When Dead in Greece (8 page)

I splashed some water on my face, then changed into a pair of tan cargo shorts and a blue and white checkered shirt. Alik was waiting in the hall when I exited the bathroom. I slipped on a pair of sandals. We hurried downstairs, checking the cafe to see if Esau had made it in. The lights and equipment were off. The office empty.

We ducked out the side entrance. I glanced over. There were a few old guys waiting outside the cafe door. They smoked, joked, leaned back against the glass and appeared relaxed. Sometimes schedules were discarded in the small town. They knew that. They were OK with that. It’s one of the reasons they had remained when their siblings and friends had left for opportunities elsewhere.

The car sat where we had left it, one corner lower to the ground due to the spare tire. But at least all the tires looked full of air. Alik hopped in and started it up. Esau’s house wasn’t situated far from town, so the drive only took a couple minutes. The warm air rushed in the car and washed over me. Was as close as I was getting to a shower for a while.

Gravel crunched underneath the wheels as we turned onto the driveway. The old man opened the door before we were out of the car.

“Was wondering when you would show up,” he said, slamming his front door behind him. He spun and inserted a key then limped across the yard.

I got out and slid my seat forward so he could get in back.

“Everything OK?” I said.

“Huh?” he said.

I looked down at his leg. “You’re limping.”

“Ah, yes, it flares up, time to time. Old injury from the war.”

“One day you’re gonna have to tell me all about that war.”

He nodded and said nothing.

I said, “After we get Isadora back, of course.”

Esau stopped and stared at me with a weak smile plastered on his face. Then he got in the car.

“I’ve made some arrangements,” Esau said.

“What kind?” I said.

“Weapons for the two of you. Things are just crazy here. And while I’d prefer to get you off the island, I need your help too much. Obviously, I can’t do this alone.”

“When will they be here?”

“Later today. Worst case, tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow might be too late.” I looked back at him. “Hell, right now might be too late.”

Esau looked away. His lips drew tight. None of us wanted to think about it, but it was there. Alik and I had seen it, and we’d told Esau about it, and that was all there was to it. Every minute that passed meant we were closer to finding out Isadora didn’t make it.

Alik pulled in front of the cafe. The crowd looked at the car, then us. They pushed off the glass when they saw Esau. They patted their bellies and slapped each other on the back.

Esau beat them back like wild animals as he unlocked the front door. The old men shuffled in and seated themselves at tables.

Things changed fast. The day before, no one would come in. Now they couldn’t wait. Hadn’t they heard about Isadora? Hadn’t they seen? Maybe that was the reason they were there. These people weren’t just customers, they were Esau’s friends. They’d shown up to support the old man.

Esau stepped out of the office and went behind the counter and started the grill. He pulled pastries out of the fridge and set them on plates. He started a few pots of coffee. After a few minutes, he had several plates on the counter, each with an accompanying mug. Then Esau slipped into the office again.

The old men walked up to the counter, took a plate, dropped some money next to the register, and returned to their tables. Forks banged against plates. Mugs were lifted and set down with soft thuds. Chairs scraped the floor.

The bells hanging from the front door jingled. I shot a glance toward it. A boy maybe ten or eleven years old entered. He stood just inside the entrance, hopping on one foot to the other like he needed an invitation to use the bathroom or he was going to piss all over the floor.

Esau came back out of the office. After some quick banter with one of the men, he spotted the boy and froze in place.

The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded and pulled a folded envelope from his pocket. He hurried over to Esau and handed it to him. Esau stared down at the plain white envelope for a moment as the boy turned and darted toward the door. Esau reached out, but missed. The boy raced past me. I didn’t make an attempt to stop him.

Esau shuffled over to the table with the envelope in hand. He held it a foot or so away from his body. His face was tight. Eyes unblinking. He fell back into the chair opposite mine.

I looked at the door as it swung shut. The kid had hurried out of sight. Where were the men who had sent him? I rose, ready to go check.

