by Rick Copp
As the driver peeled away, his rear tires kicked up enough dust to cause both Laurette and me to cough and sputter. We walked to the edge and looked down, taking in the lush expanse of beach that made up Super Paradise. Unfortunately, the golden sand was barely visible due to the endless sea of umbrellas that did little to hide the hundreds of nude sunbathers from all over the world flashing their private parts. Some were stretched out on blankets, others frolicked in the aqua blue Aegean surf, still more gyrated and clapped to a blasting hot dance remix of the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’ ” on the far left side of the beach.
Laurette and I trudged down the access road to another perch overlooking the beach that housed the Coco Club, an upscale outdoor café that provided a relaxed ambiance for its chic clientele. We ordered a couple of Coca-Cola Lights (the European version of Diet Coke) and took a seat at a small table overlooking the beach. We both scanned the crowd, but it was pointless.
“We’re never going to find Akshay down there. It’s too packed with people,” Laurette said.
Not about to give up, I searched up and down the rows of topless, bronzed bodies for any sign of him. But Laurette was right. It was an impossible task. Even if he was down there somewhere, it would take us hours to locate him, and at any time he could leave by taxi boat and head back to Mykonos town without us ever seeing him.
“Maybe we should just go back and wait for him at the hotel,” Laurette offered, already hot and tired, her skin burning from lack of a proper sunscreen.
My gut was telling me he was here. I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“Omigod,” Laurette said under her breath.
“What? Did you spot him?”
“No, look at those two. Absolutely stunning.”
I followed Laurette’s gaze away from the beach to the rocky cove adjacent to the Coco Club. She was watching two men in their mid-twenties, both hard-bodied, Greek, and gorgeous, emerge from the surf. As they gripped the jagged rocks and pulled themselves out of the water, we both gasped. Both were over six feet tall, one smooth and lanky like an Olympian swimmer, the other broader and muscled with a mat of dark, wet, curly hair across his chest. They were like two Greek gods, Apollo and Neptune, suddenly brought to life. Except instead of togas they were decorated with tight red Speedos.
“Be still my heart,” Laurette sighed.
Both of us watched them, our tongues practically hanging out of our mouths, as they climbed up the rocks to a hidden alcove to meet someone. As the two gods began talking, I was able to make out a man who had his back to us. He was in white slacks and a white T-shirt and wore a pair of sandals. His skin was dark enough to be East Indian or just really browned from the sun. Could it be? He never turned to face us, but I was able to discern from the gestures, the swagger, the attitude that it was him. It was Akshay.
I jumped to my feet and bolted for the dirt path leading toward the cove.
“Now, don’t be a stalker,” Laurette said. “We can admire from afar.”
“It’s him,” I called back. “Let’s go.”
Laurette grabbed her bag and ran to catch up with me as I scurried down the path toward Akshay and the gods. From what I could see, Akshay clutched a burlap sack that Apollo and Neptune kept reaching for, but Akshay gripped it tightly and was talking a mile a minute. Was it some kind of exchange? What was going on?
Laurette scrambled to keep up with me, and just as we got within a few hundred feet of Akshay, we heard a loud popping sound. I stopped in my tracks and watched in horror as Akshay grabbed his chest. Blood began seeping out onto his white T-shirt and he grabbed the muscular forearm of one of the gods to steady himself. There was another pop. Akshay reared back and fell against the rocks. Both Apollo and Neptune were unarmed (there was absolutely no way they could be concealing guns in those Speedos). Their eyes widened at the realization that someone was shooting at them, and they quickly backed away from Akshay.
One of them looked up to see me and for a split second believed I was the shooter. I shook my head and mouthed, “No!” Then I ducked down behind a large boulder, yanking Laurette down with me. There was an agonizing silence.
I peeked above the top of the large orange-colored rock and saw Apollo and Neptune dashing down to the water’s edge and diving into the surf below. They never resurfaced.
