“I don’t understand?”
“What do you do for money? You sure as hell can’t afford it on what you make doing this sort of work.”
“I make good money. Like I said, that’s why I came here. All I had to do was find an ‘honest job,’ and no matter what my employer pays, as long as I ‘behave’ I get enough extra cash each week to bring my earnings to nine hundred euros a month.” He nodded back at the Romanians. “They have the same deal.”
Andreas hoped his jaw hadn’t dropped. A new cop only made eight hundred a month and, after ten years on the force, twelve hundred.
“Who’s paying all that money?” said Andreas.
The man shook his head. “Don’t know. All I know is I’m in charge of paying the brothers on my crew and every Friday a package arrives at my place with envelopes for each of them. I just turn over the envelopes.”
“I bet you do,” said Tassos.
“Better believe it. A few who tried stealing from their brothers are no longer on the island. That sort of thing isn’t tolerated.”
That’s the second time he used the word “brothers,” thought Andreas.
“What happened to them?” said Tassos.
The man shrugged. “I never asked. But everyone got the message.”
“From whom?” said Andreas.
“Like I said, I don’t know.”
“Does mister ‘I don’t know’ have a name?” said Tassos.
“I never heard one.”
“What have you heard?” said Andreas.
The man looked back down at his feet. “Some tsigani were talking on a job I had when I first came here, before I hooked up with these guys, and they didn’t know I understood their language.”
“Are you now going to conveniently tell me they’re the ones who were murdered?” said Andreas.
The man looked up. His eyes were twitching. He gestured no. “But they were from the same clan, and they were talking about someone who’d come to their camp the night before to meet with their clan leader.”
“And?” said Andreas.
His voice was weak. “They talked about the visitor as ‘the money man behind everything.’”
He glanced back at the two Romanians, leaned in toward Andreas, and whispered, “They called him the ‘Shepherd.’”
***
“I have to call Lila and tell her I won’t be making it back to Mykonos tonight.” Andreas smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his right hand. “When I tell her I have to spend the night in a bar she’s going to kill me.”
“Wait to call until we’re back in town. We’re almost there,” said Tassos.
“Are you worried about me driving while talking on my mobile?”
“No, I’m worried about the potential nuclear fallout streaming through your phone.”
Andreas glanced at the sea. “I wish I had a handle on what’s going on. Those three guys at the dovecote weren’t churchgoers, but nor were their arrest records for violent crime.”
“Yeah, they’re more the sort I wouldn’t trust around my ya-ya’s silver than killers.”
“Your grandmother’s still alive? She must be a hundred-fifty.”
Tassos placed his open palm in Andreas’ face, a slightly less endearing gesture than the middle finger. “I’m sure they’d steal anything they were told to take.”
“Then why are they so well-behaved?”
“The easiest answer is that they’re waiting to be told what to do,” said Tassos.
“But why make everything so goddamned complicated? Someone who calls himself a ‘priest’ recruits the Pakistani out of the closest place we have in Athens to hell, and once the guy’s here he keeps his ‘brothers’ in line by delivering them envelopes of cash without skimming a single euro.”
“That last part probably qualifies as a true miracle,” said Tassos.
“And who the hell is this ‘shepherd’?” said Andreas.
“All very good questions, which is precisely why tonight will be a late one.”
Andreas pulled up in front of the police station.
Tassos opened his door. “I’ll find us a place to stay in town. Say ‘Hi’ to Lila. And tell her that for sure I’ll be there on Sunday.”
This time it was Andreas who flashed an open palm.
Chapter Eleven
Every town has places where its dirty work gets done. The more elegant communities may try to keep them out of sight, the less so may not care, but they all have them. It’s where one goes to find the materials and labor necessary to keep a town running and to dispose of what is no longer desired.
It’s also where you’re most likely to find the grittiest metanastes bars. Tinos was no exception. The bar the Pakistani described was off a road winding up from the port, tucked behind a trucking company warehouse yard filled with broken pallets and an electrical supply depot filled with giant, empty, wooden cable spools.
Tassos and Andreas were sitting in a car parked across from the bar and alongside a chain link fence enclosing the depot. The bar looked as if in another life it might have been a two-bay gas station.
“We’re going to fit right in there,” said Andreas.
“Yeah, sort of makes me wonder why we bothered to switch to an unmarked car. It would take a blind man not to spot us,” said Tassos.
“Not even sure he’d miss us.”
“Maybe they’ll think we’re just two lonely guys out looking for companionship?” Tassos smiled.
“Only a madman with terrific long term health insurance goes into a strange metanastes bar to hit on their women.”
“Kill joy. But this place might be different. It looks pretty mixed, ethnically.”
“I still doubt that two Greek cops asking for identity cards will fit their welcome profile.”
“Look on the bright side. At least Lila still loves you.”
“Not so sure about that either. When I told her I wouldn’t be making it back to Mykonos tonight all she said was, ‘Fine, see you Sunday.’”
