Tears of the Furies Read Free Page A

face. Again he mopped his forehead, and he took a moment to rest. He lay
his hands upon his belly as though he might relieve himself of the burden of
carrying it for a moment. His father had been skeletally thin, but his mother .
. . from her he had inherited his bulk and his shambling gait. She had been
proud of it, the old witch. As though her size had been her greatest ambition
and proudest accomplishment. Yannis was as heavy as he had ever been and was
still half the weight that had finally killed his mother.
    Water , he thought. He needed a drink of water. Although
coffee would be an acceptable substitute.
    At last, having no way to put off his venture into that
gloom-dark street, he started on again. Halfway along there was yet another
turn, this one barely an alley. It was a curving, cobblestoned path that at
first glance could have passed as a delivery entrance for some of the buildings
on Pittakoú Street. At the end of the path was the Epidaurus Guest House.
    There were a few people out in front of the place, but not
as many as Yannis would have expected. He grunted to himself. Would you want
to stand out here in the shade, with all the buildings far too quiet? The
answer was no. The sounds of the Pláka could be heard from here, even distant
music, but it was as though he had stepped into another world and the way back
to the other might be gone when he tried to return.
    Ha! he thought. You’re getting morbid in your old
age.
    His mouth twisted as though he had sucked on something
bitter. Yannis had reason to be morbid. He had been witness to the monstrous
and the terrible far too often in his life.
    An officer in the uniform of the Athens police nodded to him
and waved him in. Yannis did his best to hide the exhaustion he felt after
wending his way through the maze of the Pláka. He said nothing to the officer,
asked him nothing. The young ones hardly knew enough to fill an ouzo glass.
    The Epidaurus was like many guest houses in the area. On the
outside it was kept up reasonably well. The interior was barely passable. Its
location near to the Acropolis brought in tourists who would consider it
quaint, but though clean, the place was in disrepair. The walls needed painting
and the wooden floors were scuffed and faded. There was nothing beneath those
high ceilings to bring beauty to the place. No art on the walls, no elegant
furniture or drapes on the windows. The prices were too high, but people paid
them, and the owners spent not a penny to improve their lodgings.
    Yannis thought the owners were miserly and their guests were
fools. But he had a low opinion of most people. He was a curmudgeon, well-liked
only by other detectives, and only then because, despite his appearance, he was
skilled at his job.
    There were two other detectives there when he arrived, but
Yannis had seniority. The two men, Dioskouri and Keramikous, were pale and
seemed nervous. When they noticed him they immediately broke off conversation
with a pair of uniformed officers and a crook-backed old man who must have been
the owner, and came to him instantly, faces etched with relief.
    "Lieutenant," Dioskouri said, adjusting his
glasses and running a hand over his wiry black hair. "You’ve got to come
in and see this. We don’t know what to do."
    It was all Yannis could do to sigh and not roll his eyes. Dioskouri
was a broad-shouldered boy from the wine country, and his Greek was spattered
with the dialect of his birthplace. It gave him away as young and naive, though
he was past thirty.
    Keramikous was altogether different. He was a tiny man, both
thin and short, his stature barely that of a teenaged boy. Yannis was uncertain
of his age, but he marked it at somewhere south of forty. Keramikous was
balding, his hair already as gray as Yannis’s. He seemed fragile and withered,
the oldest young man Yannis had ever met. But he was a good detective and a
family man, and for that Keramikous had his respect.
    "Niko," he said, studying Keramikous,