Assassins of Athens

by Jeffrey Siger

  Andreas shook his head. ‘Gave you nothing, huh? Like a fucking destitute bum rummaging through garbage bins would buy a cell phone to call in a dead body. Yianni, let’s get out of here. We’ve got some catching up to do. Someone definitely is way ahead of us.’ He stared at Manos long enough to get the point across without saying the words, but it’s not you.

  2

  Zanni Kostopoulos looked at his watch. It was still early. His assistant wasn’t due in for another half-hour. Things weren’t going as planned and he worried the media might turn on him. They would for sure if they ever found out. He tried not to think about it.

  Zanni wasn’t an easy man to get to know, and an even tougher one to like. He’d achieved his wealth the old fashioned way: stolen, bribed, and laundered for it. And, if the truth to rumor could be measured by its persistence, he’d killed for it more than once. Today, though, the Kostopoulos name was ‘a pillar of Athenian society.’ At least that’s what his third wife paid several publicists to get virtually every society reporter in Greece to repeat ad nauseam. If you linked ‘respected international businessman’ and ‘philanthropist’ to a name long enough, people started believing it. Or so went the theory.

  Mrs Kostopoulos’ plan certainly had worked on her husband; Zanni was intoxicated with himself, never missing a word uttered about him in the media, and bothered to no end when the press did not grasp that his vast fortune made him right in all things and deserving of public esteem equivalent to his wealth. Each morning, the assistant he’d hired solely for the purpose of keeping track of his fame gave him a folio containing clippings and tapes of every recorded mention of his name in the past twenty-four hours. His mood for the next twenty-four depended upon the size of the package she handed him.

  Where is she? Zanni stepped away from his desk and paced around the room. He’d experienced the media turning on him before and didn’t like it one bit. That last run-in was what got him into this current mess. At least that was his take on it. He still bristled at the memory of his public battle with the owner of Athens’ most popular soccer team. As Zanni saw it, the owner was no different than he – both had returned from family exile in the former Soviet bloc to amass vast, newly-minted Greek fortunes – and yet, Zanni was forever in the other man’s shadow. Zanni’s decision to attempt wresting control of the team away from his rival wasn’t made for business reasons; he did it because he believed the team was the source of the other’s prominence.

  Two such famous boys fighting over a nationally popular toy had every headline writer and talk show host in frenzy for weeks. It was a bitter fight with a rival at least as tough as he was and resulted in an even more bitter loss. Zanni felt he’d been singled out by the media for ridicule, and looked for someone other than himself to blame for his humiliation. He settled on an easy target: old-line Athens society. Many old-liners barely hid their disdain for what they considered upstart, political opportunist, nouveaux riches. Accusing them of relishing his fall was undoubtedly accurate. What he couldn’t accept, though, was the obvious fact that old-line society would prefer both men to perish in the press.

  His anger simmered for months. Then he decided he’d show them all – all of Athens – his power, by making his name a feared, if not respected, household word in another way: newspaper ownership. And not just any paper, but Greece’s oldest and most respected, The Athenian. As virtually everyone in Athens knew, The Athenian had been in the Linardos family for generations and, though other papers boasted larger circulations, none came close to rivaling its influence among the nation’s elite.

  ‘Fuck them,’ was Zanni’s reaction to a terse message declining his offer to buy the paper at a generous multiple of its economic value and pointedly suggesting that he try going after another soccer team instead; perhaps a second division one in northern Greece up by the border with ‘one of those former Soviet countries.’

  He did not miss the insult directed at his roots, nor the reminder implicit in the message that there were bounds not to exceed, just as there were clubs not to press for membership; at least not until subsequent generations sufficiently seasoned his family’s roots with the right schools and proper marriages to make them palatable. That message had arrived barely more than a month ago. It marked day one of his siege against the Linardos family.

