Kouros doubted those days were anywhere close for a guy with Pavlos’ looks. “But why go through all that if he was getting her a residency permit? If you wanted to impress an illegal immigrant girl into bed, I can’t imagine anything better than letting her know you’re making her legal.”
“I told him just about the same thing, but he said she wasn’t like that. She’d feel like a hooker if she knew. Besides, he said even if he never got into her pants he wanted to help her out. Her boyfriend was always threatening to turn her in to immigration if she didn’t do what he told her. Your uncle wanted to end all that.”
“Did the boyfriend know?”
“Don’t see how. I’ve told some of my buddies on the force a made-up story about when I was stationed on Mykonos and how an old guy once asked me to play an immigration bad guy to win the heart of a fair maiden. I never mentioned real names or places, and certainly not the residency card shenanigans. Just in case the real story ever got out, I didn’t want to seem more involved than I was, because, even though your uncle’s heart was in the right place, it’s pretty obvious everything wasn’t kosher with her application.”
“Kosher?”
“It’s a Jewish word. Means ‘legit.’ And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread that part of the story around.”
Kouros nodded. “So what’s the status of her residency permit?”
Pavlos shrugged. “She should have it any day.”
“Did my uncle ever sleep with her?”
Pavlos gestured he didn’t know. “Personally, I think she’d have done him even without our little performance. Your uncle was a charmer, good to her, and both of them thought her boyfriend an asshole.”
It seemed his uncle and he agreed on a lot of things. “Any idea why my uncle kept the boyfriend running a place he owned if he thought him an ‘asshole’?”
“Because he was ‘his’ asshole?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?’”
“It’s no secret the boyfriend put his former boss away to die in prison and that your uncle likely set the whole thing up. The boyfriend had no place to run but to your uncle, and my guess is your uncle wanted to keep it that way. Better to have him inside the boat pissing out, than outside pissing in.”
Kouros smiled.
“Those guys up north still haven’t forgiven your uncle or his asshole.”
“Guys up north?”
“By Pirgos, not the Balkans.”
Kouros paused. “That arms smuggler on the Balkan freighter who mentioned ‘people up north.’ What was his nationality?”
“Greek. From Crete.”
“If you’re from Crete, both the Balkans and Pirgos are ‘up north.’”
Pavlos nodded. “And both places have ‘people’ capable of bringing ‘war’ to the Mani.”
Kouros thought but didn’t say, if they haven’t already.
***
“Maggie, it’s Yianni. Is the chief free?”
“He’s in a meeting but I can pull him out if you need him.”
“No, not necessary. Just tell him I spoke to the port police in Gytheio about the girl, Stella, and it looks like my uncle was involved with her in a way that if her boyfriend knew, would definitely make him our likely guy.”
“You make it sound like one of those Turkish soap operas.”
“This one is all Greek. Tell the chief I’ll call back. Any more word on the autopsy?”
“They’re working on it. Hope to have something definitive this afternoon.”
“Terrific. Catch you later.”
“Bye-bye and be careful, my boy.”
As he drove away from the port, a sign for a hotel caught his eye. It incorporated an ancient Mani tower into its design and bore the name of an old, well-respected Mani warrior clan. Maybe his uncle had the right idea and hotels were the way to go. Which gave Kouros an idea.
An hour later he turned right off the main road at a sign to Gerolimenas and wound down a narrow, well-paved road for a half-mile into a tiny harborside village just beyond a broad beach of white pebbles. At the far end of the beach, behind a row of centuries-old homes in need of various levels of attention, gray and terra cotta sheaves of limestone cliffs shot five hundred feet into the sky and ran straight out to sea for almost a mile, offering natural shelter to the harbor from harsh north winds and a perfect haunt for pirate ghosts.
The harbor-front road hosted five tavernas, two rooming houses, a hotel, three private residences, a tiny supermarket, and a hodgepodge of tables, chairs, and umbrellas perched upon a stone apron wider in some spots than the narrow road it abutted. All but one taverna sat across the road from the sea, and all were built of gray and honey color limestone-in recognition, perhaps, of this tiny port town’s survival depending upon a single word: picturesque.
At the other end of the harbor the road turned abruptly west, narrowed by half, and ran between a ramshackle array of melancholy stone huts, homes, and workshops, some teetering on the edge of eroding into rubble. Once tied to lives at sea, their futures now hinged on preservation whims of the sort that had saved the stone buildings just beyond them, the target of Kouros’ journey.
An elegant hotel stood at the southwestern tip of the harbor, offering new life for a long ago bustling dock and warehouse complex. Merchant ships once flocked here to the region’s thriving mercantile center, but now the village depended on tourists looking to spend seaside holidays in quiet seclusion amid memories of a bygone era.
Kouros parked in a tiny courtyard close by a flagstone patio spanned by a stone archway. He found the hotel lobby under the archway to the left, a former nineteenth-century warehouse office appointed with preserved wide plank and stone floors, fieldstone walls, and massive ceiling beams.
He asked the young woman behind the reception desk to please tell her boss, “The new guy from his morning coffee crew would like to see him.”
She relayed the message into a walkie-talkie, paused, and smiled at Kouros. “Mr. Panos would like you to join him for lunch. He’s in the dining room.” She pointed behind him. “It’s in our former warehouse, through those doors on the other side of the patio.”
Like the lobby, the dining room reflected considerable effort at leaving no doubt that this now-elegant space owed its origins to a place of hard, difficult work.
Panos stood by a table at the far end of the room shaking hands with a man in a suit and tie who looked to be in his late thirties. The man had left by the time Kouros reached the table.
“I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something?” asked Kouros.
Panos waved his hand in the direction of the departing man. “More liked saved me. He’s a lawyer from Athens. He came to pitch me with an offer from one of his clients to buy my hotel. Every son of a bitch who got his money out of Greece before the crisis is now running around the country trying to buy the best properties on the cheap. You spared me telling him to go to hell. Nicely, of course.”
“I’m surprised he left so quickly.”
Panos smiled. “I told him an investigator from the tax office was here to see me. I invited him to stay and I’d introduce him. Suddenly he remembered another appointment and bolted.”
Kouros smiled. “Why did you agree to see him?”
“I’m in the hospitality business, and on the high-end side of it. Guys like him, and more importantly, his clients, are my bread and butter. I just listen and graciously decline their offers to steal my business. Even offer to treat them to lunch while they try to screw me. By the way, I hope you like lobster and linguini. It’s what that malaka ordered. Those types always order the same thing, even when they’re paying for it. It’s the most expensive dish on the menu and they think it’s impressive to order. Someday they’ll learn the only thing it impresses is my cash register.”
“Remind me to drop him a thank you. I’d be embarrassed to order more than a chicken souvlaki.”