“Maybe he wanted to be alone,” I offer. “I only knew Stefan as a kid. I’m afraid I can’t enlighten you on his mind-set. Rasym is the one to talk to for that.”
“My police brain,” he says and knocks his palm against his temple. “It is just so many questions about the Konstantinous all of a sudden. They are quiet for so long, and now one brother after another.” He looks at me curiously. “You have not spoken to Charlie, have you? You did relay my request to speak with him?”
“I haven’t seen him since the last time I was here.”
“Odd too that he is not around even after his own brother dies. Rasym tells me Charlie is away on business. You said yourself he was off on a boat. But his girlfriend, Sonny, visited me the other morning to ask if I had tracked him down. She was very upset. Now when I speak to her this morning, she tells me she was confused. She too says he is away on business. It must be important business for him not to come back for his own brother. And yet when I go down to his charter dock, it looks as if the whole place is shuttered for good.”
We have reached the purpose of my visit, my betrayal of Rasym, and I’m hesitating, holding the words on my tongue like they’re insects that could sting if I move too fast.
“Can I speak off the record? Can you promise what I say doesn’t get back to Charlie’s family?”
Martis smiles, appreciating collusion. I get the sense he’s nailed me for the weakest member of the Konstantinou entourage. Perhaps he’s already tallied my betrayals on the Internet, the quisling wanderer who turns on his own family if left to his devices for too long. It is hard enough not to believe what you read about yourself. And there might be some merit to the public account: makes terrible decisions based on his own warped idea of good.
“Certainly, Ian. You have my discretion. There is no case against the Konstantinous. You have no one to protect.”
“Charlie’s missing. I think something’s happened to him. He hasn’t been reachable since that last time I saw him, before the hippies were killed.”
“You mean he is in some sort of trouble?”
“Yes. But I don’t know what. He’s just vanished. The family is planning to conduct their own investigation. They want to do it quietly. But something’s not right. You said it. Charlie would be back here if he knew that Stefan had died. First it’s one brother, and then the other. The two sons, both gone.”
I expected Martis to jump at this disclosure, but he leans back in his seat, his eyes tiredly trailing along the same set of photographs that I was pretending to study. He presses his fingertips together as if trying to align their whorls.
“Did you hear me?” I yell. “My friend, the guy you’re looking for, is missing. No one’s heard from him. You should authorize a formal search.”
“I had thought of that,” he admits quietly. “Two boys of a wealthy family. But the father is alive, yes? So the money is not in their name.”
“He’s barely alive. He’s in New York having another surgery today. I’m pretty certain this qualifies as a police matter.” I’m one second away from reaching over the desk to shake Martis into action. He was the last card up my sleeve.
“Charlie did not tell you he was going away on business?”
“He did. But that was days ago.”
“And yet that is what he said he was doing.”
“Inspector Martis, no disrespect, but I’m—”
He raises his hands in capitulation.
“Please, Ian. Do not be angry. I understand the concern. I am the nosy investigator who has been ordered by my superiors to return to Kos. The Konstantinous’ solicitors have put their pressure on the heads of the Hellenic force as well. You and I are in agreement, something is not right, and I would like nothing more than to act on this news. The problem is that it is not illegal for a man to leave the island. And, sadly, it is also not illegal for a man not to return even when his brother dies. My hands are tied unless a member of the family reports Charlie as missing. Unless I have an official report from his family, I am not authorized to conduct a search.”
“And I can’t report it.”
Martis stares solemnly at the blotter pad. “That is the reason I asked you here,” he says queasily. “I was hoping you could convince the family to cooperate. If not to investigate Stefan’s death, then to find your friend. Perhaps you could speak to them, reason with them, to come down and file a report, which would allow me to stay on. Otherwise—” He opens his palms in defeat. “Otherwise Charlie’s been gone less than a week.”
I have no faith in my ability to reason with Rasym. But an idea springs from the déjà vu of sitting in this obsolete office. A crime might rescue Charlie. His culpability could be his salvation. To be wanted for murder is still to be wanted.
