Disorganized Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (27 page)

"
I
watched
you talking to the Bulgarian pig. We had a friend in common, did she tell you?"

"She didn't tell me anything."

"Liar. But least you are a bad liar, not like your father."

Was Melas listening? Was anybody? The cross felt like a brick around my neck. I closed my eyes, tried to force my heart to its normal non-deafening speed. When I opened them, I resisted the urge to grab the delicate gold pendant and scream for help. What was it with men? Whether they wanted to bone you or kill you, they always preferred to come at you from behind.

I kept my breathing slow and even, so when I spoke it barely sounded like I was one heartbeat away from wetting myself. "What did you have against Tasha?"

"Nothing. She was another piece of garbage that's all, and I am a garbageman."

"And my father?"

"Worse than garbage. He's shit."

"What did he do to you?"

He showed a mile of teeth in the mirror. I had flashbacks to the first time I saw
Jaws 3
. Who recovers from that? Nobody, that's who.

"Doesn't matter. What matters is what I'm going to do to you—and to him when he comes for you."

"He won't come."

"He will come. I will have you, I already have his girlfriend—"

"Who?"

"His girlfriend."

Dina. I'd forgotten about her. "You took Dina? Is she okay?"

He looked at his watch. "We're going to have fun, you and me and Dina. Maybe I'll fuck her while she's drowning. Feels good to shoot a load into a dying—"

"Ugh. Jeez. What is wrong with you?" My fingers were tracing the side of the seat, feeling out the levers. I took a chance and yanked the top lever, slamming my weight backwards. It was obvious at this point that I had to be my own cavalry. Melas and his merry band of policemen were officially slashed off my Christmas card list.

The former cop cried out as the leather seat crashed into his face. He recovered fast—too fast. His fist was quick and accurate. It nailed my ear, punching me into the car door. His second shot cracked my nose sideways, and I saw the light end of a dark tunnel. He tried to bail, but I wasn't about to move until my hands were exactly where I wanted them: in my bag, on my slingshot, on the bag of marbles from Baby Dimitri's shop. Then I leaned forward and let him shove me into the wheel so he could bolt. I wanted to cry and bleed in peace, but this wasn't the time for dallying. I jumped out behind him, loaded up the slingshot, stretched the elastic to its limits.

What was it gun experts always said?

Fire on the exhale
.

I did that now. The marble shot out of the cradle. It nailed him in the shoulder, and he spun around momentarily. What can I say, I was a slingshot virgin and he was running. He howled and spat out a string of curse words, stumbling in the street. A taxicab almost sideswiped him. The driver leaned on his horn before zipping away. People were looking, but they weren't sure what they were seeing.

And me, I was leaning against the yellow Beetle, clutching the cross, making threats against local law enforcement. Really though, they had nothing to fear unless I suddenly encountered a boulder, a time machine, a donkey, and their mothers in the same afternoon.

I got back in my car, locked all the doors, and then with shaking hands and Jell-O for a brain, drove back towards Grandma's house, hoping I wouldn't encounter any more wolves along the way.

H
alfway
up the mountain I pulled over. The road had no shoulder, so I had to make do with the parking lot outside a microscopic village. From here it looked charming, and I wasn't the only one who thought so: two tour buses pulled up behind me. The doors opened and tourists flooded out.

I hoped they wouldn't notice me sitting in my car, moping up my own blood with a beach towel. My teeth were chattering, making little
clack-clack
noises in my head.

"Where is my plate?"

"Argh!"

The woman had snuck up on me. She was a hundred pounds of disdain, tucked into a floral knee-length dress. Her hair was a helmet, but I didn't think it was hairspray keeping it in place. From the look of her she rose every morning and commanded her locks to stand still until she gave them permission to move.

Plate? What plate?

I sat in the Beetle, hands on the wheel, and tried to think. Then it sank in. The memory of me chowing down a plateful of cold moussaka as Aunt Rita and I fled Melas's home.

"Kyria Mela?" Mrs. Mela. No s on account of her being a woman—unless she was persnickety like me. My grandmother was a mobster, but this woman looked like she'd mess you up hard and leave you for starving cats, without a second thought.

