settled.

'Who is Zissis?'

'A colleague,' I said, as vaguely as possible.

CHAPTER 32

We sat at a table by the window that looked onto Patission Street. Zissis was eating his parfait ice cream, while I made do with soda water. He was scraping the glass so clean with his spoon that it wouldn't need washing.

'Christos Pylarinos,' he said eventually, sounding like a civil servant. 'Son of political refugees. Born in Prague. Grew up there and studied economics there. Kept well away from party politics. As soon as he'd finished his studies, he entered a state-owned company. I think it was Czechoslovakian Airlines, but I was unable to verify that. He was competent and soon rose from the middle to the higher echelons of the company. He was unable to get to the top because only party members were appointed to the higher positions. At the beginning of the eighties, he suddenly appeared in Greece and opened a tourist business. The question is: Where did a company employee working in a socialist country get the money to open his own business in Greece?'

He looked at me with a crafty smile. I didn't have to rack my brain. I knew where he was leading. 'The Czechs gave it to him.'

'Just so. All the socialist states opened businesses of that kind in capitalist countries, because they needed the foreign currency. Some opened them through sister parties in the capitalist country, but more often than not they used individuals as fronts. Pylarinos belongs in the second category.'

'And why would the Czechs trust the son of a Greek political refugee? How were they so sure that he wouldn't run off with their money?'

Zissis's smile was all condescension, as if he were talking to a mental retard. 'They had a powerful control mechanism. First of all, they put one of their own people beside the individual acting as a front, to watch him on a daily basis. In addition, the sister party in the host country undertook a high level of supervision and regularly reported back to their comrades in the source country. And on top of all that, they also had a guarantee.'

'What kind of guarantee?'

'Pylarinos's father died years ago, but his mother is still alive. She came back from Czechoslovakia in 1990.'

'They used Pylarinos's mother as their guarantee?'

Zissis shrugged. 'It wouldn't be the first time, but again I can't be sure. The party's finances were monitored by a very small circle of members. Even party leaders in high posts didn't know everything that was going on. But doesn't it seem strange to you that the son should have a huge fortune in Greece while the mother was living on her state pension in Prague?'

It wasn't only strange, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Zissis shook his head fatalistically.

'Controls, covering for each other, mechanisms-they thought of everything. There was only one thing they hadn't reckoned on. That all this would collapse like a house of cards in 'eighty-nine. And suddenly Pylarinos found himself with a vast fortune, all his own. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had disintegrated, its echelons had scattered, and those who came to power had no means to lay claim to all these fortunes. It's quite possible that the new people didn't even know of their existence.'

'And suddenly, from being a marionette, Pylarinos became a businessman in his own right.'

'I don't know about `right'!' Zissis leaned toward me and lowered his voice. 'Pylarinos is like a red flag. He appropriated money belonging to others, lots of money. I'm not the only one who despises him. He is despised by all the party members. They'd be happy to see him rot behind bars, but if they expose him, they'd have to bring a lot more to light. I'm telling you all this, so you'll understand that no one likes him.' He shifted his position. He sat back in his chair, looked at me, and said with absolute certainty: 'But there is no way he's involved in any dirty business.'

'Why is that?'

'Think about it. As long as the socialist regime existed in Czechoslovakia, he didn't dare put a foot wrong. They'd have got rid of him. Now he has a fortune. Why would he get involved with dirty money?'

'Listen, Lambros. Karayoryi may have been ambitious, but she was no fool. She had a fat file on him with information that it would have taken us a year to amass. For her to be investigating him to that extent means that she'd discovered something.'

'Are you sure she was investigating Pylarinos and not someone else in his company?'

The photographs that Karayoryi had taken came into my mind. The one with the group of men in the nightclub and the other with the two men talking in the cafeteria.

'Let's go for a drive,' I said to Zissis.

'Where to?'

'To my office. There's something I want to show you.'

'Don't even think about it,' he said, as if he'd been bitten by a snake. 'I'm not setting foot in security headquarters. I almost lost my pension because for three whole months I was thinking that I had to get a certificate from your people and I kept putting it off. I said I'd help you, but let's not overdo it.'

'Let's split the difference,' I said, laughing. 'We'll go as far as the entrance. You'll wait in the car and I'll nip in to get something that I want you to see.'

'If I can stay in the car, okay,' he said and immediately got up.

It was after eleven and the traffic on the roads had cleared. From Amerikis Square at the point where Patission Street widens, we weren't held up by any traffic lights, and in twenty minutes we were at the security headquarters. On the way we talked about other things. He asked me about Katerina, how she was doing with her studies. He'd never met her, but he knew she was studying in Thes saloniki. I began to tell him how upset I was that she wouldn't be home for Christmas, and, without wanting to, I came out with all my bitterness about her hunk. Zissis listened to me without interrupting. He realized that I needed to talk and he let me.

He remained in the Mirafiori, while I got the two photographs taken by Karayoryi. I showed him the one from the nightclub first.

'That's Sovatzis,' he said as soon as he looked at it, and he pointed to the man with the plastered hair and the constipated smile.

'Who's Sovatzis?'

'The party member that they put in place beside Pylarinos to watch him.'

'And the other two?'

'Foreigners, for sure. I don't know this one at all. The other one sitting next to Pylarinos looks kind of familiar, but I can't remember where from' His finger rested not on the pudding-faced one with the fringe, but on the one sitting next to Pylarinos. Suddenly he cried out. 'Of course, it's Alois Hacek! One of the top men of the party in Czechoslovakia! You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes. He was the party official responsible for finances and he came to Greece to check up on Pylarinos.' I showed him the date, to the bottom right. He seemed surprised. 'November 14,1990,' he muttered. 'The party was already dissolved and he's taking a trip to Greece?'

I took out the other photograph, the one with the two of them talking in the cafeteria. He looked at the date: 11/17/90. He put the photographs side by side. I said nothing. I let him think in his own good time. He shook his head and sighed.

'Do you want to know what happened in Athens on those two dates?' he said. 'I'll tell you, and I don't think I'll be far off.' He stopped to collect his thoughts and then said: 'Toward the end of 'eighty-nine, when the socialist regimes collapsed, the party leaders lost everything. The people were wringing their hands. The high positions were gone, the dachas were gone, the limousines were gone. Everyone was out of work. Except that it wasn't exactly like that. Because these people had had a monopoly on power for more than forty years. They were the only ones who knew anything about ad ministration, the only ones to have any contacts and connections with the rest of the world. And they made use of them. From being party members, they became businessmen. Once they had talked politics; now they talked business. Alois Hacek belongs to that category. Obviously he had the evidence that Pylarinos had been financed by the party in Czechoslovakia. So in November 1990, he came to Athens to find him. `Which would you prefer?' he probably told him. `I give the information I have to the new government to lay claim to your business, or do we become partners?' What would you have done in Pylarinos's shoes? You would have made him a partner rather than risk losing everything.'

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