In Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel

by Alex A King

  He shut the door behind him, leaving me alone with Grandma.

  “I want you to do something for me,” she said. “Rita can go with you.”

  “Okay ...” I squinted at her. “Do I have to kill anyone?”

  “That’s what Elias is for—and Rita, if necessary. I do not want you to kill anyone, okay? Not unless it is self defense.”

  “Then why did you give the order for me to kill Mario Fontana in Italy?”

  “Order? What order? There was no order.”

  It’s not easy throwing a grown man to the wolves. A grown man is heavy, for starters. But I managed.

  I filled Grandma in what Uncle Kostas had told me, his little sob story about Grandma and her concern about how I wasn’t tough enough to fill her tattered slippers. I left the tattered part out in case Grandma was sensitive about her footwear.

  “There was no order from me,” Grandma said.

  “But—”

  “I gave no order. There is a reason I gave you your father’s slingshot instead of a gun.”

  “What reason?”

  “Let an old woman keep some secrets for now, eh? Today I want you to visit a woman named Dora Makri. She is family, but not Family. She will read your coffee cup for you.”

  “You want me to see ...” My eyelids went on a blinking spree as I tried to process what she was telling me. “... a fortune teller?”

  I’d been there, done that, with Melas’s mother. Repeating the experience wasn’t anything I wanted to do anytime soon.

  “Maybe.”

  “Is this the one who made the phone cover?”

  She patted my hand. “Make sure you take twenty euro with you.”

  I could see the future already. Me and my money would soon be foolishly parted.

  #

  A horn sounded behind me.

  Marika was nodding sagely as I recounted Grandma’s order to visit the non-criminal branch of the family tree.

  “Dora is the one who told me I would marry Takis. Whatever she tells you ... guaranteed it is true.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “Who can remember? It was a long time ago. Probably I should come with you—for support, in case she tells you something terrible.”

  “She did tell you about Takis,” I said. Marriage to Takis was about as terrible as it got—in my mind, anyway.

  “Maybe she can tell you who you will marry—Detective Melas or Xander.”

  My mouth dropped open. Below my hairline my forehead did something equally unflattering. “What makes you think I’d want either of them?”

  Marika beamed at me from the passenger side. “I bet it will be Melas ... although, that could be very complicated. So you should probably choose Xander.”

  “I don’t want to marry either of them!”

  She made a dismissive noise.

  My Spidey senses tingled. “Marika ... Is someone betting on this?”

  Her face said yes but also no. Her mouth said, “Could be.”

  “Does Takis have anything to do with it?”

  “Do not tell him I told you, okay? He could make a lot of money on this.”

  My teeth ground in tight circles. A steel band fastened itself around my forehead and squeezed the delicate contents. “Who does he think I’ll choose?”

  “He is betting on the detective.”

  “Do Melas and Xander know about this?”

  Recently my cousins had been making bets about when I’d sleep with Melas. So far nobody had collected a cent. If it ever happened I’d take it to my grave so none of them would make a dime off my sex life.

  “Xander knows everything.”

  “And Melas?”

  “He is the police.”

  So that was a yes. Or was it a no?

  Things happened as I banged my forehead on the steering wheel. Insults shot me in the back. Urgent honking suggested that if I didn’t move, sometime very soon someone would move me—hard and from behind. I tapped the gas pedal before things—meaning the Beetle’s rear bumper—got ugly.

  “Fortune tellers,” I muttered. “Coffee cups.”

  #

  I carried the bird back to Papou and passed on the little guy’s instructions to take Yiorgos into the woods and let him hunt.

  “Oh, okay, I will get right on it,” Papou said. “Should be very easy in this wheelchair.”

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

  “Gamo ti putana mou, what kind of skata is that?”

  I didn’t think he had a prostitute handy to do those things they do. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t make it up.”

  “If you try and it does not work, try something else.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “That is wisdom. Not this try, try again skata.” He stuck his finger through the cat carrier bars. “Who is a good boy, eh? You want a little mouse? How about a little klasimo? Ask Katerina, she will do one for you.”

