Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Yianni, what are you doing?”

Detective Yianni Kouros kept lining up the contents of two cases of liquor bottles across the top of his boss’ desk. “Introducing you to my world.”

Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, head of the Greek Police’s Special Crimes Division, leaned back in his chair and watched as his chief assistant turned his office in Greece’s central police headquarters building, better known as GADA, into a bar. They’d worked together long enough for him to know there had to be a method to Kouros’ madness.

“So, how do you like it?” Kouros stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“The vodka on the rocks, the scotch neat, and the tequila with a bit of lemon.”

Kouros jerked his head straight up in the Greek gesture for
no
. “I don’t think you’d like this crap.”

“What do you mean? They’re all top brands.”

“Yes. And all counterfeit.”

Andreas leaned in to take a closer look at the bottles. “
Bomba
?” He’d used the street name for the worst kind of counterfeit liquor, the adulterated stuff named for the bomb you thought went off in your brain after drinking it.

Kouros nodded. “And the packaging is perfect.”

“That’s not good news.”

“Yep, the counterfeit booze trade has taken off. And it’s not just liquor. Wine, too.”

“What about beer?”

“Not there yet. Not enough profit. But there’s a lot to be made in spirits and wine. They’re about the only expensive consumables selling big-time in Greece. That and cigarettes. The bump up in tourism has booze sales through the roof.”

“And brought in opportunists, clearly.”

Kouros nodded. “It’s one thing dealing with the fashion knockoffs from China sold at every beach and town square in Greece, but this stuff is dangerous. The labeling makes it all look legit, but some of what’s in it can really hurt you.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Petro and I went to a club in Gazi last night for a drink and the bartender served us some of this garbage. I choked on my favorite tequila, and Petro spit his vodka all over the guy.”

“That must have gotten his attention.” Andreas smiled. “A six-foot, six-inch gorilla with a badge spitting booze at him.”

“He didn’t know we were cops until later.”

“How much later?”

“Time sort of stood still, but I’d say about five minutes or so after the bartender and two bouncers came at us with lead pipes.”

“Don’t tell me…?”

Kouros nodded. “Don’t worry, they’ll be out of the hospital by tomorrow.”

“Sounds like you had fun.”

“The real fun came after we’d ‘calmed down’ the bartender and his buddies,” Kouros used finger quotes for emphasis. “A half-dozen cops came storming in, guns drawn. Apparently their commander had an interest in the place.”

Andreas smiled. “The best protection money can buy.”

“That’s what the owner thought when he told us we were about to learn what happened to ‘assholes’ like us who ‘messed with the Greek police.’”

Andreas laughed. “And?”

“The sergeant asked for our identity cards. So we showed him our police IDs. Never saw guns go back into holsters so quickly.”

“What did the owner do?”

“Not the right thing. He offered to ‘pay’ us for our ‘trouble.’ I thought the sergeant was going to have a heart attack. We let him explain to the owner that we were part of the police unit charged with investigating official corruption and he’d just committed a very big no-no.”

“Sounds like a fun time was had by all.”

“We had the sergeant and his cops confiscate every bottle in the place and escort the owner and the bottles back to GADA.”

“Did the owner have anything else to say?”

“Only that he was as surprised as we were about the
bomba
. He said he’d been defrauded by his supplier, but he couldn’t remember the guy’s name.”

“Guess he decided a fine for selling counterfeit booze was a lot less permanent than what would happen to him if he named his suppliers.”

Kouros nodded. “Mobsters in this racket don’t take kindly to snitches. Best way to find who’s making this stuff is get a line on someone selling it and follow him back up the chain to the top.”

“Good luck at that. Besides, we already know where it’s going to end up. With some Balkan mob connection.”

Kouros looked thoughtful. “Maybe, but something about this stuff seems different. I know what
bomba
looks like and this stuff isn’t like any of that. It’s a much higher-level operation than what we’re used to seeing. Someone’s put some real money into making counterfeit look legit. But it’s not perfect. Within identical counterfeit bottles bearing identical counterfeit labels, the stuff inside isn’t always the same. Some of it’s not bad and some, like what Petro got a taste of at the bar, could blind you.”