"The coffee cup told me we would meet, and now here we are. The coffee cup is never wrong."

This was turning
Twin Peaks
fast. The only thing she was missing was a log and a sinister message about the owls not being what they seemed.

"I like coffee," I said feebly.

"Then you will come for coffee soon. Bring my plate."

She jumped into an ancient Peugeot and zoomed away.

I sat there blinking for a moment, at least with one eye. My right eye was puffing up fast. My nose and ear had tapped direct lines to my brain—wasn't like they had far to go—and both were screaming for icepacks and a handful of ibuprofen.

My phone bonged. Incoming text.

Jesus. Was that my mother
?

Melas, that rotten bastard. Where was he when there was a psychopath in my backseat?

I typed with two furious thumbs, hoping the venom would seep through his screen and poison him.
I hate you
.

Hands back on the wheel. Shoulders square. Sunglasses on and covering some of the damage. I freed my ponytail and gave it a shake. That was my red ear and purpling cheek taken care of, provided I kept my head at a strange angle that was bound to make people go, 'Aww, look at the poor hunchback.'

Five minutes later, I was waving to the guard in the guardhouse. This one was focused on his surroundings, no smartphone in sight, his baloney pony fenced in his pants where it belonged. I stopped outside the compound's garage. Takis and Stavros were slouching against the wall, watching two of the younger cousins play
tavli
—a.k.a. backgammon—on the hood of a BMW.

They all stopped what they were doing to gawk at me getting out of the car.

"Why the blood?" Takis called out.

"Must be that time of the month," I said.

He looked confused. "But it is on your face."

"A psychopath punched me."

He shrugged. Probably a broken face was just another workday to these guys. "Who was it?"

Hands on hips. "Guess."

He and Stavros jumped to attention. "Where is that
malakas
Melas?" Takis demanded.

"That's a really great question," I said.

I stomped through the compound. Grandma was—predictably—baking. She glanced up before returning to the bowl.

"What happened to your face?"

"I tripped on an asshole."

"I have tripped on many assholes, but I never broke my face."

"The Baptist got in my back seat. We fought, and then we both kind of won."

She picked up the phone clinging to the wall. Stabbed one of the preset numbers. Said, in a voice reminiscent of Gandalf challenging the Balrog, "Bring Melas here."

Uh-oh.

The baking went forgotten as she reached under the sink for a clear bottle three-quarters full of pale blue liquid. No discernible label. Call me kooky, but I wasn't sure about whatever was inside the container.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Rubbing alcohol."

"Is that good for black eyes and broken noses?"

"It is good for everything. For everything else … vinegar. Between them you can cure anything."

"Pneumonia?"

"Anything."

"Ebola?"

"Anything."

"Death?"

She paused for a second. "Only God can raise a dead man."

"Yes, but does he do it with vinegar and rubbing alcohol?"

"You are just like your father." I wasn't sure if that was an endorsement or condemnation.

The gate creaked. High heels clicked. They were accompanied by the sound of Papou bitching about missing his daytime shows. "Mama?"

"In the kitchen," Grandma said.

Aunt Rita lifted the wheelchair and its passenger. She looked like a lady but she lifted like a man. Today she was a 1960s Bardot with a 1980s Bardot face. Short shorts and a ruffled off—the-shoulder top. Her shoes were tall wedges with ambition: they wanted to be skyscrapers someday.

Papou quit his whining when he saw my face. "She is supposed to be protected day and night."

Grandma rinsed a kitchen towel, then laid it to rest over the mixing bowl to stop the contents drying out. She pushed the bowl aside, then came to sit at the table with the rest of us. She poured the alcohol on her fingers, dabbed it around my puffy eye. The fumes made me leak more tears.

"Yet this man climbed into her car and punched her face."

"Melas and his team?" he asked.

She gave him two palms up.

"Xander?"

"Gone to fetch Nikos," Grandma said. "I do not like this. Too much is happening that I cannot control."

"What's the plan when he gets here?" Aunt Rita asked.

"You know the rule, we do not kill policemen." She layered more rubbing alcohol on my sore bits. My face was enjoying the chill. "That is how it has always been. But he will have to go."

