Deadline in Athens Read Free

anxiously. The officer stretched out his foot and stepped on the cigarette, while grinning at the Albanian. Smart kid, catches on very nicely.

    "You entered Greece illegally. There's no record of you anywhere, no visa, no stamp, nothing. I could dispose of you and no one would ever ask what happened to you. I've never seen you or heard of you, because you don't exist. Are you listening? You don't exist!"
    "I go for woman," he said in fear, as I shook him.
    "Fancied her?" I let him sink back onto the chair.
    "Yes."
    "That's why you were creeping around the house all day. You wanted to go in and do her, and she wouldn't open the door for you.
    "Yes," he said again and smiled this time, enjoying the psychoanalysis.
    "And when she didn't open the door, you went crazy and broke in at night and murdered them!"
    "No!" he shouted in alarm.
    I sat in the chair facing him and stared into his eyes. I let some time pass. He grew anxious. Luckily he didn't realize that I'd come to a dead end. What else could I do to him? Let him go hungry? He wouldn't give a rat's ass. He was used to eating one day in three and then only if he was lucky. Get two strong-armed boys from upstairs to give him a going-over? He'd had so many goings-over in his life that he wouldn't think twice about it.
    "Listen," I said to him in a calm and friendly voice, "I'll write down everything we say on a piece of paper, you'll sign it, and you'll have nothing more to worry about."
    He said nothing. He just looked at me with indecision and doubt. It wasn't that he was afraid of going to prison; he'd simply learned to be suspicious. He did not have it in his experience to believe that suffering comes to an end somewhere and you find relief. He was afraid that if you accept one thing, you'll have to face a second and third, because that had always been his fate. The poor wretch needed some gentle persuasion.

    "After all, it won't be so bad in prison," I said to him in a conversational way. "You'll have your own bed, three meals a day, all courtesy of the state. You won't have to do anything, and you'll be taken care of, just like it was in your own country back then. And if you have any brains, after a couple of months you'll join one of the gangs, and you'll make a bit on the side as well. Prison is the only place where there's no unemployment. If you have your wits about you, you'll come out with a nice little nest egg"
    He went on staring at me, except that now his eyes were glinting, as if he liked the idea, but he continued to say nothing. I knew he wanted to think about it, and I got up. "You don't have to give me an answer now," I said. "Think about it, and we'll talk again tomorrow"
    As I was going toward the door, I saw the officer taking out his pack of Marlboros and offering him one. I made a mental note to get the kid transferred and have him work with me.
I found them all milling around in front of my office. Some were holding microphones, others pocket recorders. All of them with that greedy and impatient look: a pack of wolves hungry for a statement, soldiers waiting for their rations. The cameramen saw me coming and hoisted the cameras to their shoulders.
    "Step inside, all of you. I opened the door to my office, muttering under my breath, "Go to hell, you bastards, and leave me in peace." They burst through the door behind me and planted their microphones with the logo of their TV channels, their cables, and their pocket recorders all over my desk. In less than a minute, it had come to resemble the stall of an immigrant vendor in Athinas Street.
    "Do you have anything more to tell us about the Albanian, Inspector?" It was Sotiropoulos, with his Armani checked shirt, his English raincoat, his Timberland moccasins, and his spectacles with their round metallic frames, the kind once worn by poor old Himmler and now worn by intellectuals. He'd stopped calling me by name some time before and now just addressed me as "Inspector." And he always began with "Do