Royal Ghouls

by Alex A King

  Harry Vasilikos shrugged. “What my friends want, my friends want.”

  “This is my place. I do things my way.”

  “Vre, turn on the television for them,” he said. “What can it hurt?”

  My eye twitched. I found the remote. The television came to life. I flicked through the channels until the women clapped their hands and squealed. Greece’s Top Hoplite. Figures.

  “I just love Effie,” one of the women said, hand on chest. It was a tiny hand on a lot of chest. Some of it was probably even real. She went to sit on the couch and fell through. The others laughed. They tried sitting. Same end result.

  “Practice,” I said. “You can do it.”

  This was ridiculous. Ghosts were basically holding my apartment and life hostage. But Harry Vasilikos had poked me right in the curiosity. I was burning to know what happened to Andreas, and had been since he left me on that blustery autumn evening.

  My body had other plans. I yawned. My eyes filled with tears. Sleep wasn’t optional, it was necessary.

  “Where are you going?” the bread man wanted to know.

  “Bed. If you have any complaints, tell someone who cares. That’s not me, by the way. I’m your detective, not your therapist.”

  “So you will help me?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  Sometime during the night I woke up to the sound of footsteps on the floor above me. Leo Samaras was home. The ceiling creaked as he flopped down on his bed. All modern-era Greek homes are built earthquake-proof, with concrete and rebar skeletons, but sounds still travels, especially when you’re a lot of man like Leo Samaras.

  I lay there wondering how his night had gone, if he had any suspects in the Vasilikos murders, and whether or not any of those suspects were on the list I’d left for him. Did he know they were murders, or he had mistaken them for victims of a tragic accident?

  Was he thinking about me?

  I definitely wasn’t thinking about him.

  Eyes closed, I focused on other things. Sheep jumping over fences. That one embarrassing thing I did that time. Witty comebacks that would have been so much more helpful years ago. I replayed old arguments in my head, emerging as the more eloquent victor. In the middle of the night, and in my imagination, my verbal prowess was unparalleled.

  More creaking. Footsteps. This time leading away from the bedroom.

  Probably he went to get a glass of water.

  I rolled over. Dead Cat snored. I solved Greece’s economy problems and negotiated world peace. My thoughts jumped sideways to the ghost who used to sunbathe naked in our street back in the USA and how I’d winced every time someone drove through her. One time I asked her to move and she called me a party pooper. My mind leaped forward this time, to my date with Leo and its morbid ending.

  Some jerk knocked on my door. And kept knocking.

  Rude.

  Cool air groped me as I sat up, so I took the warm covers with me, wrapping them around my shoulders. Dead Cat yowled.

  “You’re dead.” I shoved my feet into fuzzy slippers. “You don’t even need blankets.”

  The knocking continued. Someone really had their sovraka bunched up, right in the crack.

  That someone was Detective Leo Samaras. He was in sweats and a ball cap, and somehow he managed to look like he was on his way to a photoshoot. That couldn’t be natural. Bags under his eyes were my saving grace. They were carrying purple-grey luggage, and that luggage was carrying luggage. Hideous. He was practically a monster.

  “Do you know what time it is?” I didn’t and I was hoping he could tell me.

  He held out a familiar piece of paper. “What is this?”

  I eyed the sheet of paper I’d left for him. “It’s called paper. We used to use it in the days before we started doing everything on computers and phones.”

  His full lips quirked. “I mean the names on the paper.”

  “Oh. Suspects in the Vasilikos murders.”

  His forehead scrunched up. “Vasilikos murders?”

  Harnessing the power of shadow puppets, I made one of my hands crash into the other hand repeatedly on the living room wall. “Boat go BOOM.”

  “The yacht?”

  “You’re sexy and smart.”

  A delicious grin spread across his face. “You think I’m sexy?”

  “I think I’m tired.” I went to close the door. “I need sleep.”

  He stopped the door with his hand. “What murder suspects? It was an accident. The yacht collided with the island and the whole thing went up in flames. And anyway, how did you come up with a list of” he looked at the paper “suspects?”

  I yawned. Pulled the covers tighter around me. “Research. I did some serious investigating, called in some favors, and found out who might have wanted Harry Vasilikos dead.”

  “Wait—that’s Harry Vasilikos’s yacht? Harry Vasilikos the millionaire?”

  “Well, it was. Now it’s not anybody’s anything.”

  He shook his head like he was clearing cobwebs. “I’m lost. How do you know it was his yacht?”

  “The Royal Pain? Thirty seconds of Googling. You didn’t Google it?”

  “No.” His shoulders slumped. The man was exhausted. I wanted to reel him inside, fix him a hot meal. Too bad our one date had turned into hell and now I didn’t want to be stuck in a non-public place with him. “We’ve been busy hauling bodies out of the water. Gus has got the bodies now. It’s not a homicide so there’s no need for me to pull an all-nighter.”

  “So you’re saying nobody on the boat was dead before the accident?”

  “Why would they be?”

  “Just a hunch, but maybe someone—someone on that list—killed them before the crash. And maybe that same someone sabotaged the yacht to cover up their crime.”

