In Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel

by Alex A King

  My cousins laughed.

  “This is going to be good,” Stavros said, rubbing his hands together.

  Hera’s face was thunderous. They’d be lucky if she didn’t shoot them. “Keep throwing those rocks, you little bastards!”

  That was a woman with a death wish. If their mothers heard her they’d kill her on the spot.

  “Okay,” one of Tomas’s older brothers said. He pitched another stone at the van. This one bounced off the roof.

  The wicked witch stalked to the gates.

  “Your animals are out of control. I could have them taken away like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Sent to foster homes. Maybe even adopted out to other countries. I hear they like little Greek boys in Turkey.”

  I pushed forward. “Wow, Hera, how are you going to explain this one to your boss? You’ve already lost one van ... and a couple of sources along with it. I don’t think Greece can afford to replace vans as quickly as you destroy them.”

  She shocked the stuffing out of me when she said, “You’re right. I should do something about that. In fact—” her smile was big scary red thing that only a fashion photographer and most straight men, lesbians, and probably babies could love; damn her “—I have an idea.”

  Without giving me a chance to fire off a hit of sarcasm (which was lucky because I hadn’t lined up a comeback yet) she turned to the boys on the wall. Between them they spanned the range between pre-school and graduation. They were grubby; they were loud; they were Makris boys.

  Hera waved to them and amped up her smile. She struck a red carpet pose in front of the wall, hands on hips, leg out front and center.

  “Stop throwing rocks and I’ll show you my boobs.”

  Rocks fell to the ground. Mouths dropped open. Eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

  She had them, just like that. Immediate ceasefire.

  Oh, she was good. The bitch.

  Like magic, I found myself standing at the back of the smallish crowd at the gate as the Makris men stormed the gate. Only Stavros was hanging back, disinterested.

  “Are you sick?” I asked him.

  “It’s just boobs,” Stavros said, shrugging. “Who hasn’t seen boobs before? Even cows have boobs. They have four. Four is more than two.” His elementary school education had finally paid off.

  Risking death by horny mob, I squeezed back through to the front of the crowd in time to catch Hera unbuttoning her shirt. A hush moved through the field of grown men. The boys on the wall stared down at her reverently. All except Tomas, whose tiny dark head remained bowed over the notepad.

  The mountains of Hera were pretty spectacular. Even I was impressed, and here I was with a pair of my own speed bumps.

  En masse, my cousins crossed themselves. One of them wiped a tear away. “It is a miracle,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “They’re just lumps of meat and skin. Everybody has them.” Not like that they didn’t, but still ... “You even have nipples—all you guys. And they don’t look all that different to what she’s got.”

  They ignored me.

  “It’s no good,” Stavros said from behind me. “They’re boob-struck.”

  Sigh. “Hey, Hera? The longer you leave those out, the greater the risk of gravity snatching them and running.”

  “I almost never wear a bra,” she said.

  “Sunburn? I hear sunburned nipples are a bitch.”

  “I sunbathe topless all the time.” She was right, she evidently did. No strap marks.

  I scrambled for ideas. I pulled out my phone, carefully lined up Hera and the gawking boys, and snapped.

  Her head whipped around. “What are you doing?”

  “A picture of an NIS agent exposing herself to children is worth so much more than a thousand words.”

  Night fell instantly on the peaks of Hera as her shirt snapped shut. She looked like she wanted to stab me in the everything. “You can’t do that!”

  Sounds of disappointment surrounded me. Too bad, so sad.

  “I can’t? Huh. Funny. I would have sworn it was me taking the picture.” I jiggled my phone at the bars. She swiped at it and missed. “Wouldn’t matter. I sent it to a secure location, pervert. Several, actually.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and then it slowly closed, sealing itself with a smirk. “How do you feel about going back to Italy? I hear a certain counterfeiter would like to see you again.”

  “How do you feel about me releasing this picture to the world, kiddie diddler? How long will your cushy government job last then?” I held up my fingers, framed her face in the air. “I can see you picking olives for a living.”

