“Thanks,” Celene said. “Really, thank you, Sir.”
“Good luck,” he said, before turning back to his line.
Lewis sat at the bar, sipping from a glass of tonic water. He thought he might be able to get a drink here, but he wanted to keep his wits sharp. His mind was buzzing with ideas for mischief. Already the novelty of sneaking into a night club was wearing thin.
A woman sat at the bar next to him. She was probably in her late twenties with dark hair and olive skin. Lewis leaned closer to her. “So what is there to do in this city after hours?”
She glanced sideways at him, “Eh... no English.”
“Ah,” Lewis sat up straight in his bar stool. “Sorry. Uh...” Lewis searched his brain for the few phrases of Greek he had learned before the trip. “Signommi,” he added.
A man seated on the other side of him tapped his shoulder.
“Are you looking for a good time?”
Lewis looked the man over. “Sorry, dude. You're too old for me.”
The man handed Lewis a poker chip. “Buy-in tonight is only fifty Euro.”
Lewis took the chip and flipped it across his knuckles. “Thanks, man.” He flipped the chip into the air and caught it. His eyes settled on Minnie, and he knew what he wanted to do. “Really, thanks.”
Minnie pushed her way through the crowd, heading towards the bar. She needed a glass of water. It was too hot and crowded in the club for comfort.
She spotted Teddy's purple skinny jeans at the bar. Minnie slid into the stool next to him. Teddy was receiving a drink at the bar, something that looked, to Minnie's inexpert eyes, like Sangria. The bartender pointed to a man across the bar. He was young, probably only two years older than Teddy, and he smiled and waved.
“Can't buy your own drinks?” Minnie asked.
“He doesn't need to know I'm filthy rich. It's the gesture that counts.” Teddy took a long sip of his drink. “They skimp on the booze at this bar.”
Minnie looked between the man and Teddy, confused. Was Teddy playing him for free liquor?
Teddy leaned in close and whispered. “Stop looking so lost, Minnie. I'm bisexual.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking. That shouldn't have come as a surprise, she thought. She was very familiar with his mythological past. “Does anyone else know?”
“A few people at school. Certainly not my mom. My dad's a Senator. A Republican Senator. It wouldn't be well accepted if it came out that his son was... fluid.”
“Well, your secret's safe with me. Just be careful. Greece isn't as accepting as the rest of Western Europe.”
Lewis ran up to the bar, nearly knocking Minnie off of her stool. “Minnie, I need you.”
“This is a dramatic confession,” Teddy teased.
“So not what I meant. Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down. “We have work to do.”
Minnie looked confused, but she decided to follow Lewis rather than cause a scene in front of the curious bartender. “I'll see you later, Teddy. Be careful.”
“Teddy!” Lewis said, suddenly remembering something. “Can we borrow a hundred bucks?”
“Dare I ask?”
Lewis grinned manically.
Teddy shook his head and pulled out his wallet. He handed a hundred Euro to Lewis and waved him off. “Now go, before he thinks I'm with one of you.”
“Where are we going?” Minnie asked.
“You'll find out. It's brilliant!”
“Live today, forget the past.”
-Greek Proverb
ix.
After the delivery of the infant,
the mother took flight from her Godly lover.
The father, Lord Apollo, was heartbroken
and left with his son.
Coronis had fallen in love with Ischys,
so she abandoned baby Asclepius,
putting her happiness over her own son--
a most selfish deed.
Apollo's sister, Artemis, was enraged,
and she followed Coronis and her lover.
In the faintest moonlight she entered their home
and slit both their throats.
Artemis never told this to her brother,
but instead let her vengeance pass in silence.
She returned to his side to help raise his son
as a loyal aunt.
“Begin with your own family.”
-Lykurgus
IX.
“Zach, pick up your phone. I haven't been able to get a hold of you or June since Sunday. We need to talk. It's important.” Jason hung up after leaving his seventh voicemail for Zach. He was on his way back from the dentist with his kids. An unfamiliar car sat in his driveway. Jason examined the gold Lexus as he stepped out of his car. South Carolina plates. The only people he knew in South Carolina were--
“Jason!” his father shouted from the doorstep. Of course, Paul Livingstone bought a new car every two years like clockwork. Jason glanced back at the gold Lexus and sighed with relief. After Sunday's meeting with Mr. Spade, Jason had expected the worst.
“Has it been two years yet?” Jason asked.
His father shrugged. “Close enough.”
Jason's aunt came around the front of the house from the side yard. She had gone to retrieve the spare key from the planter outside the kitchen window. Haley shouted, “Aunty Liza!” as she ran towards the silver-haired woman.
Jason and his father shared the same crinkly eyes and sturdy jaw line. While Jason's hair was brown with a mix of silver, his father's hair was now a brilliant white. Paul Livingstone was seventy-two. He and his sister, Elizabeth, had raised Jason. Paul and Elizabeth were twins. Jason's mother had run off with another man shortly after his birth.
