by Alex A King
She glanced around. “Where is he?”
“You can’t see him, that’s how good he is.”
“Hmm,” she said, unimpressed. “Where was he when you needed a stake and holy water?”
“You didn’t have holy water.”
“And that is why I had a cross—as backup. Where was Elias then, eh?”
Probably watching for real threats, I thought. But I didn’t say that. “Maybe he went for holy water,” I said. “That we didn’t need anyway.”
She stomped over to the Beetle, dumped her bag on the floor.
“Next time we go to a morgue I will not forget holy water. You never know.”
“Do you think maybe you watch too much TV?”
“No. Why?”
I slid behind the wheel, buckled up. “No reason.”
~ ~ ~
Back at the compound, the conversation with Grandma was going badly, and I hadn’t even gotten to the part where Marika wanted a paycheck to hang out with me.
(“I do not want money to spend time with you,” Marika said. “We are friends and family, yes? What I want is money for the shooting and setting fires if I have to set one, while I am spending time with you.”
“Why would you need to set a fire?”
“You never know.”)
Grandma was silent. And baking. Baking intently, like she was planning a murder. Which, under the circumstances—circumstances being her entire adult life—she might be. Hopefully not my murder.
I had come clean about the passports in Dad’s safe, the cash, the gun, and the counterfeit euros the Germans had spent in Makria’s meat market. And she poured and stirred and kneaded without once looking up.
Finally I said, “What are you baking?”
“Something for tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“The day after today.”
“And you say I’m like Dad. I see where he gets it from.”
“Clever girl. My husband—your grandfather—had no sense of humor.” She glanced over at the oil container on the windowsill, pointed to it with her wooden spoon. “You know it is true.”
For a moment it was like having a real relationship with a real grandmother instead of a mob boss who killed people the way normal humans popped candy.
“I will be away tomorrow,” she said. “Business that can not wait. Xander will be coming with me. But you will have Rita and Takis at your disposal. And anyone else you need.”
“For ...?”
“You are proving to be a resourceful young woman. I like that—it reminds me of me. And it is no secret that I want you to take over when I ... when I retire from the business.”
“You mean when you die?”
“Retire. I am immortal. My plan is to live forever, but who says I want to do this same work for all that time? I might retire to an island, make a big garden, play with my great-grandchildren.” She gave me a meaningful look.
“Ha-ha.” That’s when I dropped Marika’s request into the conversation. You’d think I was Medusa, the way Grandma turned to stone.
“No,” she said. “The wives do not work for the family. They take care of their children—that is their job.”
“I didn’t know you were a raging sexist.”
“I am a practical woman. The children in this family have always been raised by their mothers. If something happens to their fathers, they still have one living parent.”
“What about your kids?”
“Do not try to use logic against me, Katerina.” She did the waving thing with the spoon again, this time in my direction. “You will lose.”
~ ~ ~
We talked more after that. She said she believed the German woman was still in the area, that she’d probably make an attempt on the third guy’s life to silence him before the cops could squeeze him like a lemon.
“Would she do that, really?”
“After all you have seen and learned recently, do you doubt it?”
“Yes.”
“You are not too old to eat wood. I want you to see if the other one will talk to you.”
“Isn’t he in jail?”
“For now.”
That sounded ominous—probably because it was ominous. One way or another, I thought, that guy was living on borrowed time. No ... in this business the time was most likely stolen.
“Don’t you have people who can do this? Qualified people.” Cripes. Here I was, talking like there was some kind of college that trained mobsters.
“Who can I trust more than my own granddaughter, eh?”
~ ~ ~
By the time I slouched out of bed the next morning, Grandma was gone. The fruits of her frantic baking yesterday were on the counter, alone, looking sad. What use were baked goods if they weren’t being eaten?
Feeling benevolent, I shoveled a couple of pieces of everything into a plastic container and took the broom closet’s escalator to the dungeon. Melas was in the kitchen, knocking back coffee, flipping through the newspaper—all the newspapers, judging by the stack on the table. His face had morphed from gimme-some-of-that stubbled to one-step-closer-and-I’ll-mace-you bearded. Back home the bearded hipster look had seized the nation the way flower power had rocked the 60s. It was a great equalizer, if you were a guy. Beards cooled down the hot guys and partially concealed the less fortunate.
“Don’t you have a razor?” I said, sliding the container onto the counter.
“Is that breakfast? Because it looks like breakfast to me.”
“No. No breakfast for you until you shave.”
“Blackmail? You play dirty.”
“Family trait.”
He folded the newspaper, slow and methodical, and dropped it on the table, with a soft thunk. “Right now, I’m the hungriest man who ever walked the earth. And the way I see it is that you’re standing between me and cake.”
“No cake. Just baklava, kataifi, some finikia, and a few kourabiethes.”
He pushed out his chair, stood, and began a slow approach.
“Did someone say cake?” Homeless Guy called out from his luxury cell at the end of the row.
“There’s no cake!” I said.
“I can smell sugar.”
“My sugar,” Melas said, closing in on me. I flattened my back against the counter, hiding the container behind me.
“You want some of this?”
“You have no idea.”
