[Kat Makris 01.0] Disorganized Crime

by Alex A King

  "Blow me," I muttered.

  He cupped a hand behind his ear. "Can't hear you."

  "I said, 'Just show me.' "

  "You're no fun." He tied his robe. Sat. "Where you been, Kat? Was getting worried you'd disappeared."

  "I was abducted by the Greek mob."

  He laughed. "Good one."

  "True story. Every word of it."

  His expression said he didn't believe me. Good thing I wasn't looking for validation. "How's Mike?"

  "Still missing. New car?"

  "Rough business," he said, shaking his head. "Somebody set it on fire."

  That sounded … familiar.

  "They catch the vandals?"

  "Naw. Could have been anyone who did it. I got all kinds of threats back in the day. Ain't nothing in this world worse than people." He thought about it for a moment. "Except maybe Brussels sprouts."

  He was onto something there.

  "Hey, Mr. Tubbs?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I kind of need a passport in a hurry."

  "How big of a hurry?"

  "Today."

  He gnawed on it a moment. "Could be I know a gal."

  "Can you call her, please?"

  "What do I get out of it?"

  Oh jeez. "What do you want?"

  "Could you fake it for me? Pretend you don't want to look at Reggie Junior? My kinks are changing. Now it gets me hotter when a woman doesn't want to look."

  "I don't want to look at it!"

  "Oooh, yeah, just like that." He grinned, flashing me with the blue-white pearls in his mouth. That level of whiteness was unnatural. He'd spent a lot of time in the dentist's chair swallowing peroxide to strike news anchor-white.

  "You're sick," I told him.

  "I know. I should get help." He sat there. Looked at me.

  I rolled my eyes and got moving.

  "Hey, Kat," he called out. "Give me your number. I'll have Betsy call you."

  Reggie Tubbs's gal Betsy worked at the Bureau of Consular Affairs. She could work magic in forty-eight hours, she told me, provided I wasn't on anyone's watch or hit list. I ponied up all my paperwork, and hoped Grandma's finger wasn't in this American pie.

  While I waited, I sweated. I called friends, assured them I was alive. Mostly they hadn't noticed I was missing. It's not that they were bad people or they didn't care, but they had lives and kids and grandmothers who weren't mobsters. I didn't tell them about Dad or Greece or the psycho killer who wanted me dead, but I made a lot of the right noises to show I cared.

  I called Bryan, my boss, to let him know I'd be taking time off.

  "Aww, hell," he said. "Take all the time you need. It'll be months before the insurance pays out—if ever. The Fire Marshal's calling it arson."

  "Arson! Gee, do they have any clues who did it?"

  "They think it was me," he said in a sad voice. "I had a teeny, tiny misunderstanding with the IRS."

  "Wow, that's a bummer."

  "Tell me about it. And I fell down some steps and broke my legs, so now I can't even kill time on the golf course."

  I told him to keep in touch and let me know when—if ever—I could come back to work. Then I got packing—literally. Takis and Stavros meant well—okay, not always, but sometimes—but they sucked at packing. I did a mountain of laundry, cleaned the house from top to bottom, then waited on the couch for the courier to knock at the door with my pristine new passport. I also spent as much time as possible in the bathroom, whether I needed to go or not. Never again would I take indoor plumbing for granted.

  I had a plan. It wasn't a good one. But a bad plan was better than no plan. And it involved getting on Detective Melas's good side. Probably it was doomed to fail, but I had to try. He was the only person I knew in Greece who wasn't Family. Although, his allegiances did seem shaky. Yeah, he was a cop, but he knew the Family too well. This was a guy with Xander plugged into his address book.

  The first part of the plan went like this: Go to Melas's house, knock on the door, and ask for help and maybe a recommendation for a decent hotel, where I could lie low while hunting for the Baptist. Get that giant ape off my back before resuming my mission to find Dad.

  After that … I wasn't sure. But I had the starting point semi-nailed down … to Jell-O.