“So we’ve got counterfeiters with great packaging but poor product-quality control.”

“Whatever the explanation, I sense it could be big.”

“I assume the kid agrees with you about all this?” Andreas spread his arms as if embracing the bottles lined up on his desk.

Kouros nodded. “Some kid. Petro could lift both of us over his head. One in each hand.”

“Not me,” said Andreas patting his belly. “I’ve gained a few kilos.”

Kouros reached for a bottle of scotch and slid it toward Andreas. “Here, try this new miracle weight-loss drug. One swig will have you puking your guts out for a week.”

Andreas spun the whiskey bottle around and looked at the label. “Thanks, but for that sort of experience, I prefer our cafeteria.” He pushed the bottle back at Kouros.

“Which reminds me…” Andreas stood from his desk. “Time for lunch.”

***

GADA sat near the heart of central Athens, across from the stadium of one of the country’s most popular soccer teams and close by Greece’s Supreme Court. The neighborhood offered many places to eat, but convenience made GADA’s cafeteria the most popular venue for those working in the building. Like every office eatery, it had its share of legendary items to avoid. On some days that meant the entire menu.

From the crowd inside, this did not look to be one of those days.

Andreas chose his food as wisely as he could, knowing he’d be cross-examined by Lila when he got home. His wife’s last words that morning were, “Forget the potatoes.” He’d only gained five pounds since their son was born and that was four years ago. Okay, ten pounds.

He went with the salad and a piece of broiled fish. At least it looked like fish.

“Chief, over here,” shouted a sturdy, red-haired woman waving from a table shared with Petro.

Kouros followed Andreas to Maggie Sikestis’ table.

“What’s the matter? You don’t see enough of your boss upstairs?” said Kouros.

“Watch your tongue, young man, or I’ll boot you off my favorites list.”

Petro smiled.

No one wanted that fate. Maggie was GADA’s mother superior, keeper of its secrets, and master of its support staff intrigues. She also was Andreas’ secretary and had been since his return to head up Special Crimes after a brief stint as police chief for the Aegean Cycladic island of Mykonos. On Mykonos he’d first met Kouros, who was then a rookie cop.

“Ease up on him, Maggie,” said Andreas sliding onto a chair next to her. “He’s been hitting the booze this morning.”

“So I noticed. He had Petro lugging cartons of liquor into his office.”

Andreas looked at Kouros. “You mean there’s more of what you dumped on my desk in your office?”

Kouros picked up a french fry with his fingers, waved it in front of Andreas, and popped it into his mouth. “Yep, eight more cases.”

“Stop teasing him with french fries,” Maggie snapped, “or I’ll tell Lila.”

Kouros jerked back in mock fear.

Andreas picked up his fork and took a tentative taste of the fish. “Not bad.” He forked up another bite. “Why’d you put them all in your office?”

“Because if I left them in the property room some asshole down there would likely drink it. Or sell it.”

“Might do the force a service,” smiled Petro across a tray laden with just about one of everything on the menu.

“Glad to hear you share my high regard for many of our brethren,” said Kouros.

“Why shouldn’t I? If the chief hadn’t brought me into the unit, those assholes would still have me standing in front of GADA directing tourists to the nearest toilet.”

“That’s the price you chose to pay when you refused the vice boys’ kind offer of participating in their share-the-wealth outreach program to local businessmen,” said Kouros.

“I never quite heard it put that way before,” said Maggie.

Andreas raised his hands. “Are you guys done, or would you prefer I put this conversation on loudspeaker so that every cop in this room who doesn’t already hate us has a chance to reconsider?”

“Seriously, though…” Petro dropped his deep voice almost to a whisper. “I don’t think this counterfeit booze business could be as big as it is without police protection.”

“You could say that about most things in this country,” said Kouros.

Andreas took a bite of the salad. “Gentlemen…” He finished chewing. “Illegal booze is not a problem unique to Greece, and it’s not one that exists solely because of official corruption. What drives it is a very simple concept—greed. Taxes on spirits have gone up a hundred and fifty percent in three years. We’re at the point where sixty percent of the price of every legitimate bottle of spirits in this country goes to taxes. That means those who can smuggle in untaxed liquor from the Balkans or the Turkish part of Cyprus through Rhodes, or wherever else they find it, will do so. Or they’ll buy it from those who can.”