“Fine.” I gulped. He was dangerously close now. His eyes had gone soft and several shades darker. Not fifty shades, but maybe thirty. “I’ll give you some—all you can eat—but it will cost you. And I want payment up front.”
“Hey—save some for me!” Homeless Guy said.
Melas scowled. “He’s not getting any of your cake.”
“I told you: it’s not cake.”
“Let’s talk about this payment. What do you want?” The way he looked me up and down, slowly, erotically, dragging his gaze over my body told me what he considered adequate payment for Grandma’s baking. Too bad her baked goods were worth more—at least right now.
I told him. His face shuttered. He went back to the chair, wincing as he sat.
“Do you need painkillers?” Because I could get some—easy. If not from Family then definitely from a dealer who was skating close to friendish territory.
He jerked his chin up once for No. “The pain reminds me that I’m lucky to be alive.”
Ugh. Men. “Newsflash: You’re not Chuck Norris.”
He grinned, but it was a grim thing. “Chuck Norris isn’t Chuck Norris anymore either. He got old. They’ll never let you in to see the German. And I’m not sure they should.”
“Grandma wants me to talk to him.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’m charming and beautiful.”
The joke fell flat. “He’s dangerous.”
“My whole family is dangerous. They out-dangerous his dangerous.”
“You’re not them.”
But G
randma was trying to make me one of them, wasn’t she? The Magic 8 Ball app on my phone said it was undecided.
“What are you doing?” Melas wanted to know. I showed him my phone’s screen and he laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Katerina Makris.” The laugh died fast. “You’ve been lucky so far. You dodged the Baptist and the Eagle,” he said, referring to the two nuts that had tried to kill me. Well, the Eagle wanted to marry me, but when I refused he tried to kill me, so I wasn’t sure he counted in whatever point Melas was trying to make. “But what happens if you’re not so lucky next time? These people don’t mess around. They kill people. Your family kills people. What if you get caught in the middle and I can’t protect you?”
“I’ve got a bodyguard,” I reminded him. “Elias is on the job. And Marika wants to be his backup.”
His laugh was reminiscent of a dog with croup. “Marika! Takis’ wife? How is she qualified to be your bodyguard?”
“She has sons. Their apartment is a war zone.”
“Marika is a stay-at-home mother. She doesn’t know anything about being a bodyguard. I bet she couldn’t even fire a gun.”
“Uh ...”
“Tell me she doesn’t have a gun.”
“Gun. Singular, right? Nope, she doesn’t have a gun.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Stop talking—at least about that. Nobody is going to let you in to see the German. Not if they know what’s good for them or you. So don’t even ask.”
~ ~ ~
“I am not happy about this,” the policeman said. He was shaped like a barrel. All that was missing was Bilbo Baggins to ride him down a river. Usually he wore a tzatziki stain on his shirt, but this time it looked more like coffee. The barrel was Police Sergeant Pappas, and he had capitulated quickly when he saw what was in the box I sat on his desk. Grandma’s cooking had that effect on people. I didn’t care about his heart—I cut directly to his key ring, via his stomach.
“That makes two of us,” I said.
He looked past me to my minor entourage: Elias, who wasn’t hiding today, and Lopez and Bishop. “Who are they?”
My designated bodyguard Elias was a slimly built thirty-something who had the uncanny ability to blend in with the background, the foreground, and possibly the ground.
I nodded at Elias. “He’s with me. Those other two are crazy stalkers who won’t leave me alone.” I leaned closer, whispered, “I think they’re Scientologists. Do you think you could ...?”
“No problem. I will have somebody take care of them.” Pappas picked up the phone, dialed, told whoever was on the other end to get here—and fast. “That was my mother,” he said. “She will make them wish they were dead.”
“Perfect.”
Pappas didn’t look sure about any of this. “Come. And tell Baboulas I helped you, eh?”
“I’ll make sure she knows you were more than helpful.”
His smile was small and tight, like safe end of a cat. “This way.”
This particular department was an offshoot of Volos’s main police department. The other police building was a clash between two titans: glass and steel. It was impressive. It had air conditioning. This building had a handful of windows and front doors they propped open with bricks. The other building probably had a proper lockup facility. This one had two adjoining cells in an airless room. A ceiling fan limped in circles overhead, as effective as flinging a water balloon in the desert. Both cells were currently occupied—one with the German I remembered from Makria, the other with what smelled like a portable distillery. The skinny kid was facedown on what passed for a bed, sawing logs. He reminded me of Donk, with his wannabe homey costume. What was it about young guys that they didn’t want to invest in belts?
“Don’t mind the drunk,” Police Sergeant Pappas said mildly. “Who knows how long he will be out. A week, by the smell of him.”
“Tourist?”
He went tst. “Greek boy.”
I leaned over, took another glance at the stick figure on the bed. He had shoes like Donk, too. Big clodhopper Nikes. Air Jordans. Identical to Donk’s.
Elias followed me in. He took a look at the body on the bunk. “Hey, it’s Donk. What’s he doing here?”
Oh boy.
Police Sergeant Pappas looked at us. “You know him?”
“Do you know a man called Baby Dimitri?” I asked.
