"Assassins of Athens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Siger Jeffrey)

5

The area around Filis Street was not a place you came to by accident. It was north of Omonia, and cops generally avoided it. Sure, there were worse neighborhoods, but this was Athens' most notorious one for hookers and the parasites that fed off them. Here was where you came to find things the Bible forbade. That's probably what gave the neighborhood its 24/7 popularity, and cops the attitude of hey, you knew what you were getting into when you came here, so don't call us for help.

Andreas hoped he wouldn't need to make that kind of call. He'd come with no backup, and only Kouros knew where he was. He convinced himself that was the best way of protecting her, assuming he found her. If the bad guys knew cops were looking for her, she probably wouldn't live long. Assuming she wasn't dead already.

He borrowed a cheap, beat-up motorbike from the department's impound garage and wore the old jeans, work boots, and ubiquitous long-sleeve shirt of a laborer out for a good time. He wanted to look like any number of other horny guys trying to get laid.

Her last known address was in a dirty-yellow four-story concrete-slab architectural nightmare. It looked like one of those tenements you expect to see sitting on the outskirts of some third-world slum. Regrettably, they'd taken weedlike root in Athens and indelibly scarred parts of a city once compared in beauty to Paris.

He parked the motorbike across the street and a few doors down from her building. The street was packed with parked cars and motorcycles battered nearly as badly as his own. No one paid him much attention. Strangers frequented these streets. A couple of girls on a third-floor balcony of the building next to where he parked called out to him in broken Greek. He ignored them and walked as if he knew where he was going.

He stepped into the vestibule of the building, under the white light, and started climbing the concrete-slab steps. The address for the woman put the apartment on the top floor. He didn't bother looking for a buzzer. He wanted to surprise her.

Andreas noticed only two apartments per floor. That meant several rooms for each apartment. He wondered if someone else lived with her. That could be a problem. Just one of many things that could go wrong.

Andreas was at her door. Time to decide. He felt his crotch. That's where he hid his gun in an American-designed holster that fit around his hips under his jeans and held the gun flat against his family jewels.

He listened for a sound but heard nothing. He knocked lightly. 'Anna.' He whispered the word.

No answer. He knocked slightly harder and whispered again, 'Anna.'

He heard something move inside. He listened. The sound came toward the door.

'Anna.' He whispered without knocking.

He heard a sleepy, 'Who is it?'

'Andreas.'

'Andreas who?'

'From the other night.'

'I don't know you.' The voice sounded more slurred than sleepy.

'Sure you do. We met at the Angel Club.' He braced for a reaction. None came. 'Anna, open up. You know who I am.'

She practically yelled, 'Leave, or I'll call the police!'

She must be panicked, he thought. That was about the worst possible thing she could have said if the guy at the door was involved in the murder. 'Bingo, my love, you guessed who it is.' He no longer whispered. 'Look through your peephole at my ID.'

He heard her moving away from the door. 'Get back here.' It was his official, cop voice. 'If you don't cooperate, in five minutes I'll have cops all over this place, and you know what that means.' Andreas held his breath and stepped to the side of the door just in case something other than an eyeball aimed through the peephole. He heard her step forward and fidget with the cover on the inside of the door. There was no lens, just an opening the size of an egg.

'Where are you, I can't see you?' she said.

He leaned in from the side and saw an almond-shape, light-green eye, then stepped in front of the door and held the badge around his neck up for her to see. 'Andreas Kaldis, Special Crimes Division, Athens Police.' No reason to scare her with his title. 'You know why I'm here, open up.'

He heard a chain fumble along a channel, and the click of a dead bolt. The door opened slightly. He thought of going for his pistol, just in case, but didn't.

A dim light flickered inside, and only the eyes and hair of a woman's head showed around the edge of the door. She looked different from her picture, almost vulnerable. Her hair was auburn. He could tell she'd been crying.

'Come in.' She said the words without looking at him.

Andreas immediately looked behind the door, did a quick scan of the room, and opened the only closet in it. There was no one else there, at least in that room. A well-worn gray couch sat against the wall across from the door, just beyond a glass-topped coffee table. Two taverna-style wood and rattan chairs stood on the other side of the table and everything sat on a faded, gray-and-red carpet. Each wall had a picture of a different saint. There were two standing lamps in the room but the only light came from a television flickering at the near end of the couch. The sound was off.

'How many rooms in here?'

'Huh?'

She was out of it. 'How many rooms in this apartment?'

'Uh, this one… a bedroom… bathroom… the kitchen.' She couldn't seem to concentrate.

'Anyone else in here with you?'

'Just Pedro.'

Andreas reached inside the front of his pants and gripped the butt of his gun. 'Pedro, get out here. Now!'

'Shhh.' She put a finger to her lips. 'You'll wake him up.'

'Get him out here.' He was in no mood to negotiate.

'He's a baby.' She gestured for him to follow her to the bedroom.

Cautiously, Andreas studied the bedroom from the doorway. Sure enough, there was a baby, probably a six-month old, asleep in the crib. He pointed to the crib. 'Stand next to him and don't move.' He checked the bedroom's two closets and under the bed. Then the other rooms and anywhere else someone could hide.