  Zanni bought and pursued every Linardos family debt he could acquire, ones creditors dared not press against such a powerful voice; found and financed every libel claim that could be brought or manufactured; dried up much of the paper’s advertising base by subsidizing those who agreed to advertise elsewhere; and paid more to those who refused to sell the paper than they could make selling it.

  Despite all Zanni’s maneuvering, the family didn’t budge. The carrot hadn’t worked and the stick wasn’t hurting enough. He’d decided it was time to strike harder, beat them to death if necessary. He would not be humiliated again. Long hidden secrets of the family began circulating throughout Athens. Affairs of the fathers, addictions of the wives, and proclivities of the children kept finding their way into rival publications. And, now, a particularly indiscreet moment involving a favored granddaughter and two young men, recorded on a cell phone in the men’s room of a notorious Gazi nightclub, was a major hit on the Web and the certain ruin of her name.

  On each of the four consecutive Fridays following his initial proposal, Zanni sent a renewed offer to the family, each reducing the last proposed price by 25 percent. The family never responded. Two days ago he sent the fifth.

  Zanni stopped pacing and stared out the window. He should have heard something by now. He’d ratcheted the pressure up about as high as you could push it. If going after the kid didn’t work … what the fuck were these people made of?

  ‘Any ideas?’

  Kouros kept his eyes on the road. ‘Looks like someone’s sending a message.’

  Andreas nodded. ‘You don’t go to all the trouble of hiding a body in a place where it’s certain to be found, then call the police to make sure that it is, without a very clear purpose in mind.’

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘Not sure yet, but whatever it is, they want the message delivered by us.’

  Kouros turned onto Alexandras Street. They were almost back to General Police Headquarters, better known as GADA. It wasn’t far from where they found the kid’s body, but it sat at the heart of Athens’ bustle, next door to a major hospital, down the block from Greece’s Supreme Court, and across the street from the stadium of one of Greece’s most popular soccer teams, Panathinaikos. GADA was a chore to get to at almost any hour.

  Andreas drummed the fingers of his right hand on the top of the dashboard. ‘I don’t see it as a spontaneous crime of passion or tied to some drug deal gone bad. It certainly wasn’t a mugging. This was planned.’

  ‘But why kill a kid … can’t imagine even our worst, hard-ass, scum-ball mafia types doing that.’

  ‘I know. That’s what has me wondering.’ And worried, Andreas mumbled to himself. ‘This can’t be the beginning of whatever’s going on.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the end?’

  ‘Let’s hope.’ Andreas stopped drumming. ‘But I don’t think so.’

  Noblesse oblige was a French phrase, but for Sarantis Linardos it needed no translation. Not because he was fluent in French as well as German, English, and, of course, his native Greek, but because it described his view of the Linardos family’s obligations to Greece so perfectly; most particularly his own responsibilities as family patriarch and publisher of its most sacrosanct asset. Many old-line families in Greece shared the Linardos family’s social position, but none its power of the press. A loss of The Athenian meant the end to his family’s influence over the thinking of its peers and its reign at the pinnacle of Athens society. He could never allow that to happen.

  Then again, he wasn’t feeling particularly regal at the moment and this battle with that awful Kostopoulos person was taking its toll on his family. He was not concerned wi
th Kostopoulos’ economic attacks; the fool had no idea of the reach of his family’s resources. One could not have his finger on the pulse of generations of Greece’s most powerful without learning their secrets. It was Sarantis’ discretion in using what he learned that earned him their confidence and gave him his true influence. There was not a person of position in Greece who did not owe the Linardos family at least a bit of gratitude, measurable in euros. He knew there was far more than enough available to withstand any financial siege.

  Still, many of Sarantis’ long-time friends had warned him Kostopoulos was not the sort of man who could be trusted to act civilly, and he should take the threat more seriously. Some had offered to intervene to try convincing Kostopoulos to stop. Sarantis refused. He would not speak, much less negotiate, with such rabble, nor allow any of his friends to stoop to doing so on his behalf. He was convinced if he simply ignored Kostopoulos’ weekly offers and the half-truths and lies he planted in the tabloids, items of little interest to the public for even their brief time on the newsstands, Kostopoulos would simply give up and go away.

