“Who cooked this?”
“You did.”
“Who.”
“Look.”
He did. His knife and fork already cutting halfway through an unborn child. He sliced and forked a piece of it into his mouth, taking the time to chew, remembering the game tables full of powerful men, at the end of his career. He would never forget the atmosphere of a room filled with influence. After all, he had tasted its scraps. Now he chewed his miscarriages and watched his uncle work at the rifle and thought of all the kinds of power he’d never wield, and men who could take anything and call it theirs.
He blinked. They were in a bar—he could smell it. The man in the military uniform was standing over him. He could see through resemblance that the girl was probably his sister or a cousin. The shock had subsided some and Varia felt reasonably okay, though standing took real effort. If he was awake, maybe it wasn’t so serious...He licked his lips, imagining the taste of a good anisette.
While Elektra Manioti was pouring herself shots of Russian Standard, her brother was admiring the handgun he’d pulled from the thug now tied to a chair, watching them. The way she understood it was that he worked for the same whoever her brother worked for doing whatever it was he did (something she surmised put to good use his military experience), and they were now on the outs. Everything hearkening back to the man their father was. She’d only heard her mother’s stories (she took another shot at the thought “mother” and held back an urge to weep) and what she put together herself. Her brother planned to get some information from the thug, addresses, names, because the people who’d done this were going to pay. Manioti had nothing against that, in the least. Aris kept reiterating to her or the room that he would not ask for his father’s deal—they would get his deal and he would settle all accounts in blood. He said this, meaning it, even though he looked like hell, as bad as the man they’d patched up. Bruised and bloodied, like a late-round boxer. The vagrant was still groggy, but he watched the gun, that part of him seemed sharp. Her brother caught the look, and they talked.
“You’ve fired something like this before?”
The vagrant coughed into his palm. “No.” An obvious lie.
Aris slid the pistol across the bar table. The vagrant eyed the piece suspiciously.
“Pick it up.”
He did so. For a brief moment, she saw his color return, could almost imagine the man he might have once been. Apprehensively, the vagrant unclipped the magazine, pulled back the slide to make sure nothing was chambered. He held his arm out and checked the sight, just skew of Aris. She could see the way he felt empowered. Understood there was something similar between the two men, something they might not see themselves, even if it were pointed out. Something intangible, but very definitely there. The vagrant set it on the table and slid it back across wordlessly. Grimaced like pain was converging on him from everywhere at once.
“You can have it. Might come in handy the next time someone pulls on you.”
“If someone needs what little I’ve got, they can have it.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
Her brother studied him.
“There’s still police somewhere in you.”
And:
“Did you run because of someone like me? I can’t think of anything else.”
“. . .”
“I have seen people very much like you.”
“And you’re the last one they meet.”
“Something like that.”
He eyed her brother hard as he’d eyed the gun.
“That where your front teeth went?”
The vagrant looking at the nowhere of the floor.
Her brother sighed, softening. He picked the pistol back up. “I’m going after them, the people who did this.”
The vagrant shook his head. “I hope you have something better than bullets.”
Aris thought about it and set the pistol back on the table.
“One man can’t kill an empire, if that’s what this is.”
“I’ll kill them.”
“I wish you luck.”
The vagrant limped to the register and pulled currency from it, stuffed the bills into a plastic bag. Aesop watched him, tied tightly to a chair. His wrist throbbed, but he was managing it. There’d been no sign of Karras. Aesop kept thinking I shouldn’t be here. The man in the military uniform wasn’t someone he knew much about, just someone he’d seen before, someone his employer wanted gone. Maniotis kept dialing Karras on the landline and it kept ringing. His uniform was dusty and Aesop had caught its stale scent when the man surprised him. There was something desperate about all of this—the homeless guy, the old soldier, his sister—it just seemed so . . . sad. Aesop watched Maniotis take a key from around his neck and give it to the girl. He wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to her, told her to go somewhere nice. The man was a killer—Aesop knew this. What happened now was that there’d be some kind of reckoning and he knew that too, but he didn’t know whose. He kept telling any god willing to listen that if he made it through this, at least this, he’d change, he’d do something else with his life, but he knew that was a lie and he supposed an omnipotent god would too. The vagrant left the bar, taciturn, limping through the door without looking back. He didn’t look like he’d last the night, but there he was, walking. Aesop wondered who he was, how he’d gotten entangled in whatever this was. The girl left soon after. The man in the uniform pulled a chair up to him, holding the phone, and called. Eventually someone picked up.
