“He was twenty years older!”
“It happens.”
“Maybe it does, Andy. But how often is the man who steals your daughter also the man who steals your wife?”
Soumba turned away, focusing on the window so that he could watch the waves.
The bartender brought over two more cans. I was about to protest that we hadn’t requested another round when he whispered, “For free.”
That was all I wanted. To OD on the worst soft drink ever made on any hemisphere.
“Got any more cigarettes?”
The bartender shook his head. “I ran out. Try the bar on the upper deck.” He approached our table, wiping his hands on a soiled apron. “My daughter, she married a man ten years younger. My life has never been the same.”
Chapter Thirty Two
I left as quickly as I could, glad to get outside. I went up to the next level where fake green grass covered the deck. It was the dead part of the day where the sun reaches its zenith, offering punishment instead of warmth. Half the passengers were zonked out, stretched uncomfortably over the hard seats. The rest were wiping off their sweat and trying to persuade each other that they’d saved a lot of money by taking the ferry instead of flying. I sat in the shade killing time.
The night before, everything had been clear: tell Letta the truth, call the Athens police. Do you want Letta to lose the only other person who’s close to her? The more I knew, the less I knew what to do about it. Uncle Hari. No wonder he’d been so at ease at the port, so nonchalant about the ferry’s surprisingly early arrival. He knew Amiros as well as his back yard. It had been his playground as he’d grown from a young man to a professional, and after an absence, he’d come back ready to make amends with the man who’d first brought him there. Hari probably never realized he’d caused a rift between Soumba and Agnesa because he’d never tried to impress his friend’s wife. He probably hadn’t even tried to impress Letta.
It wouldn’t have taken much. Sitting in the dark, anything could have happened. Their first touch might have been accidental, taking them both off guard. And when he walked her home, one thing could have led to another even right there in Soumba’s own house, in the very room where I’d lain uncomfortably with Rachel. Or perhaps nothing had actually happened at all. In the mind of a young girl, what might have happened but didn’t could have led to even bigger flights of fantasy.
By the time I returned with cigarettes, the bartender and Soumba were alone in the room. They sat across from one another, their heads so close together they might have spit on one another when making simple conversation. Soumba had swiveled sideways so that he could cross his leg under the table. “So that was it.”
“You knew he was coming to Amiros?” asked the bartender.
“He called the night before. Letta was in Athens preparing for two more exams. He wanted to come to the island ahead of her. He didn’t say why. Bright and cheery, he asked if I’d meet him at the port, said he had something important to talk about.”
“Then you started planning to kill him,” I said.
The bartender frowned at me as if I were the one who’d done something wrong.
“No, Andy, I didn’t.”
The bartender motioned for the cigarettes. I tossed him the pack as I sat down. “But you didn’t meet Hari at the dock,” I said.
“I didn’t go. I knew he wanted to ask my permission to marry Letta, and I wasn’t going to give it. So why not spare him the trouble of talking to me? I told Lascar and Petros I had urgent business in Lepidopteros. I warned them not to tell anyone where I was. But when Hari went to look for me at the police station, that pair of idiots tried thinking for themselves. They assumed I’d want to see someone who claimed to be my old friend. Dimitria even drew him a map. Bah! They had no idea for the whole story.”
“Why go to Lepidopteros? There’s nothing there,” I said.
“It doesn’t have bus service. Normally Hari wouldn’t have been able to follow me.”
“He took a cab that whole way?” the bartender asked.
“Petros loaned Hari his motor scooter. How I was supposed to anticipate that? I wanted to be alone. That’s why I rented the rowboat. I wanted to row out to sea far enough that I could think straight again. All of a sudden there’s Hari on the pier, carrying that damned briefcase. He was jumping up and down like a puppy dog excited you’re home so it can get outside and take a piss.”
“‘I have some thinking to do,’ I told him. ‘Leave me alone!’ But no, the asshole dashed to the edge of the pier. He would have jumped into the boat and sunk it, so instead I let him climb in. And ‘how are you?’ and ‘it’s a beautiful day’ and all that crap. Then he tells me he has something to show me and opens his briefcase.
“That’s when he panics. Starts going through papers, throwing things down into the bottom of the boat. ‘But I had it right here,’ he says. ‘I wanted to show you the ring! I wanted to ask your permission to marry Letta!’”
Soumba placed his hands flat on the table. “‘Why are you asking me permission?’ I said. ‘You already raped my daughter!’ And I stood up.” Soumba stood, acting out his story. “‘Why do you pretend you are a gentleman when you are a bastard!’”
Soumba made such a realistic motion of choking someone that I instinctively drew my hands to my neck. The bartender stood as well, perhaps in preparation to pull Soumba off me. “I wanted to kill him! I wanted to throw him off the island, and he politely asks permission to have my only child!” Soumba’s face had turned red. His veins bulged in ugly lines between his chin and his chest.
“Then what?” the bartender asked.
“I grabbed his neck!” Soumba choked the air. After five or six violent motions, he suddenly stopped. “Then I lost my balance. I fell over the briefcase, and we both tumbled into the water.”
