Mykonos After Midnight

Chapter Twenty-two

I wondered how it would end. I knew it would. With all the mistakes I’ve made, my crazy chances, and lousy choices I’m surprised it hasn’t come sooner. Maybe I’ve just been trying to hurry it along? Get out of here and on to the next place. If there is a next place, I want to see my wife, my son. It’s been too long.

Lord, why didn’t you give us even a single day together here on earth?

Tassos’ mind wandered. Lord, is it okay if I have sex with my wife in heaven?

He laughed at the thought. At least he thought he was laughing. But he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming. He heard voices in a language he did not understand.

Perhaps I’m with my son and he’s talking to me? I must learn to understand him. I feel the rocking of the cradle. As if we’re in it together on the day he was born. But he was in heaven on that day and I wasn’t with him. Only his mother was there.

At least he wasn’t alone. Or she.

I feel the rocking, son. I feel the twisting. I hear your voice. I hear the engine. I…

Tassos caught his thought.

We are in a boat moving through rough waters. It is not you in the boat, son. But these people will have me with you soon, my child. I have no doubt about that.

He thought of Maggie. I will miss you, my love.

The rocking stopped.

***

Sunlight was barely above the horizon when the phone rang. Andreas tried ignoring it. Then he heard Kouros’ mobile ringing in the next room. Both ringing at the same time likely meant a conference call, and that meant only one caller.

He reached for the phone and fumbled for the answer button. “Maggie, what’s up?”

“Tassos is missing!”

Andreas sat up on the edge of the bed. He’d never heard panic in Maggie’s voice before. But he recognized the fear from what he’d once felt in his own voice when killers stalked Lila and he could do nothing to protect her.

“How do you know?” said Kouros on his phone.

“He promised he’d call me in Athens as soon as he got home last night from the taverna. He never called.”

Andreas relaxed. “Maybe he just passed out and forgot to call?”

“That’s what I thought, too, and why I didn’t bother to call him last night. But this morning I tried his mobile and his home phone and there was no answer.”

Kouros stuck his head in Andreas’ room, covered his phone with his hand, and whispered, “Maybe he got lucky and didn’t make it home?”

Andreas shrugged and said to Maggie. “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

“I called Niko, Tassos’ friend who owns the taverna, and he said the last thing Tassos said before he left was ‘I’m heading home to call Maggie.’”

“Still,” said Andreas, “he could have driven home and just forgot to call. Besides, if God forbid, there was an accident I’m sure we’d have heard by now.”

“There was no accident. I called his assistant, Adonis, and he said ‘not to worry’ because Tassos’ car was in the City Hall parking lot all night. One of the patrol guys had joked to him about Tassos tying on such a big one that he probably forgot where he’d parked his car.”

Andreas felt it first in the pit of his stomach.

“What should I do? I’m sure something has happened to him,” said Maggie.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make some calls as soon as we hang up and get back to you. By the way, what’s the telephone number for Tassos’ friend, Niko?”

Maggie told him. “Please, call me as soon as you hear anything.”

“Promise. Bye.”

Andreas looked at Kouros. “That doesn’t sound like Tassos.”

“If he’s off with some woman no one is going to tell Maggie the truth.”

“I know. That’s why I’m calling his friend.”

Andreas dialed the number and waited.

“Hello.”

“Niko?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, this is Andreas Kaldis, Tassos Stamatos’ friend and I-.”

“Have you found him?”

The knot in Andreas’ stomach was now bigger, and tighter. “I was hoping you’d tell me not to worry.”

“He left here a little drunk but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. And I know he wasn’t going anywhere but home.”

“Could he have stayed somewhere else last night? Perhaps with a friend in town?”

“If you mean a woman, he could have but he didn’t. I’m sure of that.”

“Maybe if he was drunk someone gave him a ride home and he’s still sleeping it off?”

“Are you suggesting that Tassos Stamatos would admit to anyone that he was too drunk to drive home? What Greek ever admits to that? Besides, as I said before, he wasn’t that drunk.”

Andreas fluttered his lips. “Okay, thanks. But let me know if you hear anything.”

Andreas hung up.

“If he’s not at home…” Andreas let the thought drift off.

