by Alex A King
“Giugliano de Campania is small. Everybody talks.”
So basically it was like Greece. I winced. “Sorry.”
“Oh, that makes everything okay then.” He swished his hand through the air dramatically. The guy was one heartbeat away from jazz hands. I hoped he wouldn’t use them on me; otherwise I’d die laughing, when I was pretty sure this was supposed to be a somber moment. “Perfect. Wonderful. Amazing.”
Somebody ate a thesaurus for breakfast. “I could tell them it had nothing to do with you.”
His chest heaved. He waved me off. “No. It is too late. The damage is already done. There is only one way to regain my honor now.” He turned away, swishing his hips to the far side of the room, elbow cupped in one hand, while the other hand massaged his forehead, like I was a hideously untalented ballerina turning his Swan Lake into a Swine Pen. “Your grandmother is Katerina Makri, yes?”
“Yes ...” I said carefully, wondering where he’d hidden the trap.
“And your name is?”
“Katerina Makris.”
“Does she have many grandchildren?”
“A few.”
“Grandsons, granddaughters?”
“I’m the only granddaughter.” I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
He shrugged prettily. “No reason. Come on, let me show you around.”
The feeling I had about this was cold, damp, oily, and originated somewhere between my diaphragm and small intestine.
“No need,” I said. “Seen one mansion, seen ‘em all. My family has one.”
Mario looked worried for a moment. He bit his lip. “Bigger than mine?”
“Bigger. A lot bigger.”
“How much bigger?”
“Four times bigger, at least.”
His expression darkened.
“But,” I said quickly, “my grandmother lives in a crummy shack in the courtyard.”
He perked up. “The great Baboulas lives in a shack?”
“With an outhouse.”
“Outhouse? What is this outhouse?”
“An outdoor bathroom.”
“Where everyone can watch?”
“No, it’s in a wooden hut.”
He thought about it a moment, then tipped back his head and laughed. “Baboulas shits outside.”
Hey now ... “Technically in an outhouse.”
“But an outhouse outside?”
“Well ... yes.”
He snapped his fingers, pointed to me. “Where do you live?”
I didn’t like where this was going. “With Grandma.”
“So you shit outside, too! Staying here will be a luxury compared to your Grandma’s outhouse.”
Wait a minute! “Stay here? I’m not staying here.”
“You want to learn the business—no?”
Ruh-roh. He had me there. “Yes.”
“Then you will stay here. Leave it to Mario. I will take care of Baboulas’s only granddaughter. When you leave here you will know everything there is to know about making money, capishe?”
#
Casa de Crackpot wasn’t so bad. My room only had two locks, both on the outside. On the inside it had a grand total of—count ‘em—zero locks. There was a slider lock on the bathroom door, but one good kick from a busted geriatric hip would send the mechanism flying. Mario took his security seriously—as in you seriously had no security unless you were him.
I wasn’t him. We both liked men, and that was it.
No, I couldn’t explain his former marriage to Madam Citrus. If it hadn’t been arranged it was definitely one of convenience—although I couldn’t figure out for whose convenience. Not that I cared.
Okay, maybe I cared a bit. Italy was a living, breathing soap opera, with a melodic language and amazing food. I wanted to know why the beautiful young gay man married an aged human fruit. There was a tasty story there, I just knew it.
I plopped down on the bed in the same clothes I’d been wearing for over twenty-four hours straight. Before I could pass out there was a knock at the door. It flew open before I had a chance to say, Oh my God, what do you want?
Baked Potato stuck his head in. “The boss wants to show you something. He said he meant to earlier but forgot.”
“What?”
He repeated himself, looking slightly peeved.
“I heard you the first time,” I said. “I meant what does he want to show me.”
He grinned. I didn’t like the look of it. Too many teeth for a human mouth. “You will see.”
“Just tell me.”
The grin died. “I don’t know, but I bet it will be good. I know Mario.”
