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

6

The street was deserted, except for a few mangy-looking characters lurking around a doorway across the street from her building. Must be looking to pick off a quick score, some straggler heading home still in the glow of blissful, oblivious passion. Take a shot at me assholes, Andreas thought. I need to vent. He stared at them, daring them to try, but they looked away.

He started to cross to where he left the motorbike, glancing left and right as he did. He took another step then paused again and looked back to his left, away from where he parked. Someone was there who shouldn't be. He stepped back onto the curb and walked over to a beat-up, white Fiat. He studied the dozing driver, then pounded twice on the roof. 'Open up.'

The driver jerked awake and did as he was told.

'Chief.'

Andreas got in. 'Get me out of here.' Screw the bike, he thought, let someone steal it all over again.

Neither looked at the other.

'Drop me at home.' Andreas needed a shower and a few hours' sleep. He stared out the windshield. There was a paper on the dash. It was a police vehicle-impound form. Kouros had shopped for his ride there, too. 'Anything you want to say?' Andreas said it flatly, still looking straight ahead.

'No, sir.'

Andreas looked at him. 'For Christ's sake, Yianni, say something.'

'She was the greatest piece of ass I ever saw, and you're not the first cop to stumble.'

Andreas didn't respond, just turned his head and looked out the side window. What was there to say? That he didn't have sex, just listened to a hooker tell her life story? To a cop that would sound worse, at least dumber, than whatever Kouros was thinking. No one would believe him anyway. He couldn't believe it himself.

'Besides, you're my boss, what the hell do you want me to say? That "every crooked politician, influence peddler and bad guy in Greece would kill for proof of what you just did. You'd be their forever get-of-jail-free card. Or ruined."'

Andreas nodded but kept looking out the window. 'In other words, if I weren't your boss, you'd say I must be out of my mind.'

'No, sir, "out of your fucking mind," sir.'

'Well, thank you for not saying that and-' turning to look at him, 'for watching my back.'

Kouros nodded. 'I spoke to the other Angel Club employees, but they gave me nothing.' A few seconds later he added, 'So, Chief, did you get anything interesting tonight?'

Andreas gave him a sharp look, then a grin. 'Cute, very cute. Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Our likely killers aren't Greek, but probably from one of our Balkan neighbors. I think someone from one of the places she works set her up. She waitresses at coffee shops over by the Polytechnic University.' He pointed out the window.

'Those places where anarchists and communists merrily plot away together at creating their grand new world?'

Andreas nodded. 'Yes, those. Never quite understood how anarchists and communists find common ground. One's dead-set against government, other's all for it.'

'That's easy, Chief, they share the same public tit.'

'Now, now, Yianni, let's not let our personal feelings enter into this.' Andreas was smiling.

'Yeah, you're right, Chief, I should be honored at the opportunity to bust my ass at this job every day so that some asshole who passes a national exam can stay in university forever and the state pays for it, even if the bastard never passes a course or goes to a single class.' He was worked up, but then again, so were a lot of people on both sides of that issue.

'Yianni, whoa. Not all of them are like that.'

'Yeah, but I'm still paying for the ones who are… and the ones whose deep fucking thoughts get them thinking up new reasons to riot and throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at us.' He was squeezing the steering wheel. 'Then they run back to their universities to hide, so we can't grab their asses.'

That part bothered Andreas too. A law, enacted as the result of Greece's experience under the dictatorship of 1967 to 1974, provided that police could not enter university grounds, no matter what the reason. Needless to say, a lot of folks, students and others, some literally wearing masks, took advantage of that sanctuary for many varied and at times violent criminal purposes. They'd do their business in cafes and bars bordering universities, then scoot like rabbits back to campus when police showed up. And they got away with it, just like the veteran of the 1973 demonstrations legend had, still living in the basement of the university where it all started, producing Molotov cocktails for new generations of demonstrators.

'Relax, we have to be nice to those guys. They're our only chance of getting anywhere with this.'

Kouros squeezed the steering wheel twice more, then let out a breath. 'So, what about Anna?'

'What do you mean, "What about Anna?"'

'Chief, she's involved in the murder. Shouldn't we bring her in?'

'And achieve what? Keep her locked up so she can't get away? Fine, if we want a quick collar for the newspapers, sure. But what's the charge going to be? I don't see any kind of murder conviction in this for her, do you?'

Kouros gestured no. 'Not on what we have now.'

'Right, we need more. And if we arrest her, she's not going to give us any more than she already has, and everyone tied into this will disappear off the face of the earth. If they haven't already. As long as she's walking around there's a chance someone might show up.' He stared straight ahead. 'But have someone keep an eye on her. She's our best link so far to the two who probably killed the boy.'

'Who should we use?'

'Check with the office to see who's available.'

'I'm available nights.' Kouros grinned.

