Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

The chubby woman came to see me wearing the same striking getup. Except that this time she was wearing shoes, old-fashioned ones with high heels that sagged under her weight so that the heels slid first inward, then outward, as if about to embrace each other, before changing their minds and going their separate ways. "That's him!" she cried as soon as she saw the Albanian. I believed her at once and thanked God that she wasn't my neighbor watching me from morning to night. He was just as she'd described him to me. She'd missed nothing that mattered.

This was why the chief wanted to see me. To ask how the case was going. And Thanassis hadn't brought me my breakfast, because he was certain that once I heard that the chief wanted to see me, I'd drop everything and rush upstairs.

"Your job is to bring me my coffee and croissant. I'll decide when I see the chief," I told him angrily and leaned back into my chair to show him that I had no intention of budging from my desk all morning.

The smile immediately vanished from his face. All his assuredness went out the window. "Yes, sir," he mumbled.

"Well-what are you waiting for?"

He turned on his heel and bolted. I waited a minute or two and then got up to go see the chief. I wouldn't have put it past Thanassis to let it be known that the chief wanted to see me and that I was playing the smart alec. And the chief knew every trick in the book; you had to watch your back with him. Not to mention that he was a bundle of neuroses.

My office was on the third floor, number 321. The office of the chief of security was on the fifth. The elevator usually took five or ten minutes, depending on whether it had decided to get on your nerves. If you got irritated and started pressing the button continually, it could take up to fifteen minutes. You heard it on the second floor, thought it was coming up, and then, without warning, it changed direction and went back down. Or the other way around. It came down to the fourth floor and instead of coming on down, went back up again. Sometimes I'd decide "To hell with it" and take the stairs two at a time, more to blow off steam than because I was in a hurry. At other times, I dug in my heels and reflected that since no one else was in any hurry, I'd have to be insane to rush. They'd even calibrated the elevator doors to open slowly, enough to drive you crazy.

All the big brains are on the fifth floor, either so they can think collectively or so they'll be isolated before they ruin our brains too. It depends on how you look at it. The office of the chief of security is number 504, but he's had the number removed from the door. He considered it demeaning to have a number on his door like in hospitals or hotels. He had a plaque put up in its place: NIKOLAOS GHIKAS-CHIEF OF SECURITY. "In America, there are no numbers on the doors. Just names," he went on saying crossly for a good three months. He said it again and again till he finally had the number removed and his name put in its place. And all because he'd spent six months on a training program with the FBI.

"Go straight in, he's expecting you," said Koula, the policewoman who did the job of his secretary but looked more like a supermodel.

The office was large and bright with a carpeted floor and cur tained windows. They intended to give us all curtains, but the money ran out, so they limited them to the fifth floor. Just inside the door was an oblong conference table with six chairs. The chief was sitting with his back to the window, and his desk must have been all of three yards long. One of those modern ones with metal corners. If you want to get a document lying at either edge of the desk, you need a pair of tongs to reach it.

He looked up at me. "What more on the Albanian?" he said.

"Nothing more, sir. We're still interrogating him."

"Incriminating evidence?" Short sharp questions, short sharp answers; just the basics to show that he's (a) busy as hell, (b) efficient, and (c) direct and to the point. American tricks, we told ourselves.

"No, but we have an eyewitness who recognized him, like I said."

"That's not necessarily going to get you a conviction. She saw him in the vicinity of the house. She didn't see him either entering or leaving. Fingerprints?"

"Lots. Most belonging to the couple. But none to the suspect. No trace of a murder weapon." The ass had me speaking in shorthand, like him.

"I see. Tell the reporters that there'll be no statement for the time being."

He didn't have to tell me that. If there was a statement to make, he would have made it himself. And not only that, but he would have got me to write it all down for him so he could learn it by heart. I'm not complaining; it doesn't bother me in the least. Reporters are always on my back. It's just like the biscuits and croissants. Once it was newspapermen and newspapers; now it's reporters and cameras.

Using the secretary's telephone, I sent word for the Albanian to be brought to me for questioning. Interrogations take place in an office with bare walls, a table, and three chairs. When I entered, the Albanian was sitting handcuffed in one of the chairs.

"Should I remove the handcuffs?" asked the officer who'd brought him.

"Leave him and let's see whether he's cooperative or wants to play tough."

I looked at the Albanian. His hands were resting on the table. Two calloused hands, with thick fingers and long nails, black around the edges; misery's mark of mourning. He was staring at them as if seeing them for the first time, as if surprised. Surprised at what? That he'd killed with them? Or that they were rough and dirty? Or that God created him with hands?

"Are you going to tell me why you killed them?" I said to him.

He slowly raised his eyes from his hands. "Got cigarette?"

"Give him one of yours," I said to the officer.

He looked at me in shock. He thought I was messing with him. That's how sharp he was. He smoked Marlboros, whereas I'd stayed with the old Greek Karelia. I was giving the Albanian a Marlboros, to win him over. The officer put it in the suspect's mouth and I lit it for him. He took a couple of drags, beaming with satisfaction. He held the smoke as if to imprison it, and then let it out as sparingly as possible, not wanting to waste any of it. He raised his hands and squeezed the cigarette between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

"I no kill," he said, and, at the same moment, his two hands moved like one lizard and wedged the cigarette between his lips, while his chest heaved to make space for the smoke. His instinct told him that I might take the cigarette away now that he hadn't told me what I'd wanted to hear, and he hastened to inhale what he could.

"Don't play with me, you lousy Albanian!" I yelled at him. "I'll have you for every unsolved murder of Albanian lowlife on our files for the last three years, and you'll go down for life times ten, damn your country and damn its leaders!"

"I not here three years. I come-" he stopped to search for a way to say "last year." "I come 'ninety-two," he said, pleased with himself for having solved his vocabulary problem. Now his hands were stowed under the table, presumably so that I would forget about the cigarette.

"And how do you intend to prove that, dickhead? From your passport?"

I lunged at him, grabbing him and dragging him to his feet. He wasn't expecting it; his hands banged hard on the underside of the table and the cigarette dropped to the floor. He cast a quick glance, full of concern, at the fallen cigarette and then looked at me anxiously. The officer stretched out his foot and stepped on the cigarette, while grinning at the Albanian. Smart kid, catches on very nicely.

"You entered Greece illegally. There's no record of you anywhere, no visa, no stamp, nothing. I could dispose of you and no one would ever ask what happened to you. I've never seen you or heard of you, because you don't exist. Are you listening? You don't exist!"