Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery (5 page)

“Petro, this is Lila.”

Lila stepped toward Petro and put out her hand. “I know how you feel. I can’t believe this view is real either, and I see it every day.”

Petro blushed. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Vardi.”

“Please, call me Lila.” She stood about a head shorter than her six-foot, two-inch husband and wore her dark hair simply, at shoulder length.

“Sorry about the cookies.”

She smiled, “Cookies? I’d have thought Yianni would have gone for a chocolate cake. I suspect there was a broader conspiracy at play than I imagined.” She glanced at Andreas.

He shrugged. “I know nothing about any chocolate chip cookies.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Then how did you know the cookies were choco—”

At that instant a brown and white puppy came racing into the room followed by a charging four-year-old.

“Perfectly timed entrance, my son,” said Andreas scooping the boy up from his pursuit of the puppy. “You know how to rescue your daddy.”

The boy twisted about in his father’s arms trying to free himself. “Easy, Tassaki, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.” The boy stopped fidgeting as Andreas carried him over to Petro.

“Tassaki, this is Officer Petro.”

Tassaki held out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, Officer Petro.”

Petro shook Tassaki’s hand. “And a pleasure to meet you.”

Andreas pointed at Kouros.

“Nice to see you again, Detective Yianni.”

Kouros smiled and waved. “You, too, Tassaki.”

Andreas kissed Tassaki’s cheek. “Well done, son,” and put him back down on the floor to resume the chase.

“What a well-mannered kid,” said Petro.

Andreas nodded toward Lila. “It’s all his mother’s doing.”

Lila smiled. “But he gets his puppy-chasing nature from his father. Would you like something to drink? Wine, beer, whiskey.”

“Wine please,” said Petro.

“Red or white?”

“Red.”

“And you, Yianni?”

“Whatever.”

Andreas walked over and patted him on the back. “Just as long as it isn’t
bomba
.”

“
Bomba
?” said Lila.

“Counterfeit alcohol,” said Kouros.

“I can’t believe it. I was just talking about that very thing today with Alexandra.”

“
Bomba
?” said Andreas.

“Counterfeiters. Her husband is a wine producer and he was complaining to her about wine counterfeiters jeopardizing his business. I assumed she was trying to get me to raise it with you.”

Andreas nodded. “One of the perks of being the wife of a cop. Friends asking you to get your husband to fix their tickets.”

Lila gestured at her husband. “Especially when he’s a notorious super cop.”

“Did she say how big a problem it was for his business?” asked Kouros.

“No, but according to his wife, Greek wines are gaining exponentially in popularity outside of Greece and someone is counterfeiting top Greek wine labels for EU markets. The stuff in the bottles is bad, but the counterfeit packaging’s so good, he’s worried new customers who have a bad experience with the phony stuff will give up on Greek wines entirely. He thinks it’s a serious threat to the country’s fragile foothold in world markets.”

Andreas looked at Kouros. “Sound familiar?”

“It’s starting to sound like this counterfeit operation is a lot bigger than we suspected. Or we have a mega-coincidence.”

“I’m not big on coincidences,” said Andreas.

“Who is Alexandra?” said Petro.

“She’s a friend and the sister of a Greek government minister,” said Lila.

“Do you think she called you before or after she called her brother?” said Andreas.

“After, would be my guess.”

“Then I’m surprised she didn’t ask her brother to call Spiros to get me involved.” Spiros was Greece’s minister of public order and Andreas’ boss.

“Probably because her brother told her you were more likely to listen to Lila than to Spiros,” chuckled Kouros.

Lila smiled.

Andreas waved his hand in the air. “No matter. I’ll call Alexandra’s husband tomorrow and see what he has to say. If it’s as big as it sounds, we’ll likely have to take it to the next level.”

“Europol?” said Kouros.

“At least. If it’s a multi-country operation we’ll have to involve the foreign ministry. Hard to fight this sort of thing effectively without international cooperation.”

“And if China’s involved, forget about it,” said Lila.

“We’ll have to find a common motivation strong enough to overcome all the cross-border corruption and bribery that goes along with this sort of thing,” said Kouros.

“That’s a bridge we’ll cross once we know who’s on the other side.”

