Trueish Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (28 page)

Google gave me two options for the drive north. The three-hour or two-hour option. No prizes for guessing which one I’d take.

Marika jiggled over to hug me. “That was a good effort, but next time you do the talking. That is what Baboulas would do.”

Takis followed her over. “Next time. Ha!”

His wife delivered a crushing glare. He was unfazed.

“You ready to saddle up?” I asked her. “We’re going on another road trip.”

Her eyes lit up like a monochromatic Christmas tree. “Do I have time to get my bag?”

“Make it quick.”

“What about my lunch?” Takis cried.

“You have two hands,” Marika told him.

“But that’s your job!”

Her hands planted themselves on her substantial hips. “My job, eh? When do I get paid? Never, that is when.”

“I give you all my money. Okay, not all of it, but most of it.”

She stared at him the way one stares at a strange new bug, if they’re not the squeamish type.

“Maybe you should sit this one out,” I said, not wanting to come between husband and wife, especially when one of them was out for blood, and the other one was a henchman.

“No. I am coming with you. Takis can watch the children and cook for once.” She shook a finger at him. “This is what you get for refusing to take me anywhere—ever!”

“We went to Disney World!”

“With our children! When we did we have time, eh?”

“We had time,” he muttered.

“When?”

“There was that time in the bathroom.”

“In the bathroom!” She turned to me. “Do you know what he means?”

It was pure self-preservation the way my hands flew up to cover my ears. “No, and I don’t want to.”

My “No” must have been silent, because her mouth kept moving and words kept bubbling out.

“He couldn’t find the wastebasket to put his dirty toilet paper inside! In America! He wanted me to get for him the wastebasket under the bathroom sink. So he called me into the bathroom for that because he was too lazy to cross the room himself. I was in there for five minutes while he ranted and raved because he did not want to flush the paper.” She turned back to her husband. “You are a peasant!”

Greek plumbing was notorious for gagging on toilet paper. So most places kept a small wastebasket next to the toilet. If you were lucky it had a lid.

“You are a
strigla
!” Takis said.

Hag. Witch. Banshee. Succubus. The word encompassed a multitude of female sins. It was a fighting word.

Marika sucked in her breath, pulled back her shoulders, puffed herself up for battle. The match was on. Which meant I was going solo. No way did I want to stand here and watch Takis curl up into the fetal position and cry.

I slipped away, leaving them to their domestic battle.

“Wait—“ Takis called out. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me alone with this
strigla
!”

Marika cuffed him.

“Ow!”

“Thessaloniki,” I shouted.

“How will you get there?”

“Car.”

He laughed. “What for do you want to go in the car? We have a plane.”

I’d been in the family plane twice. My memory banks only retained part of the first trip because Takis drugged me. Then Grandma drugged me, so I’d missed the second one entirely. Both times I had Takis and Stavros for company. The puny worm was a pilot.

“I’d rather take my chances with the car.”

“Take the plane,” Marika said. Her eyes were bright. Already I could see where this was going. “I have never been on a private plane.”

“And you won’t be going this time, either,” Takis said. “This is Family business.”

“She can come,” I said, trying not to laugh at his scowl. “Marika’s my sidekick.”

She gave him a “
See?
” look.

He ignored her. “If you drive you will have company.”

He was right, damn him. Where I went, the assassins followed. They couldn’t follow if I hopped on a plane to an unknown—to them—location.

T
akis had called ahead so
the plane was gassed up and waiting on the tarmac when we arrived. Unfortunately, we had company, and a lot of it. I felt like the prettiest girl at the party.

Lefty was the first to object to me bailing on a jet. “What if someone assassinates her while she’s away?”

“They won’t,” Takis said. “Nobody in this family has been killed on my watch.” He made a face. “Nobody who was standing with me. I am quick, like a cobra.”

“I don’t trust him.” Lefty glanced at the others. “Does anyone trust him?”

