I paid the fare. The last of my money was gone, and Shane’s wallet was back at Ya-Yá’s house. But Meliza had been Ya-Yá’s boarder for two years while she finished up school. She would give us a place to sleep and take payment when I had something more substantial than scarf money to offer.
Despite the late hour, Meliza ushered us into her bed and breakfast. She opened her best room, the one with a view of the Acropolis, and treated us as though we were beloved relatives come to stay, instead of wanted cat-thieves who’d been handcuffed and bludgeoned and not had a chance to bathe. She did not have bolt cutters or a welding torch, but I was too tired to care.
I collapsed on the bed while Meliza made a mound of pillows on the floor for Shane. The sleeping conditions were not ideal. But she left our door open, aimed the hallway security cam at his face, and promised that there would be no fresh baklava and coffee for him in the morning if he tried anything.
“Fear not, ladies. I’ll be thrilled if I can make it through the night without smothering. I’ve no energy for romantic schemes.”
It was true. With his hand cuffed to my wrist, Shane was at a disadvantage. He was forced to lie on his face on the makeshift bed. His body tended to roll to the center of the cushions without his consent. The man did seem to be quite busy trying not to asphyxiate.
Meliza promised a run to the hardware store for some bolt cutters as soon as she’d served breakfast to her guests. However, she was not nearly as eager to take the box full of Chrysanthemum to her freezer. But after I wrapped the whole thing in a roll of plastic wrap and then a roll of aluminum foil, she sighed and gave in.
Before she left to go to her own bed, Meliza brought two bowls of warm soapy water. She set one bowl on the dresser and one on the floor next to Shane.
He nodded at her, “Thank you, Ma’am.” But he seemed at a loss once she had bustled from the room; one-handed washing was apparently not one of Shane’s strong points. He managed to wring out the rag, kind of, and ooze it around his face and head, sort of. The results were less than satisfactory. He was dripping dusty, bloody water on his pillow.
I sighed, if the man was doomed to smother in the night, the least I could do was make sure that he had a clean face and pillow for the task.
“Here, let me.”
Shane looked up; runlets of filthy water slid down his face. “Ah Jack, I’m a mess. Better not soil yourself.”
I glowered at him and picked up my rag and bowl of water. “It’s Jacqueline, and the job can be accomplished without soiling anyone; you just have to be careful.” I dipped my rag into the water and squeezed it out methodically. Then I folded it over my hand so that I wouldn’t get any blood on my fingers. I gestured for Shane to sit up and leaned down carefully dabbing at the dirt and blood on his face. Then I turned the rag over and cleansed the bloody patch of hair where the third cat-napper had struck him.
Shane stilled at my touch, silent until I had finished. “Thank you, Jacqueline.”
“Yes…well, of course, you are welcome.” I tossed the filthy rag into the bowl and scooted it across the floor with my foot.
This was the second time Shane had used my name. It sounded warm and strange in his quiet Montana drawl. He didn’t speak with a twang or anything. But there was something slow and steady in the sound of his voice, like mountains, and forests, and the scent on the wind as roiling black clouds piled up before a thunderstorm. My name seemed to linger on his lips as he watched me, silent.
I glared at him again and flopped down onto the bed looking at the wall. He stifled a groan, and I realized too late that I must have yanked him onto his face with the cuffs. Oops, well, it was long past bedtime anyway. Both of us needed to sleep.
With the cat skin curing and the camera watching my handsome taxidermist for the slightest twitch, my fears dissolved like a sand castle under the pounding surf. I sank deeper into my bed. My arm dangled over the side so Shane could reach his pillow nest, and I hoped it wouldn’t go numb in the night. Despite that risk, unconsciousness soon engulfed me, and a world full of cat-nappers and taxidermy swirled away until finally, I found rest.
I slept and life was perfect for three whole hours.
Sometime just past dawn, a hiss burned through the fog of blissful slumber and jostled my sleep-dulled senses.
