Trueish Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel

by Alex A King

  Chapter 15

  THE BOYS WERE STILL FIGHTING when we traipsed outside. The sun, not to be outdone, did its share of slapping me around. It was in cahoots with the pavement, which was pelting shimmering sheets of heat at me from ground level. Across the street, the water was quietly sloshing against the concrete wall. Even it looked tired of summer. We collapsed against the wall in a half-hearted patch of shade.

  “That went well,” Marika said. “All things considered.”

  “I told them.”

  “You did tell them. I heard you.”

  “People always want to disbelieve before they get to the believing.”

  “That is human nature. Believing is hard work. It requires faith.” She poked me with her elbow. “Who were you on the bed with last night?”

  “Nobody.”

  “But—“

  “Xander,” I said. “It was Xander.”

  “You and Xander?” she asked.

  “No. No me and Xander. We were looking for clues.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “You heard it from a gangster’s mother! We’re not talking about a reliable witness here. There’s no me and Xander.”

  “Okay. If you say so then I believe you.”

  Ack!

  We slogged over to the cars, where Mo had Donk in a headlock.

  “Let him go,” I said.

  “Let who go?” Mo glanced around, one hand shading his eyes. “I do not see anybody. I am standing here, thinking about how I will spend the money after I kill you.”

  The other three yelped, including Donk.

  “Ugh,” I said. “Get in your cars and let’s go.”

  * * *

  IT WAS impossible to miss the flock of helicopters. They were big, black blowflies, hacking the air into buoyant chunks, moving in the direction of Mount Pelion.

  “Looks like they are going to see someone important,” Marika said.

  Or closing in on the bad guys.

  A horrible thought filled my head. There were a lot of bad guys on Mount Pelion, most of them concentrated in Grandma’s compound.

  “I have never been in a helicopter before,” Marika was saying. “Do you think they would let me take ride? Would they let me jump out on one of those ropes?”

  “Remember what happened at Meteora?”

  “That was different. There was no rope.”

  “There was a rope ladder.”

  “Look,” she said, changing the subject. “Sheep!”

  There were sheep, a sea of lanolin tripping across the road, prodded periodically by a shepherd. Both ways, traffic had ground to a halt. Scads of tourists were leaning out a bus window, cell phones in hand. This was one Greek photo op they weren’t going to miss. I jumped out of the car, snapped my own pictures, immediately sent them to everyone I knew who wasn’t Greek. Before Takis and Stavros had drugged me and thrown me onto a plane I’d never been anywhere. Now I was somewhere, and I wanted to brag about it a teensy bit.

  When we arrived at the compound, the helicopters were on Grandma’s doorstep. Two had settled on ground outside the wall. My entourage, five cars strong now, crept along the dirt road behind the Beetle. They were probably wishing they’d signed up to kill someone with less baggage and fewer connections. The security guard was pacing back and forth in front of the open gates, muttering to a couple of brick-headed men in head-to-toe black. Black cargo pants, black boots, black T-shirts. There were white letters stenciled on the backs, but I wasn’t down with Greek law enforcement acronyms. For all I knew they were an unimaginative circus troupe.

  Melas’s cop car was parked out front, too.

  “Oh-la-la, Nikos is here,” Marika said. “That man has the best kolos in Greece. Don’t tell Takis I said that.”

  Didn’t I know it? Still, his being here couldn’t be a good thing, not with these helicopters in tow.

  I followed Marika through the gates, glancing sideways at our security guy. He was talking a mile a minute, pushing his hands through his hair as he paced. The words were flying out so fast it was like trying to pick musical notes out of a blender’s whizz.

  Aunt Rita was standing by the fountain out front, hands on hips. She was deep in conversation with another couple of black-clad cops. The garage doors were down—unusual for daytime. Melas was leaning in the cool shade of the arch, unreadable behind dark sunglasses, watching my aunt and the men talk.

  “Hey,” I said to him. “What’s up?”