  He tipped back his head and laughed. “This isn’t a laughing matter, but you’re funny. Where did you get these ideas?”

  “I pull them out of my kolos for fun. You should hear my theories about the first moon landing.”

  He leaned against the doorframe and fixed those baggy, bruised eyes on me. “What’s your theory about the first moon landing?”

  “That Americans were really there and Neil Armstrong was really the first man to walk on the moon.”

  Harry Vasilikos was hovering nearby, listening. From the scowl on his face I’d say he was either annoyed or—

  “Who is this malakas?” he asked, pompous and puffed up.

  Annoyed. Definitely annoyed.

  I couldn't respond. Leo didn’t know the dead were as real to me as the living—and why would he? It was my dirty little secret. Always had been.

  Without making eye contact with Kyrios Harry, I went on. “At least consider the possibility that they were murdered beforehand. And if I’m right, look at the names on this list, okay?”

  Leo blew out a long, frustrated sigh. “Okay.”

  “Go get some sleep,” I told him.

  “You want to come with me?” He went to grin but it fell right off when he saw my expression shift from sleepy to horrified. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, even though it was nothing like okay. “You should go.”

  He pushed a hand though his dark hair and nodded. “We should talk. Not tonight, but soon.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. Slowly, I closed the door. Blankets tight around my shoulders, back flat against the door, I sighed.

  “Disaster,” Kyrios Harry said.

  “I’m going back to bed. If you follow me, my next phone call will be to an exorcist.”

  Morning body-slammed me.

  No. Wait. That was Dead Cat, who had a lot of weight for something that wasn’t technically there. His favorite game was where he jumped onto my dresser and took a flying leap onto me … while I was sleeping. My terrified shrieks brought him joy.

  Slowly, I eased the purring lump off me and swung my legs out of bed. I yawned, stretched, made myself all kind of promises about how I would eat heal
thy today, how I would always take off my makeup before bed from now on, and that I would do my Christmas shopping in January, starting from next year. Then I nixed the idea because I had a niece and nephew who collected and discarded five new interests every morning before breakfast.

  My intentions were good. That’s what mattered.

  I stood, yawned some more, brushed the hair out of my eyes.

  Then I screamed.

  Chapter Five

  “Two rooms are off limits,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “The bathroom and my bedroom. You don’t sleep and you don’t have bodily functions or hygiene needs, therefore you have no business in either room. Nod if you all understand.”

  Harry Vasilikos and his crew of plastic princesses nodded. We were in my bedroom, where I’d caught them all practicing walking through walls.

  “Now you need to go hang out in the living room or kitchen, because I need to shower and get dressed.

  “Why bother?” one of the women I’d mistaken for Harry’s daughter said. “It’s not like you have any good clothes anyway.”

  “I have good clothes—great clothes. They’re perfect for my job, which is blending in with my surroundings. Also, get out of my bedroom now.”

  She shrugged, one “whatever” away from being an American teenager.

  Half an hour later, I straggled back into the living room, where the ghosts were huddled around the television again. Apparently this channel was a slow-drip diet of trash TV, so they were entertained, for now. They almost had the hang of sitting on real furniture; only their butts were in the couch now.

  I grabbed my bag, my phone, and my keys, and bolted before Kyrios Harry decided he wanted to have another conversation.

  It was time to plot out my day. So far, the only thing on my list was leaving my apartment, and I’d already accomplished that. Which meant the day was looking good. I jogged across the street for some self-flagellation at Merope’s Best.

  Merope’s Best makes Merope’s worst—coffee, that is. Their beans are singed, and sometimes the coffee comes with suspicious hairs. They sell fancy coffees rather than the traditional Greek fare. That means half the island flocks here so they can say they’re sipping a latte with a shot of who-knows-what—possibly goat saliva or chickpeas.

  I scooted past a table of dead teenagers (they’d lost a game of chicken on the mainland; speeding Smart Forfour never beats the flank of a manure truck) and ordered something Italian-sounding with a bunch of caramel and plenty of caffeine.

  “You must hate yourself,” the barista said. His teeth were chattering. His eyeballs were red. His T-shirt read “Coffee or Die” in several languages.

  “Only after I drink your coffee.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  I grabbed my coffee and took it outside, just in case my stomach rejected the drink. Soon the caffeine would kick in and I’d be able to think. For something dreadful it wasn’t so bad, like a trip to the gynecologist. And three sips in—whoosh!—just like that, the clouds parted. My eye twitched, and my heart began to complain about how I should really see a cardiologist if I was going to abuse it this way every morning and sometimes in the afternoon.

  I sat on the curb, poking a small stone with my boot. I couldn’t say I was enjoying the coffee but the clarity it gave me was helpful.

  What first?

  Getting rid of the ghosts was my top priority. To get rid of the ghosts I had to solve their murders. Despite his muttered promises that he’d look into it, I knew Leo wouldn’t treat this like a homicide unless the evidence pointed in that direction. And that evidence was lying in Merope’s morgue, burned to a crisp. Which meant I would have to go poking around on my own, hunting for the equivalent of fingerprints on a murder weapon.

  Solve the crime and get rid of the ghosts.

