Disorganized Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (8 page)

"Yes."

The GPS woman told me to stick to the dirt road, so I did that until she passive-aggressively told me to turn left where the dirt met the blacktop that threaded itself around the mountain like dull tinsel.

"Why is the town named Makria?" In the Greek-English lexicon
makria
meant
away
. As in, far, far away. "Is it named after our family?"

"Yes," she said, not volunteering further details.

"Why? Did our family do something amazing?"

"Our family has accomplished many things."

The SUV bounced slightly as I coaxed it onto the main road. Its suspension seemed to sigh with relief that we were past the point of dirt and stones.

"Turn left in half a kilometer," the electronic woman said.

How far was a kilometer? How far was a half of that?

"Help," I said, "What's a kilometer?"

Grandma shook her head. "Americans. Turn left here."

The name was a lie. Makria wasn't far, far away at all. It was—apparently—half a kilometer up the street from the family compound. The village was compact. It contained all the essentials along one short cobbled street: bakery, meat market, produce store, grocery store, and a couple of souvenir shops that sold collectables, mostly made in China, no doubt. It was a postcard-worthy place, something I confirmed when I saw the village's portrait twirling on a postcard rack near a shelf of Makria mugs, wind chimes, and calendars.

The stunted street split in four at a crude crossroad. One arm lead to a village square, which contained a half dozen souvenir carts, cafes, and enough tourists to fill a plane. They all had cellphones, which they were using to snap pictures of the view. From here I couldn't tell if the view was Instagram-worthy or not. Their heads were clumped together, blocking the way.

One of the other three arms climbed the mountain. It was flanked by houses and frequented by livestock that dropped hillocks of dung on their way from field to field.

The final arm dead-ended at a church that was bigger than it needed to be in a village this size. The outside was stone, the dome white, and—in the absence of a lightning rod—the cross was big enough wipe out everyone in town if the antichrist needed them to shut their traps about his identity.

"
Ayia
Aikaterini," Grandma said.

Saint Catherine.

The grand double doors were open. I followed her inside.

Saint Catherine's guts had been designed by the latest crop of rappers and hip-hop artists. Gold everywhere. Everything that wasn't gold was silver, or something like it. Saints had been captured on the ceiling and walls in moments of extreme boredom; they were tired of hanging around, and they didn't care who knew it. Even J.C. Himself had a mild frown that suggested that he'd prefer to excuse himself and find the nearest bar.

The
pappas
—a.k.a. the father, a.k.a. the priest—rushed to greet Grandma. He was a half dozen heartbeats away from a heart attack. He was red-nosed and purple-cheeked and the circumference of his waist was greater than his height. If I had to staple an adjective to his forehead I'd call him
jolly
.

"Kyria Katerina," he said, beaming. He wiped his hands on his black cassock. "What a treat it is to see you on a weekday. I only saw you just this weekend." She didn't kiss his ring as was customary; he kissed hers. Maybe that was customary, too.

"Father Harry," she said, "I have come to light candles."

"Of course, of course! And candles you shall have—as many as you like." His attention slid to me. "A new face, and a lovely one. Welcome to
Ayia
Aikaterini. I am Father Haralambos, but everyone calls me Father Harry."

After performing brief introductions, Grandma left me with the jolly priest while she paid homage to the icon of the Virgin Mary and her son. She pressed her lips to the glass, crossed herself forehead to chest, shoulder to shoulder, then went to front of the church, where she sat in one of the polished pews. Like most Greek Orthodox churches the seating was limited. Pews were there for the elderly, the infirm, the strays that wandered in to pray outside of services. Everyone else was expected to stand—women on the left, men on the right. All equal in the eyes of God … except not.

"She always comes here to pray in times of trouble." He looked at me. "Are these times of trouble?"

"I think so. My father has possibly been kidnapped."

"Ah. That's why she's praying out loud, then."

"You can tell her," Grandma called out.

