Athenian Blues

by Pol Koutsakis

  “I thought stars had good relationships with their managers,” I said.

  He smiled on hearing the word “star”. It was probably enough to make him ignore the rest of my sentence. “Labis is OK, poor guy, but I want to relax a bit, to be on my own, to cultivate my inner self, but he doesn’t leave me in peace, he’s so… what’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Overprotective?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it. And he stifles me,” he said, fanning himself with the contract and glancing round at the screens. It was a while before he remembered I was still there. “So, you know Angelino, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Friends?”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “A good man, Angelino. On the level. What do you want to ask me?”

  “About your relationship with Aliki Stylianou.”

  That took him by surprise. He didn’t speak for a few seconds.

  “How do you know about that?”

  Not from Drag, anyhow, since you forgot to mention it to him, I thought.

  “Do you need to know?” I asked.

  “I don’t need to, but…”

  “Then you don’t.”

  “Will you tell me why you’re interested, at least?”

  “Let’s say I’m looking into the case.”

  “Not a cop, eh?”

  “No.”

  “Then what? A detective?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you’re looking into the case? Great! Let me ask you, while we’re talking, would it bother you if I film it? You see, I’m writing a screenplay with a detective as the lead… I have to write it myself, all the scripts they send me are such rubbish – and I want to know how people on the job really behave.”

  “It would.”

  “What?”

  “Bother me.”

  “Oh. I can pay you, if you want.”

  “I don’t want.”

  “Fine. OK. Just let me get some water…”

  He went to the kitchen and came back with two glasses of water, one of which he offered me. Then he sat down and got out a spotless white handkerchief from his dressing gown, with which he proceeded to wipe each one of his fingers with great thoroughness. Seeing me looking, he said, “I have a bit of a phobia of germs.”

  “That must make your life difficult,” I said.

  “Not if I am careful. Which I am, about everything.”

  He continued to wipe his hands, and then said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to film you?”

  “Very flattering, but no.”

  “I am only really at ease when I’m surrounded by cameras, understand? It would make it easier for me to answer your questions.”

  “Alright,” I agreed, seeing that we were getting nowhere.

  “Wonderful!”

  He folded his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. Then he opened a cupboard and took out a video camera.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t show it to anyone, it’s just for me.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Really!”

  “Tell me about Aliki.”

  He pressed the “record” button and a red light flashed. As he spoke he moved around, shooting me from different angles. I wondered if he found me photogenic.

  “Aliki… The darkest and brightest kid I’ve ever known,” he said.

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t have to explain the bright side, you’d have to be blind not to… see it. She seems to light up… any place she visits.”

  His dialogue was fractured as he concentrated on getting the shots he wanted.

  “And, as an actress… she has a big future ahead… her looks… persistence… we just have to find her, make sure she’s safe… had to make some changes… the script. You know, sending her on holiday… usual thing… Any idea where she is?”

  “Nothing yet. What about her dark side?”

  Peppas stopped his restless moving and kept the camera on my face.

  “You don’t see it unless you spend a lot of time with her. And when you’ve seen it, you don’t want to see it again. At least, I didn’t, which is why I let her slip away from me. I remember her stopping while we were talking and looking at me with such intensity my hair stood on end. As if she’d never looked at me before… as if she wanted to devour me. Her voice didn’t change, but that look… As if her face couldn’t cope with what she was thinking… Whenever I tried to ask her about her past, she’d give me vague evasive answers, but she managed me in the way she knew best. In bed. Her great talent. Only it was too wild for me, I don’t know if you follow me…?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Relationships with actresses I’ve had… even I don’t know how many. And not, of course, because they love my hairy belly. They try and disguise it, but they’re all hoping for a break. I’ve never before had a first date like the one I had with Aliki. We didn’t bother with coffee or something to eat but went straight to my room in the hotel. And then she asked me where I’d like to come on her.”

  I remembered Drag who, when he hears of such women, says, “In my village we call them slags,” and I answer, “Drag, you haven’t got a village”, and he says: “Yes, but I’d like to have one.”

  “Any chance she wanted you with an ungovernable passion?” I asked him.

  “None. I asked her if she wouldn’t like a fairy-tale romance, complete with happy ending with the two of us disappearing hand-in-hand into the sunset. And she said, ‘I don’t need any more – I’ve had enough in my life.’”

  “What did she mean?”

  “I don’t know. Never found out. Never cared to find out, to tell you the truth – I had already decided that we had no future together, especially after I discovered that she liked… something more violent. I’m a bit traditional about such things.”

  “When you say violent…”

  “Both doing and having it done to her.”

  “Including, let’s say, cutting with knives?”

  “Cutting, hitting, whips, clubs, knives and other things I didn’t even know could give pleasure. She is one of those women who can make you feel ignorant in bed.”

  Until that moment, the explanations for Aliki’s scars were that either she inflicted them on herself or that they were caused by her husband. Now it looked as if they had both lied, and the scars were the result of their idea of a good time together.

  “So, it ended up with her driving me wild with regular sex, and me avoiding the madness that drove her wild,” Peppas continued.

