by Rick Copp
“So we’re going to have to search that whole place for your boyfriend? This is fucking nuts,” Liam said, shaking his head.
“It’s not too late to pull out.”
“Forget it. I’m pumped now. Let’s just do it.”
Liam led the way, and it was slow going for a while as we navigated our way through a thicket of trees and brush, hugging the side of the access roads up the hill so we could jump into the bushes if a car passed by. It was a quiet morning. We only had to duck out of sight once, when an elderly man in shorts and no shirt sauntered by carrying a basket of black olives he intended to sell by the roadside to the wealthy residents.
When we finally had the Karydes compound in our sights, Liam shifted gears and suddenly transformed into Joe Action Hero. He crouched down to get a good look at the compound.
“No guards outside. Shouldn’t be too hard to get up to the house. Once we’re in, though, I’m betting it’ll be a whole different ball game.” If Liam had been carrying some green face paint, he would have slapped it on at that moment.
“I wish we had some kind of layout of the house like in the movies,” I said.
He was charged up on adrenaline. We both were. Which was a good thing, because if we took a second to seriously examine what we were about to do, we would have run screaming back down the mountain. But love makes you do stupid things. And the one thing in my life I was sure of was my love for Charlie Peters.
We made our way around to the back of the house. There was still no sign of anyone. The place appeared to be deserted. Liam crawled on his belly across the lawn. I dutifully followed. I got the strong feeling Liam was enjoying this a little too much. He was now relishing every minute playing the role of studly spy, although I suspected he might not have the brains to ever pass any kind of CIA entrance exam.
After a slow crawl to some trees we could use for cover, we both darted across the back lawn of the property to a sliding glass door that was adjacent to a shimmering kidney-shaped pool and Jacuzzi. Liam tried the door. It was open. He gave me a surprised look and then cautiously slipped through, his eyes searching for anyone wandering around. Not a soul in sight.
Once inside, we found ourselves in an immense memorabilia library that housed Uli’s vast collection. We were both awestruck by the variety of TV and movie history that filled the room. There was Rhett Butler’s coat from Gone with the Wind. The Rosebud sled from Citizen Kane. The wooden vat where Lucille Ball stomped grapes in I Love Lucy. Even Robin Williams’s space suit from Mork and Mindy. I could have spent the entire day inspecting all the cool artifacts if I weren’t on a life-saving mission. Liam, who was less of an entertainment junkie than I, wasn’t nearly as impressed. He was already halfway into the next room when I snapped back to the business at hand and turned to follow him.
“Hello, Jarrod,” a voice said from behind me.
I jerked around suddenly and found myself face to face with Philander, Uli’s slender, young boy-toy assistant.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“Well, we never got to finish our date earlier, so I came over hoping to find you. You know, so we could wrap up what we started.”
Ouch. I was having a Charlie’s Angels moment. Trying to seduce the bad guy to get out of a tough spot. And he wasn’t buying what I was selling.
“I thought you came to find your boyfriend,” he said with a steely gaze.
Where was Liam? Was he on the hunt for Charlie solo? Did he even realize I was no longer following behind him?
“Look, Philander, you’ve got to talk to your boss. Bring him to his senses. He’s kidnapped a man. The police may be loyal to him, but they can’t give him a free ride for something like this. Eventually his actions are going to catch up to him.”
“It is not my job to question my boss. I am paid to service him.”
“And I bet you do a bang-up job of it too,” I said. “You must have very strong knees.”
He did a slow burn. I was pissing him off big-time. Dumb move on my part.
“As for the police,” he said, “their only interest is to keep the tourists coming. It’s good for everybody. Talk of kidnapping would only scare people away. Notice that the Indian actor’s murder hasn’t blown up into such a big thing. That’s because nobody really wants it to.”
“Where’s Charlie?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s somewhere in the house.”
“My boss is in his study.” Philander reached behind a Stetson from John Wayne’s Oscar-winning classic True Grit and pulled out a .38 revolver. “Why don’t we go ask him?”