“What about the hippies? You have doubts about their deaths. Charlie’s your suspect. He could have murdered them. He threatened them just before they died. If he’s your prime suspect, you’d be required to hunt him down.”
Martis clucks and rolls back in his chair. “You are very clever, Ian, but what proof? I have no proof that he is responsible. You told me yourself, it was only an idle threat. I have more evidence to suspect fleeing refugees than I do your friend. I’m afraid, without any solid proof, that case is closed. My superiors have demanded it closed. We are not a detective agency. I was only dispatched here to confirm it was an accident and comfort a hysterical American girl. Without proof . . .” Again the open hands.
I don’t have proof—not even of the smuggling operation. The police station might as well be an annex of the tourist office one flight down. It satisfies the illusion of protection. If I had any confidence in its abilities, I might file a report on the theft of nine thousand dollars in a Ziploc bag. I rise from my seat with nothing else to say.
“I encourage you to speak to his family,” Martis says. “Surely, they will want him found as soon as possible. I could help, but they need to allow it. I can’t search for someone who is away on business.”
“I almost wonder if they’d prefer it this way. If Charlie’s gone, he could still be alive and innocent. It might risk too much to have him home.”
“I have learned over the years that some crimes don’t want to be solved. Picking at them only draws more blood. I have never been good at learning my lessons. Pick, pick.” He laughs wearily.
I stop at the door. “You know, Charlie was supposed to be at Nikos Taverna the day the bomb went off. That was his spot, every morning at eleven. Maybe his disappearance is linked to that.”
“Is he the murderer or the victim? The suspect or the target? You keep changing your mind.” I want to tell him that it’s possible to be both. “You sound like that girl, Carrie Dorr,” he says with a snort. “She also mentioned the bomb in connection to your friend. She even had something in her possession that she took as proof that she was right. I’m afraid I might have indulged her suspicions. But I came to my senses. It was nothing. That girl is quite unstable. And the bomb is a scab not worth picking. We have picked it too much already. It is best to let it heal.”
“I visited the hippie camp. Vic told me that Carrie went back to the States.”
Martis raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t believe she’s left yet. When she came by two days ago she was renting a room above the supermarket. You didn’t speak to her?”
“Why would I have?”
“She asked where you were staying. I thought she would have paid you a visit. Ah, just as well. Perhaps she has gone home.” Martis withdraws a business card from his pocket and, in an impressive maneuver, hurls it across the room right into my chest. “I leave in two hours. If you talk to the family before then, I could stay. Otherwise, my contact information is on my card. And remember, I’m reachable on Facebook.”
I think I would enjoy being haunted by posts of Martis—fishing trips, old men at wicker tables toasting with ouzo, photos of his growing children turning him into ancient history. One day they might link a camera to users’ gra
ves so you could continue to visit them and leave electronic flowers.
“What will you do now, Ian?” He taps the arms of his chair and swings his legs out from under the desk. His suitcase sits on the plastic scruff mat. It’s clear Martis doesn’t expect me to succeed in changing the Konstantinous’ minds. “Are you planning on going home?”
It is a question people ask when they don’t think they will see you again. I suppose, for most, home is the sweetest term for good-bye.
I TAKE THE zigzagging asphalt past the Cave of the Apocalypse and up through the scratchy pine and eucalyptus groves. Chora is no longer a puzzle that’s impossible to solve. I locate Charlie’s house in a record five minutes. The red door is open a crack and voices bleed through it. I let myself in. After the temporary blackout of the interior, I find Duck in a turquoise swimsuit and plastic jelly shoes chasing the gray cat around the sitting room.
“Terry, Terry.” She stops when she sees me. “We brought Terry home. He was lonely on the boat.”
