Mykonos After Midnight Read online

  “Stop bullshitting me, Sergey. What’s going on?”

  The tall man opened one of the bottles of vodka as the short man put out four mismatched water glasses.

  “Like I said, we’re celebrating.”

  “Tell me or I’m out of here!”

  “But to where? Where can you go now that is safer than here?” He waved toward the two other men, “With us?”

  She blinked.

  He walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Come my love, it’s time to celebrate.”

  And so they did.

  ***

  The screen lit up and a buzz vibrated along the tabletop. Tassos put down his coffee and reached for his phone. He looked at the name of the caller, ANDREAS KALDIS, and pressed ACCEPT.

  “I was wondering when I’d hear from our country’s feared head of its Special Crimes Division.” The two cops met when Andreas served as chief of police on Mykonos, and they’d remained fast friends after his promotion back to Athens as chief of the division charged with investigating matters of national concern or potential corruption.

  “Tell me about it. If it weren’t for a court appearance I had this afternoon, Spiros would have had me on Mykonos busting your balls for answers to feed the press.”

  “Ahh, Spiros Renatis, our distinguished fearless leader and minister of public order. How nice of him to still take an interest in my work after all these years. He should have dropped by, I’d have been more than happy to see him. At least he could have called. I’m hurt.”

  “Yeah, I bet. He’s more afraid of you than he is of his wife,” said Andreas. Tassos had been on the force so long that everyone either owed him a favor or feared what he knew about them––on both sides of the law.

  “You mean the one who gives him his social standing?” said Tassos.

  “Hey, easy there fella, you’re hitting close to home.” Andreas’ wife was the daughter of one of Greece’s oldest and wealthiest families and the socially prominent widow of a shipowner before they married.

  Tassos laughed. “How is Lila, Andreas, mou?”

  “My bride is fine and sends her regards.”

  “So, what can I do to help you?”

  “As if you didn’t know. Christos Vasilakis had a lot of friends, he was a media darling, and Spiros sees the chance to become a headline hero again with a quick arrest.”

  “Well, it won’t be quick, but we’ll make an arrest.”

  “You’ve solved it already? I’m impressed.”

  “It wasn’t that hard. There were three of them. Christos’ girlfriend and two other guys. They showed up at Christos’ house in a car they’d stolen from the old port, killed him, drove the car back to the old port, left it there, and took the Sea Jet to Athens.”

  “How the hell do you all know that?”

  “Got your attention, huh?”

  “Always do.”

  “I had one of my guys check the neighborhood for security cameras. He found video covering practically the whole route between Christos’ house and the old port. Do you have any idea how many cameras are out there? They’re everywhere.”

  “Good thing my secret liaison days at deserted fields and beaches are behind me.”

  “You better believe it. These days whatever you do outdoors you’re likely doing for an audience.”

  “When do you expect to make an arrest?”

  “No telling. That’s something we’ll have to work through Europol. My guess is the killers are out of Greece by now.”

  “Anything for Spiros to tell the press?”

  “Not yet. If he does, it will tip-off the killers we’re on to them, and they’ll disappear like smoke.”

  “I guess that means I tell him nothing.”

  “I leave that to you. But knowing Spiros as we do, and his penchant for kissing the ass of anyone he thinks might help his career, if you told him the whole story he might think it serves his interests better if they’re never caught.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” said Andreas.

  “There’s a part to this murder that makes the simple solution I just described far more intricate a puzzle than I dare tell you on a mobile phone. Even a supposedly secure one.”

  “Jesus, Tassos, you and your dramatics. You’re just trying to get me over to Mykonos to buy you dinner.”

  “Andreas, how many times do I have to tell you? ‘We’re cops. We don’t pay.’”

  Andreas laughed. “A perfect description of our different approaches to police work.”

  “So, are you coming or not?”

  “How about tomorrow morning on the first flight? I promised my mother that Lila and I would have dinner with her tonight.”

  “And Tassaki?”

  “If we didn’t show up with her grandson, I doubt my mother would feed us.”

  “Yeah, Maggie said that your mother won’t even let you use a babysitter.”

  “I’m glad to hear that my secretary is keeping you up to speed on my personal life.”

  “Your secretary is discreet. It’s my girlfriend who talks.”

  “Cute.”

  Andreas had unknowingly rekindled an old romance between Tassos, a long time widower, and Maggie, Andreas’ secretary and mother superior of Athens’ police headquarters.

  “But seriously, my friend, get over here ASAP.”

  “Will do. See you tomorrow. Good night.”

  Tassos put the phone on the table. He picked up his coffee, took a sip, turned his head, and stared at the crescent of tavernas spread out along the harborfront. He watched a few taverna owners trying to lure passing tourists inside with offers of “very fresh fish, special price.” The enticers were obviously transplants from other places. Mykonians didn’t act that way. They looked down on such pushy practices, considered them contrary to their philosophy that hospitality meant serving, not pressing, your clients. So far, that approach had worked out well for them. Mykonos’ tourist draw was the envy of every island in the Cyclades, if not everywhere in Greece.