  “I’m not done with you,” she snarled. “Wherever you go I will be watching.”

  “Like you were trying to watch Melas?”

  She made a small noise of surprise.

  “He told me how he found you in his house, bugging the place. That’s sad and desperate. Don’t you have any dignity?”

  “I wouldn’t have to bug his house if he didn’t associate with you and your family. Nikos is getting soft on crime, thanks to you. He has forgotten who the enemy is, who the good guys are.”

  “Bugging his house puts you on the wrong side of the line.”

  “I’m saving him from himself!”

  “Last time I looked he was a grown man.” And what a man he was, but I didn’t say the words aloud. Why dangle raw steak in front of a crocodile?

  “You know nothing about Greek men. They are boys all their lives. They go from their mamas to their wives, believing they are gods.”

  “Go away, Hera. If you can’t help me then you’re just in my way.”

  “I’m going, but I will be watching. Never forget that.”

  We’d see about that. Kyria Melas’s parting words had left an indelible impression in my brain, right under the rock where my shame and guilt often huddled together and made plans to do nothing about anything.

  Proactivity—I had to find my inner balls and do something about something.

  What I had were two problems, I realized in the hours after the incident with Hera’s boobs, that I could solve with one bold, ridiculous move. Not only was the NIS following me, but also someone was taking happy snaps of me and sticking them on the internet. On top of that, Hera had dangled the possibility of information about Dad in front of my nose then yanked it away. Following her might yield some answers. My constant audience had to go.

  First thing’s first: I needed a car that wasn’t a yellow Beetle.

  To the garage!

  Like a cartoon character, I burst into the compound’s massive garage, where dozens of vehicles waited for their chance to serve.

  “I need a car,” I called out to the cousin on duty. “Something discreet.”

  My cousin kept on waxing the already gleaming hood of black sports car. Except for my Beetle, Aunt Rita’s Barbie convertible, and her Pepto-pink moped, everything housed in the garage was the same dark shade of Grandma’s soul—if you believed the stories, newspapers, and facts.

  “Something wrong with the Volkswagen?”

  “It’s yellow. You can’t hide yellow unless you’re in a banana grove.”

  “We don’t have those here,” he admitted.

  Greece wasn’t exactly banana central. In fact, I hadn’t seen a single one since I got here. I put finding a banana on the to-do list.

  “How about a black one?” I asked.

  “I don’t know if we have one available.”

  I looked at the cars, looked at him. “Seriously?”

  “They are busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Come on. Teeny tiny.”

  He dolloped more wax onto the smooth surface. “I don’t know ...”

  “Please. Just one itty-bitty black car.”

  “Baboulas has not approved it. I need her permission or Xander’s.”

  Xander’s? What the hell? He’d never approve my request, and Grandma was higher than the mon
asteries at Meteora at the moment.

  “Forget it,” I said. In my head I was skipping to Plan B. The problem was Plan B didn’t exist. Yet. While my mind percolated, I went in search of sage advice. Or advice. Wisdom wasn’t a have-to, although it would be nice.

  Brain clunking along, I hurried to Papou’s apartment and knocked. He yanked open the door, glared out at me.

  “Are you taking Yiorgos and me to the woods?”

  “What? No!”

  “You promised. Snakes, remember? More snakes than you have ever seen. You will ask yourself why there are so many motherfucking snakes in your motherfucking room. Then, as you are dying, you will remember Papou and his poor eagle.”

  “That’s very dramatic. Were you on the stage in Ancient Greece?”

  He slammed the door in my face. I knocked again.

  The door opened. “What?”

  “I have a question.”

  “Every idiot has questions. Clever people have the answers.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I’m looking for a clever person.”

  “Hmm ...” He eyed me warily through lemon yellow eyes. “What is your question?”

  “In the old days, how did you follow someone discreetly?”

  “What makes you think I ever did that?” I raised an eyebrow. He made a face. “Okay, maybe I did. It depends. Car, motorcycle, and once on a donkey.”