  He never saw it coming.

  The video of his granddaughter with those two men was a brutal, merciless assassination. It left no doubt as to how far Kostopoulos was prepared to go. The humiliation would haunt her on the Web forever. Her boyfriend no longer spoke to her, no socially prominent girlfriend dared be seen with her, and the tabloid-media harpies now called a racially mixed ménage à trois ‘doing the Elena.’ Whispers and snickers accompanied her everywhere. His favorite grandchild had no choice but to flee Greece in shame. For how long he did not know. Elena might never recover.

  And Elena’s mother, his daughter, moved into Sarantis’ home with her other children until ‘you end it with this horrible man, father;’ utterly panicked over what else might happen to the children.

  Sarantis had lived long enough to understand that people did what they must to survive; but never, not even in war fighting to rid his beloved Greece of Germans and later communists, had he faced an enemy so single-mindedly obsessed with destroying his family as Zanni Kostopoulos.

  That’s when he knew it was time to turn to his friends. Let them attempt to reason with this butcher. He wanted no further harm to befall his family; certainly no more to the children. He only hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Andreas’ office was on the fourth floor of the building and faced east, away from the heart of Athens. It had two long windows but not much of a view. That was fine with Andreas; he had more than enough to look at on his desk and on the chart of active cases fastened to the wall behind it. He was in his chair, staring at the chart, and wondering where to squeeze in the dumpster case when his secretary came through the door at the far end of his office.

  ‘Here are the photos the lab downloaded from your camera.’

  ‘Thanks, Maggie.’ She preferred that to the Greek Margarita.

  Andreas placed the half-dozen eight-by-tens on his desk. The crime scene unit had a lot more photographs to study, but he wanted to check for anything that might be helpful in the few he took. He picked up one of the boy’s face. Nice-looking kid, he thought. Damn shame.

  Maggie was standing on the other side of the desk, staring down at the photos. She’d worked as a police secretary for longer than Andreas had been alive and ages ago forgot her official lowly status in the bureaucratic food chain. ‘May I take a look at the one you’re holding, Chief?’ She reached out and took it without waiting for him to answer.

  Andreas couldn’t help but smile. He really liked her, and not just because she knew his father from his days as a cop. A lot of people knew his dad, though most wouldn’t admit to serving with him during his last years on the force as part of the Junta’s secret police. They preferred acting as if they played no part in those seven years of dictatorship. But Maggie was unique. Sure, she had her quirks and told you exactly what was on her mind if you dared to ask, often even if you didn’t, but she knew all there was to know about the department and everyone in it. The department was her 24/7 life. She never seemed to leave the building. Pure luck, though some may have described it differently, landed her in his unit. Her long-time boss had announced his retirement a few weeks before Andreas arrived and, when human resources suggested she retire with him, her answer could be heard as far away as Turkey. So, the legendary Maggie Sikestis now reported to Chief Kaldis. Or was it the other way around? Andreas never was quite sure.

  ‘Good-looking boy, Chief.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  Maggie waved the photograph in her right hand and pursed her lips. ‘I’ve seen this boy before.’

  She never ceased to amaze him, but this was too much to believe. ‘Maggie, how could you know this kid?’ Then he paused. ‘He’s not a relative or a friend’s child, is he?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I just swear I saw him in one of those tabloids.’

  It seemed all of Greece was addicted to National Enquirer-like publications. All except Andreas. He was too busy battling with facts to spend time amidst gossip and rumors.

  ‘I think it was in Espresso, maybe Loipon. Possibly even Hello.’ Obviously, Maggie saw her job description differently. ‘Wait!’ She almost shouted the word, then turned and hurried her sturdy, compact five-foot-three-inch frame out the door.

  Andreas picked up the phone and pressed an intercom button. ‘Yianni, get in here. Maggie thinks she knows our kid from the dumpster.’