“That’s just a prop gun from the movie.”
“No. It’s real. Belonged to the Duke himself. And we keep it loaded just in case of times like this.” He stepped forward. “Move.”
I turned around, my arms in the air, and walked out of the room. Philander followed close behind me. As we passed through the door into a hallway, Liam jumped out from his hiding place, grabbing Philander around the neck and cracking his arm with a karate chop. Philander dropped the gun and it clattered across the floor. I quickly bent down to scoop it up and pointed it at Philander.
“Now I’m going to ask you again. Where’s Charlie?”
Liam tightened his grip on Philander’s neck. He winced. “I lied.”
“About what?” I asked.
“It is a prop gun.” Philander sneered, and then cried out, “Mr. Karydes! Help!”
Liam muffled Philander’s cries with a hand over his face, but it was too late. The house erupted in a thundering sound as a stampede of guards rushed to the scene and surrounded us. Liam was yanked away from Philander, and we were both roughly led back into the memorabilia room where Uli Karydes himself soon joined us.
“I am so disappointed in you, Jarrod. To come here unannounced and recklessly endanger the life of the man you say you love. Such a shame.” Uli paced back and forth. “What am I going to do with you?”
I shrugged, holding firm, trying to stay strong and act tough.
“You really scared the devil out of Khristos, Jarrod. You sent him home practically in tears. I’m quite impressed,” Uli said, smiling.
“I don’t like to be fucked with,” I said, playing up the macho moment, hoping to knock him off guard a bit.
“Of course, Khristos never saw you in that Judith Light movie when you were in your early twenties, where you played the psychotic boyfriend of her daughter, played by Tori Spelling.”
Damn it. Who knew they get the Lifetime Movie Network all the way out in the Greek isles?
“It was called Stab in the Dark: A Mother’s Worst Nightmare. You threatened poor Judith with a knife. Recited some of the exact same lines you spouted off to Khristos.”
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Caught again. My tough-guy act was history, and Uli knew it.
“Where is it?” Uli said, his voice low and threatening, as he drummed his pudgy sausage fingers in anticipation.
I couldn’t tell him Laurette had broken the head off the Academy Award. He might fly into a rage and kill us on the spot, and then where would Charlie be? No. I had to think fast. Come up with another story that would buy us more time.
“It’s Liam’s fault we’re here,” I said.
Liam raised an eyebrow. He watched me curiously, wondering why I had suddenly decided to feed him to the wolves.
“He was just so devastated by his beloved Claire’s death, he was desperate to hold on to anything connected to her memory. The Oscar was the most concrete tie to her sadly interrupted life. He just couldn’t live knowing someone else had it. That’s what brought him here to Mykonos. He was following the same trail as I was. He saw me take it from Akshay that day on Super Paradise Beach and he showed up at my hotel room with a gun and demanded I give it back or he’d kill me. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t rescue Charlie if I was dead. Once Liam got his hands on it, he wasn’t about to part with it again, even for Charlie’s life. So I had to improvise and tr
y to rescue Charlie without it.”
I was reasonably satisfied with that complete line of bullshit. So was Liam. He didn’t open his mouth to refute it.
“And you? You got what you wanted. Why come here?” Uli said, eyeing Liam.
“I’m not a complete louse. He got me my girlfriend’s Oscar back. I figured I owed it to him to help him get back his boyfriend,” Liam said, having a far less difficult time selling the tough-guy act. “Besides, I get off on the thrill of danger.”
“That way of thinking could get you killed.”
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Liam sneered. “Luck of the Irish.”
“Well, it seems your luck has finally run out. You have a very difficult choice to make,” Uli said, stone-faced. “Either you give up your one little piece of your dead girlfriend’s memory, or he gives up his whole living, breathing boyfriend.”
I looked to Liam, who took his cue from me and spat out, “Forget it.”
“Sacrificing someone you don’t even know is one thing,” Uli said, narrowing his eyes. “Sacrificing yourself is quite another. If you’re the only person between me and my prize, I have no compunction about killing you right here.”