“That was it?”
“No, there was the distinct ‘click’ of the call being terminated.”
“Ouch.”
“The good news is that it prepared me for the sort of welcome we’ll likely get in there.”
Three men walked past their car, staring in at them as they did, and went inside the bar.
“Well, for sure now everyone in the bar knows we’re out here.” Andreas looked at his watch. “It’s almost midnight, might as well go in.”
Tassos was the first to reach the front door. Two men in a hurry brushed past him coming out of the bar. It was the Romanians from that afternoon.
Andreas put his hand on the chest of the taller of the two. Both men stopped. “What’s the hurry?”
The man looked frightened. “No understand.”
“Where’s your friend, the interpreter?”
“No understand.”
Andreas dropped his hand from the man’s chest and waved him on. “A waste of time talking to them.”
“Even if we could understand them,” said Tassos.
Inside, the place was pretty much as it had seemed from the outside. The front door opened into a tiny room with a badly stained marble-top bar to the right. In front of the bar were three empty metal bar stools, and behind it a cash register, a top sliding beer cooler, a loudly humming refrigerator, and a decade old television angled for whoever worked behind the bar, not the customers. A fat, clean-shaven, middle-age man in jeans and a crisply ironed work shirt sat alone at the only table. There was no one else in the front room.
Past the bar was a larger room filled with beat-up taverna chairs tossed together around a dozen cheap, round-top plastic tables. More light seemed to be coming into that room from the moon through the windowed garage doors on the left than from two dim ceiling fixtures along the wall to the right.
The word that came to mind was dive. But there were people at every table. And all of them were staring at the two new arrivals.
Andreas stopped next to the fat man’s table. “What’s the matter, you anti-social?”
He looked up. “I prefer not to mix with my customers.” He spoke perfect Greek.
“You own this place?”
“Yes.”
“Nice place,” said Andreas.
“It’s a shit hole,” said the man. “But it makes more than it ever did as a garage.”
A wiry, middle-age woman, with more salt than pepper hair and dressed in black except for dirty blue bedroom slippers, shuffled out of the big room carrying a tray filled with empty beer bottles. She squeezed by Tassos and went behind the bar.
“Are you two going to order anything?” said the guy at the table.
“Two beers,” said Tassos. “Mind if we sit with you?”
The man raised two fingers to the woman and pointed at Tassos and Andreas.
“Like I said, ‘I prefer not to mix with my customers.’”
Andreas pulled up a chair and sat down. “We’re not customers, we’re cops.”
“No wonder those two guys ran out of here so fast.”
“Where were they sitting?”
He pointed at a table with two women.
“Are they regulars?”
“The women are, the guys just started coming in a couple of weeks ago.”
“What’s your name?” said Tassos.
“Petros.”
“You’re Greek?” said Tassos.
“Born and raised on the island. Just like my great, great, great, great-grandparents and all my family since then.”
The woman put two beers on the table and walked away. No glasses were offered.
“You get quite a mixed bag of customers in here,” said Tassos.
“Everyone but the Greeks.”
“Business looks good,” said Andreas.
Petros shrugged. “Not complaining.”
“Those two who left. Do they hang out with anybody in particular?” said Andreas.
“Some Pakistani.” Petros looked around. “I don’t see him.” He looked at his watch. “He’s usually here by now.”
Guess he figured we’d show up tonight and decided to pass, thought Andreas. “Did those murdered tsigani brothers ever come here?”
Petros gestured no. “So, that’s why you’re here. Lucky me you’re not interested in any of my live customers.”
“Tsigani come here?” said Tassos.
“Not many.”
“Where do they go?” said Tassos.
The man shrugged. “No idea. But you might ask those two.” He nodded toward the same two women. “They were in here the night after the two dead ones were identified, chattering away about how they’d ‘partied together with the brothers.’ In case you haven’t guessed, they’re working girls.”
“Thanks.” Andreas stood up and picked his beer off the table. He looked at Tassos. “I’ll be right back.”
“Knock yourself out, Romeo,” smiled Tassos.
The women were at a table in the center of the room. One was decidedly taller than the other, but both were blond, blue-eyed and chubby. Probably Polish, and definitely not smiling at Andreas.
“Hi ladies, mind if I sit down?” Andreas sat without waiting for an answer. “So, come here often?” He flashed a smile.
The women said nothing.
“Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Andreas Kaldis, GADA’s Chief of Special Crimes. But you probably already know that. I’ve been telling that to a lot of people these days. In fact, I told something like that to a friend of your two friends who just ran out of here.”
The tall woman said something to the other in Polish.
“Uhh, uhh,” said Andreas. “Ladies, you’re in Greece and courtesy requires that you speak Greek. If you don’t I’m going to have to take you to a place where someone will speak to you in Polish. But it may take a day or two to find a police officer that does. Don’t worry, the state will provide you with a place to stay until then.” He smiled.
