Mykonos After Midnight

Chapter Thirteen

Andreas knew tomorrow would be a long day. That’s why he made sure Tassos and Kouros understood that their requested “quick drink in town” would be just that. He’d made his point three hours ago.

They’d parked at the base of the six windmills, overlooking a bay on the backside of the old harbor. The dozen or so multicolored, three-story former pirate-captain homes along the bay-virtually the only such structures in otherwise mandatory white, two-stories maximum Mykonos-gave the area its name: Little Venice. At sunset its bars and restaurants were packed with tourists staring west across the water. And from then until sunrise with partiers seeking a less spiritual sort of satisfaction.

They’d headed toward one of the old captain’s houses, and a local hangout on the ground floor known for its traditional Greek music; but Tassos made them stop first at a piano bar next door. The bar was gay, but filled with a mixed crowd, as were most of the gay bars in this area of town. Tassos said he loved the singer and every time he was in town he made a point of going there.

Tassos found a seat next to the piano and sat mesmerized through two sets. Andreas and Kouros stayed at the bar talking with the owners and a neighboring bar owner who’d popped in to listen to a couple of songs but stayed when he recognized Andreas. Their conversation was the same as everywhere else in Greece: Damn the politicians and how can our country get out of the mess it’s in without them.

By the time they dragged Tassos out of the bar it was after one, but the owner of another bar saw them and insisted they come in for a drink in his place. It was filled with locals anxious to give the three cops an earful on what they should do to fight the increasing crime rate. Kouros’ suggestion that they hire more cops, double the starting salary of eight hundred euros a month, and stop asking for favors every time one of their relatives was arrested, didn’t go over well.

But it did get them out of the place, and Andreas steered them back toward the car. The street was crowded with drunken kids, so Andreas cut through a bar on the right out onto a slightly less crowded stone path running between the bars and the sea. They’d made it as far as the narrowest part of the path when waves brought on by some distant passing cruise ship splashed up onto the path ahead, forcing them to pause.

Just as the way was passable again Tassos tapped Andreas in the middle of his back and whispered. “Coming right at us, that’s him. The big one with silver hair. The one behind him is Wacki.”

Andreas stepped back to let the men pass. He smiled at them as they went by. Sergey stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t seen him, Wacki nodded and said, “Thank you.”

“Silver head’s a friendly guy,” said Kouros.

“Big guy,” said Andreas. “And he looks in shape.”

“Prison gives you a lot of time to work out,” said Tassos.

“Looks like Wacki’s showing him the town,” said Kouros as he stared at the legs of a tall, young blond woman coming from the same direction as Sergey and Wacki. She wore a denim micro-skirt, white tank top, and platform sandals, and clung to a thin, swarthy Greek boy in his twenties wearing a white tee-shirt, torn jeans, and dirty athletic shoes.

“Looks like that sucker’s going to get lucky,” said Kouros.

“I doubt it,” said Tassos. “He didn’t want to work tonight. It’s his wife’s birthday.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s not his wife. They’re cops. They work for me and they’re tailing Sergey.”

“Son of a bitch.” Kouros looked at Andreas. “How come I never draw that kind of duty?”

Andreas smiled. “If you’d like, I’m sure we could substitute you for the blonde.”

Tassos nodded. “From where they look to be headed, you two would make a far less conspicuous couple.”

They watched Sergey stroll off into the heart of Little Venice as if he had not a care in the world.

“I really want to nail that guy,” said Tassos.

“Avrio,” said Kouros.

“It’s already ‘tomorrow,’” said Andreas looking at his watch. “As of two hours ago.”

***

Sergey and Wacki had spent an hour amid the coffee shops and bars at the T-shape end of Matogianni. “To give you an idea of the type of people on the island,” according to Wacki.

It was the heart of Mykonos’ late-night café society and hosted a number of world-class restaurants tucked away in the branching warren of narrow lanes. Barely thirty yards long, that tiny bit of Matogianni still managed to attract everyone who wanted to see or be seen at some point during the evening.

