When the tremor finally stopped the money was paid over without so much as a raised eyebrow. We hung around in Corinth afterward only long enough to meet the Alpha Bank clerk less formally in a nearby bar and to pay him the five percent handling fee that had been agreed upon with the cousin of Garlopis. The clerk was not much more than a boy with a face as cold as a marble statue. Corinth itself was equally dull and featureless, a bleak, low-lying city on the sea, with little to recommend it except the eponymous canal, which cut straight across the isthmus like the scar on my forearm. It was hard to imagine the apostle Paul bothering to send a long letter to the Corinthians except to question why they were living there and not somewhere else more interesting like Athens or Rome. More usefully, Corinth was halfway to Kosta, where there was a regular foot ferry to Spetses. Since I couldn’t turn the heavy steering wheel of the Rover without my arm hurting, it was Elli who was driving the car. We took Garlopis to a bus stop so that he could travel safely back to Athens. I felt bad about involving Elli in the business with Max Merten, but not as bad as Garlopis felt about exposing himself to something he considered much more dangerous than the simple movement of the earth.
“I know this man,” I told Garlopis in a last attempt to persuade him to come with us to Kosta while we waited for the bus to arrive. “Max Merten. And take it from me, I can handle him. Rough or smooth. Last time I saw him he was fat and the only danger I was in was that his liver might explode. He’s a pen pusher, not a dangerous sadist like Brunner. And I’ve dealt with hundreds of men like him.”
“I know you think that, sir. But there are ten reminders stitched into your arm to suggest you might just be wrong. Besides, you heard what Spiros Reppas said. Merten has a gun and he’s nervous. Which makes it all the more perplexing to me that you should have returned that Webley to Reppas. A gun might have been useful insurance against all kinds of otherwise uninsurable risks.”
“I can see why you believe that but take it from me, it’s not. Two guns don’t make a right. Just a lot of noise. A gun’s a lot more risk. More risk requires a bigger premium. And I can’t afford it. My soul—always supposing I have one—can’t handle the payments anymore. Does that make sense?”
“I think so. But you don’t strike me as a man who has much on his conscience, sir.”
“Don’t be fooled. You might not see him, but even without his top hat the Jiminy Cricket who follows me around is six feet tall.”
When the blue-and-white bus finally hove into sight like a piece of outsized, metallic chinoiserie, I offered Garlopis the envelope containing the twenty thousand drachmas I’d received at the Alpha Bank.
“Keep this in the office safe and put a stop on buying that cop—for the time being, anyway,” I told him. “If I can pull this off with Merten, we may save ourselves some money.”
But of course I didn’t believe this, not completely. In spite of everything I’d told Garlopis I knew there was considerable danger involved in confronting Max Merten on the island of Spetses. I certainly didn’t expect Merten to quietly give himself up, not for a moment. He was going to need some friendly persuasion. Fortunately I had a plan and knew just what to say and, given half a chance, I was going to say it—if necessary, with force. A lot of it.
Garlopis shook his head. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d prefer you looked after it. Twenty thousand drachmas is a lot of money for a person of my moral caliber. The fact is, you’re not the only man with a loudly spoken conscience. Mine has taught me that I can resist almost anything except real temptation. Especially when it comes in the form of a lot of banknotes in an envelope.”
“All the same, I still think you should take it with you. This wad of cash is not quite thick enough to stop a bullet.” I looked at Elli expectantly, in the hope that I might finally have scared her, but she still seemed quite unperturbed by the prospect of the two of us going up against a potentially desperate man. “I’d hate to think it wouldn’t find a good home if something did happen to me.”
“All right. I’ll take it. But please be careful. I’m looking forward enormously to corrupting that cop. No, really, sir. There’s nothing that’s quite as much fun as discovering the price of a truly honest man.”
After the bus had left, we got back in the Rover. Elli checked her face in the rearview mirror although I could have saved her the trouble; her face looked perfect. I’d seen the faces of women before and hers was the kind to launch a whole fleet of passenger ferries in the general direction of Troy. She was wearing a short-sleeve white blouse, an under-the-bosom belt that had its work cut out, a full pink skirt with deep pleats and, underneath it, multiple layers of sheer fabric, not to mention the invisible and impertinent scouts for my very active imagination. The fawn suede driving gloves added a nice touch to the whole ensemble. She looked elegantly in control of the car and of herself, like a woman who’d meant to enter a beauty contest and ended up competing in the Mille Miglia. Humming lightly, she steered us quickly along the meanderingly scenic Greek coast and was proving to be an excellent chauffeur; with her eyes on the road and her feet on the pedals I had all the time in the world to admire her shapely calves, and sometimes her knees. Her