The rest of the crew shook their heads, jerked their chins up, spat on the ground. Basically, it was a negative all around. I got it, I really did. Takis was a weasel. But Grandma trusted him, and the man could fly a plane.

“I trust nobody who is not me,” Vlad said.

Mo gave him the hairy eyeball. “I would not trust myself if I was you.”

“Russia shits on Persia,” Vlad said.

“Everybody shits on Persia,” Lefty said.

I shook my head, to clear out the nonsense, mostly. “Why are any of you here? Your bosses are getting picked off one at a time. Chances are if you manage to kill me you won’t get paid.”

“Death is its own reward,” Vlad said, fingering his knife.

I rolled my eyes. “Somebody get him a black cloak and guyliner.”

Snickering all around, from everyone except Vlad, who glowered. Then: “What is guyliner?”

That was Donk.

“Nobody is getting on the plane,” I said, “except Takis, Stavros, Marika, and me. That’s it. I have somewhere I need to be and I can’t have all of you tagging along.”

Cleopatra, I noticed, wasn’t with them. But I knew where she was: manning the phones at Tony Goats’ clinic.

“But we never get to go anywhere,” Donk said.

“You’ve been following me around for days!”

“Yes, and you are boring. This is the first fun thing you’ve done.”

“I took you to Meteora,” I said.

He snorted. “That was before I was an assassin.”

Marika flicked his ear, made him yelp.

“You’re not an assassin,” I told him. “You’re a kid who should be at summer camp.”

“Maybe you are not so bad,” Mo told me. “Still unclean and a Yankee pig, but not completely stupid …”

High praise, indeed. It was a wonder I didn’t faint.

“ … But I agree with the small boy,” he went on. “You are not leaving the ground without us.”

“I never said that,” Donk said. He looked faintly alarmed.

Mo ran to the plane, whipped out a pair of handcuffs and fastened himself to the landing gear.

“
Gamo ton keratas
!” Takis swore. He hurled his keys at the ground, stomped his feet. Only the gravity of the situation squelched my laugh. Any other time I’d be roaring at the ridiculousness of it all.

“What did I say?” Marika said.

“I don’t know,” Takis yelled, waving his hands. “You say too many things. How can I pick one?”

“Your language! We have children!”

“Yes, but are they here? I don’t see any children. Because they are at home, where you are supposed to be.”

She swung her bag at him, caught him behind the knees. He stumbled forward.

“
Keratas
?” I asked. That was one I hadn’t heard before.

Stavros to the rescue. “It is when another man sleeps with your wife.”

Oh. A cuckold. I thanked him and stuffed the word in my head, hoping I wouldn’t forget it. You never know when a word like that could be useful.

Time was ticking onwards. I was getting tired of these butt-heads and their petty power struggles. I wanted to go, and I wanted to go now.

“Can you fly this thing with him on the wheel?” I asked Takis.

“Only if I drive it around first and break him into little pieces.” Takis didn’t look too unhappy about that idea. “I will do that.”

“Murderer!” Mo screeched, hugging the wheel.

“Hey!” I pointed at him. “You’re an assassin. You don’t get to decide what’s murder. But you’ve got a point. We have to find another way,” I told Takis.

“No problem,” he said. “I brought my axe. I will chop off his hand.”

“Then my people will think I am a thief!” Mo protested.

I crouched down beside him. “So unlock the cuffs.”

“Never!”

“Okay.” I looked up at the others. “Time to bring in the big guns.”

S
tavros was back
. Under one arm he was carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper. He’d volunteered for the “Free Mo” mission, and went into Volos for supplies.

I eyeballed the package. “What is that?”

He tore the paper, showed me the contents. “Secret weapon.”

No, not really a weapon, except in the war against obesity. More like a breakfast food.

“I meant bolt cutters! Or a lock pick!”

“You told me to get something to get him out of the cuffs. This will work and it will save the handcuffs.”