  “But you stayed together for nine months.”

  “It was less than three. I decided that I wasn’t interested in getting her to trust me and confide all her dark secrets. She wasn’t happy with me, I wasn’t happy seeing her not happy… Sometimes you reach a critical point where you ask yourself whether you really want to get to know the other person better. I didn’t. I didn’t even know myself well then, I hadn’t read the I Ching, so how could I be interested in others? Do you know about the I Ching?” he asked.

  “Eh… no,” I said.

  If people think you’re ignorant, the intelligent person lets them continue to think so.

  “It’s one of the most ancient Chinese texts. Cosmology and philosophy. Hexagrams explaining the workings of fortune. Acceptance of the forces of change in the universe.”

  The way he explained it, even I, who knew about it, found it difficult to understand.

  “Is this relevant to our discussion?”

  “Not exactly. But the I Ching explains everything, so it could explain how we two unique beings happen to find ourselves talking together in this room. And if I had read it then, I may have paid more attention to Aliki. To lead her out of her darkness, instead of letting her get mixed up with that…”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “The man’s a friend of mine – loosely speaking. But he suffers from a complete lack of spirituality, while I have been going through a cleansing process for s
ome time now. Both spiritual and physical. I’ve decided that I don’t want to hide any secrets from anyone, not even myself. While he continues to do anything and everything for money.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He went to a massive desk and opened a drawer. He shuffled through some photos and passed one of them to me.

  “Now I’m off the coke completely. That evening, with them, was one of the last times. I was almost clean then but they persuaded me and we posed for the photo thinking that we were doing something fun.”

  “Is that who I think it is?”

  “It’s him alright.”

  In the photograph with him and Aliki was Takis Vrettos. Famous since his early twenties for the profits he made as a student during the crazy Greek stock market boom. Even more famous because, after a series of high-ranking positions, he became president of Omikron, led it to become the number one private bank investing in hedge funds, quit shortly after the crisis started and bought the bank soon afterwards for one tenth of its actual worth, on behalf of a German corporation. Now he was running it again. Unlike Peppas, Vrettos’ career didn’t have ups and downs. The only way for this particular golden boy seemed to be up.

  “I’m not at all proud to show this to you,” Peppas said.

  All three of them were naked, with Aliki between them looking alluringly at the camera while Peppas and Vrettos were bent down on each side of her, licking her breasts.

  “After that evening, I told her I didn’t want to carry on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I woke up alone in bed the next morning – the two of them had cleared off – when I saw the photos and how my eyes looked, I decided I didn’t want another catastrophe in my life when I was becoming successful again. That was when I started my purification.”

  “How did Aliki take that?”

  “Our separation? She was cool. Very cool, with that ‘coolness’ that is close to ‘cold’. Besides, from the moment I introduced them, Aliki got on much better with Takis than she’d ever done with me. Maybe they were already sleeping together before that photo session. Maybe our threesome was planned as a farewell performance. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  “How long were Aliki and Takis together?”

  “Not long, I think. Longer than her and me, but it was only a matter of months before she got to know her husband.”

  Lena Hnara had told me that Aliki’s relationship with Peppas had lasted eight or nine months. Which meant that Aliki had completely omitted to mention her relationship with Takis to her best friend, leaving her to believe that she was still with Peppas.

  “Do you know Vassilis Stathopoulos?” I asked him.

  Vassilis, Aliki, her former lovers… I was violating my own rules and mentioning names. But it didn’t seem like a problem. Not only had I still not finally decided on my target, also I was hearing such contradictory things about them there wasn’t any chance of my feeling involved.

  “No, not at all,” Peppas said. “Just a wave or a handshake when we happened to meet in public. Aliki was always very happy to see me at the few parties I attend…”

  “Did Vassilis ever seem annoyed that she was so pleased to see you?”

  “I never noticed anything like that. He didn’t seem to know about us, but if he did and it annoyed him, would he have shown it?”

  Good question. And, as with dozens of others, I had no answer.

  “Do you want this? Maybe you’ll need it,” said Peppas, holding out the photograph.

  “Aren’t you worried I might circulate it?”

  “Angelino phoned me while I was down in the pool. He told me that someone would come looking for me and that he was completely reliable; one of his guys. Those were exactly his words. He asked me to tell you whatever you need to know – and not to fear that anything I say could be used against me. I like that. It’s also part of my cleansing, not to hold anything back.”

  The 5,000 I gave Angelino had been a worthwhile investment, after all.

  “Take the photo. Takis, if he doesn’t know you, won’t even admit that two plus two equals four. Maybe the photo will help persuade him to talk – if you can find him, of course.”

  “Why? Where is he?”

  “In rehab – as if he’ll ever drop the habit, but there he is, anyway.”

  “Which clinic?”

  He didn’t know. I had only a few questions left.

  “Did you have a good relationship with Elsa Dalla?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t the poor girl’s fault – I was very upset when I heard about her… Tragedy, tragedy… So young… It was our producer’s fault. Regoudis. An idiot and a half, like most producers. Some girl falls to her knees in front of them and suddenly they’re inspired. They think they’ve discovered a new Ava Gardner. The girl was OK, tried to do her job. Tried, as hard as she could.”