Andreas did not return the smile. He wanted the subject to go away.

Kouros stopped in front of Andreas' apartment building.

As Andreas was getting out he said, 'Pick me up tomorrow morning at eight. Don't eat breakfast. We have a lot of coffee shops to visit.'

Kouros nodded. 'Hopefully with ugly waitresses.'

Andreas slammed the door. Maggie wanted to hide from the phone. It hadn't stopped ringing all morning. Someone tipped off the press that Chief Andreas Kaldis had assumed personal charge of the investigation, and now every journalist in Greece wanted to speak to him, not some anonymous talking head out of media affairs. It had been years since so many suitors were after her favors, and their general approach for getting her to give up her boss was almost the same as that once aimed at her virtue: 'I promise to be gentle.' They had no more success now than then.

She had spoken to Andreas twice this morning, and his instructions were firm: 'All inquiries must be directed to media affairs, no exceptions.' Still, she wondered if she should call him a third time, because now Greece's most watched, vicious, scandal-mongering, and feared television journalist, Marios Tzoli, wanted to speak with him. What concerned Maggie was that he personally placed the call. Big television egos didn't call for routine interviews. She'd better warn Andreas that Marios must sense blood in the water or sex anywhere. So far that morning they'd had two breakfasts, but Andreas couldn't tell you what he'd eaten if you asked him while he was chewing it. He and Kouros didn't say much more than 'pass the sugar.' Sort of like an old married couple dining alone with nothing left to say on any subject. The only interruptions were two calls from Maggie.

It was a little before eleven, the heart of morning classes at the university. That meant local coffee shops filled with students who knew better than to corrupt their original thinking with some lecturer's old ideas and historical biases. Whatever they might need to supplement their innate understanding of the world could be found elsewhere, like online. After all, it was life that mattered, not classes. Besides, if teachers really knew what they were talking about, they'd be doing something else.

Andreas and Kouros approached the front door of the third of Anna's places of employment. They'd also stopped at two where she didn't work, to keep anyone from wondering why only her jobs attracted cops. There was no time for an undercover operation, and so they took the opposite approach: two bull-in-a-china-shop cops looking for a quick score off a couple of drug dealers, a regrettably routine pastime for some of their not-so-honest brethren on the force. So far, their performances netted them only blank stares when they flashed the photo of two guys partially blocking the logo of a notorious drug-trafficking nightclub.

It was a nondescript place in a nondescript building filled with young men trying in the most nondescript way to look anything but. A coffee house of the post-World War II beatnik era as envisioned by twenty-first-century youth: pale orange-yellow walls with chair railings – unusual for Athens – wooden floors, unmatched hardback chairs for twenty-four, and scraped and burned two-top wooden tables covered with coffee, cigarettes, and cell phones. After dusk, there was barely enough lighting to see.

Kouros held the door open for Andreas. Every eye in the place fixed on them. They were about as obvious and welcome as tigers at a tea party.

A carefully framed poster of Che hung behind the service counter alongside a six-foot-long by three-foot-tall unframed mirror. The mirror gave the place a look of greater size than it had, the poster an impression of greater meaning. What looked to be the artistic contributions of its customers occupied the other walls, with no discernable curator or standard for what could be posted. The only apparent rule was not to cover over a colleague's contribution, no matter how artistically constructive such an act might be.

It was exactly the sort of place you'd expect to find bordering Exarchia Square, the symbol of Greece's student revolution and epicenter for its current revolutionaries. The media unwittingly had helped make it that way. Greek children grew up watching Greek television showing Greek students wearing Greek masks protesting against Greek authority by throwing Greek rocks (and Molotov cocktails) at Greek police. And virtually always, in one way or another, Exarchia was part of the story. The place had become a romanticized land of Oz for disillusioned and rebellious young. Not many from the old days still were around, though some remained geographically close by, just on the other side of the hill in Kolonaki, but in every other respect far removed from the revolution.

Andreas stood in the doorway. At first, he looked to be staring at the walls, but he quickly fixed his gaze on the faces gathered around the table closest to the door. Then his eyes moved on to those at the next table. He didn't say a word, just studied one face after another, lightly drumming the fingers of his right hand on a manila envelope held in his left as he did.

'What do you want?' said the man behind the counter.

Andreas turned to face the man and smiled. 'Good morning, sir. And how are you this fine day?'

The man did not return the smile. 'Like I said, what do you want?'

'Is this your place?'

'Yeah. Who's asking?'

Andreas walked to the counter, leaned over, and motioned with his right index finger for the man to come closer. The man hesitated and Andreas wiggled his finger again. The man took a step forward and leaned in.

Andreas whispered, 'Police. I need your help with something.'

