How exactly he’d offended the Cucumber was not spelled out to Kivelli by Sakis the Sweet-Talker. To repeat the slight would be to commit it again and put himself in danger. You didn’t even dare smile at a big man like the Cucumber unless he smiled first, let alone mouth off about his business. What Sakis could tell her was that Spiros had said the wrong thing at the wrong time, and that the Cucumber, so named for both his hardness and coolness, did not react other than to tell him it was time to go home and start packing. This could be interpreted in several ways. Leave the neighbourhood for a while. Skip town altogether. Or make your final arrangements: run up some debts, get crazy high and fuck like a spring rabbit because that permanent black cloth would soon be pulled over your face. And like the song went, once they put you in the cold earth, everyone would forget your name.
But Spiros did not go home to pack, did not make any arrangements one way or another. He showed up at the taverna that night as if nothing had changed. Had he not grasped the implications of what had taken place and the Cucumber’s prerogative to settle the score, or did he believe his music was magic? Kivelli never got the chance to ask him whether he was afraid or ready for his big test, though she was sitting next to him when it happened. The shock that registered on Spiros’s face told her he never saw it coming. Not when the Cucumber and his gang stepped into the taverna. Not when the big man raised a glass to him. Not when the Colt .45 was pointed in his direction. And not when the bullet penetrated Spiros’s chest — a perfect shot right at the end of a song the Cucumber had requested. It was the last song Spiros ever played, a lively song delivered with gusto and pride, celebrating his killer’s fierceness in love and war. There was complete silence in the room. Kivelli held her breath, waiting for the second bullet that would bind them in death, or for Spiros to sit up and drag her outside, where he would punish her for believing herself free of him and rejoicing.
When the Cucumber stood up and walked towards the platform, the men began to applaud. He was short and thick around the middle, red-faced and flabby-jowled, and there was more white than black in his moustache and eyebrows. His Republican was dark blue and never removed, not even in church. Once, during a game of dice, a guy trying to prove something knocked it off on a dare, but he wasn’t around anymore to answer questions about what was underneath. The Cucumber ruffled Spiros’s hair and apologized to Kivelli, not because he’d shot her lover but because blood had spattered her dress. “We had debts to clear,” he said and shrugged, then handed her a gardenia and tossed a few coins into her plate. It was the honourable thing to do for the widow of a man you’d just killed. “He was a good guy, and a top player. It was nothing personal, you understand.” Kivelli nodded and stopped herself from smiling. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just send a message.” He winked as if they were in cahoots and signalled his men, including sweet-talking Sakis, towards the exit.
“You’ve done enough,” she called out after him, then brought the flower to her nostrils, ran its petals across her lips. She was tempted to touch Spiros one last time — his oily hair, his longnailed hand that had grabbed her with a desperation so intense it might have been erotic had it not been so selfish. Instead, she slid the gardenia behind his ear and left him on the platform by himself, slumped over his bouzouki, taking his final bow.
Some regulars waved her over and offered her a drink, a drag on a narghile, which she gladly accepted. Nobody spoke. The place emptied out, and Barba Yannis was supervising a couple of men who were carrying Spiros’s body into the storeroom. He didn’t seem too flustered, considering he had just lost his long-time bandleader and friend. Whatever his true feelings, Barba Yannis was first and foremost a businessman who knew this settling of scores would only enhance the reputation of his taverna. Stories were already being told down at the docks, songs would soon be sung, but not by Kivelli. She’d had more than enough of Spiros while he was alive.
Sakis came back after a little while and sat next to Kivelli as if he had a reservation. “What now?” he asked, and she understood this had more to do with the next few hours rather than whatever was left of her life. She took a long sip from the narghile and let the fragrant smoke expand in her lungs.
“Do you want to walk me home?” she asked, slowly sliding her hand along his thigh. Whether he thought this was inappropriate, he never said. There was no time for such moralizing as she snuck him past Margarita’s room and up the dark steps, then pushed him into her bed.