  Airline employees and airport personnel don't trust cash payments for airfares these days, so I'd already decided I'd have to raid Dad's safe and put the cash in my account, or risk the Department of Homeland Security's scrutiny and uncomfortable probes—possibly anal probes. I had a theory that middle-of-the-night UFO encounters were really the NSA and DHS guys dressed up in funny costumes to throw people off. Dad kept a few thousand tucked away for emergencies, in case of EMPs, zombies, or bankers robbing the world blind in a dazzling financial finale. The world ends, people will still prefer cash. Stupid bits of paper! he once told me. I'd pay him back. Under the circumstances he'd understand. Desperate measures and all that.

  The safe was behind the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom. I'd watched him install it when I was ten. If a thief stops to look in the medicine cabinet, he said, what he wants is drugs. He won't pull the medicine cabinet off the wall, searching for a safe.

  What if it's a girl thief? I'd asked.

  A girl thief is even better. She will be too busy cleaning the bathroom to find the safe.

  Dad could be a chauvinist. He left Greece but Greece never left him.

  I loosened the wall anchors, lifted the cabinet off the wall. Sure enough, the safe was still braced between the studs, where it had been since I was ten. I knew the combination, but I'd never used it before. Fingers crossed it hadn't changed. My hands shook as I twirled the dial. He'd shunned all the usual suspects, choosing the date he'd landed in America as his, 'Open sesame!'

  The handle clicked. The door swung open.

  I gawked.

  A few thousand dollars, my ass. More like a hundred thousand—maybe more. One thick bundle of cash at a time I unpacked the safe. All hundreds. Ten thousand per bundle. Twenty-six bundles. 260,000 smackeroos.

  The money wasn't alone: it had pals, including a short stack of passports from various countries. The names were all different. Dad's face was the only common denominator.

  My heart flipped out. My brain short-circuited. Curse words spray painted the bathroom. On the tub's cool porcelain edge, with the passports fanned out in my hands, I selected one. Alessandro Rossi's Italian passaporto. It had stamps. Recent stamps. Last January, Dad traveled from LAX to Frankfurt as Rossi. Rossi and Dad returned three days later.

  The madness didn't stop there. Dad was a guy who really got around. And he had a gun—a sleek, stub-nosed Glock 17. I knew that because it was in the safe, too.

  I wanted to feel indignation and rage that I'd been lied to, but I didn't. Maybe it would come later. Right now all I felt was worried sick. My stomach was churning acid milkshakes that were threatening to melt through the lining.

  Who was Dad when he wasn't being Dad? Did Alessandro Rossi have a daughter, and a wife he'd lost to cancer?

  I don't know how long I sat there, pondering the previously unthinkable. A while. Maybe longer. When I left the bathroom the sun was still up and there was a starving, gnawing beast stomping around in my belly.

  The doorbell rang. On the other side of the door stood a man with an express envelope in his hand. He wished me a good day and jogged back to his truck, before—I presumed—speeding to his next delivery. I tore into the cardboard packet and found my new passport. Reggie Tubbs's gal did good. So what if my photo looked like a Wanted poster? I'd fit right in with the rest of the Family.

  This was the rainy day. Whoever the money belonged to—Dad or Alessandro or Pierre—eight thousand of it was mine now, and it was taking a trip to the bank. I stowed another three thousand in my purse, in case I needed cash.

  Then I booked a ticket to Greece. Open-ended.

  I locked my parents' house and left Portland behind me, for God knows how long.


  Chapter 13

  Greece was the same-old when I arrived. Athens turned out to be a sultry old dame with a two-million car a day habit, and it showed.

  I caught the KTEL bus at the Liossion station for the paltry price of twenty-seven euros, and three or so hours, all of them spent seated next to a woman who made Grandma look like a bouncy teenager. She prayed to the Virgin Mary the whole way, rocking back and forth in her seat, then knocked everyone else aside with her elbows when the bus wheezed into Volos.

  "Tsiganes put a curse on me." She pointed to her eye. "Everything I eat …" Her belly let out a bus-rumbling groan and she smacked the driver with her handbag. "Hurry up!" The doors opened and she bolted down the steps. The last I saw of her she was disappearing into the bus terminal, in search of a bathroom.

  All those hours I'd been in the splash zone of a potential ecological disaster, thanks to a Romani curse. But I'd survived.