“Leave him alone, honey,” erupts a low, prickled voice from the couch. Sonny lies across the cushions. Her body is covered in a white, wool throw, which she keeps bundled around her as she lifts into a seated position. The skin around her eyes is pinched and red, and the eyes themselves have a blue-gray fixity, like iron fire doors at the end of school hallways. It’s a face no longer accepting disappointments—it’s reached its fill of them. I scan the room, hoping to find Louise, but I don’t see her. Faint music emanates from somewhere beyond the house. Rasym and Adrian are on the balcony. Rasym stands, wearing khakis and a starched, white button-down. Adrian is reclining in a teetering chair, his muscular legs crossed on the ledge and his bare shoulders gathering sun. He drinks from an emerald bottle. Rasym is speaking to him with hands gesticulating in circles, and Adrian watches him between impatient stretches of his neck. Even through the glass, I detect a rabid energy in Rasym of a man between appointments.
“Terry was an orphan,” Duck blurts out. “Mom and Charlie found him by a Dumpster on the side of the road. Someone ran over his leg, and the other cats abandoned him. He was dying, and so they rescued—”
“Duck, let’s not talk about that. I don’t want to hear that story again, okay?” Sonny turns to me, trying to decide between a smile and a grimace. Neither surfaces. “Rasym has workers in the basement fixing the water damage to the ceiling. And Vesna’s downstairs cleaning the room. Therese is still too shaken, so I gave her the day off. She stayed at home with Christos.” She pats the couch for her phone. “Christos keeps texting me about Charlie’s father. He’s asking to speak to him. I think they’re worried if Charlie doesn’t—” But she can’t say it, can’t state the obvious possibility that Charlie might not come back. Instead she gathers Duck in her arms and concentrates on the doorway to the kitchen. “Miles,” she shouts. “I said I’d make it myself.” Her eyes divert back to me. “He was making tea, like, twenty minutes ago.”
“I’ll help him.” I pass into the kitchen where Miles is lodged against the freezer door, returning a bottle of vodka to the shelf. He’s dressed in a black silk shirt, untucked over madras shorts, and his cheeks are splotched and sweaty from alcohol. The bulk box of water bottles is still on the floor by the stove, which Stefan must have plundered before his last walk down the steps. I can’t resist thinking how easy it would be to mix Stefan’s old medication in a bottle of water and wait until he passed out. Then it would just be the labor of dragging him into the tub.
“Charles is going to come back,” Miles says in lieu of a hello as he picks up his drink. “I keep telling Sonny that because she needs to believe it. And I believe it. Don’t you?” Miles stares at me and then at the floor, humiliated by the sound of his own optimism. “He’s just been kept away.” He takes a sip of vodka and speaks in a quieter tone. “He’ll be back and he’ll need Sonny to break the news about his brother. So we have to keep her spirits up. Will you help me do that?” He touches his wrist. “What time do you have?” He asks like it’s a matter of minutes until Charlie returns.
I check my phone. “Almost twelve-thirty.”
“Then there’s a whole day ahead for hoping.” He pulls a tea bag from a steaming cup and steadies his fingers around the handle. “Rasym says that Stefan was depressed. He says he was under too much pressure and he cracked. I hadn’t seen Stefan since we were kids on this island, so I hope this doesn’t sound rotten. But I wish he had done it back in Dubai. Why did he have to come here to kill himself? Now it’s always going to be the house where his brother died for them. I had a cousin who—”
“Miles,” I bark as if snapping him sober. “You don’t really think Charlie’s going to come back, do you? Like he’s just going to walk through the door any second?”
Miles’s expression is a wonder of determination. He seems to genuinely believe that fortunes change for the better on a dime. It’s got to be the alcohol that’s keeping him afloat. He reminds me of someone who snorted their first line of cocaine at four in the morning and thinks as long as he continues to talk and smile and tweeze the conversation toward the crazily positive the hard postmortem dawn will never arrive with its chaser of pain and lonely beds.
“It’s possible that Charles found out about his brother dying, and he’s in a state of shock,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on a plane to New York to be with his father. Or maybe he’s still out at sea on a boat that’s lost all signal. He could be somewhere and have no clue what’s happened. Ian, you’ve got to have some faith. What’s the point of presuming the worst? It’s not going to help Sonny, and that’s what I’m here to do. It’s not a miracle for someone to return from the blue.”