It was true that nothing whet the appetite for sex like death. Kivelli was not yet certain whether it worked in the other direction as well, though she suspected it might.
9
You beat me and you take my dough
Earned with blood and sweat, you know
I’ve caught a new man, handsome, sweet
Who’s not a swindler or a cheat
The taverna was packed every night after Spiros’s swan song. The Cucumber had given the place his three-knife seal of approval and made it his favourite nest where he came to roost every night. This brought in some real troublemakers and lowlifes who packed Colts and Lugers and all manner of switchblades, stilettos and pigstickers. They stopped in on their nightly rounds to pay their respects and to conspire within clouds of smoke dense as the fog over Castella Hill. It also attracted young guys from the neighbourhood who were trying to join the Cucumber’s flock and believed proximity gave them an edge. The usual pseudomanghes followed, posers who talked the talk but couldn’t walk without tripping. There were more women as well. Guys from all over Piraeus and even from Athens came down with their temporary dolls, buying out the place to make an impression. A new order reigned in that small room — volatile, dangerous, electric — which made Kivelli sing with a reckless fervour, abandoning herself to gamblers and smugglers and murderers who treated her like the Queen of Sheba.
One night, while she was lost in her siren’s wail, a woman stepped into the taverna alone — somebody’s wife, perhaps, looking for her rival. A proper lady in a flowered frock stood nervously by the door, then moved quickly, instinctively, through the darkness and the smoke, through the bodies of men huddled in conspiratorial klatches or dancing alone, until she reached the platform. When her eyes met Kivelli’s, she became the only person in the singer’s audience, and an understanding, complete and unequivocal, flowed between them. In a blink of an eye the unknown woman vanished, but the feeling lingered — at least that’s how she would tell it later. In truth, Kivelli hadn’t noticed her at all, but like a story from her childhood repeated frequently by Papa, this second-hand scenario would lodge itself in her mind as her own recollection: the first image in the next chapter of her life, the beginning of everything that later came to pass.
Kivelli finished her set and joined Sakis and the Cucumber, who bought her drinks and put more in her plate than whole tables of manghes combined, no matter how fancy their English suits, how large their amber worry beads. The big man had taken an avuncular interest in her, and she had a certain grateful affection for him. As for Spiros’s untimely dispatching, the Cucumber said nothing more about it and neither did Kivelli. She’d slept through his funeral and went to work that night as if nothing had changed. Someone else from the band stepped up to take the empty seat on the platform. Lots of guys could play bouzouki; it was nothing special.
When Barba Yannis came back from the cemetery, he reported that Spiros had been buried without his instrument. His mother needed to sell it since there was no one to take care of her now that her only son was gone. Mitsos the accordion player wondered how the Little Squirt was going to kill time in Hades without it, but Kivelli felt no pity. Spiros had been a poor excuse of a man, no matter how much his Mama loved him, and was no better a musician. His songs quickly disappeared from the taverna’s repertoire after it came out that he’d stolen most of them from Old Batis, who dragged his battered laterna from square to square, singing tunelessly along to the cranked notes and collecting a few coins for his efforts. No one wrote
an elegy for Spiros, which was the final insult, though Sakis let drop that the big man honoured him by shitting on his grave. This was both a bon voyage gesture and a confirmation that all debts were paid. Once in a while, Kivelli sang Spiros’s song about the Cucumber and tried to muster a little enthusiasm for it to please her new protector. Thanks to his favour, all the boys at Barba Yannis’s behaved like gentlemen, at least in his presence. And God help anyone who crossed the line. All she had to do was mention Spiros’s name.
Some people joked that if Barba Yannis had known what a boon to business the shooting would turn out to be, he might have ordered it himself. Then again, who could have predicted any of it? Life was like that. One day you were here, the next, who knew? The men of Piraeus shrugged and nodded and turned their palms skywards. One day Kivelli was beholden to Spiros, the next she was free to do as she pleased. To sit proudly between the Cucumber and sweet-talking Sakis, who enjoyed telling the story of how she’d caught his eye.
