Athenian Blues Read online

  Pol Koutsakis was born in 1974 in Chania, Crete, Greece. He is a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. In 2007 he won the National Award for Playwriting in Greece. His plays have been staged in the USA and the UK and published in Canada. He is currently living in Perth, Australia, with his wife, daughter, and son. Athenian Blues is his first crime novel and the first of his books to be translated into English. The next in the series, Baby Blue, will be published by Bitter Lemon Press in 2018.

  www.polkoutsakis.com

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by

  Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 0ET

  www.bitterlemonpress.com

  First published in Greek as Iερά Oδός Mπλουζ,

  Patakis Publications, Athens, 2010 © Pol Koutsakis, 2010

  English translation © Pol Koutsakis, 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher

  The moral rights of Pol Koutsakis have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN: 978–1–908524–77–5

  For Nano, Despina and Athina.

  Three generations of love.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgements

  1

  A few of them were kicking and screaming, but most of the immigrants followed orders, as the police shoved them out of the building. They didn’t seem to understand they were being told that the abandoned block would soon collapse.

  I kept walking on the other side of Sacred Way Street, to a place that supposedly offered the best food in town. The purplish complexions of the diners were a fine contrast to the pinched faces clustering around the Médecins du Monde truck, waiting for handouts. I was early, but I could wait.

  When you’re invited by a client who foots the bill, you go. Especially when the client is a stunning redhead, about five feet nine, with curves other women pay a fortune to acquire and eyes like the sea. I’d seen her plenty of times on magazine covers and wondered how much make-up they’d plastered on her and how many hours had been spent to Photoshop that look. Now that I had the original right in front of me, though, I tended to think that her photos didn’t do her justice.

  “You must be Mr Stratos Gazis,” she said when she finally arrived, holding out her hand. Husky voice, erotic. It had been years since anyone called me “Mr…”

  Stratos Gazis is my real name. I don’t have any problem using it for my work because officially Stratos Gazis has been dead for years. Burnt to ashes in the house where he lived alone, leaving nothing to identify him by, which is why the police closed the case. You don’t need to know the name on my passport and ID card. For your own good.

  “Just call me Stratos,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “And I’m just Aliki.”

  She flashed me a girly smile, and sat down on the velvet-covered chair opposite. She was over thirty but looked ten years younger. Opening her tiny black handbag on which the maker’s name was written in huge gold letters, she caught my glance.

  “Kitsch, I know. But since they pay me to show off their products…”

  She slipped her hand into the bag – long, slender fingers – and took out a pack of Marlboro Reds.

  “Doesn’t bother you, eh?” she said, holding it up. “I’ve booked us a smoking table, I can’t rid myself of the devils.”

  By way of reply I took out my lighter.

  “Perfect,” she murmured, as she bent over the flame and fixed her gaze on me, appraisingly. As if estimating how deeply she was getting in trouble. Or how much more trouble than she already had.

  “Before we start, shall we order something to drink? – And eat, of course. I haven’t had a bite all day and I’m not one of those always-on-a-diet girls; when I’m hungry I just can’t function.”

  She waved those long fingers. “They look after you here – they’re used to VIPs and all that rubbish.”

  So sweet, so calm, so natural… I’d nearly forgotten that she had invited me there to discuss how I would kill her husband.

  My mother always told me that you could trust people with long fingers. It’s the stubby-fingered ones you have to watch.

  Mum. How convincing you made everything sound. Even utter bollocks.

  2

  Teri had phoned me two days earlier, on the number known only by the three people who would protect me with their lives, if necessary. It was dusk and I was wandering down Adrianou Street, where many shops hadn’t dared to open, twenty-four hours after the biggest riots of the past six years. Some of the burnt Greek flags and rubbish bins had still not been collected from the surrounding streets in Plaka, and the broken ATMs and shopfronts would take days if not weeks to repair. I ducked into “Everything & More”, the greatest shop for collectors of old magazines. Thomas, a sixty-year-old Greek–Australian, who still had blond streaks, had been trying to sell it for the past three years, but who was buying? I’d happened to be in his shop, looking for a magazine I’d loved as a kid, when the private bailiffs arrived, sent by the bank to which he owed thirty grand. Neither the bailiffs nor the bank have bothered Thomas since. And I am allowed to take any magazine I like for free. I had just said hello to Thomas, who was sitting in a black armchair smoking his pipe, when my phone rang.

  “Good evening,” said Teri, before I’d even opened my mouth.

  “Hi,” I said.