I must have looked baffled, because he explained. "The front of the church is bugged. Just about every law enforcement agency in the world is listening in."

"And she knows?"

"It was her idea."

My mind blanked. "Why?"

He rocked back on his heels. "Do you know about Saint Catherine?"

"Not really," I said. Meaning up until now I had never given her a second thought. Most Greek names are derivative of one saint's name or another, and Catherine was Katerina's point of origin.

"Saint Catherine was born in Egypt. Alexandria, to be precise. She was a brilliant woman, the daughter of a king. Clever. Educated. And very beautiful, like your grandmother was when she was a young woman, and like you are now. Many, many men pursued Catherine, but she turned them all away. She said she would not marry until a man who was more beautiful, more educated, more brilliant than herself came into her life. But there was no such man until she was introduced to Christianity. Jesus Christ was the man she sought, and to him she pledged herself forever, wearing the ring of their union upon her finger."

"What happened to her?" Nothing good ever happened to saints. They always seemed to meet sticky ends, often involving fire. Saints are the poster children for bad things happening to good people.

"The Roman emperor, Maximinus, upon seeing her, wanted her for himself. She refused to be unfaithful to Christ, and so the emperor had her killed. His executioner cut off her head."

I was feeling slightly woozy. It would have been nicer to be named after someone who lived an amazing life and died happily in their sleep, some hundred years after their birth. "Okay …"

"Kyria Katerina, your grandmother, is like her namesake. She is devoted, one hundred percent. Her commitment to her family is unwavering. Everything she does is for her family and the people in her care."

"Like …" I felt around in the metaphorical darkness. "…you?"

"This whole village. She has performed miracles for people here. Is she a good person, a bad person, who can say? Whether a person is good or bad is sometimes a matter of perception. From here—" The sweep of his arm encompassed the whole church. "—she is a saint."

"You talk too much, Father Harry," a voice cut in.

Grandma was back.

I
was faking
it when I remembered Detective Melas's business card. Everyone else was indulging in a siesta, and I wanted my share of the napping goodness, but sleep wasn't happening, no matter how hard I reached for it. Finally I just lied to myself and said I'd drifted off for a moment, and surely that counted—right?

My hand went pocket diving. It pulled out Detective Melas's business card. Black on white. Nothing fancy. Definitely not
American Psycho
quality. Grandma wasn't home—Xander had driven her into Volos after the church—but that didn't stop me tiptoeing into the kitchen for the phone. I unhooked it from the wall and tiptoed back to my room. My cell phone was in my handbag, but I was pretty sure it wasn't set to call from Greece, and I wasn't in the mood to argue and plead with customer disservice, who would understand half of what I said and nothing I meant.

Detective Melas picked up on the third ring. "Melas," he said.

No time to waste on small talk. I poked him in the ear with my pointed question: Who was my father and why would anyone snatch a guy who'd been gone thirty years?

A long silence happened. During that time I wondered if I'd accidentally dialed Xander.

"Want my advice?" he said, finally. "Go home. Call a friend, beg, borrow, steal if you have to, but get a plane ticket home and go. Today."

"Can't. I don't have a passport."

"Jesus," he said. "I don't want to know how they got you into Greece."

"Same way they got me out of the United States: illegally."

"
La la la
. I'm not listening."

"Anyway, I think I might be changing my mind about leaving. I'm not going anywhere if my father's here."

"Do you have any proof he's in Greece?"

"No."

"So he could still be in America."

"My grandmother doesn't think so."

A big sigh leaked out of him. "Your family is …"

I imagined him scratching his head, hunting for the right word. One that wouldn't get him killed.

"… dysfunctional."

"Everybody's family is dysfunctional. It's like the law of families, or something."

His laugh was more like a bark. "Your family is more messed up than most. Don't tell me you don't know what they are."

The picture was getting clearer by the minute. "Let's pretend I'm stupid."

