Mykonos After Midnight (6 page)

“Yes, it might fall into the hands of the police,” said Lila.

“Or worse.”

“There’s worse?”

“I see you’re not quite yet a true ‘cop-wife.’”

Lila shrugged. “Okay, so if what Tassos found in the safe threatened everyone involved to the point where each had a motive for murder, unless we’re talking about some Agatha Christie they-all-did-it mystery, I’d say the likely culprit is someone who would benefit from having all that dirt on all those people.”

Andreas smiled. “
Very good
. Tassos and I thought the same thing and we talked about interviewing everyone tied into what was in the safe to see if any of them might be that person. But we decided the most likely thing we’d learn from that exercise would be that our careers were over. After all, we’d be grilling the country’s movers and shakers over things outside the apparent scope of solving a murder that has the actual killers virtually caught on video. We’d be hung out to dry if we tried to take it further.”

“But shouldn’t they be warned?”

“Warned of what? That there are videos out there showing them in compromising positions and that if someday someone gets their hands on them they might use them for blackmail? It would sound as if we were the ones looking for a payoff. After all, it’s not as if anyone but us knows what’s on those videos.

“The bottom line is, until whoever wanted what was in the safe makes a move, we have absolutely no idea who it might be. Assuming there is such a person. And the question isn’t who could use all that information to their advantage, it’s who couldn’t?”

“So, what
do
you plan on doing?”

“Press Europol to find the girl’s two companions and her boyfriend. We might get a different angle on things from one of them.”

“How likely is it they’ll be caught?”

Andreas shrugged. “If I were them, I’d be as far away from Greece and Poland as I could get, and stay there.”

“Sounds like you have some time on your hands.”

Andreas rolled over and turned off the light. “Yep.”

Pause.

“Oh, no, not again…”

Chapter Eight

Sergey looked at his watch. He’d been waiting in the taverna for half an hour. Be cool, he thought to himself. It’s just a test. She was like that. Always testing to see how you reacted under pressure. She couldn’t help herself.

He ordered another coffee and looked just beyond the parking lot in front of the taverna at the section of harbor filled with small pleasure boats and a few larger fishing boats. A pier jutting straight out to sea on his left separated that side of the port from the larger part of the harbor filled with ferry boats waiting to load their cargoes of passengers and vehicles.

She’d told him to come here, to the port of Rafina east of Athens, to catch a high-speed catamaran to Mykonos, saying that she would meet him here thirty minutes ago. He had twenty-five minutes left until his boat left from that pier.

She’s cutting it close, he thought.
Relax.
She’s the one making everything possible. He’d let her play her games. He’d done all that she’d asked. She said to learn Greek and he was. She said to dispose of Christos and he did. She saw Anna as a problem and he resolved it. There was nothing she’d asked that he hadn’t––

“Sergey. Come here.” It came in a whisper from behind him, in Greek.

He turned and saw a dark-haired woman in mask-size sunglasses nodding at him as she sipped a coffee. She wore a black linen pantsuit and a high-neck, long sleeve, white silk blouse. He picked up his coffee, walked over to her table, and sat down. The woman’s hair drew back in a tight bun and she wore no makeup. Or at least she appeared not to be.

Sergey took the sunglasses as a good sign. Her eyes commanded attention. Fiery and black, they were hard to avoid and when she took off her sunglasses things tended to get serious. “How long have you been here?” he said in Greek.

She answered in Russian. “Speak Russian, your Greek needs a lot of work.”

He looked at his watch.

“Don’t worry, you won’t miss your boat.”

“‘Your boat?’ Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I have no interest in visiting Mykonos. That’s why I have you. I’ve made arrangements with friends. There will be people there to assist you with whatever you might need. And since your Greek is not yet good enough to transact the business that must be conducted, I have arranged for you to have a personal assistant who will be available to you twenty-four hours a day.”

My keeper, he thought. “A he or a she?”

“Don’t be cute, Sergey. This is serious business. If we don’t take advantage of this opportunity quickly others will. We must establish ourselves on the island,
now
. No time for childish silliness.”

“I know. I’m the one who brought the opportunity to you.”

“People bring me opportunities all the time. I am well known in Eastern European prisons.”

Legend
would be the more appropriate word, he thought. If you had a big score and needed help to make it happen, the prison grapevine said, “Go to Teacher.”

“What you brought to me was a gamble. I have no need to gamble. But I am making an exception. Because I see promise in you. On Mykonos you are to act as if I do not exist. Everyone is to believe that you are the boss, that you are responsible to no one. There is only one person who will know the truth.”

