Deadline in Athens kj-1

by Petros Markaris

  He looked at me with a crafty smile. I didn't have to rack my brain. I knew where he was leading. "The Czechs gave it to him."

  "Just so. All the socialist states opened businesses of that kind in capitalist countries, because they needed the foreign currency. Some opened them through sister parties in the capitalist country, but more often than not they used individuals as fronts. Pylarinos belongs in the second category."

  "And why would the Czechs trust the son of a Greek political refugee? How were they so sure that he wouldn't run off with their money?"

  Zissis's smile was all condescension, as if he were talking to a mental retard. "They had a powerful control mechanism. First of all, they put one of their own people beside the individual acting as a front, to watch him on a daily basis. In addition, the sister party in the host country undertook a high level of supervision and regularly reported back to their comrades in the source country. And on top of all that, they also had a guarantee."

  "What kind of guarantee?"

  "Pylarinos's father died years ago, but his mother is still alive. She came back from Czechoslovakia in 1990."

  "They used Pylarinos's mother as their guarantee?"

  Zissis shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time, but again I can't be sure. The party's finances were monitored by a very small circle of members. Even party leaders in high posts didn't know everything that was going on. But doesn't it seem strange to you that the son should have a huge fortune in Greece while the mother was living on her state pension in Prague?"

  It wasn't only strange, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Zissis shook his head fatalistically.

  "Controls, covering for each other, mechanisms-they thought of everything. There was only one thing they hadn't reckoned on. That all this would collapse like a house of cards in 'eighty-nine. And suddenly Pylarinos found himself with a vast fortune, all his own. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had disintegrated, its echelons had scattered, and those who came to power had no means to lay claim to all these fortunes. It's quite possible that the new people didn't even know of their existence."

  "And suddenly, from being a marionette, Pylarinos became a businessman in his own right."

  "I don't know about `right'!" Zissis leaned toward me and lowered his voice. "Pylarinos is like a red flag. He appropriated money belonging to others, lots of money. I'm not the only one who despises him. He is despised by all the party members. They'd be happy to see him rot behind bars, but if they expose him, they'd have to bring a lot more to light. I'm telling you all this, so you'll understand that no one likes him." He shifted his position. He sat back in his chair, looked at me, and said with absolute certainty: "But there is no way he's involved in any dirty business."

  "Why is that?"

  "Think about it. As long as the socialist regime existed in Czechoslovakia, he didn't dare put a foot wrong. They'd have got rid of him. Now he has a fortune. Why would he get involved with dirty money?"

  "Listen, Lambros. Karayoryi may have been ambitious, but she was no fool. She had a fat file on him with information that it would have taken us a year to amass. For her to be investigating him to that extent means that she'd discovered something."

  "Are you sure she was investigating Pylarinos and not someone else in his company?"

  The photographs that Karayoryi had taken came into my mind. The one with the group of men in the nightclub and the other with the two men talking in the cafeteria.

  "Let's go for a drive," I said to Zissis.

  "Where to?"

  "To my office. There's something I want to show you."

  "Don't even think about it," he said, as if he'd been bitten by a snake. "I'm not setting foot in security headquarters. I almost lost my pension because for three whole months I was thinking that I had to get a certificate from your people and I kept putting it off. I said I'd help you, but let's not overdo it."

  "Let's split the difference," I said, laughing. "We'll go as far as the entrance. You'll wait in the car and I'll nip in to get something that I want you to see."

  "If I can stay in the car, okay," he said and immediately got up.

  It was after eleven and the traffic on the roads had cleared. From Amerikis Square at the point where Patission Street widens, we weren't held up by any traffic lights, and in twenty minutes we were at the security headquarters. On the way we talked about other things. He asked me about Katerina, how she was doing with her studies. He'd never met her, but he knew she was studying in Thes saloniki. I began to tell him how upset I was that she wouldn't be home for Christmas, and, without wanting to, I came out with all my bitterness about her hunk. Zissis listened to me without interrupting. He realized that I needed to talk and he let me.

  He remained in the Mirafiori, while I got the two photographs taken by Karayoryi. I showed him the one from the nightclub first.

  "That's Sovatzis," he said as soon as he looked at it, and he pointed to the man with the plastered hair and the constipated smile.

  "Who's Sovatzis?"

  "The party member that they put in place beside Pylarinos to watch him."

  "And the other two?"

  "Foreigners, for sure. I don't know this one at all. The other one sitting next to Pylarinos looks kind of familiar, but I can't remember where from" His finger rested not on the pudding-faced one with the fringe, but on the one sitting next to Pylarinos. Suddenly he cried out. "Of course, it's Alois Hacek! One of the top men of the party in Czechoslovakia! You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes. He was the party official responsible for finances and he came to Greece to check up on Pylarinos." I showed him the date, to the bottom right. He seemed surprised. "November 14,1990," he muttered. "The party was already dissolved and he's taking a trip to Greece?"

  I took out the other photograph, the one with the two of them talking in the cafeteria. He looked at the date: 11/17/90. He put the photographs side by side. I said nothing. I let him think in his own good time. He shook his head and sighed.