  This was what my life had become: fart jokes and people who were trying to either kill me or make me kill people.

  “You could take Yiorgos hunting,” Papou said slyly.

  “No.”

  “What is this ‘no’ nonsense?”

  “ ‘No’ is a complete sentence,” I told him. “I’m not taking the eagle hunting.”

  “Tonight then,” he said. “Meet you at the fountain at ten. If you are late I will fill your room with snakes. They might be poisonous. Or they might not.”

  “Snakes are venomous, not poisonous.”

  “In America maybe,” he said darkly.

  #

  Throw a stone along the waterfront in Greece and you’re liable to strike a place that sells coffee. Throw it hard enough and you’ll hit the guy selling it, too.

  I eyed the rows of umbrellas stretched out across the concrete lip that ran alongside the gulf. People were hiding from the sun under the umbrellas, but the sun knew they were there. It was just waiting for them to screw up and stick out a limb, then ... ZAP. Tourists from predominantly pale regions, like the UK and Germany, came to Greece for the exfoliation benefits of first-degree burns.

  Locals were smarter and more jaded. They were sleeping off the heat.

  Mostly smarter, that is. Two dummies—Aunt Rita and me—were cruising the waterfront in Aunt Rita’s Barbie car, hunting for an oracle.

  “Which kafeneio is she at?” I asked.

  “The one with the blue umbrellas.”

  I blinked. Every last cafe, taverna, and restaurant along this piece of the shore had a blue umbrella. When I pointed this out, Aunt Rita took both her hands off the wheel to hug me. The convertible kept on moving.

  “To you they are blue. To me, a connoisseur of color, they are light blue, azure, navy blue, blue, robin’s egg blue, cornflower blue, cerulean, and periwinkle. Thea Dora will be under the red one.”

  Dora wasn’t technically Aunt Rita’s aunt, but she tacked on the honorary Thea anyway, out of respect. Greeks are big on showing respect even to people who don’t deserve it, because it makes them look good. Behind the curtain it’s a different story. Back there it’s a character assassination in constant progress.

  For a moment I thought Aunt Rita was pulling my leg, then I spotted the lone red canopy in the shades-of-blue canvas sea.

  Aunt Rita parked the Barbie car within spitting distance of the sidewalk. With her long legs, fire-engine-red strapless dress and flaming red wig, she resembled the Towering Inferno as she strode across the street. Heads turned the way they always did for train wrecks and other unnatural disasters. Me, I thought my aunt was fierce. She was a lioness amongst declawed, toothless house cats. She rocked being a woman so hard that, despite her prominent Adam’s apple, it was hard to believe she’d started life as a boy.

  When she realized I was still standing by the sugary pink convertible, waiting for a break in traffic, she stepped into the street and held up both hands, parting the steel sea for me. Brakes screeched. Horns blared. Aunt Rita soothed the beasts with a raised middle
digit on each hand.

  Very Gandalf of her.

  Like Gandalf she had a staff. Unlike Gandalf, she kept hers tucked up and away.

  Somehow I reached the other side without winding up as a crimson-and-bone smear on hot blacktop. My aunt grabbed my hand, dragged me over to the red umbrella.

  Beneath it sat our oracle.

  Dora Makris was an overstuffed sweating poodle with deep-set eyes and a fast mouth. She dressed in a widow’s black and looked like she could strip a person of their darkest secrets in ten seconds flat.

  Aunt Rita performed the introduction ritual. Perfume-heavy cheek kisses were exchanged. Damp hugs happened. And when the polite ceremony was over, Dora Makri declared, in the way of southern belles and Greek women of a certain age, “You are American! My niece is American. Maybe you know each other.” She beamed at me, clearly pleased at herself for coming up with that bit of wisdom.

  “Uh, where is your niece from?”

  “Oregon!”

  Huh. What were the odds? I bet Stavros and Takis knew. “Whereabouts in Oregon?”

  She thought for a moment. “It begins with a P ...”

  “Portland?”

  “Portland!”

  Maybe I did know her. “What’s her name?”

  “Vivi Tyler. Do you know her?”