It was on his first rounds with the Cucumber, soon after Sakis had been baptized, and it felt like his birthday, name day and wedding celebration rolled into one. The big man had introduced him to Kiki that night, and only a slop would have turned down such a gift, so he let the blonde with the plump cheeks and narrow hips hang off his arm like a big gold watch, even though it was a fake. He was in high spirits, which got even higher when he heard Kivelli sing. She hadn’t been at Barba Yannis’s very long and knew only a few songs, which she repeated every set, though no one seemed to care and Sakis wasn’t complaining.
“You growled and purred like a cat that might scratch a man’s eyes out if he rubbed your belly the wrong way. You stabbed my heart and hardened my prick at the same time.” They didn’t call him the Sweet-Talker for nothing. He’d asked around and learned that Spiros had Kivelli wrapped around his finger like a dragonfly on a string. Sakis was not a man to interfere; instead, he threw flowers and emptied his pockets whenever she came around with her plate. Kivelli pretended to remember these gestures because it pleased him, though she’d only recently noticed him at the taverna when he got up to dance. “There were guys pawing at you all night, so I played it like a gentleman, waited for you to come to me.” It was a clever gamble: the moment the string that bound her to Spiros was cut, she landed right on Sakis’s lap.
SAKIS WAS THE PERFECT ANTIDOTE to Spiros. He could make Kivelli laugh at things that didn’t immediately strike her as funny and gave her flesh as much pleasure as he took. On nights she was not in the mood for company, he did not feel slighted or presume she had a secret rendezvous with some other mangha. In return, she never questioned where he’d been if he didn’t show up at the taverna. They had no plans for each other except when they lay naked in her bed. He asked her once where she’d learned her tricks, and she told him making love was like dancing the tango in an Argentinean cantina, keeping to herself that she’d only seen it danced in a picture starring Rudolph Valentino. Sakis didn’t know anything about Argentina or the tango, but was willing to let her teach him a few steps with no music except the rhythm and trills of her satisfaction.
Between bouts of lovemaking, all Sakis talked about was the Cucumber. There weren’t a lot of options in Piraeus for the youngest son of a shoeshiner, and Sakis preferred to wear shiny boots and keep his fingernails clean. As soon as he turned sixteen, he decided to make his name by challenging Sklavis the Fist, a mangha so tough you had to take communion before picking a fight with him. He went to Sklavis’s hangout and got in his face, and if the Cucumber hadn’t intervened, Sakis would surely be dead. But the big man saw his potential right away and let him tag along with his gang, all the while testing his mettle, his trustworthiness, his allegiance. When the initiation was complete, the Cucumber gave him his first real knife: a man’s knife with a carved ivory handle, light and smooth to the touch, almost not there, except when it counted. Otherwise it rested in the leather scabbard tucked into his belt.
Sakis had no ambitions in life other than to enjoy himself and to serve the Cucumber. He said he’d looked for some once, in his heart, in his mind, in his face in the mirror, but couldn’t find any. Why bother making up his own schemes when things were already going so well? He was popular with the other manghes, who treated him with respect, and he spent as many nights between Kivelli’s sheets as he needed. He gave all credit to the Cucumber, and would do anything for him without a second thought — without thinking at all. The big man didn’t even have to ask, since Sakis always felt in his gut what he wanted and didn’t want. He knew the code, which was why there were no misunderstandings between them like there were with some of the other guys.
The incident in Keratsini, for instance, was a case of misunderstanding — Spiros’s, naturally. “If he’d bitten off his tongue and handed it to the Cucumber, nothing more would have come of his stupidity in the cave.” He shook his head in disbelief. “He probably thought he was talking to me, but I was standing right in front of him. Some guys just shouldn’t smoke the good stuff from Bursa; they should drink mountain tea with old ladies in the kitchen.” Sakis lit a cigarette, smoked it in contemplative silence.
