Disorganized Crime Read online

  Ooooookay. "What are my cousins like?"

  "Ugly. They're all men."

  "All of them?"

  Hands on hips, he shrugged. "You're the first female Makris since your grandmother. Bet she's got some big plans for you."

  Yeah, and with luck they involved sending me home so I could talk to law enforcement.

  "What about Aunt Rita?"

  His eye twitched. "What about her?" Then he wandered off to talk to the firefighters who had just pulled up in their red truck. After some very Greek handwaving and chatter, they all turned around and looked at me.

  I waved. No harm in being friendly—right?

  An old woman hobbled over from the sidelines. She was about the same vintage as the ruins at the Parthenon. Face cobbled together with rocks. Black knee-high stockings with her slippers. Another widow.

  "Are you Katerina Makri, Katerina Makri?"

  It's Greek convention to ask if you belong to so-and-so. I tried not to wince. Not even in the country twenty-four hours and already people knew my name. That couldn't be good. "Yes?"

  "Does your grandmother know you are making fire in the streets? When I see her I will tell her. She deserves to know that her granddaughter is a delinquent."

  "Hey!" I started, but the old woman was already shuffling away, spitting as she went, warding away the evil eye … or me—if I was following.

  Which I wasn't. The spitting was a fabulous deterrent. All kinds of diseases spread via bodily fluids. Who knew if there was some kind of weird Greek Ebola?

  There could be, for all I knew, and I didn't want to catch it.

  Detective Melas came back for round two. He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket, laid it on my palm, curled my fingers around the pliant paper. "Need anything, call me."

  I looked at my hand, then up at him. "What would I need?"

  "Coffee, company, maybe some fun." He winked. "See you, Cookie," he said in perfect English, then he got back into his cop car and did a U-turn.

  Baby Dimitri sauntered out. He shook his head at dying fire.

  "Go home, Katerina Makris with an s. There are monsters here, and some of them are your blood. If you stay, you will find only trouble and sadness—or it will find you."

  "Where are we going?"

  Xander pointed up—up at the sky.

  "Back to the house?"

  He nodded.

  "And we're walking?"

  Another nod.

  "All the way there?"

  He stopped, looked at me. Nodded.

  "Wow. That's a long way."

  Now his expression was semi-pissed, like this was my fault. Which it kind of was. If I hadn't had the bright idea of knocking on the equivalent of a kingpin's front door, his crony wouldn't have firebombed Xander's motorcycle, and I'd be admiring Greece from the back of a very fast, very nice motorcycle.

  "Isn't there—I don't know—a bus or something?"

  He stopped again, looked at me like I was busting his balls. How far could I push him before he snapped? Maybe he'd just shoot me, stash my body in these bushes.

  The village was behind us. The only thing ahead of us was a lot of mountain and a steep, winding road occasionally punctuated by a car or a bus or—

  "Bus!"

  I leaped into the middle of the twisty road, waving my arms. The bus—loaded down with tourists, by the looks of their sunburn and the manic curiosity in their eyes—didn't slow down. It lurched to one side, dodging the crazy woman in the middle of the road, waving her arms. A dozen hands shoved a dozen cell phones out the window. Great. Now I was destined to wind up on YouTube, twice in one day.

  "I hate Greece," I said, hanging my head. "And it hates me right back."

  Xander turned back, marched to the middle of the road. With one smooth move, he threw me over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

  "You can't do that!" I squeaked.

  But apparently he could, because he already had.

  It was a long walk home, especially for Xander. For me it wasn't so bad. The view alternated between Xander's abs and Xander's butt, both of which had been lovingly crafted, one dumbbell at a time.

  Grandma was waiting just inside the gates when we arrived, along with what should have been our cavalry. Looked like they were enjoying the show a little bit too much, if you ask me.

  "Katerina, Xander, how did it go?" Grandma hollered through cupped hands. "Where is your father, Katerina? Is he catching a taxi cab?"

  "Good news," I called out, waving. "Baby Dimitri doesn't have him."