Behind the headache, an alarm went off in my brain. I tried talking some sense into the silly thing, but it was ignoring me. "Go where? You can't just get rid of him!"

"We will arrange for a transfer," Aunt Rita said. "His family is here, but he should have considered that before he let you get hurt. They will understand."

"I'm fine," I protested. "Honestly."

My phone beeped and bonged. Melas. I picked up.

"Why do you hate me?" he asked.

"Where are you?" My voice came out nasal and malformed.

"At the guardhouse."

"Not for long," I muttered and hung up.

Everyone was looking me. "Melas wanted to know why I hate him."

"Just say the word," Aunt Rita said. "We could send him to Turkey."

"His family's here. Doesn't that count for something? Imagine how his mother would feel. How did you feel when Dad left Greece?" I asked my grandmother.

Grandma's chair creaked as she stood. She put away the rubbing alcohol and washed her hands before opening the cupboard where her baking ingredients lived. She pulled out another bowl and placed it on the counter next to its sibling.

She said, "This is what I get for agreeing to Melas's plan."

"There is no other way to catch the Baptist," Papou said. "We have tried."

"You all know he's a former policeman, right? And that he's targeting informants?"

Everybody looked at me. Of course they knew. Great.

A thought popped into my head. All this bleeding and pain had rattled me, and I'd forgotten about Dad's ex. "He's got Dina," I said. "He said he's planning to use both of us as bait to catch my father."

Aunt Rita rolled her eyes. One set of Bambi lashes stuck to her brow. She peeled it off with two talons and stuck it on the back of her hand for later. "That crazy
mouni
."

Grandma gave her a dirty look, for the language, mostly. "Your father will not come," she said. "How can he?"

"He thinks Dad is faking it."

She dumped flour into a bowl. Squirted vinegar. Pinched salt. Eyeballed a short pour of olive oil, then did the same with hot tap water.

Aunt Rita and Papou were silent. I decided to copy them. It seemed prudent under the circumstances.

She began to work the dough with her hands. "Katerina, I have a big problem—"

"Do you want us to go, Mama?" Aunt Rita asked.

"No. Stay right there. I want you here when Xander brings Melas. Katerina, this is my problem. I am old. I asked God, I talked to the Virgin Mary, I pleaded with Zeus and offered him some of the good-looking men in the family. But none of them will stop time for me. I am old and growing older by the minute. When I die there is no one who can run this family. I have no real underboss. An advisor I have, soldiers I have, a very good accountant—" She nodded to my aunt. "—that I have, too. Your uncle Kostas is busy running what will become his own Family in
Germania
. Your father was always meant to take over the business here. I sent him a letter telling him to come home and learn all the important things, so that when the time comes the Family would be his. And here I am now with no son and no underboss and no heir."

"What about you?" I asked my aunt.

"Honey, I'm too glamorous for anyone to take me seriously."

"They haven't seen you with a gun," I said. She blew me a kiss.

"Rita does not want the job," Grandma said.

I contemplated the impossible. "What if we don't find Dad?"

She looked at me, her hands working the dough. A lightbulb turned on in my head.

"No," I said. "Noooooo."

"There is no one else. Michail or you."

"I'm … I'm …"

One of the good guys. A heroine not a villain. I was a freaking debt collector, and when I went home I was going find another job, equally not-criminal.

"You are what?" she prompted me.

"I'm just a normal person. I can't run a criminal organization. I won't do it. I couldn't do what you do and still look at myself in the mirror without hating what I see. How do you sleep at night?"

Papou cackled, slapping his thigh. I hoped he wouldn't knock out his catheter. "You have met your match, Katerina," he said to my grandmother. "Forget her father—this is the one. You sent her home and what did she do? She defied you and came back because she believed she was doing the right thing. She will not run away from a problem." He made a fist with one hand, slapped it with the other. "She is you, but with better legs."

I wished he'd stop beefing up my resume. I was in no way qualified to slide into the supervillain seat and run a crime syndicate. Not to mention the moral aspect. I was a fundamentally decent person. And I couldn't bake.