TWENTY-TWO
–
After we’d been searched, the cops sat us on the disemboweled couch. There were three of them and it looked like they’d heard us coming over the back wall and had hidden in the kitchen until they were ready to make their move. Garlopis was already talking too much, in Greek, so I told him to shut up, in German, at least until we knew if the police were disposed to treat us as suspects or not. That’s in the Bible so it must be true: Be sensible and keep your mouth shut: Proverbs 10:19. The officer in charge was a tall man whose dark, high-cheekboned face was part boxer, part Mafia don, and part Mexican revolutionary with more than a hint of Stanley Kowalski—at least until he found a pair of thick-framed, lightly tinted glasses and put them on, at which point he stopped looking dim-witted and thuggish and started to look thoughtful and smart.
“Find anything interesting?” The Greek’s German wasn’t nearly as good as that of Garlopis, but it wasn’t bad either because it’s not the end of the world when you don’t use the best grammar. He had our wallets in his hands and so he already knew our names.
“Just the guy on the floor. And you, of course.”
“Where are you staying, Herr Ganz?”
“Me, I’m at the Mega. In Constitution Square.”
“You should have stayed at the Grande Bretagne. But I suppose either one of them would be convenient for the old Gestapo building in Merlin Street.”
I grinned, trying to enjoy his joke. “His cousin works at the Mega,” I said, looking at Garlopis. “So I guess that’s just my bad luck.”
“So what are you two doing here?”
“If I told you we were selling insurance you’d probably think I was being sarcastic and I can’t say as I would blame you very much. But that’s not so far from the truth. I’m a claims adjustor. The dead man is a German called Siegfried Witzel. He owned a boat called the Doris that was insured with my company for almost a quarter of a million drachmas. I have a business card in my wallet that will help to establish those credentials. You can telegraph my office in Munich and they’ll vouch for me and for Herr Garlopis. Witzel’s boat caught fire and sank, he made a claim, and we came here today to tell him I thought there was something fishy about it.”
“Do you always climb over the back wall to sell insurance?”
“I do when I’ve become aware that the insured party carries a gun. Frankly, I wanted to see what kind of company he was keeping before I said hello again. Especially as I was now the bearer of bad news. In view of what’s happened here I would say that my caution was well founded, wouldn’t you?”
“You speak any Greek?”
“No.”
Garlopis started talking in Greek again. The Greeks have a word for it. So the saying goes. In fact, they usually had several words for it, too many in fact, and Achilles Garlopis was no exception. The man could talk without stopping for hours, the way a Belgian could ride a bicycle. So I told him to shut up, again.
“Why do you tell him to shut up?”
“The usual reason. Because he talks too much.”
“It’s every citizen’s duty to help the police. Perhaps he’s just trying to be helpful.”
“Yes,” said Garlopis. “I am.”
“I can see how that might help you,” I told the police officer. “But I think you’re smart enough to see how that might not help us. You’re a busy man and you’ve got a murder to solve. And right now, in the absence of anyone else, you think we might be good for that.”
“I think it would be smart if you were to tell us everything you know about this man.”
“Oh, sure. Look, I know what to say. I just don’t know if I should say it. That’s just smart getting wise.”
The officer lit a cigarette and blew some of the smoke my way, which I didn’t like.
“Do you speak English?” he said. “My English is better than my German.”
“You’re doing all right so far,” I said in English. “What, were you a cop during the war?”
“Right now, I’m the one asking the questions, okay?”
“Sure. Anything you say, Captain.”
“Lieutenant. So why were you going to turn down his claim?”
“There were too many inconsistencies in his story. There was that and the gun he was carrying.”
“We didn’t find a gun. Not yet.”
“Maybe not. But he’s not wearing a shoulder holster because his wallet was so heavy. I think he was scared of someone, and it wasn’t Munich RE.”
“Like who maybe?”
“That’s obvious. Like the man who killed him, I expect.”
“Funny guy.”
“With all due respect, ‘like who’ is your job, not mine. But Garlopis here tells me the boat—the Doris—was confiscated by the Nazis from some Jews during the war and sold to Witzel. Maybe those Jews or their relations decided if they couldn’t get their property back legally, then they would just get even. Sometimes getting even is the best kind of compensation there is. But motive isn’t something I usually bother with in my line of work. If there’s evidence of fraud I turn down the claim and take the verbal battering. It’s as simple as that. Generally speaking, I don’t have to look too hard for a reason. On the whole people much prefer their insurance company losing money to doing it themselves. My job is to try to prevent that from happening. Which is why I was about to say no to Mr. Witzel’s claim. But at this present moment I wouldn’t say no to a cigarette.”
The lieutenant thought about it for a moment and then had one of his men uncuff us, and I got my Karelias back. There’s nothing as bad as the craving you get for a cigarette because they’ve been
