Nightjack (20 page)

“No one’s going to hurt you. I won’t let anyone do that.”

“Every time you make that false promise you condemn yourself to a deeper corner of hell.”

“Fine by me.”

Pia murmured in her sleep and eased the side of her face against Pace’s shoulder. He couldn’t help himself and pressed his nose into her hair and took a deep breath. It sent Pacella’s ghost into spasms, thinking of cold nights on the shore when Jane fell asleep in his arms and he did this same thing. Breathing her in.

Pace thought, They own me, these three. Faust, Hayden, Pia. I own them. That’s what this is really about. They’re as much a part of me as Pacella or Jack or any of the others. They’re only here because they couldn’t cut free from me. Kaltzas hasn’t brought them here, I have. I’m going to get them all killed.

Pace opened his fist. There was another torn, curled slip of paper:

Forget what I said about Tiny Bob’s Lobster Pavilion. They’re under new management and the current menu is superb.

eighteen

They reached Elliniko Airport at five a.m. local time. The sun had come around the earth to meet them and the finely-hewn dawn erupted across the bow of the jet. They passed over a congested port surrounded by whitewashed houses that led off to a wildly choked stone metropolis already in full flurry and bustle.

As they circled, Pace noticed that the Aegean Sea was at least three different colors: turquoise, a compelling deep-ice blue, and a burnished black. Faust put his hand against the window and Daedalus’s eyes welled.

They landed fast and simply, taxiing for less than a minute before the jet came to an abrupt halt. The cockpit door opened. One of the flight crew opened the main cabin door and slid a small stairway out.

As she exited, Pia smiled blandly and said, “The American consulate shall hear of the simply atrocious fashion you treat your passengers, boys. Expect U.S. sanctions. My father’s an ambassador and the President of our free United States won’t put up with this.”

“Not even a goddamn ham on rye!” Hayden said. “Tell your master that next time, we meet in Newark where even the thugs have better manners. Clearly money can’t buy grace.”

Faust said, “Thank you.”

As Pace reached the steps, the pilot lashed out, gripped Pace’s shoulder, and snarled something in Greek. The rest of the crew laughed. The pilot patted Pace’s back, trying to get him in on the joke, tell him how they were all brothers, how good it was to be alive.

But Pace didn’t think so. He asked, Jimmy?

Aye, laddie
.

Jimmy Boyd shrugged the hand off, spun and let loose with two left jabs that knocked the pilot on his ass. “Next time, boyo, ye’ll be wantin’ to speak in a proper tone when ye address me. Else I’ll slap the snottiness out the other side a ye head.”

The co-pilot leaped to his feet and started jabbering. He looked greatly offended and threw a wild punch. Jimmy sidestepped easily and unleashed a swift uppercut that snapped the man’s head back so hard that blood from his mouth spurted onto the cockpit ceiling.

“That’ll be enough of that nonsense, ye fuckers.”

Pace moved down the stairs and the heat reached out and gripped him by the heart.

Pia cried as if she’d been struck in the face with a hot towel. “Ugh! My god!”

“People vacation here?” Hayden said. “They come here willingly?”

“We’ll get used to it.”

“Just lead me to the nude beaches and leave my ass in the sand.”

They walked through the airport, had their paperwork checked again, and were welcomed to Athens.

Pace had never seen a city like it. The garbage towered in the streets. People were crammed everywhere, with so much traffic pressing along that you wouldn’t be surprised to find old men or children crushed into the asphalt. A living sea of motion swept you along with it whether you wanted to go or not. It made Manhattan look rustic.

“I never thought I’d be homesick for Alphabet City,” Hayden said. His eyes were panic-stricken. “By the way, what time is it?”

“Not quite six a.m.”

“Jesus, what are all these people doing awake?”

“Heading to work. This is a port city. Fishermen and their families get up with the tide.”

Hayden pulled a face. “I just stepped in something that if I called it shit would be an insult to shit. This has no name. God turned his back on this when he was handing out names.”

“Adam handed out names,” Faust said.

“Shut the fuck up. I need new shoes.”

Pia’s father liked the action and started dancing among everybody, grinding against the women passing by, his shirt open to the last button and his furry chest covered in salt streaks. Pia watched him, swallowing deeply every time he turned her way.

“Do we know where we’re going?” she asked.

“We need to get to the ferry,” Pace said. “But according to the schedule, the next won’t be leaving until noon.”

“Maybe we should get a hotel room and rest up. We still stink of vomit.”

“So does everybody else.”

For a moment, Pace lost sight of Faust, as they slid further into the city and the city sealed itself up after them.

“Faust? Faust!”

Daedalus, the Athenian architect, had now returned home. He dropped to his knees, threw back his head, and let out an overwhelming wail for all the lost centuries he’d been away. His great mechanical wings attempted to unfurl but were battered back again by the crowd. Chunks of wax and feather fell to the street.

Hayden said, “Is it just me or is this guy really a downer even on this side of the planet?”Pace positioned himself to keep the foot traffic from crushing the winged architect. They showed no respect for their own living history. He stiff-armed them away, the anger beginning to gain purchase within him. People hissed in Greek and other languages. Would they be so bitchy if they could recognize one of their own solar deities?

Daedalus had designed the labyrinth for King Minos, built to imprison the man-bull Minotaur. The dungeon was so skillfully built that no one who entered could escape the great beast. But Daedalus revealed the secret of the maze to Ariadne, daughter of Minos, so she could aid her lover, Theseus. She unrolled a length of string that she and Theseus could follow back to safety. In a fury, the mad king imprisoned Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in the labyrinth.

As if that could stop the man who’d created it. Daedalus made two pairs of mighty wings so that they could both fly out.

