Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

"Don't make me do this, please, sir," he stammered in obvious distress.

"What am I making you do, dimwit?" I don't call him a moron because we say that silently, like conspirators. "For years, you've got by in here through skiving, and I've always turned a blind eye! And once in a blue moon, when I send you on a job and pay your expenses and find you a chick, you start being difficult!"

"I don't want to get into trouble, sir. If anyone sees me and the people upstairs get to hear of it, I'll be in deep shit."

"Why should you get into any trouble? At worst, I'm the one who'll be in trouble for sending you. Or are you afraid that if it gets out, I'll play the fool and blame it all on you?"

"No," he said quickly, but then he began hemming and hawing again. "And then there's my girlfriend. If she finds out I was with another woman, I'll have real problems, and how am I going to explain things to her?"

"Send her to me and I'll give it to her in writing that you went on official business. Now get out of here and don't come back without the information."

He stood there and stared at me like a frightened pup. "Be off with you!" I shouted, and he took to his heels.

I didn't give a shit about the points.

Before going home, I stopped by the bank to get the thirty-five thousand that Adriani had asked me for. I wasn't proposing to give it to her that particular day, but everything had worked out well for me and I was in a good mood. First of all, I was sure about the Albanian. With him, at least, I was in no danger of slipping up. And second, I'd adjusted the report without Ghikas getting wind of it. Of course, the business with Karayoryi was far from foolproof because Thanassis wasn't the smartest guy on two wheels and if he let it slip that it was me who'd sent him to fish for information, Karayoryi would make it front-page news and I'd have a hurricane on my hands. But you can't have all the hatches secured; you have to take the occasional risk.

I had a bank card. It was Adriani's idea. For her own selfish ends, but, anyway, it was convenient for me. At first, she pestered me to open a joint account, but that I wouldn't hear of. I'd have been witless to make her a partner to my money and end up tearing my hair out when there was nothing left in the account. Not that she was a spendthrift, but I decided to leave her on a diet before she could work up an appetite. When she saw that she wasn't getting anywhere, she changed her tune and persuaded me to get a bank card. She thought that she'd be able to discover the code and sneak off with the card to withdraw whatever she wanted, but it never happened. I gave her thirty thousand each week for the housekeeping, and whenever she asked me for more, I let her wait a few days before forking it over. I always gave in, but not before making her life difficult so she wouldn't get carried away. The only thing she'd succeeded in doing was to send me off shopping now and again, supposedly because she hadn't time, so she could put the money she saved to one side.

I put the card into the slot. "Touch here for Greek," the message came on the screen, to show that it was cosmopolitan and I was a peasant. I decided to put one over on it though and touched the second key, which said: "Touch here for English." Not that I. understood everything it said in English, but I knew the sequence of keys blindfolded and I didn't care. It was as though I was repeating the conversation with Thanassis here too, silently, through the eyes: "I'm a moron"-"I know you're a moron." Except that I was the moron now because the machine told me everything I had to do, spelling it out, just in case I didn't understand and flubbed.

I withdrew fifty thousand and went home. Adriani was sitting in her usual spot, in her armchair, with the remote control in her hand. Except that this time it wasn't the policeman she was watching, it was some other guy who'd married the mother and wanted to screw the daughter, but the daughter was having none of it. I stood over her, and, just as every other evening, she was either not aware of me or she simply ignored me. I took the thirty-five thousand, which I'd already counted, out of my pocket, and, without saying a word, I let it fall into her lap. It surprised her, totally absorbed as she was by the daughter and stepfather; the girl was swearing at him, and he, evidently a masochist, was sweet-talking her. Just for a moment Adriani moved her gaze from the screen and stared into her lap. Her left hand suddenly grabbed the five-thousand notes while her right let go of the remote control. She leapt up, and the control fell to the floor.

"Costas, dear!" she cried in delight, "Thank you, darling!" She held me to her and put her lips to my cheek.

On the screen, the daughter slapped her stepfather, and the scene was brusquely concluded. The policeman reappeared and at once began bellowing. But Adriani had forgotten all about this and was holding me tight in her arms as if she already had her hands on the boots. And when she let go of me, she stooped and picked up the control.

"To hell with it. I'm fed up with it. All the same stuff!" she said crossly and pressed the button while looking at me with a crafty smile, as if to say: "You see? If you bought me a pair of boots every day, I'd never watch TV again!"

For the rest of the evening, till it was time for the news bulletin, she hung on to me and her tongue never stopped wagging. She went on and on-about how life had become so much more expensive, and how five years before, a pair of shoes had cost only five or six thousand, whereas now you needed twenty thousand, about the expensive supermarket across the street and how she went to Sklaveni- tis's, which was three blocks away but was cheaper, and how glad she was that Katerina was coming because she missed her terribly. It was all bullshit, wool over my eyes, apart from the Katerina bit. Because she did miss her terribly, as I did. She'd literally wilted since the day Katerina left for Thessaloniki, and lived only for her coming home at Christmas, Easter, and during the summer holidays. The periods between were empty waiting periods that she filled with housework, television, and the little daily games of getting her own back on me.

At nine o'clock, I switched on the television to watch the news, and who should be on but Ghikas. He wasn't at all short, but sitting behind that enormous desk, he was barely visible, like a man drowning, struggling to stay above water. He seemed to be sinking under the microphones. He'd reeled off the summary by heart, without getting stuck anywhere. Kouvelos, our history teacher at high school, would have given him ten out of ten. He said nothing about the five hundred thousand or the van, a sign that he hadn't taken the trouble to read the full account. If the reporters discovered it later, he'd get around it by saying that the investigations were ongoing and he was unable to give any more details.

We lounged around for another two hours, first supper, then the ads with breaks for a film on TV, a bit of chat, and, by eleven, we'd had enough and went to bed. I was already tucked up and ready to prop Liddell amp; Scott on my stomach when Adriani came and lay down next to me. She was wearing a pale blue nightdress with embroidery on the chest. It was virtually transparent, because her white panties shone through underneath. She was ready to reach for her Viper on the bedside table when I put down Liddell amp; Scott and reached for her. I pulled her on top of me with one hand while I thrust the other under her nightdress and began caressing her left leg. I took her by surprise, and, at first, she froze, then she stretched out her arm and began caressing my back, giving me a back massage. It wasn't that I was desperate to make love, but somehow she had to pay me back for the thirty-five thousand and for my making things easy for her. My generosity deserved some reward. My hand moved higher, got as far as the elastic in her panties and tugged at it. She bent her knees slightly to help me, then straightened them again and held them tight together because she knew how I liked to shove my hand between her legs and part them.