The Devil Takes Half (33 page)

Mindful of the knife, Patronas kept well back. He wanted it gone before proceeding, before this monster could cut him with it. The intruder clicked off the flashlight. The darkness was total, an impenetrable wall of night.

Suddenly, the intruder grabbed him and hurled him through space. Patronas was struggling to get up when the shrouded figure came at him a second time, bearing down on him and smashing him into the amphorae. Patronas hit the pots so hard they shattered, the broken edges slicing into his arms and legs as he fell, the blood warm on his flesh.

He heard the knife slicing the air above him and ducked his head, but he was too slow and it nicked him. Blood began seeping down his neck and wetting the collar of his shirt. He touched the wound with his hand. He felt light-headed and feared he would die here.

The figure tackled him again, knocking him flat against the ground. Kicking him over with a foot, it then sat down and top of him, straddling his torso like a horseback rider. It made a passing motion at Patronas' eye with the knife and howled with laughter when he cried out.

It
was
a man, Patronas realized then. That easy laughter. He recognized the sound but couldn't place it.

Keeping him pinned to the ground, the man began cutting off Patronas' uniform. He started with the crotch of his pants, whistling louder and louder as he ripped through the fabric with his knife. He was so close Patronas could feel his breath on his face.

“
No!” Patronas screamed. “No!” Wild with fear, he fought to throw him off, writhing and bucking like an animal.

His screams seemed to excite his assailant, who raked the inside of Patronas' exposed thighs with his knife, slicing the flesh in places and drawing blood. Taking his time, he moved the knife a little higher each time he cut.

Patronas began to sob, tears and mucus running down his face. The man continued to torture him with the knife, cutting deeper and deeper until Patronas' thighs were slick with blood. When he moved the knife higher still, Patronas nearly passed out from the pain.

“
Stop,” he cried. “For the love of God.”

Groping the broken clay beneath him, he grabbed a handful and flung it. The clay bounced harmlessly off the mask, but the noise startled the man and he drew back, losing his balance and giving Patronas the edge he needed. He pushed himself out from under him and rolled quickly out of reach. He felt around for something he could use as a weapon and brushed up against his lantern wedged between the pots and the wall. Tugging it free, he twisted the cap off, swung it over his head and sent it crashing down on his assailant. The smell of kerosene filled the air as the glass broke apart. The man staggered back, momentarily stunned. Patronas reached into the pocket of his blood-soaked pants, found his lighter and flicked it on.

The man began backing away, holding his hands in the air.

Patronas threw the lighter at him and stepped away as the kerosene exploded.

The burst of heat nearly overcame him. He let the man burn for a moment or two, then grabbed the blankets and beat the fire out. The acrid smell of burning rubber filled the cave. The thick smoke pouring off the masked figure made it difficult to breathe.

With a groan, the man fell to the ground. Patronas wrapped him up in the blankets and rocked him back and forth, dousing the last of the flames. The black shroud was nothing more than a wetsuit, melted now in the places the fire had touched; the green headgear, a fancy kind of night binoculars, more elaborate and sophisticated than any he'd seen.

Patronas reached behind him, unhooked the handcuffs from his belt, and clapped them on the man's wrists. Taking a deep breath, he pulled off the mask.

“
You,” he whispered.

Manos Kleftis spat at him.

Kleftis was as black as his wetsuit. Patronas gingerly touched his face, thinking the skin had been charred in the fire, and was surprised when the color came off on his finger. Camouflage. Kleftis had painted himself up like a frogman. There were two or three burn marks on his chin, but the rest of his face was intact. The kerosene must not have reached that high.

Patronas removed the blankets and assessed the burns on the rest of Kleftis' body, worried he would need to have him airlifted to Athens. The wetsuit was covered with small fist-sized holes marking the places where the flames had penetrated, but the skin underneath was only a little red—first, maybe second degree burns at the most. His feet were more damaged, the soles blistered where the kerosene had pooled around them and melted the rubber. They'd heal in a week or two. Kleftis had been lucky. His disguise had saved his life.

“
Manos Kleftis,” he said again. Even now he had trouble believing it. Manos Kleftis, a son of Greece.

Kleftis just lay there, watching him, his eyes alive in the darkness.

Patronas found Kleftis' flashlight and clicked it on. The cave was so full of smoke he could barely see. It stank of rubber and his throat burned every time he took a breath. He dug his crime kit out from under the amphorae and bagged the two knives. They were heavy, the blades honed on both sides, and looked to be army-issue. His hand shook as he examined them. A few steps beyond he discovered his gun, half-buried in the soil.

He raised it and pointed it at Kleftis. He'd never been sorrier to be a policeman, to have to obey the law, the demands of the justice system. “Give me one good reason not shoot you.”

Kleftis said nothing, his bloodshot eyes tracking his movements. His behavior unnerved Patronas, who checked the cuffs again to make sure they were secure. Removing a second set of cuffs from his crime kit, he cuffed Kleftis' ankles as well. He placed the knives inside the crime kit and zipped it up. Shouldering the bag, he started up the stairs.

He shivered. Kleftis had begun to whistle again.

* * *

Patronas felt sick to his stomach and kept gulping air as he limped across the corral, trying to steady himself. His thighs ached. The slightest movement caused them to bleed again. He probed the cut on his neck. It didn't feel deep enough to require stitches. Most of the blood had already dried.

The night air felt good on his face. The goats were crowded together at the far end of the corral, a shifting, moving horde. Wearily, he stumbled over to the ledge at the back and stretched out on the rock. There was no moon and the stars were bright in the sky. Surprised by their presence, that nothing had changed while he'd been in the cave with Kleftis, Patronas studied them for a moment. He picked out the
megali arkouda
and other constellations he knew.