For the most part I was a live-and-let-live person. Whoever you worshipped, that was cool with me, as long as you didn’t rub my nose in it or blow up my people. Go crazy, find yourself a fictional ancient deity from outer space, find a flying spaghetti monster, wear a colander on your head. But if you cuffed yourself to the landing gear of a private plane, causing a major delay in my life-or-death plans, I’d be okay with using what I had against you.

Normally.

Unfortunately, using bacon against someone whose religion prohibited the delicious meat violated my moral code. Also, it was a waste of bacon.

“If you don’t want to do this I could get cats,” Stavros said in a hopeful tone. “I know a woman who breeds cats.”

“Cats?”

“A big cage full of cats. I will throw his rug inside.”

“I don’t think we’ll need the cats,” I said. Getting between someone and their God didn’t seem like a good idea.

“What is that?” Mo asked, craning his neck.

“Bacon,” I told him. “Not my idea. I really don’t want to use it.”

He scooted backwards. “Unclean pigs! Keep the sin food away from me!”

“Uncuff yourself and the bacon goes away.”

“Kat,” Stavros whispered in my ear, “it is turkey bacon.”

I pulled him to one side, away from Mo. “What?”

“It’s healthier!”

“Not a word,” I said. He pressed his lips together in an imitation of silence.

“You want me to do it?”

“No, I’ll take the heat.” Getting someone else to do the dirty work didn’t sit right with me, even if theirs was the hand that bought the bacon. I tore a bigger hole in the paper, pulled out a wannabe rasher and laid it across Mo’s forehead like it was an ice pack.

“Ahhhhhh! It burns!”

“It’s raw bacon,” I said.

“Allah is trying to burn it out of me!”

“It’s not in you. It’s on your face.”

“Arrrrggggghhhh,” he howled. “Get it off me!”

“Get it off yourself. All you have to do is unlock the cuffs.”

“I cannot do that!”

“Sure you can. Get the key, unlocked the cuffs, and get away from my grandmother’s plane. Then the bacon will stop.”

“Never!”

“More bacon for you!” I laid another strip across the assassin’s forehead.

“I do not have the key!” he howled.

I crouched beside him. “Where’s the key?”

“I do not know, I swear it. I found them. And by found them I mean I stole them from that policeman.”

“From Detective Melas?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? Greeks all look the same to me.”

My teeth began to grind like sweaty strangers in a club. Melas was the last person on earth I wanted to talk to right now. But I stomped to the far end of the plane, where there was a patch of shade, and made the call.

He picked up on the second ring. “Melas,” he said. “Come.”

I thunked my head on the side of the jet. “You missing a pair of handcuffs?”

“You mean besides the ones you stole?”

He’d cuffed me to the fireman’s pole in his house after I broke in. I managed to pop the cuffs, with Aunt Rita’s help, and kept them as a souvenir.

“You basically threw them away. It’s your own fault.”

He blew out a sigh of exasperation. Things must be tense at work if I was punching his buttons this quickly. “Yeah, I’m missing a pair.” His tone turned suggestive fast. “Wasn’t one pair enough for you? If you wanted more you could have asked.”

“Wasn’t me. It was Mo.” I gave him a quick rundown, including the part about the turkey bacon.”

“Jesus,” he said. I pictured him banging his head on the nearest hard surface. “I wouldn’t blame the guy if he killed you now. I’d probably testify on his behalf.”

I cut him off mid-character assassination. “I could use the keys.”

His laugh was more like a bark. He asked where we were, so I told him.

“I’ll be right there. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

I
t was five minutes later
. We were all maintaining our positions.

“Get it out of my face,” Mo pleaded. His eyes were shut but all his whining was keeping his mouth more open than not. A rasher of the pretend bacon worked its way down his cheek. The more he talked, the closer it got to his lips, until finally he got an accidental mouthful.

“Argh!” he wailed. “Allah will never forgive this!” He tried flicking it away with his tongue. “This is bacon?” His face scrunched up. “I thought it would taste better. Infidels are obsessed with bacon, so my expectations were very high.”

“It’s turkey bacon,” I said. “It’s nowhere near close to the real deal.”