“Nice,” Kouros told Andreas. “At least you’re off the fish analogies.”

“Sorry I raised the subject, gentlemen,” said Lila. “I should have stuck to a less controversial one, like what’s for dinner?” She pointed toward a doorway leading into the dining room.

“Dare I ask?” said Andreas.

Lila took his arm and led him toward the dining room. “Fish, salad, and vegetables.”

Andreas’ face showed no joy.

“And chocolate chip cookies.”

His face lit up.

“But only one for you.”

Chapter Five

Kharon always loved his days in the olive covered hills and valleys surrounding Delphi caring for the trees and holiday cottages of wealthy Athenians. His court-ordered education had given him great skills in agriculture and the building trades, and he practiced them with devotion that drew praise from his clients and provided him with all that he needed to maintain his simple life.

But he was a child of hard times and knew they could return, as they had for so many in his country. Even the gods only helped those who helped themselves, and so he took the other work. He tucked that money safely away, but not in bank accounts in his name. A sizable bank account in a small village for someone doing his kind of manual labor spawned rumors. The type of rumors that attracted police attention. His first encounter with local police scrutiny led Kharon to ensure he would never again be the target of such suspicions.

Burglaries were the accepted price one paid for the privilege of owning a vacation home in Greece, and break-ins brought knee-jerk police attention to those who cared for the victims’ homes. Attention that inevitably led to interrogations, background checks, and bank account analyses.

One of Kharon’s clients, a well-known Athens jeweler, arrived one morning to find his home in the village of Chrisso plundered of a fortune. The police immediately accused Kharon. The owner said that was not possible as Kharon had been with him in Athens doing work on the jeweler’s primary residence. Having lost that suspect, the police claimed they knew the local ring of thieves who’d likely done it, but could not prove it. The jeweler would simply have to accept his loss.

Two days later, all the stolen jewelry miraculously reappeared in a suitcase at the jeweler’s front door. The police had no explanation. Nor could they explain what they later called the “coincidental disappearance” of the alleged leader of the ring, as well as a local police sergeant, neither heard from again. From that day on, none of Kharon’s clients ever saw so much as an olive stolen from a tree.

Bzzzzz, bzzzzzz, bzzzzz
. Kharon felt the vibration of the phone in his pocket. He put down the rake and reached for the phone. He recognized the number. It was the secure landline Kharon insisted Jacobi use to reach him.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Jacobi.

“You’re up early.”

“Not been to bed yet.”

Kharon smiled. “What’s up?”

“I think I have a project for you.”

“You mean a job?”

“No, a project. Something with long term possibilities.”

“You know I like what I do. I’m not looking for full-time employment.”

“My friend, I don’t know what sort of arrangements you can work out with the people involved here, but I don’t think this is the sort of thing you should just walk away from before knowing what it is. This could set you for life.”

Kharon thought to say “I already am,” but Jacobi wouldn’t understand. And his friend was right.
Don’t turn down a job you haven’t been offered
was good advice. “So, tell me about it.”

“All I know is that someone from up north stopped in my place last night to tell me that a big-time international operation is in need of a specialist to assure that all aspects of its business follow company rules.”

To Kharon, “up north” meant the Balkans, and some very nasty work if their local bad guys couldn’t handle it themselves. “And you recommended me?”

“Never had the chance. He already knew about you. Said you were the perfect guy. Freaked me out when he said that he knew you did your business through me. He said to tell you if you’re interested to stop by my place tonight and he’d make it worth your while. All I know is that the job interview includes an all-expenses-paid round-trip to Rome.”

Kharon had a lot of work to do here, but he could get people to cover for him. His clients wouldn’t be back until the weekend. “Okay, I’ll be there tonight.”

“Great. And don’t forget your toothbrush and a change of underwear.”

“Why?”

“He said if you agree to the interview it’ll be tomorrow morning.”

“In Rome?”

“Yep, the guy has a private jet. This is a whole different sort of folk than you’re used to, my friend.”

Kharon stared at the cloudless sky above Delphi.
As I undoubtedly shall be to them.

