The fat cop shrugged. “We’re family here. We take care of each other.”
“Forget about them,” said Mangas. “What did you find out?”
“I want to take Babis in for questioning.”
Mangas stared at Kouros. “I’ll take care of the questioning.”
Kouros stared back. “No, you won’t.”
Mangas clenched and unclenched his fists. “I’m not going to let him get away with murdering my father.”
“Nor am I. If he did. But we don’t know that. We just have questions.” Lying seemed appropriate under these circumstances, as the truth would lead to Babis’ immediate demise.
“If you’re lying to me…” Mangas let his words trail off.
Kouros nodded. “Let me handle this. With the help of Mani’s finest.”
The two cops looked at Mangas. He nodded. “But I’ll be out here just hoping the son of a bitch makes a run for it.”
Kouros nodded. “If he runs he’s all yours.” That sounded like a perfect argument for convincing Babis it would be in his decided best interest to come quietly.
Kouros didn’t expect many customers at this hour and the lone motorbike parked outside the kitchen entrance had him hoping they’d be alone for the arrest. Kouros held his gun in his hand as the three cops walked through the front door, Kouros first. He stood in the front room and listened. Not a sound. He walked toward the kitchen, and stood in the doorway. Still no sound. He motioned toward a door at the rear of the kitchen and the three cops spread out and crept toward the door. As soon as the two cops were in position on either side of the door, in one swift move Kouros grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and pushed the door open into the room.
The room smelled of onions and dill, and a bit of light from a tiny window shined down on an array of vegetables and a half-naked body on a cot. A female body.
Stella jumped up, her bare breasts moving slightly slower than the rest of her body, but catching up in time for Kouros and the two cops to realize her butt was not her only perfect quality. “What are you doing here?” she screamed, not making any attempt to cover up.
“Sorry, Stella,” said Kouros, moving his eyes with a struggle up to meet hers. “We’re looking for Babis.”
“With those?” She pointed at the guns.
The fat cop made no effort to take his eyes off her breasts. “Just tell us where he is.”
“I don’t know.”
Kouros shook his head. “Get dressed. You’re coming with us.”
“But I’ve done nothing.”
“Sorry, but you still have to come with us.”
“Maybe he’s at Cape Tenaro,” she said.
“Why would he be there?” said Kouros.
“He goes fishing there sometimes in the afternoons.”
“In a boat?”
She took her time putting on her bra. Something every male eye in the room followed with exacting attention to detail. “No. He fishes off the shore.”
Kouros said to the two cops, “Take her back to the station. And hold her until I get there.”
The thin guy grabbed Stella’s arm before she could put on the rest of her clothes and started dragging her out the door in her bra and panties.
Kouros grabbed the man’s arm and squeezed. “Don’t even think what you’re thinking. That is unless you and your fat fuck of a partner want to know how vengeful this Maniot can be.”
He looked at Stella. “Now get dressed. And fast.” He walked back into the kitchen and through the kitchen door leading to the outside. His cousin stood leaning against the hood of his car, talking on his mobile. He gestured for Kouros to come closer as he shouted into the phone, “And don’t hurt him, I promised my cousin.” He hung up.
Kouros shook his head. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“If you mean did I find him, no. But I told my friends to search every inch of Cape Tenaro until they do.”
“How did…?”
Mangas smiled. “I said I’d stay out here, but nothing about not listening in. I heard everything through that.” He pointed at the tiny storeroom window.
“I hope you meant what you said about not hurting him.”
Mangas smiled. “I would no more lie to you, cousin, than you would to me.” He patted Kouros on the back. “Smile, you will soon have your answers.” Mangas dropped his hand, and the smile left his face.
“And when you do, I shall have my vengeance. So help me, God.”
***
The phenomenon known as Cape Tenaro drew both locals and tourists to its shores, the former for its fishing and coves, the latter for what the merger of the Ionian and Aegean Seas represented to the civilized world. Those two great bodies of water once stood as stages for antiquity’s greatest dramas, upon which ancient gods came to be and battled, loved, and died, and Homer’s Odysseus spent much of his odyssey. More than seas, today they serve as living links to modern civilization’s classic past, joined together at a desolate spot two hundred miles across open seas from the cradle of man’s existence, Africa.
Kouros followed along behind his cousin’s car as they drove toward Cape Tenaro. Kouros looked at his watch. Sunset was closing in but it made no sense for him to join in the search, and the likelihood of getting any timely help out of Athens on a hunt of this sort was virtually nil. Kouros knew his best bet was to stay close to his cousin, prepared to remind him of his promise to bring Babis in alive should one of Mangas’ dozens of “friends” scouring the coastline happen to find him. He looked left, down to the Gulf of Laconia and the lapis and emerald seas running up against the white sands of the Greek mainland’s southernmost natural harbor. Porto Kayio was named after the once limitless flocks of quail passing through the Deep Mani each September.
Kouros’ daydreaming abruptly ended when Mangas slammed on his brakes, forcing Kouros to swerve around him and nearly launch an airborne entrance onto the beach he’d been so fondly admiring below. Mangas pulled off the road. Kouros drew up next to him, rolled down his passenger side window, and yelled, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Mangas jumped out of his car and leaned in through the passenger window holding his phone up to Kouros’ face. “I want you to hear this straight from the source.”
Mangas pressed a button. “You’re on speakerphone. Repeat exactly what you told me to my cousin.”
A voice came over the phone. “Like I said, we found him on the way out to the entrance to Hades. The son of a bitch sure was headed in the right direction.” The voice laughed.
“You’re not to harm him,” said Kouros.
“Little late for that,” said Mangas.
The voice over the phone said, “He was dead when we got here. He’d tied one end of a rope around his neck, the other around a boulder, and when the boulder went into the water he went in behind it. It’s not that deep where we found him, but deep enough to do it if you have a rock tied around your neck.”
“I don’t want them touching a thing,” said Kouros.
“Did you hear that?” said Mangas.
“Yes.”
“Good, then don’t. We’ll be right there and whatever my cousin says goes. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Mangas turned off the phone. “I hope you realize I had nothing to do with this.”
“Somehow I think that if you were involved, Babis wouldn’t be floating around in shallow water complicating your life. And he certainly wouldn’t have been discovered by one of your friends.”
“Or by anyone. At least not in recognizable pieces.”
Kouros shook his head. “Who do you think did it?”
“I know this sounds crazy, but it sounds like suicide. More people than you’d think who live by the sea and want to end it use the ‘rock and rope’ method.”
“But why would he kill himself?”
“You were all over him. He had to know it. And if you were all over him, that meant I wouldn’t be far behind. And I can assure you he knew that if I got ahold of him his death would not be a quick and peaceful drowning.”