  After she’d had the operation, I would often add “man” at the end of my greeting. Depending on her mood she would slam down the receiver or swear at me. Teri’s too proud of her new sex to put up with any crap. The first and only time after the change that I called her by her old name, “Lefteri”, she hit me with an uppercut that would have made any boxer jealous. If she weren’t five feet five and 130 pounds, while I am six feet three and the scales show me hovering just over 220, she’d have probably knocked me out. She operates only by appointment and mostly in hotels, so I’m less worried about her – or about any customer who rubs her up the wrong way. Back then, I trailed round the streets in the small hours to check that she was OK. The other girls jumped to the conclusion that I was her pimp – it was no use trying to explain we’d been close friends since our schooldays. And Teri doesn’t do explanations anyway.

  “Boy, do I have a big one for you. Do you know Aliki Stylianou?” she asked.

  “The model? Even I’ve heard of her.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Seven whole words. What’s with the verbal diarrhoea?”

  “Just get on with it.”

  “She’s not o
nly a model. Lately she’s also been doing a bit of acting.”

  “Good for her.”

  “She wants to have a word.”

  “How come?”

  “She’s got a problem. She had a heart-to-heart with her best friend, who happens to be a friend of mine. And the best friend contacted me – for some reason people think that if you’re a whore you must have connections with caretakers like you.”

  “Which you do.”

  “When I was a beautician did she ever ask me the best way to bump someone off? I thought of giving her a piece of my mind but Stylianou’s loaded and I didn’t want you to miss the chance. So when the friend asked me to make discreet enquiries, I swallowed my pride and said I would.”

  “What’s her problem?”

  “She’s got one more husband than she needs.”

  “You mean, two?”

  “I mean one. She wants a clean slate.”

  Being a caretaker is my job. I take care of things that are only talked about in whispers. That very few can undertake. Things that people are willing to pay handsomely to get done, without wanting to know any details. Afterwards, they want to try and wipe their memories clean. I don’t know if they ever manage but, as far as the business is concerned, I’m their man.

  3

  “Let me make something clear,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  Aliki tossed back her head and smoothed her hair with her hand. She had a very long, very white neck. A swan. A picture flashed into my mind of her slowly curving it back while someone kissed it. I tried to concentrate.

  “The fact that I’m here doesn’t mean that I’ve agreed to do any job.”

  Another speech. Fourteen words. Teri would be proud of me.

  “I understand. You told me on the telephone, and your… friend… explained.”

  “I’m thinking of saying no.”

  “Did I do something to annoy you?” she asked, in an even huskier voice than before, leaning towards me across the table, her hands folded, fixing her eyes on mine. Teri, who is crazy about surveys and statistics, told me that in a poll to find the most desirable woman in Greece, Aliki Stylianou got seventy-five per cent of the vote – three out of four Greek men wanted her. The fourth man probably voted against her just to be awkward.

  “You’ve already broken two of my rules even before we met.”

  “My lateness, you mean. I know. Sorry, but the director wouldn’t let me go. It was the final scene; I’d have put back the whole production if I hadn’t stayed. Already a lot of the actors are looking down on me, being a model and all – especially the women – and I didn’t want to make things worse. So few series are given the green light, I was lucky even to get the part. Could I have some more wine?”

  I had ordered an expensive Californian Chardonnay. It had a bitter-sweet taste, as if it couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. Aliki had already downed the first glass. I poured her another.

  “Yassou,” she said.

  I nodded. We drank in silence. Aliki appeared to be enjoying it so much she closed her eyes. A drop of wine was hanging from her top lip. I found myself waiting for her tongue to lick it away.

  “Hot in here, isn’t it?” she said.

  She stood up and slipped off her jacket, revealing a tight, short-sleeved blouse. All the men in the restaurant looked at her, more or less discreetly.

  “And my second sin?” she said, smiling, as she sat again.

  “I suggested meeting somewhere quiet. You insisted on coming here. Where the smart set hang out.”

  Despite the economic crisis you still needed to be well connected to get a table here.

  “It’s the only place where we can speak freely without being bothered by anyone.”

  “That’s what you said on the phone.”

  “The way my life is, the only place to be invisible is in a crowd.”

  Suddenly she turned serious. No trace of a smile, no tossing head or searching tongue. I could have sworn that I saw a tiny wrinkle appear briefly on her forehead. I like it when the person opposite you suddenly appears totally genuine. Unfortunately, this usually happens only at the end of a job, when the person opposite realizes that in a few seconds it will all be over.

  “You know what would have happened if we had gone to some little hideaway? Someone would have secretly papped us and tomorrow morning you’d have been plastered all over the tabloids as my latest lover. And my husband would have got hold of the same photographs through the creeps he has shadowing me – two I’ve noticed, but there could be more – and then he’d thrash me, once again. Yassou.”

