“Something about not wanting to be here if you and your partner were looking for some farmer the Pakistani told them about. Then they got up and left. Didn’t even pay for our beers.”
As if on cue the woman in the slippers was at the table and pointing at the ladies’ nearly empty bottles. Andreas nodded, “Yeah, another round. ‘Farmer?’ What the hell were they talking about?”
“I don’t know,” said the tall woman.
“Me either,” said the other.
Andreas took a sip of his beer. “So, tell me about the Carausii brothers.”
“What do you want to know?” said the short one.
“Oh, for starters how about who killed them and why?”
“No idea.”
“I’m shocked,” said Andreas. “So, let’s take a different approach. When and where did you first meet them?”
“About a month ago through tsigani friends at another bar.” The short one gave Andreas the name of the bar and said it was close to the brothers’ tsigani camp. “They were nice boys. Close to our age, too.”
“Yeah, not like the other ones,” said the tall one.
Andreas took that to mean their johns. “So, the four of you partied together?” He used the street word for their business.
“Yeah, a couple of times,” said the tall one. “Like I said, they weren’t like the others.”
“Did they pay?”
The tall girl looked down. “Yes.”
“But not as much as the others,” said the short one.
“What did you talk about?”
The women took turns talking about things completely irrelevant to Andreas but obviously very relevant to them. Things like how none of the four felt accepted by the larger world, how lucky they were to still be alive doing what they had to do to survive, and their doubts at any future beyond today.
“And just when things seemed to be getting better for them, look what happened. We’re all cursed,” said the tall one.
“What do you mean ‘better’?” said Andreas.
The short one answered. “They said something about getting their big break. That some ‘major guys’ in their old Athens neighborhood would owe them ‘big time.’”
“For what?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“Someone on this island was of great interest to people back in Menidi.”
“Ever hear a name or a description?”
“Only once, but nothing I understood. They made some sort of toast to a foreign sounding name. I thought it was Romanian. A lot of tsigani speak Romanian.”
The tall one said, “I don’t remember them saying a name in Romanian.”
“Never?” said Andreas.
She shrugged. “Not that I remember. And they stopped seeing us right after telling us about their ‘big break.’”
“Why did they stop seeing you?” said Andreas?
“They found new girls,” said the short one. “Greek girls. Tall, skinny, model types but with big tits. The kind men fantasize about.”
“We can’t compete with that type,” said the tall one.
“No offense intended, but I’m surprised those girls would be interested in tsigani,” said Andreas.
“We thought the same thing, especially since the girls looked the expensive type, way out of the brothers’ price range,” said the tall one.
“Were they pros?”
“Is there a difference between doing it for cash or for an expensive dinner and clothes?” said the short one.
Andreas smiled. “Where’d they meet?”
“No idea. But one night we showed up at that tsigani bar to meet them and a friend told us they’d just left with two girls. We saw them there the next night with the girls, but they didn’t talk to us. And then they were dead.”
“Do you have names for the girls?”
Tall one gestured no. “As if they would be real if we did.”
Andreas nodded. He asked them all sorts of other questions through two more rounds of beers but no answers yielded more information than they’d already told him.
“Thanks, ladies, and if you think of anything else, please let me know.” He handed the tall one his card. “Like any more about that ‘farmer’ your Romanian friends were talking about.” He smiled because he’d used the Polish word for farmer.
“What do you mean?” said the tall woman.
“You told me that the Romanians said I was asking about some ‘farmer.’” This time Andreas used the Greek word for farmer. The same one the tall woman had used.
She shook her head, “No, if that’s what that Greek word means in Polish I didn’t mean that. What I meant was a word for something different.” She looked at the short girl and said a word in Polish.
The short girl said, “Sheep farmer.”
“Shepherd?” said Andreas.
“Yes,” said the tall girl. That’s what the Romanians meant when they said you were looking for a cioban.”
The short girl’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute, that’s the name the tsigani brothers were toasting the last night they were with us. Don’t you remember, they said, ‘To the cioban,’ because something they knew about him was about to make them ‘very rich.’ You and I talked about it later. We even toasted to him.”
The tall girl picked up her beer and took a swig. “Yeah, I do. So what. Instead they’re dead. Life sucks.”
Andreas had nothing to add.
“Did you get anything from the fat guy while I was talking to the ladies?”
They were sitting in the car next to the fence and Andreas had just finished telling Tassos what he’d learned from the two women.
“A lot of local gossip about everything but what I wanted to know. From what I could tell he probably owns all this land.” Tassos waved his hand above his head. “Lives off the rents and spends his nights sitting at that table watching the cash register and his sister doing all the work.”
“Thought she might be his wife,” said Andreas.
“That would be the traditional way a Greek love story turns out, but this time it’s the spinster sister. Her boyfriend jilted her twenty-plus years ago and she’s been wearing black ever since. In mourning for her lost love. Petros said that place is all that keeps her going.”
“Terrific. I’m so happy for them both. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
“What about that tsigani bar? Don’t you think we should check it out? Find out what we can about the two new women in the dead brothers’ lives.”
Andreas looked at his watch. “It’s nearly three, and I’ve got to be on a 7AM boat to Mykonos or Lila will kill me. I’ll get Yianni over here first thing in the morning to help you chase that down. And while you’re at it, maybe you could find out how those two Romanian guys knew the Pakistani had told us about the ‘shepherd’?”
“My guess is that after we left they threatened to beat the hell out of him if he didn’t tell them what he’d whispered to you. Not smart to whisper when the people you don’t want to hear already can’t understand you. It makes them think what you said was very important. And about them.”
“What the hell, we’re never going to wrap this up before the wedding anyway.” Andreas started the engine.
“Spiros will be pissed.”