The next stretch of road offered additional expensive fashion shops, high-end jewelers, and clustered bars trying to offer something unique to passersby.

Wacki walked by them all and stopped at a garden-like setting on the right, just beyond two churches bordering the lane. It was separated from the street by a velvet rope guarded by two attractive, well-dressed women. One immediately lifted the rope. “Good evening, Mr. Wacki.”

“This is the monied crowd’s primary hangout. Inside the music’s deafening, outside the talk and hustle is nonstop. Everyone wants one of those tables on top of the steps by the door. It means you’re a big shot. Or willing to spend like one. All you’ll see here are beautiful people.” Wacki smiled, “And those who can afford to pay for them.”

They sat at a table closest to the front door. Women kept passing by to say hello to Wacki and smile at Sergey. Sergey ignored them. His mind was on all the money the island attracted.

Twenty minutes later they were off to Little Venice and what Wacki called, “the wilder side of town.”

The street into Little Venice was about as wide as Matogianni but here the shops were more attuned to the tastes and needs of locals and the more practical-minded tourist. It was not of interest to Sergey.

Wacki took a left just beyond a large church and then a right into a crowd of what looked to be high school and college kids. “This area has a lot of bars, mainly down along the water. It gets action all night, mostly from the young, straight crowd.” He went through a doorway to the left and through another into an enclosed patio next to a bar crammed with people.

“This one gets partiers of all ages. It gets so crowded in there late at night that a fart could blow out the windows.” He pointed at a door opening to the sea.

“That way, it’s less crowded. Take a right outside and keep going all the way to the end.”

Sergey went first and reached the doorway just as a wave hit the path in front of the bar, soaking everyone on the path. He waited for the waves to subside, then squeezed past three men who had also been waiting to cross in front of the bar.

He saw nothing to distinguish one bar from another. All were geared to marketing the same great view and nightlife vibe to twenty-something-year-olds who’d downed bottles of cheap booze in their hotel rooms in the hope of getting on a buzz that would keep them high enough to nurse one purchased drink in the bar as they worked their routines to get laid.

This wasn’t the way Sergey planned on making his fortune.

At the first captain’s house the path veered away from the sea. Wacki led the way along a lane winding behind the houses up to a large, all-white domed-church off to the right. It sat overlooking the sea just beyond the last captain’s house. Wacki stopped in front of the church to tie his shoelace.

“This is the most photographed church in the Cyclades, the Fifteenth-Century Paraportiani. It’s really five churches in one. Its roots go back to service as part of a gate to a thirteenth century castle that once stood here. That’s why they call this area the Kastro, for castle.”

Sergey kept walking but stopped where the path took a sharp right at the far side of the church. Beyond that point the path and church sat masked in darkness. He looked back at Wacki but a flash of light on his left made him instinctively swing toward it.

Framed in the glow of a cigarette lighter stood a boy of no more than nineteen in a black tank top. He smiled at Sergey.

“I wouldn’t stand there too long unless you’re looking for action,” said Wacki coming up beside Sergey. “For as long as I’ve been on the island this area’s been the place to come for anonymous gay sex. Though it’s toned down somewhat from the old days.”

Wacki stared at the boy still holding the lighter and smiling. “My guess is that’s because there’s a lot more foot traffic through here these nights. Straights and gays on their way down to the new clubs along the harbor on the other side of this hill.

“Most people coming through here these days aren’t looking for action.” Wacki smiled. “Unless they stop.”

Sergey turned and walked past the boy to the top of the hill. He heard music coming from a street in front of him. But the buildings were dark and beyond them stood a long, solid concrete wall. He thought the music must come from the buildings along the harbor below.

Past the church they turned left toward a twenty-yard patch of badly poured concrete that dropped abruptly from a height of two stories to sea level. The drop began at the entrance to a patio off to the right enclosed by a low stone wall. To the left a boulder-strewn jut of land reached out and down to the sea.