  It was a sign. Someone up there was watching out for me.

  Detective Melas, the internet told me, lived in what used to be an old firehouse, in a lower middle class neighborhood, in one of the villages on the outskirts of Volos. Suburbs now, if you want to be all technical about it. My father wasn't surprised when he read the city of Volos had gobbled up all the old villages. They are all the same shit, Dad always said.

  Two stories, narrow figure, lots of brick. What about the pole? My inner child was suddenly voraciously curious about that, as was my inner stripper. The sliding door was still there, but that was the obvious way in. I didn't want obvious—not when there were nosy neighbors about. I sauntered around the side of the house like I was a regular visitor, glancing back when a megaphone crackled, crumbling the silence into serrated pieces. Romani. They were hawking melons out the back of a pickup truck, dusky-skinned women and men who looked tight with Pantone. They were wearing all the colors simultaneously, multilayered, and they wanted twenty cents per kilo for their melons.

  For a moment, I considered buying Melas a watermelon.

  Nope. Bad idea. What if giving a Greek guy a melon meant we were married or something?

  I scooted around back where, lucky for me, there was a back door—a metal slab jammed into the brick. It opened easily after I sweet-talked it with a makeshift lockpick. So maybe I had Googled a thing or two during all that time I'd spent in the bathroom back home. It was always good to learn new things.

  Don't think I hadn't struggled with this step toward a life of petty crime. I had. Yeah, I could have plonked myself down on his doorstep and waited like a decent person, but I wanted to snoop. With my family history it could be a gateway crime, and tomorrow I might wake up full-gangster, but those were the risks. I wasn't convinced Nikos Melas was completely kosher.

  Inside, my question was answered: Melas had kept the pole.

  His place oozed masculinity. The furniture was no-nonsense. Low-key, woodsy colors. No dishwasher. A few photos. Family mostly, by the looks of their features. I dropped my bags, climbed the metal staircase, and found myself in a combination bedroom and office. He had freestanding closets and a desk with an old chair. His laptop was a couple of generations behind, and he didn't use a mouse. Nothing to suggest this was a guy accepting handouts from the mob. I could have booted up his laptop, but that felt icky. I took that as a sign I'd suck at serious crime. The bed was neatly made. It looked comfortable after losing a day between planes and the bus. I kicked off my boots, fluffed his pillow, flopped onto the mattress, and made myself at home. Just for a moment, I promised myself.

  I pulled out my phone and tapped until I was back at the Crooked Noses Message Board, perusing the latest Greek mafia news. Cookie's grave had been discovered empty, his boat burned, but of Cookie there was no sign. Dad still hadn't been found. And there was a rumor that Baboulas had killed us both and had her henchmen churn us into sausages and sold to unsuspecting diners in Makria.

  BangBang had told everyone to chill, that Baboulas had no reason to kill me or her son. He or she said it with confidence, like they knew.

  FarFarAwayGirl shot BangBang a private message. How do you know Baboulas didn't kill her?

  Just a hunch, BangBang replied.

  Didn't sound like a hunch.

  There was a long pause. You want to go digging in this world? Better bring a shovel and a gun.

  I don't want to dig, I lied. I'm just curious.

  There was nothing after that, and I didn't prod him—or her. The travel finally caught up, slugged me, and my lights blinked off.

  Detective Melas was home. He had a gun in one hand, a claw hammer in the other. His mouth was a grim slash and he was wearing a red handprint on his right cheek. He was in uniform, but he'd flicked open the top couple of buttons between the job and here, eager to kick back and relax, obviously.

  And here I was, screwing up the zen afternoon he had planned.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" I squealed, two seconds after I'd slapped the snot out of him. "Who barges into their own home ready to shoot?"

  "The back door was open."

  "I didn't shut it? I meant to."

  "Well, that changes everything."

  Was that sarcasm? I couldn't tell. The adrenaline surge was making things fuzzy. It wanted me to flight or fight, when I'd already spent hours in transit and dimmed my lights further with an impromptu nap.

  "Good."

  He blinked. "That was sarcasm, you fruit. What the fuck are you doing in my house? Scratch that—what the fuck are you doing in Greece?"

