by Alex A King
We got back in the Beetle. Melas took his time—he didn’t have much choice.
“I’m not acting weird.”
“Weird,” he said.
I fired up the engine, tapped the gas. The yellow bug lurched forward.
“I’m not in yet,” Melas said.
“Huh. Better hurry up then.”
“Weird,” he repeated. “Where now?”
There was one person I could ask about Baby Dimitri’s mystery man. We were sort of friends, in that she more or less tolerated me as long as I didn’t scare her customers away.
I tapped the gas again. Melas winced. He'd brought it on himself.
~ ~ ~
Penka was a Butterball turkey with a scrawny, sarcastic trailer-park beauty trapped inside the crispy skin. The Bulgarian dealer sold prescription drugs for Baby Dimitri, and she sold them from the stoop of a one-story house directly across from the beach. The house wasn’t hers, but I assumed the owner didn’t mind her peddling her wares on their front doorstep. Every so often the police hauled her in, but only to bounce her right back out again. It’s a ritual I suspected they both enjoyed.
Penka was in a strapless red dress this evening, and if I lifted a seashell to my ear I knew I’d hear it screaming. She dressed like an optimist wearing beer goggles. As a result, her seams were desperate. Probably somewhere, a wannabe rock star was organizing a protest concert to save her clothing from tyranny.
The Beetle snugged up to the curb, top down, windows retracted. This time of the evening traffic was thinning out. Penka would be closing up shop for the day soon. Most of her clients had things like families and respectable jobs that kept them from cruising the beach at night for Ritalin. I got out and leaned against the car’s flank. The leather pants trapped Melas inside.
Penka peered past me, to where Lopez and Bishop were parking, three empty spots down. “Assassins?”
“Cops.”
“Worse.” She eyed Melas. “What is this? I have not seen anything like this since a long time ago in Bulgaria.”
“Just someone I found lying around.”
“He smells like a cop.”
Melas stared at her from inside the car. “What does a cop smell like?”
“Metal bars, lack of hope, one-ply toilet paper.”
“I smell like all that?” he asked.
“Normally Greek cops smell like cheap coffee, too, but you smell like the good kind.”
He opened his mouth, but I backhanded his arm. “Your boss is maybe mixed up with something bad,” I told Penka.
She looked at me like I was missing most of my brain cells. “Are you joking? You must be joking. You know he is criminal.”
“I know, I know. But I mean something worse than usual. Something German. You always know stuff.”
“What do I look like—criminal? I am a drug dealer, not a criminal.”
“Technically dealing drugs is a crime.”
“I deal fancy drugs. Prescription. There are levels.”
So I was finding out. “So you don’t know anything about Germans?”
“They eat strange sausage and they drink beer. A lot of beer. Baby Dimitri will kick my ass if I talk to you about this.”
“I won’t tell him.” I glanced at Melas. “You won’t tell him, right?”
“Not a word.”
I looked at Penka expectantly. She let out a big chest-rumbling sigh. It was a lot of chest. “All I know is that he does business with Germany, but I don’t think he likes it. He tolerates them because he has to. Probably they have something on him.”
“What would they have on him?”
“He is a criminal, could be anything. Pick a crime ... that is probably it. There is something strange about him lately. He came to me about a week ago and asked me to move some new drug. I told him no, I only do prescription drugs. This was something else.”
“He was okay with that?”
“I am not his bitch. I am like consignment store: I choose what I sell. Penka has standards, yes she does. You come to me to buy ... I will give you something to help you concentrate, to give you energy, to make you sleep. High? Forget it. You go to other, cheap drug dealer who sells sisa or whatever this is Baby Dimitri wanted me to push.”
“Do you know anything about counterfeit money?”
“Euros? You want counterfeit euros you come to the wrong country. The best forgers come from Italy. Everybody knows this.”
“I did know,” I admitted. “But only because the Internet said so. There was a third guy with Baby Dimitri and Laki today.” I described him as best I could, including the part about the shady suit. “Any idea who that is?”
“Sounds like most Greeks,” she said.
Melas said, “See?”
My phone made noises. Dreadful noises. The kind of noises I had nightmares about. It was possessed by a cacophony of sheep bells and thin whining that sounded like souls in hell howling for redemption. Rembetika. Some wretched, soon-to-be-dead-meat, son of a motherless goat had programmed my ringtone to play Greek folk music.
“I’m going to kill Xander,” I said through gritted teeth, wrestling with the phone. I stabbed buttons, but it wouldn’t stop.
“I’d pay money to see you try,” Melas said. “Have you tried answering the thing?”
“Yes.” No.
I pressed the green button to answer. “If this is Xander, I’m coming to kill you. If you feel a foot on your head while you’re swimming, that’s me. Or maybe I’ll do it while you’re sleeping, you Rembetika-loving swine.”
There was silence. Too much of it. Then Grandma said, “What news, Katerina?”
“That swine Xander replaced my ringtone with Rembetika. I hate Rembetika.”
“Which song?”
“A fish, a fish, a fish, a fish.”