He sniffed. “You tried to trick me, infidel, but it did not work! Now I will kill you, for certain.”

I was about to unload a serious chunk of my mind, but then the cop car rolled up to the airstrip.

“I can’t wait to see what you come up with next,” Melas said when he got out of the car and joined us on the runway. He stood there looking cool in his dark glasses, arms folded, legs apart.

“You say that like I’m the one who cuffed him to the landing gear.”

“Somebody get my rug,” Mo said. “It is time for me to pray.”

“No,” I said. “No rug for you. Get it yourself.”

Melas produced the key, unlocked the cuffs, pocketed them once he had freed the Persian assassin. Mo stomped back to his car, snatched up his rug. Then he faced Mecca and apologized for coming this close to eating forbidden meat.

“Going somewhere?” Melas asked.

“Not really. I like hanging out at airstrips.”

“Looks to me like you’re going somewhere. Why else would that one—“ He nodded to Mo who was groveling to Allah. “—cuff himself to a plane?”

“He’s crazy. Crazy people do crazy stuff.”

“Does he know Harry Harry is dead?”

Mo quit praying. “What?”

“Harry Harry is dead,” Melas told him. “Been dead a few days now.”

“Impossible,” Mo said. He went back to praying.

“You heard the man,” I said. “It’s impossible. We’re going on a shopping trip to Athens.” I was,making it up as I went. “Takis is flying us there.”

Melas gave me a look like he wasn’t buying what I was trying desperately to sell.

“You don’t strike me as the shopping trip kind.”

“How would you know?” My body forgot that I was lying and went straight into indignation mode. Hands on hips. Chin jutting forward. “Shopping is my life. It’s my favorite hobby. I spent over six hundred hours shopping last year. And that doesn’t include online shopping.”

“I know enough about you to know you’re part hound dog, especially when it comes to your family. I’m guessing you’re following a tip about your father, or …” He rubbed his temples as though he was downloading information from the psychic hotline. “… You’re going to visit Baboulas. Probably the second one.”

I golf clapped. “And this is why you made Detective.” I turned back to Takis. “Let’s get this bird off the ground.” He saluted sarcastically and opened up the plane.

“It’s going to become the
putanas
,” Melas said.

“What? I understood the individual words, but I have no idea what you said.”

“It’s a Greek saying. Get on that plane and it’s going to be a big mess.” He tilted his head toward my undesirable entourage. “Those guys don’t look like they want you going anywhere without them.”

“Can’t you do some kind of cop thing?”

“I could—“

“So do that then.”

“—But I won’t. I’m outnumbered. And I’m guessing they’re all armed.”

I pulled him aside. “Look, you’re right, I’m going to see Grandma. I can’t tell you why. I won’t tell you why. But I need to go.” In fact, I could have driven there with all the time I was wasting here.

He focused on some point past my shoulder. Nodded. “How many does the plane hold?”

The groan slid out of me.

Stavros piped up. “There are enough seats for all these assholes.”

“What about me?” Melas asked.

“You’re not coming,” I yelped.

“Why not? Flying is fun.”

“This is business. Family business.”

Two palms up. “So take care of your business. I’m tagging along.” He grinned. He’d gotten one over on and me, and he knew it. “For fun.”

Fine. Anything to get off the ground sometime soon.

I trotted over to tell the assassins what was up.

“We’re not getting on a plane with a cop,” Lefty said. “What if he arrests us?”

I swung back around to look at Melas. “Promise not to arrest anyone?”

“If they promise not to do anything that gets them arrested.”

“Promise?” I asked them.

Lefty glanced at the others. They all shrugged, except Vlad, who didn’t seem like shrugging was his thing. “Okay, we promise.”

“Promise?” I asked Melas.

“Sure, why not.”

“Okay. Everybody saddle up!”

I
was stuck
between a window and Melas. He’d planted himself next to me, ejecting Stavros from the aisle seat first. From the air, Greece was brown and an exhausted shade of green.

