Jeffrey Siger - Sons of Sparta

“I work with these men.”

“My name is Andreas Kaldis. My condolences on your loss.”

“ Ta sillipitiria mou . I’m Tassos Stamatos.”

“Thank you. Nice to meet you. If you’ll excuse me for five minutes, I’m right in the middle of cooking.” She pointed to the living room. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. Yianni knows where the drinks are if you’d like something.”

“Thank you,” the three said in unison.

She hurried off into the kitchen.

The men looked at each other, went into the living room, and took care to sit so that each faced a different direction from the others. No one said a word. They listened to Calliope working in the kitchen.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Another five.

“Sorry to have taken so long.” Calliope swung into the room carrying a large tray filled with plates of food. Kouros jumped up to take the tray from her and placed it on a coffee table in front of the couch.

“Since I was already cooking for myself I decided why not make enough for everyone?”

“That’s very thoughtful, but we’re really not hungry,” said Kouros.

“Since when has that excuse ever worked on a Greek woman serving you food?”

Tassos smiled. “It’s never worked for me.” He picked up a fork, latched onto a stuffed grape leaf, and took a bite. “Hmmm, this could be the best dolmadakia I’ve ever tasted.”

“Flatterer,” she said smiling. “So, have another.”

“I will.”

“Cousin, we’re here to talk to you about something very serious.”

“I’m not surprised. This house isn’t exactly the place I’d expect you to bring your friends for a good time in the Mani.”

“Come, sit down. Please.” Andreas pointed to a place on the couch across from him and next to Kouros. He waited until she’d sat. “It’s about your father’s murder.”

“Have you caught that bastard Niko?”

Andreas nodded. “Yes. We found him with your brother’s help.”

“Good. May he rot in hell.”

“He’s told us quite a story.” Tassos shifted in his chair. “He said that you’re the one who arranged for Babis to kill your father.”

“ That lying bastard .”

“Calliope,” said Kouros quietly. “He said you gave him a photograph of Uncle and Stella.”

She dropped her head and clasped her hands together. “I guess I could deny that and there would be no way of proving that I did.” She paused for a moment and looked up. “But I did give it to him.”

Kouros pressed the fingers of his right hand tightly against his forehead. “How could you have done this to your father? To your family?”

Calliope looked at Kouros. “I didn’t do it to hurt Father. I did it to help him. To save him. It was my duty.”

Andreas moved forward in his seat and braced himself to react should she make any sudden move.

Tassos scanned the room to make sure they were alone.

“What are saying?” asked Kouros. “That you arranged for your father to be murdered to save him? Are you crazy?”

She looked down at her hands. “I am the Maniot woman of this family. Not my aunt or sister who live in Athens. I am responsible for deciding who risks death to save our family. If my plan had been followed, no one would have died. Certainly not father. Babis’ target was the Ukrainian.”

“The Ukrainian in the land deal with your father?” said Andreas.

She nodded. “He would destroy our family’s legacy. We’ve lived on this land for centuries. He wanted to destroy it to run his guns. His drugs. His women. Father’s plan for assuring peace in our family came at too great a cost.”

“And you had a plan to ruin the deal?” said Andreas.

She swallowed. “Yes. Convince the Ukrainian that he and his project were not welcome in the Mani. Warn him that great harm would come to him if he persisted. But I could not carry out my plan myself. I needed help, yet I knew if I went to anyone connected to my father they would tell him of it immediately.”

“And so?” said Tassos.

“Father always said you could deal with your worst enemies as long as they saw profit in it. So I thought, who would never speak to my father but would want to stop the Ukrainian as much as I? The obvious answer was Niko, the Ukrainian’s competitor in the arms business.”

“How did you know these things?” said Tassos.

“I run this house. What don’t I know?”

“How did you connect with Niko?” said Kouros.

“A friend’s cousin is married to Niko. I arranged for the friend to set up a meeting with him in Kalamata. I went there and told him I had valuable information helpful to his business. He asked what I wanted in return and I said ‘elimination of our mutual problem.’ I told him my plan. He said he’d think about it and get back to me.”

Kouros drew in and let out a breath.

“Two days later he called and we met again. He said he liked my plan, but there was a problem. If he were seen to have played a hand in it he’d be at war with both the Ukrainian and my father. That’s when he proposed Babis. He said Babis’ relationship with my father gave him the best chance of getting close enough to the Ukrainian to pass along the threat, and with the bad blood between Babis and Niko’s family no one would think Babis was tied to Niko should Babis ever be discovered as behind the threats.”

“The threats were intended for the Ukrainian?” asked Kouros.

“That was my plan.” She bowed her head. “But Niko said there was no way he could think of to get Babis to betray my father. Otherwise he and his family would have tried it long ago.”

She lifted her head and rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I should have realized what that meant, but didn’t. I was obsessed with getting rid of the Ukrainian. And when a few days later Carlos called to say he’d seen my father with Stella, I took it as a sign from above that Babis had been chosen to rid my family of the Ukrainian.” She crossed herself three times.

“That’s when I hit upon the idea of using a photograph of my father and Stella to enrage Babis. Inspire him to take revenge on my father by helping to destroy my father’s plans with the Ukrainian. The obvious twist never occurred to me. All Niko had to do was convince Babis to kill my father instead of frightening the Ukrainian and he’d have it all-the deal dead and revenge on my father. He must have promised Babis forgiveness from his family if Babis made my father’s death look like an accident or, at worst, that someone else was responsible. But I never imagined he would kill my father. Never .”

“What about killing the Ukrainian? Did you ever imagine that?” said Tassos.

She began to sob. “When Father died I was certain he’d been killed by the Ukrainian. That he’d somehow learned of the plot against him, thought my father was behind it, and killed him for it. I thought it was all my fault.”

Her sobs turned to tears and she cried for several minutes.

No one made a move to comfort her.

She looked up. “It was my fault. I need to die.”

Tassos waited until her eyes caught his. “No, my dear, what you need is serious psychiatric help.”

***

That night they drove Calliope to Sparta. They didn’t want to arrest her, nor did they want her wandering free, if only to protect her from herself. They compromised on a charge that didn’t implicate Calliope in her father’s murder, but kept her under a twenty-four-hour suicide watch while awaiting psychiatric evaluation.

Kouros called Mangas to tell him his sister was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and for her own good he’d taken her to Sparta. He made no mention of anything else. That could wait for another time. And he preferred not to be the teller of that tale.