  I think it was that line she used as she raised her glass that hooked me. It takes a lot of guts to say “Yassou” right after “he’d thrash me, once again”. I still wasn’t entirely sure she was sincere, of course. And I have to be sure to undertake a job. There’s a reason for that. The reason is that everybody is trying to find a way to feel good about themselves. At the end of the day, whatever you’ve been up to, you have to find the trick. Throw the switch. Have nothing to niggle your conscience. Which is why public hospital surgeons occasionally do operations without the incitement of a bribe, why politicians once in a while help people without expecting a reward and priests sometimes take something from the collection tray to give to the poor.

  To throw the switch.

  My way is simple. My potential employers have to give me a good reason why the proposed target deserves to be hit. And what they say needs to be confirmed by my own research. The type and difficulty of the hit is not important. It doesn’t even matter if I find the employer likeable or repugnant – people who hire me aren’t exactly angels, anyway, even though Aliki Stylianou seemed to come close. If my clients were the good guys, they wouldn’t be my clients. And if I expected to find real ladies and gents to pay me to kill I’d have to find another profession – which would be a pity because I really excel at what I do.

  I need to be persuaded. And to know that the employer can cover my fee, of course. I am a caretaker with a conscience. A fine thing, the human conscience. It forgets. It adapts.

  “Explain ‘once again’.”

  “Does it really need explaining?”

  “It does.”

  “Vassilis is jealous. Pathologically. Paranoically. Since the first day we met. Whenever he scents danger he… erupts.”

  “And you’re the victim?”

  “Not at first. All that started a few months after the wedding.”

  “And you’ve been married…?”

  “Nearly three years. Been in hospital twice with fractures. He only hits me on the body, so that he can palm off my injuries as some kind of accident. We’re always changing doctors to avoid detection.”

  Unconsciously, I glanced down at her when she mentioned her body. I quickly raised my eyes, but not quickly enough to avoid her notice.

  “I can show you some scars and bruises if you don’t believe me…”

  Cigarette smoke wrapped her in a cloud much lighter than her expression.

  “Doesn’t anyone suspect anything?”

  “I don’t think so. But even if it’s crossed their mind, they simply dismiss it. Everyone who knows Vassilis doesn’t simply love him, they adore him. You don’t hear a bad word about him. A journalist called him the ‘guy without enemies’.”

  “He obviously didn’t ask your opinion.”

  She granted me a half-smile and took a gulp of wine. Each swallow drained a quarter of the glass. At that rate we’d get through three bottles that evening. It didn’t matter. She was paying.

  4

  I’m not the most talented person in my profession. I’m sure of that. I’m not the fastest draw, nor much of a street fighter, and though I know a few martial arts moves, no way am I an expert. But if I’m not the most talented, I’m the best. The reason is my passion for method, which I owe to one of the only two theatrical performances I’ve ever been to.

  A large part of my life has been spent in cin
emas, watching film noir in particular. I know most of the classics off by heart: it’s the only kind of art I like. The only one that bears any relation to real life. I was as indifferent to the theatre as I was enthusiastic about the cinema. The big attraction of plays being live meant nothing to me. My mum’s view was: “It’s not for the likes of us, my boy, but for educated people who understand art.” But one summer, her cousin persuaded her to go to a show, and she took me with her. What put me off was the sense of risk; how, at any moment things might go wrong. An actor might mess up his lines, or forget them completely. The sound could go wrong, or the lights fail. When I pay to see art I want to escape risk. I want to escape from life. Life is full of imperfections. If art doesn’t surpass life, what use is it to me? Which is why, when I pay to see art, I go to the movies.

  Then I met Chryssoula. She was eighteen, two years older than me, and a member of an amateur theatre group. I looked older than I was. She kept nagging me to go to rehearsals with her. I didn’t especially care for her, but I did fancy her, so I went to the dress rehearsal. The cast had put whatever they could beg, borrow or steal into a production of Hamlet. I had no idea what it was about. Chryssoula told me she was playing Ophelia. Chryssoula, Ophelia, who cared? After all, how much worse could it be than the televised stagings of Monday Night Theatre I had tried to watch a couple of times at home, before falling asleep in the armchair? But it was. Chryssoula’s talent was for being beautiful, not acting. She delivered her lines with all the conviction of a failed politician. And her performance was the best of the lot. Ophelia’s drowning was a deliverance. Before that, however, the freckly kid playing Polonius, Ophelia’s father, had managed to say: “Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.” Method. I didn’t know then how famous the line was. I only knew that I felt as if Freckles had taken a knife and carved the word in my mind. Method. I didn’t yet know exactly what I wanted to do, but that evening I became convinced that, as long as I did it with method, I would succeed.

  Method, in my line of business, means research. Whoever has all the information at their fingertips always has the upper hand. First, I gather information about the new client. For someone to find me they have to be recommended by someone I trust – I’ve made enough money to be able to pick and choose. The luxury the rich enjoy. I check out the client, and if I don’t like what I find, they never get to meet me. When I do take someone on, by the time of our first meeting I’ll probably know more about them and their target than they do themselves.