Disorganized Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (15 page)

The bus came. Several old ladies elbowed me in the gut, because boarding a Greek bus was pretty much Thunderdome. If I'd tried to assert myself they'd have shivved me, so I let it go. When it was my turn to board the back of the bus—as was customary—I dropped my coins in the conductor's hand, then hurried to the nearest vacant seat before his glare could turn me to stone.

I
don't know
what I expected. Something fancy, I guess. Organized crime seemed like it paid big if you were any good at it. But Cookie's apartment was in a building this close to being condemned—if that was even a thing here. Five stories. Safety glass windows. The kind with wire running through them; usually reserved for shower stalls. Flaking stucco. And was it my imagination or did the building have a minor lean?

Something told me it wasn't destined for
Torre di Pisa
fame.

And it had one great honking, massive, ginormous downside: Detective Melas was standing on the front doorstep, arms folded, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that showed what he was made of—bricks, mostly. A grin had made itself comfortable on his face.

"You alone?" he asked.

I held out my arms like I was making a presentation. "No, I brought all your friends with me."

He threw back his head, laugh roaring out. The rich, masculine sound did things to my body I didn't want it to do. Then he got serious—fast.

"What are you doing here?"

"Visiting."

"No, you're not."

"If you've got all the answers, why ask me?"

"I'm a sociable guy and you're cute."

Flattery wouldn't get him anywhere.

Okay, maybe it would under different circumstances. But not until we'd been on a few dates. Or one with lots of drinks.

I grabbed his shoulders, tried rolling him aside like a boulder, but there was more of him than there was of me—and the more was all muscle.

"Forget it," he said. "You're not going up there."

"Why not?"

"Because you won't find any answers."

"I'm not looking for answers, just clues."

"The man's dead."

"Drowned in a toilet, I know. His sister told me."

"Jesus," he said, looking a mixture of horrified and impressed. "You walked right up to his front door?"

I shrugged. "What else was I going to do? Bribe one of the servants and sneak in the back?" Maybe next time. "So how are we getting in? A special police lockpick?"

He dangled a rabbit's foot in front of my nose. Swinging from the loop was a silvery key. "Baby, I've got skills."

I inspected the key. "Stolen?"

"No. I'm a cop."

"Translation: you made baseless threats to the property owner?"

"Come on," he said. "If I can't persuade you to leave, it's safer if you're with me. At least I can keep an eye on you." He looked past me at the mostly bare street. "What happened to your bodyguard?"

"You know about that?"

"I'm a cop."

"I lost him on the beach in Agria when he went to get ice cream. Oops."

"Bikini or one-piece?" he said, eyeing my chest appreciatively.

I rolled my eyes, pushed past him to tug the lobby door open.

His finger hooked the back of my dress. "What's that in your pocket?"

"What does it look like?"

"A slingshot."

"Good news, your vision is excellent."

"A slingshot? Really?"

"That's what I said. But Grandma wouldn't give me a gun."

"Smart woman."

"How smart can she be? She lets Takis and Stavros carry guns."

"True."

The lobby floor was cleanish. The walls were covered in urban art and poetry—some of it English. There I learned somebody wanted to
Fack the Virgin Mary
,
Fack
my mother and,
Fack
me. Or, as they put it,
Fack U
. I couldn't speak for the other two women (death is hell on the libido, or so I hear), but I decided to pass. Wasn't an easy decision, but it had to be done for the good of mankind.

Two ways up. Stairs or elevator. The stairwell had exactly one light, a single fluorescent tube five stories away. By the time the light reached the bottom it was too exhausted to shine. Which left the narrow box attached to cables of dubious quality, maintained, no doubt, by the same party responsible for the lightbulb.

Detective Melas read my mind. "Stairs?"

"I'll follow you."

That way the rats would get him first.

Cookie's apartment was on the top floor. We're not talking penthouse material here. Newspaper tumbleweeds blew past, powered by a breeze from an invisible source. Fast food litter hunkered along the hallway's edges. He had a crappy blue door, same as every other door we passed, same as his three neighbors on the fifth floor. The paint was cracked and peeling, the number tarnished, and the frame looked like it could be easily persuaded to step aside for anyone with a persistent enough knock.

