Trueish Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia Novel Read online

  Marika was turning in a tight circle, hand shielding her eyes. “The view,” she said, “it never stops.”

  I took a deep breath. Tried to picture myself standing on flat ground, within inches of sea level. The edge was something I was determined to avoid until it was time to leave. But even sitting I could see the world was infinite here. It went on and on and on and on, a bit like the recently converted.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked me.

  “A clue.” I dragged myself up off the ground.

  “What does a clue look like?”

  No idea. Which was why I was inching around the rocks, squinting at everything, and trying not to fall and die.

  “Rabbit said the Eagle commissioned the box with the penis.”

  She crossed herself. “I thought you said that to scare Donk.”

  “No, there really was a severed penis. Someone sent it to Grandma. I traced it to a man named Rabbit in Larissa’s prison, and he told me he made it for the Eagle.”

  “Are you sure that is what he said?”

  I thought about it. “Yes.”

  “And this Eagle person is here—are you sure?”

  Good question. One I should have asked myself sooner, before zipping away on a road trip.

  “No, I’m not sure. That’s why I’m here.”

  Overhead, the sun was laughing at me. I plopped down on a rock. Sitting struck me as sturdier. You never read about a guy who fell off the ground and snapped his spine.

  I brainstormed out loud. “That rope ladder was fairly new, so someone has been up here recently. All the TV I’ve watched, you’d think I’d know what to do next.”

  On TV there was always a clue, which lead to another clue, which lead to a solution. Up here we had rocks, blocks, a killer view, and all the fresh air we could swallow.

  “Why do you believe there is a clue here? Maybe this Eagle was here, but now they are not. If I cut off a poutsa I would hide.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”

  I looked up at her, disbelieving. “We are in the middle of nowhere, on a tower of rock.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I forgot.”

  I wanted answers and I wanted at least one of them to be here and now. Dad’s trail was cold and only growing colder.

  I stood. Brushed myself off. “Okay, let’s go.”

  But I wasn’t going, was I? My feet were taking me on one last look around the jagged rooftop. Old bricks, outlines of rooms ascetic people used to fill. Lots of bird crap. Nothing fresher than the ladder. It had been tied to the deepest roots.

  “We should go,” I said.

  “Home?”

  “There’s nothing here.”

  “We could visit the monasteries,” she suggested slyly.

  “Don’t we have to be covered up?”

  We both looked down at the white town. From up here it looked like spilled milk.

  “I guess we could go shopping.”

  “An adventure in between adventures!”

  Marika’s enthusiasm for life was catchier than crabs at a 70s key party. We returned to the ladder, which was where Marika ran into a big problem: herself.

  “My Virgin Mary,” she wailed. “I cannot climb down there.”

  I patted her shoulder. “It’ll be okay. Do the same thing you did to climb up, only do it backwards, and try not to fall. Be Ginger Rogers!”

  “Who?”

  “She was a movie star and dancer.”

  “You are not helping!”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “You scrambled up like a mountain goat.”

  “Up is different. Down is the problem. Look how far away the ground is!” she cried.

  It was pretty far.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s troubleshoot this. We’re up here and the ground is down there. We need to get from here to there, and all we have is this ladder. So the ladder is it—our only way down. Troubleshot. Bam!”

  She shook her head so hard the flyaways from her bun lashed her round cheeks. “I think I will stay here. It’s not so bad, and the view is wonderful. Do you think someone can airlift food up, and maybe some television?”

  She must have missed the part where there were no electrical outlets. “What about your boys? Don’t you want to climb down and see them?”

  “They will survive without me.”

  “What about Takis? Who’ll make his fries and pray for him?”

  “His mother is dead, but he has a father. Let him do it.”

  “Takis has a father?” It seemed more likely that he’d sprung out of a carbuncle on someone’s butt, kind of like Athena did with Zeus’s head.

  “His father is a jackal.”

  That made sense. Takis was kind of a watered-down Antichrist, but less evil and more douche.