  Both arrived at the door together. It looked like a mother and son team. Except Maggie had a bit more hair and dyed it close to red. ‘Here it is, Chief.’

  He took the paper. The headline read, FAMILIES WHACK AWAY AT WAR, WHO’S NEXT? Andreas hated that sort of headline; it reminded him of what cost him his father.

  ‘It’s inside.’ Maggie pulled the paper out of his hands, turned to the appropriate page and gave it back to him. ‘The boy’s picture is here.’

  Andreas and Kouros looked to where she pointed. There he was, among photographs of members of the two families. One picture of a pretty girl had an ‘x’ through it. The caption below the photo said ‘Whacked’ and gave the link to a website.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked Maggie.

  Kouros answered. ‘She’s the granddaughter of the publisher of The Athenian. She was caught on a cell phone camera doing two guys at the same time in a public toilet at a club in Gazi. That’s a link to the video.’

  He wanted to ask how Yianni knew so much about it but decided not to ask. He probably was the only one in the room, perhaps all of Athens, who hadn’t seen it. Andreas sat quietly for a moment staring at the paper, then let out a deep breath. ‘All hell’s going to break loose when this gets out. Surprised it hasn’t already. Better get media affairs ready.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Yianni, get a home address on the kid’s family. We have to get over there before someone in the coroner’s office recognizes the kid and tips off the press.’ He didn’t bother to mention the number of cops who’d like to pick up the money for such a tip.

  Kouros left. Andreas turned in his chair and stared at the chart. He wished he could break the news to the family by phone; that way you didn’t have to see their grief, feel it, let it get to you. But this wasn’t the sort of thing you could do like that. At least he couldn’t. He remembered the day he learned his father had killed himself … Andreas tore away from the thought. He waved at the chart. ‘Maggie, find a new place for some of this stuff. We have to make room.’ A lot of room.

  If you lived in Athens’ northern suburb of Old Psychiko, people were impressed. At least that’s what many of its residents hoped. Just north of Athens and west of Kifissias Avenue, it was a refuge of peace, greenery, and high walls for foreign embassies, exclusive private schools, and the upper echelon of Athenian society. A few nearby neighborhoods and one or two to the south might claim to be as tony, but none would dare argue to be greater.

  Psychiko’s confusing array of one
-way streets, winding every which way about its tree-lined slopes and hills, was designed that way for a reason: to keep out the casual passersby. But it hadn’t worked as well on the new money crowd. They flocked to the neighborhood, sending prices through the roof for houses they often tore down to build grander homes than their neighbors’. Among long-time residents, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone happy with the changes to their neighborhood. Until it came time to sell, of course.

  Kouros knew how to get to Psychiko; his trouble was finding a way to get to the house. They passed the same kiosk twice trying to find the correct connecting road to the one-way street they were looking for.

  ‘Screw it,’ said Andreas. ‘Turn up here,’ pointing at a DO NOT ENTER sign marking the end of the street they wanted.

  About a quarter-mile up the road, an eight-foot-high, white concrete-stucco wall ran for about one hundred feet along the right side of the street. A ten-foot-high, black wrought iron gate stood midway along the wall. The gate’s leaf-and-tendril design was so tightly spaced not even a cat could squeeze through.

  They parked outside the gate, and Kouros walked to the intercom on the wall by the left side of the gate. He identified himself and held his police ID up to the camera. They were buzzed in and made their way along a stone path winding around closely planted eucalyptus, lemon, bougainvillea, and oleander shielding the house from the gate. Andreas thought a lot of care must go into this place. A man waited for them outside the front door. He asked to see their identification again. When he asked the purpose for their visit, Andreas told him, ‘It’s a personal, family matter.’

  The man took out his cell phone and called someone. Andreas’ eyes scanned the front of the three-story building. Hard to imagine it was only a house. ‘I could live here,’ he said to Kouros.