Not necessary. We had keys. That didn't stop Melas from knocking and waiting.

"Dead men don't open doors," I said.

"Except when they do."

I let my eyebrow ask the question.

"You see the body?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Me either. I know the guys who gave him a ride to the morgue, and they said he was dead enough. But he has a reputation."

"For what?"

"Playing dead."

"You think he faked his death?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

On the outside, Cookie's apartment was a dive. On the inside, it was functional and tidy. Two cramped bedrooms. A kitchen meant for someone who either microwaved their meals or ate out a lot. Cheap furniture. Ghastly couch with ancient stains of unknown origins. Big TV on a flimsy stand. The place was clean enough, but apart from the television the place was in its twilight years—on a fixed income.

"What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Anything."

Melas vanished into one of the bedrooms. I took the bathroom. When we met again, it was in the living room.

What kind of guy faked death not once, but multiple times?

I didn't realize I'd asked it out loud until Melas clued me in.

"Word on the street is there's a price on his head."

"Don't guys in organized crime always have prices on their heads?"

He was flipping through a short stack of mail, most of it junk. "You would think. But every one of the crime families has their niche. Most of the time, aside from minor skirmishes, the machine moves smoothly. But this kidnapping has thrown things into air. Your father's not just anybody. He's a Makris—and Baboulas's son. You may not think your grandmother is doing nothing to find him, but she is. Guaranteed. Word is she hired the Baptist to find him and take out the trash."

"The Baptist?" I felt woozy.

He shrugged.

"No way." I leaned against the wall, not wanting to sit on the couch. It looked like it could tell horror stories. "She was furious when he found out he was at the house in the middle of the night. There's no way she'd hire him. And besides, she has her own henchmen. What do they do if they don't kill people when she wants them to?"

"Wait—the Baptist was at the house last night?"

I nodded.

"You saw him?"

I shook my head. "He was outside my room. Said he wanted to give me a number."

"What number?"

"Five-oh-three."

"Jesus," he said. "They say he's killed five hundred people."

"Five hundred and two. He said he was on his way to take care of five-oh-two last night."

Our heads turned on their stalks in the same moment, toward the bathroom.

"Wait," I said. "Cookie's sister said he died yesterday. the Baptist was outside my window around two in the morning."

He mulled that over for a moment. "Did you find anything useful in the bathroom?" Oh, he of little faith, he delivered the line as he was going to investigate for himself.

"
Serviettas
," I said. Maxi pads. "But it doesn't look like a woman's been here, like, ever." If a woman had been here she lacked the homemaking gene.

"Not that weird." He pulled the shower curtain aside, peered in, pulled it back across. "They're good for mopping up blood."

"Why would a man be mopping—" My engine light came on. "Oh. Bullet wounds."

"Shooting. Stabbings. You name it. Come on," he said, giving the place a final visual wipe-down. "He won't come back here if he's still alive—not until he wants to be found."

"Where are you going?"

"To put eyes on the dead guy myself. Make sure the body matches the mugshot."

He unclipped his phone, stabbed it a few times with his finger. Clipped it back on his belt. "You may as well go back to your grandmother's. Dead or alive, Cookie doesn't have anything to do with your father's disappearance."

"It's not that I don't trust your word, it's that I don't know you."

"Then trust this," he said. "Christos Koulouris and your father were best friends, right up until the day your father jumped ship to America."

He shooed me out, locked the door behind us. We began a slow jog down the stairs.

"His best friend? I thought they were on opposing teams."

"Now. But when they were kids they were close."

"How do you know?"

He opened the exterior door. "Everybody knows."

I didn't know. Although, now I suppose I did. And I was thirsty for more details, but rolling into the street was Xander, window down, shitty folk music blaring. He pulled up alongside us, gave me a look that said I'd better get in or he'd get me in.

I ran.

Or I tried. The hand gripping my dress had turned me into a refugee from a cartoon, a coyote or cat treading air. When Melas plopped me down I stabbed his chest with slightly less than three inches of finger, topped with a chewed nail.