She reached across the table with her right hand and patted his. With her left hand she removed her sunglasses and stared into Sergey’s eyes. “
You
. Do not forget that. Ever.”

Sergey forced his most relaxed smiled. “Don’t worry, Teacher, I shall forever be your student.”

“Good, then we shall never have a problem.” She put her sunglasses back on and nodded toward the port. “You better hurry, your boat is about to sail.”

***

Teacher didn’t move from the table. She watched the catamaran maneuver away from the pier, make a deliberate 180-degree turn, and sail out of sight.

I shouldn’t be involved in this. The man’s an arrogant sociopath. Thinks he can con anyone. He probably thinks I’m attracted to him.

Then again, she was. But not in the way he thought. She looked down and studied her empty coffee cup. Perhaps growing older had her fixating on things out of a past that never was…at least not for long.

She thought she knew better than to imagine things differently than they were.

“Obviously not,” she said aloud in Greek as she pushed herself up from the table and walked out the door without paying for her coffee. A burly man at an adjoining table wearing a gray tee-shirt, blue jeans, and a large black fanny pack immediately stood and followed her out the door, dropping a twenty euro note on her table as he passed by.

An all-black Range Rover pulled up to the curb in front of the taverna and the burly man pulled opened the rear door. As soon as Teacher stepped inside he closed the door and jumped in front next to the driver. The SUV moved quickly away from the curb.

“Back to the airport. And call ahead to make sure the plane is ready.” She slid her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to where she could stare over them through the deeply tinted windows. She saw tired commercial buildings filled with FOR RENT signs lining cramped, working-class streets. Other signs proclaimed, GREECE IS FOR GREEKS, offering free food to those who could prove their Greek lineage. Such ethnic hatred she’d seen before. It had fueled much of her success, driving the threatened into her arms. A lot was at play in Greece at the moment.

She smiled.
Which is why a sociopath is perfect for what I have in mind.

***

At the north end of Mykonos’ old harbor a concrete pier jutted two-hundred yards out to sea. Close to shore the pier offered stern-first, long-term docking for large private yachts with the appropriate connections, and its far end provided parallel docking facilities for commercial catamarans loading and unloading passengers. Locals referred to the pier as “the old port.” Between the pier and the old town was a parking lot used by Mykonians with special parking privileges and buses shuttling cruise boat passengers to and from ships anchored in the new port one mile away. To the north, on the other side of the pier, was the town’s brand new municipal parking lot, most often used only by those who could not find more convenient illegal parking elsewhere.

Sergey was one of the first off the catamaran. He carried only a small backpack slung over one shoulder. Teacher told him there would be new clothes waiting for him on Mykonos and that he should bring nothing from his past. Even his conviction would be expunged. It would be a new beginning.

He walked along the pier between the boat and a stone wall toward a crowd of people waiting just beyond the end of the pier. He had no idea who would be meeting him. As he entered the crowd, someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind.

“Sergey?”

He turned toward the voice and saw a pockmarked sallow face, narrow angular nose, misaligned teeth, and greasy, gray-brown mid-length hair.
Rat
immediately came to mind. “Yes?”

The man flashed a toothy smile in a way undoubtedly thought by the man to be charming, but which only exaggerated his resemblance to a rodent. He was a head shorter than Sergey, gangly, and dressed in colors intended to draw attention.

Like a pimp, thought Sergey.

“Our mutual friend told me to take care of you. Follow me.” He turned and walked toward a silver Mercedes taxi parked on the pier next to a private yacht. The man had spoken in Russian but not introduced himself, not offered to take Sergey’s bag, nor said “please.”

“
Boy
, take my bag.”

The man froze. He turned his head and glared at Sergey. “I’m not your boy.”

Sergey walked over, wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders, and smiled. “If you prefer being called my ‘bitch,’ that’s okay with me, too. But start showing some respect to your boss.” With that he swung the backpack off his shoulder and whipped it around into the man’s belly. “Your choice.”

The man caught the backpack before it fell to the ground. “I take my orders from Teacher.”

“On this island I’m your boss, and if you don’t like it, I suggest you leave it
now.
On that boat.” Sergey nodded toward the catamaran.

The rodent’s eyelids twitched wildly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” He held the backpack in his left hand and put out his right to shake Sergey’s hand. “The name is Wacki.”

“Wacki?”

“Yes, I know, sounds strange but it’s a nickname I’ve had all my life. I think it suits me.”

“I’m sure,” said Sergey reaching out to shake Wacki’s hand. “Speak Greek. I need the practice.”

“Fine. I understand you speak some English.”

“I speak a lot of English, plus Russian and Polish.”