“Wait,” Esau said. His voice was weak and thready. He cleared his throat. “Wait a moment. Please.”

By this time, Alik had joined us. We waited for the old man to open the envelope or hand it to one of us to do so. After a few seconds, he peeled back the flap and retrieved a yellow piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook. Little tags of frayed paper lined the top. The letter written in pencil.
 

Esau mumbled as he read it. Then he covered his eyes and shook his head.

“What’s it say?” I said.

Esau said nothing.

I nodded at Alik. He pried the paper from Esau and stared at it.

“Well?” I said.

“Not sure what it says other than the numbers,” Alik said.

Esau said, “I don’t have that kind of money.”

My first thought was, Isadora’s alive. My second thought was how much money?

“They are asking for the equivalent of five hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”

“They wouldn’t ask that if they didn’t think you had it,” I said. “So why do they think you have it?”

He said nothing.

“Esau, what did you do?”

“And that’s not all,” Esau said, ignoring the question. “It says they want the good Samaritan to deliver it. Alone.”

I glanced at Alik.

He said, “That’s you, Jack.”

“Figured as much.” I gestured at the paper, which had been set on the table. “Where?”

“It doesn’t say,” Esau said. “Only mentions they’ll let us know around seven.”

I glanced at my watch. It was eight thirty in the morning. “So tonight, then. Can you see if your contact can get here sooner?"

Esau nodded.

“One more thing,” I said.

“What?” Esau said.

“If you want me to go through with this, I need more details.”

Esau glanced around, nodded, rose. “Come to my office. Both of you.”

Chapter 15

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME I’d been in the cafe’s office. It smelled like stale coffee and donuts. Four small panel windows allowed light in. Wasn’t much to the room. An old wooden desk, cluttered with several stacks of paper, some as tall as eight inches high. An old computer monitor on one end, set at an angle. A dying plant next to it. A large desk calendar turned to the wrong month. That didn’t matter much. The calendar itself was three years old. There were scribbles all over it. Names and places, I figured. Phone numbers from around the globe.

Esau walked around the desk and took a seat in a beat-up office chair. Alik and I sat opposite him in metal fold-up chairs that had little padding left on the seat. The metal rail dug into my back. I shifted until I managed some level of comfort.

“I was sixteen in 1949,” Esau said. “My best friend, Kostas, was nineteen. He was like an older brother to me. He’d enlisted in the Hellenic Army to fight in the war against the DSE forces.” He paused, glanced at each of us, and added, “It was the Civil War. The communists, including the Soviets, backed the DSE and the Greek Communist Party.”

“I’ve seen documentaries,” I said. “Not the most pleasant of times for your country.”

Esau shook his head. “No, it was not. Christ, is it for any country? Anyway, Kostas joined up and made it in time for the Battle of Leonidio. And, well, he wrote back to me about it and I was entranced. I wanted to be a part of it. So I lied and told them I was my brother who would have been nineteen at the time if he hadn’t drowned the summer I was ten. Back in those days they needed men and didn’t question things like that. The next day, they shipped me off for some training. Within a month, I was reunited with Kostas, and was present for two of the three final battles.”

“OK. What’s this have to do with—“

“I’m getting to that.” Esau sipped from his mug, set it down, and folded his hands in his lap. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The wrinkles on his face sagged. “I can still picture the things we did. Countrymen killing countrymen. Worse than that, at times. Unspeakable things. Did your documentary cover that?”

He opened his eyes. They were covered with a thin film of mist.

I’d seen enough during my time at war that I didn’t need him to recount the details. I nodded. Saw Alik do the same.

Esau returned the gesture. “We never left each other’s side during those battles. We had made a pact, if one of us dies, the other would avenge him. And if we both died, well at least we’d go together.” He smiled for a second. “In those days, there were no loves of our lives. It was girl of the week, if you know what I mean. We were everything to each other. And we fought like it. I can’t count how many times he saved my ass. And I know I kept a bullet or knife or bayonet from slicing through his skin more than a couple times.”