“How are my boys?” Paul asked, as Jason unbuckled Jamie from his car seat.
“I wasn't expecting you, Dad.”
“Yeah, well, Joe Lowenstein passed away. You remember him? The snowbird with the loud wife? We had to drive down for the funeral-- plane tickets on this notice cost a small fortune-- so we decided to swing east forty minutes to see you. Hope I'm not interrupting anything. Plans with the girlfriend?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Celene is in Athens with the school trip,” Jason said.
“We were hoping to finally meet her,” Aunt Elizabeth said, disappointed. She was already busy braiding Haley's hair.
“She won't get back until later this week. How long are you in town?”
“Just for the night,” she said. “We plan to hit the road tomorrow after lunch.”
They all headed into the house. Jason had been planning on baking a pizza for dinner. Luckily, the pizzas had been buy-one-get-one when he'd last gone shopping. He preheated his oven.
Jason left his father and his aunt in the kitchen and took the kids into the living room. He started up Netflix and signed the kids in to the children’s channel. Haley and the twins settled down on the overstuffed sofa to watch cartoons. Jason rejoined the adults at the kitchen table.
“Of course, it would have to be okay with Jason,” his aunt said.
“What has to be okay with me?”
“Your aunt wants to get Haley an iPad for her birthday. I told her kids don’t need all of that technology. Especially not something that expensive.”
“Oh they aren’t that bad. I’m not going to get her one with 3G for God’s sake.”
Paul grumbled and got up to check the refrigerator.
“Jesus, Jason, this thing is barren.”
“It’s been a busy weekend. I haven’t gone for groceries yet.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Elizabeth said with a gentle smile. “Paul, sit down. Jason can just make some tea. You do have tea, right dear?”
Jason nodded and got up from the table.
“I was really looking forward to meeting your girlfriend. It’s been so long since you’ve seen anyone.”
“You should have gone on that trip,” Paul said. “We could’ve taken Haley and the twins. We didn’t do so
bad with you, you know.”
“Yes, well, there weren’t enough slots for chaperones,” he said. In reality, Jason didn’t want to leave so close to Devon’s due date. That, and he didn’t want to be stuck on a plane with Candice Matthews, even if Celene was there as a buffer.
“That’s alright,” Elizabeth said. “You can go on a trip with just the lady friend now. I can’t imagine it’s very romantic, supervising teenagers.”
Jason laughed and shook his head. “No,” he said, rinsing the tea kettle and drying the outside. “That’s not exactly what I’d call a vacation.
It was quiet while Jason put the kettle on and got the sugar and creamer out.
“I got a funny message from one of my old residents on the Facebook yesterday,” Paul finally said.
“Oh yeah?” Jason rummaged through the cabinets to find a choice of herbal teas. He returned to the table to an armful of half-empty cardboard boxes.
“She says she saw you at the hospital Sunday? Says you're playing doctor to some pregnant teenagers?” It was clear from his tone that he was just waiting for Jason to say she was mistaken. Jason had to wonder if he had really diverted forty minutes for a visit or if it was for a lecture.
“Uh... yeah. That's about right.” Jason had no idea how to explain the situation to his father. “She's one of the kids from the school. She came to me first when she was pregnant.”
“Jason, you haven't really practiced medicine in years, and you were never an obstetrician.”
“I just helped her get prenatal vitamins and balance her diet. She needed someone she trusted,” Jason said.
“Did you at least bring her to a hospital for prenatal screening?”
“Yes,” Jason lied. Devon had refused to see another doctor. They knew that when it came time to deliver, there was no hiding the baby, but Devon hadn't wanted anyone to find out if something was abnormal until after she'd delivered.
“Why you didn't just refer her to an O.B.G.Y.N is beyond me.”
“It's complicated. I can't explain. You know, confidentiality.”
Jason’s father eyed him suspiciously. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off.
“I was hoping to meet your girlfriend,” Elizabeth said, rescuing Jason from further scolding. “And her daughter. You said she has a daughter, right?”
Jason nodded. “Penny. She's a sophomore in high school.”
“That must be nice for Haley, to have an older girl to look up to.”
“Penny’s a good kid. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“What happened to Penny’s dad?” his father asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Died. Cancer.”
A whistling from the tea kettle broke their conversation. Jason rushed over to pull it off the stove while his aunt rummage through the tea boxes to pick her flavor. “Ooh, rasberry zinger,” she said, trying to diffuse the tension with idle chatter.
Paul Livingstone rose from his seat and retrieved three mugs from Jason's cabinets. “Just remember,” he said after a long and mulled-over pause, “Haley, Jamie, and Scott. They are your top priority. I have no doubt that this woman is something special, but your kids come first.”
Special. Celene and Penny were certainly special. Jason glanced over at the business card stuffed into the side of his bill basket. Mr. Spade was expecting a call. He took a deep breath and nodded. “I know, Dad.”
