He got out and went inside. The moment he stepped through the door, his uncle’s hotelier friend Panos yelled out from a table, “Ahh, finally, you decided to join us. We’ve been wondering how long it would take you.”
“Practically everyone walking in here since we got here wanted to know who’s the guy sitting up there on the hill watching us,” smiled Stelios.
Make that the mega-millions lottery, thought Kouros.
“I told them not to worry, he’ll come inside,” said Panos.
“You cost me fifty euros,” said Konstantin. “I bet Mihalis you were just waiting for us to leave so you’d have Stella all to yourself.”
Everyone in the place laughed.
Babis came out of the kitchen, glanced at Kouros but said nothing. Instead he began bantering with a table full of farmers and fishermen, making them laugh.
“Come, sit with us,” said Konstantin to Kouros.
“Aren’t you missing one of your crew?”
Panos nodded. “Alexander had business in Athens yesterday and won’t be back for a couple of days.”
“Yeah, monkey business,” said Mihalis. “Our political friend is getting laid.”
“Better he’s busy screwing his girlfriend than our country,” said Panos.
“Even his wife would agree with that,” said Stelios.
Panos poured Kouros a cup of coffee from a pot on the table. “So, tell us why you were sitting out there for so long?”
“I wanted to get an idea of how busy the place is.”
“To see if anyone had the opportunity to screw around with your uncle’s car?” said Mihalis.
“What makes you think that?”
Stella came out of the kitchen, saw Kouros, and smiled.
“I was an ex-cop, remember. As I see it, you had one of two reasons. You’re either the good nephew making sure your uncle’s death was an accident, or you really are here because of Stella. But since alternative two would get my friend his fifty euros back, I’m all for number one.” Mihalis waved at Stella, “Svenaki for all.”
“It’s a bit early for me for shots of whiskey,” said Kouros.
“Not to toast your uncle it isn’t.”
Stella went around to the other tables setting down trays of shot glasses filled with a clear liquid, but at Kouros’ table she handed each man a separate shot glass.
Kouros braced himself for what it might be: ouzo, tsipouro, vodka, or tequila. He needed a clear head and this definitely was not in keeping with that program. But he had no choice, so he shouted, “Theos singhorese ton,” and downed the toast in a gulp. The taste startled him. It wasn’t anything close to what he expected: it was water.
He looked at Stella and she smiled.
He laughed.
“Mihalis, I want my fifty back. Or at least half of it,” said Konstantin. “Look at those two.”
Stelios said, “Another round.”
“Not for me, thanks. One’s enough.” Having downed one, no one pressed Kouros to do another.
After two more svenaki shots, Panos leaned over to Kouros and said, “We could have told you no one could get to your uncle’s car while he was in here. Nobody had balls that big. Besides, he was careful where he parked. Always at the same spot right in front, locked, with the alarm on.”
“Was he always that careful?”
“With his car, sure. He used to say he’d done so much to other people’s cars in his time that he wasn’t about to make it easy for anyone to get at him. And everybody knew it. No one even leaned on your uncle’s car.”
Kouros nodded. Another likely dead end. He caught himself staring at Stella and stopped. No reason to piss Babis off any more than he already had. He might just take it out on her despite Kouros’ warning.
Besides, all Kouros saw in starting something up with Stella were a few “slam, bam, thank you ma’am” moments. And even those were getting complicated these days. Everybody’s looking for a way out to a better place. No telling what’s on a woman’s mind these days. He looked at Babis. Or a man’s.
Babis stood with his back to Kouros, holding court at another table, telling jokes, patting men on the back, lightly smacking the backs of their heads, and pinching the backs of their necks. He was playing the quintessential Greek taverna owner, as if lifted straight out of a Greek National Tourist Office promotional film.
Whatever else Kouros thought about Babis, he had to give him credit. The man knew his customers.
The question was, did he know them well enough to kill them and make it look like an accident?
***
Uncle’s buddies kept Kouros penned up inside the taverna until nearly noon. They had far too many stories to share of their friend’s exploits to stick to their out-by-ten-thirty routine. Kouros actually enjoyed the stories; though most seemed more the fantasies of old men living vicariously through another’s imagined talent with the ladies than real life. Still, if only a tenth of the tales were true, Kouros’ aunt truly must have had the qualities of a saint.
Finally, Kouros left the taverna and drove north through Vathia. Five miles later he passed the turnoff to Gerolimenas. Fifteen miles ahead, along a two-lane road winding through the heart of ancient Mani, lay Aeropoli. Twenty-five miles further north sat the seaside village of Kardamyli, home to famed British travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. Beyond the Mani, another twenty-five miles would have brought Kouros to the bustling port city of Kalamata. Famous for plump, pungent olives of the same name, Kalamata stood second in population on the Peloponnese only to Patras.
But Kouros stopped in Aeropoli. Mangas had shipped Uncle’s car there, to the only body shop in the region with a chance of repairing it. Luckily, work hadn’t started on it. Unluckily, Kouros found nothing suspicious. No hidden needles, gas canisters, or evidence of any tinkering with the air-conditioning, heating, or any other part of the ventilation system. Everything checked out just as in the original report.
Kouros left the body shop and started walking to his car. But he paused and looked back toward Aeropoli’s town square a few blocks away. “Why not?” he said to himself and headed for it.
A statue of the Mani’s most famous citizen, Petros Mavromichalis, legendary Nyklian hero of Greece’s War of Independence and the Mani’s last Ottoman-appointed chieftain, dominated the marble and limestone square. Sadly, the immediately surrounding area had lost much of the charm Kouros remembered from his childhood, succumbing to the ill-fated belief of so many tourist-driven communities that tourism must be served, no matter what the cost. But just off the square, in the old town proper, a different sort of civic wisdom had prevailed and classic two-story, honey and gray fieldstone homes lined meandering flagstone streets in testament to preservation meticulously executed with care and good taste.
Kouros bought a souvlaki and bottle of water, sat down on a bench under a mulberry tree next to the statue, pulled out his mobile, and called Andreas.
The first words he heard were, “Any luck?”
“Everything checked out. No surprises.”
“Between that and what you told me on the drive up about your morning in the taverna, I’d say your uncle was poisoned in the taverna.”
“Everyone with him at the table that morning had a possible motive, but my money’s on Babis,” said Kouros.
“Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“But he helped her.”
“I know, and it doesn’t seem likely, but what do we know about her?”
“Not much. And the only person who would know about Stella is Babis. I doubt he’ll talk to me about her.”
“What about that immigration guy, the one who threatened to arrest her but your uncle chased away? He might know something.”
“How the hell am I going to find him?”
“You’re in Aeropoli, aren’t you?”