  Donkey? I didn’t like the sound of that. “What if none of those were an option?”

  “Bicycle. And I hoped the mark did not have a car or a faster bicycle.” He did a zigzag hand wave through the air. “The vehicle is only part of the problem. You want to follow someone, you better have a good disguise.”

  “So they don’t recognize you?”

  “And so they can’t, even later. Are you planning to follow someone?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Baboulas will not like it.”

  “Grandma is in the hospital.”

  “Sure, she is in the hospital, but she has long, stretchy arms that can go SLAP out of nowhere when you least expect it.” He leaned forward and slapped me lightly, then laughed. “Heh. Just like that. You want another one?” SLAP.

  “I could push you off a cliff.”

  SLAP.

  I ducked but his hand found me anyway. SLAP.

  “Or ... I’ll tell Grandma you told me how to follow someone.”

  “Tell her. I am not scared of that old donkey.” He made donkey noises. “I knew her long before she became Baboulas.”

  He’d piqued my curiosity. Family history wasn’t my strong suit. “How long?”

  “Long enough that I know better than to answer your questions.” He looked me up-down. “Who are you going to follow?”

  “Who said I’m following anyone? Maybe my question was hypothetical.”

  He laughed. It was all chest-and-shoulder heaving and very little noise. “A funny thing happens when you get old: young people think you are an idiot.”

  “Hera. The NIS agent.” Saying it aloud it sounded even more preposterous than it had in the privacy of my head. Maybe following her wasn’t such a great idea.

  “Po-po ...” Papou said, rolling his eyes. “What is worse than an idiot? You are that.”

  The Greek exclamation meant he thought I was out of my mind. Which was probably true, but people—meaning me—do crazy things when the people they love are in danger.

  “I know. Are you going to tell Grandma?”

  “Maybe ...” His yellowing, rheumy eyes twinkled. “What is it worth to you for me to keep my mouth shut, eh?

  “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Of course. In the old days I was one of the best.”

  I groaned. “What do you want?”

  He grinned.

  CHAPTER 16

  Aunt Rita: mistress of disguises. A few days ago she’d dolled Melas up in leather pants and a wig that made him look like something Jon Bon Jovi coughed out of his lung back in 1988. Even his best buddy hadn’t recognized him at first.

  She clapped her hands like a preschooler who’d spent the afternoon sucking on a tube of high-fructose corn syrup when I asked for her help.

  My aunt’s apartment was tastefully decorated, not what you’d expect from someone as flamboyant as she was. Her closet was a different matter. It was everything I’d imagined, and then some. Feathers, furs, rainbows, and more fake hair than a Cher concert. Oz’s Princess Langwidere would writhe with envy if she knew about Aunt Rita’s closets with all its polystyrene, wig-topped heads.

  “Exotic and deadly, or boring and invisible?” Aunt Rita pressed her hands together, feigning prayer. “Please, please, please say the first one.”

  “Invisible. Definitely invisible. I want to be so dull I fade into the background.”

  She sighed like I was killing her. “One of these days ...” She wiggled her crimson-tipped fingers. “One of these days I will dress you up and the entire world will fall at your feet. Or maybe just Detective Melas, eh?”

  The idea sounded appealing, which meant now was the perfect time to shut it down. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

  “Nothing.” She made a little face. “But why waste the gifts God gave you?”

  “Melas likes to flirt, but when it comes down to it he belongs with the Heras of the world. She’s a ten, he’s a ten. Imagine how beautiful their kids would be.”

  “On the outside she is a seven, at best. On the inside she’s a zero. That one is poison and Nikos Melas knows it.” She gave my cheeks a gentle pinch and smiled down at me. “You are a ten in every way. Believe me when I tell you he likes you.”

  He did like me, but we could never happen. We were all prologue and no story, Nikos Melas and I.