  One of the guys broke off the pair to look at me. “Who are you?”

  “Nobody,” Melas said, pushing away from the arch’s smooth wall. “I know for a fact she’s got nothing to do with any of this.”

  Fear flitted across Marika’s face. “Takis?”

  “He’s fine,” Melas said, in a low voice. “They’re asking him some questions, that’s all. They’re talking to everyone.” Marika hurried away. Melas curled his fingers around my elbow. “Come on, let’s go for a drive.”

  “Is Baboulas okay?” I asked Aunt Rita, over my shoulder. Probably not a good idea to call her Grandma in front of the law enforcement goons. Someone in the family might need to bail everyone out—and that someone might be me.

  “She’s okay,” Aunt Rita said. “These apes have questions, that’s all.”

  My heart was going wild, and my adrenal gland was shooting streamers. What was happening? Was this about Dad or was the Family in deep doo-doo?

  “Any hints?”

  She pursed her lips, shook her head. The bricks glared at me.

  “Let’s go,” Melas said, steering me away.

  A wave of heat cut through the fear. My body was an idiot who didn’t know when to save the lust for a more convenient time … and an appropriate target.

  “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Drive first,” he said, “then talk.”

  My bottom half gravitated toward the Beetle but my top half went the other way. Melas’ fingers were strong.

  “My car,” he said, the big bossy boots.

  The assassins, I noticed, had fled, probably because they killed people for money, which didn’t go down well with law enforcement. Only Cleopatra was hanging around, buffing her nails behind the wheel of her bullet-ridden Renault.

  I stuck out my tongue. She mimed turning a small handle and raised her middle finger. Some gestures are universal; this one happened to originate in Greece.

  Melas yanked open the passenger door. “Get in.”

  “Where are we going? It better not be jail. You already tricked me once.”

  “It’s not jail.”

  My eyes narrowed. “It better not be your mother’s house, either.”

  He paused.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “You were going to take me back to your parents’ house? Are you insane?”

  “She likes you.”

  “She likes seeing me uncomfortable. There’s a difference. You know what else does that? Cats. Right before they kill something.”

  “Mama’s not that bad.” There was a short pause during which I fired hate rays at his head. “Okay, she can be difficult.”

  It’s possible I muttered, “Difficult is the least of the adjectives I’d nail to her forehead.”

  Melas shook his head, but there was a small smile hanging around his mouth, so at least he was aware his mother was a walking nightmare. The only thing more frightening than a monster is a monster with alleged powers of foresight.

  There was movement by the arch. Several more law enforcement thugs had joined my aunt. None of them looked happy, or even capable of joy.

  Melas swore under his breath. “You can get in the car or you can stay and answer questions.”

  I stared at him.

  “Five … four … three …”

  “What happens when you reach one?”

  “I put you in the damn car myself.”
/>   I slid into the car, buckled the seatbelt, while my eyes combed the compound’s exterior for … I don’t know what. Melas kicked over the motor. He eased the cop car down the dirt road, out onto the main vein, threaded around this part of Mount Pelion. He took a left into the village of Makria and parked in the roadside parking lot, next to his parents’ brown Peugeot.

  He unlatched his seatbelt, leaned back in his seat. “They know your Grandmother busted Dogas out of prison.”

  My gut plunged into my feet. If they knew, Grandma was in major league trouble. But if it was a suspicion there was hope. Grandma wasn’t a dummy.

  “Know or suspect?”

  “Know.”

  “Informant?”

  He shrugged. “Every organization has someone willing to sing.”

  “Is it her?” Her being his former paramour.

  “No. I don’t know who it is. Whoever they are they aren’t one of ours. These guys are from Thessaloniki. That’s why they have fancier toys.” His smile was wry. “They can’t do too much unless they have proof—which is why they’re there: to find proof.”

  “What about the video?”

  “Too low quality to be definitive.”