Kivelli had never bothered with the details of what had taken place in the cave, since Spiros was dead and buried and the result was her release. But now her curiosity was piqued. Sakis, however, was reluctant to say any more than he already had, since his fidelity was first and foremost to the Cucumber, who valued discretion above all else. He also liked his tongue and wanted to keep it for as long as possible. Kivelli was fond of it too, but with a little bit of cooing and cajoling, a few caresses in sensitive places, he finally gave in. When she heard the story in its entirety, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
They were all hanging out in the cave, shooting the breeze and passing around a couple of narghiles filled with the Cucumber’s stock. One of the sailors was playing cards with the strongman, while the other sat with his eyes closed, stoned and peaceful as a big baby napping after lunch. Everyone else was listening to Spiros play his bouzouki, occasionally calling out encouragements or clapping lazily along. “He played sweetly, I’ll give him that, or nobody would’ve even spoken to him. You could have dipped a chunk of hashish into those notes and eaten it whole, like a loukoumi.” Sakis smacked his lips and kissed her. “I was too wasted to get up and dance, but I was in a funny mood so I made a joke about you. Something stupid about your tail feathers — I don’t even remember what.” Kivelli gave him a stern look and slapped his arm playfully; Sakis slapped her backside then kissed it.
“Spiros went berserk. He jumped to his feet and began pounding his chest and his stomach with his fists, screaming, ‘You want to hit me? Hit me before I kill you!’ Then he bit a chunk out of his wine glass and spat it at me. I wasn’t scared, and the hashish was making me laugh so hard I fell off my stool, which set off the other guys and made Spiros even crazier. He began to choke himself until his eyes were bulging, his face was red with fever, and the veins on his forehead were ready to explode. His mouth was bleeding too, from the broken glass. I’d never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen a lot of men lose their marbles. Who knew he had it in him, all that venom and rage.”
The Cucumber never got involved in scraps that were none of his business, and the days he’d stick his neck out for a woman were long gone. But the cave was his refuge, and Spiros was spoiling the peace and conviviality they’d all come to share, swiping the kick out of some first rate Bursa Black. Before the others caught his mania and started breaking things, the big man stood up and placed his hand on the back of Spiros’s neck.
“‘That canary must sing some fine songs out of her cunt, brother,’ he said. You know, to lighten the atmosphere, to calm him down.” A warble escaped Kivelli’s lips as Sakis’s fingers slid between her thighs, nestling there for the rest of the story.
“Spiros’s eyes turned inside out — all you could see was white except for some broken red. He whipped around like a leaf caught in a meltemi, and held his bou
zouki like a club over the Cucumber’s head. ‘You touch her and I’ll cut off your balls,’ he screeched, as if someone were twisting his. He couldn’t see who he was talking to, but suddenly he did, and he dropped the bouzouki and started banging his fists against the walls of the cave, like he wanted to break them open. And now he was laughing too, laughing so hard he was crying, though nobody else was making a sound, they were hardly even breathing.”
The big man did not get angry. What was the use of blaming a mad dog for his madness? Spiros had been bitten and now he was sick. The hashish had released something already festering inside him, and the pus was gushing out. He crumpled into a spastic heap at the Cucumber’s feet, biting into the dirt, and the sailors and the strongman made fast excuses and left. The Cucumber lifted Spiros by the armpits, looked him straight in the eye until he looked back, handed him his bouzouki and sent him on his way.
“Then we smoked some more hashish, and no one said another word about it. It was practically forgotten until we came down to Barba Yannis’s. He was really asking for it, showing his face around town that night.”
The Cucumber was not happy that Spiros was dead. No one else played his song with such passion. But he couldn’t just let it go. Other men had said worse things to him — but those were real manghes, tough as bulls, not some pipsqueak musician who couldn’t hold his tongue in his head or his prick in his pants. If it got out that he had been insulted on his own turf and did nothing about it, soon guys from all over would be getting in his face, trying to make their names. The Cucumber had no time or appetite for a parade of villagers and idiots and fakes to be littering his path. Best to kill Spiros and end the story there.
The Goodtime Girl Page 5