“Good, the English will come in handy until your Greek improves. But, of course, I will always be there if you need me.”

“Of course.”

“Do you prefer that I call you Sergey or something else?” He gave another toothy smile.

“‘Boss’ will be fine.”

Wacki looked surprised, but quickly walked to the taxi, opened the rear door and motioned to Sergey. “If you please, Boss.”

As Sergey got into the taxi he said, “I assume you prefer I call you Wacki.”

As opposed to bitch, boy.

***

A big attraction of Mykonos for the monied crowd was that with the right connections you could achieve virtually anything. But money alone wouldn’t get you what you wanted. You needed juice. The island’s powers-that-be could shut down anything and anyone if they weren’t pleased. Courts offered little help if you hoped for relief within a decade, and even a judicial victory was likely only the first of many battles. The island powers had voting constituencies to satisfy, many of whom were members of large families whose support they needed to stay in power. If you didn’t know whose toes you were stepping on––or how to dance around them––you were in for a nightmare of promises, compromising payments, and disappointments.

Those looking for a welcoming, good time experience in paradise should stay tourists. For those hoping to make money, the gloves came off the locals.

To most, Wacki would be an unlikely choice for doing knightly battle of the Camelot sort, but he was perfect for the rough and tumble world of Mykonos club-scene politics. He knew its dark side well, having spent half his life catering to the illegal and illicit wants and desires of visitors and islanders alike.

Wacki also knew the times were changing. Mykonos had been through more than a decade of extraordinary good fortune, with everyone profiting off high spending Athenian, American, and European tourists willing to pay whatever it took for a fun time. Those days were over, at least for this generation. But unlike virtually anywhere else in Greece, Mykonos’ international reputation meant that some could still make a lot of money on the island. And Wacki had a pretty good idea where the new cash was coming from.

Russians were buying up the best seafront properties on the mainland. Prime homes near Athens in elegant areas on the way to ancient Sounion, some of the most desirable places along the Peloponnese coastline, and parts of the Halkidiki Aegean shore in northeastern Greece, close by the holy peninsula of Mount Athos sacred to Russian and Greek Orthodox alike, had experienced a land rush of Russian investors.

Unlike British and Germans waiting for a “better price,” Russians didn’t care to wait. And Greeks welcomed them with open arms. Many Greeks had soured on the euro zone, and saw financial salvation in the arms of economic alliances with Russia. History had often shown the error of such thinking, but memories were short, especially for those in financial crisis.

With the introduction of direct flights between Moscow and Athens, it was only a matter of time until Russians fixed their eyes on Mykonos. Arabs were coming too, but Wacki’s money was on Russians for the long term play, if only for their common Eastern Orthodox roots. Two hundred fifty thousand of the wealthiest Russians had already discovered and made Cyprus home.

Wacki didn’t give a damn about the implications for Mykonos, his only interest was in getting a shot at Russians flush with cash. For that he needed a backer. Someone with money to lure more money. But bad times had eliminated the usual Mykonian suspects for such a venture. Wacki had even turned to lighting candles in church, hoping that would change his luck.

The answer to Wacki’s prayers came in the form of a phone call on the day of Christos’ funeral.

He’d heard rumors from Eastern European sex traffickers supplying girls to a dance club he once managed of a woman called “Teacher.” As tough as those motherfuckers were, they spoke in reverential tones of a mysterious bankroller of some of the biggest criminal enterprises in Eastern Europe; ones that didn’t have the good fortune of ex-KGB connections. Some said Teacher was ex-KGB, but that sort of thing was said about virtually everyone who made it big coming out of the former USSR. Besides, Wacki didn’t care. He’d worked with that sort before.

The caller said Teacher needed a contact on Mykonos to help establish a “business presence” there, and he’d been recommended by “mutual acquaintances.” Wacki jumped at the chance almost before it was offered.

In the Silicon Valley world of United States business,Teacher would be called an “angel investor” by the companies she helped. But in Teacher’s world no one would couple that word with her name. Doing business with Teacher involved a lifetime commitment. There was no way out unless she ended it.

The story indelibly linked to the loyalty Teacher demanded involved an Albanian mafia chieftain who built a hugely successful digital pirating network using Teacher’s money and contacts. One day he decided he’d shared enough of his profits and, relying on the protection of his small army of muscle, told her to go fuck herself. Less than a month later he watched as his wife and three children were doused with gasoline and burned to death. One by one. But he wasn’t killed. Instead, his every other toe and finger were snipped off with pruning shears and his penis and tongue burned with a blowtorch.

The man now paid on time. And no one had crossed Teacher since.