  The mercury had to be closing in on a hundred, but my hands felt like they’d been plunged into a bucket of water, fresh off the plane from Antarctica.

  “Will they find proof?” he asked gently.

  Would they? I didn’t know. Rabbit had been at the compound, but I wasn’t privy to his itinerary. Maybe he was on the run in Turkey by now. Grandma had told me nothing—and now I understood why. A person who knows nothing doesn’t have to lie. The trouble was, I didn’t know nothing. I was in possession of enough knowledge to toss Grandma and Xander into a volcano if the Hellenic Police squeezed me the right way.

  Not to mention—although here I was thinking about it—if the police had any smarts they’d be digging into the origin of the video floating around in the Internet. To say it had gone viral was like saying the Spanish flu gave a few people the sniffles.

  For now, Melas had asked me a question, and I didn’t know the right answer: the lie or the truth? How far could I trust him? More than he could probably trust me.

  I took to my inner fence, and sat. “I don’t know.” It was partially true. Grandma had sprung Dogas out of prison, and she had harbored him at the compound, but for all I knew she’d scrubbed away every trace of him before shooting him off to wherever criminals go after they’ve been busted out of prison. Maybe Turkey, maybe Jamaica. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility that he was in the dungeon that was apparently buried under the swimming pool.

  “I was hoping for something more definitive, like a no.”

  “Look on the bright side,” I said. “At least it wasn’t a yes.” That didn’t inspire a vote of confidence, I could tell. The lines on his forehead were forming a bold V.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Melas said, “and that bothers me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Law enforcement is my life. I’m sworn to stop the bad guys, and your Family is the bad guys. But they’re also decent people who’ve done good things around here. And then there’s you …”

  “Forget about me,” I said. “I’ll be gone as soon as I find Dad.”

  He nodded once. “Right.” He didn’t look happy.

  “I went to the Fridas wake,” I told him, attempting to change the subject.

  He groaned, smacked his forehead. “What did I tell you?”

  “Which time?” I flashed him a grin I didn’t feel.

  He shook his head. “Man … I bet you were one of those little kids, the ones who touch the stove even when their mother tells them it’s hot, because they have to know for themselves if it’s hot or not.”

  My turn to shake my head. I hadn’t yet picked up the Greek affectation of jerking my head up to indicate a negative. How long would I be here before I did?

  “I was a good kid.”

  “I didn’t say it was bad.”

  “I wasn’t one of those kids. It’s a new thing. I didn’t even know I had this … rebellious streak. I think it’s different when everything is at stake.”

  “Your father?”

  I nodded.

  “We’ve had this conversation,” he said. “Your father would want you to stay home, where it’s safe.”

  The laugh blurted out of me. It was dry, painful, not a shred of humor in the thing. “He was taken from our home. The bad guys came to where we live and took him. Tell me, how is that safe?”

  I didn’t mention the secret stash behind the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom. That would complicate the situation. It wouldn’t be long before men and women wearing TLAs like FBI, DHS, DEA, and maybe even CIA, descended upon Mom and Dad’s house. If they tore apart my home, chances were they’d break something that mattered to me in an attempt to find something that mattered to them.

  “It’s not safe anywhere,” I continued, since he wasn’t picking up what I was putting down—as they used to say, back in the ‘hood where I never lived. “So whatever you say, there’s a good chance I’m going to nod my head and agree until your back is turned. Then I’m going to do whatever I think can potentially lead me to my father. Nod once if you understand.”

  He stared at me.

  I stared back.

  “Was it worth it, going to the Fridas wake?”

  “Undecided. We left empty-handed, but they let us live. I still don’t know why Fridas had my picture in his pocket. His mother said he wanted me, but she didn’t say why or how.”

  More staring. Then he said, “I need coffee.”

  “I could use some coffee.”

  “Not me—I need it. You’re giving me a headache and a pain in the ass.”

  “You should see a doctor about that second one. I don’t think coffee wields that much magic.”