  And then find out what Harry Vasilikos knew about Andreas.

  My recycled paper cup was almost empty and I hadn’t thrown up yet. Definitely a good omen. So what did I have, besides a cast iron stomach?

  A list of suspects, none of whom lived here.

  I dumped what was left of my coffee in the garbage can outside Merope’s Best and jogged back upstairs to my apartment. All was quiet across the hall. No kicky German pop. Since Lydia moved in it was like Eurovision around here.

  Inside, the ghost women were still watching television, even the dour woman I’d mistaken for Kyria Vasilikos.

  “Where is your wife?” I asked Harry Vasilikos, who was standing at the window, watching the sea. “She wasn’t on the yacht, was she?”

  “Nowhere, that’s where she is. Have you solved my case yet?”

  Angela had mentioned the bread baron never married. That small detail had slipped my memory. It came back to me now.

  “I have questions.”

  “Questions are good. They show you are curious and invested.” He turned around. “Ask your questions.”

  I flipped my laptop’s lid and opened a new file. “Where were you sailing from before the yacht crashed?”

  “The Sporades.”

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh boy. Different angle: “Why were you in the Sporades?”

  “Business meetings with potential distributers.”

  “Bringing Royal Pain bread to the islands?”

  “Yes. I do not like untapped markets. It means I am lazy, and I am not a lazy man.”

  “What was the outcome of the meeting?”

  “Not positive. But give me time.” His eyes closed. He let out a string of colorful, anatomically impossible curses involving Jesus Christ’s mouni, a monkey, and a horn. For his generation he was sure being progressive; good for him for considering the possibility that Jesus was a woman. “Time is one thing I do not have.”

  “For what I understand, you have an infinite amount of time but no body to spend it in.”

  He stared at me. Hard. “That was very helpful.”

  “Helpful Allie, that’s me. So the Sporades islands said ‘Oxi’ to Royal Pain bread?”

  Oxi is the Greek word for “no.” It’s also famously the one word the Greek prime minister said to Mussolini when II Duce demanded access to Greece or face war. Greece said, “No,” and chose war. I wasn’t convinced; Greek’s aren’t normally restrained enough to limit their refusals to a single word when that much is at stake. Toula always gave me a dirty look when I mentioned that the prime minister, being completely Greek, must have thrown at least one “malaka” in there.

  “For now,” Kyrios Harry said.

  That sounded vaguely ominous. Maybe Harry Vasilikos was a man who easily cultivated enemies in business. Any of one them might enjoy watching him sink to the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Any of them might have wanted to give him a helping hand or foot, say on the top of his head.

  I jotted down his answers, adding my own thoughts. “Your trip to Merope, was that business, too?”

  “Of course. Why else would I come here?”

  Inside my head, I raised a sarcastic and judgmental eyebrow. “The beaches, the women, the food. The same reason anyone comes here.”

  “The beaches and food I can get on any Greek island. The women … Women are everywhere.”

  “Oink.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I sneezed. Who was your business meeting supposed to be with here?”

  “Yiorgos and Dimitri Triantafillos. Do you know them?”

  “They own the Super Super Market and the More Super Market. Did they express an interest in stocking Royal Pain bread?”

  “No. I came here to convince them.”

  “Convince them how?”

  “Wine, women, and money.”

  My gaze slid to the women-children gathered in my living room. “Those women?”

  “Not these women. They are just girls.”

  There are dinosaur bones younger than Yiorgos and Dimitri Triantafillos. No way would they respond to Kyrios Harry’s compa
nions—or any other woman—without pharmaceutical intervention and a cardiac unit on standby.

  “Have you ever actually met the Triantafillou brothers before?”

  “Why?”

  “Unless the woman was shaped like a pile of money, I doubt they’d be interested. Just a few more questions. You were all killed before you crashed into Merope, yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “Was it before you left the Sporades or while you were en route to Merope?”

  “Somewhere between the Sporades and this place. We were on the open water.”

  I wrote down his answer. “Was there anyone else on the boat?”

  “No.”

  “Who was piloting the boat?”

  He shrugged. “I always pilot my own yacht. Since I was a small boy, I have owned a boat. Not a yacht at first because there was a time when my family had nothing, but I always had a boat, even if it was made of leaking planks.”

  “How were you killed?”

  “Poison.”

  “Poison? That’s potentially inefficient, although I suppose the alleged killer succeeded. What was poisoned?”

  “The water, the food, I don’t know. We were all eating, drinking, and then we were vomiting and dying.”

  If I could get to the yacht, maybe there’d be enough of it left for me to go hunting for clues, and by clues I meant leftover food and drink.

  Click. Save.

  I was out of here.

  The scene of the accident was devoid of life signs this morning. Either everyone was in their beds or they’d stripped every bit of information from the yacht’s bones and were busy elsewhere in analysis mode.

  I stood on the cliff and looked down at the wreckage, pondering my next probably-illegal move.

  “You could always fall,” the ghost woman with the 90’s hairstyle said. “I did.”

  “Yes, and look how that turned out.”

  “Where is your compassion?” she said, leaping to her doom again.

  I waited until she popped back in to position. “You’re the one who keeps falling.”