  "Really?" Oh yeah, who was sarcastic now? Katerina Makris, that's who. Yeah, I was death-gripping my s. I had a birth certificate and a passport that said it was mine. "That's not blindingly obvious?"

  "You better not be doing what I think you're doing."

  "What do you think I'm doing?"

  "Looking for your father."

  "Okay, so I am. No one else is."

  He laughed. It was a hard, unforgiving bark. "Is that what you think?"

  My eyes narrowed. "What do you know?"

  "I know word is they found Cookie's grave empty and his boat burning in the harbor. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

  "So what? He fakes his death a lot. You told me that."

  "His sister filed a missing person report. Said he was supposed to call her when he picked up his car at the cemetery, but he never did call and the car was gone. One of Baby Dimitri's working girls swore she saw Cookie in a car with one of your grandmother's men and a woman who looked just like you."

  "Half of Greece looks like me. It's not exactly a positive ID."

  "Baby, nobody here looks like you. You're—"

  "What?"

  The air whooshed out of him. "Going back home," he said.

  I put my hands on my hips, chin jutting forward. "Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?"

  The click was barely audible, yet it had all the weight of a cell door slamming. One end of the cuffs was circling my wrist—ooh, shiny!—while the other end was biting into the pole.

  He'd cuffed me.

  To the pole.

  "You're an ass," I yelped.

  He rolled his eyes. "Want to know how many times a day I hear that? Comes with the job. I'm immune." He rapped a knuckle on my forehead. "Back soon, baby. Rough day. Long and hard."

  "That's what she said," I muttered. He looked at me like I was a nut. Guess they weren't familiar with that joke over here.

  My hand slid down to my crossbody bag where I'd stowed my lockpicks. Melas caught on. He relieved me of the bag, dumped it on his bed, then he winked.

  "Nice try. You like moussaka?"

  The animal center of my brain lunged forward. That cardboard meal on the plane was ancient history. And the souvlaki I scoffed down in Lamia. And the snacks I'd brought along for company, just in case I wanted to do some comfort eating.

  All of it ancient, crumbling history. This new hunger was real and fierce and now.

  "Maybe," I said, trying to be cool and fail
ing miserably.

  "Be a good girl and you can have some when it's done."

  Then he left me there.

  My hormones were suddenly my own worst enemy. They liked the cuffs—they liked them a lot. In fact, they were nudging and winking at me, urging me to tell Melas that all three of us should revisit this kinky little scene in his bed over there. It was wrought iron and it looked like it could take a beating.

  My hormones were both stupid and blind.

  Fortunately, my senses were smarter. They were perfectly aware that in order to keep my arm in its socket I had to lean toward the pole without falling through the giant freakin' hole cut into the floor. I had balancing skills, but I wasn't sure how long I could keep them up.

  Downstairs, paper crackled. Plastic screeched. Buttons beeped. Then I heard the unmistakable hum of a microwave oven doing unnatural things to food.

  "Are you … microwaving that moussaka?" I called out.

  "You got a problem with that? Because if you do, I can eat it all myself."

  Even though he couldn't see me, I shook my head. "No, no, that's fine. Microwaved is good."

  Yeah, if you're making popcorn or reheating coffee.

  Plates rattled. Cutlery clunked together. I heard the zip-zipping of a serrated knife hacking bread into chunks. The microwave beeped. The aroma of bubbling meat and cheese and béchamel sauce had me food drunk. Zapped or not zapped, I'd go to the plate a willing diner.

  I groaned. My stomach growled along in solidarity.

  Feed me, Seymour.

  Footsteps on the metal stairs. Melas was back, carrying two plates loaded down with moussaka and bread. He set one plate on the dresser, dragged his office chair over to where I was standing, about to pass out from hunger lust. He sat. Began cutting his meal with the food. He broke a wad of bread off the chunk, used it to push steaming meat and sauce onto his fork.

  Then the bastard ate it.

  I closed my eyes, sank to the floor. "I really hate you."

  "This is good," he told me, waving the utensil in my direction. "It's my mother's."

  "Home cooking …"

  He shoveled more onto his fork. "You cook?"