Liam swallowed hard, trying to play the moment as best he knew how. He mustered up his limited acting skills, eyeing the armed henchmen with their guns trained on him, waiting for the appropriate beat before whispering, “Fine. You can have the damn thing.”
Claire had seen some talent in the young Irish hunk. And she was right. He wasn’t half bad.
“Excellent. Where is it?” Uli said, clapping his hands.
“My friend has it. We have to call her to meet us,” I said.
“Fine,” Uli said, handing me his cell phone. “But no more tricks. I’m out of patience. Now where is she?”
“The Andromeda Residence.”
Uli punched in some numbers and handed me the phone.
“Look at this incredible collection. Why would you go to such lengths to get one stupid gold-plated statue?” I said.
“When you get to be my age and have my money, the whole joy in life is any kind of challenge. And the more difficult the challenge, the more fun I have.”
“But kidnapping?”
Uli shrugged. He was a corrupt Greek shipping tycoon. The idea of morals and ethics was completely lost on him. I couldn’t believe my boyfriend’s life had been put in jeopardy over a piece of movie memorabilia. Only a gay thug would go to such extremes.
Delphina answered the phone. Her tone was gruff and short due to her being up half the night. I asked her to connect me to our room, and she did so without any pleasantries. After a few rings, Laurette picked up.
“Hello?” she said with a worried lilt in her voice.
“Honey, it’s me, Jarrod.”
“Omigod, Jarrod, I’ve been worried sick. Where are you? Did you find Charlie?”
“Sort of. I need you to bring me the Oscar.”
“Jarrod, I stopped off at the pharmacy on my way back and picked up some glue. I put the thing back together again, but it hasn’t had time to dry yet. The head may roll off again.”
“Never mind that. You have to meet us. Charlie’s life depends on it.”
“And yours too,” Uli added.
“And ours too,” I said.
“Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” she said.
“Please, Laurette, just meet us.”
“Where?”
I glanced up at Uli, who was smiling. He was so close to that damn Academy Award he could barely contain himself.
“She wants to know where to meet us.”
Uli snatched the phone from me and spoke to Laurette. “Delos Island. It’s a few miles off the coast of Mykonos. You’ll have to take a ferry to get there. Be there in an hour. Every minute you’re late, your friends lose a finger.”
He clicked off and broke out into a wide smile. “She sounds like a reliable sort. You may all just get out of this alive.”
I looked at him skeptically.
“Really. I’m not a monster, Jarrod,” Uli said as he picked up a gorilla mask from the original Planet of the Apes movie and put it up to his face. “Unless you make me one, and you surely don’t want to do that.”
Chapter 31
Delos is a tiny, uninhabited island located in the middle of the Aegean Sea that was a major religious and commercial center of the ancient Greek world. It is the mythical birthplace of the god Apollo and boasts the impressive remains of temples, shrines, and sanctuaries. Among the many fascinating attractions on the island are three temples dating from the fifth and sixth centuries BC, and to the west, the Sacred Lake where Apollo was reputedly born. Standing guard over the lake are nine replicas of the famous marble lions. The actual remains can be found in the island’s archaeological museum, which houses a breathtaking collection of exhibits, including statues, masks, and ancient jewelry.
On my last trip to the party island of Mykonos, I had hopped aboard a ferry for the twenty-five minute ride to Delos because as an actor, I was excited about standing amongst the ruins of a grand theater where audiences used to watch ritual orgies in ancient times. Sometimes we’re just born too late.
Although I had been hungover from too much drinking and dancing at Pierro’s, the island’s premier gay club, the night before, I was struck by the island’s beauty and all of its rich history, and my memories of the day were still stark and clear. So I took some comfort in the fact that I was familiar with where we were going and knew of some probable hiding places if Liam and I miraculously managed some means of escape.
We were hustled aboard Uli’s speedboat, which was anchored at a small dock in a cove below his property, and ordered by Khristos, who took great pleasure in manhandling us, to sit quietly in the back of the boat. Uli joined us momentarily, along with Philander and Leandro, and after firing up the engine, we sped off toward the island of Delos.