“You drowned him!” exclaimed the bartender.
“I didn’t have to.” Soumba sat back down. “When Hari fell, he smashed his head into the dock. A broken plank went right through his soft brain. Even a genius can’t handle that.”
The hush of sadness fell on the room. For several long seconds the only sounds were Soumba’s heavy breaths and the waves outside the cabin.
“Why didn’t you pull him out of the water?” I asked softly.
“He was dead, Andy. I didn’t see a point.”
“His clumsiness killed him,” said the bartender, pouring us another round from a large carafe he’d set at an adjacent table. “He was an island casualty.”
I crushed out my cigarette. “If Hari’s death was an accident, why did you cover it up?”
“I had my hands around his neck, Andy. I tried to kill him.”
“You didn’t have to tell the whole story,” said the bartender. “Why didn’t you just explain that he fell, never mind that you were choking him at the time?”
“And never mind the bruises from my fingertips up and down his neck? It doesn’t matter. Bah! I wanted to kill him even if I didn’t.”
“Soumba, there’s a huge difference between wanting to kill someone and causing an accident that does!” I shouted.
“Such as fifty years in jail,” said the bartender.
“It’s my fault either way.”
“There’s a big difference,” I repeated.
“You are sure of that, Andy?” He whipped his gun from his pants so fast that I tripped getting away from the bench and fell hard on my elbow. When I made it to my feet, I scrambled to the far wall. Soumba pointed the gun at the bartender, but then brought his arm around and pointed the weapon at me. “You’re sure there’s a difference between killing someone on purpose and killing that same person by accident?”
I threw myself to the floor as Soumba pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t go off. He tossed it on the table.
“I don’t know if there’s any difference,” he told the bartender. He sat back down and shook another cigarette from the pack. The bartender hurried over to light it for him.
/> I approached the table in steady steps.
“What if I had hit you right between the eyes without looking your direction, Andy? Would that count as murder or not? And either way, how I would have explained it to Rachel?”
“The comparison doesn’t hold up.”
“Of course it doesn’t. Rachel doesn’t like you that much.”
I returned to the table. “Your gun isn’t loaded.”
“No, Andy. Police chiefs who are about to turn themselves in rarely load their guns first. It’s bad form.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“Like you did right now? No, I’m more practical. There are two things in life, people’s intentions and what happens despite them. I should have been watching out for Hari. I should have been protecting the naïve city man who didn’t know how to stand on a damned boat. That’s what my wife would think, and she would teach my daughter to think the same thing. I’d be guilty by default.”
“Letta knows her mother is crazy.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t listen.”
“You only made one mistake,” insisted the bartender.
“That’s all you get in life. One good mistake. What the hell, right?”
The bartender shook his head back and forth. “You never meant to cause an accident.”
“Marios, my wife and my daughter knew how I felt about Hari,” he told the bartender. “They knew I didn’t ever want to see him on Amiros, that I was sick about their relationship, and that I’d done everything in my power to get Letta to forget about him. They’d never believe it wasn’t my fault.”
“Why should you have to pay for a mistake?”
“Because the alternative is far worse.”
“Tzt, tzt,” Marios snapped. “What about the townspeople? A city needs its leader.”
“The mayor is the leader. I’m the dogcatcher. I’m replaceable. My deputies already know their duties, and what they don’t know, they’ll learn the way I did, on the job.”
“Letta needs to know the truth,” I said.
“She should know that her fiancé fell to his death when he came to ask for her hand? I won’t put her through that. She can’t know. I’ll confess to whatever it takes so long as they promise me that she’ll never have to go through the pain of knowing what really happened.”
“How does she think her boyfriend died?” asked the bartender.
“I made up a stupid story about how he was a spy for his country. That he made a big sacrifice to keep her safe. Otherwise how could she live with his death?”
“But you miscalculated,” I said.
“Yes, Andy. As you have pointed out.” He addressed Marios. “Would you like to know what happened after she found out Hari died? My daughter tried to commit suicide. She’s my daughter, all right. I couldn’t kill Hari, and she couldn’t kill herself.”
The bartender nodded appreciatively.
“In the meantime, my wife, because she believes what my lying cousin prints in the paper, thinks there is a connection between Hari and Andy, and tries to kill him three times. First, she sends bullets. Then she starts a fire. Then she uses a gun. She’ll have to be committed.” He drained his can and crushed it. “So you see, Marios, I’m way over my one-mistake limit.”
Marios pointed at the refrigerator, but Soumba and I both shook our heads.
“You can’t turn yourself in,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Andy. I already told you. I know you need to be a hero. God knows you don’t have anything else going for you. Rachel invites you all the way to Amiros, and you don’t even invite her back to California.”
How could I tell a police chief I wasn’t sure I could keep a woman safe there? It sounded dramatic. It sounded like boasting. And how did Soumba know all about what I did or did not do?
“I don’t have a job.”
“Bah! Perfect excuse. For a hero, you are a pretty good coward.”
I was nonplussed that Soumba knew more about my business than I did. “I didn’t not invite her. I just didn’t formally invite her. How did you hear about it?”