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess I could call Grandma and have her bring the helicopter.”

  “No! You cannot call Baboulas! She’ll be angry.”

  “She’ll get over it.” I pulled out my phone.

  “No, I’ll climb down!”

  * * *

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, Marika was on the ground, shouting inspirational messages, once again. I could do it, she told me, the woman who’d been a shivering mess ten minutes earlier.

  She was right: I could do it. And I could do it a lot faster if she’d shut up and let me climb down.

  Finally, I was able to let go and fall the last couple of feet. I landed with a gymnast’s flourish.

  Elias was still there, but now he had a friend. The new guy was more beard than man. His eyes were jet beads peering out over a humpbacked nose. A dense, black forest surrounded it all. His build was slight, his height average, and he was wearing Jesus sandals.

  My assassin hooked a thumb at him. “This is Mo.”

  “Mo.” I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Do not talk to me,” he said, “Yankee female dog.”

  I looked at Elias. “Friendly guy.”

  “Mo is shit—Iranian shit. But he’s a good assassin.”

  “Persian,” Mo barked. “The best subset of Iranian.”

  So, Mo was Persian, and he had the rug tucked under his arm to prove it.

  “Wait,” I said, double-taking. “You’re an assassin, too?”

  Mo said nothing.

  Elias turned to him. “She’s asking if you’re an assassin, too.”

  “Tell her I am the best assassin in Greece.”

  “But—“ Elias started.

  “Tell her.”

  Elias rolled his eyes and looked at me. “Mo says he is the best assassin in Greece, but that is not—“

  “Silence!” Mo shouted. “Infidel. Tell the Yankee dog she must kneel while I cut off her head.”

  “You’re not cutting—“ I started.

  Mo looked up at the sky. “Tell her!”

  Elias sighed. “Mo would like you to kneel while he—“

  “I would not like it,” Mo said. “It was not a request, it was a command. Kneel.”

  “A-ha,” I said. “You spoke to me.”

  “Tell her I did not speak to her.”

  Elias said, “He did not—“

  I held up one hand, careful not to make a mousta out of it. “I got it. Tell him I won’t kneel.”

  “She won’t kneel,” he told Mo.

  Mo pulled a big, scary sword out of thin air. It had curves like a banana. “Ask her if she will kneel now.”

  “Cool,” I said. “It’s an Aladdin sword!”

  He looked horrified. “It is a shamshir. Excellent for cutting off heads and hands. It was my father’s father’s father’s father’s great-great-grandfather’s sword.”

  “Was his name Xerxes?”

  He looked at Elias. “Why is she speaking to me?”

  I let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Why is he trying to kill me?”

  “Don’t take it personally,” Elias said. “It’s work. It’s not like we do this for fun.”


  “It is a little bit fun,” Mo said. “Especially when their heads bounce and a hawk swoops in and steals it.”

  We all looked at him in horror.

  He slapped his belly, laughing. “It happened one time, the funniest thing I have witnessed in my life. The hawk came down and carried the head away, seconds after I cut it off.” Tears streamed down his cheeks and went missing in his shrubbery. “We never did find that head.”

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “A thief. I was supposed to cut off his hand, but I missed. Memories!” Then he paled. “Shit,” he said. “I talked to you again, unclean woman!” He unrolled his carpet, dropped it on the ground, and faced what I presumed was east. He dropped down on the carpet and began to chant.

  “Who does he work for?” I asked Elias.

  “Don’t you tell her,” Mo called out, before resuming his chant.

  “A Pontic Greek named Harry Harry.”

  A Pontic Greek was a Greek who hailed from Pontus, now a part of northeastern Anatolian Turkey.

  “Harry Harry is not the boss of me,” Mo flung over his shoulder. “But yes, he wants her to die.”

  “And he wants me dead … why?”

  “Tell her I do not ask why. It is my job to cut, that is all, and take her face back on ice so he can make mask for his gallery.”

