Trueish Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel (7 page)

I
found
Penka on her usual stoop. She wasn’t alone. Sitting next to her was a scrawny kid, more bantam rooster than human. He was dripping in gold chains with chunky euro sign pendants. His oversized tank top revealed his distant relationship, twice removed, with the gym. The back of his saggy, baggy pants wasn’t visible from the street, but I instinctively knew there would be a mile of boxers when he stood.

Penka had perched her significant-sized self on the far end of the stoop. She was wearing red shorts and an off-the-shoulder top that didn’t want to be there. Her hair had been recently re-dipped in a bucket of bleach and styled with a blender. Her customers liked her to look cheap. It made them feel better about their habits. The stoop was attached to an empty beach house, built in the fifties and, by the looks of it, abandoned not too long after. The house stuck out like a recently whacked digit in the row of apartments and motels that had sprung up in the 80s and 90s.

“You want to buy asshole?” She hooked her thumb at the kid, who was still at least a couple of years away from his twenties. “Here, I have one. I give it to you cheap.”

“Wow, thanks. Too bad there’s only room for one in my underwear.”

“You keep laughing, fatty,” the kid told Penka. “You’d be sucking my dick if my uncle told you to.”

“Who’s his uncle?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Baby Dimitri. This is internship.”

“Wow, drug dealers have interns?” The things you learn.

The kid nodded at me. “Who’s the bitch?”

“The bitch,” I told him, “is going to punch you in the throat if you’re not careful.”

He scoffed at that. “Nobody hits the Donk.”

“Donk?”

“You don’t know the word donk?”

I exchanged glances with Penka. She rolled her eyes. I knew how she felt. “No.”

“It’s like thees,” he said in the worst American accent I’d ever heard. “Yo, donk, wats app?”

My eyes went big and round. I felt my mouth sag in horror. The douche on the step mistook my reaction for ignorance.

“You never heard of Snoop Donky Donk? Man, you are old.” He zeroed in on my chest. “Nice tits though.”

It was without regret that I punctured his hot-air balloon. “Haven’t you heard: he’s Snoop Lion now.”

His arrogance bottomed out. “What?”

“Snoop Lion. Google it.”

“Matherfacker,” he said, snatching up his phone.

“Some intern,” I told Penka.

“Most drug dealers no have interns. Only me. I am lucky.” Her face said,
No, not lucky at all
. “What you want?”

“Came to ask you if you know a guy. How’s business?”

“Business stinks. Nobody wants good drugs—they all want cheap sisa now. This economy is eating my paycheck.”

Sisa was Greek meth. It was currently chowing its way through the drug-using population, due to its affordable street price.

“You could get another job,” I suggested.

“Who would hire her,” Donk said, “except the circus?”

Penka whacked him upside the head with a packet of Ambien.

“This job is okay. Gives me plenty of time to read.” Penka always had a magazine handy. She had a penchant for the fashion and gossip rags. “So tell me who is this man you look for?”

“Calls himself the Eagle. Or maybe other people call him the Eagle. Whatever. Eagle. Does that mean anything to you?”

Donk flapped his arms. “Caw, caw.”

“That’s a crow,” I told him.

“Eagle.”

“Crow.”

“Eagle.”

“Have you thought about killing him?” I asked Penka.

“Donk.” Penka opened the cooler behind her. She tossed him a bottle of cola. “Have a drink.”

“That’s right,” he said, grinning. “Bitches bringing me drinks. Where’s the Cristal?” He popped the lid, chug-a-lugged half the bottle.

“No Cristal,” Penka said dryly, which was the only way she ever said anything. “What you think this is? You want champagne, go intern for cocaine dealer.”

“Maybe I will,” he said. Then he slumped over.

We both looked at him. He was out cold.

“Uh,” I said. “Did you know Baby Dimitri’s nephew passed out?”

“I don’t know how that happened. Maybe something in his drink.”

“Like drugs?”

“Could be drugs, could be he was tired. Very tired.”

“Let’s go with tired,” I said. “Funny, he still looks like a loser when he’s sleeping.”

“Is the open mouth and the drooling.” And the ridiculous outfit that was cool in certain circles, ten years ago. “I heard the name Eagle,” she went on. “Maybe a place. Where, I don’t know. I am Bulgarian, not Greek. Why you ask?”

“It’s a potential lead in my father’s disappearance.”

“Maybe he is there.”

