Garlopis nodded and pulled up next to a row of small souvenir shops that had finally closed for the night. We were five minutes’ walk from the house on Pritaniou but caution dictated a bit of distance. Just because Aunt Aspasia said there were no cops around didn’t mean there were no cops around. They might have been watching the house from another address. It’s what I’d have done if I’d been the detective working the Witzel case. Garlopis switched off the engine and took out his cigarettes.
“If you don’t mind, sir,” he said, “I’ll stay here, in the Rover. The last time we went in that house the police were waiting and we got ourselves arrested. My nerves couldn’t take being arrested again. Not to mention Herr Witzel’s dead body. I don’t like the sight of blood any more than I like having a gun pointed at me.” He picked up one of the towels he kept in the car and mopped his brow with it.
“Coward,” said Elli.
“Perhaps,” said Garlopis. “But in youth and beauty, wisdom is but rare.”
Elli laughed. “Coward,” she said again.
“What the hell made you so hard-bitten?” I asked her.
“Suppose you get into trouble. Suppose you need help. What kind of Achilles is it that stays in the car because he’s afraid? No wonder this country is in such a disastrous state if men like this are called Achilles.”
“Leave him alone,” I told her. “He’s all right. And just for the record I don’t give a shit about Suez or British imperialists, or anything else for that matter. Look, I think maybe you’d best stay here, too.”
“With him?” Elli’s tone was scornful, and she was already getting out of the backseat of the car. “I don’t think so.”
She slammed the Rover’s rear door loudly and suddenly I wanted to slap her in the mouth: I was already regretting bringing her along for the ride. Instead I found myself pointing my forefinger at her, as if she’d been an unruly child. It wasn’t that she was anything like a child, it was more that I wasn’t anything like a boyfriend. I was old enough to be her father and felt guilty about the difference between our ages. Someone should have been pointing at my gray hairs and reminding me of what a chump I was. They’d have been right, too.
“Behave yourself,” I told her. “Not everyone is cut out for this kind of trouble. But with me it’s almost a full-time job, see? Garlopis is a salaryman. An office Fritz. So stop rubbing his nose into his conscience. And if you are coming along, you’d best do as you’re told. Got that?”
She took hold of my forefinger, kissed it fondly, and then nodded, but there was still mischief in her eyes; I felt like the floor manager in a casino—the guy that watches the customers to make sure they don’t crook the house—only I still couldn’t tell how she was doing it and how much she was getting away with.
“Whatever you say, sir.”
“If we’re not back in thirty minutes, go home,” I told Garlopis.
He looked bitterly at Elli. “With pleasure.”
Elli shot him a hard look that was replete with accusation, and I pulled her away before she could utter another reproachful remark. I didn’t like her making cracks at Garlopis; that was my job.
We walked up the street. Above us the rock on which the Acropolis was built was so sheer that you couldn’t actually see the floodlit Parthenon on top. And I realized I hadn’t actually seen it yet. Not close up. If there’d been more time I might have suggested we walk there. As it was I just wanted to close the books on the Doris and get the hell out of the city and back to Germany. But I’d begun to see it might actually be a good thing to have Elli along if the address really was under surveillance.
“What have you got against that poor guy anyway?”
“Oh, nothing very much,” she said. “I suppose he reminds me of my own elder brother. He could amount to something if it wasn’t for his lack of courage.”
“Don’t be fooled. I’m a bona fide coward, just like Garlopis.”
Elli grinned. “Whatever you say, Christof.”
“I mean it. I haven’t stayed alive all this time by collecting police medals.”
“So who do you think it will be that we find?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But then ignorance is man’s natural state. It’s not just ex-cops like me who are ill-equipped to separate the true from the false. But no matter how anonymous he or she might be, every murdered man had a family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and I’m hoping to run into one of these—someone who can tell me something new so that I know more than I knew before. Detective work is nothing more than uncovering a chain with the murdered man at one end and at the other, his murderer.”
“You make it sound like anyone could do it.”
“Anyone could and those anyones are called policemen. We’ll walk past the address a couple of times before we go in. But first we’ll act like we’re a romantic couple out for a late-night stroll in one of the most romantic cities in the world, just in case anyone’s watching.”
Elli threaded her arm through mine and pressed her head against my shoulder. As we reached the Glebe Holy Sepulchre Church on the corner of Pritaniou, we turned the corner and slowed our pace to a crawl. Outside number 11 I stopped and took her in my arms. Behind the shutters on the top floor there was a light on and I could hear the sound of radio music. But the rest of the street looked as if the Persians had just left.
“That’s the idea,” I murmured into her ear. “Give it plenty. The whole Lee Strasberg. Try to act like we don’t