Melas nudged me with his elbow. “You going to tell me why we’re going to Thessaloniki?”

“We’re not—I am. And no, I’m not telling you.”

“Okay,” he said. “I was curious. Have they given you permission to see her?”

“The lawyers were trying.”

“I might be able to get you in if they can’t.”

“Really?”

“I can’t promise they’ll go for it, but they will if they want my cooperation again.”

The plane dipped. Almost time to land. We’d been in the air fewer than ten minutes.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take any help I can get.”

“Katerina,” he said. “What ever you do, don’t say anything that could incriminate you in any way or get Baboulas into more trouble. They’re looking for an excuse to throw away the key.”

My eyes misted. A lump wedged itself good and hard in my throat. The words couldn’t push past.

He took my hand, and I let him.

G
randma wasn’t
in the lockup facility at the Thessaloniki Police Headquarters. She was gone. My heart squeezed all the juice out, then relaxed when I realized they didn’t mean the dead kind of gone. I tried to process what the boys in black were telling me, in the brightly lit interrogation room. The periodic, and almost imperceptible, flicker of the gas-filled tubes kept me hovering on the edge between nervous and nuts.

But I played it cool; hard not to when the air-conditioning is set to late October. There was no austerity in this building. Even the coffee was the good stuff, served American-style.

“What do you mean she’s not here?”

The guy slouching against the wall, arms folded to keep away the criminal cooties, was the same guy who’d hauled Grandma away. He’d witnessed my dumb act; now he was getting the real dumb deal.

“We had to let her go. Look, we
know
she sprang Dogas out of prison, but she had too many alibis who swore otherwise.”

“Who?”

He looked pissed. Not a man used to losing to a woman—or anyone else. “A whole village. Every one of them claimed she was at a church thing at the village square at the time. They all saw your grandmother there. I couldn’t crack a one of them.”

Well, well, well. Makria had come through for her, for better or worse, for lawful or not. Mostly not. Completely not. But they had come through for her.

I measured and cut my words carefully. “If they say she was there, she was there.”

“The hell she was. I know it, they know it, you know it.”

The door opened. A suit stepped in. I recognized him from the compound on the day of the raid. He had a face like a stack of unfinished paperwork: smooth, line-free, and completely without character or little doodles in the margins.

“I don’t know anything except that my grandmother isn’t here. How did she leave? Did you put her on a bus or what?”

“She had a ride,” the cop told me. “One of her men. An Alexander Dimou.”

Was it my imagination or did he press a subtle emphasis upon
her
? He flicked a glance at the suit. Repulsion skittered across his face, and then it was gone, leaving him about as readable as the Voynich manuscript.

“All yours,” he muttered. Through the door he went, leaving me with the guy in the suit.

I shivered. He didn’t. But then one of us was wearing fewer clothes.

“So you’re the granddaughter,” he said.

I said nothing. He had made an observation, that’s all. There was no hook at the end of his comment to suggest a question had taken place.

“How is the search for your father coming along?”

Okay, so that was a question.

“Things would be moving faster if law enforcement would cooperate.”

Not so much as a twitch. “Not our jurisdiction.”

“What is your jurisdiction?”

“Greece.”

“Are you Hellenic Police?”

“Yes.”

He was good; I’d give him that. The lie rolled out without a squeak. But his eyes darted left for a fraction of a second before reattaching themselves to mine. Probably he was cursing himself internally for that glitch. Men like him did training to rid themselves of tiny tells. They wound up excellent at poker, but not at life.

“We can help you—we want to. But you have to help us.”

“How?”

“You’re in a unique situation. You’re closer to Baboulas than anyone.”

“I’m living in her house. There’s a difference between physical closeness and intimacy. She doesn’t share anything with me.”

“Then get her to share. Your father’s life could depend on it.”

He wanted me to betray Grandma. Be the leak in her trireme and sink the Family. And here I was, the woman who said she’d do
anything
to get Dad back. Was that true, would I do anything? Or did my
anything
have edges like any other box?