He learned three things from his search. One, no one else was living in the apartment; two, the apartment was smaller than he expected because it had an outdoor deck off the living room; and three, the place was impeccably clean and tidy. Whatever else she was, Anna Panitz took care of her place.

And, now that he was relaxed, at least a bit, he could tell she took damn good care of herself, too. Even in dim light, she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Probably in her early twenties, about five-foot-eight, with a thin but full-breasted, absolutely stunning figure; one he kept seeing more of each time she moved, more like flowed, around the living room. She wore a man's light-blue cotton shirt, buttoned only to her navel. He could see her breasts and that her nipples were pink, for she wore no bra. Then she turned and bent to pick up a rattle and he saw everything else, for she wore no panties. His holster suddenly was quite uncomfortable, almost painful. But he didn't tell her to button up.

He gestured for her to sit on the couch. He sat directly across from her on one of the chairs. He had to regain his focus. She started rocking back and forth, as if trying to hold back tears, opening and closing her legs as she rocked. Andreas moved his chair so that he saw her only from the side. He'd seen a lot of naked women in his life, certainly during his time on Mykonos. Some were as stunning as this one, but there are certain women who, for reasons a man can never figure out, stop your heart with just a look. It wasn't as if she were trying to seduce him. She was dressed this way when he pressured his way into her apartment, and she was crying before he got there.

He was about to ask what was bothering her when she saved him the trouble.

'That poor boy, that poor boy.' She was crying. A photograph of Sotiris Kostopoulos was on the television screen. 'I knew I shouldn't have, I knew it.'

He let her go on. Silence often made people talk more than they should. Besides, the confession was dampening his desire and making his pants a lot more comfortable. She spoke for about thirty minutes, sobbing and, at times, pacing. He stayed focused as best he could during the pacing moments.

Two guys had knocked on her door one day, just as he had. She had no idea who they were, but they were the same two who ended up with her in the club. They said she was recommended by a friend and asked if she wanted to make five hundred euros to get someone out of a club and into a parking lot. She needed the money. It was tough working three jobs without papers, and the baby didn't make it any easier. They never said what they wanted with the mark and she never asked. They weren't the type to answer questions or take kindly to anyone who asked. She figured he probably owed them money and at most they'd rough him up.

She had no idea who the mark was until the two pointed him out in the club. When she saw the target was a boy she said, 'No way.' They told her either she went through with it, or her baby would take his place.

She started to cry, 'What could I do, I had no choice.'

Andreas said nothing.

Once she got the boy out in the parking lot, Sotiris was so busy feeling her up against a car that he never saw them coming. Whatever was on the rag they held against his face knocked him right out. Real professionals. She wanted nothing more to do with them, ever. They didn't have to tell her what would happen if she ever remembered a thing – both to her and her baby. That was the last she saw or heard from them and had no idea how to find them. They always called her and always spoke in Greek, although they weren't Greek. Probably from the Balkans. She guessed someone from one of her day jobs gave them her address. None of her johns knew where she lived.

'I'm strictly an I'll-come-visit-you sort of girl.' She smiled and shrugged.

Andreas nodded. He hadn't said much. Too many emotions were distracting his thoughts. She's a hooker. Involved in a murder. Okay, probably not any more than she said. Men got seriously involved with hookers all the time, but not ones from Filis. They fell for the high-priced call girls, ones who turned tricks for the rich and married. Some even hooked their johns into marriage.

He knew he was trying to justify to his mind what was going on in his pants.

Anna stood up and walked to where he was sitting. She smelled of flowers. 'Would you like something to drink?'

'No, thank you.'

She strode into the kitchen and came back with two glasses and a half-empty bottle of white wine. She waved the glasses. 'Just in case. Let's sit outside.'

He didn't object.

The deck ran the length of the apartment and was about half as wide as the living room. Green plastic sheeting stood at the edge of the roof. It wasn't pretty, but practical. It gave privacy and a sense of being surrounded by nothing but sky, away from the lives being lived below. It was a place of sanctuary in the midst of chaos.

She sat on a cushion and told him to sit on the one next to her. Again, he didn't object. She took a sip from her glass, poured wine into a second glass and handed it to him. Andreas took a sip and thought to be careful how much he drank, then took another. She began telling him the story of her life: surviving war in the Balkans, looking for work, tying up with the wrong guy, fleeing him and her country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was not a new story. But he listened, his eyes never off of her.

It was an unusually warm night and the bottom of Anna's shirt was well above her hips for most of the first bottle of wine, and all of the second. She left to find a third. When she walked back onto the deck she was completely naked. Andreas tried to think of something, anything, to maintain control. No tattoos anywhere, rare these days, was what came to mind, and that hardly was the sort of thought to help.

Anna plopped down next to him, smiled, and poured both of them more wine. 'I decided what's the use, we both know where this is headed.' She picked up her glass to take a sip with one hand, and with the other patted the inside of his thigh dangerously close to what Andreas had been struggling to keep under control.

'Excuse me, I need to hit the bathroom.'

She looked at him as if she knew that wasn't his reason.

Inside, he stood facing the mirror. Andreas knew he should leave, but… He walked back to the doorway and stood staring at her. She seemed to be dozing on the pillows. He turned and left, saying nothing.

He'd respect her wishes on how best to say goodbye.