Another sigh. The man had talent. "Okay. Jesus. Your father was your grandmother's right fist before he took off thirty years ago. She barked the orders, and he took care of people who needed their minds changing—or worse. A lot of stories around about what happened to him. I don't know which is true. One story goes, she wanted him to marry some girl—another Family's daughter—to cement a business deal."

"What deal?"

"Tobacco. It's one of Greece's biggest crops. Your grandmother wanted in. Had transport lined up and a buyer in Bulgaria waiting to go."

"Why tobacco?"

"In those days taxes on tobacco were low. But in other European countries taxes were rising and people were looking for cheaper alternatives to what was on the shelves. Legal or not, didn't matter. Never does to addicts. One of the biggest names in the Greek tobacco industry had a daughter your father's age. Her father wanted connections in Bulgaria and your grandmother wanted tobacco. So they pledged their two kids to the cause. Then your father disappeared. There were stories he was dead, buried in a speed bump, drowned out at sea. Rumors your grandmother shot him herself."

My face was going hot-cold-hot. Menopause already? Couldn't be. I had maybe twenty years before my parts started desiccating.

"My grandmother wouldn't shoot her own son."

He snorted. "She killed her own brother-in-law."

"What?" I squawked.

"He sold insider information to a rival Family, so she poisoned his Name Day cake. Or so the story goes."

"I want to go home." My voice was faint. It had already packed its bags, fled the coop.

"Great idea. That's what I'm telling you."

"Except my father would still be missing. Where is he?" I was asking the universe more than Melas himself, but he answered.

"We don't know, and I'm not convinced your grandmother does either. She'd go guns-in if she knew for sure. Hell, maybe she knows but there's some other plan twirling around inside her head. You never know with that woman."

"Why now? Why kidnap him? It makes no sense."

There was a long, problematic silence before the detective spoke again.

"What did your father do in America?"

"For work? He was a truck driver."

Two beats, then: "Was he?"

The 'o
f course'
played peanut butter, sticking to my mouth's pink roof. "Okay, so let's say he wasn't—which is what you suspect—how do I find him?"

"You don't. Whoever took him took him for a reason. They expect to profit, so you can't just knock on doors, bat your eyelashes, and ask for your father back."

"Then what
am
I supposed to do?"

He groaned. Seemed like I brought out his inner emo. "You're not giving up and going home, are you?"

"Would you?"

"If it were my father? Never. But I'm in a different position. My father's a baker—a verifiable baker. His biggest sin is keeping a cat in the bakery."

"So if you were me, where would you start?"

"I'd figure out what your grandmother is doing that's new. Business-wise, I'm talking. Has she made any new deals, new friends? Any old deals where the terms have suddenly changed?"

"Okay …"

"Wait," he said. "Are you calling me on the house phone?"

"Yes."

"Jesus," he said, and hung up.

What was his problem? Now I had a head rattling with questions and not nearly enough answers to satisfy them. Figure out what Grandma's got going on—how was I going to do that? I didn't know the layout of the family compound, let along the layout of the family itself. Who was I supposed to trust? Who spat out answers if you thumped their back the right way?

Takis and Stavros. They both had a way of unintentionally burping up details. And Stavros was the nicer guy. Takis was more of an anthropomorphic weasel.

I'd start with the human and work my way down.

S
tavros was wifeless
, so he was banished to the bottom floor in the section of the compound known as the bachelors' barracks. One of the family kids ponied up the information for the sweet, low price of me listening, while he and his—and my—cousins practiced their English on me.

Fifteen minutes of "What you name?" and "Where's the party?" later, I was wandering pale hallways inside the main house.

The bachelors' barracks were less barracks, more suites, complete with kitchenettes and en-suites, from what I could see as I peered into open rooms. They made my new digs look even sadder.

