Santorini Caesars (22 page)

“Still? As in they'd discussed it before?”

“Yes.”

“What did Prada say?”

“That because of who was coming to Santorini, it was ‘imperative.'”

Andreas sat up. “Did he elaborate on who was coming to Santorini?”

Francesco gestured no. “Both men dropped the subject. I assumed he was talking about the Caesars.”

Andreas looked at Yianni. “Call Petro and tell him I don't care what it takes, I need to know ASAP
when
the Prime Minister received his invitation to attend that tree-lighting—and if Prada played any part in getting it for him.”

“I think you already told him you wanted to know that,” said Yianni.

“
Well, tell him again
!”

“Okay, no reason to yell.” Yianni pulled out his phone.

“Uh, do you guys need me anymore?”

Andreas gestured no. “Sorry about raising my voice to Yianni.”

“We're all under pressure, Chief. If you need me, just call. I'll be in the office.” Francesco quickly left.

“Petro's not answering his phone. He's probably talking with the girlfriend.”

“Then send him a text message. This is
critical
.”

“I know. And by the way, didn't you just apologize for raising your voice at me? Not a direct apology to me, of course, but nevertheless an apology.”

Andreas waved his hand at Yianni. “Okay, Mister Suddenly Super Sensitive. It's not anger, it's excitement. I couldn't put my finger on why a business-driven group like Mayroon would have an interest in assassinating a Prime Minister they helped elect, even if he wasn't doing all that they wanted. After all, he's still the most powerful person in Greece—and their creation. Sensible businessmen don't destroy their golden goose just because it isn't at the moment laying all the eggs they want. That's not good business.”

“Unless there's another goose ready to take its place?”

Andreas nodded. “Our son of a bitch of a public order minister is auditioning for the role of Mayroon's new golden goose, and doing all that he can to spike the chances of his strongest competition, the minister of defense.”

Yianni nodded thoughtfully. “So what's Prada's role in all this?”

“That cagey bastard? He's acting like the perfect theatrical agent.” Andreas leaned forward in his chair. “Try Petro, again.
Please
.”

Chapter Twenty-one

The Santorini of grand, enveloping sapphire vistas and blue-domed, brilliant white churches clinging to cliff sides was what drew the tourists, but much of the island looked nothing like that, ranging more from the downright homey to honky-tonk. Patchwork fields and vineyards dotted with occasional churches and well-used outbuildings, beaches lined by commercial hodgepodges of vacationer attractions, and random eclectic architecture straining to pay varying degrees of symbolic homage to the vaulted roofs of the famed caldera properties, all seemed driven more by a shared desire to profit off the tourist boom than to honor the island's history and traditions.

But no matter the varied styles or tastes of summer visitors that drew them to the island's differing locales, they came
en masse
from May through October. And that meant profit.

Petro thought Sappho would be at home, perhaps at the restaurant, but when he called to say he could stay another day or two, she told him to join her at a beachfront taverna on Perissa, Santorini's most popular beach. Perissa sat at the eastern edge of the island's southern coastline, on the southwest side of Mesa Vouno, the limestone mountaintop site of ancient Thira, named after late-twelfth-century BCE Spartan King Thiras, whose people Santorinians credited with creating Ancient Thira's ports, towns, and sanctuaries.

Santorini's second most popular beach, Kamari, once the port of ancient Thira, lay on the other side of Mesa Vouno, but the only practical way to drive between the two beaches involved a long circuitous route winding west, north, and east around Mesa Vouno and Mount Profitis Ilias, a journey that in the best of traffic took close to thirty minutes.

Kamari and Perissa beaches shared the same black volcanic sand, Kamari's running north to the airport, and Perissa's heading westerly through Perivolos Beach toward the town of Exomitis. Fifty years ago sleepy Perissa had been all fields, a big white church and a few scattered buildings. Today, the Perissa-Perivolos strip offered miles of summer action as hot as its sand, with restaurants, bars, hotels, and a panoply of tourist shops working feverishly to accommodate beach worshippers from around the world searching for fun in the sun.

It took Petro thirty relatively careful minutes on puddle-ridden two-lane roads, passing by dormant vineyards, closed hotels, shuttered summer homes, skeletons of unfinished buildings, quiet villages, and sleepy shops to reach Perissa. Gray, brown, and black—slightly tinged with green—served as the colors of the land, while shades of white, dirty beige, stone gray, and random splashes of primary colors dominated the low, local structures. Sparse trees—Petro recognized few beyond eucalyptus, tamarisk, and palm—stood randomly along the roadsides while fallow winter fields ran off toward the sea or mountain ridges.