  “You can’t kill her,” Elias said. “She’s my kill. This could make me.”

  My stomach turned. “My face? Jesus.”

  “Jesus was a prophet, nothing more,” Mo said casually.

  People have wanted to bust my kneecaps, rip off my head and shit down my neck—their words, not mine—anything to get out of paying their debts. But back home those threats had been limited to baseless gauntlets thrown down the phone line. In Greece people legitimately wanted me dead, and they had the means to hire assassins to do it. Other people I knew who had visited Greece never had these kinds of problems. But then their families weren’t Greek mafia, were they?

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t want you to kill me.”

  Mo didn’t look up from his carpet. “Tell her that is too bad.”

  “He said it’s too bad,” Elias said.

  “I got that part. In fact, I’m getting all the parts. Tell him I want to talk to his employer.”

  Mo sat back on his haunches. “What did she say?”

  “She wants to talk to your employer.”

  “Harry Harry does not talk to Yankee pigs.”

  I snatched the phone out of his back pocket, turned it on, began scrolling through recent calls.

  “You cannot do that!” Mo wailed.

  Marika folded her arms. “Funny, because it looks to me like she’s doing it.”

  I hit dial, dancing out of the way as Mo swung his Aladdin sword.

  “Smiling Panda Massage,” a woman’s answered. “You will leave with a smile, guaranteed.”

  I hung up, dialed the next number.

  “Happy Happy Massage.”

  End call. Next on the list.

  It rang and rang as I leaped around, staying one swing away from the blade.

  Donk sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I had a dr—ARGH!” He rolled under the Beetle. “There’s a crazy Arab with a knife!”

  “I am not an Arab! And it is a shamshir,” Mo screamed. He hurled the sword at the ground in a snit worthy of a toddler. “Not a knife. Not an Aladdin sword. A shamshir. It is the best sword in history!”

  “That is why Persia conquered Greece,” Marika said. She slapped her forehead. “Oh, I was mistaken. That happened in a different universe.”

  I threw the phone back to Mo. “Nobody’s home.” I raised my hands in a T. “Timeout,” I said. “I need to make a call.” Everybody stopped, even Aladdin. I dialed Aunt Rita.

  “Come,” she said, the way she always did.

  “Do you know a Pontic Greek named Harry Harry?”

  “I know him,” she said. “Why?”

  “He sent a guy with an Aladdin sword to cut off my head.”

  “Tell the infidel I will smite her if she says Aladdin one more time,” Mo shouted.

  “Where are you?” my aunt asked.

  I looked up at the stone tower. “Meteora.”

  “Meteora? What’s in Meteora except rocks, virgins, and tourists?”

  Marika said something behind me, and then I heard Takis say, “Is that my wife?”

  “Tell him we’re on an adventure,” I said.

  Aunt Rita told him. His voice went Chernobyl. “On an adventure? She is supposed to be home with our children, not out having adventures!”

  “Did you get that?” I asked Marika. She nodded.

  “Put me on speakerphone,” Takis barked at me.

  “No.”

  “Put me on the speakerphone now.”

  “Can you do telekinesis?” I asked him.

  “What? No.”

  “Then you won’t be going on speakerphone.”

  “Gamo ti Panayia mou,” he swore. Then he yelped.

  “What did you do to him?” I asked my aunt.

  “Flicked his ear.” Her voice became deep, serious. “Who did Harry Harry send?”

  “Some Persian named Mo. Skinny, wearing sandals, more hair on his face than a dog’s butt.”

  “That sounds like most of his guys.” She lowered her voice. “Is the other assassin still with you?”

  “He’s here. Why?”

  “Look, we went to see Fatmir the Poor, but someone else got to him first. He’s dead.”

  That wasn’t all; I could hear it in her voice. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Somebody cut out his heart. Leave Harry Harry to Takis and me. We’ll go see him next.”

  “Thanks.” My voice wobbled out on unsteady legs. Fatmir the Poor had wanted me dead, but that didn’t meant the feeling was reciprocal. I would have been satisfied if he had agreed to forget about Elias killing me.