“But that’s the real thing smuggled in to avoid taxes,” said Kouros. “What I’m talking about are counterfeiters who make their own stuff and pass it off as real, using whatever they can find to make it work.”

Petro nodded. “Some of them don’t care if it’s antifreeze, nail polish, rubbing alcohol, bleach, or whatever else makes the color look right. They target those who can’t afford to pay much and couldn’t care less about a brand, just about getting high.”

“Yes, that’s all true,” said Andreas. “But the big international liquor companies have done a pretty good job of protecting their own brands. Some even compete directly with the
bomba
boys by selling their own low-end booze under labels they don’t advertise publicly.”

Kouros tapped his index finger on the tabletop. “And I’m willing to bet a month’s pay that as we sit around this table talking about it, someone’s out there rebottling those cheap brands as their much more expensive cousins.”

Petro paused a
keftedes
on a fork six inches from his mouth. “The question is who?” The meatball disappeared.

“For which we have no answer,” said Kouros, “and won’t, unless we start looking for one. Counterfeit booze is a mega, worldwide problem. The Russians seized a quarter of a million bottles of phony vodka in just one raid. The British shut down an international organized crime ring operating in the middle of the English countryside, producing one hundred sixty-five thousand bottles of fake vodka labeled as a popular brand but spiked with bleach and methanol. And in Kazakhstan, over a two-year period, more than two million liters of the shit were seized.”

“Vodka’s always drawn a lot of counterfeiters. Mainly Russian.” Andreas took a sip of water from his glass. “I can see you’re wound up over this, Yianni.”

“Me, too,” said Petro.

Andreas held the glass in one hand as he spread his arms. “Fine, you’re both wound up. But we’re up to our eyeballs in serious, ongoing corruption investigations, and let’s face it, counterfeiting is a plague upon virtually everything in our life that’s expensive, from pharmaceuticals to industrial ball bearings. We’re talking about a worldwide counterfeit market amounting to hundreds of billions of euros a year in lost tax revenues and legitimate sales. How can we expect to make a meaningful dent in that global problem with our limited resources?”

“I’m not talking about changing the world,” said Kouros. “But everyone knows there’s a huge tourist market for alcohol in Greece and that sort of money attracts a lot of serious opportunists. Those are the bad guys I want to go after.”

Maggie shook her head. “I never knew that my grandfather cooking up his homemade batches of
tsipouro
was part of such a big thing.”

Kouros pointed a french fry at Maggie. “I know you’re joking, but that’s precisely the sort of attitude that gets counterfeiters off the hook. No one realizes how extensive the problem is. They think of them as guys like your uncle—romantic characters churning out homemade
grappa
,
or whatever, as they merrily evade the tax boys—not as organized crime, willing to blind, maim, and kill to make a profit. And the global financial crisis has made things even worse.”

“Everybody wants things cheaper,” said Petro.

“Even if it means going blind?” said Maggie.

Petro nodded. “A lot of kids go for
bomba
. They think nothing can harm them and all it will cost them is a worse headache than if they drank the real thing. I see it all the time.”

“Some very bad characters must be involved in the
bomba
business if they’re willing to blind children,” said Maggie.

“They rank right up there with the drug trade,” said Kouros. “Big profits mean big risks.”

Maggie looked at Andreas. “There must be something you can do about this.”

Andreas pointed at his chest. “Me? No, I think you’re talking to those two.” He pointed at Kouros and Petro. “They’re the hotshots all pumped up to get out there and kick
bomba
butt.”

Petro looked at Kouros. “Does that mean we have the okay to go after them?”

Andreas answered for Kouros. “Yes, it does. I know when to surrender to superior numbers massed against me. Just be careful, because with all the big money to be made there’s no telling who’s involved. You can’t trust anyone. And keep in mind that bad guys in this line of business are used to leaving bodies in their wake. Understand?”