Disorganized Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (5 page)

The night swimmer was male. He was tall and big, but solid. The kind of solidity you find in walls and concrete blocks. Broad sloping shoulders, carved out of bronze. Dark hair slicked back with pool water. Face like a pretty-boy with an extra ten years on his odometer to sharpen his soft edges. When he turned, I saw his back was a river of scars.

He grabbed a towel off one of the deck chairs, started drying himself off. My motor started to rumble. Between work and watching television, it had been a while between sexual escapades.

Then I mentally slapped my forehead. Ugh. What the heck was I thinking? The compound was for family and a few employees—but mostly family. Which meant there was a serious chance I was separated from Adonis there by a few pointy twigs—at best—on the ol' family tree.

There were laws against drooling over a cousin. Although, maybe not in Greece. I didn't know what their incest laws covered—brothers and sisters, maybe—but at home there was a serious ick factor involved if you share the same chin.

On my hands and knees, I backed away from the bushes, from the fence, from potential birth defects in any future offspring.

Then I stopped.

Not my fault. Something was blocking me. Instinct kicked me in the guts, forcing me to act. I rolled over onto my back, limbs flailing. Just my luck: my flight-or-fight made me go belly-up like a cockroach. A bear would have been better.

Thanks, brain. After all I've done for you
.

"Argh," I whimpered. It was meant to be a scream, but it lost serious weight on the way out.

Standing over me was Pool Guy. He was bigger up close. A fraction older than me—early 30s. I wasn't normally intimidated by hot foreign guys, but this one had two big guns, and the metal one was pointed right at me.

"I'm Katerina Makris." The words whooshed out. "The old woman who lives there—" I shook a shaking finger at the shack. "—is my grandmother."

Not a word out of the guy. He took in my T-shirt, my cat-covered underwear, then he lowered the gun. He offered me his hand. My pride wouldn't let me touch it.

"Thanks, but I can do it," I said. "It probably doesn't look like it, but I get up off the ground all the time. I do yoga." No—no yoga. Not in my past or present. I rolled over first, mooning him with my cats, then hauled myself to my feet. Very graceful—more rhino than swan. When I turned around—
poof!
—he had vanished.

Weird. I peered behind the bushes, peeked over the fence, but he'd done a bunk. Not my bladder, though. It was back, and it wanted to know why I was standing around, jiggling.

It's okay, I told myself. Pool Guy probably wasn't on the other side of the fence, watching me limp into the outhouse.

G
randma inspected
me as I shlepped into the kitchen barefoot. Morning's thin light was doing her all kinds of favors. It softened her wrinkles, knocking at least six months off her age.

"Where are your shoes?"

"All I have boots. What's wrong with bare feet?"

She dropped what she was doing and disappeared into her bedroom. When she returned it was with slippers. She dumped them at my feet. "Put them on." Then she nodded to the rest of me. "Did you get into a fight with a cat?"

"Bushes," I said.

"Which bushes?"

"The ones at the back."

"What were you doing in the bushes, eh?"

"Checking out the view."

"Of what? It was night."

"I didn't realize you have a pool."

"Katerina, my love, I have everything—even a plane or two."

Or two? "There was a guy out there swimming. In the middle of the night. Who does that?"

"What did he look like?"

"Greek."

She went to the pantry, hauled out a sack of flour. I went to lift it for her but she shooed me away. "You would make a terrible police witness."

"I know. It's a curse." I was like that old
MadTV
skit:
He look-a like-a man
.

Footsteps interrupted the conversation. The screen door swung open and in walked a conundrum. I always felt bad when I couldn't figure out which pronoun to use, especially when using the wrong one could hurt someone's feelings. The hair and makeup said woman; biology said dude.

"This is Rita," Grandma said. "My youngest son. He's a
travesti
, as you can see."

The English-Greek lexicon in my head failed me. Was
travesti
a cross-dresser or transgender? It was a muddy puddle I didn't want to jump into, so I went with woman until Dad's sibling corrected me.

Aunt Rita grabbed me by the shoulders, stamped hot pink kisses on both my cheeks. "Katerina! I am your Aunt Rita!"

Well, that took care of that. Aunt Rita it was.

"You have come to see us at last! And look at you, you are beautiful!"

No sooner had the compliment left her lips than she began dry spitting to ward away the evil eye.

Generally speaking, the evil eye floated around hunting down compliments. It was like that one skanky acquaintance every woman has in high school or college, the one who can't handle anyone else scoring male attention. So the minute you excused yourself to go to the restroom, she'd pounce and offer your potential date a BJ.

Where there were compliments, there was the evil eye. And like that one skanky chick, it would stick around if you didn't spit on it.

Aunt Rita was a looker. Sequined hot pants and a ruffled blouse tied around her midriff. The shoes were ejected out of the seventies, landing in Greece, 2014. A cake decorator had gone crazy with her face, frosting her angles with pink blush and gold sparkly shadow. On her left forearm, a green-blue anchor had moored itself to her skin.

I squinted at the tattoo. "Were you in the navy?"