“Sounds high up.”

“Americans are soft.”

“I don’t mind heights,” I said. I didn’t mind heights, except the high ones. It wasn’t a phobia per se, but it could become one, say, if I fell.

“Is maybe not too high,” she said, back-peddling.

“Too late. My mind is already contemplating the worst.”

“If you were Bulgarian you would always contemplate worst.”

B
aby Dimitri was
my next port of call. I couldn’t peg Baby Dimitri. On one hand he and Grandma were enemies and business competitors, but the way he spoke he had a lot of respect for her. The Godfather of the Night and Souvenirs was Dad’s generation, but he dressed for Florida in the 1960s. His shoes were white, his pants were sharply creased, and his shirtsleeves were folded high on his wannabe biceps. He had the look of a man who invested heavily in Brylcreem.

I found Baby Dimitri and his henchman Laki sitting outside, under the cover of his shop’s striped awning. It was one in a chain of stores catering to tourists and locals. A narrow road separated the string of shops from the beach. The storefronts were done up in colors that had clashed so often they were flaking and peeling. Baby Dimitri sold a colorful mixture of shoes and souvenirs.

“Katerina, Katerina,” Laki said. “Here is Katerina Makris.”

“With an S,” Baby Dimitri added. They both chuckled.

Laugh it up, sleaze-balls
.

“Hey, Laki,” I said. “Burn anything lately?”

Baby Dimitri’s decrepit flunky flashed his gold tooth. It was the only thing in his mouth that wasn’t gum or tongue. “Business is slow. You need anything burned?”

“Not today.” His face collapsed like a soufflé. Oh, man. “But if I do I’ll let you know.”

He perked back up again.

What kind of person hates to make a mobster feel bad? A person like me, that’s who.

“I met your nephew,” I said to Baby Dimitri. “Interesting internship you gave him.”

“How is my worthless nephew?”

“Sleeping on the job.”

“
Gamo ti Panayia mou
,” he swore. “That boy! Lazy! All he wants to do is wear gold chains, listen to the rap music, and fuck my prostitutes for free.” He shook his finger at me. “I would not let him touch them even if he paid top dollar. As lazy as he is, it could be contagious. What can I do with lazy prostitutes? Nothing”

“He calls himself Donk. That’s not his real name, is it?”

He shook his hands at the sky. “Donk! His real name is Yiorgos—George—but that is not good enough for him.”

“Not ‘kanksta’ enough,” Laki said.

The things Greeks could do to a G were interesting. They forced it out the nose and tacked on a K.

“Kanksta! Thuks! That’s why I sent him out with one of my dealers. Give him a taste of reality.”

“He’s slumped over on a stoop, sleeping. Before that he was complaining about boredom.”

He shook a finger at me. “That’s the idea. There is nothing tough about selling drugs. Nobody thinks you are cool. They will say you are cool to your face, but only because they want your product for cheap or free.”

“Maybe you should throw him in the deep end of the pool, show him how bad it can get.”

He squinted at me like I was laying a trap. “Why?”

“If he’s that lazy he’ll probably think selling drugs is easy money he doesn’t have to work too hard for. Give him something that will scare the wits out of him.”

“Hmm …” He made a ‘
Keep talking’
circle in the air with his finger.

“That was kind of my entire sales pitch.”

“Maybe I need to send him outside the Family.”

“Great idea,” I said. “You should do that.” Then I noticed he was looking at me thoughtfully. “No. No, no, no. My Family won’t want him.”

“Not them—you.”

“I definitely don’t want him. He called me old, so I had to crush his hopes and dreams.”

“See? You can teach him respect.”

“What do I know about respect? Nothing. Ask my grandmother.”

The rotten jerk, he pulled out the big guns, aimed them at the part of my head responsible for honor, duty, and promise keeping. “You owe me a favor.”

“I …” My mouth dropped open. When I recovered I said, “This is worth more than a cheap bag of marbles!” A week or so back Baby Dimitri had gifted me a bag of marbles that I used as ammo for my Dad’s old slingshot—the only weapon my grandmother would let me have. He’d told me they were a favor, and that I owed him one in return. Now he was calling it in.

“I don’t recall putting a euro value on the favor—“ He looked at Laki. “—Do you?”

“Nothing, that’s what I remember,” Laki said.

“Fine,” I said. “But I want something else besides the marbles. Something bigger.”