  "Oh? How do you know?"

  "He said so."

  "He said so. Good," she said. "Because you can always trust the word of a criminal."

  This from the woman who had obviously never heard the one about the pot calling the kettle black. Maybe they didn't have that saying here.

  The whole family wasn't standing out front with Grandma—but close, by the looks of it. Every one of them grinning. Good to know they found me entertaining. The two amigos, Takis and Stavros, were there for the show, too. Stavros looked contrite, but not Takis—he was laughing his fool head off.

  I patted Xander on the hip. "Can you put me down?" Nobody was taking me seriously, and I was starting to think maybe the whole being carried thing was part of the reason. Xander let me down easy. Good guy, he didn't just dump me on the ground like I was potatoes—or patates, as my father always called them.

  "Who will you talk to next, Katerina?" Grandma asked.

  My eyes cut from face to face. A lot of them resembled the woman I saw in my mirror and other reflective surfaces. Yes, they were men, but so what? A nose is a nose. It can sneeze just as well on a woman's face as a man's.

  "Give me a name." I waved to the rest of my family. One by one, introductions happened, kisses were dispensed on both cheeks. A lot of repetition in the first names department, on account of how Greek kids get their first names from their grandparents. Originality when naming children is frowned upon. If you want to smash your parents' hearts, go ahead, give your child some fancy name that sounds better to your loveless, betraying ears. Do it. See how fast they write you out of the will. Better to give your child that same old recycled name as his or her other cousins if you want to stay good with the family.

  I was pretty sure mine was one of those families you wanted to stay good with.

  By the time the first round of introductions were over my face felt slimy from all the kissing.

  "Give you a name," Takis said. "Ha! Baby Dimitri went easy on you. Some of the others, they would have spared the motorcycle and set you on fire."

  "Really? Just for asking if maybe my father is in their basement?"

  "This is Greece," Takis said. "We almost never have basements. The ground is too rocky."

  "Their attics, then."

  "We almost never have attics, either."

  "So …" I tilted my head, doing a passable impression of the RC Victor dog in front of the gramophone. "… where do you keep stuff you're not using?"

  "We are not American, we don't buy things we don't need."

  Stavros turned to him. "What about that big TV you bought? You already had a big TV."

  "That was different. One was plasma, the other was LCD."

  "What's the difference?" Stavros asked.

  Takis said it slowly this time. "One is plasma, the other is LCD."

  I rolled my eyes. "Can we not pick on my people?"

  "We are your people," Takis said. "Blood is blood."

  Hot stars crowded into my eyes, some of them dancing along my eyelashes. If I didn't take preventative action now, they were going to storm the dam. They'd never take me seriously if I cried. Look at Grandma. That wasn't a woman who did crying. She kept the remnants of her dead husband in a can in the kitchen, for Chrissake. That wasn't sentimental, that was crazy. And also potentially problematic for anyone who didn't know about Granddad in the oil can. What if someone mistook him for salad dressing? It could happen.

  "Okay, so if I can't
use diplomacy on these clowns, what can I use?"

  Glances passed from face to face. I was nuts and their expressions all said so.

  "A kidnapping means we must wait until the kidnapper reveals themselves. Then we will be at point of diplomacy."

  "If that doesn't work?"

  "Then it will be time for guns," Grandma said. "And maybe knives. Possibly poison."

  "And that will get my father back?"

  "Not if he is already dead."

  Black dots obscured my vision. I plopped down on the flagstone driveway. The hot stone seared my skin, but the pain didn't last long. Nerve damage, probably.

  "Shit," I said. "Shit and piss."

  I cried anyway. Everyone kind of looked at each other like, Crying? What do we do about crying?

  "My Virgin Mary," Takis said. "My wife does this when I come home bleeding." Murmurs of assent wafted through the family.

  My nose began to twitch. Somebody was cooking, and whatever was on the menu smelled better than barbecue. Meat—definitely meat—and there were hot coals and exotic herbs and spices involved.

  The tears subsided. "Is that lunch?" I asked, suddenly jacked up on hope.

