The War I Always Wanted (28 page)

“What about the other guy?” I say, gently setting the trunk lid back down. “Let's see the other guy.”

Croom walks over and grabs the rear door handle. He opens it and looks in
.

“Ohhh shit!” he says, taking a step back
.

I walk around from the trunk and look inside. Blood, pink flesh, chips of bone, matted hair, lolling, vacant eyes, the muffled groan of—

I jerked and woke up, looking around and trying to get my bearings. The Greeks were still talking and hadn't seemed to notice. If they did, they hadn't cared.

I reached down to the ground and picked up my book where it had fallen. I put it back in my bag and then stood up. I stretched my back and walked out onto the deck of the ship. The wind was blowing and it was cool out. I stood with my hands on the railing, listening to the water lapping against the
side of the ship. Across the water to the east was the Albanian coastline, with its soaring, snow-dusted mountains. As the setting sun reflected off the snow, it reminded me of the Hindu Kush. They looked just like the massive peaks ringing the Shomali plain in Afghanistan.

I stood there gazing out at them, wondering if I was always going to think that way. A part of me hoped that maybe one day they would just be mountains again.

There is an old trick that shady Athenians play on tourists. I'd read about it in a tourist book in Rome. It goes something like this: A native strikes up a friendly conversation with a lone tourist. After the tourist becomes comfortable with the Athenian, the Greek says he knows a great bar nearby with cheap drinks. He says there will probably be girls there and then he offers to take the tourist. Unbeknownst to the tourist, everyone in the bar is typically in on the ruse. The Greek buys the first round and gets the conversation going. Suddenly two beautiful women appear and begin conversing with the tourist. They start pouring it on—to the point that the tourist thinks he might have a chance with one or both of them. The tourist starts buying more drinks, becoming more inebriated with each one. Once he's ready to leave, the bartender hands him the check. The tourist sees three of them at this point, but he looks at the amount on the one in the middle. It's exorbitant—several hundred euros. The tourist at first argues. When he gets nowhere, he turns to the door. Only now, three very large men are blocking his way out. The bartender wants his money. The tourist looks for the guy who brought him there in the first place, but suddenly, the guy is nowhere to be seen.

I counted myself as being one of the fortunate ones for having heard of the scam before first wandering the maze of Athenian streets. Because I was on the lookout for it, I didn't let the prospect stop me from talking to the people I met.

One cloudy afternoon I was walking along a downtown street when a guy in drag walked past me going the other way. I did a double take just to make sure. A plump older gentleman wearing a dark coat and a Burberry scarf was walking just behind me and saw the same thing. After he/she had passed, I made eye contact with the older man and he said something to me in Greek—a joke by the expression on his face. I smiled politely and said, “Sorry, I don't speak Greek.”

His eyes brightened. “Oh,” he said, “you speak English. You American?” As he spoke, I noticed his wavy salt and pepper hair was just beginning to bald in the back.

I said, “Yes.”

“Oh, that's great,” he continued with a Greek accent. “My son lives in San Antonio. What part of the States you from?”

I told him I was from Louisiana but that I was moving to Texas when I got home. We walked and talked for a while during which time he told me his son was a doctor. He was dressed nicer than anyone around and I thought that might have explained it. He asked me if I'd eaten and I said no. “In that case,” he said, “there's a sidewalk café just down the block. You wanna get a bite to eat?”

I was hungry so I said okay.

The downtown streets were packed, leaving us to thread our way through the moving crowd. He stopped for a moment outside a door to a building. The sign was in Greek. The rotund man looked up at me and said, “I'm going to run in
here and grab a drink before we go. You can wait right here.” Then he paused, appearing to think about it. “Or,” he said, “you can come in and grab one too. It'll just take a second.”

I wasn't sure what kind of a drink he meant, whether he wanted bottled water, a Gatorade, or a shot of ouzo, but I didn't object.