He dialed another number. “Hi, this is Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis. I’m trying to locate Tassos Stamatos and I understand-.”

“Hi, Chief, it’s Adonis, I work with Tassos.”

“Oh, yes, how are you, Adonis?”

“Fine, thanks. I assume you’re calling about his whereabouts?”

“Yes.”

“After Maggie called I asked a buddy to drive by his house and wake him up.”

Andreas let out a breath. “Great! So you found him?”

“Not yet. There was no one home. The neighbors hadn’t seen him either. Maybe he stayed with someone in town?”

Andreas consciously kept his voice flat. “I think we have to take this to a different level, Adonis, and quickly. According to his friend, Niko, he was alone and headed straight home.”

“What are you saying?” said Adonis.

“All I can tell you is that we’re working together on an investigation involving some very desperate people who think he has something they want very badly. I’m afraid we must assume that Tassos has been kidnapped.”

Pause.

“I knew he was clean. What do you want us to do?”

“Retrace the steps Tassos would have taken from the taverna to his car. Speak to everyone in every building along the way and check every security camera with a glimpse of his route to see if they caught anything.”

“Will do.”

Andreas paused. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, Adonis, but if the people who have him are who I think, we have a very small window in which to find our friend alive.”

“You don’t. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to make arrangements for the citizens of Syros to undergo a period of woefully inadequate police protection. I’ll call you back on this number as soon as we have anything, but by noon at the latest. Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Why don’t we just bust Sergey’s head until he turns over Tassos?” said Kouros.

“Nothing would please me more. But he’ll deny everything, and pressure from us could push him to kill Tassos sooner. As long as he thinks you and I aren’t on to his tie-in to the kidnapping he has no reason to kill Tassos before getting Christos’ files.”

“But Tassos doesn’t know where Christos’ files are. I hid them. He has nothing to tell them.”

Andreas nodded. “I know.”

Kouros rubbed his forehead. “Maybe we should tell Sergey we’re willing to trade the files for Tassos?”

“I wish it were that easy. No way he’s going to let Tassos live after this, no matter what we do.”

Andreas stood up, walked over to the window, and pulled back the curtain. He watched the sunlight play along the sea. “Nor can he allow us to live.” Andreas turned away from the window. “He knows we’ll come after him for what he did to Tassos.”

“He can’t just go around killing cops,” said Kouros.

“Dirty cops? At least that’s how he’ll try to play it. And if he can’t make it stick, it won’t be much consolation to us if we’re dead.”

“We have to do something.”

“Yes, and the first thing is to get protection for your family and mine. Sergey is more than capable of going after them when he can’t find us.”

“And second?”

“Try to convince ourselves that we have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding our friend in time if his Syros buddies turn up empty.”

***

If there’s a universal brotherhood among free-world cops, what binds them together is the unstated premise that civilians don’t appreciate them. And in Greece, where cops are vilified as corrupt, lazy, and inept, and targeted with stones and molotov cocktails at public demonstrations, that brotherhood is very strong.

If a Syriot ever wondered precisely how many cops were on the island’s police force, all that citizen had to do was count the number of uniforms on the streets around City Hall that morning. Every cop on the island, whether on-duty, off-duty, on holiday, or out sick, was there with a photograph of Tassos and a “you damn well better speak up if you know anything” attitude.

By ten that morning they’d found a waiter who the night before had been walking toward the harbor for a drink after work when he passed Tassos going the other way, toward City Hall. They’d said hello to each other, and according to the waiter, “He seemed fine.”

When Adonis passed the news on to Andreas, Andreas told him to narrow the search to streets Tassos could have taken between where the waiter saw him and his car.

At ten thirty a sergeant found an abandoned store with an unlocked door. Inside the place was empty except for two chairs and a cigarette butt on the floor in a back room. A fresh butt. He called forensics and by noon a print matching Tassos’ was lifted from the front door.

A security camera mounted on the roof of a bank just around the corner and across the street from the building caught a partial rear view of the top of a white van pulling up on the driver’s side in front of the building, stopping for ninety seconds, and pulling away, all within twenty minutes of the time Tassos was said to have left the taverna.