I glanced down at the beach to see several nude sunbathers chattering on their cell phones. They had undoubtedly witnessed the shooting and were now presumably calling the police.
I scanned the entire area but didn’t see any shooter. He had probably already made his escape.
Before Laurette could stop me, I came out from behind the rock and raced down to where Akshay’s body rested against a patch of grass just next to a rock on the dirt trail.
I knelt down beside him. His eyes were wet, he clutched his bloody chest, and he was desperately trying to take in quick, short breaths. He was still alive.
“Akshay . . .” I said, gingerly taking his hand.
He looked up at me and tried to register surprise but was too weak.
“Jarrod . . . ?” His voice trailed off.
“Where’s Charlie?” I said.
Akshay opened his cracked, parched lips, but no words came out. All he could do was point to the burlap sack that he had dropped a few feet away when he fell. I reached over and scooped it up, loosened the string tying it together, and peered inside. I already knew what I would find inside. It was Claire Richards’s Academy Award.
“Did you take this from Claire’s dressing room?” I said.
Akshay attempted a nod and then slowly reached out, his hand shaking, and encircled my wrist with his fingers with all the strength he had left in him.
“Ulysses . . . Karydes . . .” he said in a pained whisper.
“Who’s that?”
“A famous Greek shipping tycoon,” Laurette offered. “He owns half of Greece. Makes Aristotle Onassis look like a welfare mother.”
I shot Laurette a questioning look.
“I tend to read a lot of articles on the world’s wealthiest bachelors, you know, in case some day I need a sugar daddy,” she said.
I turned back to Akshay. “What about Karydes? Does he know where Charlie is?”
Akshay let go of my wrist. His eyes glazed over and his body went limp as he quietly succumbed to the bullet lodged in his chest.
I began shaking him, futilely hoping he might wake up to supply me with just a little more information. How was Charlie connected to Claire’s Oscar? How would a powerful multimillionaire Greek shipping tycoon know where Charlie was? Unlike me, Charlie had never even been to Greece before.
Laurette gently touched my shoulder. “Jarrod, the police just arrived. We’re going to have some explaining to do. Why don’t you let me handle it?”
I nodded, staring at Akshay’s corpse, suddenly realizing that someone was going to have to tell his mother that her adored son was dead. It would devastate her.
Laurette was a master at bulldozing over authority figures. It was a finely tuned talent that served her well in show business. We both knew that if we came clean with the cops about following Akshay here, we would be hounded and questioned for hours, possibly days, thereby reducing our chances of finding Charlie. Besides, if this powerful and almighty Ulysses Karydes was the key to locating Charlie, then he no doubt had the local police in his back pocket, and they would never allow us to get anywhere near him.
The only two people who had even seen us near Akshay were the stunningly beautiful Greek studs Apollo and Neptune, and they had hightailed it out of there at the first sign of trouble. No, it was best to allow Laurette to work her magic.
She spun a fanciful yarn about how we were married and worked in Los Angeles as talent manager and actor (Laurette never thought it wise to stray too far from the truth) and how I had lost out on a big feature-film role to the much younger Tobey Maguire. She decided to spirit me away to Greece to help me forget about my career troubles. We on
ly arrived just a few hours ago and were now traumatized by witnessing a man being gunned down on the hiking path. She adamantly insisted that she did not know the murder victim. She neglected to mention that I, on the other hand, did, but the police assumed that since we were together she was speaking for both of us. Damn, she was good.
The officers looked me up and down as Laurette prattled on with her story. I offered a tight smile as I clutched the burlap sack containing Claire Richards’s Oscar to my side, hoping they would think it was just a picnic lunch we had brought along.
The police took copious notes, and Laurette offered the address to the Andromeda if they needed to contact us for any reason. The police made it clear they were in no way through with us, but Laurette miraculously managed to browbeat them into allowing us to go so we could try to salvage what was left of our much-needed vacation.