"Yes," she said, sounding like her voice got chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged for ten miles over gravel, through an Adam's apple. "But only for the guns and the men." Grandma said nothing, but her lips mashed together and her hands got busy scooping flour into an earthenware bowl. "Do you like it?"

"It's very evocative of the ocean," I said.

Aunt Rita pulled me back into her personal-sized cloud of Opium with a chest-bumping thud. What did she have in there—rocks? Impressive. "Your father is my favorite person," she said. "How is he? When will he come to see us, eh?"

"I don't know how he is," I said, feeling teary, not just from the perfume. "He was kind of kidnapped yesterday."

She pulled back. "Kidnapped! By who?"

"I don't know."

She looked at Grandma, perfectly plucked eyebrows raised. "Mama?"

Grandma shrugged over the sugar bag. "Maybe I have my suspicions."

"Why would they kidnap Michail?" my aunt asked.

"About that I have my suspicions, too."

Aunt Rita held out the chair for me. Old habits must die hard. We both sat and watched my grandmother hand-beat sugar and butter into oblivion. A little voice told me that Grandma was the kind of person who ponied up information when she was good and ready, and not a minute sooner.

After a few moments of silence, Aunt Rita reached for my hand. "Tell me," she said, "are you married?"

Grandma stopped beating for a moment. "Is there a ring on her finger? No. No ring on her finger."

"How old are you?" Aunt Rita asked me.

"Twenty-eight."

My aunt nodded. "Mama will find you a rich man."

"I don't want a rich man. I want a good one."

She thought about it for a moment. "Mama doesn't know any of those."

"Why you not married, eh?" Grandma asked.

Long story, abrupt ending. It's not every day you catch your fiancé facedown on a penis. He ripped out my heart and stomped all over my self-esteem, but I'd moved on. Now when I thought about that moment, mostly I was concerned he gave better head than me.

"I was engaged for a while. Then he tripped and fell on a dick. Repeatedly."

"Honey," my aunt said, "I know the feeling."

"I caught him in action." I gestured at my neck. "It was stuck down the back of his throat, like a fish bone."

My aunt nodded like she knew that, too. "Men are animals," she said. "I should know because I am one." Her attention shifted back to Grandma. "Who do you think took Michail?"

"Maybe Baby Dimitri."

"That
skouliki
."

I didn't know the man, so I couldn't say if he was a worm or not. Talking to the him sounded like a good start, though. Grandma must have had a middle-of-the-night revelation. I bolted back to my temporary room, tugged on jeans, snatched up my handbag—evicting the million and one sanitary products—and shoved my feet into boots.

Back in the kitchen I said, "So let's go get him."

Grandma looked me up and down. "Oh? And how will you do that?"

"Ask."

"Ask!" Her whole body shook. "Ask," she said to Aunt Rita.

Aunt Rita shrugged. "It's not the worst idea I have ever heard—"

Exactly. I performed a mental fist pump.

"—but it's close."

My euphoria plunged off a cliff.

"Katerina," Grandma said. "What do you think will happen if you walk up to the front door and ask if your father is there?"

"They'll either say yes or no. If they say yes, I'll negotiate."

Grandma was looking at me like I was high. "What makes you think you have what they want?"

"What makes you think I don't? Dad's been in America for thirty years, I know him better than you do."

She reached over to the phone hanging on the wall, picked up the receiver, punched a number. "Xander, come to the house. Katerina needs an escort."

"Who is Xander and where are we going?"

"Xander will take you to see Baby Dimitri," Grandma said. "Baby Dimitri is a Godfather of the Night."

"Godfather of the Night?" A horrible feeling was bubbling inside me. "This isn't a religious thing, is it?"

"Godfathers are very religious. They go to church like it is their job. No one prays harder, gives more money, or throws better funerals."

I had a sneaky feeling Grandma was talking about organized crime. But weren't Godfathers a Sicilian and Italian-American thing?

"How do you fit into this?" I asked her.

"Me? I am just an old woman rolling pastry in my kitchen."

Yeah, right.

I turned to my aunt. "What do Godfathers of the Night do?

"Nightclubs, prostitutes, protection, smuggling, racketeering, and the purchase of bureaucrats. You name it, they do it."

"Drugs?"

"Drugs, of course. Greece's Godfather's are always fighting about drugs. Terrible."

There was no time to squeeze my aunt for more information because there were footsteps outside the door. When the door swung open, I got a face full of bare chest.

Okay, so there was a man attached, but … that chest. A mile of it, tan and smooth and chiseled out of marble.

It wasn't just me: Aunt Rita was fanning herself with her hand. "My Virgin Mary," she muttered.

Grandma rolled her eyes. "My God, you two, it is just Xander. Xander, put a shirt on before these two pass out." She nodded to me. "This is my granddaughter, Katerina. Xander works for the family."

My gaze worked its way up to his face. It was Pool Guy. My incest theory went up in smoke. Our children would be fine. Hallelujah!

"We've met," I said.