“You want a ball?” Baby Dimitri turned to his sidekick. “Do we sell balls?”

I blinked. “No, I don’t want a ball. I don’t mean physically bigger.”

“Okay, what do you want?”

“Information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I need to find a place or a person.”

“And you think I know?”

“Don’t you know everything?”

He nudged Laki. “I like this one. She has fire and she knows when to give me compliments.”

Laki’s shoulders shook with silent mirth. “You should hire her. Snatch her out from under the old woman’s nose.”

Given that you could hurl a rock in Grandma’s birth decade and hit Laki, he had some nerve.

Baby Dimitri leaned back, folded his arms, made himself comfortable. “Okay, tell me.”

“Eagle. That’s all I’ve got to go on. Maybe it’s a person. Penka thought it might be a place.”

He chuckled. “Too easy. If you’re talking a place, it’s Meteora.”

Meteora. Middle of the Sky. Towers of sandstone with monasteries gripping the tops and sides. Meteora had been home to monastics since the 1300s, now six monasteries remained out of more than twenty. Today they were inhabited by fewer than ten monks and nuns apiece, operating primarily as tourist attractions.

“Meteora?” I nibbled on a hangnail.

“Meteora,” he said. “The eagle’s nest is one of the old monasteries nobody uses. If you’re asking about a person, they say that’s where the Eagle lives. But my guess is there is nothing there but the bones of monks and some bricks. What about it?”

“So the Eagle
is
a person?”

“He is a rumor, and one I haven’t heard in several years. Sometimes rumors are true, other times they are wishful thinking on the part of people who like to believe in things. Why you ask?”

“It’s probably nothing,” I said. “I was curious, that’s all.”

“Where did you hear about the Eagle?”

“Nowhere.”

He gave me a sly look. “Does this have anything to do with Rabbit? A little mouse told me you went to see him, minutes before a mysterious man busted him out of prison.”

“No.”

“It is a mystery.” His fingers tapped out a rhythm on his knee. Lights flickered in his eyes. He was enjoying this. “Why would a pretty girl go to see an old fossil like Stelios Dogas?”

Laki left his seat, sauntered down the sidewalk. From the back I saw him dive into his pocket and pull out a packet of tobacco and rolling papers.

“Where’s he going?” I asked the Godfather of the Night and Cheap Shoes.

“Laki? Who knows?” He zeroed in on me. “Why did you go to see Rabbit?”

“I wanted to make new friends.”

He laughed. “New friends! You are making a lot of new friends in Greece. Not always good ones. Look at us.”

“We’re not friends.”

“But we could be, someday.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Laki throw something that looked suspiciously like a bottle with a rag sticking out of the top. A bottle with a rag on fire.

“Jesus,” I screeched.

Laki grinned back at me. “Watch this,” he called out, pointing to the bottle in his hand. He threw the bottle into the open window of a small, black SUV.

Somebody screamed, girlish and thin. A man bolted across the street, fire licking his clothes and hair. He leaped off the cement dock, into the water. Then the vehicle exploded in a blinding halo of flames

Like a tide retreating before a tsunami hits, the beach emptied and poured into the street. Everyone wanted to gawk at the burning car. Never mind that it could spit hot metal at any moment.

“That was Elias!” I shouted. “You set my assassin on fire!”

“So Laki did you a favor.”

Speaking of Laki, he was back. “Did you see that? That was a good one.”

As if we could miss the giant fireball.

“That’s my assassin. He’s with me!”

“He was following you, watching you through binoculars. A creeper,” Laki said. “That’s why I make fire.”

“He’s supposed to be watching me! That’s the idea!” I stopped for a moment. “Where do you keep the bottles?”

“It is a secret.” He flashed the gold stash in his mouth.

After abandoning shop, I jogged over to the water’s edge, peered into the water. Elias was standing there, steaming. The fire had fizzled most of his hair, and his eyebrows were singed. He smelled like a burning voodoo doll.

“You okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think so. How is my hair?”

“You could be a trendsetter,” I said. “I bet there’s some weirdo in Paris right now dying to make burnt hair the hot new thing.”

“My car?”

I glanced back at the burning automobile. It was beyond help. A few blocks from here a fire truck was howling for traffic to get out of its way.

“
Gamo ti maimou
,” he said, as I helped him out of the water. “Now I’ll have to steal another one, and I hate stealing cars.”