On the distant shore there was suddenly a burst of light, so far away it was little more than a flicker on the horizon. Fireworks. Someone was getting married in Turkey. Patronas' grandmother had told him about the weddings she'd witnessed there: musicians playing for days on end, the bride journeying to meet the groom on a white horse, people raining sugared almonds and gold coins upon on her as she rode to her new home, a home she had to crawl into under the legs of her mother-in-law, held aloft by her husband and his brothers. The fireworks continued for a long time, lighting up the night like meteorites. Patronas wished them well, whoever they were, the unknown bride and groom across the water. He thought of Marina Papoulis and the way she'd looked at her husband, also of his parents and the comfort they'd taken in one another's presence. He'd never known that, but perhaps this couple would. “
Na zisete
,”
he said softly. “Congratulations.”

When the devil's idle, he rapes his children.

—
Greek proverb

T
he sun was rising when Patronas finally climbed down from the rock. He could see nearly all of Chios from where he stood, the rooftops of the old villages and the shaggy grandeur of the eucalyptus trees along the roads. Even Volissos and the black lava beaches to the north. A donkey was tethered to a tree in a field, bundles of wheat stacked beside it. It was ready for the day's work, the ancient task of separating the grain from the chaff. And surrounding it all was the sea, the open Aegean, surging like a thing alive. For a moment, he imagined he could feel the waves moving beneath him, as if the island itself were afloat, riding on the immense breadth of blue water.

At least a third of the island looked uninhabited, parched brown valleys beneath spurs of gray rock. Rows of cypress trees marked the boundaries between the empty fields, the abandoned farms. Perhaps there was room for the tourists after all.

Patronas wanted to stay here, feel the sun on his back, and watch the sea turn silver in the growing light, the hills to bronze. “I'll come back,” he told himself, “when all this is over and I'm done with the case. I'll bring my lunch and spend the day up here.”

Manos Kleftis was lying where he'd left him, breathing peacefully with his eyes closed. Looking down at him, Patronas wished that Greece had a death penalty. He wanted to hurt Kleftis in unspeakable ways, abandon him there in the cave, let the beetles chew their way into his intestines and feast on his heart.

Kleftis screamed when yanked to his feet. “Hurts, does it?” Patronas kneed him in the groin, then left him and went back outside to call the police station.

“
Send Tembelos here in the old Ford,” he told the dispatcher, referring to the squad car with the wire mesh between the backseat and the driver. It was used for exuberant drunks and, though the barrier was flimsy, would serve to keep Kleftis away from him.

After he finished the call, he returned to the cave. He got his gun out and kept it on Kleftis as he undid the handcuffs on his legs. He motioned for him to move toward the stairs, keeping well behind him. Kleftis cried out as he walked, trying not to step down on his blistered feet, like a child on hot pavement. It took them a long time to reach the parking lot.

* * *

Tembelos was waiting for them next to the squad car. His eyes widened when he saw Patronas.
“Panagia,
what happened to you
?”

Patronas looked down at himself. His pants were shredded, blood-soaked and filthy, and there was blood everywhere, caking his arms and legs, his hair and neck stiff with it.

Without saying a word, Tembelos got the first aid kit out of the glove compartment and began dabbing iodine on Patronas' wounded neck. “You should see a doctor,” he told him.

“
Later. We've got to process him first.”

Patronas was uneasy on the ride back to the station. He felt as if Kleftis' presence contaminated the air in the car, as if he gave off toxins and could cause things to die. Patronas was surprised at his reaction, embarrassed, but no matter. If he'd had a crucifix, he would have held it up.

Apparently Tembelos felt the same way. He kept sneaking glances at Kleftis through the rearview mirror and crossing himself. They drove without speaking and parked behind the station, then dragged Kleftis through the station and locked him in the cell. Neither proposed removing his wetsuit or taking off the cuffs.

Patronas worried about keeping him in the cell. Chios didn't have much of a jail, only a single high-ceilinged room at the back of the station with dingy cement walls, a drain in the floor. The bars on the windows and door were thin and worked fine for the ouzo-soaked tourists, but they weren't strong enough to contain a battering ram like Kleftis. No one had ever stayed in the jail for more than three days, and Patronas didn't know what they'd do if they had to give him a shower. There were no facilities, and he doubted any of the local hotels would welcome such a visitor.

Kleftis was sprawled on one of the bunks, whistling the same flat melody Patronas had heard in the cave. He was still in his wetsuit and covered with black paint, which made the whites of his eyes stand out, his teeth seem enormous. Patronas remembered Eichmann, how the world had tried to reconcile the image of that little bespectacled man with all those dead people. With Kleftis, it wasn't so difficult. He was evil and looked it. You could smell sulfur in his wake.

* * *

“
I can't believe he's Greek,” Tembelos said.

“
Yup. Born and raised in Athens.” His associate would take comfort in that, Patronas knew. He would have been happier if the killer had been a foreigner, one of the
xenios
, but in a pinch Tembelos would settle for an Athenian. One of the new species of Greeks who'd come into being during the Papandreau years. The kind who didn't get up and give a priest his seat on the bus, who valued BMWs and Rolexes over family, who went to dance clubs and rock concerts but never was seen in church.

Afraid he might lose consciousness and wreck the Citroen, Patronas asked Tembelos to drive him home and wait for him while he took a shower and bandaged his legs. He'd been overcome by waves of dizziness since leaving the cave but didn't want to waste the time in the emergency room. Downing a handful of aspirin, he limped back out to the squad car.

“
Even cleaned up, you don't look so good,” Tembelos said, opening the car door for him.

“
You're saying I'm not handsome?”

“
If raw is your flavor ….”

Patronas winced as he got in the car. He could feel the blood seeping into the makeshift bandages.

Tembelos started the car. “What do you want me to do when we get back to the station?”