The owner's eyes darted to his left, then just as quickly back. Andreas didn't turn to find where he'd looked, he could see in the mirror behind the counter that it was to a man sitting alone at a table in the rear. He wasn't one in the photo. He looked half their size, probably five-six, 140 pounds at most. His dark hair was long in the student fashion of the day, eyes dark, skin relatively light, with a razor-thin wisp of a beard running from the middle of his lower lip to the base of his chin. He was in jeans and a plain white tee shirt, nondescript except for one thing: his eyes were studying Andreas in the mirror.

'Yeah, what?' The owner didn't whisper.

Andreas kept whispering. 'I need to know if you've ever seen these two men.' Andreas pulled a photograph out of the envelope and placed it on the counter between them.

Andreas looked back at the owner. 'So, do you recognize either of them?'

'No, never saw them before.'

Andreas smiled. 'Yeah, sure.' He patted the bar, and turned around. 'Hi folks, hate to interrupt your morning coffee, but I have a question to ask you. Have any of you ever seen either of these men?' With that he walked from table to table, pressing the photo in front of every face. Most immediately shook their heads no. A few looked more intently at the photos before saying 'no.'

Andreas spoke to the man at the rear table last.

'So, my friend, have you ever seen either of these men?' Andreas handed him the photograph.

He stared at it for a moment as if studying it, then handed it back. 'No, sir, not that I recall.'

'Thank you,' said Andreas courteously smiling as he put the photo back into the envelope.

Andreas turned and said to the owner. 'I guess that's it.' He started toward the door, then paused. 'But, since we're here, we might as well earn our pay. Yianni, check the tables, and I want IDs on everyone.'

By checking the tables he was telling the owner that there better be appropriate receipts for everything in front of every customer. It was a must for any business hoping to avoid stiff penalties from the tax authorities, or off-the-record gratuities to any who caught them.

Andreas heard a muttered 'bastards,' from behind the bar.

Kouros pulled a receipt out of a shot glass. Most places used them to hold receipts. 'It's from yesterday.'

Andreas looked at the owner and waved his finger at him. 'Tsk, tsk, you are in trouble my friend. Our government doesn't like people trying to cheat it. The proper authorities should hear about this.' Andreas made it sound like the shakedown was coming. 'Anybody else work here?'

'No.' The owner was fuming.

'Just you?'

'I'm a poor man, with a lousy business, I can't afford help.'

Andreas walked behind the counter and started opening drawers.

'What are you doing?' shouted the man. 'Who do you think you are?' This time he cursed Andreas aloud.

Andreas ignored him and kept opening drawers until he found what he wanted.

He dropped a pair of women's shoes and a waitress' apron on the counter. 'Let me guess, you wear these when you want to express your feminine side.' Then he dropped a box of tampons and a lipstick beside them. 'Dare I ask what do you do with these?'

The man was clenching and unclenching his fists.

'Now, why would a nice man like you lie about working alone? Could it be that she-' picking up the apron '-is illegal?' He patted the man on the shoulder. 'So, once again you're trying to steal from our government?'

A boy got up and headed toward the door. Kouros gestured for him to sit down.

'But I have a class.'

Kouros repeated the gesture and the boy sat down.

Andreas gave an I-have-your-ass-now look to the owner. 'Unless you want this place shut down and more problems than you can imagine, I want you to get everybody who works for you over here now. I want these two bastards' and slapped the envelope with the photograph across the man's chest; then he leaned over and whispered in the man's ear, 'so I can get back to making some real money and you can continue doing whatever the hell it is you do.'

The owner was nervous and blurted out, 'There's only one girl, she works part time.'

Someone cleared a throat. 'Officer.'

Andreas turned and smiled. 'Yes, sir?'

It was the man at the rear table. 'I may know those men after all.'

'Really?' Andreas' sounded sincerely surprised, or at least he hoped he did.

'Yes, all this excitement must have jarred my memory. I seem to remember seeing them before.'

Andreas walked over and sat down at the man's table. 'Sorry, sir, I didn't get your name.'

'Mavrakis. Demosthenes Mavrakis.'

Andreas nodded, as if truly thankful for the man's sudden recollection and utterly oblivious to his undoubted interest in stopping the owner from giving away information that could lead them to Anna. 'So, who are they?'

'I don't know their names, sir, I just saw them around the neighborhood.'

'Ever see them in here?'

'No, sir, they're not the coffee shop type, if you know what I mean.' He smiled.

Andreas smiled back. 'Yeah, sure. So, what do you mean by "around the neighborhood"?'

He suddenly looked uneasy, but in a way that made Andreas sense it was because that's how he was expected to look and not because he actually was. 'You know, the kind of places where students go to get things.'

'"Things?" What sorts of "things"?' He already knew the answer was drugs but sensed he better keep playing dumb.

Demosthenes rolled his eyes. 'Come on, officer, you know what I'm talking about.'

