by Alex A King
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t looked.”
“If it is another poutsa this one is smaller.”
I set the box on the table, taking care not to disturb the board.
“Go make us some frappe,” he said, “then we will look in the box.”
The feminist movement took one step back as I turned on one heel, but it rebounded, and then some, when Xander’s hand curled around my wrist and reeled me back in. He sat me down in his chair, then disappeared inside, presumably, to make the iced coffee.
“Xander is not nice to anyone unless he feels they deserve it, or he wants to do nee-noo nee-noo with them.” The old man gave me a pointed look.
“I deserve it,” I said. “I am pretty awesome.”
He snorted. “I am sure that is it.”
Five minutes later, Xander was back and all three of us were peering into the box. Inside, on a bed of black satin, was a heart. A potentially human love muscle.
“Whoever this person is, he is a romantic,” Papou said.
Couldn’t be romantic. Romance usually gave me butterflies; the only things circling in my stomach were sharks.
“Oh boy,” I said, feeling nauseated. “Aunt Rita said they found Fatmir the Poor dead, and someone had cut out his heart. That could be it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Papou had gone back to his game. Obviously internal organs didn’t bother him too much.
“Why not? How many guys do you know who are missing a heart right now?”
“In politics and crime? All of them. I only know I have one because the doctor tells me it’s no good.”
“I think it’s Fatmir’s heart.”
Grandma chose that moment to waddle back into her yard, dirt sprinkled on her knees. She’d been tending to the compound’s gardens. “What have you three got there?”
“A heart,” I called out.
“A real one?” She took a gander at the box’s contents. “Human,” she said. “Maybe it belongs to Fatmir the Poor.”
Rocky-style, I raised my hands above my head. “That’s what I said.”
Grandma looked up at me. Somehow she always managed to make it feel like looking down. “Where did you get this?”
“An eagle.”
“An eagle?”
“Hooked beak, big talons, goes squawk-squawk.”
Papou cupped a hand to his ear. “How does it go?”
“Squawk-squawk.”
“What?”
“Can I push him in the swimming pool?” I asked my grandmother.
She was too busy frowning to answer. Whatever she was thinking she was working hard at it. The gears were really grinding.
“A bird … it gave you this? It fell out of the sky?”
“That’s pretty much exactly how it happened. I was standing there with Marika, Donk, and my three assassins and—“
“Three assassins?”
This was going to take a while if she kept asking obvious questions. “Elias, who is now on my payroll on account of how Fatmir is dead. He’s making sure Mo doesn’t kill me. And Mo’s making sure Lefty doesn’t sneak a bullet in first.”
“Which one is Lefty?” Papou asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s from Cyprus.”
Grandma looked at Xander, who nodded.
“What is a Donk?” Grandma asked.
“Baby Dimitri’s nephew,” I explained.
They looked at me.
Grandma shook her hands at the sky. “I am afraid to ask.”
“It’s kind of like an internship,” I said. “Baby Dimitri had him out with one of his dealers, but that wasn’t ‘gangsta’ enough for the boy.”
Grandma said, “Take him nowhere. Show him nothing.”
“I didn’t.” Except that I took him to Meteora, but it wasn’t like I’d had a choice. It was take him with me or leave him to roam the compound.
She wagged a finger at the box. “This does not look like nothing.”
“Didn’t open it until he was gone.”
“Hmm,” she said in a judgmental tone that suggested I was to blame for something, but she didn’t know what yet.
I said, “Why isn’t anybody asking why some sicko is sending us body parts?”
“They are not sending us anything,” she said. “They are sending them to me.”
“The eagle gave me the package.”
“And whose name was on the wrapping, eh?”
“Yours.” And mine-ish. But I’d be pushing my luck off a cliff if I said that.
“It is a message,” Grandma said.
“So I figured. But what’s the message? I thought you said it was a message about Dad.”
“I like to chop up people,” Papou said.
I glanced at him. “The sad part is that I’m not sure if that’s the message or if you like chopping up people.”
Grandma’s face twisted. Between the wrinkles and the slow grinding of her facial muscles she was downright igneous. She was a woman struggling. She didn’t want to admit she didn’t know. At least that’s how I read it. I could have been wrong, but I suspected any minute now she’d go to the mixing bowls.
“We will find out in time,” she said.
“Let’s look at the facts,” I said, pulling over a chair and helping myself to its wooden comfort. “We have a penis that’s not Dad’s, but no body missing a penis.”
“That’s called a woman,” Papou said. Grandma shot him in the face with her stink-eye.
I went on. “And we have a heart, and there’s a dead mobster out there with a hole in his chest.” I did some math. It wasn’t pretty. “Maybe Harry Harry the Pontic Greek is missing a penis.”
Grandma raised an eyebrow. Good thing she’d never been Botoxed because she raised her eyebrow at me a lot. “Tell me you have not met Harry Harry.”
“That’s who Mo works for. He’s one of the other assassins. Skinny little Persian guy? Carries a rug around with him? Calls me a Yankee pig?”
“That’s all Persians,” Papou said.
“Harry Harry, too.” Grandma shook her head. “A lot of people want you gone, my girl.”