Who on earth would dare to whisper in the room of two individuals who might literally kill for forty-seven more hours of sleep? Then a thought crept through my brain. It would have to be something incredibly important for them to risk such a whisper.
I couldn’t quite open my eyes, but I listened intently.
A soft scuff, the sound of a dresser drawer opening, the creak of a knee as someone bent to look under the bed. Someone was in our room!
I waited. Every muscle in my body trembled with a sudden rush of adrenaline and the tension of holding still.
Creeping footsteps moved down the hall.
I sat up in bed and looked down at Shane. His eyes were open.
He straightened quietly and grabbed my hand. “We’ve got to warn your friend and grab that cat.”
Truer words were never spoken. But since we were cuffed together, we couldn’t divide and conquer. I felt around under the bed for my shoes. A sound in the hall made me freeze. No time. Some things were more important than shoes.
Shane pulled me to my feet before I could search any more, but I noted with some satisfaction that he had not located his footwear either. Misery loves company, right? In bare feet, Shane and I eased down the hall toward Meliza’s room. I leaned in the door.
She was gone. Had she started breakfast already?
We crept toward the kitchen placing the pads of our feet on the cold tile with painfully cautious steps. I was dying to just scream and sprint for my friend, but instead I chose each step with care.
Meliza was rolling out puff pastry. She looked up and smiled.
I shook my head violently.
She scowled at me for a moment, and then the color drained from her face.
“Do you have your cell phone?”
She nodded.
“Lock yourself in the big pantry and call the police. Someone’s in the house. Where did you stash the cat?”
She stared back at me, pale, eyes confused. Finally she pointed across the room at a gleaming industrial freezer.
I jerked my head toward the back of the room. “Go, and don’t forget your cell.”
“But what about—.”
“We’re fine.” I hissed. “I’ll just grab the cat and slip out. You’ll be safer without us here.”
Meliza looked skeptical, but she bit her lip and finally turned to comply.
The freezer creaked as Shane raised the lid. I noticed that he had grabbed his bag of tools. Tools before shoes, now that was dedication. Although where he thought we would stop to stuff the cat, I didn’t know. But it was nice to see he was trying to make the deadline, despite our current…difficulties.
Shane shrugged his tool bag over one shoulder and stuffed the boxed cat underneath his arm. He met my gaze for a long, silent moment and then made a motion toward the door with his chin.
I stood frozen for several breaths. Where did he expect us to go? I didn’t know anyone else in Greece, my house was being watched, and the police were in league with the cat-nappers.
We had nowhere to go, certainly not a place where he could stuff Chrysanthemum before the coupon expired.
But Shane seemed to see all of that in my eyes. He took a step closer and brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. I thought he was going to say something, but he only reached out and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. Then he tugged me toward the door.
I resisted for half a second.
The sound of voices from the hall set me in motion.
“It’s time.” A man spoke in Greek.
I allowed Shane to pull me across the room. I recognized the voice.
“I can’t argue with him. It’s been two hundred years. They’ll never return The
Marbles.”
I strained to hear the reply, but Shane tightened his grip on my hand and yanked me through the door.
The men entered Meliza’s kitchen as we slid out.
The cat-nappers’ words followed us down the hall. “Oh, they will. Mr. Lasko will see to that.”
9
The Acropolis
When I was a girl, I got lost in Colorado Springs with my mom. We’d flown in to visit family. But I was so wiggly after the long plane ride that Mom and I ran up the street a few blocks to play at the local park before dinner. It went from sunny and hot to bitter cold within an hour. Colorado weather is like that. I’d been barefooted wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Hey, it was hot out, and I was six.
The wind picked up, and the air took on that aching clean scent that often accompanies snow. In a sixty minute period it went from summer to winter skipping fall all together. Rolling gray clouds swept across the sky, and it began spitting snowflakes.