Thanks to Laurette’s performance, the officers believed we were innocent tourists who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They even offered to drive us back to our hotel, but Laurette insisted we return by taxi so as not to inconvenience their investigation. Her real agenda was to get away from the cops as soon as possible, before either of us said something that might trip up our official story.
I felt guilty about feigning ignorance and lying to the police. But the stakes were too high at this point. I could feel it. Charlie was on this island. I was so close to getting him back. I couldn’t jeopardize losing track of him again by playing my cards too soon and confessing everything to the police.
On the taxi ride back to the Andromeda, Laurette and I discussed our next course of action as we fondled the priceless Academy Award that was now in our possession. We hatched a plan that began with making contact with the wildly rich and probably dangerous Ulysses Karydes. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were about to dive into the deep end of some very scary shark-infested waters.
Chapter 24
“If you want to find Ulysses Karydes,” Delphina said as she sipped her cosmopolitan, “you can find him at the Music Café down at Mykonos port. He has lunch there with his bodyguards every day.”
By the time Laurette and I made it back to the Andromeda Residence, Delphina and a handful of guests were already aware of Akshay Kapoor’s death and were gathered around the pool for the hotel’s nightly sunset cocktail hour and buzzing about the news. Mykonos saw little crime, least of all murder, so by now it was already the talk of the island. Delphina offered us a couple of her famous cosmos, and we gratefully accepted. We were somewhat worried that Delphina might report to the police that we had been inquiring about Akshay upon our arrival, but she gave no hint of turning us over to the local authorities. In fact, she simply said she was sorry for the loss of our treasured acting hero and left it at that. Laurette and I knew that the police would be showing up soon to canvass Akshay’s room for any clues to the identity of his murderer and didn’t want to be around for a reunion.
Delphina never asked why we needed to locate him or why we weren’t more shaken up by the death of our favorite actor. She probably figured that if we were somehow mixed up in it all, it was the police’s business, not hers.
After downing our cosmos, thanking Delphina for her hospitality, and nodding good night to the other guests, Laurette and I retreated to our room with the intention of keeping a much-needed low profile.
The police did show up at the Residence to question a few guests. Laurette peeked through the blinds to see several officers trudging toward Akshay’s room, but after a couple of hours, they vacated the premises and all was quiet again.
“Do you think the police already know it was Ulysses Karydes who had Akshay killed and are just going through the motions so no one can accuse them of being in his pocket?” I said, allowing my conspiracy-theorist tendencies to once again fight their way to the surface.
Laurette shrugged. “Beats me. I just hope we’re not getting in over our heads.”
“Well, we have no choice but to keep plowing ahead if we ever want to find Charlie.”
Laurette nodded. She knew I was right even if she didn’t like it. She opened the burlap sack we had taken from the murder scene and pulled out Claire Richards’s Academy Award. “What do we do with this?”
“I’ll have Delphina keep it for us in the hotel safe until we figure out how it fits in to all of this. And tomorrow, we’ll have lunch at the Music Café.”
Now that we had witnessed a murder, the reality of what we were involved in was dawning on Laurette, and she was scared. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But I am an actor and better at hiding my abject fear. At least if we were going to go down (either tossed in jail for Akshay’s murder or drowned at sea by a corrupt Greek shipping tycoon) we would be together, best friends to the end.
Although word of Akshay’s murder spread fast across the island, the startling news did nothing to dissuade vacationers from hitting the shops and beaches on the gloriously sunny day that followed. When Laurette and I had showered and dressed and made our way down the cobblestone steps into Mykonos town, two cruise ships had already docked in the harbor. Hundreds of passengers had disembarked to soak up the ambiance of the picturesque port and slap their credit cards down at all the quaint shops along the winding, narrow streets.
When we reached the port and located the Music Café, there was a rush of activity in the far left corner. Several waiters, all in white, hovered over a table shaded from the sun by a white and red umbrella. They were doting on someone, and we instantly knew who it was. Laurette and I sat down at a table across from an overweight American couple talking in a twangy, thick Southern accent. They were trying to decipher the menu.
