Page 141 of Dagger in the Sea

When my mother and Petros had sent me back to Geneva, it hadn’t mattered to Yianni that I’d been caught up in a horrible tragedy. He’d called once, we’d spoken. Rather, he’d done all the talking, I could barely form words. I’d been floundering, on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

“I thought we’d be making money by this time, and I would be able to pay something here and there,” my father said. “But then the yacht purchase got caught up in paperwork and taxes and new taxes. My partners asked me for money to pay these fucking taxes.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. But still, no boat. This government,re gamóto, ti malakizméni—” He petered off into a string of curses and sour complaints about the current ruling political party.

Whenever possible, blame the government for your woes yet always expect a government handout to cure your ills. My father’s generation had made that an art form.

“Babá,”my voice snapped and he lifted his eyes to me. He was annoyed, annoyed with me, and for the first time, I didn’t care. He wasn’t going to derail yet another conversation his way. “Do you have any of the money left?” I asked him.

“A few thousand. I offered to give this back, they laughed at me.”

Christé mou.

“And who is this man who lent you the money?” Turo asked.

“Efstathi Fokas.”

The blood drained from my head, my mouth dried. “Fokas? You are friends with Fokas? You borrowed money from Fokas?”

“Who is this Fokas?” Turo asked calmly as if we were having an ordinary conversation on an ordinary topic.

Fokas was not ordinary. “The King of the Night, they call him. Athens’s biggest crime lord,” I said. “He’s quite famous. Not only for lending money, but also for terrorizing judges and prosecutors with bomb attacks at their homes, hand grenades thrown at their cars. He works with drug lords, too.”

My father’s eyes blazed. “I have known him since we both started out. He was a kick-boxer who’d work as muscle at the nightclubs, just like I did when I stopped playing water polo. He even got me a job a few times in the winters, when I had no work, before I started at the hotel.”

“And now Fokas has an empire,” I said, my heart galloping in my chest, my head swirling in dizziness. “It’s rumoured that Fokas is quite friendly with the remaining members of this notorious Greek terrorist group that was active in the seventies and the eighties. They’ve been experiencing a revival lately, made possible with Fokas’s money. That anarchist group that killed Grigori is an offshoot of that group,” my voice sharpened.

“I don’t care about his political views. To each his own,” Yanni said on a sneer.

“He sponsors terrorism and kills innocent people who are only trying to do the right thing,” I said.

My father made a face. “Fokas has no control over what those extremists do.”

“They killed Grigori!” I said.

“That was a terrible thing, Adriana. That boy did not deserve that, but this is not related.”

“Not related?” said Turo, the deep boom of his voice sliced the tension and created more. “How about your daughter getting shot at to send you a message?”

No reply.

An icy tremor shuddered through me and I gripped my hands together in a fist. Turo’s hand went to my leg, and I sucked in a breath. “I’ve helped you whenever you needed help.But this, this…”

“If I pay them the money, all this will be over, of course,” said Yianni.

Was he implying that my getting shot at was a result of not having come through for him when he’d wanted me to? All this would just go away once I came up with the cash for him? Life would go on, and he would go on as he did before.

“Did Fokas ask you for special favors on your new party boat?” Turo asked.

Yianni scowled at Turo again. “What?”

“That he’d have a presence at your parties, be able to sell his drugs there? Prostitutes?”

Yianni only flicked his ash in the ashtray, and let out a thick stream of smoke, rubbing what was left of his hand rolled cigarette between his fingers.

“Of course,” I murmured.

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