"You turned me in? You're an ass!"

"I am the law," he said, deadpan.

"You stink!"

I
planned
to run away again. But first, lunch.

"So, anyone get a ransom note yet?" I asked.

Lunch was on the kitchen table, and it looked like bowls of steaming sea monsters.

"Nobody sends ransom notes anymore," Grandma said. "It is a dying art."

"What do they do?"

Her mouth pursed. "Text messages and phone calls from disposable mobile phones."

"Those animals," I said.

"Nobody takes any pride in their work these days. A well-crafted ransom note is a thing of beauty. You do not just put any old words on the page. In the old days if you wanted to get fancy, you could cut letters out of a newspaper or magazine, or have somebody do calligraphy."

Aunt Rita raised her hand. "I used to do the calligraphy for our ransom notes."

"Wow, cool."

No, not cool. Why did I just say that? My family was the freakin' mob. What's cool about that? Nothing, that's what. Yet there I was, bobbing my head like a doofus.

For the record, let it be known that I was slightly disgusted with myself.

She preened. "The monks taught me."

My handwriting was round and girlish. It had refused to grow up along with the rest of me.

I gave her what felt like a confused look. "Monks run schools? I thought that was nuns."

"In Greece we have nun and monk schools."

"American monks make fruitcake and fudge. At least they do in Kentucky."

"Monks making fruitcake," Grandma said. "What is next?"

With the fork, I poked at the sea monsters in my bowl. Surprisingly, they didn't bite. "I don't know what this is and I'm not sure I want to know."

"Stewed okra," Aunt Rita said. "How was the beach?"

Huh. That was surprising. I figured Xander would report straight back to Grandma that I'd cut myself lose as soon as possible. Maybe he was on my side after all. I poked around in the stew with my fork, picking out bits I could identify. (Look, tomato!) No, the more likely scenario was that he didn't want to lose his head.

"Hot and pebbly."

Aunt Rita leaked a sigh. "I love sunbathing. When I was a boy I lived at the beach." My aunt had skin like an expensive handbag, so I believed her.

Grandma abandoned her food. She went to cut bread we didn't need. There was already a small mountain in the middle of the table.

"Probably it's good you did that when you were a boy," I said. "Fewer tan lines"

"Fewer tan lines," she said at the same time, then gasped. "Touch red!"

I didn't know why I was diving across the kitchen for the fruit bowl on the counter. I guess I was just going with the flow.

"Why are we touching red?"

"We said the same thing at the same time," my aunt said. "It's bad luck. It means we'll fight."

I looked from the apple in my hand to the red g-string in hers. "We're good now—right?"

"We're safe. This time."

"My Virgin Mary," Grandma muttered.

"So if there's no ransom note, how's the Dad hunt going?" I asked, dropping the apple back into the fruit bowl and resuming my avoidance of lunch. "Any clues at all?"

"Not yet," Grandma said.

"Nothing from Interpol, the FBI, the Hellenic Police?"

"No."

"Okay." I faked a yawn and a matching stretch. "I'm super-tired. I need a siesta after all that sun."

"Eat first," Grandma said. "Then sleep." The woman had a knife in her hand, and it was possible she knew how to use it. Maybe she could even toss it so it would nail me in the head.

"I can't save it for dinner?"

"No."

"Can I eat outside?" Where the goat is … Goats were known for eating anything that wouldn't eat them, but maybe even the goat would draw the line at okra stew.

Her expression told me she was the deadly kind of serious, so I dug in with my fork and a stack of bread. Taste wasn't the problem, it was the texture. My mouth knew when it was being told to chew a concoction of snails and swamp slime.

"Delicious," I said, pushing back from the table when I was done. "Time for a walk."

"No siesta?" Grandma asked.

"Too much good food." I patted my belly. "I need to walk it off."

"Walk, then. But do not leave the grounds alone, eh?"

"I won't."

I glanced down. My pants weren't on fire.

T
he compound was still
and mostly silent. The air was stagnant. The sun had boiled it down to a thick sludge. Every breath felt like I was snorting soup.