Andreas smiled as if he suddenly saw the light. 'Yeah, that fits with why we're looking for these guys. So, how come you know so much about the neighborhood?'

'I go to school here.'

'You look a little old for the university.'

He shrugged. 'It is what it is.'

Andreas smiled again. 'Yeah, sure is. So, where can we find these guys?'

'I don't know. I noticed them about a week ago and haven't seen them in a couple of days. They weren't the kind of guys I wanted to get to know.'

Andreas nodded. 'Ever speak to them?'

'No.'

'Know anyone who spoke to them?'

He gestured no.

'So where and when did you first see them?' Before he could answer, Andreas put up his hand to stop him and said to Kouros, 'Yianni, once you get their ID information, let them go.' There was a rush for the door.

'So, where were we?'

'You wanted to know where and when I first saw them.'

Andreas nodded. 'Yeah, that's right. Okay, just tell me everything you remember about them.'

They spent a half-hour together. Andreas never once tried to trip him up or show interest in anything other than the men in the photograph. He pressed him to remember every physical detail about them. Not because he needed that information, he already had it from the club's videos, but he wanted to make sure Demosthenes wasn't just saying he saw them. He described the two perfectly, as if he realized it was a test.

By his questions, Andreas let enough slip out for Demosthenes to piece together that someone in the Angel Club fingered the two as drug dealers. That way, anyone who knew the truth would think that whoever the cops were squeezing for busts at the club got a real break when two strangers turned up masquerading as club employees and spared the snitch the risk of turning in any of the club's real dealers.

In exchange, Demosthenes gave Andreas absolutely nothing of value. The places where he claimed to see them were all very public: a subway station, open park, and fast-food restaurant; each was extremely busy and notorious for drug trafficking. Even if what he said were true, and Andreas didn't believe him, there was little chance of finding them that way. All he'd really given them was a grand, old-time wild-goose chase; but Andreas sensed there was more to this guy than he was letting on, and he didn't want to risk spooking him until he knew what it was.

Maybe they'd get lucky and find something after they lifted his prints off the photograph. Demosthenes and Andreas were the only ones who touched it, and Andreas was careful. All Andreas was certain of was that Demosthenes didn't want cops finding Anna, but was that to protect her or the two gorillas? After all, she was illegal. From the way the owner looked at Demosthenes when Andreas said he was a cop, he might be part of the local protection racket paid by places like this to keep from being hassled. But he didn't seem the physical sort. Then, again, he was the first to give them anything on the gorillas. Maybe he's the one who connected them to Anna? What the hell, he'd give Anna a call, just to see what she knew about Demosthenes. Demosthenes watched the two cops leave. Then looked at the owner still standing behind the counter.

The owner spoke quickly. 'I'm sorry Demon, I didn't mean to involve you in this.'

Demon was what everyone called him. He motioned for the owner to come to his table, and the man hurried over as if summoned by a king from his throne. Perhaps he was, for no matter how busy the place might be, and though Demon rarely was there, no one sat at that table but Demon. Complete control over a single, small table in a twenty-foot by thirty-foot university coffee house might not seem like much to most, but it stood as an ever-present symbol to the Exarchia community of Demon's influence. But he wasn't a king; he was an anarchist. Or was he a communist? No one knew for sure, and Demon liked it that way.

'What did the cop say to you?'

'Nothing. They were crooked, looking for a payoff from drug dealers.'

'I see.' That's what he'd thought and why he sent them chasing after two guys who no longer existed. At least not in Greece.

'And what did he ask about Anna?' He doubted she was smart enough to link him to the two guys, but he couldn't risk the cops finding her. She might say something to get them making the connection.

'She never came up. Honest, Demon, he was only interested in a payoff.'

But could he be sure of that? Things often were not what they seemed. Himself for example. He was far older than he looked, far less educated than he put on, and if what he'd been told countless times were true, far brighter than practically anyone on the planet.

He stared at the owner. Demon had carefully kept to the shadows, quietly amassing power and secretly applying it in whatever measure he deemed necessary. Now this man, this inept man, had caused his name to fall into the hands of the police.

The owner bit at his lip and looked down at the floor, but he did not move from the spot where he stood. Demon did not show his anger. He still needed him. For over a decade Demon had been amassing an army of minds and wills from their most fertile source: children recently liberated from their parents, filled with ideals and burning to change a world their parents had so screwed up. His gift was not in knowing such ready converts existed. Politicians knew that for ages. It was in picking those who would do anything for a cause they believed in, and remain committed to him long after their university days were over.

And this coffee shop was where he found many of them.

Demon smiled. 'It was not your fault, you did the right thing.'

Whatever you wanted or needed to hear Demon told you. He had a knack for that and never worried about the truth. It was far too cumbersome a convention for his goals. Whether or not that made him a clinical sociopath was of no concern to Demon. He did what had to be done.