Varia leaned against the brick wall. His gait had faltered along the way and he felt like he’d made it as far as he could (the several blocks to Omonia) and just needed some rest now. There was no light here, darkness in full dominance of his surroundings. But the moon told cracked pavement and collapsed fencing. Varia pressed at his abdomen. The bandages were damp, a thick consistency to it. The sting from everywhere at once. His wound was bleeding through. Varia’s head buzzed white hot static. He slid down the wall to a seated position on the alley floor, overcome with an exhaustion that felt somehow permanent. He discovered there that it felt better to sit, that he could think of good sleep until the stars disappeared.
Psiri was pretty busy, all things considered. Young men, staggering drunk through odos Miaouli, were whistling at the two of them. Groups of people sipped rakomelo along the outside tables lining the sidewalks. Junesong bought cigarettes from the mini market and Pallas bought a bottled water. The sandwich vendor watched them come up. He recognized Pallas from countless late nights, often with different women. He winked and greeted her and tied his stained apron back.
“Ladies. What can I get you?”
“George, have you been well?” Pallas remembered his name; he only remembered faces.
“I’m good.”
She checked the display, despite always ordering the same sandwich. “That one, yeah. That.”
He raised an eyebrow, watching Junesong. “And you?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
The vendor’s daughter came out through a door at the back of the shop. The vendor told her to mind the sausages while they cooked. He asked Pallas if she wanted him to read her palm. Already he could sense something was off. “No, it’s okay.”
“I’m quite good at it. Hold out your hand.”
“Um, sure.”
He stared into her palm and studied the lines. Moved his gaze from Pallas to Junesong and back again. Pallas feeling light-headed, chewing her lip like it’d help her to hold on. They’d gone through a lot of beer and were no closer to a conclusion. Sharp tone at the back of her skull. The vendor shook his head. He looked like he was trying to hide feeling spooked, but she was sure she was imagining that. “I’m not sure, the lines aren’t clearly defined.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Pallas shrugged, too weak to care. Junesong tapped at the tattoo some more.
“Don’t scratch.”
“I’m not.” Pallas nodded at an angle, looking down. Seemed like things could be okay if she kept at it, kept improving. The vendor’s daughter asked her what toppings she wanted. Pallas almost replied that she wanted to get on top of her, but held it. These things had to get behind her, no matter how much she thought them. The vendor’s daughter stuffed the goods into the sandwich and wrapped it in foil. The vendor told them to pay him another time.
“You sure?”
“Tomorrow.”
“. . .”
“Tomorrow, please.”
As they walked off, the vendor continued to watch them, his expression grim. His daughter well understood and didn’t say anything—they both had the gift. The one with the mohawk drank from the large water bottle and took a bite of the sandwich. It wasn’t her future that had scared him, it was the empty thing within her partner. He didn’t know when, but one day they would turn that same corner and walk a while and one of them would never make it home. He often felt things like this and didn’t know just how he knew, but he did. He felt emotional torture, corrupt thinking—could sense if you’d done unspeakable things—he sometimes felt secret graves. Places lost children went, a kind of darkness that was in the labyrinth of every city. The vendor looked at his daughter and told her he loved her.
Karras arrived at the bar after a journey that felt to him like Zeno’s paradox. He tried listening to music through the drive, but couldn’t focus, so he sat in silence. He’d been afraid to answer, afraid that Maniotis would find out what he’d told, or that it’d be the man that’d come, fucking with him. But he answered the phone and it was okay. Sounded like little more than a panicked friend in need of his help. He cleaned himself up, put on fresh clothes. Made sure he had his pistol this time. He hated himself for going, but couldn’t compel himself not to. Felt good to be needed for something. Inside Dive Bar, he saw a mess of blood, a first aid kit, the register open and empty. Maniotis, looking like he had finally lost his shit, staring at him over the bound body of Aesop Damianos at the other end of the bar. He dropped the unlit cigarette that was hanging from his mouth.
“Is he dead?”
“What the fuck do you think?” Aesop’s head at a weird angle, almost twisted off.
“Jesus, what happened?”
“Brother, I need your help.”
“I . . .”
“Come outside with me. I want to show you something.”
Maniotis led him to the car.
The day far gone, a contused aureole surrounded the moon. Karras hated where they were and what it now represented, the last in a long run of secrets between friends. This shit gave him heartburn. It was why, when the opportunity arose to run the bar, he jumped on it. But that was gone now—they torched it. That had hurt to watch, Maniotis igniting the bar stock, burning up the one thing that kept Karras tethered. This deep in the mountains it was quiet enough he could hear summer wind picking up plastic bottles and newspaper, rustling them around from way out. Sometimes the howl of an animal. Empty lots carried a sadness about them, an indescribable sad beyond the neglect. He peered into the trunk and felt something he hadn’t felt in a while. One body belonged to the violent man that made him betray his friend, the other a man he hated but didn’t see deserving this. Jesus he thought. The fuck is wrong with me? Used to be, he didn’t flinch at a body, wouldn’t have cared as long as he was breathing. But here, he had given over his friend’s family to a stranger. He lacked the firmer stomach of his youth. No loyalty left in him except to himself.