“Rachel told me, you idiot. I asked if I should take care of you, and she said not to waste my time. Some lover you turned out to be.”
I was caught off guard. “Rachel invited me down for a vacation.”
“Guess what? She didn’t invite you seven thousand miles for sex. This she can find easily. She wanted a musician boyfriend. Don’t complain about her for being optimistic. It’s usually a good trait.”
I was desperate for fresh air. I went up to the top deck where the scenery hadn’t changed. The tourists were dozing in the last rays of the sun, and the waiters were lounging in the shade. Land wasn’t in sight in any direction. Behind the boat, the wake sputtered in white curves.
***
The night was black by the time I went back to the bar to find Soumba.
“Where did he go?”
Marios was selling a carafe of retsina to a couple of young men. “I thought he was with you!”
“No,” I said slowly. “I haven’t seen him.”
“No!”
“You don’t really think he’d do something crazy?”
“He drank four cans of Amirosian Sunset. He might have gone septic.”
Marios abandoned his bar. When we reached the main deck, Marios went to the front and I went to the back. I didn’t see Soumba anywhere. I was surrounded by happy romantic couples giggling and holding hands as if all the passengers wanted to mock me at the same time.
I worked my way around to the side just as Marios came from the other direction.
“I didn’t find him anywhere,” I said. “Maybe he’s taking a nap somewhere. Nobody slept much last night.”
For the tenth time in as many hours, Marios looked at me as if I had lost every piece of my mind. He pointed to the upper deck. “He must have gone up there.”
Marios led me to a staircase that said “Authorized Personnel Only” and started climbing.
“We’re authorized?” I asked.
“Explain that we’re looking for a madman.”
We split up again. I worked my way towards the back of the ship, making my way around lopsided stacks of extra deck chairs.
I spotted Soumba at the back corner. He was leaning over the guardrail watching the waves race below him.
“Soumba!”
He whipped around. “Don’t come any closer.”
I walked towards him slowly but steadily. “Soumba!”
“I’m warning you.”
I stopped a few feet away. “What are you doing out here?”
He got out the gun. He’d had plenty of time to load it. “My time is up.”
“Soumba! Cut it out. Come on back downstairs.”
“I know, I know. I promised you could be the big hero. Things don’t always go the way we planned. But you can call Gregos, my cousin. He can do a whole spread on me. We will make him very happy.”
There was gravel in his voice. I wondered if he’d smoked a whole pack of cigarettes or just most of a pack. What I couldn’t calculate was whether he was being dramatic or serious. Instead I thought about Letta on the cliff at Petronaki.
“Soumba, you’re making me nervous.”
“It’s either you or me, Andy. Take your pick.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Somebody’s got to pay for Hari.”
“Marios was right,” I said slowly. “Hari was a casualty. We can’t blame ourselves for it.”
“Suit yourself.”
He aimed the gun at his temple. I lunged for him, knocking us both against the guardrail. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when it gave way.
The water stung as I bounced over the first few waves. Then I became engulfed in them. The guardrail sank immediately, and for a moment I thought Soumba had gone down with it. Then I saw him flailing fifty feet away; somehow we’d been thrown in different directions.
I swam over to him in wide strokes.
“Relax!” I yelled. “Otherwise we’ll both drown!”
“Stop trying to save me, you idiot!”
He submerged himself, but I dived in after him, pulling his head up to the surface.
“I’ve had enough!” he sputtered as he spit water. “I’m tired of fighting!”
He wriggled loose and started swimming.
“Help!” I yelled, waving my arms wildly. “Man overboard!”
“We’re coming!” Marios shouted from above.
In another couple of strokes I reached the police captain. I grabbed Soumba’s shirt, and then his arm, and then finally his chest. He kicked me loose, but then I wrapped my legs around him, flailing my arms to keep us above the surface. For several long moments we wrestled, each intent on proving that our own way of seeing the world was the correct one.
Soumba was surprisingly strong. He was desperate enough that he didn’t think twice about kicking me. Neither did he worry that he might manage to drown us both. But I was afraid my own energy level was severely depleted. I had no choice but to make an executive decision. Using every bit of strength I still had, I caught Soumba with a tremendous blow to his right jaw.
In the only stroke of luck I’d had since leaving my cozy apartment in California, I managed to knock him out.
Chapter Thirty Three
I don’t know how long I was stuck in the water with Soumba before Marios could get a rescue boat out to us. I only know that by the time help came, I was so worn out that I’d stopped thinking I’d have a tomorrow. Marios and some of the other shipmen dragged us into the boat. They threw Soumba on the floor and tried to pump water out of him, but I knew that wasn’t the problem. He was breathing just fine. The problem was that he’d taken on the weight of the world. He simply wasn’t strong enough.
They all made a big fuss when they got Soumba and me back to the ferry. The passengers were shaken up because they thought the railing had collapsed without any provocation, and the crew was shaken up because they’d never had an idiot try to kill himself on their boat before. The captain was shaken up because he was sure we were going to sue his company for everything it had.
Island Casualty Page 24