And every suite had cable TV and Internet, or so the kids had told me. Grandma was generous with the family. If this family was what I thought it was, I suspected generosity wasn't so much a benevolent move as it was political tactics. Keep family happy and they stay loyal. There would always be one or two waiting to squeeze Grandma for more, but they were outliers. The bulk of the family could be kept loyal through the adequate and regular dispersal of luxury items.

Translation: Shiny things buy loyalty.

Right on. Because I was thinking that right now indoor plumbing could purchase me as a friend for life.

I knocked on Stavros's door.

"Who is it?" His voice was muffled.

"Katerina."

Some distance away, behind the white paneled door, he let out a string of colorful curse words. Something about engaging in sexual atrocities with the Virgin Mary, someone's mother, and a donkey. "Come back later."

"I can't."

"Why not? Everybody can come back later if they really want to."

I leaned against the jamb. "Are you watching porn?"

He spluttered. "No! What is wrong with you? Who watches pornography?" The door opened. He peeked through the crack. "Okay, I was watching pornography. But do not tell Baboulas, okay?"

"Your secret is safe with me. I need some help." I gave him an expectant look.

He glanced over my shoulder, probably for trouble and other spies. "What help?"

"I have questions. I need answers." He opened his mouth. "Honest answers," I said firmly.

"Heh."

"I mean it. Otherwise …" I peered past him. "
Baa-baa
."

The door slammed, a chain rattled, then the door swung open. Clad only in boxers, he reminded me of a bear with mange. Unlike a bear, he was managing to scratch his head and nuts at the same time.

His suite was blue. Blue paint, blue furnishings, blue art. The mostly naked women on the walls wore shreds of blue bikinis and lingerie. Only his electronics and appliances ignored his color palette. They were white.

"What do you want to know?"

"Who do you think has my father?"

He dropped onto the couch, leaving me to perch on the arm of one of two matching armchairs. Head in hands he said, "Nobody wants to know what I think. Baboulas doesn't pay me to think."

"What does she pay you to do?"

"Follow orders, same as anyone else."

"So who does the thinking—besides Baboulas?"

"Papou, Rita, sometimes Takis and Xander. Papou is her advisor and your aunt Rita is the family accountant. All of them, and your uncle Kostas in Germany, they report directly to Baboulas." He looked at me wide-eyed. "Do not tell her I call her that, okay?"

"She already knows, remember?"

He gulped.

"I think she kind of likes it," I added. "It makes her seem more fearsome. Wait—I have an uncle in Germany?"

"You didn't know?"

I flopped into the chair, slumping like a sack of potatoes, wondering if I'd ever be able to get the hell out of Wonderland. "I don't know anything."

He sat up, pointed at me. "That's a good attitude. Stick with that."

"But I want to know everything."

He sank again. "And that attitude will get you killed."

"Give it to me straight. Is our family the Greek mafia?"

He nodded.

My mind was officially boggled, and horrified, and somehow not that surprised. I knew it, but I was glad to have the words said aloud.

"I was hoping the family was just weird. Or maybe in a circus."

"No circus," he said in a sad voice. "Just organized crime. You know, I never wanted to be a gangster."

"No kidding? What did you want to be?"

"A stay-at-home father."

"You'd be good at that."

He perked up. "You think so?"

"Sure, why not?"

W
hen I got back
to the kitchen, Grandma, Aunt Rita, and Papou had their heads together over the kitchen table. Plotting dastardly deeds, no doubt.

"I'm staying right here," I announced, "and I'm not leaving Greece until I find my father—alive."

"Oh you are, are you?" Papou asked.

I glanced at the shriveled old nut in the wheelchair. "Yes."

"What if Michail is dead?" he added.

Unthinkable. "I'll bring him back to life somehow. I'll … go to Hogwarts or offer Hades my Jeep. Whatever it takes."

On the far side of the table, Grandma smiled like she knew it all along.

I was predictable—rats!

"Take her with you," she told Aunt Rita. "She will be a surprise."

My glance slid from face to face. "A surprise? Where are we going?"