We took off for my aunt’s house but followed the wrong path. Mom and I trudged up and down street after street. We walked past tall empty houses with beautiful landscaping and brightly lit windows that leaked the noisy sounds of roughhousing children being called in from play. I’d never realized how much safety a house offered.
I was thirsty, but there was nowhere to get a drink. My feet stung as we roamed the cold sidewalks, but my shoes were at my aunt’s. Dinner was long past, and my stomach ached with hunger. But all the fridges, the kitchen tables, the cupboards full of chips and bread and pickles and fruit snacks, these were all in the houses. And none of those houses were for me.
I didn’t belong in any of them. I had never felt so alone. That is, until I walked out of Meliza’s place at five in the morning, with no one to help me but a dead cat and a man I didn’t really know.
We walked beneath the stern, white glare of the Acropolis. The giant mass of white marble and limestone rose out of the surrounding green, white cliffs gleaming against the dawn. With no money and no shoes, we didn’t have a lot of options. Several hours of playing peek-a-boo with the black van on the narrow streets below the Acropolis did not improve our prospects.
I was about to suggest that we plunge into the heart of Athens and try to find a homeless shelter when Shane pointed to a sign.
A crowd had gathered at the base of the hill, and a massive wave of tourists plunged through the gates.
Free Admission
June 5th
International Environment Day
I smiled up at him and whispered, “Hide the cat and your tools. They don’t let you take bags up to the top.” I paused for a moment to marvel at the words I’d just spoken. But it wasn’t my fault. Had I chosen to spout this tacky sentence concerning a partially preserved animal? No, life had cruelly maneuvered me into this impossible situation.
Unless…would God be so cruel? I shut down that thought and tugged Shane forward. We had to walk quite close together to hide the handcuffs. But I supposed the appearance of being flirtatious was better than someone seeing our predicament and matching up my face with the police sketch. Or worse, alerting the black van slowly driving a grid down the city streets.
The lady at the gate glanced our way, but Shane spun around to face me right before we were rushed through the gate with the crowd. He walked backwards in front of me, shielding the box and tools with his body and leaning down close as though whispering a lover’s secret.
What he actually whispered was something a bit less romantic. “Is she still looking?”
“No, she’s confiscating that grandmother’s picnic basket.”
“Are you sure about this, Jack?”
“It’s Jacqueline, and yes. We’ll lose the black van on the Acropolis; no motor vehicles allowed. Then we can slip down the path in an hour and sneak back into the city.”
We let the crowd push us up a curving path of gravel and irregular gray stones until the lady at the gate was out of sight.
Then Shane turned around and walked beside me.
Low stone walls cut into the hillside around us, and fragrant conifers warmed in the sun.
Despite our bedraggled appearance and my lack of shoes, I felt a small smile on my face as we hiked up the path together. I loved the Acropolis. Ya-Yá and I always visited at least one time every summer.
Then Shane pulled me a little closer and looked down into my eyes.
“It’s going to be a hot day, and this cat skin won’t last long.”
Wow, those words were the antithesis of all things romantic. I blanched and tried not to picture whatever was left of Chrysanthemum in the box. “Did the mold dry all right? I mean, will you still be able to stuff her?”
“Yeah, I can stuff her. But the mold is a bit misshapen.” I bit my lip, imagining Chrysanthemum frozen in a distorted twist of fluffy fur and bared fangs.
Shane laughed and pulled me closer. “I brought a backup. You told me the cat was a thirty-two pounder and so I packed a pre-made mold just in case. It’s back at the house. It won’t be perfect, but I’m not sure that perfection is what you’re going for right now, anyway.” He waved his cuff-free hand somehow indicating the cat box, his day-old T-shirt and flannel, the drooping bandage on his head, my stained and torn maxi dress, and the hike up to the Acropolis all at once.
It was true. My standards were lowering rapidly.
“All right, we’ll use your backup mold. Right now, we can hide out in the crowds away from the roads. After a few hours, the black van will give up and we’ll sneak back to Ya-Yá’s house and stuff the cat.”
