'Excuse me, I need to hit the bathroom.'
She looked at him as if she knew that wasn't his reason.
Inside, he stood facing the mirror. Andreas knew he should leave, but… He walked back to the doorway and stood staring at her. She seemed to be dozing on the pillows. He turned and left, saying nothing.
He'd respect her wishes on how best to say goodbye.
6
The street was deserted, except for a few mangy-looking characters lurking around a doorway across the street from her building. Must be looking to pick off a quick score, some straggler heading home still in the glow of blissful, oblivious passion. Take a shot at me assholes, Andreas thought. I need to vent. He stared at them, daring them to try, but they looked away.
He started to cross to where he left the motorbike, glancing left and right as he did. He took another step then paused again and looked back to his left, away from where he parked. Someone was there who shouldn't be. He stepped back onto the curb and walked over to a beat-up, white Fiat. He studied the dozing driver, then pounded twice on the roof. 'Open up.'
The driver jerked awake and did as he was told.
'Chief.'
Andreas got in. 'Get me out of here.' Screw the bike, he thought, let someone steal it all over again.
Neither looked at the other.
'Drop me at home.' Andreas needed a shower and a few hours' sleep. He stared out the windshield. There was a paper on the dash. It was a police vehicle-impound form. Kouros had shopped for his ride there, too. 'Anything you want to say?' Andreas said it flatly, still looking straight ahead.
'No, sir.'
Andreas looked at him. 'For Christ's sake, Yianni, say something.'
'She was the greatest piece of ass I ever saw, and you're not the first cop to stumble.'
Andreas didn't respond, just turned his head and looked out the side window. What was there to say? That he didn't have sex, just listened to a hooker tell her life story? To a cop that would sound worse, at least dumber, than whatever Kouros was thinking. No one would believe him anyway. He couldn't believe it himself.
'Besides, you're my boss, what the hell do you want me to say? That "every crooked politician, influence peddler and bad guy in Greece would kill for proof of what you just did. You'd be their forever get-of-jail-free card. Or ruined."'
Andreas nodded but kept looking out the window. 'In other words, if I weren't your boss, you'd say I must be out of my mind.'
'No, sir, "out of your fucking mind," sir.'
'Well, thank you for not saying that and-' turning to look at him, 'for watching my back.'
Kouros nodded. 'I spoke to the other Angel Club employees, but they gave me nothing.' A few seconds later he added, 'So, Chief, did you get anything interesting tonight?'
Andreas gave him a sharp look, then a grin. 'Cute, very cute. Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Our likely killers aren't Greek, but probably from one of our Balkan neighbors. I think someone from one of the places she works set her up. She waitresses at coffee shops over by the Polytechnic University.' He pointed out the window.
'Those places where anarchists and communists merrily plot away together at creating their grand new world?'
Andreas nodded. 'Yes, those. Never quite understood how anarchists and communists find common ground. One's dead-set against government, other's all for it.'
'That's easy, Chief, they share the same public tit.'
'Now, now, Yianni, let's not let our personal feelings enter into this.' Andreas was smiling.
'Yeah, you're right, Chief, I should be honored at the opportunity to bust my ass at this job every day so that some asshole who passes a national exam can stay in university forever and the state pays for it, even if the bastard never passes a course or goes to a single class.' He was worked up, but then again, so were a lot of people on both sides of that issue.
'Yianni, whoa. Not all of them are like that.'
'Yeah, but I'm still paying for the ones who are… and the ones whose deep fucking thoughts get them thinking up new reasons to riot and throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at us.' He was squeezing the steering wheel. 'Then they run back to their universities to hide, so we can't grab their asses.'
That part bothered Andreas too. A law, enacted as the result of Greece's experience under the dictatorship of 1967 to 1974, provided that police could not enter university grounds, no matter what the reason. Needless to say, a lot of folks, students and others, some literally wearing masks, took advantage of that sanctuary for many varied and at times violent criminal purposes. They'd do their business in cafes and bars bordering universities, then scoot like rabbits back to campus when police showed up. And they got away with it, just like the veteran of the 1973 demonstrations legend had, still living in the basement of the university where it all started, producing Molotov cocktails for new generations of demonstrators.
'Relax, we have to be nice to those guys. They're our only chance of getting anywhere with this.'
Kouros squeezed the steering wheel twice more, then let out a breath. 'So, what about Anna?'
'What do you mean, "What about Anna?"'
'Chief, she's involved in the murder. Shouldn't we bring her in?'
'And achieve what? Keep her locked up so she can't get away? Fine, if we want a quick collar for the newspapers, sure. But what's the charge going to be? I don't see any kind of murder conviction in this for her, do you?'
Kouros gestured no. 'Not on what we have now.'
'Right, we need more. And if we arrest her, she's not going to give us any more than she already has, and everyone tied into this will disappear off the face of the earth. If they haven't already. As long as she's walking around there's a chance someone might show up.' He stared straight ahead. 'But have someone keep an eye on her. She's our best link so far to the two who probably killed the boy.'
'Who should we use?'
'Check with the office to see who's available.'
'I'm available nights.' Kouros grinned.
Andreas did not return the smile. He wanted the subject to go away.
Kouros stopped in front of Andreas' apartment building.
As Andreas was getting out he said, 'Pick me up tomorrow morning at eight. Don't eat breakfast. We have a lot of coffee shops to visit.'
Kouros nodded. 'Hopefully with ugly waitresses.'
Andreas slammed the door. Maggie wanted to hide from the phone. It hadn't stopped ringing all morning. Someone tipped off the press that Chief Andreas Kaldis had assumed personal charge of the investigation, and now every journalist in Greece wanted to speak to him, not some anonymous talking head out of media affairs. It had been years since so many suitors were after her favors, and their general approach for getting her to give up her boss was almost the same as that once aimed at her virtue: 'I promise to be gentle.' They had no more success now than then.
She had spoken to Andreas twice this morning, and his instructions were firm: 'All inquiries must be directed to media affairs, no exceptions.' Still, she wondered if she should call him a third time, because now Greece's most watched, vicious, scandal-mongering, and feared television journalist, Marios Tzoli, wanted to speak with him. What concerned Maggie was that he personally placed the call. Big television egos didn't call for routine interviews. She'd better warn Andreas that Marios must sense blood in the water or sex anywhere. So far that morning they'd had two breakfasts, but Andreas couldn't tell you what he'd eaten if you asked him while he was chewing it. He and Kouros didn't say much more than 'pass the sugar.' Sort of like an old married couple dining alone with nothing left to say on any subject. The only interruptions were two calls from Maggie.