“I love that one,” she said. “And old one, but a good one from back when music did not sound like dogs barking. Did you get anything from the German?”
“He told me my Jeep was shit and gave me grief for not recycling one hundred percent of the time.”
“You do not recycle? What is wrong with you?”
“Oh God, not you, too.”
“You should recycle, Katerina. What else?”
“Nothing. He wouldn’t talk. He looked scared though when I suggested the woman might come back and kill him.”
“How is security there?”
“I don’t think he can get out.”
“Can anyone get in?”
I passed the message on to Melas, who shook his head. “Pappas stationed a guard in the room, 24/7.”
Grandma made an approving sound.
“Does Baby Dimitri have connections to Germany?” I asked her.
“Not that I know of. Why?”
I told her about the third man from the shop and she went silent.
“Any idea who he could be?”
“No. Only suspicions.”
“Are ... you going to tell me?”
“I have changed my mind. I want you to stay away from this. Just do whatever it is young women do—but do it with that bodyguard of yours close by.”
“I suppose I could see if Marika wants to go to the beach ...”
“No. Marika has children to care for. Take Rita with you, or Stavros. He needs more sun.”
“Don’t forget to tell Xander I’m going to murder him quietly in his sleep.”
She chuckled. “I will tell him, but I think you will have to wait in line. Many people already want to kill Xander.”
If he went around changing ringtones, he was bringing it on himself.
He and Melas had a lot in common.
~ ~ ~
I drove Melas back to the compound
“Well, that’s that, as we say back home,” I said.
“You giving up?”
“Yes.”
He snorted.
“What?”
“Doesn’t sound like you.”
Quiet night in the courtyard. The family
was socializing, but they were doing it elsewhere. In their apartments, at one waterfront or the other, and at Makria’s village square. Small nosegays of Grandma’s men were still here, keeping an eye out for trouble and other anomalies. As soon as we stepped foot in the courtyard the hyenas began to howl with laughter.
“What is that, Katerina?” one of the cousins said. “Bigfoot?”
Melas stood a shade under six-feet, but the hair added bulk and lift. I could see where they maybe mistook him for Bigfoot.
“Bigfoot,” Melas muttered.
“Don’t say anything,” I said, “and let me handle it.”
“Tell me how that’s not supposed to worry me.”
The pockets of light and shadow meant my eye-roll was wasted on him. I waved at the group of Grandma’s men and kept walking.
“Hey, King Kong?”
Takis. And his Greek accent tacked on an unnecessary G, which meant Melas was now Kingk Kongk. No way would I laugh, even though it was funny. No way. No way ...
A snicker squeaked out of my throat.
Melas’s head turned. “What was that?”
“Gas?”
“You laughed.”
“Did not.”
“You know what they say about payback.”
“It’s a man in leather pants and a big blond wig?”
Behind us, a chorus of wolf whistles started up. Takis yelled, “Katerina is going to show Kingk Kongk a good time. Then they are going to brush each other’s hair and put on makeup together.”
Marika’s voice wafted out into the night. “No more tiganites for you.”
“Okay, okay,” Takis muttered.
I took Melas back to Grandma’s yard. “We’ll wait until they go inside, then I’ll take you back to the dungeon.”
He jerked his chin up. “You’re off the case, but I’ve still got a job to do. Thing is, I can’t do it in these pants.”
“Your clothes are still in the dungeon.”
“What I need are jeans and some other things, too.”
“And they are ...?”
“At my house.”
Melas owned a partially renovated firehouse on the outskirts of Volos. It still had the original rolling front door and a big pole up the middle, in case his dates wanted to make a fast getaway. My first week in Greece, he cuffed me to the pole and ate his mother’s homemade moussaka in front of me, the monster. I’d had to call Aunt Rita to rescue me—which she did, Rambo-style. Ask me, Melas was still kind of butt-hurt that I’d picked the lock on his back door to get in.
“So ... you can borrow my car and go get them.”
“Your car is yellow.”
“I know. I love it.”
“Bright yellow, like a canary. It screams, Look at me.”
“Grandma won’t mind if you borrow something from the garage.”
“I still can’t go back to my house. I can’t risk the wrong person spotting me and figuring out I’m not in that hospital bed. I can do more if I stay low.”
Was he dropping hints? No, Melas was male—males didn't do hints. They said it or they shut up. Mostly. But all my experience with men was of the American variety. For all I knew Greek men were stitched together differently.
“You could get Pappas to go.”
“No, he’s doing enough already. If someone is watching my place they’ll know something is up if they see him there.”
“Could be I know some people who know a thing or two about breaking and entering.”
“Too bad that’s not the least of their crimes,” he said. “No, I’ll have to do it myself. Go in the back way while it’s still dark.”
“Or,” I said, “I could do it.”
“Baboulas said—”
“Grandma says a lot of things and I listen to them all. But my obedience rate is below fifty percent. She knows that. She expects it.” My nose wrinkled up. “Or she should, by now. Make a list and I’ll go.”
“And if people are following you?”