Aunt Rita's laugh scraped past her Adam's apple. "Dina will
kaka
her pants."

W
e parked
at the foot of a narrow street with an incline that had once aspired to be a ninety-degree angle, but collapsed and dropped dead before it reached its goal. No blacktop, just cracked and thirsty concrete. Heat rose in rippled sheets off the ground. A grill cook could throw together most of the IHOP menu out here. Houses clung stubbornly to the hill. Greece and its necessary obsession with earthquake-proofing told me the homes were sturdier than they looked, that the tectonic plates could bump fists and high five but these residents and their homes weren't going anywhere.

Aunt Rita had filled me in on the way over, while Xander drove. Dina was Dad's temporary squeeze before he fled Greece, and she was nutty enough to believe he'd return for her someday. She was obsessed, my aunt told me, so if someone had snuck Dad into Greece, there was a minor chance she'd know, on account of how she had stalker potential.

Sun lashing our backs, the three of us hiked up the hill. The clock called it early evening, but the sun was determined to flog Greece until the moon got around to kicking it out of the sky. Which, in July, would be around ten o'clock.

"It's not so bad today," my aunt said. "August is worse."

Good times. With luck I wouldn't be here to find out. Dad and I would be at home in Portland, counting down to rainy season.

Dad's ex girlfriend lived in a white bungalow, in a row of nearly identical white bungalows. They were all flat-topped with television antennas and washing lines as their hat decorations of choice. Each yard was metal fenced, and gardens consisted of various arrangements of potted plants, most of them in red pots.

"What's with all the red pots?" I asked my aunt.

"They are red for luck."

"Really?"

"I don't know. But it sounds good, doesn't it?"

It did sound plausible, especially for a group of people as superstitious as Greeks. When they weren't spitting to ward away the evil eye, they were crossing themselves, hoping God would ride to the rescue.

"There's no bigger martyr on the planet than Dina," Aunt Rita continued. "You have to know that before we go in there."

"Do you think she knows something?"

"Probably not. But I wouldn't die of surprise if she kidnapped your father and hid him in her closet."

"You think she'll let us in?"

"Honey, she'll let us in. If there's one thing she loves it's an audience. A martyr can't be a martyr unless someone is watching."

I was curious about Dad's ex. He never mentioned her in my earshot. "What's she like?"

"She's a
mouni
," she said, matter-of-factly.

We dressed in our business best, which for me was jeans and a T-shirt. My cousins forgot to pack for those twenty-one days out of the month when I didn't bleed. I'd need clothes and I'd need them soon. Aunt Rita made up for it, though. She was dressed for a spring day circa the 1940's, in a long pencil skirt and one of those little hats perched on her head like a pet monkey. Xander had managed to locate a T-shirt to go with his shorts.

We sidled up to the gate with every intention of ringing the doorbell, but Dina—I presumed—was already outside, broom in hand, sweeping the clean swaths of concrete that made up her front yard. Nothing green in sight. Not a single potted plant.

Dad's ex was built compact and solid and boxy, like a German car. She was wearing a frilly black blouse tucked into mom jeans. Her cleavage rivaled the Grand Canyon, telling me she was blessed, or in bed with a surgical virtuoso who knew how to move mountains. Her dyed brown hair had that Farrah Fawcett flick.

Aunt Rita tapped one of her big, gaudy dress rings on the metal gate and walked through. I followed her. "Who died?" my aunt asked.

Dina glanced up. "I did, the day your brother left me. And now I am like that mosquito in amber from that dinosaur movie."

Aunt Rita gave me a look that said this woman was cuckoo. "That was years ago."

"And I have been dead since then, only somebody forgot to tell my body, so I keep sweeping."

"All the time?" I asked.

She looked at me the way I look at spiders. "Who are you?"

My aunt filled in the blank for her, and if you ask me, she did it with thinly disguised glee. "This is Michail's daughter, Katerina."