“I know a loser criminal who calls himself Baby Dimitri. Owns a shoe and souvenir shop.”
“Same guy,” I said. “That’s his nephew.”
Blood drained out of the cop's face. “Virgin Mary, he’ll kill us!”
“No. Worst case he’ll have his buddy Laki toss a Molotov cocktail through one of your open windows. Maybe the front doors.”
Baby Dimitri had already pegged Donk as a bum. First he had fobbed his nephew off on a Bulgarian drug dealer named Penka, then the Godfather of the Night and Espadrilles decided I was in need of an apprentice or some such garbage. For a few days there, where I went, Donk went, until the teenager had decided to turn assassin and collect a bounty on my head. His plan had been to impress his uncle. Now he was in the lockup, impressing no one, drooling on a mattress that had seen a lot of bodily fluids. Poor, stupid kid.
“But ... what am I going to do with him?” Pappas wanted to know.
I shrugged. “Let him sleep it off, same as anyone else in his condition. Where did you find him?”
“He came to us. Said he had information about a murder.”
Uh oh. “A murder?”
“That’s all he said. Then he passed out, face first on the grass outside.”
“There isn’t any grass outside.”
“Huh,” he said. “All this time I thought there was. That must be why his face was scraped and bleeding—no grass.”
My mind was still on this murder Donk had mentioned. “We can, uh, take him with us if you like. Baby Dimitri never has to know you locked up his nephew.”
He brightened. “Would you? Wait—what about the murder?”
“If he says anything about it we’ll bring him back.” Yeah, that would happen. “Can I ...?” I nodded to the German, who was sulking on his bunk, hands behind his head.
Pappas nodded. “Any problems, just scream.”
That was reassuring.
Police Sergeant Pappas backed out of the room, pulling the door shut with him. Finally it was Elias, Donk, the German, and me. Cozy.
I approached the bars. I already knew he spoke English, so I went with that first. “We’ve met. Do you remember?”
Nothing.
“I was up in Makria with a friend. You asked her for directions to a meat market.” I avoided the B word, on account of how it made me want to snicker. This wasn’t a snickering situation. “We helped you out, then you went and paid for your purchase in fake money. The money was good—but not good enough. I wonder what your boss will have to say about that.”
Nothing.
“You want me to piss on him?” Elias offered. “I can reach him from here, I think.”
His heart was in the right place: in the middle of his chest and slightly left. “Dude, no. No water sports.”
The German had that blue-eyed blond thing going on, the kind Hitler went weak in the eugenics for. In Makria he had seemed soft and unformed, a cookie dough figure. Skinny fat. He had come across as window dressing, scenery in a reality TV show about traveling around Europe on five euros a day. Now he looked like he was playing the part of Homicidal Hitchhiker in a Hostel. Only things missing were the airport-battered backpack in a dull red or olive green, and a tan. Throw him in the snow and he’d be lost unless you spotted those ice blue eyes ... or his groovy sandals.
“I don’t really know anything about Germany,” I went on. “Oktoberfest. Bratwurst. BMWs. Oooh, I drive a German car. I have a Volkswagen Beetle. I like it but it’s not my Jeep.”
He raised his head, stabbed me in the face with his cold eyes. “Jeep is shit.”
“What do you drive?”
He grunted. “Who drives? I ride bicycle. Better for the environment. Cheaper.”
“Do you recycle?”
“Of course I recycle. What kind of monster doesn’t recycle?”
Me. Sometimes. It was the part about washing stuff that got me. Who wants to waste time washing their garbage before throwing it away?
He sat up, looked me up and down like I was that dirty garbage thoughtlessly tossed in the regular bin. “You don’t recycle.”
“I do too recycle,” I said.
“Do you kick puppies? Harpoon seals?”
“Hey—you don’t harpoon seals, you club them. Harpoons are for whales.”
He stabbed the air with his finger. “See? You are a whale-killing, seal-murderer.”
“I recycle,” I mumbled, desperately hunting for something pertinent to ask. He was the bad guy here; I was just lazy and negligent. “Anyway, what do you know about the counterfeit euros you used to buy meat?”
He smirked. “Nothing.”
Elias leaned over to me. “Look at that face. He knows something.”
I looked at Elias, surprised. “You understand English?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “English, French, Klingon.”
My bodyguard was full of surprises. I wouldn’t have figured him for a Trekkie.
“We need to talk,” I said. “And also watch some Star Trek.”
The German scoffed. “Star Trek! Star Wars is superior.”
“Counterfeit euros,” I said.
“I don’t know anything. Someone says, ‘Go to Greece. Spend some money.’ I come to Greece, spend some money, the police shoot at me, and now I am in jail, talking to an idiot.”
“I think he’s talking about you,” Elias said.
“I got that part,” I muttered. “That someone who told you to come to Greece, who was it?”
He grinned a grin that would have been at home on Goebbels’s face, and flopped back on the bed, hands behind his head again. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s why I asked.”
“Nobody. A ghost. So I came to Greece with some friends and a pocketful of money.”
“Fake money.”
“It looked real. Why do you care anyway? Greece’s money is Germany’s money. We let this country borrow it. If we want to give them toy money, so what?”