As previously mentioned, seeing as she was Greek, what she said was girl my. But that’s not the sort of thing you can put in a story without confusing people.
My hands did one of those magicians’ flourishes. “That’s why I’ve got the assassins watching the assassins.”
“That’s not too bad,” Papou said. “This one can think on her feet.”
“I do think better lying down,” I admitted.
“Everybody thinks better lying down, but usually about embarrassing things that happened decades ago. When I can’t sleep my brain always wanders back to the time when I was eight and my mama caught me making love to a chicken.” He looked at us, shrugged, not a shred of shame or regret on his face. “It was in the icebox, dead. I was sleep-walking, okay?”
I winced. Grandma stared at him. Xander was busy studying the heart. Maybe he was thinking about shifting from organized crime to medicine. Maybe, like me, he was trying not to think about the old guy in a compromising position with a future entrée.
Grandma spoke up. “These assassins are not my men, I cannot trust them. So from now on I want you here in the compound.”
Here we go again. “No. We’ve been through this before, and the answer is no.”
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to find my father.”
“So am I.”
It was a stare-off. She’d had almost a century longer to practice, so the odds were against me, but I couldn’t not try.
She heaved a massive sigh. “At least let me give you a bodyguard. One of my men.”
“Marika’s a pretty great bodyguard.” Except for the bit where she’d flipped out at the top of the rock. But we’ve all got our quirks and fears.
“Marika is Takis’ wife and the mother of his sons. She cannot be your bodyguard.”
That was probably for the best. “Who?�
�
Her head swiveled to Xander.
“No,” I said quickly. Then I felt bad. “It’s not that you’re not a fantastic bodyguard, but I’m a problem you don’t need.” Plus, there was the part where he was Grandma’s snitch. “And you need Xander,” I told Grandma.
Xander leaned back in his chair, folded his muscle-roped arms. My thoughts flashed to the waterfall of silver and gold scars down his back. The man lived a life of danger, and something inside me didn’t want to dunk him in more.
My phone pinged. Text message from Aunt Rita.
Harry Harry is dead.
Is he missing a penis?
No, both eyes. Why?
I quickly texted and told her about the heart.
Coming home, she wrote.
“Aunt Rita and Takis are on their way back. The bad news is that Harry Harry can’t see as well as he used to. The good news is that he’s dead, so the vision thing won’t be a problem.”
“Xander,” Grandma said. “Check and see who else—if anyone—is dead. There is a pattern here and I do not like it. Harry Harry, Fatmir, and who else? The bodies do not match the body parts.”
“I guess now we sit and wait for eyes and a body to go with that …” Papou wiggled his little finger.
* * *
THE FAMILY DESCENDED upon the courtyard as the sun began to slouch out of the sky. The courtyard was wired with strings of fairy lights, invisible by day, delightful by night.
While the children played—at least I thought they were playing; from the sounds it was possible they were killing each other—their parents and other adults slow-walked around the compound, not unlike the way people did at the promenade.
Rabbit was there. Already less gaunt, he’d rustled up civilian clothes and managed not to look like he was a former inmate. He was sitting in Grandma’s front yard, arms folded, spinning a bullshit story about another prison break at the Korydallos prison that had also involved a helicopter.
“True story,” he said. “Only they caught the malakas. It was his second botched prison break.”
Papou was there, too. He was ignoring Rabbit as hard as he could. His back was to the man, which was the less damp way of spitting in a Greek’s face.
“Bad planning,” Grandma said. “And stupid friends.” Then she turned the tables on him. “How many boxes?”
“Eh?”
“The boxes. How many did you make?”
“I have made hundreds, Katerina. You know this as well as I do.”
“Playing stupid does not suit you.”
Papou lobbed some words over his shoulder. “Who says he’s playing?”
Rabbit jumped up. When he grabbed his crotch, it was with a velocity that suggested he’d woken suddenly from a bad dream and wanted to make sure his bits hadn’t been relocated to a sizzling skillet. “Eat it,” he said to Papou.
“Did someone offer me a toothpick?” Papou said without turning around. Bitchy was something he did better than a closet full of swishy men.
Grandma had a look on her face like she wanted to shove them into separate corners and spray them with bullets. “In recent history, Stelios.”
Rabbit sat. “One. Why?”
“We have two.”
“Impossible!” He blasted out of his seat, hovered momentarily, then crash landed back onto the wood and varnished straw.
“Oh, then if you say so it must be true,” Grandma said.
He didn’t relax. He knew the axe was coming, and from the droop of his mouth it seemed as if he’d decided that being born wasn’t his best idea.
“I made one box. One.” He scurried around in his own head, hunting for excuses. “Maybe someone else made the second box.”
“The box was identical, except for the size.”
He tugged on the hem of his new shirt. “Let me see.”
“Katerina, bring the box.”
I didn’t want to touch the thing. Too bad Grandma didn’t look like she was in a negotiating mood. I got the box from the kitchen, set it on the table. The contents of both boxes had been stashed in the fridge in plastic containers.
Rabbit eyed it suspiciously. “What was inside the second one?”
Grandma told him. His face stayed passive, unreadable.