Petro parked next to four thick wide-plank wooden steps leading up to an all-white, two-story stucco building of unmistakable modern design but indeterminate purpose. A row of unfinished plywood sheets ran across the building's first-floor front wall, likely protecting windows beneath from winter gales. Two white stucco pillars at the base of the steps bore the same single word mounted in black wrought iron script: MIAMI. Evidently this was someone's idea of bringing a bit of America's Miami to Santorini. Why anyone would want to do that was another story, though it undoubtedly tied into the entrepreneurial mania behind Santorini's extraordinary success at giving tourists what they wanted.

At the top of the steps a broad, white marble-tiled deck stretched across in front of the building, its stucco roadside wall just high enough to block from view—for anyone sitting on the deck—the two-lane tarmac separating the northern commercial side of the road from the expanse of ebony sand and deep blue sea to the south.

But he saw no one on the deck today, or on the beach.

What in the world is Sappho doing here?

Directly up and beyond the steps stood a set of solid dark-stained wooden doors partially ajar. He headed straight for them and poked his head inside. “Hello, anyone in here?”

“Yes, dear, I'm back in the kitchen.”

So it's a restaurant
.

Petro followed Sappho's voice past tables and chairs neatly stacked and covered in clear plastic sheeting. Beyond them, a mirror-backed bar area ran the length of the east wall, but with not a single bottle visible, undoubtedly all safely locked away for the winter. For sure booze thieves stood as a bigger threat on Santorini than table- and chair-snatchers.

Petro aimed for the left doorway on the back wall, the one not labeled WC.

Sappho met him as he stepped into the kitchen, giving him a quick hug and a cursory kiss on both cheeks.

“That's it?” said Petro. “I tell you I'm staying and you kiss me like I'm your brother.”

“I don't have a brother, so I'll have to take your word on that.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into the kitchen. “So, what do you think of it?”

“I think you're all wound up. As for ‘it,' what's the ‘it' I'm supposed to be thinking of?”

“This place, silly. What do you think of this restaurant?”

“You're thinking of opening here?”

“If I can make a deal, yes. The current owners put a hell of a lot of money into it,” she waved at all the equipment, “and the portable stuff that might disappear in wintertime is locked up inside the walk-ins.” She pointed at two huge coolers against the rear wall by a door marked EXIT. “It's a turnkey operation all set to go.”

“Why are they selling?”

“Because they don't know how to run the business. They're a couple from Athens who thought it would be chic to have a place on Perissa. They spent more time hanging out with their customers than taking care of them. That's a big no-no in this business. You can never forget that your role is to serve your guests, not party with them.”

“They're losing money?”

She gestured no. “Even in this economy it's hard to do that on Santorini, what with the constant turnover every few days of new customers with fresh cash. They simply lost interest in their fantasy when the island's regulars stopped coming and they found themselves having to wait on actual customers, instead of serving as kings controlling the entrance of supplicants to their castle.”

“I get it. But why would you move
your
restaurant here? This is a place for a summer business.”

“We're not moving the restaurant. This would be all my operation. My mother and father want me to do it. They know how much I've dreamed of having a place on this beach. They can get all the help they need during the summer and I know I can turn this into a goldmine.”

“Just wear a bikini and the place will be packed twenty-four/seven.”

Sappho batted her eyes. “You silver-tongued devil, you.”

“How far along are you in negotiations?”

“Far enough that I'm about to make an offer. I want to do it while they're still dejected over their summer experience. Memories tend to get rosier the longer they endure an Athens winter, and I wouldn't want them toying with the idea of taking another run at it.”

“You're a hard-nosed businesswoman.”

“It's the only way to be on this island. Look out for yourself, because everyone else is.”

Petro nodded. “Yep. Sure is.”

“You still haven't answered my question, what do you think of the place?”

He forced a nervous smile. “I don't know the business.”

Sappho nodded. “So you don't like it?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You didn't have to.

“Okay, it's a bit too much over the top for my tastes. I like my Greek island places to look like Greek islands.”

“Fair enough. I can assure you it won't be called ‘Miami' if I get the place. The over-the-top glitzy touches will be gone, but the bones will remain because the island's attracting a lot of Chinese, Russians, and Indians, and those of them with money love that sort of glamour.”

Petro smiled. “As I said, I don't know the business.”

Sappho caught his eye. “Would you like to learn?”

Petro looked away.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to be so pushy. Damn it, I'm always chasing away the men I like.”

“Is that why the island's so empty?”