Fine. Whatever. Anything to hurry this along. I wanted to have enough to take to Hera and the rest of the NIS as quickly as humanly possible, while gathering any intel I could about Dad or my uncle’s activities in the region.
Baked Potato grabbed my elbow.
“Unhand me, you brute,” I said.
“Eh?”
“Let go.”
“You feel nice. Soft.”
“That’s all the oil. I haven’t showered since yesterday morning.”
“I had a bath on Saturday.”
I gawked at him.
“What? I have one every Saturday, whether I need one or not.”
“Dude,” I said. Not that I’m a germaphobe or a clean freak, but it was Italy and it was still technically summer.
He muttered something in Italian that made me wish I at least understood their profanity. Using my elbow, he steered me along the wide, airy hallway, down some steps, along another hallway, down some more steps, and out into a courtyard that was about an eighth of the size of Grandma’s yard. No screaming, playing children, no dogs, no cats, and no cute goat. Like the front, lots of palm trees. What Mario also had were a couple of what looked like rent boys sprawled out beside the fancy pool. They were wearing a lot of olive oil and not nearly enough swimwear.
Baked Potato followed my gaze. “Mario’s stepsons.”
“He’s married?”
“To his second wife.”
“I don’t suppose his first wife had sons?”
“Three.”
“And did they ... look like that?”
“Like that, but younger.”
It was all so clear now what Mario saw in the lemon lady. Oh well. Not my circus, not my butt-monkeys. I just had to be nice to the ringleader so I could make it back to my three rings and the sirtaki-dancing chimpanzees I called family. I couldn’t help thinking about Marika and Donk. Where were they now? The trip would take a day—easy. That’s if they didn’t get stopped. If the NIS weren’t waiting with guns and surly looks. If they managed to squeak through one of Greece’s leaky border holes. If hundreds of thousands of refugees and illegal immigrants could do it, then Donk and Marika could. Probably. If they didn’t bicker their way into the wrong person’s attention.
Baked Potato led me through another door. This one exited at the back of the property and opened into a massive yard that didn’t quit until it hit beach.
“The nearest neighbors are over there.” Baked Potato pointed to a dot in the distance. Translation: the neighbors were really far away. Not at all convenient if your servants forgot to buy sugar and you needed to ask for a cup. Second translation: you could scream and shoot guns here and the neighbors would never know.
Crystalline water lapped at the shore. If I had to die this would be a nice place to exit. “Are you taking me to sleep with the fishes?”
“What does that mean? I don’t know what that means. Do I look like a guy who knows if fishes sleep? All I know about fishes is that they taste good with lemon and garlic. This way.” He nodded towards the shore.
Up close the waterfront was pitted and pocket with shallow rock pools. Obviously private property because they weren’t filled with litter. Baked Potato shoved me toward what looked like a cave—mostly because it was a cave.
“Inside you will find the thing Mario wants you to see.”
“You want me to go in there?”
“Yes.”
I held out my hand. “Flashlight? It looks dark in there. What if there’s a sea monster.”
“There is no sea monster.”
“There could be. That’s the sea and that’s a cave.” I pointed to each location. “If I were a sea monster this cave would look like a pretty sweet home.”
“No sea monster.” He grabbed my elbow again and shoved me inside. “In.”
The cave was definitely a cave, narrow, shallow, and dripping. The walls were wet. From the salty line on the walls, I’d say the water regularly reached neck level in here when the tide was high. Occasionally higher.
There was one more thing in the cave. Pushed to the back was a cage. The rock formed three of the sides. The fourth side was made up of thick steel bars, buried top and bottom in the rock.
It wasn’t empty.
I shrieked.
CHAPTER 7
Four hands reached for me from inside the cage.
I screamed some more—inside my head.
So much for the cavalry arriving in about a day or so, give or take a few hours.
“Help!” Marika screeched at me. She looked desperate. They both did. “I am stuck in here with the crying boy and a bucket.”