He opened the door, revealing a flight of stairs leading down. I followed him and when we reached the door at the bottom, he opened it and allowed me to proceed in first. Starting to feel a small prickle of uncertainty, I scanned the interior. As I did, I heard the man close the door behind me.

Mother. Fucker
. To my right was the bar. Behind it stood a smiling, fiftyish looking female bartender. Sitting at the bar was the twentyish looking blond decoy—also smiling intently at me. I probably should have run right then, pushing through the man, and making my way back up the stairs, but I didn't. I figured that I'd play it cool and see if I could play stupid enough to get my wallet and myself out of this in one piece.

The fat man walked me over to the bar. “You want some ouzo,” he asked. “I think we should have some before lunch.”

Assuming bottled water and Gatorade were both out of the question, I declined politely.

The bartender then looked across at me, smiling. “Oh come, young man! Here let me pour you a glass of our good stuff. You just have to try it . . . and if you don't like, you don't drink anymore!” She started pouring a bottle of ouzo over a tall glass filled with ice. Then she poured two more—one for the man and one for the girl.

After she handed them to us, the fat man raised his and said, “Yamas!”—Greek for cheers. I raised the glass near my lips,
but didn't sip any—if nothing else I wasn't going to allow them to charge me for drinking. They didn't seem to notice.

The fat man then exclaimed that the three of us—meaning himself, the girl, and me—should go take a seat in one of the red vinyl-covered booths in the corner of the otherwise empty bar. I turned to him and said, “Hey, what about lunch? You said we were gonna go to a sidewalk café for lunch.”

“Oh come on, we won't take long here . . . just a couple of drinks.” Now it was a “couple” of drinks. As if to entice me further, he continued, “And I have a cell phone with me I use to call my son. You can use it to call home if you'd like.”

Holding the glass of ouzo, I just gave him an icy glare. As we walked to the booth I took the time to assess the situation. At the moment I only saw the man and the two women. But I had no way of knowing who else could have been in the back. I also had to assume someone had gone behind us and locked the door. I was angrier with myself than at the three visible con artists. I couldn't believe I'd been snared. I had to give it to the fat man though—I sure as hell hadn't been on the lookout for old men wearing Burberry scarves.

In such a compromised position, I'd never wanted more than to be in the U.S. Army. As a backpacker I was ashamed at having been tricked, but as a soldier I felt somehow dishonored for having been confused for a “regular” tourist.

As we sat down, the bartender asked if she could take my coat. “No thanks,” I said. “We won't be staying here too long.” She just smiled and nodded. I pulled in next to the fat man behind a table. Then the girl sat next to me.
Rusty! Rusty! Rusty!
I realized that I'd allowed them to pin me in.

The girl started making small talk with me—really small talk, because her English was horrible. I noticed that she wasn't even that attractive for bait. The fat man pulled out his phone and said he was going to adjust it so I could call home.

At that point I'd had enough. “Look,” I said, “I've gotta go. If you'll excuse me.”

The bartender saw me making my move and walked over to the table, cutting off my exit. For the first time I noticed how tall she was. She said, “You're leaving us so soon?”

“Yeah, I gotta run. Sorry. I'd love to stay.”

Then she said, “Okay, hold on . . . let me just get the check.”

For a brief moment I thought that maybe this would be all right. I would be willing to pay for the one drink just to call it even. That would be the cost of my stupidity. She came back and handed me the slip of paper. It was a regular bar or restaurant check, and on it she'd written beside each other a one, a two, and a five. One-two-five. I thought about that for a second. Depending on where the missing decimal point was supposed to go, I had a two out of three shot at being okay. Twelve and a half euros for a glass of ouzo would be pretty steep, but whatever.

I looked up and smiled at her, reaching for my wallet. She returned the smile, menacingly. Keeping it low so none of them could see the contents, I pulled out a five-euro bill. At the same time I scanned the rest of the bar looking for any other human movement. There was nothing.

I handed her the five euros. Without moving a muscle she looked at it and laughed. “What is that?”

