Jeffrey Siger - Sons of Sparta

“Fine, so we’re both warned.”

“I do need the time off.”

“I know. Take what you need. But keep me in the loop. And you’re on duty, not off. The last thing we need down there is a clan war. That part of the Mani is just beginning to get a toehold on tourism and a breakout of vendetta violence could wreck its prospects.”

“Funny you should say that. The reason my uncle wanted to see me yesterday was to tell the family he’d reached a deal to lease out the family property as a big-time resort.”

“Like I said, for everyone’s sake, let’s hope that if your uncle was murdered it’s not tied into a vendetta or likely to start one. But whatever it is, try to wrap it up quickly because I really do need your help with this Crete thing.”

“Mind if I ask you a question, Chief?”

“As if I have a choice.”

“Why are you doing this for Spiros? You know better than anyone that he’ll turn on you faster than a hooker on a nonpaying trick if he thinks it could take the heat off him.”

Andreas nodded. “I made it perfectly clear to him I knew all of that. Though I didn’t put it quite as thoughtfully as you just did.”

“So, like I said, why are you doing this? He’s just sticking you with another mess he can’t get anyone else to touch.”

Andreas spread open his arms. “That’s just the point. If I don’t take it on, who will? We might as well hand over the keys to Greece to the bad guys. As I see it, either I do my job and risk Spiros turning on me, or I resign.” Andreas rubbed at his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. “If I resigned I’d be out of the fight, powerless against the wolves descending on our country in packs. Just the thought of being helpless drives me close to crazy. I’d have to move my family out of Greece to save my sanity. And that’s something I never want to do. So, for now, I risk another betrayal by Spiros as my price for staying in the battle.” Andreas dropped his hand from his eyes and stared out the window. “But if that little bastard tries to screw me this time…”

“We can always call in my cousin.” Kouros smiled.

Andreas chuckled. “Do you want to take anyone with you?”

Kouros gestured no. “It would attract too much attention. Make my cousins think I suspect something might be wrong. I’ll just poke around and try to keep a lid on things until I get a better handle on who might be involved. If I need help, I’ll yell.”

“Don’t be a hero.”

“I know.”

Andreas smiled. “There’s only enough room for one in this unit.”

***

Kouros picked up his mother at her apartment at evening twilight. He’d wanted to leave earlier but she said she needed more time to prepare for the funeral. He knew there was nothing he could say to hurry her along, for in virtually no other aspect of Greek life was the role of women as dominant as in the matter of funerals.

Greek funerals differ from those in other parts of Western Europe, and in the Mani even more so. There, funerals evoked memories of ancient rites and pagan practices followed in the Mani six centuries after the rest of Greece had accepted Christianity in the fourth century.

Greek Orthodox funerals took place as soon as possible after death, usually within a day or so. Generally, the poorer and less educated the family, the greater the intensity of the mourning, drawing anguished female mourners sobbing, crying, shrieking, and wailing into such frenzies that some risked falling in upon the coffin. But in the Mani-perhaps the poorest province of Greece-the women conducted their traditional mourning in a relatively structured manner.

Unlike the uncoordinated dirges and lamentations staged in other parts of Greece, the women of the Mani expressed their mourning in long funeral hymns, guided by a strict poetic meter different from any other Greek rhyme. Mani women improvised their mirologia or “words of lament” while sitting with the body at the home of the deceased, each working herself into a sufficiently emotional state of grief to signal that another should take over. The mirologia employed an ancient literary form, first welcoming the guests, extolling the deceased, the deceased’s children, and the deceased life’s work, and-if killed in a feud-ending in curses and vows of vengeance.

Kouros and his mother wouldn’t make it to Uncle’s home in time for the mirologia . Uncle’s body would spend the night in church and mirologia wouldn’t be said there. He wondered what his mother might have said had she chosen to participate. There was no requirement that she do so, and for someone as important as his uncle, plenty of women would be competing to out-mourn one another.

His mother fell asleep just south of the Corinth canal. Good, he thought. It would be a long day. He wondered if his cousin had any news about Uncle’s car. He thought to call him but that would wake his mother. Besides, no reason to risk winding up his cousin with a phone call. Mangas had promised to do nothing until they’d had the chance to talk after the funeral. A phone call now might give him the opportunity to change their deal.

If Mangas found something wrong with the car, his headstrong temper could send him after an otherwise innocent mechanic. Yet if Kouros told him it might not be the mechanic’s fault, but sabotage, it chanced launching his cousin on a rampage against anyone he might think to blame. Kouros let out a deep breath. And if he mentioned the death threats received by his uncle, it risked stoking unrestrained vendetta violence of the sort his uncle had spent a lifetime trying to avoid.

Kouros needed to get a grip on things quickly. But where to begin? He yawned.

“With staying awake,” he mumbled to himself. He reached for the thermos of coffee his mother had packed for their trip…along with enough food to feed all of the Mani for a week.

God bless mothers.

And heaven help those who dared cross the child of a Mani mother.

***

“ Kalo vradi, Chief Kaldis,” said the doorman at Andreas’ apartment building.

“Good evening, Angelo.”

“Mrs. Kaldis said to tell you that she and your son are at your mother’s house for dinner.”

Which was precisely where Andreas should have been an hour and a half ago. “Thank you.”

He guessed that by now his mother was having so much fun playing with her grandson that she’d probably forgotten all about Tassaki’s AWOL father. Besides, Andreas’ late father had been a cop so his mother was used to her men missing dinners. He doubted his wife would be as forgiving. Andreas wasn’t complaining. As he saw it, Lila Vardi had sacrificed far more than he when she became Mrs. Kaldis. Andreas’ biggest struggle was learning to cope with what it meant to be living in a penthouse apartment on the most prestigious street in Athens, next door to the presidential palace.

The elevator opened into the apartment’s foyer and Andreas walked through the front rooms into the kitchen. He saw a note taped to the refrigerator:

“On the off chance you don’t make it to your mother’s, dinner’s inside.:-) Marietta will warm it up for you. Love, L.”

Perhaps I’ve misjudged her .

He opened the refrigerator door and found his favorite dish: chicken and fresh tomatoes slow cooked in oyvetsi pasta. He put the pot on the black-and-gray counter on the kitchen island, found a fork, and started eating out of the pot.

The man Spiros wanted him to call came from a politically connected family that had skyrocketed to great wealth in the 1980s and remained in orbit ever since. It was rumored he could “fix anything” regardless of the political party in power.

“ Mister Kaldis ,” said a woman in the doorway behind him.