***

Andreas thought about telling Kouros to make the call to the government minister’s brother-in-law in the wine business. After all, the counterfeit booze investigation was Kouros’ case, but Greek sensibilities being what they were, it would likely subject Kouros to an unnecessary barrage of questions over why he, not his boss, had called. It might even lead to unpleasant words between Lila and her friend Alexandra as to why, after she’d impressed upon Lila the urgency of the matter, Andreas had been too busy to personally call her husband. So, he placed the call himself.

The phone rang twice. “Hello,” answered a brusque voice.

“Theo? Hi, it’s Andreas.”

“Andreas?”

“Kaldis. Lila Vardi’s husband.”

“Of course, Andreas. Sorry about that, I wasn’t thinking.”

The voice had warmed up immediately.
A true salesman
thought Andreas. “No problem, I’m used to it. That’s what comes with having such a well-known wife.”

Theo laughed. “You’re pretty well known yourself. How can I help you?”

“Last night Lila mentioned to me that your wife said you’re having trouble with counterfeiters.”

There was a decided sigh on the other end of the phone. “Trouble is an understatement. They’re threatening to destroy my business. It costs the bastards about a euro per bottle to copy my packaging perfectly—that’s for the cork, bottle, label, capsule, and cardboard—and then they sell the wine as if they’re my distributors for fifty percent cheaper than the real thing. They even sell it door to door as ‘overstock.’”

Andreas tapped the eraser end of a pencil on his desk. “Have you tried stopping them through the courts?”

Theo laughed. “In Greece? Fat chance. I’ve asked my real distributors to warn their customers of the problem, and they all say they will, but I doubt they do. Or at least not in any effective way.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“They’re afraid their customers might go looking for the cheaper stuff.”

“Even if they knew it’s counterfeit?”

“I hate to say this, but there are a lot of booze sellers out there who think, ‘I’m selling to tourists, I’ll never see them again, so who’s to know or care?’ A hell of a lot of them are already selling cheap Bulgarian and Italian wines packaged under Greek names in five- and ten-liter boxes as their ‘Greek’ house wines.”

“Ouch.”

“For sure. But my real concern is in markets beyond Greece, places where my labels are just getting known.”

Andreas heard a clinking over the line. “What’s that?”

“Some bottles I want to show you.”

Damn
, thought Andreas. Now he’ll be coming over here for show and tell.

“How about if you come over to my place and I show you the operation? We have a terrific wine-tasting room.”

So much for thinking he’d be pushy enough to insist on coming over here.
“Thanks, Theo, but I can’t possibly get away.”

“It’s really important.” The tone straddled pleading and commanding.

“Sorry, I just can’t.”

Pause.

“How about if we do a Skype call? I’d really like to show you what I’m up against.”

Now the sigh was on Andreas’ end of the phone. “Sure, give me a minute to have my secretary set it up.”

Andreas put Theo on hold and buzzed Maggie.

“Yes.”

“I need to set up a Skype call with the person I’m talking to. Do you know how to do that?”

“I take that to mean you don’t.”

“Maggie…”

“Don’t worry, it will all be up and running soon. Just sit there and wait. I’ll take care of everything.”

Andreas put down the phone and waited.
Someday I’ll have to learn how to do these techno things for myself.

Maggie swept into his office came behind his desk and began to fiddle with his computer. A minute later he was staring into the screen at a pudgy faced, middle-aged man in an open neck blue dress shirt, sporting a thick gold chain and a broad smile.

“Andreas, you’re much better looking on this screen than on television.”

Andreas smiled. “Flattery will get you everywhere. So what did you want to show me?”

Theo held up two bottles of wine. “One is mine, one is counterfeit.” He turned them slowly in synch with each other. “I defy you to tell me which is real and which is phony.”

“Hold them up closer to the camera.” Andreas leaned forward and studied the screen. “They look identical to me.”

“That’s the problem. The phony is a perfect knockoff of my labels, bottles, everything but the wine. This is what’s poisoning my reputation before I can build it. The same bogus packaging was introduced in three different EU countries. Counterfeiters are claiming they represent me there, and are selling their crap as my wine in legitimate distribution networks.”

“How do they get it through customs?”

Theo put down the bottles. “They don’t. They produce it in the countries where they’re selling it. Or smuggle it in through loose borders.”