  He took another sip of coffee and thought about how much the times had changed. The island was still paradise, and the old town never failed to enchant tourists wandering its centuries-old maze of whitewashed two-story buildings aligned every which way along narrow, flagstone alleyways. But paths once used to flee invading pirates now served as playgrounds for village children beneath the watchful gaze of black clad grandmothers chatting away across brightly painted wooden balconies.

  A pack of scantily clad college-age girls walked by, toying with the taunts of boys calling out to them from the taverna. Tassos smiled. Maybe times hadn’t changed that much. Just the places. He’d heard locals say that during the hectic summers of Delos’ Third Century BCE heydays as the commercial trading center for the ancient world, Delians would send their wives and children to Mykonos during the hot summers. Not so much to holiday––as many wealthy but busy Athenian husbands and fathers sent them today––but to save them from the advances of thousands of anonymous sailors and traders passing through the island looking for ways to spend their time. Today, the former sanctuary posed the greater threat to virtue than the Delian ruins. A promise that drew even more to the flame.

  As with everything in Greece, the history of Mykonos entwined with the gods. Some said the island’s name came from Apollo’s grandson, Mykons. Others claimed it just meant “a pile of rocks” in keeping with the myth that Heracles fought the Giants in aid of Zeus and after defeating them threw the vanquished into the sea where they turned into the massive boulders found scattered around Mykonos.

  The first evidence of human inhabitants on Mykonos dated back to 4000 BCE. For most of the ensuing six thousand years, whether the island prospered or not depended primarily on its proximity to the more commercially developed islands of Delos, Syros, and Tinos, and to the foreig
ners then in control––Carians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Minoans, Ionians, Athenians, Macedonians, Romans, Venetians, Turks, and Russians, were among those who dominated Mykonos at some point.

  Two other significant elements played a part in Mykonos’ development: piracy and plague. Pirates haunted the island virtually from antiquity, so much so that it became home to many, and legend for its able-bodied seamen willing to sail to wherever there might be commerce or battle.

  But sea travel brought with it many perils, including plague. As recently as the mid-nineteenth century, plague so badly ravaged the population that those who survived and did not flee to other islands or the mainland were too few to work the fields or take care of the animals. That’s when the Church induced immigrants from islands such as Crete, Naxos, Santorini, and Folegandros to move to Mykonos, offering the promise of a new start for them and the hope of a new beginning for the island.

  A flicker of promise appeared after World War I that tourism might take root, but World War II crushed it. The German army’s program of taking everything for themselves and leaving nothing for the occupied people brought devastating famine and death to Mykonians on a scale greater than almost anywhere else in Greece.

  After World War II, came war on the mainland between the left and the right, and in the fifties and early sixties a mass exodus of the island’s youth to Athens and far off lands in search of a better life.

  Against that six thousand years of struggle it seemed magic that in little more than a single generation Mykonos transformed into its present-day wonder and the long-impoverished Mykonians became among the wealthiest per capita people in Greece.

  Tassos took another sip of coffee. The unusually gentle breeze coming off the sea had a lot of people strolling along the wide, blue-grey-brown flagstone border between the tavernas and ten yards of sand to the water. Some came out to smell the sea, most to people-watch, but all to absorb the in-season energy of Mykonos and a sense that, for the moment at least, all was right with the world.

  Tassos put down his cup. Good thing they didn’t know what was locked inside the briefcase at his feet.

  Chapter Four

  When the alarm went off at dawn, Lila mumbled from her pillow, “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

  Andreas hit the snooze button. “Yep, I have to catch the seven-thirty flight to Mykonos.”

  “Is it about Christos?”

  “I won’t even try figuring out how you knew that.”

  “Not hard. It’s all over the news. Make that Spiros is all over the news. And when he’s all over the news can my husband be far behind? After all, someone has to come up with his answers.”

  “I knew there was a reason I married you.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “That’s all I get for such glorious praise first thing in the morning? A peck on the cheek?”

  “Put it on my account. I’ll settle up later.” He pinched her butt.

  Lila sat up. “I’ll have Marietta make you breakfast.” She reached for the phone.

  “No time for that. I’ll catch a bite at the airport.”

  Lila smiled but dialed. “Marietta, would you please prepare breakfast for Mr. Kaldis. And pack it to go.”

  She hung up the phone. “You’re still not used to having help.” She smiled. “I like that about you.”

  Andreas nodded. “I’m trying. Yesterday, I let Tassaki pick out my clothes.”

  “Letting a two-year-old pull all your shirts out of a dresser drawer is not what I meant.”

  Andreas shrugged. “I’m trying.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Now I really have to run.”

  “Open the drapes, let in the light. It won’t bother me.”

  Andreas picked up the remote control and pressed a button. The drapes parted, revealing narrow, pale-gray horizontal steel slats covering the windows. They were necessary security for virtually every upscale home in Greece, even a penthouse on the most prestigious street in Athens and next door to the presidential palace.

  Andreas pressed another button and the shutters rolled up and out of sight as light rushed into the room. An unobstructed view of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis filled the window. This was another thing Andreas had difficulty getting used to: living the life of the super rich. But if he wanted to marry Lila it came with the package. He could not expect her to live a life on what he earned as a cop. Make that an honest cop.