  Chapter 5

  That worm Takis wasn't lying, his wife was a large woman. Her flowery summer dress was doing it damnedest to cover all of her, but it was fumbling with the buttons. Marika rolled over him to get to me. "Katerina!" she cried, before bombing my cheeks with kisses. She had a kind, sweet face and she smelled like vanilla beans. "Come," she said, "We have made a party for you. A surprise party!"

  Not anymore. "A party for me?"

  "Of course! Most of the time we have parties for no good reason, but now here you are! Opa!"

  I'd never heard anyone "Opa!" outside of a movie before. Was someone going to smash plates? Because plate smashing looked like fun. Suddenly, I was craving a good plate smashing.

  The courtyard had morphed into party central. Long tables set up in rows. Chairs everywhere. A handful of men were sitting on a small stage, tuning instruments. They were family, too, by the looks of their noses and ears.

  Marika introduced me to the other wives and children. I lost track fast. A family this size, name tags should have been compulsory. They were all excited to meet me and had a million questions about everything from shopping to politics. I had answers, but before I had a chance to speak, there was a new question, then another, then another. Soon I was drowning in inquiries about everything USA.

  Too bad circumstances weren't different. I liked these people, I wanted to know them, but every minute that ticked by was another minute Dad was missing. I needed Takis and Stavros to throw me back into the family plane and rocket me back to Portland.

  Instead, Marika was thrusting a plate into my hands and piling it with food as she chatted.

  "This is lamb," she told me. "One of ours."

  The lamb in question was skewered on a steel pole over hot coals, giving us all the slow rotating hoof as one of the cousins turned the rotisserie's handle. Both eyes were still in its head, and a chunk of meat was missing off its rump.

  A dim part of my brain—the part that occasionally had trouble distinguishing truth from fiction, but only when I'd been kidnapped or awake for three days straight—wondered if the sheep was going to jump down and offer itself for the eating in a Restaurant at the End of the Universe moment.

  "Poor sheep," I said.

  Takis had snuck up on us. He grinned at my sudden pallor. "If God did not want us to eat animals, then why are they so delicious?"

  Marika slapped him around the ear.

  "Ow!"

  He wandered away, muttering.

  Marika pointed to each thing on my plate, told me its name. Some of it I was familiar with already, but others were total mysteries. I pointed to a blob of pink goop. "What is that?"

  Because how bad could anything pink be?

  "Taramasalata. Fish eggs," she said.

  "And this?" I picked at a delicious slice of crispy meat that wasn't lamb.

  "Kokoretsi…"

  Ooo, it sounded great!

  "It is hearts, lungs, kidneys, liver, tied with intestines." She kissed her fingertips. "Delicious!"

  We had different standards, clearly. But I didn't want to offend people who could kill me and stuff my corpse in a bridge, so I picked around the icky bits and promised the mingling hounds that I'd share at the first opportunity.

  The introductions kept on coming. I was hopelessly lost, and I couldn't get Dad off my mind.

  "I need to get home," I said, but no one was listening.

  "This is Papou," Grandma said, sometime later.

  Papou. Grandfather.

  Papou had a face like a war-torn African nation. He was on the north end of eighty, and he got from A to B in a custom wheelchair that included a rack for a shotgun and a pouch for his drainage bag. His smile was toothless, his eyes yellow, and he smelled like lemonade.

  "Papou is what those Sicilians call a consigliere," Grandma told me. "He is my symvoulos."

  Her adviser.

  "Is he really your grandfather?" I asked.

  "He is nobody's grandfather, which is a good thing."

  The old man spoke. "A Nazi pig shot off one of my balls during the war."

  "That's awful," I said, trying to be sympathetic. "I'm sorry.'

  He nodded. "It was my favorite one, next to the other one." He looked up at Grandma. "What are you going to do with her?"

  "What can I do? Keep her here until we find Michail."

  "Nuh-uh." I shook my head to punctuate. Hopefully they'd get the message. "I'm going home. There's no evidence Dad left the country—alone or with anyone else. There I've got the police and the FBI. They'll know what to do."