I couldn't stop thinking about Dad and his dead childhood friend. What had happened to turn the two families into adversaries? I could have asked my grandmother, but she had made it clear I was to keep my head down and my butt in one piece. And I was willing to indulge her—to a point.

Unfortunately for her, that point was somewhere behind me.

Before lunch, I'd Googled and discovered that they were putting Dad's old buddy in the ground tomorrow, which meant the Greek Orthodox version of a wake was happening early this evening. And here I was without a black dress.

Yes, I could have gone to Xander on my knees and begged for a ride to another dress shop, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be free to do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. Restrictions made me itch. It was fine to be a couch potato back home, to move from cubicle to couch, because that was my choice. Here there was only one choice: find Dad. From where I was standing—currently under the front archway, furtively watching for foot traffic—Grandma's orders were clashing with my goal. She'd skipped taking me to George Kefalas's funeral. I wasn't about to miss this one.

I needed wheels, and parked out front was Xander's black bullet, devouring sunlight. The dark tinted windows were down. The keys were swinging from the ignition. Not a family member in sight. Even the garage attendants were absent from their posts.

This car was practically begging for it.

It was a sign.

Gingerly, I opened the door to see if an alarm would sound, if half the family would come running. Nope, no alarm. I sat on the leather seat, swung my legs in. Xander had a lot of inches on me, so I pressed the button on the side of the seat and went for a slow ride, until my shoes touched pedal. Probably he left it here for someone to borrow. Why else leave the keys inside and the windows down? I fiddled with the rearview mirror, toggled the side mirrors. Perfect. Now I had a clear shot of the car's back and sides.

Stealing was such a dirty word. Borrowing was cleaner, more benevolent, more temporary. I could live with being a borrower. I'd take the car now, then I'd give it back. Maybe I'd even spring for a carwash. Nobody could call that stealing unless they were trying to be nitpicky. Hello, free carwash?

My breathing was fast and shallow. Maybe my head had justified what I was doing, but my body knew I was a thief. Probably I needed a nice, long drive to relax and shake the feeling. I twisted the key and the car came alive. Folk music flooded the interior, so my finger was forced to stab the knob. Trust me, it was a mercy killing. The windows rolled up at the touch of a button, and then I was off and rolling toward the security gate. I held my breath as the gate retracted. The guard didn't look up from the cell phone in his hand. Whatever he was watching it was riveting. Besides, it was his job to keep people out not in. And behind the dark glass I could have been Xander, for all he knew.

I glanced into the rearview mirror as the compound ate my dust. The guard was looking up.

W
indows down
. Music cranked. I'd found a station that played 80s hair bands. Bon Jovi was grinding on about some girl giving love a bad name, which suited me fine. To be honest, I felt pretty badass and kind of cool.

Perfection, except for the fact that my dad was still missing and I was no closer to finding him—not in any tangible way.

I pulled over at the nearest beach, watched the water sway. In my head, Dean Martin sang, drowning out the rock. The peninsula's arm made sure the sea was swimmer-friendly. Brightly colored boats bobbed like bath toys. Did I say brightly colored? Eye-searing was more accurate. The painters had pushed colors to their limits. Orange wasn't orange, it was fluorescent tangerine. Red was volcanic. Yellow was canary feathers on acid.

I called Detective Melas.

"They're looking for you," he said as soon as he answered.

"Already?"

"I heard you stole a car."

"Borrowed."

"Uh-huh."

"Hey, it was sitting there with the windows open and the keys in the ignition."

He thought about it for a moment. "Sounds like the car was asking for it."

"That's what I said." I got right down to business. "Did you see the body?"

"Yeah, I saw the body."

When it became obvious he wasn't going to say more, I gave him a poke. "And?"

"It was Cookie."

So the man who cried dead was really dead. Now I'd never have a chance to scope out my father's best friend, check him for signs of kidnapping.

"Were he and my father really friends?"

"Inseparable."

"And their families were cool with that?"

His laugh was short and blunt. "We're not talking
The
Godfather
here. They were kids from the same background. Plenty of common interests."

"A posse of two?"

"No. There was a group—" He stopped. "No. Forget it, Katerina."