  Words were failing him, I could tell by the arrow his eyebrows had formed. “You’re going to drive me to the bottle.”

  We got out of the car. What should have been a thirty-second walk took five minutes because everyone stopped to greet and grill Melas. He was a local boy in law enforcement, which meant he was in possession of interesting stories and possibly gossip, which is the lifeblood of Greek villages. They had questions for me, too, mostly about how Grandma was doing, and whether or not my father had been found. Slowly, they were absorbing me into their tribe. Oregonians were friendly, but even in the suburbs everyone was aware they were part of a larger, city-sized whole. Inquiries were friendly but they weren’t personal. Here they were personal, fact-finding missions, designed to dig up your secrets and analyze your character.

  I wondered how long it would take Melas’ mother to hear—

  “Nikos! There is my boy.”

  Not long, apparently. The woman had hearing like a bionic dog. She was standing at the crossroads in a housedress, her hair a Spartan helmet. The only way to escape was to turn around and run, but she struck me as the kind of woman who had mastered the hunt.

  “Mama,” the mama’s boy beside me said.

  “Kyria Mela,” I said, wishing I had the guts and wherewithal to yell, “Fire” and bolt. Unfortunately, she knew where I lived.

  “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

  “We were going to grab a coffee,” Melas said.

  “What for do you want to pay for coffee? You are wasting your money. Come home and drink coffee for free.”

  He was going to cave, wasn’t he? Oh boy …

  “The department is paying for it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  “But do they have homemade finikia? I do not think so. In fact, I suspect both the kafeneios here buy their pastries. I cannot prove it—yet—but I keep my eye on them.”

  “Can’t the cup tell you?” I asked.

  Her iron gaze stuck to my face. “The cup does not deal in trivia.”

  Oookay. Let me crawl back into my shell.

  “Relax, Mama,” Mela said. “
This is business.” His hand settled on the small of my back. Old eagle eye didn’t miss a thing. Her eyes narrowed to vicious slits. I considered that she might be a supernatural creature, maybe a banshee; something that shot blue lasers from its eyes. Their current black-brown state was a disguise, an effort to blend in with normal society.

  Next time I came to Makria I’d pack a stake.

  “Business? Who does business with pretty women, unless they are prostitutes?”

  I looked up at Melas. “The longer we stand here the more it’s going to cost you.”

  His mother gasped.

  “It was a joke,” I said lamely. “Policemen from Thessaloniki are at the compound. They’re trying to bust my grandmother.”

  Kyria Mela was living proof that it was possible to frown using one’s entire body. She drew herself into a tight, angry column, her face pinched like a crab had been using it for claw-snapping practice. “I will go over there and tell them Katerina Makri has done nothing!”

  “Mama,” Melas said. “It’s okay. It’s under control.”

  But it wasn’t, was it?

  “What are they looking for?” she demanded.

  “More like a whom,” I told her. “A guy who broke out of prison.”

  “Yes, we saw him on the news.” She patted my arm, moving from psycho banshee to empathetic human being so swiftly that I wondered if aliens had paused the world and swapped out her body for a kinder, gentler clone. “He will turn up eventually and your grandmother will be vindicated. Go. Enjoy your coffee. If you need me, I will be at home. Alone.”

  She turned and sped up the narrow, cobbled road, leading to most of Makria’s residences. Straight ahead was Ayia Aikaterini—Saint Catherine’s—and to the left was the village square, filled with souvenir stalls, tavernas, coffee shops. There was more mountain above and behind Makria, but from here it still seemed like I was standing on the world’s roof. Melas steered me toward a table in the shade of a sprawling beech, its ropey roots punching up the cobblestones. Mother Nature was one pushy broad. He ordered two coffees, two waters, then asked if I wanted sweets. I shook my head, and the waiter moved off.

  “Why didn’t you leave me at the compound?” I asked Melas.

  “I wanted to know what you knew before they got to you.”