His friend’s army jacket was cleanly folded over the seat of the car. Maniotis wearing latex gloves, wet with blood, determining the next cut in a body Karras also wanted disassembled, its secrets dissolved. Two days ago, he would have thought his life would continue as it was forever. Now he had no idea what came next.
“Hey, Ari, what was that one girl’s name . . . remember, the sixteen year old, looked like she was twenty-four, the one at that Voula beach party back in . . . damn.” He fell silent.
“Don’t remember.”
“And you didn’t know till after you fucked her.”
“Doesn’t feel like me anymore.”
Maniotis clipping, sawing away.
Karras watched and drank. He managed to salvage a few beers from the icebox before the bar went up. He set the last one on the hood and got back to digging. Wished a buzz would kick in. He wondered what shit he would inevitably eat for betraying everyone he knew.
“There’s no retirement plan for people like us.” He scooped dirt.
“There is, it’s just not a good plan.”
Bass thumped a far distance away, and instinctively they both scanned around.
Karras grunted. “I hate this.”
Maniotis severed fingers and heads, remembering his father’s teachings. His instruments were less refined: tourniquets, tin snips, an old cordless saw. He had stripped the bodies and looked for possible identifying marks. Karras stuck the shovel into the ground and put on gloves. Together they covered the Frenchman’s body in plastic and carried it over to the shallow pit. Aesop Damianos next. Karras spit on both once they were in the hole. He concealed his pain well, kept turned away from Maniotis as he shoveled. But now he was out of breath and it was harder to do. They buried the men.
Once they were done, Karras tapped the shovel on the ground, knocking off dirt. “This has to be the last thing we ever do together.”
“I know.”
“Because after . . .”
“. . .”
They peeled off the gloves. Karras folded up the shovel and set it in the trunk. He sat in the passenger seat and set his gun on the floorboard between his legs. He seemed lighter now.
“I can only—”
“Just drop it.”
Maniotis turned the ignition and the headlights pierced to a terminus in the dark, where even the high beams weren’t strong enough to maintain beyond their small corner of the lot. Settling dirt and mosquitoes lingering over the dry brush. The bodies, he hoped, would be deep enough the strays wouldn’t bother them. He would check again in a few days. If I’m around that long. . .
He saw apprehension in his friend’s expression and put a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I, ah . . . thanks, man.”
Karras nodded, quiet. Blood beginning to soak through his shirt in strange hieroglyphics. Maniotis pretended not to notice, but he’d been watching for a while. He poured antiseptic into his hands and rubbed them together. Rested his eyes and gave it a moment. When Maniotis was young, he would watch his father separate cuts in the butcher shop, his father would tell him the names of the different cuts and the ways different cultures prepared the meat. He opened his eyes. How all bodies are is just a combination of systems that if disrupted will result in the gradual failure of an organism. His father explained how Muslims prepare meat halal—how the knives are kept sharp, the animal conscious, the throat precisely slit while invoking the name of god—how the animal is to be bled out. Karras was looking ahead toward where the beams ran off. Maniotis shoved him against the passenger door, pinning him face to glass. Karras struggled to reach for the gun at his feet. Fingers frantically brushing against metal until a snapping sound brought them stillness. Back outside, Maniotis anxiously made fists and cracked his knuckles, pacing around the car. Felt anxious. He opened the trunk back up and grabbed the shovel. None of this was how he wanted it. He was usually so precise and patient. Maniotis took a last good look. As soon as he started digging, the calm was returned. His breath soughing. He returned to the trunk. Gloves, tourniquets, tools. This was the thing he called the work, the only thing he was good at. Family was important to him.
Elektra Manioti’s insides felt full of broken glass.
The street of her family’s home was all police, emergency vehicles, onlookers, reporters and cameramen. Sheets covered the bodies in the street, a perforated car being loaded onto a tow truck. Flashing lights over lightly painted stucco walls.
No one saw her becaus
e she watched from the far end of the street.
Her brother had told her to retrieve his money, take a plane somewhere north, stay low a while until he figured things out for them. Instead she dropped the key Aris had given her down a drainage grate. There was nowhere to go, at least, nowhere that she wanted to go. She was not afraid.
Manioti asked her parents for endurance, walking toward some policemen, ready to confess anything, even if she hadn’t done it.
The snake deity had shown him exactly where to be, Takis Apostolos now understood.
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