Tea in one hand, vodka in the other, he hurries into the sitting room. He seems to have found his calling as nurse and comforter, the man I once thought had the only conceivable motive to wish Charlie harm. Now he’s the only one of us who expects to see him again. Sonny takes her tea and leans against him. Miles attempts what must be an inside joke about a waiter dropping a tray at the beach. Sonny isn’t listening, or rather she’s listening to a sound at a higher register. She spins her head toward the window.
“Who the fuck is blasting music? Are they playing music outside? Someone dies, and the island just goes on with the party.” She shakes her head. “This place is unreal. Why can’t he just be here! Where is he!” Miles holds her, and Duck collapses on the floor, as if pretending to be dead.
“Someone pour ketchup on me,” she murmurs.
I open the glass door, which ratchets up the volume of the music, and step out on the balcony. The decaying reverb of a dance track drifts from a neighboring rooftop. Young men and women barely in their college years are clamoring with raised drinks along to the lyrics, get the honeys, take the moneys, feel the paper, kill it with me, I ain’t your hostage but a brand-new Bugatti, zero to ninety, fat girl, fat girl, you’re the free world leader . . . Everyone on the rooftop knows the words and not their meaning. The red canvas shades behind them make them appear as if pulsing in a wine stain. The blue sky with its sporadic paint chips of gulls seems very dreary by comparison. I recall Prince Phillip’s comment about being dethroned from youth, and I can’t shake the sense that the army is at the gate and these sloppy, gyrating kids have already won. We had our chance and did too little with it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling of restless possibility, walking through Greenwich Village with the belief that every door was open to me and all the architecture I needed was spring weather, the princeliness that money can’t buy and is only owned by the young. Whatever I was hunting for back then, I never found it. To find it would have ruined the search.
Adrian snaps his fingers to the music, rocking on the back legs of the chair. His swimsuit is fluorescent pink with white palm fronds patterned across it.
“How did the talk go with the inspector?” Rasym asks me. He hasn’t shaved today.
Since I failed in stirring Martis into action, there’s no reason to co
ver my tracks. Worse, now that the cash is gone from the nightstand, I might need to rely on the money he offered. Be nice to Rasym.
“Okay. I didn’t mention anything he didn’t already know.”
“Did you tell him Charlie was away on business?”
I nod and lean against the ledge, trying to fight the feeling of a dutiful dog.
“When are you organizing the search party?” I ask.
Adrian gazes up at Rasym, as if the answer is a test of his honesty.
“My father is arranging a team from Nicosia. If all goes as planned, they should arrive tomorrow or the next day at the latest. We have to be careful. Stefan will be buried on Monday.” I have no idea what day it is and how many more days come between now and then. I have an overstaying vacationer’s concept of the calendar—time without nouns, just infinite cube-like blocks of light broken by sleep.
“Don’t you think it might help to get the island police involved?” I ask. “Two more days is a long time to wait.”
Rasym stares out at the water with his hands on his hips.
“You have to trust that we know what we’re doing.”
“Rasym,” Adrian snaps. It’s the first harsh word I’ve ever heard out of his mouth, and Rasym spins around coldly to receive it.
“They’ll also be handling any of the material that was left in the Charters office and hangar.” The team sounds less like a search party than a cleanup crew.
“But finding Charlie is the priority,” I clarify.
“I don’t know what your plans are,” Rasym says curtly, “but you aren’t obligated to stay. If you want to go back to New York, you should. It could be a good idea, considering that you were covering for him. There might be questions about your involvement.”
“Jesus.” Adrian moans. “Have some subtlety. Charlie is his best friend. He wants to help.”
Rasym flinches, but the defensiveness is already building. He turns to me. “Last night you said you thought Charlie might have been behind Stefan’s death.” I’m fairly certain this reminder is for Adrian’s benefit, so he understands the kind of best friend currently sharing their balcony. “That’s been going through my head ever since. If that’s the case, Charlie doesn’t need to be found.”
The Destroyers Page 45