Another security camera a block away caught a white van passing by at approximately the same time with the name of a butcher emblazoned on its side.

The butcher couldn’t believe his good fortune when three cops showed up taking such an interest in his van. After all, he’d only notified the police of its theft that morning when he got into work and saw it was missing.

With that news, Andreas told them to make the van the target of their search. An hour and a half later a rookie cop in a patrol car found the empty van abandoned less than two miles from where they’d found Tassos’ fingerprint. It was by a cove off the road to the seafront village of Azolimnos, south of the island’s main harbor, just beyond the Syros Airport, and directly across the sea from Mykonos.

Andreas had Adonis on speakerphone as he delivered the news about locating the van. “I don’t know what to say, Chief. Where they’ve taken him from here is anybody’s guess.”

“I know.” Andreas looked at Kouros and shook his head. “Let me know if forensics turns up anything more from that building or the van. And keep checking those security videos. We might get lucky.”

“Will do.”

Andreas reached to turn off the phone. “By the way, Adonis. You did a great job. Tassos would be proud.”

There was a distinct swallowing sound on the other end of the line. “Thanks, Chief, but if it’s all the same to you I’d rather hear him tell me that himself.”

Andreas smiled. “Well said. Bye.”

He hung up and looked at Kouros. “I guess ‘anybody’s guess’ means our guess.”

“So, what’s yours?”

“That they took Tassos someplace they know. Where they’d feel secure. My guess is that since Sergey doesn’t know anything about the islands, he’s relying on someone who does. I’d say Wacki, but it’s hard to imagine him getting himself personally involved in anything as risky as kidnapping a cop.”

Kouros nodded. “He’s too much of a wimp for the physical stuff. But he’d know plenty of nasties capable of doing whatever Sergey wanted.”

“For sure. They’re clients in his clubs.”

“Which means likely Athenian or local muscle,” said Kouros.

“If Athenians snatched him and took him back to the mainland we’ll never find him in time. If locals did it, they’re probably from Mykonos, because Syros bad guys had no reason to get him off the island as fast as these guys did. They would know where to hide him there.”

“Are you saying your guess is Mykonos?”

Andreas nodded. “It’s our only possible shot at finding him alive. We’ve got three thousand islands in this country, all but a couple hundred deserted. Not to mention the number of boats out there. I’m just going for the long shot with the best odds. Kidnappers want a place where they feel safe and in control. And if they’re from Mykonos, I’m picking here.”

“Okay, so now what?”

“I’d like to do what our brothers on Syros did. Turn every cop on the island loose on finding him. But if I’m right about Tassos being here, as soon as Sergey hears about the search he’ll likely panic and kill him.”

Andreas scratched his head. “I think we’ve got to turn to civilians for help. After all, it’s their island. And no one knows it better than they do.”

“How can we do that and keep it quiet? Locals love to gossip. It’s bound to get back to Wacki.”

Andreas nodded. “Sometimes it seems almost everyone on this island is in Wacki’s pocket, or someone like him, but there are a lot of good people out there who aren’t. And some of them are indebted to Tassos. He’s done good things for many of them, and if those folks aren’t prepared to keep their mouths shut to save his life…heaven help this place.”

“So, whom do we talk to?”

“Since it looks like they took him from Syros by boat, let’s start with the coast guard.”

Law enforcement on the seas and in the nation’s ports was the responsibility of the Hellenic Coast Guard, also known as the port police, commanded by a harbormaster.

“I’ll ask the harbormaster to find locals who might know something. He should know the ones we can trust not to gossip. After all, that’s how the coast guard gets most of its information on what’s happening in Mykonos waters. From folks like fisherman, ship captains, marine suppliers, boat agents, and union guys shuttling passengers between the cruise ships and the port. They’re the ones who notice when something’s not right.”

“That’s still a pretty big chance to take. Gossip is like breathing around here.”

Andreas nodded. “I’ll tell him to round up the ones he trusts the most, but not to tell them why, and to bring them here without letting them call anyone. That way we’ll at least get a shot at convincing them not to talk. Besides, what other option do we have?”

“Prayer?”

“I haven’t stopped since Maggie called.”

“Amen.”