She poked her finger in his chest. “Don't push it, wise guy, or I might withdraw the offer.”

“I already have a job.”

“Please. Don't tell me you're in the hotel business. You know about as much about that as I do about brain surgery. Sure, you can try to make some money putting people together in the business, but you're not a hotelier. And I doubt you ever will be. That's not your skill set.”

“So, what is my skill set?”

“I'd prefer we not get into that here, as there's no telling who might walk in on us.”

Petro grinned. “Follow me.”

Sappho grabbed her purse off a counter top. “This should be interesting.”

He walked into to the dining room, and took down a table and two chairs from under the plastic.

“Sit, please.”

Sappho put her handbag on the table and sat down staring at him grim-faced. “Is this the part where you tell me you really do have a wife?”

“That would be easy.” He sat down and faced her head-on.

“Don't tell me you're gay. I won't believe you.”

Petro drew in and let out a deep breath. “I'm a cop.”

“Please, tell me you're gay. Anything but a cop.”

Petro blinked. “That's all you have to say?”

“Darling, I knew you weren't what you said, and that you were into something suspicious. I just hoped it wasn't something bad. Now you turn out to be a cop. So much for my hopes.” She smiled and reached out for his hand. “Let's get to the part where you tell me you're sworn to secrecy and can't tell me any more.”

“You're watching too many movies.”

“Because I haven't had anyone to keep me company for quite a while.”

Petro looked down and squeezed her hand. “As a matter of fact, not only can I tell you what I'm doing, I need to ask for your help.” He looked straight at her. “Which I know sounds right out of a movie.”

“Any number of bad ones.”

“This one could get particularly bad.”

“Uh, do you happen to have any identification you could show me?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Yeah, sure.” He reached for his wallet and pulled out his ID card.

“I thought you guys carried them around your neck…under your shirt.” She looked at it, then at him, straight-faced. “Okay.”

“Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Why not? Break my heart completely.”

She leaned back in her chair, pulling her hand away from him as she did, and crossing her arms.

Petro swallowed. “I was assigned here to supervise an operation intended to determine if there was a military plot against the government. Just by coincidence, the targets of our surveillance decided on meeting in your restaurant.”

“So, you spied on our customers?”

“Yes.”

Sappho shifted in her seat. “Using me for access.”

“I didn't think of it that way.”

“I bet you didn't.”

“This isn't easy,” said Petro.

“I'm certain not nearly as easy as I was.”

Petro raised his hands. “Stop. There's no reason to go that way with this. I'm here because I want to be with you.”

“No, you're here because you need my help. You just admitted that.”

Petro rubbed at his eyes. “Do you really want to believe that?”

She jumped to her feet. “No, I definitely don't
want
to believe that. But what else can I believe?”

“Let's not turn this into some very bad movie dialogue.”

“It can get worse?”

“I'm going to tell you what I know and what I need to know from you, and after I do, if you still believe I'm here just to use you, you'll be in a position to do me some very serious harm. In other words, I'm prepared to trust you with my career.”

Sappho walked around in a twenty-step circle three times before stopping abruptly in front of him. “Fine, tell me.”

“Sit down, please.” He pointed at the chair and waited until she sat.

“We believe there may be a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister.”

She stared at him for ten seconds. “Let me see that ID again.”

He reached for his wallet.

She raised her hand. “No, that was just my way of saying to myself you must be insane.”

“I wish I were.”

“Who do you think is trying to kill him?”

“Not sure, but we think it involves that civilian who turned up late at the military dinner in your restaurant.”

“Him? Hard to imagine. I thought he was a friend of the Prime Minister.”

Petro shrugged. “What can I say?”

“No need to say anything. Cain and Abel says it all.” She sighed. “So what do you want from me?”

“Two things. First, we need to know when the mayor invited the Prime Minister to participate in the tree-lighting ceremony tomorrow night, and what part the Prime Minister's slick friend played in that invitation.”

“No problem, I'll call Nikolaos right away.”

“Nikolaos?”

“He's Santorini's mayor.”

“Oh.”

“That's the benefit of having a local girl as your operative. So what else do you need to know?”

“Where would you pick as the best place on Santorini for an assassination if you wanted to make it look like a Greek military conspiracy?”

“I see we're done with the easy questions.”

“Any ideas?”

“Assuming the Prime Minister uses the military's part of the airport, that's a possibility.”

“Yes, but it's controlled by the military, so that would make it hard to pull off unless the military actually is involved. We're looking for a place that will make it seem like the military's behind it, even though it's not.”