“It's five euros,” I said. “For the one euro, twenty-five cent glass of ouzo.”

She stuttered condescendingly, “Wh . . . th . . . that's a bottle of our best ouzo. And I opened it for
you
.” She was still halfway grinning.

I said, “Well okay . . . then you can keep the change.”

She threw her head back and laughed.

“That's all I've got. Sorry. Take the five or leave it.” I wasn't sure where I was going with this.

“Well what about a credit card?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she began to hover over me. “You owe me one hundred twenty-five euros.”

“Nope,” I said, as I further veiled my wallet from view, hiding my two credit cards. “You think I'd walk around Athens with a credit card?” I continued to look beyond the tall woman, still trying to determine if there was anyone else in our presence. I put my wallet back in my pocket.

I looked away from her and glanced at the glass of ouzo sitting on the table in front of me. A grin began to tug at the corners of my mouth. The fat man on my left was starting to get fidgety, while the blond girl sitting on my right continued to smile at me hopefully. I figured she was probably getting a healthy cut out of this whole thing. The tall woman was still hovering over me, probably wondering if this budding smile was a good sign. What she couldn't see—what she didn't want to believe—was that there was no laughter behind those eyes.

I looked at the glass of ouzo again. Out of the side of my right eye, I took another notice that the seats on which we were sitting were red vinyl.
Red vinyl seats in a bar are
always
shady
. I started wondering just how serious this was—being pinned in behind the table, with my back to the wall. I guessed that my life could have been in danger, depending on how I handled
the next few seconds.
There is no way to know who else is in this building
.

I looked at the glass of ouzo again. I noticed the dim light glinting off the ice cubes floating in the liquor.
What would Jimbo do?
I watched a drop of condensation slide down the side of the glass and then I made my decision.
They're bluffing. I'm all in
.

I reached for the glass with my right hand and picked it up. I said, “Okay. All right . . .” I looked at the fat man and nodded, as if I were about to take a drink. He only briefly made eye contact with me—and he looked decidedly nervous. I looked at the tall woman with a full smirk now. She looked a bit relieved—and also a bit pleased with herself for potentially being able to intimidate me into taking the drink. She knew that I was about to bring it up to my lips. She blinked, and instead of seeing me, she saw a dollar sign sitting in front of her.

I raised the glass. Then, using my hips, I pushed the table away and stood up. For an instant, she wanted to stand her ground—but then she took half a step back. That was all I needed. One last look at the average-looking blond girl, and I launched the glass of ouzo across the otherwise empty room and into the far wall. It shattered, leaving a large wet ouzo mark dripping down the wall.

The fat man and the blond girl no longer existed as far as I was concerned. I could feel them wilt in the presence of aggression. I could
sense
it. In a final fleeting look at the two still seated,
I see an average Iraqi father and daughter—confused and terrified after we've kicked in the door to their home. They look completely overpowered. They are stunned, and frozen
.

Again, the woman looked as though she wanted to hold her ground—as if this had never before happened to her. She stammered quickly that she was going to call the police.

I responded, “You call the fucking police.”

Then she looked me dead in the eye. She knew then that I was serious. She stepped back, surprised and now uncertain.

I moved as nimbly as I could between the table and the woman. As I passed her, I realized that I was actually the taller one. I looked down at her without emotion. I had gone blank. I considered killing her then—right there, in front of the other two, but decided instead just to grab my coat and scarf and to be on with it.

On the way up the stairs, toward the door, the thought crossed my mind that they still could have locked me in—and that the Brute Squad in the back room, could be gearing up with brass knuckles and chains at this very second. With each step that idea concerned me a little more.

I could see daylight through a small pane of glass on the door at the top of the stairs. With each labored step I expected to hear them call for me to stop. I reached the door and turned the handle. It opened, and I walked out onto the bustling Athenian street. I quickly wrapped my scarf around my neck and threw on my black coat. With my heart racing, I walked quickly away.