From the moment Maggie entered the apartment, Tassaki was all over her. He loved his “Aunt Maggie,” and as a precocious three-year-old, knew to negotiate the terms of his bedtime surrender up-front, while his parents still wanted him around.
“I promise to go to bed if Theia Maggie reads me a story,” kept Maggie and Lila in his bedroom for almost an hour.
“That kid is a born deal-making politician,” said Tassos from a couch in the living room.
“I thought you liked him?” said Andreas sitting next to him.
Tassos laughed and gestured with his wineglass in the direction of the windows lining the wall across from him. “Hard to imagine how he won’t aspire to greatness with such a glorious view of the Acropolis every time he looks in that direction.”
“I just hope he doesn’t take it for granted. That’s the downside of all this.” Andreas picked up a wine bottle from a silver ice bucket on the coffee table in front of them and poured some into Tassos’ glass. “Lila would kill me if she saw me doing this instead of asking Marietta to do it for us.”
“Stop complaining. You’ve got a great family.”
“I thought you were on my side?” Andreas smiled.
“I am. That’s why I told you to stay away from Orestes.”
“And I listened.”
“Really?”
“Sort of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I followed your suggestion and told the prosecutor to subpoena the companies on his list.”
“And?”
Andreas took a sip of wine. “I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know yet, depends on what he’s up to. I want to know if he has any plans on getting back at me for not playing ball.”
“And how do you intend on learning what’s in his mind?”
“I have someone from outside the unit keeping an eye on him.”
“Why outside the unit? Do you think there’s a leak?”
Andreas gestured no. “But Spiros is the big boss and if he finds out, God knows what he might say to Orestes to keep on his good side.”
“Who’d you bring in?”
“His name is Petro Dangas. He’s a tough kid, who works at GADA but moonlights at a club where Orestes hangs out. I told him to keep track of Orestes’ guests and associates. I want to know who’s getting his special attention.”
“Can you trust the guy?”
“My instincts say yes. He’s been on the force less than two years, and six months ago transferred to headquarters’ security from a vice unit in the wild-ass western suburbs.”
“Why would he leave a wide-open, take-what-you-can money-making assignment like that?” smiled Tassos.
“I thought the same thing, so I spoke to his former precinct commander.”
“Surprised he talked to you.”
“I promised not to bust his balls if he told me the truth. And to ground them up into powder if he didn’t.”
“You do know how to make friends in the department.”
Andreas shrugged. “He told me the kid ‘wouldn’t get with the program.’”
“Sounds like a hell of an endorsement.”
“I took it the same way. He got the kid transferred to a place where all he’ll ever get to do is tell tourists not to take pictures of the building and look tough for photo ops.”
“Some career.”
“Which is why he jumped at the chance to keep an eye on Orestes. He reports only to me.”
“Why do you have such a hard-on for Orestes?”
Andreas smiled. “Interesting choice of words. You can’t imagine.”
Lila and Maggie swept into the room.
“Your little angel is asleep, Chief.”
“Thanks to Maggie. He listens to her,” said Lila.
“We all do,” said Tassos.
“It’s a fear-driven response,” said Andreas.
Lila laughed. “On that note, dinner is served.”
“Oh, great. Time for more little boys and their stories.” Maggie winked at Lila. “At least we begin our fairy tales with ‘Once upon a time.’”
***
Kouros didn’t bother to look at the clock when he woke up. He knew it was morning and that was all he wanted to know. He ran his head under the shower for ten minutes, a real waste of water in parched Mani, and after searching around the bathroom he found some long-expired ibuprofen. He swallowed more than prescribed, stared in the mirror, and made the solemn pledge so many have vowed in similar moments of clarity: “If I survive, never again. I promise.”
He dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and followed the smell of coffee out into the kitchen. His mother handed him a cup as he walked into the room. He made a point not to look her in the eyes, just gave her a quick peck on both cheeks, said “Kali mera,” grabbed two biscuits off the table, and headed out the kitchen door. He didn’t need a maternal lecture, his lesson had been learned through on-the-job experience. Again.
Kouros walked five paces from the door, closed his eyes, and for a moment did nothing more than concentrate on breathing in the brisk salt air laced with random whiffs of wild herbs. He opened his eyes and stared out across the plateau toward the bare-as-the-moon Saggias Mountains. It was a typical cloudless, brilliant blue-sky day in the Mani. He wondered why he always thought of Mani skies as gray. Maybe it had something to do with the bloody history of the landscape beneath them? Not just from battles against Turks, Franks, Bavarians, Venetians, and so many other would-be conquerors, but in neighbor-against-neighbor savagery as merciless as any World War I trench warfare.
He shook his head. Hard to imagine all of this ending up as a golf course. Still, these days nothing seemed to remain the same for long where there was money to be made. And it wasn’t as if explorers had come across a lost tribe living a Stone Age existence and, by announcing their find to the world, sealed the doom of their discovery’s ancient ways.
No, the modern world had always touched the Mani. It just never held on very long, because the Mani had a tendency to burn a dabbler’s fingers. Maybe this time would be different. Kouros sure hoped so. The hard-working strugglers around here could sure use some good luck.
He wondered how his own life might change if he had money coming in regularly without having to work for it. Make that honest money. He’d never thought about anything like that before. His father raised him to expect to work hard for whatever he wanted. Kouros took a sip of coffee. No reason to start daydreaming about that sort of life now, because it didn’t seem likely the deal would go through, at least not as his uncle had envisioned it. His uncle’s interest in the property had passed to his children, not Kouros. Now it was their call.
He shook his head, thought of his uncle, and remembered he’d promised Mangas to get the autopsy report off to Athens. He’d noticed a scanner in his uncle’s office. He’d send it as soon as he finished his coffee.
Coffee. Another memory triggered. The synapses had begun to fire again.
His uncle’s everyday coffee crew was a bunch of bad guys, no matter how charming and likable they seemed. And whether truly the “council of elders” they fashioned themselves to be, Kouros knew they hadn’t told him anything close to what actually took place in their morning meetings. He might be Uncle’s “favorite” nephew, but he was still a cop and, with Uncle gone, they had little reason to treat him much better than any other Maniot prying into their affairs.
Still, he had to try. On the surface several had potential motives, most unmistakably Stelios, whose family-maybe even he-once exchanged vendetta killings with Kouros’ family. Yet that seemed too obvious to be likely. But if his uncle had been murdered, everyone was suspect, beginning with those he did business with.
Kouros finished off the biscuits in two bites and downed his coffee. There would be time for more coffee later, after he’d sent the autopsy report on to Athens and dropped in on his uncle’s crew at the taverna for a more sober chat. Why not? After all, they’d told him he was “always welcome.”