“How do you know that?”

“I started getting complaints from buyers in countries where I don’t do business. One leading restaurateur called me screaming about how ashamed I should be for the garbage I sell as Greek wine.”

Andreas shook his head. “Ouch again.”

“I hired lawyers and investigators and they traced it back to organized crime.”

Andreas focused on Theo’s eyes. “Organized crime?”

“Yes. That’s who’s distributing it in every country. And not just my wines. Other Greek and non-Greek winemakers’ labels and counterfeit liquor, too.”

“Who’s making it for them?”

“Apparently every illegal producer they can find. They supply the producers with packaging, transportation, distribution, and pay better prices for the counterfeit than the bootleggers could make selling the stuff themselves.”

Andreas shook his head. “Sounds like they’ve cornered the market.”

“Or close to it. They’re buying up every last drop they can find.”

“Let me guess. Of low quality wine to substitute for the real thing?”

“If you can use the word ‘quality’ in connection with any of that shit, I’d say mostly yes.”

Theo rubbed at his forehead with the fingers of both hands and spoke with his eyes looking down from the camera. “At the high end, they do what’s called ‘stretching’ the wine by blending inferior wines in with the good stuff. They’ve gotten so good at it that some of the big name French and American producers are embedding computer chips beneath their labels so buyers can verify before purchasing whether the bottle’s legitimate. Others try holograms, or fancier gimmicks, but the counterfeiters keep improvising right along with them.”

He dropped his hands and stared into the camera. “At the bottom end, they add in poisons that can kill but taste sweet.”

“What kind of poisons?”

“All sorts of stuff.” He held a can and a bottle up to the camera. “Here’s lead acetate and wood alcohol. That goes in the mix. But they also use diethylene glycol, which goes into things like brake fluid and wallpaper strippers.”

“Sound like real nice guys.”

“Yeah, right,” said Theo, putting the can and bottle down. “And it’s a big operation. Best I can tell, it’s one group looking to monopolize the counterfeit alcohol beverage trade. And not just in Greece, but across the EU.”

“That sounds like a pretty tough thing to do.”

“Not if you’re organized. Like Coca-Cola.”

“You’re not suggesting…”

Theo laughed and waved his hand across the front of his face. “No, of course not, but if you have the capital and proper management it could be done.”

Andreas shook his head. “Hard to imagine ‘managing’ organized crime types. The ones I know don’t go in for board meetings.”

Theo pointed at the screen. “All I can tell you, Andreas, is that in three different countries my wines are being counterfeited and distributed by seemingly independent organized crime operations using identical packaging and marketing practices.”

“What about the police?”

Theo smirked. “They claim it’s a civil matter, one for my lawyers to pursue. Or the EU collectively. In other words, the bad guys have more juice with the police than I do. It’s enough to make you want to take the law into your own hands.”

Andreas raised his hand. “I understand how you feel, but I don’t recommend it. Those types play a lot harder than you ever will.”

Theo nodded. “So I’ve been warned.”

“By whom?”

“By everyone.”

“Did your lawyers and investigators find out who’s behind it?”

“At the very top?” Theo gestured no. “No idea. We could only trace it back as far as the top guy in each country.”

“Do you have names?”

“I’ll get them for you.”

“Good.”

“I hope you can do something. It’s tough enough running any business in Greece these days, but with taxes being what they are, and counterfeiters not paying taxes, there’s no way I can compete with them.”

“I hear you. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do what I can.”

Theo smiled. “That’s all I can ask for. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, thank your wife.”

Theo laughed. “I always do. And if I forget, she reminds me. It’s the secret to a happy marriage.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Plus gold jewelry on birthdays, name days, and anniversaries.”

Andreas laughed. “Bye.” He watched as Theo disappeared from the screen.
Not a bad guy, just worried. Can’t blame him.

Andreas turned his head and stared out the window of his fourth-floor office. There wasn’t much of a view. Just other buildings.

“Maggie,” he shouted. They’d found yelling to be far more effective than the intercom.

The door swung open and Maggie’s head popped through the doorway. “Yes, Chief?”

“Is my old friend still in charge of organized crime at GADA these days?”