An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [90]
‘It’s Barbara. You can’t believe what she’s telling me.’
His heart stopped. Deny, deny, deny. No, not this time. He thought to beat her to the punch. ‘Lila—’
She burst out laughing. ‘I don’t believe her. She’s one of a kind.’ Lila turned to Andreas, all smiles. ‘First of all, she said to send you her love and that you gave a “tremendous performance.”’
I wonder if Maggie has talked to her yet, Andreas thought.
‘I had invited her to join us for dinner, she should have been here hours ago.’
Maggie better have, but if she had she’d have told me.
‘But she can’t make it.’
Thank God.
‘Because she’s in Moscow.’
You’ve got to be kidding me!
‘She was at the airport waiting to catch the last plane back to Athens, and guess who she ran into?’
Good thing she didn’t know more than that I needed an escort.
‘Your Russian from last night. He convinced her it would be a lot more fun to celebrate Easter in Moscow than Athens. She said to tell you she decided to go. “So it wouldn’t be a total loss.” What does that mean?’
‘Got me. She’s a bit wacky.’
‘I’ll say.’ Lila laughed again. ‘Barbara, Barbara, you never fail to amaze me.’
I’ll say.
‘Thanks for inviting me. You were right, Easter dinner alone on Mykonos would have been a downer.’
Tassos patted Kouros on the arm. ‘Hey, you’re family. Besides, I didn’t have to cook. He did.’ Kouros pointed to a man hurrying toward them with plates stacked along his left arm from fingertips to elbow. He was the vision of a Greek leprechaun with a round, rosy-cheeked face, twinkling eyes, and a Greek fisherman’s moustache.
‘Steline,’ the leprechaun shouted, ‘hurry with the rest of the plates before this old bastard from Syros arrests me.’
‘I see he knows you.’
Tassos smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ve spent many a night together here behind city hall, closing up his place and exchanging lies. It started out as a locals’ place, now it’s the most famous taverna on the island. Everybody comes here.’
Kouros looked over Tassos’ shoulder at someone aimed straight for their table. ‘Oh, boy. Were you ever right.’
‘What are you talking—’
‘You miserable fucking piece of shit!’ And thus began a thirty-second string of expletives delivered at disco club volume. Tourist heads jerked around to see who was about to be murdered. Locals just shrugged and continued on with Easter dinner; it was only Katerina doing her warpath thing.
Tassos braced himself, then came a smack to the back of his head.
Kouros smiled. ‘I see you’ve been through this before.’
Tassos stayed braced. ‘She’s not done yet.’
Smack. She did it again, then another.
Tassos relaxed. ‘I think she’s done.’
‘I heard that, asshole,’ and gave him another slap.
Tassos turned to face her. ‘Christos Anesti, Katerina mou. Please, join us.’
She was shaking her fist in his face and stopped only long enough to say, ‘Alithos Anesti,’ before starting in on him again. ‘How could you have done that to me? Set me up so badly.’ Tassos pulled out a chair as she raged on. Katerina sat down without missing a beat in her diatribe. ‘I have never been so embarrassed in all my life.’
‘I assume you know all of my cousins.’ Tassos pointed to the people around the table. ‘And, of course, Yianni Kouros.’
Katerina nodded and smiled to all the cousins, then looked at Kouros. ‘You’re as bad as this one,’ pointing to Tassos.
Kouros decided to follow Tassos’ lead. ‘Christos Anesti.’
‘Alithos Anesti.’ She turned back to Tassos and repeated, ‘How could you have done that to me?’
Tassos sighed. ‘Katerina, what did I do to you?’
‘You set me up. You knew I would tell Vladimir.’
Tassos leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I love you, really I do. You’re one of a kind. Here, have a drink.’ He handed her a glass of wine. ‘Yamas.’
Katerina, Tassos, and Kouros clinked glasses and drank.
‘Miserable bastards,’ she said. Then she poured the three of them more wine. ‘I feel almost as stupid as some of my dumb-ass clients, the ones who think they’re so smart and end up getting conned. Like you did me!’ She didn’t smack this time, just shouted.
They sat together