As they made their way down the hill between the patio and boulders, Wacki waved his hand off to the right. “One of those buildings next to the patio is the Folklore Museum. Care to imagine the sort of shit the ya-yas with brooms find around here every morning?”

“Doesn’t ya-ya mean grandmother?”

“Yeah. Maybe what they find turns them on.” Wacki practically cackled.

“I’m certain if anyone would know what turns a grandmother on it’s you.”

Wacki seemed unsure whether or not to take the comment as a compliment.

Sergey was not surprised.

At the bottom of the hill they turned right toward a mass of people crowded in front of three bars. Bodies were packed onto virtually every inch of the thirty feet of concrete running between the front of the bars and a low stone wall marking the edge of the sea wall.

“The wind’s not blowing hard tonight so there’s a big crowd outside. They’d all be pounded with seawater if the wind were up.” Wacki pointed at the middle bar. “In there. The one with the white doors is the place I was talking about. It’s the new king of late night in town.”

They squeezed in between a small stage the size of a narrow desktop on the right, and the edge of a bar on the left running the length of the place. They’d just about made it around the corner of the bar when a blaring whistle and a sudden change of music made Wacki tug on Sergey’s arm.

“We’re never going to make it back there. The show is about to start. Just stay where you are. It will be over in five minutes.”

The lights went out except for a spotlight focused on the stage. Into it stepped the drag world’s personification of a mature Eva Peron, all aglitter in a sleeveless red sequin gown and doing his/her lip synching bawdy interpretation of a song from Evita.

The audience went wild, but by far the most fascinated were the women. They hooted and hollered louder than the men. Sergey studied the crowd, a mixed bag of partiers sharing one significant trait: Virtually all had spent serious money trying to look fashionably understated.

When the song ended, Wacki gestured toward the back. Sergey shook his head no, and pushed toward the front door. Outside, he turned right and walked past the public toilets on the left toward a sign marked, BOATS TO DELOS HERE. He stared across the harbor at his hotel on the other side.

Wacki ran to catch up with him. “I wanted you to see the upstairs, they did a great job.”

“No need to. I can tell their crowd has a lot of money to spend. That’s all I needed to see. So, are we done?”

“Not yet, I’ve been saving the big money-making operations for last. One’s in town, two others are on a beach about fifteen minutes away by taxi. We’ll take the backstreets, it’s faster.”

They walked behind the town hall and passed by a small square shared by two bars of the same name. Wacki called it the island’s “meat market” for young straights. After the square, they wove through a maze of four- and five-foot-wide, virtually deserted lanes. There was barely a sound. It was as if they’d gone back in time.

Or to a different island.

They popped back into the crowds on the same street as they’d taken into Little Venice, but this time headed in the opposite direction. As they passed a schoolyard on the left, the street opened into a large square.

“That’s it on the left.”

Wacki pointed at a psychedelic pink marquee looming above a long red carpet, cordoned in half lengthwise by silver-color metal stanchions and a red velvet rope. The carpet ran from the square up to a large grey metal door.

On a Cycladic island long known for its simple, tasteful architecture, Sergey thought the entrance a comic self-parody of what must lay inside. But two massive bouncers by the door, and enticingly clad women collecting euros from a long line of twenty-somethings queued up to get in, made it clear that this was anything but funny. It was a serious, highly profitable business capitalizing on arousing the fantasies that drew so many to Mykonos.

Thirty yards or so beyond the entrance, the square faded off into an outdoor basketball court and playground. Men milled around in the shadows at the far end.

Sergey nodded in their direction. “Is that this side of town’s equivalent of Paraportiani?”

Wacki laughed. “The police station used to be in this square. Today it’s where you come if you want to do business with the Albanian mob. It’s their hangout.”