He paused for a few moments. Forks clattering against plates and mugs pounding the tables in the dining room filled the silent void.

“So after the war, I was still a kid and he had turned twenty. I decided to come home. He stayed in the military for a while longer. Got stationed elsewhere, and over time we lost touch.”

“Happens all the time,” I said, remembering far too many friends I hadn’t spoken to in years. How many thought I was dead now? How many cared?

“I suppose,” Esau said. “And when we did catch up, it was always apparent how far apart the paths we had taken were.”

“Such as?”

“Me? I became a businessman. Opened a few restaurants in various places and then came here to retire. A farce, really. Because you can’t just stop doing what you love, right?” He paused, waiting for our acknowledgment. “So I opened this place with our savings.”

“And what of your friend?” Alik asked.

“He became a businessman of a different sort,” Esau said.

“A criminal,” I said.

Esau nodded. “Drugs, racketeering, smuggling. His own import, export, security services company, I guess. Started small, as most do, I suppose. Grew it quite large. He’s a powerful man now.”

“How close have you two been since 1950?” Alik asked.

“We haven’t talked regularly,” Esau said. “But, when you have two people who went through the things we did together, well, that takes the edge off of the decades. You know?”

I watched him fidget with a pen for a few moments. “Did you ever work for him?”

Esau seemed taken aback by the question. “I’ve never been a criminal in my life. God knows I could have used the easy money. And it’s not like he never offered. But I couldn’t see myself doing that.”

“You lied to get into the army,” I said.

His cheeks burned red and he narrowed his eyes at me. “I did that to help defend my family and the families of those around me. Damned if the communists were going to take over my country and dictate my future.”

I raised a hand. “Fair enough. I’m just trying to get a handle on where this is going. Only thing I can figure after you telling this story is that you burned the guy at some point in the past, and now he’s collecting. Either the money or your niece’s head. I want to know why.”

Esau eased back in his chair again. His face went slack. The color drained from his cheeks. His eyelids dropped shut. He was completely still. If it weren’t for his ragged breathing, the result of his crooked nose, I would have thought he had died on the spot.

“The doctors said my wife, Eleni, would fare better by the sea. And an island setting like this would be best. No pollution. Less shit in the air. They felt this combined with regular treatments would be the way to cure her lung cancer. And it worked, for a while. It helped extend her life years past her original check out date.”

I’d heard the other side of the story from Isadora. Eleni’s sickness was the reason Isadora had come here years ago. After the woman passed, Isadora had hung around to help. Out of guilt, I supposed.

Esau continued. “When things got real bad, I mean, coughing blood, unstoppable coughing fits, pain beyond belief, they told me the only option was a radical procedure. The cancer had spread, you see, and they said the only way to stop it was this operation. Well, it cost over one hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”

“And you didn’t have that kind of money lying around,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’d tied what we had into the house and into this cafe. As much as we like to think our assets are liquid, the economy made it impossible to sell them quickly enough. And even if I had managed to, what then? She’d be healed, maybe, and we would be out of a home and business.”

“So you turned to the one guy you knew had the kind of money you needed.”

“Not at first. I begged family. Tried to take out a second loan on the business and the house. Sold off some things, collectibles, old items I’d treasured. In the end, I came up with ten thousand dollars. So, like you said, I took a plane, and a train, and rented a car, and visited my old friend. It was the first time I had seen him in over thirteen years. He’d aged better than I had. He had all the stress in the world, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at him.”

“What did he say when you asked?” Alik said.

“He told me no problem. Sent one of his guys to the safe. The guy returned with a suitcase with the money. That was it.”

“What kind of terms did he offer you?” I said.

Esau glanced up at the ceiling, smiled, shook his head, said, “Pay it back when you can.”

“And this was a few years back, right?” I said.

He nodded, said nothing.

“And how much have you paid him?” Alik said.

Esau looked away. Cleared his throat. Muttered something.

“Didn’t catch that,” I said.

Esau stared me down. “I said nothing.”