But sons never listen to their fathers. It’s a rule, a dictum. A formula meant to be pursued even to death and beyond. You don’t wash out the tuna cans. The brash boy flew too near the sun even as his father called for him to return, the way he was calling now, thrashing in the garbage. Icarus had merely laughed, spurning his father’s orders, drifting toward Sicily where he’d always wanted to join the army. With his eyes full of sunshine and adolescent lust for peasant farmer women, his wings melted, and he plummeted to the sea shrieking for his old man.

Daedalus heard it still.

So did Pace.

The kid crying across the sky.

Pace’s father telling him that the flat rock he used on top of the garbage can wasn’t heavy enough to keep out the raccoons. They got in and ripped through the plastic bags, and there was trash strewn all over. Always with the trash.

With his artist’s hands thrust down to the street, gripping Athenian stone, Daedalus was home again. He stood and looked in the direction of the sea, his view blocked by ugly buildings and angry-eyed strangers. Seeing nothing of his drowned son, he took three running steps preparing to fly. He stumbled, fell on his face, and lay there panting.

Hayden tried to get Faust back onto his feet, but he’d gone completely slack. “We’re going to set tourism back a few years if he doesn’t get up soon. Maybe cause an international incident, you know? Somebody’s gonna call the cops. Will that be a good thing for us? I mean, maybe it would be.”

Stooping, Pace said in Daedalus’s ear, “Fathers must let go of their children. Even if they drop into the sea. It’s been the way of life throughout the ages. The father feasts on guilt but cannot take blame. You’re no different than the rest.”

Still hearing his old man asking him,
Did you separate the paper, bottles, and cans
?

Daedalus turned his face aside and wept. The throng continued to swarm around them. Pace let his lips curl into a humorless grin, thinking how it would look to die five minutes off the plane, flattened by old Greek ladies heading off to their bakeries to make the morning bread.

“Faust,” Pia said. “Faust, you need to get up!”

The scar on Faust’s forehead was covered with dirt. Pace brushed it off and felt the ridge of tissue hot beneath his hand. An almost electrical buzz worked through his fingertips. Faust opened his eyes and said, “I’m thirsty. I would very much like a drink.”

“We could all use one,” Hayden said. “There’s a
taverna
right across the street. Some local color, but it kind of looks real touristy too. Christ they start early in this town.”

“
Tavernas
are open twenty-four hours,” Pace told them. “Let’s go.”

“We’re a long way from Zorba’s little hut with all the dancing and singing, let me tell you. How much money do we have?”

“About fifteen grand,” Pace said.

“What!” Hayden gripped Pace by the shoulders, grinning but angry, his sharp teeth coming out to catch the bottom lip. It looked painful. “You’ve been holding onto that much? What’re you going to do, retire with the cash? At the very least we could’ve had something better than Double Cheesy Bacony Burgers in the last forty-eight hours of our lives. Jesus Christ, man! Let’s go have some fun! I could use it. So could Mister Misery over there.”

The crowd kept coming, lumbering like the dead, and Pace had to work faster to keep them off him. There was no laughter, hardly any talking. He thought, It’s a good thing Pacella never got to take Jane to Greece on the honeymoon, she wouldn’t have liked it. Not here anyway.

“I just want a glass of water,” Faust said. “This land...I feel very uncomfortable here. Distracted.”

“Let’s have a hell of a morning.” Hayden peered into the mob. “I’d have to guess that an Athens prostitute is of equal net worth per engagement as a New York pro.”

“By what standards do you make the assumption?” Pia asked.

“The generally accepted standards.”

“But where do they fit in where Thai hookers are concerned?”

“Probably not even in the same league. But I’m willing to put it to the test.”

“Our father who art
in dilecto flagrante
.”

“Let’s go have a good time! We’re on vacation until we get killed!”

“No,” Pace said.

Pia started to laugh. “How’d I know you’d say that? We can’t have fun because that’s what Kaltzas wants us to do, right?”

“Right.”

“In the future,” Hayden said, “I have really got to get some less insane acquaintances to travel with to evil homicidal tycoons’ island paradises.”

No one argued.

nineteen

Tourists sat with Greeks watching the repeat of a soccer game on the TV set over the bar. They appeared to have been up all night long. They were drunk but nobody seemed tired.

The waitress had already sized Pace’s group up as Americans and asked them their order in perfect English. Hayden wanted something strong and she brought them each a glass of metaxa, an amber-colored alcohol. Six in the morning and they were already into the hard stuff.

Deep in the guts, Pacella withdrew another layer, revolted.

Pace took a sip and it was hot and smooth. A lot of the ones inside him liked it, a lot of them hated it. Sam Smith was indifferent, he’d had better in Saigon. Some of the children spit it out and began to cry. Pace kind of enjoyed it.

“When’s the ferry to Voros again?” Hayden asked, taking out his pad and getting back to work on his letter to his mother.

“Noon.”

“I have pages missing. Who’s been taking my paper?”

Faust threw the metaxa back, frowning as if he might hate the taste, but then nodding. He waved for another. “What do we do in the meantime? Shall we take advantage of Kaltzas’s guidebooks and visit the hot tourist spots in the area? Do we trek to the temples and commune with the ancient ones?”

“Fall in love,” Pia’s father said. He was looking around at all the Greek girls going by. Pia got up and stood beside him, fuming, her back teeth grinding. The jealousy written so plainly in her face that women at nearby tables started doing double-takes.

Pace wondered why they were all coming so unglued here, the edges to each one of them peeled back to expose more of the mess beneath. Maybe it was lack of sleep, or the true onset of fear. The desire to go home, hide on the ward, get back with the program. If Dr. Brandt hadn’t set him up, he could have happily stayed at Garden Falls with the other lunatics, maybe forever. Wearing his blue bathrobe and shuffling along past the grimy locked windows.