, eh?”
“Nothing,” I muttered. “I h
ate you.”
“That makes two of you,” he said. “You and Marika, you could be the ‘We Hate Takis’ club.”
“Oh no, I’m sure there are more members. A lot more members. Everyone who ever met you, for starters. We’re thinking about getting T-shirts.”
He gave me a two handed moutsa then vanished, leaving me to decide just how bad I needed to go.
#
In the end, I went ... and I went. And when I was done, I snuck back out with the same bent neck and hunched shoulders that told any eyewitnesses that I was just a woman very interested in dust, dirt, and any recent castaways from Grandma’s forest of potted plants. Oooh, look—a curled leaf.
But my newfound nature appreciation had to wait when I heard yells from the front of the compound.
Surrounded by the family dogs, and one goat that was mine, I wandered out the front to check out the hubbub.
Up on the wall surrounding the compound, a dozen Makris boys were pitching stones at something I couldn’t see. A metal thing, by the sound of the thunks. The boys had small mountains of rocks in varying sides piled up beside them. Marika’s boys were posted there like an army of monkeys, along with Tomas and his brothers. Tomas wasn’t in on the game. The littlest of Litsa’s boys was sitting on the wall, doodling in a notebook.
“What’s going on?” I asked the cousins who were gathered around the guard shack smoking and laughing.
“See for yourself,” one of them said, scooting aside so I could get a look. He was one of many. Half the guys in the family shared a name. The only way to tell them apart was to tack their parents’ names onto the end of their own. As the only Makris female born in decades I was lucky. The only person I had to share a name with was Grandma, and almost nobody called her Katerina anyway, unless it was to her face.
On the other side of the wall three NIS vans were getting paintwork done. Tiny chips of paint floated to the ground as the stones made contact. One of Marika’s boys palmed a coconut-sized rock. He bowled it at the nearest van.
The rock bounced off the windshield, leaving a webbed crater in the glass.
With a crash, the van’s side door rolled open. Hera leaped out and stormed over to the wall.