  “No, sorry.”

  Her face fell.

  Aunt Rita stepped in. “You do realize your American niece is our family too, eh?”

  “As if I could forget,” Dora Makri said, her face broadcasting that she’d forgotten. “What does the shady part of my late husband’s family need today?”

  Aunt Rita rolled her eyes at me. “Shady? This from a woman whose daughter is on a reality TV show.”

  “It is the best show on television,” Dora Makri said, words dripping conviction.

  “Grandma watches it,” I said.

  Kyria Dora beamed. “See? Me, I never watch it. Too much violence.”

  Aunt Rita pulled out a seat for me then one for herself. We sat.

  “Mama wants Katerina to have her cup read.”

  Kyria Dora eyed Aunt Rita suspiciously. “Since when does your mama trust anyone besides that other woman to read cups for her?”

  “There’s a ... complication,” my aunt said delicately.

  “A complication,” Kyria Dora breathed.

  A bell went ding-dong in my head. Lights flashed in the darkness. “Are we talking about Kyria Mela?” I asked. “Because if we are, Kyria Mela thinks I want to sleep with her son.” I did and I didn’t. “Grandma probably doesn’t want her prejudice affecting the reading.” I didn’t mention Kyria Mela had already read my cup.

  Dora immediately sniffed out the potential gossip. “Are you saying that woman does not like you? Why? Did you steal a chicken from her?” She patted my hand. “You can tell me—we are family.”

  “Who wouldn’t love Katerina? Look at this face.” Aunt Rita grabbed my chin and turned me toward the light. “Look at it. This is the face of the sweetest angel I have ever met ... and also the future of the Makris family.”

  Dora Makri crossed herself, forehead to chest, shoulder to shoulder. “Okay, okay.” She waved to some distant point across the street. A waiter materialized with a tray holding two coffees and two tall sweaty glasses of iced water. “I am better than that Mela woman anyway.”

  Better at divining the future maybe, but definitely not better at yanking out fingernails.

  Suddenly Dora Makri’s eyes widened. Her back stiffened as though a puppeteer had just shoved a steel rod up her rear. “What is she doing here?”

  My head swiveled on its stick. My heart came to a screeching halt as my eyes sucked in the sight of Greece’s most fearsome creature not in mythology books sidling up to the table.

  “Look who it is,” Kyria Mela said in a sticky sweet voice. “Someone who thinks she can divine the future.” She plucked the sign advertising Dora Makri’s business and rates off the table, peered down her nose at it. “And you make money lying to people? Oh well, even liars need to eat. And you do like to eat, don’t you?”

  Dora heaved herself out of her chair. The chair made a grateful noise.

  “Sit, sit,” Kyria Mela said, waving her hand. “I do not want you to lose a kilo.” She scanned the small table, zeroed in on me.

  The fragment of my DNA that remembered scuttling around the forest floor back in the days when being trodden on by a dinosaur was a distinct probability went, “Meep.”

  Melas’s mother touched a finger to her eye, and then snatched a chair away from a baffled tourist sporting a fanny pack and Crocs. He was too burnt to fight back. “You want the truth about your future you should come back to me. I have the sight.”

  Holy hell, I mouthed at Aunt Rita.

  My aunt patted my knee, a move that would have been reassuring if her eyes weren’t glassy with deep-seated fear.

  Kyria Mela has that effect on people. Physically, Melas’s mother is a tiny helmet-haired bird. She’s what men call fun-sized ... if they want to lose their heads and balls. One good stomp and you could crush the woman under your boot. But she oozed something that screamed, “You thought Medusa was bad-ass, turning men to stone? That was nothing. I can make you bleed from holes you did not know you had.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kyria Mela said. “You have nothing to fear from the cup ...” She blew terror into my soul with a long, dark look. “ ... Unless you do.”

  Oh. Gee. That made it okay then. Abracadabra—fear gone. Except ... now horror was tiptoeing down my spine, heading toward my bladder. The doll-sized demitasse cup in front of me looked like risky business now. A mouthful could make the difference between wetting myself and staying dry.

