Andreas smiled. Guess he thought I wanted privacy. The phone buzzed, signaling he should pick up the call. Maybe I do. Lila's first words were, 'Did you receive my message?' Andreas replied that he had, but was tied up with work all morning. When he heard, 'Even too busy to return my call?' he knew where this was headed. Too many women had said those words to him before, though in a decidedly different context. And, as with the rest of them, she was right. He tried 'Sorry,' but that didn't work. It never did, nor did, 'You're right, I was wrong,' or the old standby, 'Honest, there is nothing more important to me than what you have to say, but can we talk about this at another time?'
So, he wasn't surprised when thirty minutes later he was sitting in her apartment doing penance.
'… and that's how I figured it out. They were banished and the boy was murdered because the family didn't listen!' She sounded as excited as a schoolgirl coming home with straight A's.
'That's a great theory but-'
'I know, I know, in ancient Athens they didn't banish the entire family and certainly would never kill a family member if the banished one didn't listen, but there were other forms of banishment for actual crimes, ones where the entire family was banished, even the bones of dead family members were dug-up and sent away and-'
Andreas put up his hand to stop her. 'No, that's not what I was going to say. I congratulate you for figuring it out, I really do, but that's not the direction this investigation is headed.'
She glared at him. 'I wondered why you went from being so aggressive to not caring enough even to call. Someone told you to stop.'
Andreas' temper flared, but he kept his tone in check. 'No, I'm just more interested in catching a killer than playing some rich folks' parlor game of cops and conspirators.'
She looked down at her hands. 'I guess I deserved that.'
He said nothing.
She looked back up at him. 'No quarter, huh?'
He still said nothing.
'Fine, you'll just have to settle for coffee.'
He wondered if he should say what he was thinking.
'Would you like a toast?'
'Mrs Vardi, I really must leave.'
'Please, I said call me Lila, and you can't leave now, it's just not proper to come to someone's home without even having a coffee.' She smiled.
He'd had enough. 'Mrs Vardi, I have work to do.' He knew he should keep his mouth shut and just leave.
'I insist you stay. At least for coffee.' Her tone was formal.
He stared straight at her. 'First you insulted me by suggesting I'm part of some cover-up, and when that didn't get the reaction you wanted you lectured me on manners. Don't know how you were raised, but my parents would call that very bad manners.' His temper was showing, but he no longer cared. 'Come to think of it, you probably were raised differently. I guess more along the lines of ancient Athenian traditions, where courtesy was due just to equals, and the servant-class indulged only when absolutely necessary. Perhaps with some simple benevolent gesture, like a coffee and toast with the master.' He stood up. 'No need to show me out.'
She locked eyes with him. Slowly, she raised her right hand up toward his face. It was clenched in a fist. He expected her to flash an open palm, the Greek gesture for something a lot worse than 'asshole.' Instead, she held her fist in the air, brought the tips of her forefinger and thumb together, then slightly separated them.
'Don't you think you've overreacted just a teeny-tiny bit?' She flicked her fingers rapidly open and shut.
He watched her fingers for a moment, and dropped back down onto the couch across from her.
'Let's start over again,' she said. 'I apologize. I wasn't suggesting you're dishonest. I was more angry at the thought that someone had ordered you to stop doing what you knew in your heart was right.'
He swallowed. 'I'm sorry too. I get that way when I think people are talking down to me. It comes from a bad experience my father had.' He'd opened up the subject; he might as well finish it. 'A minister level member of government from the supposed "upper-class" set up my father — the trusting cop — to take the fall for bribes that went to the minister.'
'I can't believe he got away with it.'
Andreas shrugged. 'My father died soon after the accusations hit the newspapers. The story died with him.'
'Oh. Sorry.'
He appreciated that she didn't ask for more details, like the tire blowout a year later that sent that minister's car plunging off a mountain road and him to a nasty, officially ruled accidental death. 'Anyway, about this banishment theory, yes, I agree it's interesting.'
'So, why aren't you doing something about it?'
He smiled. 'Something tells me you're this way with everyone, and so I shouldn't take offense.'
She blushed. 'Yes, I guess I am.'
'That's okay, it's refreshing.' Why did I say that? 'But to answer your question, I simply don't have the time right now to pursue it. Perhaps later.'
She shook her head. 'You'll never have time. There always will be something else.'
He nodded. 'You might be right, but even if I had the time, I have no leads to follow. All the families with a member who might have been murdered won't talk to police and live outside of Greece. And even if I knew any of the other families that supposedly left after receiving a warning, they're also outside of Greece. I don't even know where the Kostopoulos family is. Besides, I have no jurisdiction over any of them and no way to get them to cooperate.'
She smiled. 'But I do.'
He looked surprised. 'What are you talking about?'
'The world is very small at the top. Everyone up there knows everyone else, or someone who does.'
Andreas stared at her.
'What are you thinking?' she asked.
'Why are you offering to help? That's what I'm thinking. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate the offer, but why would you, someone with all this,' he waved his hands at things around the room, 'and part of the "small world at the top," want to get involved?'
She stared back. 'You mean why should I want to bring down my own kind?'
He paused. 'Yes.'
She nodded. 'Fair question. Because the kind you're talking about is not "my kind." Sure, I have,' she waved her hands, 'all this, but the fact I was born and raised rich and probably do things you think silly and spoiled doesn't mean I'm a bad person.' She smiled. 'Any more than your being a cop means you're corrupt.'
He laughed.
She stared at a photograph of her husband. 'My family was socially prominent well before the 1900s. My husband's family never was part of that crowd and, in fact, never achieved any sort of prominence, financial or otherwise, until the 1980s. According to some in Athenian society, like the ones I'm sure you're looking for, it was a mortal sin for us to have married. How dare I elevate one of them to our level.' She stared straight at Andreas. 'They do not represent my way of thinking, or my Athens.'
Andreas nodded. He understood why she'd kept his name. In her own way, Lila Vardi was one in-your-face tough cookie.
Lila waved a finger at him. 'If you promise not to give me any more of that "you're an elitist," she paused as if deciding on the right word, 'bullshit, I'll try to find out what I can.'
He smiled. 'Nice language.'
'I wanted to use a word you'd understand.'
He laughed again. 'May I have that coffee now, please.' He studied her hands as she picked up a white porcelain pitcher and poured the coffee into a matching cup. 'But these… let's call them banished… people aren't part of your "top of the world crowd." So, what makes you think you can get them to cooperate, assuming you can find them?'
She handed him the coffee. 'Well, first of all, I don't consider myself part of that crowd, but I am friends with some, and know many others who are. The banished people, as you say, certainly are not part of that crowd, but from what I know of the families who did move away, they were very socially conscious.'