  “Anything for my niece.” She blew me a kiss and disconnected.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” I asked Elias.

  He looked dubious. “Good news.”

  “Fatmir is dead.”

  He looked stricken. “If that is what you call good news, I don’t want to know the bad.”

  “That was both,” I admitted. “Bad for you, good for me.”

  He sat on the rocky ground, elbows on his knees. “What will I do now?” he said in pathetic voice that tugged at my empathy strings. In a way, I was responsible for his financial situation. If I’d let him kill me maybe he could have collected his moolah before Fatmir lost heart—literally.

  I thought about it a moment. An idea popped into my head. “You could make sure Mo doesn’t kill me, and I’ll make sure you get paid.”

  “Be your bodyguard?”

  “Kind of.”

  “I could do that,” he said, perking up.

  “Traitor,” Mo cried. “Yankee pig clicks her fingers and what do you do? You lift your skirt and jump! In my village you make her jump. Then you take her home and force her to have your babies and never let her drive again.”

  “You—“ I stabbed at the air with my finger. “—My aunt and cousin’s cousin’s cousin are going to have a sit-down with your boss.”

  “Harry Harry is not the boss of me.”

  “You said that already. I mean your employer. And in the meantime, don’t even think about killing me.”

  “You are the Thought Police, but you cannot control what is in here.” He tapped on his head like it was a ripe watermelon. “In my head I will be cutting off your head fifty different ways, then violating your dead body.”

  Marika slapped the back of his head. “Who raised you, eh? Your mother would cry if she could see you.”

  “She has no eyes, how can she cry or see what I am doing?” We all looked at him in horror. “My father plucked them out for looking too long at a man. Unfortunately, he acted rashly. The man was her optometrist.”

  Ugh.
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  I trotted over to where Donk was still shivering under my car, hauled him out by the leg. He flailed and struggled, but I wasn’t about to let some brat get the best of me.

  “Get in the car,” I said.

  “Fack you!” he said in English. Obviously he was buddies with the guys who enjoyed decorating walls and overpasses. The facks were rampant there.

  I reached into the backseat, flipped the lid on Marika’s “supplies”, pulled out a gun that was about the size of a bread loaf.

  Everyone hit the deck.

  “Want to hear something frightening?” I said. “I have no idea how to use this. I know which end goes where, but that’s it. Marika and I are going to check out the monasteries, but first we’re going shopping. Donk, get in the car. Elias, you’re in charge of making sure Xerxes doesn’t kill me—“

  “Xerxes was a sissy mama’s boy!” Mo cried.

  “—Marika, you’re in charge of making sure I don’t kill Donk.”

  We jumped into my yellow car and sped away, whipping the ancient dirt into a sepia tornado.

  “If anyone kills Donk it will be me,” she said.

  Chapter 9

  THE BEST THING about all the steps was that they eventually ran out. We had hauled ourselves up the approximately three million steps that led to the Great Meteoron Monastery, and we’d done it in long, flowing skirts that had done their best snag our feet and snap our necks. We’d left the menfolk at the foot of the tower with the cars. Elias was in charge of making sure no one got their mitts on Marika’s guns.

  The low hum of tourists using their best indoor voices outside washed over us. It was the sound of people confused about whether the monastery was a church or a sedate theme park. People stopped to look at us as they contemplated one all-important question: Could they get to their phones without seeming rude? Some didn’t care. They snapped away, loud and proud.

  “Greek Amish,” one guy said like they knew. The words were English, the accent American.

  “Give me a break,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Amish are from Pennsylvania.”

  “I didn’t know you people flew in planes,” the big guy said. He was red-nosed and seven months pregnant, the kind of guy who yelled at his television during football season. Beer was his poison and hot wings were his remedy.

  “Flying horse buggies,” I said, wearing my best deadpan. “We borrowed the spell from Santa Claus.”