Too late. "Forget what?" I asked, employing my best '
Who me?
' tone.

"We're not talking good people here. They're not kids anymore. The games they play are adult. Cross them and people get hurt. People get
dead
."

"Okay," I said. "I'll stay away. Promise."

"Are your fingers crossed?"

"No."

Yes.

T
he Greek Orthodox
church liked to get them in the ground fast. Dead one day, wake the next, in the ground the following morning. I knew what I was doing—shopping for something decent to wear to a wake—but I didn't know where I was going. The black bullet crept along Volos's main drag several times before I spotted a store that looked promising. I swung into a parking space, narrowly avoiding life as a paraplegic when a Range Rover tried to zoom into my slot.

"
Gamo ti putana
!" the teenaged driver screeched through her open window. Nice kid. She was going places with that mouth, but not into this parking space.

I smiled and waved, locked the car, then trotted to the hulking Marks & Spencer store on the corner of Ermou and Allonisou.

My phone chimed. Private caller. "Hello?"

Silence, and lots of it.

Xander. Who else wouldn't speak? No one, that's who.

"Wrong number," I said quickly and ended the call.

The phone rang again. "Hello?"

"Katerina?"

Holy hell. Grandma.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Shopping."

"What for?"

"Funeral clothes. I'm not going to miss Cookie's funeral the way I did George Kefalas's."

"Xander is not happy you stole his car."

Xander complaining about me stealing his car was so pot calling the kettle black. In my mind criminals didn't get to complain when someone boosted their ride.

"Borrowed. I borrowed it."

"Stay right there. I will send someone to get you."

"No need," I said breezily, "I'll be back this evening."

"No you—"

"What's that?" I made crackling noises, hissed for added effect. "You're breaking up. Stupid phone!"

I hung up, stuffed my phone into my pocket and hoped it wouldn't ring again.

Dad would have been horrified. To him Baboulas was the monster under the bed and in the closet. No one hung up on the boogeyman when she came calling. What could I say—in his day there were no cell phones, otherwise he would have hung up on her, too. I was sure of it.

The British department store had everything, including a black sleeveless sheath perfect for funerals, wakes, and other solemn occasions. If I ever got audited by the IRS—God forbid—I could wear this dress. I went slightly more risky with the shoes. What I wanted was a shoe that could double as a weapon, and I found them. I could put out an eye with these tall, thin heels. Pair them with a hammer, I could stake a heart.

Half an hour later, I was carrying two bags out of the store. Xander's car was where I'd left it, but something was missing.

I would have sworn it had windows when I parked the thing.

Somebody honked. "Katerina?"

Oh look, Tweedledum and Tweedledumber—aka Takis and Stavros. They'd pulled up behind me, creating a blockage in traffic that no amount of cursing, horn-honking, and friendly hand gestures seemed to be fixing. To put it bluntly, Grandma's flunkies—my cousins—didn't give a crap.

"What happened to Xander's car?" Stavros called out. They were in the SUV I'd driven to Makria—or one just like it. Inside, the talking-map harpy was firmly suggesting they take the next right turn.

"Somebody smashed all the windows. Some little cow in a Range Rover, I think."

"What did you do to her?" Takis said over the top of his passenger.

"Nothing she wouldn't have done to me. Survival of the fittest when it comes to city parking." That's the rule of cities all over the world.

"I hear you," Stavros said.

I squinted at them. "How did you find me?"

"It is a secret," Takis said, shrugging.

Stavros said, "GPS." Takis cuffed his ear.

No privacy anymore, I tell you.

Both guys got out. Takis made a lot of hand signals at passing traffic before making it to where I was standing. He shook his head at the busted car. "Xander is not going to like this."

I cocked my head. "How would we even know?"

"Oh, you will know," he said, voice grim. He held out his hand, wiggled his fingers. "Keys."

"No."

"Give me the keys."

"No."

"Somebody has to drive that car."

I blinked. How did he think it got here to begin with, magic? "I'll drive."

"Baboulas said one of us had to drive."

"The female head of one of Greece's biggest criminal organizations is sexist?"