  Dora Makri rolled her eyes and turned her back on Melas’s mother. “Drink the coffee,” she told me, “then turn it upside down on the saucer and turn it three times.”

  “Seven,” Kyria Mela said.

  “Three,” Dora insisted.

  “What are you doing here?” Aunt Rita asked Kyria Mela, suddenly rediscovering what she had tucked up inside her underwear.

  “I came to talk to Katerina about something very important.”

  “I don’t really know important stuff,” I said.

  “Italy. You were there.” Together we reenacted that scene from Aliens 3, where the alien is sniffing Ripley’s horrified, cowering face. For the record, I was playing the role of Ripley, but with hair. “I want to know everything.”

  I shuddered. “I was there for three days, and mostly I was a prisoner.”

  “Did they torture you?”

  “Does a rare strain of poison ivy count?”

  Her expression turned thoughtful, in an alarming way. “Maybe.”

  Hands shaking, I snatched up the coffee. “We could split the difference and do five,” I suggested. Two sets of steel eyes glared back at me. “Or not ...” I looked at Aunt Rita.

  “I can’t help you,” she said, inches away from curling into the fetal position, “I’m scared, too.”

  I turned back to the two wannabe oracles. “For the record, I still don’t believe in this stuff.”

  “You will,” Kyria Mela said darkly, “but only if you listen to me. That one is a false prophet.”

  “I used to work for the police.” A smug little smile brightened the lower half of Kyria Dora’s face. “And I heard stories about your son ... po-po ...”

  Melas’s mother sucked in her breath—hard. It was the dangerous sound I imagined the retreating tide might make before a tsunami slammed into the shore.

  I perked up. “Stories? I want to hear the stories.”

  “There are no stories,” Melas’s mother said, tone sprinkled with broken bones.

  “We will both read her cup,” Kyria Dora said, “and we will see who is right.”

  “Yes, we will see.”

  “Prepare, you skinny bird.”

  “Prepare what, your coffin? Greece does not have enough wood.”

  “To lose
.”

  “I never lose.”

  “You are about to.”

  As far as standoffs went, it was Mexican, but with Greek women.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You two want to use me to settle a score?”

  Kyria Dora made a face. “You could say that.”

  Aunt Rita brightened up. She pulled out her phone. “Let me call the bookies. They will want to be in on this.”

  I gawked at her. This was a new level of crazy. Greece had lost its damn mind. Maybe it was the heat. Studies have shown that people are kookier in summer. That’s how they explain Florida.

  “No,” I said. “No bookies.” I knocked back the coffee, gagged on the grounds, slapped the cup on its saucer and spun it five times before thrusting it across the table at the two women. It was my non-violent way of clanging their heads together.

  Two sets of hands reached for the cup. Kyria Dora elbowed Kyria Mela and snatched up her prize. She made a big production out of twisting it this way and that, contemplating my future.

  “Ah ... I see him, this one’s son. You will have many babies with him ... out of wedlock.”

  “Never,” Kyria Mela breathed.

  “The cup does not lie,” Kyria Dora said archly.

  “It is not the cup lying, it is your mouth.”

  Dora ignored her. “Your children will not be his first out of wedlock child. There is another.”

  My heart stopped. My blood froze. But somehow I didn’t drop dead. “Huh,” I said, “how about that.”

  “More lies,” Kyria Mela said airily. “Believe this one and you will believe anything. Have you thought about selling Amway? That would be a step up for you. You would be excellent at peddling bullshit.”

  “Amway? I do not know this Amway. All I know is the truth I see here. Also—” the sausage-curled woman looked me in the eye “—there is somebody following you.”

  I frowned. “You can see that in the cup?”

  “No—he is over there.”

  I whipped around just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark-haired man fleeing the scene. Beside me, Aunt Rita pulled a gun out of ... I don’t know where. Somewhere. The hiding places in that dress were nonexistent, but what did I know?

  Across the street, Elias was in a pursuit that wasn’t quite happening, thanks to the freakin’ NIS. Hera and her flunkies had set up temporary shop across the street, clogging foot traffic on the sidewalk.