Donk was red-eyed. I felt bad for the kid. Following his uncle’s orders to shadow me so he could learn about organized crime was shaping up to be one misadventure after another. He’d be better off sticking with high school.
Baked Potato looked at me. “What did she say?”
I told him.
“Two buckets,” Baked Potato said. “We are not animals here in Italy. And they have bottled water. Tell me how many other kidnappers would give hostages bottled water? Not many, I don’t think.”
I relayed his words to Marika, who chopped at her groin with both hands. An oh-so polite Greek invitation for Baked Potato to suck on an appendage she didn’t have. There’s something extra offensive about inviting someone to partake of something you don’t have. It’s like inviting company over for a grill-out then telling them there’s no meat.
“Do you still have the gun?” Marika wanted to know. “Shoot him!”
“I can’t just shoot him.”
“Why not? Takis would.”
“I’m not Takis! I can’t just shoot an unarmed man.”
She thrust her hand between the bars. “Give it to me. I will do it.”
“What is her problem?” Baked Potato glanced from her to me. “Is it that time of the month?”
Now I definitely wanted to shoot him. Too bad we were in a dimly lit cave where the chances of me missing were decent and the chance of a bullet ricocheting off the stone walls and hitting someone else were excellent.
“She’s wondering why they’re here. You’ve got me, so just let them go.”
He pointed to his pockets. “No keys. Mario wants them here, and Mario is the boss.”
“What’s it like being a lackey?”
“Lackey?”
My explanation bordered on derogatory, with extra emphasis on his tiny manhood and inability to perform sexually. It was a low blow but I was at peace with that, under the circumstances.
Baked Potato laughed it off. “The benefits are too good.”
What benefits? Like Greece, Italy had socialized medicine.
When I asked, he said, “I can kill anyone I want, commit any crime, and I will not go to prison. Not for long, anyway,” he added.
They were pretty sweet benefits ... if, oh, you were a criminal. I wasn’t impressed. My family had similar benefits.
“Why does Mario want them? You’ve already got me.”
“Insurance,” he said. “If you don’t behave ... bang-bang.”
I gulped. “If I promise to behave will you let them go now?”
“No.”
It was worth a shot.
“Mario says you are free to come and go—you are not a prisoner. But they are. If you are a naughty girl these two will suffer. Do you want them to suffer? I don’t think so.”
I really didn’t want them to suffer—not even Donk who could be an insufferable little dweeb. “Can’t they stay in the house?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the house is for guests.” He pointed to me then Marika and Donk. “Guest. Prisoner. Prisoner. Do you see what is different?”
“Is it the cage?” I said. “It’s the cage, isn’t it?”
His fingers snapped around my wrist. “Time to go. The boss wants to take you somewhere.”
I twisted my wrist until his hold broke, and raced over to the cage. “I’ll get you out of here,” I told Marika and Donk in Greek. Marika looked wild-eyed and terrified.
“When you do, I will cut out that one’s heart with a potato peeler,” she said.
“Deal,” I said. And it was. She could use the mansion’s whole kitchen on him for all I cared.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I’d swear on Baked Potato, Beaver, and Mario’s lives that I caught the flutter of a black coat behind the rocks as we picked our way back to Casa de Eurotrash.
Somewhere out there, the Armani Hobo was watching.
To be or not to be afraid, that was the question.
#
Surprisingly, the part of Giugliano I’d seen earlier was the good part. The part I was seeing now was the rest of it. The tumbleweeds of garbage had messier friends. The stench of rotting refuse engaging in air combat with gasoline and diesel fumes. Graffiti marked the faces, sides, and backs of most buildings. I didn’t know what it any of it said but I was willing to bet it wasn’t romantic poetry.
“You like?” Mario said from the driver’s seat.
We were wedged inside his Pagani sports car, which was the offspring of the Batmobile and Herbie. Mario was driving at the speed of drying paint. A snail passed us, and a disabled guy on crutches. During a zombie apocalypse, Mario would be one of the first to die. He’d never be able to outdrive their shambling.