Shane nodded his agreement, trying to balance both his bag of taxidermy tools and the box full of cat while we hiked up the steep path.
I watched him for a moment.
This wasn’t exactly his dream job either. Stuck with a girl who didn’t appreciate his occupation or fashion choices, Shane had yet to utter a single complaint.
I reached out and took Shane’s bag of tools then smiled up at him. “It’s a date.”
10
The Parthenon
Shane and I made it all the way up to the Beulé Gate before anyone noted our handcuffed state.
A little boy, about six years old, was bounding between his parents waving his arms, a stick, and several big leaves he’d found. He glanced at us, stared, and then whispered in that incredibly loud fashion that has been embarrassing parents for millennia. “Look, the police brought some prisoners for a field trip.”
The mother glanced at us.
I could feel every single tangle in my hair and tear in my dress. The dirt clinging to my feet and bare legs burned into my skin like small granules of acid. My unsightly-ness was palpable.
“Think they’re murderers, or car thieves, or graffiti artists? Maybe they stole the last piece of chocolate from Great Ya-Yá’s green glass dish!” The father tugged his child close and scooted so far to the edge of the path that the small family was tripping over clumps of foliage and rocks.
Shane rolled up the sleeves to his flannel and proceeded to rush me near the cringing mother. He gave a loud, faux whisper in something that was almost a California accent. “The camera crew said they couldn’t see the cuffs on the last take, and we’d better pick up the pace. We’re supposed to have been running from brain-thirsty zombies all night, after all.” He paused in front of the family and took my hand in his. “Now, darling, can I get you another smudge of dirt for your cheek, or have you attained the proper level of filthy-ness for the scene?”
Before I realized, a smile swept over my face, and my clenched hand relaxed in his. I stuck my nose in the air and emphasized my true and authentic California accent. “It better be enough dirt. If I have to hike up this trail one more time, I’m going to demand another million dollars for pain and suffering.”
Shane gave a regal bow, took my face in his hands, and kissed me lightly on both cheeks. “After you, my lady. The zombies await.”
The family lurched to a stop and stared, apparently flabbergasted b
y their unexpected brush with fame.
We sprinted up the steps and through a thick wall of massive stones.
I glanced over my shoulder several times trying to manufacture an appropriate expression of terror for my audience. I even sagged against Shane for a moment.
He brushed a strand of hair aside in a theatrical fashion as though ten hidden cameras were zooming in on my frightened features.
Above us, an enormous stair stretched out toward the temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaia, or entrance, to the Acropolis. The ancient white marble was worn slick by years of weather and sun and foot traffic, both ancient and modern.
The steps felt smooth and cool beneath my bare feet. The slope to the top of the acropolis stretched for over three hundred feet, and we were sticky with sweat and winded by the time Shane and I made the summit.
In the city below, heat and pollution often smothered the streets like a sweltering blanket masking the senses.
But the Acropolis stood free of all that. The great mountain of white marble held an undeniable energy and power. All the terrible beauty of God’s creation, standing high and strong above the feeble works of man. The Acropolis was immovable and ancient.
The air was suddenly clear and full of the smells of the earth. Pine trees and the rich scent of soil heating under the sun mingled with the fragrance of wild thyme.
I breathed deeply and allowed myself a real smile for the first time that day. I recalled my first visit to the Acropolis with Ya-Yá. I was just a girl, gripping her hand as she told me how slick the ancient stones had become. Although picnic baskets were not allowed, we would always stuff our pockets with snacks wrapped up tight in waxed paper. Olives, stuffed grape leaves, and a hunk of feta cheese kept us going until it was time to descend the Acropolis and find a kafeneía for lunch.
My bare feet were actually an advantage on this ancient crown of rock.
Several tourists slipped, and one photographer scraped his knee bounding from step to step.
If Ya-Yá were here, she would have waved them over, as though they were rambunctious little boys instead of middle aged men, and attempted to warn them.
Athens Ambuscade Page 4