“Hmm,” he said. He shuffled his chair closer to the table, examining the box from every available angle without touching a single surface. Maybe he was afraid of catching death cooties. He leaned back, arms folded. “Not one of mine.”
“Are you certain?” She said it in the kind of voice that suggested her real words were, Is that your final answer?
“Of course! I know my own boxes.”
Papou grunted. “Looks like one of your boxes to me, but what do I know?”
“Skasmos, old man,” Rabbit said.
“Why are you here? You don’t belong in this place.”
Rabbit settled back in his seat. A smile hoisted the edges of his lips so that it was a pale parody of mirth. “I have an invitation. Ask Katerina.”
My mouth opened to deny everything, until I realized he was talking about the other Katerina—Grandma.
“He is my guest,” Grandma confirmed. “For now.”
There was a death knell if ever I’d heard one. Only Grandma could make two normal words sound like an impending air embolism.
“Looking at your face make me want to vomit,” Papou said.
“So go.”
“No,” Papou said. “I do not trust you.” He touched his eye. “My eyes fourteen.”
Which was the Greek way of saying: I’m watching you.
I was starting to get the feeling these two had history. History like Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; Leonidas and Xerxes; Zeus and everybody.
“If you want to fight, do it in your own time,” Grandma said. “Are you sure about the box?”
Rabbit slapped his fake-o smile back into place. “I would bet my life on it.”
“You might have to.”
The smile died. “I am telling you, it’s not mine. The work is shoddy, unprofessional. Look at the edges? Rough. The varnish is not perfect. You can see the brush strokes. See?” He pointed to the side. “A bristle. I would rather die than leave a bristle on one of my boxes. Whoever made this, he had no pride.”
“Who ordered the first box?”
“I told her, it was the Eagle.”
Grandma looked at me. “You said this box was delivered by an eagle.”
I nodded. “There was a guy with an eagle at the monastery. When we got back to the car the eagle swooped down and dropped the box.” I watched Rabbit as I spoke. No reaction. He was good or he was ignorant. Money wasn’t something I’d bet either way.
“You did not say there was a man,” she said.
“You didn’t ask. He was a creepy guy with an eagle on his shoulder and mirrored sunglasses.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. He was busy hanging out with his bird. And I didn’t see a box.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“If he had an eagle on his shoulder and those sunglasses, sure.” Because the bird was one hell of a distraction. A parrot, I could have seen past that, but eagles ... That’s not something you see every day, even in Greece where old women tote chickens in sacks onto buses.
“Katerina,” she said, shaking her head. Then she zeroed in on Rabbit again. “When did he come for the box?”
Arms folded high and tight on his chest, he shrugged. “I don’t remember the date. There are two dates that matter in prison. The day you arrive and the day they let you leave. In between, the days are all the same day.”
She kept her gaze cool and level. “You know I can find out who came to visit you, eh? Every person for fifteen years.”
“Do your fingers still stretch that far, Inspector Gadget?” He laughed at his own joke—which made one of us. A joke needs breathing room to be funny. There was none here. Grandma had filled the atmosphere with her chilly countenance.
<
br /> Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Nobody wanted Smaug to think they were going to lunge at the gold.
Suddenly, the wind changed direction. Grandma’s face melted until she was any other old lady with a complexion like a fast food bag.
“Would anyone like spanakopita? I have some fresh.”
* * *
AUNT RITA and Takis slouched home close to midnight. Takis splintered off at the fountain, dragging himself up to the apartment he shared with Marika. My aunt sagged into one of the yard’s chairs.
“Tell me something good,” she said to me. It was the two of us now. Grandma had wandered off to bed an hour ago. Papou and Rabbit had skulked back to their respective corners; and I could hear the slow splashing in the pool as Xander did laps. It was all I could do not to shove my nose up to the fence behind the outhouse and gawk.
“Grandma made kourabiedes,” I said.
“That is good.” She vanished inside, returned two minutes later with a couple of Greek butter cookies doused in powdered sugar. She plopped down beside me, looking every day of fifty.
“You okay?”
“Today I feel old,” she said. “Have you ever seen a man with his heart cut out?”
“Only in the second Indiana Jones movie, and that was more like snatched out.”
“How about eyes gouged out of their sockets?”
“Not recently. Or ever.”
She nodded slowly as she broke off a chunk of cookie. Powdered sugar drifted through the air.
“I have seen things,” she said. “Terrible things. Seeing someone with body parts removed is more ugly than normal murder. It’s perverted—not sexually, but in the head.” She listened for a moment. “Is that Xander in the pool? Never mind, I am too tired to look at him. What happened to the assassins?”
“Elias is working for us now. He’s watching Mo, who is watching Lefty. And there’s a woman following me.”
“The one from the photograph?”
I nodded. “I forgot to ask about the lipstick.”
“Eh, we can always have someone snatch her purse.” Her lips lifted at the edges. She was pulling my leg. Maybe. “Does the Persian know his boss is dead?”
“Not yet—not that I know of.”
“With luck that will be one fewer pair of eyes on you.” She stood with the plate, kissed the top of my head. “If you decide to go back to America, I will miss you.”