  “Okay,” my aunt went on, rubbing her hands together, “Boring and invisible. I haven’t been boring and invisible since I was a man, but I will see what magic I can weave.”

  An hour later I was experiencing a real Boys Don’t Cry moment. Hilary Swank, eat your girl-balls out.

  “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” I said. “I was thinking something maybe black.”

  “Like Catwoman?” she asked hopefully.

  “Less Catwoman, more shadow in the night.”

  Aunt Rita began rifling through her closet. “Catwoman. Shadow. Okay.”

  Next time I looked in the mirror I was the Phantom of the Opera, minus the mask. “Isn’t it too hot to wear a cloak?”

  “Fashion is suffering. It’s a beautiful cloak. Bespoke, from Paris.”

  “Less satin, maybe?”

  “Okay ...”

  Thirty minutes later, my aunt was chewing on her bottom lip. It was the first time I’d seen her confidence waver. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “It’s so ...”

  “Perfect?”

  “Not the word I would use, but I am working with the rules you gave me.”

  Perfect was definitely the word I’d use. Aunt Rita had decked me out in a frumpy black skirt, black knee-high stocks, a loose black shirt. My hair was hidden under a black kerchief. Do you know who notices widows in Greece? Nobody. Greek villagers only notice women who should be (in their gossipy estimation) wearing black, not the ones who are already performing their duty to the dead. For widows, black is a life sentence.

  Aunt Rita tucked a stray hair back into the kerchief and tossed down a pair of flat backless loafers for me to slide my feet into. Also black, of course. “Do you have a vehicle?”

  “No, they wouldn’t give me one.”

  She patted my shoulder. “Leave it to me.”

  #

  Trusting someone who says “leave it to me” is risky business.

  I looked at the moped parked by the fountain. I recognized it from when I’d ridden it before.

  “Wasn’t this pink, or am I losing my mind?”

  “It was pink. Now it is black.”

  “How?”

  Aunt Rita looked genuinely puzzled. “They don’t have paint in America?”

&n
bsp; “Yes, but earlier today it was pink.”

  “I had the cousins paint it while we were playing dress-up.”

  “That was an hour ago.”

  “Fast-drying paint,” she assured me.

  Did I feel reassured? Nope.

  I gave my aunt a kiss on both cheeks and rolled toward the gates. The moped was narrow enough that it could slip through the side gate for foot traffic. Why advertise the family’s movements to the NIS more than necessary?

  Takis was outside the guardhouse shooting the breeze with the guard on duty.

  When he spotted me, he crouched down, waved in my face. “Hello, old lady. What are you doing?”

  “Christ with a canary, it’s just me.”

  “Katerina?” He looked me up and down. His face broke into a shit-eating grin. “Looks to me like you made some improvements. Big date?”

  “Secret mission.”

  He nodded like he knew. “Baboulas set you up with an old man, eh?”

  Keeping it classy, I raised my middle finger, which only made him laugh. “Perfect,” he said, “now your transformation is complete. You are just like every Greek widow ever.”

  “Ten euro says Marika dyes her entire wardrobe yellow when you die.”

  His expression darkened. “She would not dare.”

  I made a face. “She might if she had encouragement.”

  “You would not dare.”

  My fingers waggled. “Toodles, old chap,” I said in English. He grabbed at me, but the moped zipped out of reach.

  The night was a dark one. It was slow going through the orchard, grove, whatever it was called, but that was okay. Slow was my goal. Slow is how you sneak up on people and plant yourself on their butts. My intention was to become a barnacle ... or a tick. Where Hera went, I’d follow, while avoiding anyone who was tailing me. In my fantasy, Hera would go crazy trying to figure out where I’d vanished to. I’d be her shadow, her—

  My phone vibrated. I stopped to answer.

  “What are you doing?” Melas asked.

  “That depends,” I whispered. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “Have you looked outside? It’s nighttime. I’m using my night voice.”

  There was silence. At first I thought he’d ended the call—damn you, cellphones!—then he sighed. “Are you on a date with that doctor?”