“It’s all Greek to me,” the man chortled as his wife dutifully giggled at his lame joke. Laurette offered them a polite smile, and that was all they needed to strike up a conversation.
“Are you American?” the wife said.
“Yes,” Laurette answered, already regretting ever making eye contact.
“We’re from outside Little Rock, Arkansas. What about you two?” the husband said.
“Los Angeles.” Laurette smiled.
There was a slight pause from the couple, and their plastered-on smiles melted just a tiny bit, but they quickly recovered.
I kept my eyes trained on the corner table. The waiters finally dispersed to fetch some food and drink, and I saw Ulysses Karydes for the first time. He was a bear of a man, with a barrel chest and thick, tree-trunk legs. He wore a yellow short-sleeve shirt that clung to his dark, olive skin and tight white slacks that looked as if they were going to rip apart at any moment. His face was round, but hard, and he had a big, fleshy, pockmarked nose. Three muscular young men sat at the table with him. Two of them were Apollo and Neptune from the day before. The third was even younger, with shoulder-length dark hair and a beautiful, angular face with thick, enviable eyelashes and a soft mouth. In ancient times, he might have been a model for one of the famous Greek statues.
“LA, huh?” the husband at the next table said. “We don’t have occasion to meet people from the land of fruits and nuts.”
He meant it just as he said it. In his small mind, we were all gays and crazy. And maybe there was a grain of truth to that. At least in my world.
I didn’t mind them insulting us as long as they didn’t draw attention to us. The last thing Laurette and I needed was for Ulysses Karydes to be aware of our presence. My current plan was to let Karydes finish lunch and then follow him home so we could scout out his property and hopefully unearth more clues that might point us in the direction of Charlie.
“Baby, don’t even go there!” the wife suddenly squealed, loud enough for everyone wandering along Mykonos port to hear.
It was my damn catchphrase again. The one that made me famous. The one printed on T-shirts in the eighties. And the one that has hounded me for almost twenty years. My sitcom, Go to Your Room, was a big deal at one time. And apparently it was well known in the outlying communi
ties around Little Rock, Arkansas. At Heathrow Airport, the phrase had helped Laurette and me get through security in a timely fashion. Here it was about to blow our whole plan.
“I thought that was you!” the wife chirped before fishing in her purse for a pen. “I kept saying to myself, ‘It can’t be him. He’s way too old,’ but then I thought, hell, Virginia, the show’s been over for years. People lose hair and get wrinkles. They don’t stay a cute little boy forever.”
I wanted to kill myself.
She slapped her fountain pen down on the table and then picked up the napkin underneath her bottled water. “Could I get your autograph? My kids will never believe I ran into you. In Greece, of all places!”
I snatched the pen and the napkin and quickly scribbled my name. Mr. Arkansas was still in a state of confusion. He undoubtedly never watched situation-comedy repeats. I pegged him for an NFL and Fox News kind of guy. I wasn’t being traded to the Dolphins, nor was I right-wing commentator Sean Hannity, so he had no reference for my celebrity.
I forced a smile as I handed the napkin back to her. I glanced over to see Ulysses Karydes staring over at us. Our little eruption had caught his interest. This was not good. So much for incognito.
Laurette leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Should we just make a run for it?”
I sat frozen in place, not really knowing what to do. Ulysses spoke to the young, waiflike man with the long hair, and he was up on his feet in an instant and marching over to us. Laurette and I held our breath, half expecting him to pull a gun out of his back pocket and shoot us dead on the spot.
Instead he offered us a sweet smile and said in a sexy Greek accent, “My name is Philander. I work for Mr. Karydes, who is over there. He lives on the island and is—”
“Oh, we know who he is,” Laurette said.
Philander nodded. His warm smile was intoxicating. “Of course. Well, Mr. Karydes wanted me to ask you if you would care to join him for lunch.”