There was a horrified gasp as she clutched an acre of chest. The whisk broom clattered on the ground. "Since when does my Michail have a daughter?"

My feathers ruffled. I puffed myself up to battle-size. "Since he married my mother and put his—"

"Lies." Hands on hips. Chin jutting out. "There was only me."

"Relax," my aunt muttered behind her hand. "Even in the old days when it was her, it wasn't just her."

Dina shot her with hate rays. "I heard that. What do you want?"

"We're looking for Michail," Aunt Rita said.

Eyes wide, her glance bounced from Aunt Rita to me and back again. "He's missing?"

"Something like that."

"And you think he is here? Why would he be here?" Once more with the chest clutching. Joy, with a hefty side of crazy, plastered itself on her face. Thirty years of suppressed insanity in one facial expression. "It's a sign! He's coming for me at last, just like in my dreams!"

Aunt Rita scoffed at that. "Nobody goes back to a meal they didn't want to finish thirty years ago."

"
Kolobaras
."

"
Mouni
."

"At least I have one," Dina said.

"I know, I've seen it, remember? Every male in our generation has stuck a sausage in that freezer between your legs—even me."

Dina sucked in her breath, expanding her ribcage for the sole purpose of unleashing a slasher-worthy scream. If she did that, the whole neighborhood would come running, not to her aid—if Dad's stories about the pathological nosiness of his people were true (this from a man whose face doubled as one of those window stick-on toys whenever there was a strange noise in the street)—but to gawk. Greeks, Dad said, invented rubber-necking, long before Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in the late 1830s.

So I kicked her in the shin. Not hard. Just enough force to diffuse her before she blew.

"
Skeela
," she said.

Aunt Rita slapped her around the ear. "Don't talk to her like that."

These two. Jesus.

"I need to find my father," I said, wishing there was a hose handy. A blast of water would shoo them back to their respective corners. "If you can help …"

Hands on denim hips. "Maybe he ran away from you, did you consider that?"

Nope. Because men who ran away from their families usually did it alone, without the mobster entourage escorting them out of the house.

"If you know anything, it would really be helpful." I prepared to slather it on thick.
Sorry, Mom
. "Dad would be grateful, I know. Really,
really
, grateful."

She was considering the delicious possibility, the gleaming potential of a penitent and obligated Dad, when her gaze slid past us, bumping into Xander on the other side of the fence. "A henchman?" she said panicking, all signs of cooperation evaporating in Greece's relentless heat. "Why did you bring a henchman to my house? Help!" She glanced from side to side. "Help!"

"I thought you were already dead," I said.

"Dead, yes. But I can still feel torture."

"Relax," I assured her. "Xander isn't going to torture you. He's our ride."

She bolted up the steps, slammed her front door. "Help," she said in a much dimmer voice.

There I was, standing my father's kooky ex's yard, blinking at my aunt and Grandma's hottie henchman.

"Huh," Aunt Rita said.

"Anyone have a pen and paper?"

She went mining in her structured handbag, its loops nestled in her elbow's crook. She dug up with a lipstick in violent red. No paper.

The front door was still closed—and locked, I was willing to bet.

"Thanks. What's Grandma's phone number?"

She reeled off a short string of digits. One at a time, I painted them on the front door in MAC's Ruby Woo.

"Help! Vandals!" the woman inside hollered.

"Jesus. Is she always like this?"

Aunt Rita scoffed. "No. This is a good day." She dropped the lipstick back into her purse, then Xander drove us back to the family compound, where Grandma was pounding the life out of something with a marble mortar and pestle. Smelled like garlic, looked like grits.

She didn't bother looking up when we trudged in. "What did Dina say?"

"Nothing," Aunt Rita said.

"You know how Dina is. Maybe she knows something, maybe not."

"Want us to pick her up?"

Grandma thought about it for a moment. "No. We know where she lives."

I rubbed my hands together. "Who are we going to see next?"