The tall woman said something else in Polish.
Andreas smiled. “That you can say. I know ‘fuck you’ in Polish. So, do we have an understanding?”
The women looked at each other. “Yes.”
“Good. Now tell me what happened just before your two friends hurried out of here.”
The short woman said, “Three men came in and went around telling everyone two cops were sitting in a car out by the fence. That’s when the two guys said something to each other and left.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t speak Polish and I don’t understand Romanian,” said the short woman.
“Then how did you understand the three men who said there were cops outside?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did they speak in Polish?”
“No, Greek.”
Andreas smiled and turned to the tall one. “So, you’re the one who speaks Romanian.”
She stared at the tabletop.
“Remember what I said before about arranging housing for you until I find a colleague who speaks Polish. Would you like me to do that for you now?”
She looked up. “How did you know I spoke Romanian?”
“Because your two friends who left don’t speak Greek. Someone had to translate for them. Now, what did they say?” Andreas did not smile.
The woman swallowed. “That the two cops outside had to be the same ones who were trying to question them that afternoon about the murdered tsigani brothers. They said the Pakistani they worked with ‘must have told the cops about the bar.’”
“What else did they say?”
“Something about not wanting to be here if you and your partner were looking for some farmer the Pakistani told them about. Then they got up and left. Didn’t even pay for our beers.”
As if on cue the woman in the slippers was at the table and pointing at the ladies’ nearly empty bottles. Andreas nodded, “Yeah, another round. ‘Farmer?’ What the hell were they talking about?”
“I don’t know,” said the tall woman.
“Me either,” said the other.
Andreas took a sip of his beer. “So, tell me about the Carausii brothers.”
“What do you want to know?” said the short one.
“Oh, for starters how about who killed them and why?”
“No idea.”
“I’m shocked,” said Andreas. “So, let’s take a different approach. When and where did you first meet them?”
“About a month ago through tsigani friends at another bar.” The short one gave Andreas the name of the bar and said it was close to the brothers’ tsigani camp. “They were nice boys. Close to our age, too.”
“Yeah, not like the other ones,” said the tall one.
Andreas took that to mean their johns. “So, the four of you partied together?” He used the street word for their business.
“Yeah, a couple of times,” said the tall one. “Like I said, they weren’t like the others.”
“Did they pay?”
The tall girl looked down. “Yes.”
“But not as much as the others,” said the short one.
“What did you talk about?”
The women took turns talking about things completely irrelevant to Andreas but obviously very relevant to them. Things like how none of the four felt accepted by the larger world, how lucky they were to still be alive doing what they had to do to survive, and their doubts at any future beyond today.
“And just when things seemed to be getting better for them, look what happened. We’re all cursed,” said the tall one.
“What do you mean ‘better’?” said Andreas.
The short one answered. “They said something about getting their big break. That some ‘major guys’ in their old Athens neighborhood would owe them ‘big time.’”
“For what?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“Someone on this island was of great interest to peopl
e back in Menidi.”
“Ever hear a name or a description?”
“Only once, but nothing I understood. They made some sort of toast to a foreign sounding name. I thought it was Romanian. A lot of tsigani speak Romanian.”
The tall one said, “I don’t remember them saying a name in Romanian.”
“Never?” said Andreas.
She shrugged. “Not that I remember. And they stopped seeing us right after telling us about their ‘big break.’”
“Why did they stop seeing you?” said Andreas?
“They found new girls,” said the short one. “Greek girls. Tall, skinny, model types but with big tits. The kind men fantasize about.”
“We can’t compete with that type,” said the tall one.
“No offense intended, but I’m surprised those girls would be interested in tsigani,” said Andreas.
“We thought the same thing, especially since the girls looked the expensive type, way out of the brothers’ price range,” said the tall one.
“Were they pros?”
“Is there a difference between doing it for cash or for an expensive dinner and clothes?” said the short one.
Andreas smiled. “Where’d they meet?”
“No idea. But one night we showed up at that tsigani bar to meet them and a friend told us they’d just left with two girls. We saw them there the next night with the girls, but they didn’t talk to us. And then they were dead.”
“Do you have names for the girls?”
Tall one gestured no. “As if they would be real if we did.”
Andreas nodded. He asked them all sorts of other questions through two more rounds of beers but no answers yielded more information than they’d already told him.
“Thanks, ladies, and if you think of anything else, please let me know.” He handed the tall one his card. “Like any more about that ‘farmer’ your Romanian friends were talking about.” He smiled because he’d used the Polish word for farmer.
“What do you mean?” said the tall woman.
“You told me that the Romanians said I was asking about some ‘farmer.’” This time Andreas used the Greek word for farmer. The same one the tall woman had used.
She shook her head, “No, if that’s what that Greek word means in Polish I didn’t mean that. What I meant was a word for something different.” She looked at the short girl and said a word in Polish.
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