Jeffrey Siger - Mykonos After Midnight

“You mean like casino employees jumping out of windows in what are called ‘suicides’?” said Kouros.

“You got it. Those boys play for keeps. So, unless you’re prepared to play by their rules, stay away.”

“Sounds like good advice,” said Kouros.

“It’s the same advice as I gave Christos.”

Andreas leaned in. “Christos Vasilakis?”

Lefteris nodded. “He came to me about a year ago. He remembered that I’d negotiated a lease modification to operate the hotel as a casino and wanted to know if I’d be willing to go partners with him if he could get a license from the ministry of finance.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I said no. I’m not a fool. Christos and I were friends since he came to the island. The only way he’d be able to pull that off would be by squeezing some very serious balls. I wanted no part of that sort of aggravation at this point in my life. Besides, I took it more as a big show for his putana girlfriend.”

Andreas cleared his throat. “She was with Christos when he talked to you about getting a license to turn the hotel into a casino?”

Lefteris nodded. “Tits and all.”

Don’t fret, get wet, lay a bet.

***

Andreas and Kouros walked along the harborfront. It was filled with tourists speaking every language but Greek. Still, the two men spoke quietly, just in case Greek might be a second language for some.

“Son of a bitch. He’s planning to go into the casino business,” said Kouros.

Andreas nodded. “It all fits. Ties everything together. Christos planned on using his files to extort a license for a casino on Mykonos. The girlfriend passed the idea on to Sergey, he went to Teacher for financing, and here we are. Two bodies later and Sergey’s on the verge of bringing Russian gangsterism to Mykonos.”

“As tough as Greek bad boys like to think they are, the Russians will chew them up. Wholly different rules. No one, not a child, mother, you name it, is off limits.”

“And once here, they’ll want a piece of everything they can get their hands on,” said Andreas. “Those big clubs with bullet-proof rooms for protecting all that cash they generate each night will need tanks to hold off the Russians.”

“Las Vegas may not be a bad comparison for the way Mykonos could end up. I hear it’s surrounded by desert filled with never-to-be-discovered bodies. Mykonos has the Aegean.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t go that way.”

“What’s to stop it? If all it takes is money to do whatever you want, those with the most get to call the shots,” said Kouros.

Andreas put his arm around Kouros’ shoulder. “If you’re right, there’s nothing you or I can do to affect the end of that story; it’s all up to the Mykonians. But there is something you and I can do about one miserable motherfucker named Sergey.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Not quite sure yet, it’s percolating, but whatever it is will require us back in Athens. Time to head home.”

“Before lunch?”

Andreas smiled. “Who’s buying?”

“Spiros.”

“Good, I know the perfect place.”

***

Sergey watched the two cops leave the hotel gardens and walk along the road toward town. He’d sent Wacki away ten minutes before.

He clenched the curtain in his fist as he stared out the window. All that rat-faced fool ever wanted to do was gossip. He couldn’t be trusted. He knew Wacki was aching to see him fail. It was the nature of his kind. Sergey couldn’t risk involving Wacki or any of his people again in anything serious. They were useless. He must return to using those he could rely upon to do as they were told.

Sergey unclenched his fist, stepped back from the curtain, and looked at the phone.

He wondered if he should ask Teacher to find the two men he’d told to disappear? The fates knew he was wrong before. Yes, that’s why they didn’t allow him to find and eliminate them. The fates looked after him. They always did.

***

Teacher hung up the phone. Sergey seemed so cheerful. Was he mad or just trying to please her? He said, “All is going well,” “Right on schedule,” “Nothing to worry about,” “The license will be ours soon.”

Such confidence.

But then came the real reason for his call. He wanted her to find the killers of Christos, to bring them to Athens. She thought he would want them eliminated. But he said, “No.” Surely he knew the risk in their returning to Greece.

It spoke of desperation. That was not good. Desperation led to misjudgments.

A misjudgment at this moment could be fatal. No gambling meant no international money crowd. The sex, the drugs, the party atmosphere would not be enough to draw them away from other places offering the same. They needed the magic of a casino to bring it all together.

She clenched her fist. Without that casino license her plans were ruined. She would be trapped in this life for the rest of her days.

She looked at the photograph of the young girl on her desk and relaxed her hand.

Am I desperate? Have I misjudged?

***

Halfway to Ano Mera, just beyond the island’s garbage dump and overlooking the wind and kite surfers’ Shangri-la of Ftelia Bay, sat what many Mykonians viewed as the most blatant example of how far their island had gone in the wrong direction: A strip club with signage leaving nothing to the imagination about what was available inside for a price.

“I still don’t understand how that place stays open,” said Kouros.

“Of course you do.”

“Okay, but how do they get away with putting up signs like that on an island with fourteen hundred churches?”

“Maybe that’s why there are so many churches. There’s a lot of sinning to atone for going on in places like that.”

Kouros laughed. “Where are we headed?”

“My favorite place. Fokos Beach.”

“Great. I haven’t been there in years. Could use a trip back to old Mykonos after all this dark side shit we’ve been putting up with.”

“Aha, the true danger of a cop’s life. We see the worst and wonder if there is any better.”

A few minutes later they entered Ano Mera and took the second left, just before a tiny square. They followed a paved road that narrowed down to barely a lane and a half as it wove between borders of old low and new high stone walls. Beyond the walls, beige-brown fields and pastures ran off in all directions toward hills of still different shades of brown, peppered everywhere with tiny white churches, old homes, and new construction.

After about a mile the road turned to dirt, widened to two lanes, and ran north along a valley floor beside a mile-long rainwater reservoir. The valley’s brown-gray hillsides were veined with old stone walls and filled with wild rosemary, savory, thyme, and goats. The only signs of man were power lines along the road and a modern windmill perched on a hilltop off to the east, generating power to operate the reservoir.

Anywhere but on an Aegean island one would marvel at the deep blue of the man-made lake, but on Mykonos it literally paled in comparison to the sea.

“The natural beauty of this island is extraordinary.”

Andreas nodded.

The road made a wide arc to the right, and just before turning sharply left Andreas slowed by a man and boy fishing in the water.

“Nice of you not to coat them with dust from the road.”

“I didn’t want you to miss this.”

As Andreas made the swing to the left the far end of the reservoir came into view.

“What the hell?”

Andreas didn’t have to ask what had caught Kouros’ attention. “That’s about what I thought you’d say when I heard you hadn’t been out here for a while.”

Hovering above the end of the reservoir, as if devouring the hillsides beneath them, loomed a mass of white villas.