Jason poured three mugs of hot water. As their tea brewed, he opened the frozen pizzas and put them on a cookie sheet for dinner. Family first, he reminded himself as he slid the pizzas into the oven. The Pantheon wasn't his family.
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”
-Aesop
x.
The slender trickster stood before a locked door,
a metal barrier, bolted and chained shut.
As his body turned to a blanket of mist,
he smirked so slightly.
The silver cloud of mist passed through the keyhole
and reincorporated in the god's form,
standing inside the chamber without a sound,
surrounded by gold.
As he silently surveyed all this treasure
the subtle smirk transformed into a broad grin.
Moments just like these were the reason they called
him the King of Thieves.
“A lucky person is someone who plants pebbles and harvests potatoes.”
-Greek Proverb
X.
“Where are we going?” Minnie asked Lewis as he dragged her down the street. They had left their friends back at the night club and were heading in an unknown direction through the streets of Athens. Lewis was on a mission.
“You ever see that movie about the Harvard card counters?”
“It's MIT, but yes.”
“We're going to do that. Or rather, you're going to do that.”
“So what are you here for?”
“I'm the charisma. Now, you saw the movie, so you remember it, right?”
“You mean how to play and how to count cards?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure, I mean, whatever I didn't get from the movie, I clarified with a YouTube video.”
Lewis clapped his hands and bounced around excitedly. “Sweet.”
“This is insane,” Minnie said.
“But it's a challenge. You know your wits love a challenge.”
Ten minutes later, Minnie and Lewis walked through the doors of the casino. Lewis pointed to a 3:2 blackjack table with a fifty Euro minimum marked on a kelly-green sign. Lewis wasn’t eighteen, but he was allowed to tag along. Minnie was the legal age to gamble, so he handed Teddy’s starting money over to let her purchase chips.
Minnie, sat down at the blackjack table. “Alright, Mins,” he said. “One hand. If you lose, that's it and we go back to the hotel.”
“Are aces high or low?” Minnie asked, adopting a higher-pitched voice and trying to sound like Devon Valentine’s cheerleader friends.
The dealer changed the cash for chips and pushed them across the table to Minnie. “Sir, I'll need to remind you not to touch the cards” he said.
Lewis tapped the betting circle in front of Minnie. “Right here, Minnie. You put your bet here.”
“I know how to play,” she scolded. “My father used to play me for skittles.”
Lewis stepped back and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Like taking candy from a baby,” he whispered. His lips hardly moved and his voice was inaudible, but he sent his words to Minnie's ears and she heard him loud and clear.
It was a shoe game, so the dealer played everyone's hand face-up. This made it easy for Minnie to look at their cards and figure out what was left. Lewis watched as she played. In the movies, guys had to practice for weeks before the basic strategy of card counting was ingrained in them. Minnie was too smart for this. She ran the calculations in her mind, deciding almost instantly if probability was in her favor. After half an hour she had tripled their money. Lewis kept up a steady banter with the other players, telling jokes and letting a young woman ramble on about the Greek version of Next Top Model.
Twenty minutes later, that money was tripled again. They now had nine times the money they had walked in with. Lewis saw an official-looking man in a suit whispering to one of the security guards.
“Alright Mins,” Lewis said. “Your mom’s waiting for us back at the hotel.”
“But I'm winning!”
“Ever hear the phrase 'quit while you're ahead'?”
Minnie finished the hand she was playing, bringing their total to an even one thousand Euros. She scooped up her chips.
“Bye,” she said. “You've been great. This was so much fun.”
She dumped the chips into the hem of Lewis' shirt and he carried them to the counter to cash them in. “We were getting noticed,” he whispered, using his power to make sure that only Minnie could hear him. “That said, nice performance. I was surprised.”
“I'm full of surprises,” Minnie announced as he dumped the chips on the counter.
“So what do you say?” Lewis asked as they walked out of the casino, counting their money, “Pay Teddy back with interest?”
“Two hundred for him, two hundred for you, six hundred for me.”
“Two hundred?”
“You were charming, Lew, but really, without my brain, you had nothing.”
Lewis sighed. “Fair enough.”
“Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.”
-Socrates
xi.
The body was cleaned with water from the sea
and it was dressed in a white burial shroud.
A diadem of celery was placed on
the dead man's forehead.
He had died in battle and so he was
to be buried in his military cloak.
A strap for his chin held the coin in his mouth
for the ferryman.
They laid him out on a bed with checkered cloth
so that his feet faced the door of the bedroom.
After the ritual of lamentation
they'd burn his body.
“It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.”
-Epicurus
XI.
“Yes,” the tall bouncer said, tapping the photo in Celene's wallet with his index finger. He was dressed in a long leather coat and wore too many gold rings. “She and friends, they come in here.”
The Blood of Athens Page 5