I shrugged. “I’ll make it look like I’m snooping. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Don’t remind me. I don’t want to think about you in those cuffs while I’m wearing these pants.”
I couldn’t help myself: I glanced down. Melas was a man with nowhere to go, in more ways than one.
Chapter 10
An hour later, I was at Melas’s backdoor with his key. The lock, he’d told me, was new. After I broke in, he’d had a locksmith install something that couldn’t be picked with the help of a YouTube video. I didn’t tell him there was a YouTube video for everything, even his new lock.
I slipped through his door alone, but I had backup. Elias was outside in the shadows, watching for watchers. He’d already spotted Lopez and Bishop in an old Renault that was one fender-bender away from the great scrap heap in the sky. Either they didn’t care about being seen, or the Renault had died in the puddle of light from a nearby streetlight. I knew they were there. And they knew that I knew. And I knew that. Any minute now I expected Elton John to start singing about the circle of life.
Flashlight on. List out.
The first thing listed were Melas’s clothes. I climbed the metal staircase to the combination bedroom and office, taking a detour via a circuit of the downstairs. Top and bottom floor were both open floor plans, with separate rooms only for the laundry and bathroom. I knew this because I yanked open the doors one by one and peeked inside. For a guy, he was tidy and clean ... or his mother swung by a couple of time a week with the vacuum cleaner. He was a Greek son—it was probable that mommy did his housework.
I located his jeans and shirt immediately, stuffed them into my bag. Then I grabbed the next item on the list, his laptop. That went into my bag, too, buffered by his jeans. The rest of the items were small. A thumb drive from the top desk drawer. Clean underwear (boxer briefs). Razor. Shaving cream.
A shadow crept across the wall, backlit by a half-assed moon. There was no time to gasp, run, or hit the deck and crawl away, because two things happened simultaneously. The floorboards squeaked behind me, and a hand clamped over my mouth. My bladder began to negotiate with the muscles holding it shut and I didn’t like where their conversation was going. Desperate times called for desperate measures—I licked the hand. Its owner recoiled and said, “Did you just lick me?”
It was Melas.
“Melas?” I hissed, whipping around to face him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Melas slapped on his best grin, wiped his hand on my cheek. “This is yours, you can have it back. I like being licked, but not on the hand. Want me to show you where?”
Unbelievable ... yet believable. “Have you been taking social graces lessons from Takis?”
“Can’t blame a man for trying. Did you get everything?”
I nodded. “What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to see if anyone is watching the place. And I was worried about you.”
“The two American cops are out there.”
“Saw them. Are they bold or stupid?”
“I don’t think they care. They want me to know they’re following me around.”
“They came a long way. Why are they tailing you?”
I gave it to him in bullet form and tacked on disclaimer. “But really I don’t know what their problem is. I don’t know anything, and Dad wasn’t home to know anything either.”
“American vice cops in Greece. Does Baboulas have business in your home city?”
“Not that I know of. But then I don’t know a lot,” I admitted. Melas was looking out the window. “See something?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t mean they’re not there, but maybe I got lucky.” He yanked open his freestanding closet, pulled out a backpack. Then he helped himself to the contents of my bag. Okay, so they were his things, but still ...
I stood there open-mouthed.
“Better this way,” he said. “I can go underground without involving you or your family.”
“But—”
He grabbed my hand, pulled me closer. The hand that wasn’t holding mine curled around the back of my neck. “Soon,” he said. Then his lips brushed heat on mine. A moment later I heard the soft click of a window closing. Melas was gone.
I padded down the stairs, went out the way I’d come in, locking the door behind me.
Elias stepped out of the shadows. “How did it go, boss?”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“Is this a performance review?”
“What? No. I just want to know if you saw anyone besides those buffoons across the street.”
He paused. “I don’t know if I should say.”
I stared at him.
He sighed. “Okay. Detective Melas went in through the roof, then he came out a few minutes later through a window. Are you sure this isn’t a performance review?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re sure, or yes, this isn’t a performance review?”
When did things get so complicated? “It was just a question.”
He relaxed. Then: “If it was a performance review, how did I do?”
“Elias,” I said, scanning the curb down the street from the former firehouse. We had left the Beetle in the garage and chosen something more sedate. The black Toyota had been five sheep away from a good nap. “Forget about the performance review. Where’s the car?”
Shrug. “Melas took it.”
“You’re telling me a ... policeman stole our ride?”
“I figured it was police business so I didn’t stop him.”
I slapped my forehead. “Ungh. How are we supposed to get back up the mountain?”
“We could get another car.”
“You mean steal one?”
“Is it stealing or borrowing if we give it back when we’re done with it?”
“In Greece I think it depends on whether you gas it up or not before you give it back.” Greece’s gasoline taxes were on par with Super Bowl ticket prices. Okay, an exaggeration, but not by much.
Elias jogged across the street to where the Renault was slowly rusting in peace. He crouched down beside the driver’s side window, mouth moving slowly, hands waving frantically as he tried to do English the Greek way. Finally, he stood up and jogged back over. The Renault’s lights came on, and Lopez rolled the dying beast to stop at the curb beside us.