  "The FBI," Papou muttered. "There is a problem we need."

  Grandma explained. "A family like this, we want the law enforcement to stay far, far away from our business."

  "Unless they are ours," the old man said.

  "You have law enforcement?" I asked, wide-eyed. "You mean like health inspectors?"

  The two of them laughed. Grandma patted me on the arm. "I will be back. Enjoy yourself, Katerina. This is for you." She hoofed it back to her yard, where Xander was waiting with a phone in his hand. He gave her the phone, then followed her inside while she chattered to whoever was on the other end. A business call. I could tell by the way her soft, wrinkly face turned to stone.

  The old man wasn't done with me yet. "Come, Katerina. You can get me something to eat."

  "What would you like?"

  "Everything except vegetables. Meat only. I want to die soon, so I am clogging my arteries with fat."

  "Some diets claim a high fat diet is better for you."

  "Really?" He thought about it for a moment. "Then which diet is the worst?"

  "Probably the baked goods diet. Something with lots of carbs and sugar."

  "Okay." He nodded to the plate I'd just picked up. "Load it up with desserts. Do not skimp or I will shoot you."

  I looked over the desserts lined up on the table, each one begging for one shot at giving me diabetes.

  "If you want to die, why not shoot yourself?"

  "Your grandmother will not let me have ammunition for my gun."

  "So," I said, thinking about it. "Theoretically I could put vegetables on your plate and there's nothing you'd be able to do about it?"

  In a flash, the shotgun was in his hand. The barrel slammed into the backs of my knees. "Oof," I said as my scaffolding temporarily collapsed. It took me a moment, but I pulled myself upright. "Hey, old man, hit me again and I'll make a completely ineffectual threat."

  "What kind of threat?"

  I thought about own worst fears. "I'll push that chair of yours into quicksand. Or roll you into a cage filled with geese."

  "Geese are evil," he said. "I wouldn't wish them on an enemy."

  "They really are. It's a surprise there aren't more horror movies about geese."

  "I know people i
n the Greek movie business. I will let them know."

  "Great," I said, already scratching that movie off my must-see list.

  He hit me again, not as hard this time. "Where's my cake?"

  After the party, the drinking, the dancing, the food, everyone napped. Everyone except Grandma and me. We were in her kitchen. She was baking and I was watching her weave magic with simple carbohydrates and fat.

  "Am I really the first woman born in the family since you?"

  Grandma glanced up at me from the hairy stuff she was slicing. Baklava's hirsute cousin by the looks of it. "Where did you hear that?"

  "Detective Melas."

  "Melas, eh? What was he doing?"

  "Investigating the fire."

  She grunted. "He has a big mouth."

  "What's the big deal?"

  "Eh, nothing. He is right, you are the first. Nobody has made a girl—even me—except your father."

  "What about Aunt Rita?"

  Grandma's expression turned constipated. "I wanted a daughter. Rita is what I got. A man who wears women's clothes."

  "Hey," I said, "if Aunt Rita calls herself a woman, she's a woman, as far as I'm concerned."

  "America has made your brain soft. Your parents should have raised you Greek. Your Aunt Rita has three sons with his second wife."

  "She's married?"

  "Three times. Number Three—already I forget her name—is doing sex with one of the cousins."

  "And you're okay with that?"

  Grandma shrugged. "She is not my wife. If she were my wife …" Her sentence fell off a cliff, into what I suspected was a pit full of very sharp things.

  Time to change the subject. Behold, my smooth transition.

  "You said we had to wait on the kidnapper to make their demands before you could do anything. I'm going to wait at home, just in case they call there."

  "No. Your family needs you and you need us."

  "What do you need me for?"

  "When there is trouble—and there is trouble—family is the only thing you can trust."

  This was a woman who hadn't seen the Jerry Springer Show, or Maury, or that balding, grinning Texan. Or any of the reality TV shows plaguing American television. Fact was, sometimes family was the last thing a person could trust. Every American knew that.