  “Untalented?”

  “Very untalented, sadly. She managed not to make a fool of herself in front of the cameras, but that’s as far as it went. Very beautiful, of course, very, very… but you know, even beauty, for certain people… if you’re not star quality, beauty makes things worse. It deprives you of an excuse. Why are you failing, if you look like that?”

  “Did she have anything to do with Aliki?”

  “Not as far as I know. I never saw them together.”

  “Was there maybe animosity between them?”

  “Animosity? No, why would there be?”

  “Because Elsa and Stathopoulos, Aliki’s husband, used to be an item.”

  He looked at me, surprised – unless he was putting on an act.

  “You’re kidding me… I had no idea. But, animosity… no, not at all. Elsa… she liked being on her own, she had her own personal dressing room at the studio and her own trailer on location – provided by Regoudis, so that she could feel like a real leading lady. All the time we weren’t shooting she’d be in there, alone; she didn’t really have any friends in the cast.”

  “But she did resemble Aliki a lot.”

  “Mmm… I wouldn’t agree. Does a Picasso look like its copy? Does the sea look like a big lake?”

  “Depends who is looking at them,” I said.

  “Right. You’re absolutely right! So yes, I guess if you put them side-by-side they looked alike. Actually, now that you mention it, in an episode where Aliki had a monologue, looking at herself in the mirror, Elsa came and suggested that she could wear a wig and different make-up so that I could shoot from the side, having Aliki talk to her instead of the mirror. I lied, told her that I didn’t like the idea artistically. It wasn’t really a bad idea, but the public wouldn’t buy it for a second. Aliki makes any woman look inferior, even more so if the woman looks something like her. The difference would have been so clear, we would have been a laughing stock.”

  “So, no animosity. But no closeness either?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think they appreciated each other’s beauty?”

  “I can’t even remember them looking at each other for more than a few seconds.”

  “OK. Speaking of photos, do you know this guy?” I asked him, and showed him the picture of Linesman from my phone. I had cropped it, cutting out Aliki and Elsa.

  “Funny-looking guy. No, I don’t know him. But I could use him for a small role in the series – do you know where I can find him?”

  Actually, I did.

  “I’m afraid he’s unavailable. Do you know if either Aliki or Elsa had any knowledge of Ancient Egypt or the Mayan civilization?”

  “You’re talking about the hieroglyphics they found on that bodyguard…? No, not to my knowledge. Of course, I didn’t know much about Elsa, but Aliki can’t speak any foreign languages. That’s not her cup of tea.”

  “I’ve worked out that much. Anyone else that might know anything useful about them?”

  “I can’t think of… well, there’s one person that they both spent a lot of time with. Their hair styli
st. They both loved that girl’s work.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Torrence. Samantha Torrence. English name, but she’s Greek.”

  I managed not to smile when I heard her name.

  After so many dead ends, Peppas had given me one good lead to Takis Vrettos and a reason to visit someone I knew well and liked very much. What Peppas told me had the ring of truth about it. I thanked him and stood up.

  “May I just have another glass of water?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. Aliki and Elsa with Stathopoulos, eh? I had no idea…”

  He put down his camera on the chair, got out his handkerchief and went to the kitchen, wiping his fingers. I heard the tap running.

  By the time he’d returned I’d pressed the delete button on the camera and was on my way to the lift. For his own good I hoped that he had actually told me the truth; that I wouldn’t have to go back and see him again.

  34

  I didn’t expect much from visiting Sam, but I had some free time while Drag found out which rehab clinic Takis Vrettos was in. We’d agreed that I would go, since it would take too much effort for Drag to get a warrant to question patients in a clinic, and we didn’t even know if Takis had anything that would help clear up our case.

  Sam hadn’t changed a bit, in the four years since I’d seen her. I used to visit that apartment often, to see Jackie, Samantha’s sister, when they lived together. Sam always made sure Jackie and I would be alone, so I rarely saw her and when I did she always made an excuse and left. For some reason she believed that I would be able to persuade her sister to stay in Greece. I wasn’t. Jackie and I had a good time together, but it was clear to both of us that it was nothing more than that. We weren’t in love. I never thought that Jackie was one of the three women that would make their mark on me, as per A Bronx Tale. Plus, our work didn’t exactly favour romance, me being a caretaker whose targets were confined to Greece, Jackie working for the British Foreign Office in embassies all over the world while actually being a spy for MI6. We got to know each other on the job. I had agreed to take care of Morton, a colleague of hers she was investigating as a possible double agent, who profited by selling information to Arab extremist organizations. I was working for Morton’s cousin, who had discovered he was sexually abusing her teenage daughter. Jackie wasn’t happy that I killed Morton before she had amassed enough evidence to arrest him, but that didn’t stop her from joining me in bed. We only stayed together for a few months, in a relationship with plenty of animal attraction and few words – Jackie was even more taciturn than I was.