matter who shows up to get her out. But you better get right over there, just in case.”
Kouros smiled. “On my way, chief.”
Kordydallos Prison Complex wasn’t very pretty to look at: a walled, multiple square-city-block, gray amalgam of not more than four-story warehouse-like structures crowded around a tiny central patch of green. Although an uneasy place at best, it was most well known to the public for two separate, recent great escapes in a rented helicopter-each time by the same notorious kidnapper/bank robber.
Women were housed separately from the rest of the general inmate population. But that didn’t make life any easier inside for a woman as attractive as Maria Fioropoulou, and from her file she wasn’t one used to the sort of violence she’d find there. Her record was strictly busts for high-end prostitution, starting five years ago when she was sixteen.
Kouros was leaning against a virtually colorless wall in a second floor interrogation room. Maria was standing in front of a square metal table anchored to the floor. She was wearing handcuffs and staring at the floor. Kouros motioned for the officer who’d brought her into the room to remove them.
“I don’t think they’ll be necessary.” Kouros studied her. There were bruises and scratch marks on her face, arms, and legs. “Do you?”
She nodded “no” without lifting her eyes from the floor.
As the handcuffs were removed Kouros walked to a chair across the table from where she stood. He pointed to an empty chair next to her. “Please.”
She sat down. Her eyes looked everywhere but at Kouros. “Where’s my lawyer?”
Kouros waited until the officer left the room before sitting down. “You won’t need him, this is an unofficial meeting.”
“Nothing with police is ‘unofficial.’”
Kouros nodded. “A wise way to look at things. But just listen to what I have to say. There’s no reason for you to talk if you don’t want to.” He stared at her, but she still wouldn’t make eye contact.
“You’ve made a very powerful enemy. But, of course, I don’t have to tell you that. I’m sure you already know it. Isn’t fate a bummer? Bet you didn’t even know how valuable that watch was when you lifted it. Had it only been a Rolex your boyfriend might not even have missed it.”
She didn’t say a word.
“Yeah, you’re just having one hell of a run of bad luck. I mean you never should have ended up in Kordydallos for just turning tricks. But you did. And if you hadn’t I might never have found you.”
She glanced at his face.
He was smiling. “Like they say, some days you eat the bear and other days the bear eats you. Guess today is just my lucky day.”
“What are you talking about?” She was looking at the tabletop.
“Maria, I know you think you’re in trouble now. But you have no idea the trouble you’re really in.” He paused. “Or, perhaps you do?”
“Like you said, I have ‘no idea’ what you’re talking about.”
“You and a friend of yours are about to stand trial for murder.”
“ What? ” she shrieked, and looked straight at Kouros.
“The two Carausii brothers. You remember them don’t you, from Tinos.”
She looked puzzled. “What about them?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what happened to them? That would make you the only person in Greece who doesn’t.”
“I don’t read much. Or watch television.”
“Did you hear about the two tsigani incinerated on Tinos?”
“I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. It seems to happen all the time.”
“Not really.”
“Are you trying to tie me to two murdered men?”
“Not trying, my love. I have you on tape.” He picked up an envelope from the table, took out a photograph and handed it to her. “It doesn’t really do you justice.”
She stared at the photograph.
“How did you meet them?”
“I want a lawyer.”
“Sure, but I can assure you that with the charges we’ll be filing once your lawyer gets involved, you’ll have plenty of time to make a lot more new friends in here. On the other hand, if you cooperate I can promise to put you somewhere a lot less…how do I say it…exciting.”
Maria stood up. Kouros jumped to his feet, but she held up her hands. “I think better on my feet.” She turned and walked toward the door, shook her head, and turned around to face Kouros.
“My girlfriend got a call from a friend. The friend said she and another girl had a sweet deal lined up involving two tsigani on Tinos and they wanted us to do it instead of them.”
“What sort of deal?”
“To entertain the tsigani for a couple of days.”
“How much did the deal pay?”
“Four thousand euros for each girl. Two thousand up front, two thousand after.”
“That’s a lot of money for just ‘entertaining’ two guys. There had to be something special involved.”
“The job required them to leave immediately for Tinos and the tsigani weren’t expecting them. They’d have to be seduced. But that wouldn’t be a problem. Even if they were gay we could have worked something out.”
Kouros scratched his cheek. “Like I said, ‘there had to be something special involved.’”
Maria walked back to her chair. “The final payment depended on us getting the tsigani hooked on gas.”
“Didn’t that seem kinky to you?”
“Laughing gas? Kinky? If you think that, you have no idea what kinky means.” She sat down.
Kouros hoped he hadn’t blushed. “How’d you get them to do the gas?”
“It wasn’t hard. We told them it gives you better sex than drugs.”
“Where did you get the gas?”
“It was already inside the place the girls told us to stay.”
“That was it? You got high with them and walked away? And for that each of you got four thousand euros? Don’t try hustling me unless you’re in a hurry to get back upstairs.”
Maria bit at her lip. “On the last night we only faked taking gas. We held our breath. Got them to keep doing it until they passed out.”
“Why did you do that?”
“The other girls told us to. They said the instructions were that if we didn’t we wouldn’t get paid.”
“What were you to do after they passed out?”
“Nothing. Just make sure they were out cold and leave them there.”
“Where?”
“At the house where we found the gas. The girls said the place came with the deal.”
“Where was it?”
“No idea. It was some white house out in the middle of nowhere. I had an address for it written on a piece of paper and gave it to a taxi driver in the port. He took us there.”
“How’d you get around?”
“Another taxi driver took us to the bar where we picked up the brothers. I had the address for the bar on the same piece of paper. After that, the brothers took us everywhere on their motorbikes.”
“Got a name for any of the taxi drivers?”
“No.”
“Where’s your girl friend now?”
“No idea.”
Liar, thought Kouros. “Where did you go after the brothers passed out?”
“We took their motorbikes and went to the port. We had tickets on the first boat in the morning to Athens.”