Philander was at the wheel and seemed to be aiming the boat right for the waves so the sea spray would repeatedly splash me in the face. I guess he was still ticked off at me for getting him drunk and manipulating some key information out of him. Uli settled back with a martini cocktail in a silver tumbler, while Khristos and Leandro tried their best to wear intimidating scowls in order to keep us in line.
I imagined the panic and worry that had to be coursing through Laurette’s veins right now. She was definitely cursing herself for abandoning her cuddly new boyfriend, Larry, to join me in London only to get mixed up in all this mayhem and murder. She was a real trouper, but I was a little nervous about how she might handle her latest assignment. As long as the Oscar’s head stayed glued in place, we had a shot of surviving this dangerous escapade.
I recognized the island off in the distance, and as a ferry chugged past us, loaded with camera-toting tourists, I knew we were only minutes away from showtime. The boat circumvented the main dock and circled around to the other side of the island, where Philander drove the boat as far in as possible. When the bottom of the boat scraped across the pebble-coated shore, Leandro hopped into the water, which was up to his knees, and gripping a thick rope, pulled us nearly up on the beach.
Balancing what was left of his martini, Uli offered his hand to Leandro, who helped his portly frame down to the ground. Khristos pulled a gun out of the back of his pants and waved us to get off. Liam gave me a questioning look. What the hell was the plan? Since I didn’t have one yet, I ignored him.
The six of us hiked along a dirt trail until we saw a gaggle of tourists streaming into the island’s museum. A few others were scattered along the remains of some buildings where the island’s wealthiest residents had built lavish houses with grand, colonnaded courtyards.
“Where’s your friend?” Uli barked, anxious to get this little trade over and done with.
I raised my hand to block the harsh rays of the sun from my eyes and scanned the immediate area. At first I almost missed her. But after squinting to get a clearer view, I spotted Laurette in
a bright orange tank top, printed green wraparound skirt, seashell necklace, and sandals standing in the middle of what was once the island’s majestic amphitheater, built in 300 BC, which at one time had accommodated fifty-five hundred spectators. She looked like some resurrected goddess like Athena—except for the loud color of her ensemble, of course, and the black carry-on bag she clutched in her arms.
We trudged toward her, and as we got closer, I could see the fear etched all over her face. She was way out of her league on this one, but she was going to do what she had to do to get me and Charlie back safely.
Philander and Leandro broke apart from the group and casually circled around behind Laurette in an obvious effort to keep a tight rein over the proceedings.
Uli mustered up a sincere smile and stepped forward. “Thank you for not making this more difficult than it has to be.”
She thrust the bag at him. “Here. Just take it. Can we all go home now?”
“Absolutely,” Uli said, unzipping the bag. “But first let me just make sure you’re not going to double-cross me like the dearly departed Akshay.”
Uli gently lifted the Academy Award out of the bag. Laurette, Liam, and I held our collective breath. The Oscar had his head on straight. No obvious signs of damage. Things were finally looking up.
At that moment, I noticed a large group of tourists, all snapping photos of the various ruins and making their way toward us. Uli gave the group a cursory glance but then quickly returned to inspecting his newest, most prized possession.
Philander, eyeing the approaching group, leaned in to his boss. “Mr. Karydes, I think we should go now.”
Laurette searched our party. “Where’s Charlie? You promised to let him go.”
“Don’t worry,” Uli said. “I have no reason to hold on to him anymore. He’ll be back in time for you all to have dinner tonight at one of our fine gourmet restaurants. On me.”
When I glanced over at the tourists, who were now only a hundred feet away from us, I was startled to see Delphina, our receptionist at the Andromeda Residence, among them. She was wearing a big, bright yellow floppy hat and sunglasses as a makeshift disguise, but it was definitely her. What was she doing here? She lived on Mykonos. Why on earth would she be touring Delos Island with a Kodak disposable camera?