  So, this was how he now lived. Not that he resented his good fortune. It was just so very different from his own roots as the son of a working class cop. Another honest cop.

  “Do you need a ride to the airport?”

  “No thanks, Yianni is picking me up.”

  Yianni Kouros was Andreas’ right hand. They met when Yianni was a brash young rookie on Mykonos and Andreas his chief. They’d been together ever since.

  “When will you be back?”

  “No telling. Tassos wants to see me. Hopefully on an afternoon flight or, at worst, the last boat.”

  “Well, at least with Tassos I know you won’t be getting into any trouble.”

  “My love, with Tassos there’s generally nothing but trouble.”

  “I meant of the other kind.” She smiled. “The Mykonos crazy lifestyle sort of trouble.”

  Andreas nodded. “Good point. I think I’ll bring Yianni along. He specializes in that sort of thing.”

  Andreas managed to get to the bathroom door before Lila’s pillow caught him from behind.

  ***

  Kouros sat in a marked blue and white police car in front of the apartment building.

  “Morning, Chief. I see you have breakfast.”

  “As a matter of fact we do. Lila had it packed for two.” Andreas held up a spanakopita as he slid into the passenger’s seat. “A bit heavy for breakfast, but easier to eat in the car than yogurt.”

  Kouros pulled away from the curb and reached for the spinach pie. “Any idea what has Tassos so wound up he won’t talk over the phone?”

  “Not a clue.” Andreas pulled another spanakopita out of the bag and took a bite. He struggled to speak around his chewing. “But whatever it is, it must be serious. Tassos is not an alarmist.”

  “Can’t wait to hear what’s on his mind. What time’s your flight back so I can pick you up?”

  “Pick me up? You’re coming with me.”

  Yianni smiled. “I hoped you’d say that.” He pointed with the spanakopita toward the back seat. “I even packed a bag. Just in case.”

  “We’re not staying overnight.”

  Yianni smiled. “Better safe that sorry.”

  Andreas took another bite. “Damn it, I should have packed a bag. But if I had, Lila would have thought I actually intended to stay over.”

  “We bachelors always plan ahead. You do remember those days, don’t you?”

  “Detective Kouros, just get us to the airport.”

  ***

  Andreas spent most of the flight reading the report Tassos had faxed to Kouros covering what he’d come up with so far in the investigation. The rest of the time Andreas stared out the window at a deep blue sea, white-edge waves, and beige-brown islands flecked with green and white.

  Mykonos lay ninety miles southeast of Athens and less than thirty minutes away by plane, or two hours and fifteen minutes by high-speed catamaran. Approximately one and a half times the size of the island of Manhattan, it had a population of ten thousand year-round citizens that swelled to fifty thousand during tourist season.

  The island differed greatly in season from its agrarian and seafaring roots. In summers Mykonos drew a monied crowd relatively immune to the worldwide financial crisis. And, for the most part, Mykonians put aside their way of life during those months as they braced for a tsunami of rich and super rich from around the world, joined by hordes of poseurs, flocking to their island on holiday.r />
  Mykonos also served as a cruise boat mecca, drawing day-trippers to tourist shops and coffee at the port. But it wasn’t the rich or the cruise boats that Mykonos relied upon to support its many hotels, shops, bars, restaurants, and clubs. For those, the island looked to sun worshipers drawn by the island’s dozens of breathtaking beaches and partiers chasing after its world famous 24/7 action.

  Yes, serious cultural reasons also drew visitors to Mykonos, most notably the intensely spiritual holy island of Delos. There one could walk amid restored, millennia-old ruins of the once thriving center of ancient Cycladic life. But one had to get up early to catch a boat to Delos because the last boat back to Mykonos was at three in the afternoon, and that sort of early morning pilgrimage rarely worked for the late night partier, no matter how sincere intentions might have been when falling asleep at dawn.

  Tassos stood on the airport tarmac just outside the terminal’s arrivals door. He held a briefcase but managed to exchange embraces with his friends.

  Andreas pointed at the briefcase. “Never knew you to carry one of those.”

  “Follow me,” was all Tassos said. He led them inside the terminal, through the baggage claim area, and past a doorway to the right leading out of the building.

  “Where are we going?” said Kouros.

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  At the south end of the terminal building they took a flight of stairs up to the second floor and stopped at a door marked OFFICE OF DIRECTOR OF AIRPORT OPERATIONS.

  “In here.” Tassos opened the door and waited for Andreas and Kouros to go inside. He pulled the door shut behind him and locked it.

  “My friend said we could use his office. He won’t be back for an hour. He’s having coffee in the harbor with his cronies.”

  Tassos put the briefcase on top of a desk, walked to a line of windows overlooking the runway, and closed the blinds.

  Andreas and Kouros stood in front of the desk watching Tassos.

  “What’s with all the mystery?” said Andreas. “The police station is only a hundred yards away. We could have met there.”

  Tassos walked back to the desk. “You’ll understand when you see what’s in here.” He tinkered with a combination, popped the locks, lifted the lid, and spun the case around so the two could see what was inside.