Sergey pointed at a group of provocatively dressed young women and men outside the entrance to the club hustling passersby to come inside. “What’s with them?”

“All the big clubs have hot looking tourist kids running around passing out handbills and chatting up whoever they can to fill up the places. It’s all about body count, and the kids shill for the clubs by sticking ads on cars parked at the beaches during the day and pounding out their messages in town at night until the last bus leaves for the out-of-town clubs.”

“What do they get paid?”

“Five euros or so an hour, plus free admission and a drink.”

As soon as the bouncers saw Wacki coming toward them they nodded and one opened the door. Inside the place was ablaze with noise and lights and music. The downstairs was one big dance floor and bar, pumped along by very hot-looking women perched strategically above the crowd in places where they could perform their craft, colloquially known as pole dancing.

Overlooking it all was a balcony circling most of the dance floor and filled with more people, some sitting at tables.

“Up there is for VIPs. It’s a more refined crowd.”

From what Sergey could see of the crowd, by “refined” he assumed Wacki was referring to their choice of stimulants.

“Let’s go. I’ve seen enough.”

Outside Wacki pointed at a taxi waiting in front of the club. “Hop in. Only two more places to see, they’re at the same beach.”

It took the taxi five minutes to crawl the two hundred yards up from the club to the bus station. Getting through the crowds was like swimming head-on through a frenzied rush of hot-to-spawn salmon.

At the bus station Wacki pointed to a long line of young people boarding two municipal buses. “We’re all headed to the same place. They’ll have a lot of catching up to do when they get there. By now the clubs are packed with wild ones from the beach tavernas who’ve been going at the same crazy pace since late afternoon.”

The drive took longer than Wacki said it would. Mainly because the taxi driver kept slowing down to avoid motorbikes flying up and down the road to the beach.

The driver said, “I think they call this ‘the road to Paradise’ not because of the beach, but because that’s where crazy tourists who drive like that are likely to end up. If they can, locals avoid this road like the plague between dark and a few hours after sunrise.”

“If locals are afraid to drive on their own roads, why don’t the cops do something about it?” asked Sergey.

The driver laughed. “The cops don’t care. The only ones who care are the club owners. And they don’t want anyone messing with the image of Mykonos as a place where you can do anything you want and be protected by the gods of Delos from harm. Which includes arrest.

“You should see the medical clinic the morning after a busy night. Looks like a combat zone, but you’ll never hear a word about any of that. All’s always perfect on this island.”

And looking to be more so every moment, thought Sergey.

At the beach the taxi turned left, climbed up onto a rise, and stopped by a large stone building overlooking the sea.

“Here we are.”

Again a long line at the door, money changing hands, and Wacki waved in through a VIP entrance, this one on the left. This club was much bigger than the first, but just as packed and looked like it could handle five thousand customers. They entered past a bar onto the dance floor. In front of them was the VIP section, and off to the right a pool. The place packed in thousands of celebrants of every imaginable shape, size, color, sex, and dress, all pumping along in rhythm to the music and lights, accompanied by stimulants of their choice, and all aiming to make it through to watching the sunrise over the sea.

The last club on Wacki’s tour sat on the beach and was smaller than the one above it. A massive glass wall separated the place from the sand. Here, too, the bar was the first thing you saw, next came a pool with the dance floor beyond it, and a VIP section farther along terracing up a hillside. The music and light show seemed a bit more sophisticated, and the place looked to attract a slightly older, somewhat more upscale crowd than the others, but to Sergey its bottom line was the same: Do whatever it takes to bring in the bodies and make the money.

It was a philosophy he knew well.

He’d run these kinds of clubs before. Smaller, yes, but the crowds were the same and so were the problems.

He doubted any of them had the proper licenses, but they obviously had the juice to stay in business, and that was all that mattered.

In the taxi on the way back to town Wacki said, “Now that you’ve seen our magical island at night, what’s next?”

“I want to meet your mayor.”