Xander said nothing. It seemed like he did that a lot.

"When did you meet?" Aunt Rita asked, resting her chin in her palm.

"Last night or this morning. I was in the bushes."

Xander's smirk was small but present. I changed the subject—fast. "Why do they call him Baby Dimitri?"

"Because he is the youngest of his father's children," Grandma told me.

"And he's the boss?"

Grandma set aside the mixing bowl. "His other siblings are all dead."

"How?"

"You ask too many questions, Katerina. Go with Xander. If you have a problem he will help you. Xander, keep an eye on my granddaughter, eh?"

Progress. Finally.

B
etween Grandma's
kitchen and the compound's arched entrance, Xander didn't find a shirt. It was just him and his shorts and some kind of slip on shoes that passed for fashionable around here. He swaggered on ahead, silent except for the slap of his soles on stone. His scars moved silently with him, a golden waterfall gushing from his shoulders to someplace below his waist. Whatever he'd suffered it had been brutal.

The compound was hopping. Music pouring out open windows, shutters thrown wide. Up on the balconies, mothers were performing light chores while their children ran wild in the courtyard. From the direction of the swimming pool, the water was making sounds as though
Jaws
was experiencing an ill-fated meeting with
Orca: The Killer Whale
. Besides family, the compound was home to an assortment of cats and dogs. The cats ignored me. Like most cats they only wanted friends with benefits, and they weren't sure what the benefits of being friends with me were yet. The dogs, being dogs, weren't picky. They got right down to the,
Hey, how ya doing? Got any spare pats/snacks/toys in those pockets
? With a dog you know where you stand. With a cat all you know is where you can't sit.

On the far side of the archway a motorcycle was waiting. A big, black beast of a bike. Sitting atop it were two helmets: one black to match the motorcycle, the other pink.

"Cool. I bet you look great in pink." I reached for the black, but Xander snatched it away. Before I had a chance to grab it he shoved the pink helmet down over my head.

He gave me two unsarcastic—not even remotely ironic—thumbs up, ala the Fonz.

"Before I get on that thing, aren't you going to put on a shirt?"

He looked at me like my picnic was several sandwiches short.

"What if you take a corner too quickly and …" I smacked my palms together. "…
Bam
?"

His expression said,
No bam. Not today. Not ever
.

Arms folded. "It could happen."

Silence.

"Do you ever talk?"

He shrugged.

"Okay, so if you won't talk to me, at least put some clothes on. I'll wait right here."

Face still passive, he picked me up under the armpits, dumped me on the motorcycle. Then the earth moved beneath me as he straddled the behemoth. It was a lean, mean, European machine, nothing like an American hog. No telltale
potato-potato
, just a wild roar that said pedestrians better walk faster or get right with God. He reached back, grabbed my hands, curled them around his waist.

It was like snugging up to a sun-warmed boulder. Only a sun-warmed boulder didn't have the power to kick my hormones up to eleven.

Concentrate on something else, for crying out loud
. Shouldn't be too difficult. I was in Greece, for crying out loud. For the first time in my life I was out of the United States and in one of those places I'd only seen on maps, calendars, or a friend's Instagram feed.

This was my first look at Greece with its light on up in the sky, and man, she was one good-looking broad. There was no other word for it. Greece was old school and old-fashioned and just plain old. But there was a certain class to the way the trees twisted up out of the ground. The sky was bluer, clearer, and closer.

How high up were we anyway?

The motorcycle burst out from behind a long stretch of trees, and now I was getting an eyeful of the gulf. It couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to be blue or green, so it was doing both.

How high up? Pretty damn high.

"Wow," I yelled, but the word blew away.

The motorcycle sped up.

X
ander stopped
outside a blue and orange souvenir-shop-slash-shoe-store in one of the Pagasetic Gulf's seaside villages. The establishment sat directly across the road from the water. Its neighbors were in similar states of nonchalance about the overabundance of available decorating products, like paint in tasteful colors. The window was cluttered with a mix of shoes, T-shirts, and statues of the Greek gods and various other naked people. A rainbow of espadrilles hung over the door and down both sides, all of them tied to a rope by their ribbons.

"Shoes and souvenirs? That's bold yet fruity."

Xander shrugged. He adjusted the low-slung waist of his cargo shorts, giving me an eyeful of the gun he had stowed there.

Whoa! My eyes bugged. "A gun, seriously? Why do you need a gun? This is just a friendly visit. I'm a diplomat, not a soldier, or … or … whatever it is you are!"

Not a word from the guy made of stone. Hand on my waist, he steered me through the open door.

Three men were sitting inside in a semicircle of craptastic chairs from some bygone era. Two of the guys were probably born around the time King Leonidas was getting his fortune told in Delphi. The other guy was maybe mid-fifties, but his wardrobe was trendy back in the sixties and present-day Florida. White shoes, slicked back hair, short sleeves rolled up around twigs that wished they were biceps. Had a look in his eye that said he was meaner than a starving, rabid dog, but his pasted-on grin said he was real glad to see me.