  "Do you want to know what happened in Athens on those two dates?" he said. "I'll tell you, and I don't think I'll be far off." He stopped to collect his thoughts and then said: "Toward the end of 'eighty-nine, when the socialist regimes collapsed, the party leaders lost everything. The people were wringing their hands. The high positions were gone, the dachas were gone, the limousines were gone. Everyone was out of work. Except that it wasn't exactly like that. Because these people had had a monopoly on power for more than forty years. They were the only ones who knew anything about ad ministration, the only ones to have any contacts and connections with the rest of the world. And they made use of them. From being party members, they became businessmen. Once they had talked politics; now they talked business. Alois Hacek belongs to that category. Obviously he had the evidence that Pylarinos had been financed by the party in Czechoslovakia. So in November 1990, he came to Athens to find him. `Which would you prefer?' he probably told him. `I give the information I have to the new government to lay claim to your business, or do we become partners?' What would you have done in Pylarinos's shoes? You would have made him a partner rather than risk losing everything."

  I turned to the two photographs that were propped against the windscreen. Pylarinos was looking at me with his glass raised. He wasn't drinking to my health, of course, but to the success of his collaboration with Hacek.

  "But there's a catch." Zissis's voice brought me back to earth.

  "What's that?"

  "The other two. I told you that the party mechanism operated on the basis that everyone covered each other. Sovatzis watched Pylarinos, and the other man, the one sitting beside him, watched Hacek. It was these middle members who took the brunt of the state's collapse. No one needed them, and they ended up on the garbage heap. Except that with Sovatzis and the other, things weren't so simple because they knew. What could Pylarinos and Hacek do? They gave them a few crumbs to keep their mouths shut. But the other two weren't content. Their smiles say it all. Their whole working lives they'd do
ne the legwork, and now other people were getting the tasty bits and leaving them with the bones. So they decided to set up their own operation. They met three days later to discuss it. That's what the second photograph is about.

  "What kind of operation?"

  "How should I know? That's your job to find out."

  I looked at the two seated side by side. The one with the plastereddown hair, the other with the fringe, both with the same sour smile. "Two operations. The one operating inside the other," I said to Zissis. "The first one legal, the second illegal but making use of all the mechanisms of the first, along with the security it affords, because who would think of investigating Pylarinos's business for any dirty work?"

  "That reporter woman did," Zissis reminded me.

  "Karayoryi ..."

  "Karayoryi wasn't investigating Pylarinos-she was investigating Sovatzis."

  I remembered where I'd seen Sovatzis's face. In the newspaper clippings, behind Pylarinos. All the pieces were falling into place. The photographs, in all of which Sovatzis appears, the map, the lists, everything. From the beginning, something just didn't fit with regard to Pylarinos. I thought it highly improbable that a businessman of his stamp would be dealing in dirty money. But what didn't fit in the case of Pylarinos did fit in the case of Sovatzis. I felt a burden removed from me, because Pylarinos was outside it all and everything had thereby become easier.

  "Do you happen to know Sovatzis's first name?"

  "Demos."

  That was the only thing that didn't fit the puzzle: the letters from the unknown N. They couldn't have been from Sovatzis. But who was to say that the letters had to do with Karayoryi's investigation and not some other matter altogether?

  "Does the name Eleni Dourou mean anything to you?"

  "Dourou ... no." He opened the door. "Anyway, I've clued you in and now I'm going to get some sleep," he said, pleased with himself.

  "I'll take you."

  "No need for you to go out of your way. I'll get a taxi."

  "Why pay for a taxi? Come on, I'll drop you off."

  "Do you know how many times I've done it on foot because I was broke?" he said. "At least I have the money to pay now."

  As he was about to get out, I reached over and took hold of his arm. "Why do you help me, Lambros?" I asked him.

  What was I expecting him to say? That he did it out of friendship? Out of love? Out of gratitude?

  "When you don't have anything left to believe in, you believe in the police," he said with a smile filled with bitterness. "You're as low as it gets. I got that low and we found ourselves together. That's all."

  He started to get out, then he changed his mind. "I also do it because you're all right," he said.

  "What have I done to be all right?" My mind immediately went to Bouboulinas Street.

  "I heard on the radio about that Kolakoglou. You did more than all right."

  Through the windshield I watched him quickly walking away. A little farther on, he hailed a taxi and got in.

  I shook my head. All the old-style leftists were the same. They think that the police are monsters who kill innocent folk and then live it up. And whenever they come upon someone who's different, they're surprised and happy, as if they'd discovered a new party member.

  CHAPTER 33

  "Eleni Dourou is nowhere to be found," Sotiris said to me the next morning. "The address on her identity card is Fourteen Skopelou Street in Kypseli, but she moved five or six years ago when her husband died. No one knows where she went. The phone in Kypseli was in her husband's name, and there's no phone now in her own name. I can't find a lead anywhere."

  "Keep looking. We have to find her."

  "I do have some answers from the customs people concerning the refrigeration trucks belonging to Transpilar."

  "Go on"

  "They were carrying goods to Albania for companies belonging to Greeks and people from northern Epirus. They came back empty."