“It’s very ...” I hunted for a word that wasn’t synonymous with dump or poop. “ ... Italian.”
He scoffed. “It is, how you say, a shit hole. A toilet. That is what my city is now. This is why I live by the beach where the air is clean and I can throw the garbage in the ocean when there is a strike.”
Uh, okay ... “You could always move. I hear other parts of Italy are nice.”
“And leave my city? Never. My family’s history is here.”
He rounded a corner slowly. Around me, the car wept for its wasted potential. If ever there was a person built for a Buick it was Mario.
We stopped outside a beat-up warehouse smothered in graffiti, sitting in the middle of an ocean of trash. Mario pulled out his phone, fired off a command in Italian, then ended the call. We sat. We waited.
The doors opened slowly. A couple of boys about Donk’s age burst out armed with brooms. They swept the garbage aside, clearing a space big enough for a car. When it was done, Mario backed up the Pagani and parked in the newer, cleaner parking slot.
“Inside,” he said.
Like a good doggie, I followed. Probably I could have made a run for it, but I was worried I’d drown in the ocean of garbage. Also, I couldn’t do anything with Marika and Donk locked up in the sea cave, and Mario knew it.
The warehouse was home to one massive offset printer and a laptop balanced on a tall, narrow desk. Perched on a swiveling barstool at the computer, an elderly man in loose gray pants and a wife beater stabbed at the keyboard with one finger. His nose resembled a root vegetable with a butt crack. He’d slicked his salt-and-pepper hair sideways, fooling no one. He fired off a stream of angry Italian and flipped off the laptop with both middle fingers raised. When he spotted us he stormed over, firing more angry words at Mario. The only part I understood was Microsoft and Windows 10.
Mario brushed him aside, sashayed over to the laptop. A few reboots later, the massive printer began to rumble.
“Come and look,” Mario said to me. I followed him to the far end of the printer, where rows of freshly hatched fifty-euro notes were emerging. He plucked a handful off the conveyor. “Here, you want some money? Have some money.” He nodded to the elderly man. “This is Aldo. Aldo does not speak English.”
“Aldo speaks English just fine,” Aldo said. “But I prefer to speak money.”
“Here. Money for you, too,” Mario said. He bundled up the next few rows and thrust them at Aldo.
Aldo folded his arms. He didn’t look happy. “Real money.”
“Funny story,” Mario said. “I had some real money coming to me, but this one spent it.”
“Hey!” I said. “I only spent maybe twenty euros.”
“And the ten thousand you gave your friend, eh?”
Well ... there was that. I handed the money he’d just given me back to him. “Consider this a down payment.”
Mario scowled. Not Aldo. His face split in two, yellowing teeth glowing like freshly steamed corn.
“Heh. She got you there, Super Mario,” he said.
“Don’t call me that,” Mario said.
“Super Mario,” Aldo repeated. Then he hummed the little Nintendo ditty. In the dark warehouse, it was a thing of beauty.
Mario stomped his designer shoe. “Papa, enough!”
Holy cow, Aldo was Mario’s father? The resemblance was non-existent.
“No.” The old man stabbed himself in the chest with his pointed finger. “I say when it is enough.” He went back to humming the Super Mario song. Every so often he did a little skip. He winked at me. “I am jumping over turtles.”
I decided right then and there that I liked Aldo. At least he had a sense of humor.
“Who is this one?” Aldo asked his son. “Wait, wait. Let me guess. American accent, but the face is very familiar. You are Katerina Makri’s granddaughter—yes?”
“Good guess.” To say I was impressed was an understatement. “Do you know my grandmother?”
He winked again. “Once upon a time, Katerina and I shared a moment on the beach. Okay, maybe several moments and a lot of sand in uncomfortable places.” Beside me, Mario made gagging noises. “Don’t listen to this one,” Aldo said. “Look at him. He cannot handle anything as natural as lovemaking between a man and a woman. Do you know what his mother found in his room when he was sixteen?”
