midnight, might as well go in.”
Tassos was the first to reach the front door. Two men in a hurry brushed past him coming out of the bar. It was the Romanians from that afternoon.
Andreas put his hand on the chest of the taller of the two. Both men stopped. “What’s the hurry?”
The man looked frightened. “No understand.”
“Where’s your friend, the interpreter?”
“No understand.”
Andreas dropped his hand from the man’s chest and waved him on. “A waste of time talking to them.”
“Even if we could understand them,” said Tassos.
Inside, the place was pretty much as it had seemed from the outside. The front door opened into a tiny room with a badly stained marble-top bar to the right. In front of the bar were three empty metal bar stools, and behind it a cash register, a top sliding beer cooler, a loudly humming refrigerator, and a decade old television angled for whoever worked behind the bar, not the customers. A fat, clean-shaven, middle-age man in jeans and a crisply ironed work shirt sat alone at the only table. There was no one else in the front room.
Past the bar was a larger room filled with beat-up taverna chairs tossed together around a dozen cheap, round-top plastic tables. More light seemed to be coming into that room from the moon through the windowed garage doors on the left than from two dim ceiling fixtures along the wall to the right.
The word that came to mind was dive. But there were people at every table. And all of them were staring at the two new arrivals.
Andreas stopped next to the fat man’s table. “What’s the matter, you anti-social?”
He looked up. “I prefer not to mix with my customers.” He spoke perfect Greek.
“You own this place?”
“Yes.”
“Nice place,” said Andreas.
“It’s a shit hole,” said the man. “But it makes more than it ever did as a garage.”
A wiry, middle-age woman, with more salt than pepper hair and dressed in black except for dirty blue bedroom slippers, shuffled out of the big room carrying a tray filled with empty beer bottles. She squeezed by Tassos and went behind the bar.
“Are you two going to order anything?” said the guy at the table.
“Two beers,” said Tassos. “Mind if we sit with you?”
The man raised two fingers to the woman and pointed at Tassos and Andreas.
“Like I said, ‘I prefer not to mix with my customers.’”
Andreas pulled up a chair and sat down. “We’re not customers, we’re cops.”
“No wonder those two guys ran out of here so fast.”
“Where were they sitting?”
He pointed at a table with two women.
“Are they regulars?”
“The women are, the guys just started coming in a couple of weeks ago.”
“What’s your name?” said Tassos.
“Petros.”
“You’re Greek?” said Tassos.
“Born and raised on the island. Just like my great, great, great, great-grandparents and all my family since then.”
The woman put two beers on the table and walked away. No glasses were offered.
“You get quite a mixed bag of customers in here,” said Tassos.
“Everyone but the Greeks.”
“Business looks good,” said Andreas.
Petros shrugged. “Not complaining.”
“Those two who left. Do they hang out with anybody in particular?” said Andreas.
“Some Pakistani.” Petros looked around. “I don’t see him.” He looked at his watch. “He’s usually here by now.”
Guess he figured we’d show up tonight and decided to pass, thought Andreas. “Did those murdered tsigani brothers ever come here?”
Petros gestured no. “So, that’s why you’re here. Lucky me you’re not interested in any of my live customers.”
“ Tsigani come here?” said Tassos.
“Not many.”
“Where do they go?” said Tassos.
The man shrugged. “No idea. But you might ask those two.” He nodded toward the same two women. “They were in here the night after the two dead ones were identified, chattering away about how they’d ‘partied together with the brothers.’ In case you haven’t guessed, they’re working girls.”
“Thanks.” Andreas stood up and picked his beer off the table. He looked at Tassos. “I’ll be right back.”
“Knock yourself out, Romeo,” smiled Tassos.
The women were at a table in the center of the room. One was decidedly taller than the other, but both were blond, blue-eyed and chubby. Probably Polish, and definitely not smiling at Andreas.
“Hi ladies, mind if I sit down?” Andreas sat without waiting for an answer. “So, come here often?” He flashed a smile.
The women said nothing.
“Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Andreas Kaldis, GADA’s Chief of Special Crimes. But you probably already know that. I’ve been telling that to a lot of people these days. In fact, I told something like that to a friend of your two friends who just ran out of here.”
The tall woman said something to the other in Polish.
“Uhh, uhh,” said Andreas. “Ladies, you’re in Greece and courtesy requires that you speak Greek. If you don’t I’m going to have to take you to a place where someone will speak to you in Polish. But it may take a day or two to find a police officer that does. Don’t worry, the state will provide you with a place to stay until then.” He smiled.
The tall woman said something else in Polish.
Andreas smiled. “That you can say. I know ‘fuck you’ in Polish. So, do we have an understanding?”
The women looked at each other. “Yes.”
“Good. Now tell me what happened just before your two friends hurried out of here.”
The short woman said, “Three men came in and went around telling everyone two cops were sitting in a car out by the fence. That’s when the two guys said something to each other and left.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t speak Polish and I don’t understand Romanian,” said the short woman.
“Then how did you understand the three men who said there were cops outside?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did they speak in Polish?”
“No, Greek.”
Andreas smiled and turned to the tall one. “So, you’re the one who speaks Romanian.”
She stared at the tabletop.
“Remember what I said before about arranging housing for you until I find a colleague who speaks Polish. Would you like me to do that for you now?”
She looked up. “How did you know I spoke Romanian?”
“Because your two friends who left don’t speak Greek. Someone had to translate for them. Now, what did they say?” Andreas did not smile.
The woman swallowed. “That the two cops outside had to be the same ones who were trying to question them that afternoon about the murdered tsigani brothers. They said the Pakistani they worked with ‘must have told the cops about the bar.’”
“What else did they say?”