  "Empty?"

  "Yes. But there's something about it that bugs me."

  "For God's sake, Sotiris. Out with it. What is bugging you?"

  "All the entry documents from Albania into Greece were signed by the same customs officer. Name of Lefteris Hourdakis. Strange that all the trucks belonging to Transpilar should happen upon the same customs official."

  It wasn't just strange. It stank at one hundred kilometers. "Get hold of the customs people at the border. I want to talk to this Hourdakis."

  "He's no longer there. He took early retirement."

  "Hand the airport over to Thanassis and start looking for Hourdakis. I want that man without fail."

  There was no question it was a con. Someone notified the drivers in Albania and they made sure they crossed the border when Hourdakis was on duty. I would bet good money that the drivers were the same ones each time too. I could have got their names from Transpi lar, but Pylarinos would have heard of it and would have started asking questions of his own. I preferred to wait, until I had questioned Hourdakis.

  The telephone sprang me from my thoughts. It was Ghikas. "Come up to my office." The usual sharp tone.

  The elevator started acting up again. It kept going up and down between the third and fourth floors just to get on my nerves. In the end, I got out on the fourth and took the stairs. It arrived at the fifth at the same time I did.

  Koula wasn't there and the outer office was empty. I walked straight into Ghikas's office without knocking. He had summoned me himself, so there was no need to stand on ceremony.

  Ghikas was at his desk. Facing him was Petratos with another man, all spruced up. Koula was sitting at the edge of the desk with a pad on her knees, poised to take notes.

  "Get a chair and sit down," Ghikas said to me. I took a chair from the conference table and put it at the other corner of the desk, opposite Koula. That way I'd have Petratos facing me.

  "This is Mr. Sotiriou, Mr. Petratos's lawyer." Ghikas gestured at the other man. "Mr. Petratos has agreed to answer any questions we may have."

  Petratos shot a venomous glance at me.

  "Before we go any further," the lawyer said, "I'd like you to tell us the results of the test carried out on the handwriting sample provided by my client."

  Ghikas turned and looked at me. Aha ... he was assuming the role of the good guy for himself, making me the bad guy and leaving me to take the initiative. Okay, if the shoe fits, wear it.

  "The results were negative," I said, as calmly as I could. Petratos's triumphant smile was worse than a slap across the face. "But that, by itself, means nothing."

  "It means a great deal; otherwise you wouldn't have been so eager to get hold of it," the lawyer retorted.

  "This conversation is unpleasant for all of us," Ghikas interrupted. "Let's get to the point."

  I turned to Petratos. "At the time that Martha Kostarakou was murdered, your car was seen parked in Monis Sekou Street, two streets away from Ieronos Street, where Kostarakou lived. Can you tell me what you were doing there at the time of the murder?"

  "Are you certain that it was my car?"

  "It was a black Renegade, license number XRA 4318. That is your car, isn't it?" The witness hadn't made a note of the plate number, but I was fishing in the dark to see what I'd catch.

  Flummoxed, Petratos looked to his lawyer, who didn't look at all alarmed. On the contrary, he smiled encouragingly at his client, full of self-confidence, it seemed.

  "Tell the truth, Nestor, you've nothing to be afraid of."

  "I don't know when exactly Martha Kostarakou was murdered, but I was in the area between five-thirty and seven-thirty that evening, yes. I'd gone to see a friend of mine."

  "Who is this friend of yours? Name? Address?" At last, I could put pressure on him.

  "Why do you want that information?"

  "Come now, Mr. Petratos," said Ghikas, with a silky smile. "You know that we are obliged to verify what you say. We're not disputing the truth of your answers, it's simply standard procedure"

  Pe
tratos was even more discomfited. He hesitated and then said, "I'm sorry, but I can't give you the girl's details."

  "Why?"

  "There are certain reasons that bind me not to disclose her identity."

  "We have no reason to embarrass the woman concerned unless it's absolutely necessary."

  The lawyer interrupted once more. "Mr. Petratos is under no obligation to answer you.,,

  "I'm well aware of that, but if he does answer, he'll be helping both himself and us. Otherwise, he'll be forcing us to look more deeply into the matter."

  "Then look more deeply," the lawyer snapped. "You looked into the handwriting sample and found nothing. And you won't find anything now either, because there's no murder without a motive. And my client had no motive for murdering either Karayoryi or Kostarakou."

  "Mr. Petratos had a romantic liaison with Karayoryi. He helped her move up professionally and she ditched him. We know that Karayoryi was looking to get Mr. Petratos's job. So he certainly had grounds for disliking her a great deal."

  Petratos suddenly laughed. "Perhaps Karayoryi was after my job, but she didn't have the slightest chance of getting it. Not the slightest, Inspector. I can assure you of that." He said it with such conviction that I was astonished.

  Sotiriou got to his feet. "I think our conversation has come to an end," he said. "If you're so sure that Mr. Petratos is the murderer, you have no option but to detain him. But I warn you that I'll inform the public prosecutor that you are holding him without any evidence. And I'll have the whole journalistic world drag your name through the mud."