“She’s his direct report,” Boomer said, using his thumb to point to me. “And she’s kind of a big deal to our government.”
“That’s what Chachi said.” Solon craned his neck and looked around as if he wanted to make sure he wasn’t being watched. “I know I’m being paranoid, asking you to meet me here like this.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “I don’t know what happened to your lady, but I can’t have people asking why a couple of Americans came to see me. I can’t have whoever is behind all this hearing that I’m a member of the snitch squad.”
I nodded. “That’s understandable. Do you have anything for us?”
“Maybe. I know a guy. He’s a hard, pipe hitting fool, you know what I’m saying?”
“Sure,” I said. “He can work the streets.”
“Yeah…yeah. He can work them real well. Has for a long time. So he hears things. He’s been coming to me for years for new ink. I went to him first thing this morning, woke him up. And I ask him if he’s heard anything about some American lady getting grabbed up. He hadn’t heard anything, so I got him to make some calls. You’ve gotta know that no one is going to snitch easy about something like this, even if they weren’t involved. Even if they only heard something on the wind.”
“Snitches get stitches,” Boomer said.
“Yeah. Exactly. Snitches get stitches.”
“But we’re here,” I said. “So I take it he learned something?”
“Yeah, he did. Knows a guy who is willing to talk with you. Only thing is that he wants to get greased for his time.” Solon raised his hands off the table. “I don’t want anything, you understand that. I just want to help. But you gotta know that some people don’t have a good reason to help without the proper motivation.”
“He’ll need to know that if he screws us, it won’t go well for him,” Boomer said.
“Look, I know what Chachi does. I told them that you guys aren’t the kind of people he can take from like that. He’ll shoot you straight. If he doesn't, it’s on me.” Solon tapped his chest with a fist. “I’ll back him. If he says he knows something, then he knows.”
“How do we get in touch with him?”
“Here.” Solon reached into a pocket and came out with a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it across the table. I unfolded it. A line of coordinates was scribbled across it.
“This is where he wants us to meet him?”
“Yeah, it’s on the other side of the city. He likes to fish, so that’s the location on the water he’ll meet you at. That way no one can see him meet with you. He said to meet him at noon.”
“What’s his name?” Boomer asked.
Solon shook his head. “Athens is a good city to live in, but like anywhere it has its rough spots. This guy you’re gonna meet. He’s a rough dude connected to rough people. So no names. But like I said, he’ll shoot you straight. If not, you let me know.”
Boomer extended his hand. “I appreciate your help, Solon.” They shook, and we all stood up.
“Like I said, I hope you can find her. Somebody for sure knows what went down. I hope this guy can get you on the right path.”
We said goodbye and hung back as Solon returned to his car and drove away.
“I assume you have some grease somewhere?” I said.
“There’s a small bundle of cash in the sedan’s trunk, under the flat tire. Just for times like this.”
I started back to the car, but Boomer said, “Hang on.” He went off in the opposite direction, crossing the park and stopping at the edge of the cliff. The old man on the bench was gone. Before us, the bay shimmered like blue crystal in the clear morning sky. Far in the distance, the island of Salamina stood out of the water, its eastern cliffs running down the jagged coast like broken chalk.
The wind coming up off the cliff face made it hard to hear. Boomer spoke up. “I’ve been to a lot of places, Savage, as I’m sure you have. Other than Jerusalem, there isn’t a place on the planet that holds sway over me like Greece.”
“I felt that after I got off the plane yesterday.”
“I mean, here we are, standing in the land of Achilleas, Odysseus, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. Not too far north of here, Leonidas led his three hundred men at the pass of Thermopylae, and the Peloponnesian War was waged all over this peninsula. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton—what ideals they didn’t borrow from the Enlightenment, they borrowed from the Romans, who in turn stole them from the Greeks. This truly is the cradle of democracy. And it’s that freedom I fight for every single day of my life.”
“Me too, Boomer. Me too.”
We stared at the incredible scene for another minute until Boomer clapped me on the back. “Enough daydreaming, I guess. Let’s go find Kathleen.”
Chapter Nine
A closer look at the coordinates gave us a spot four miles off Artemida, on Greece’s eastern coast. Boomer drove back through the city and headed northeast while blaring a playlist that included Elvis, Jimmy Buffett, the Black Crowes, and REO Speedwagon.
“My kind of sound,” I said.
“Don’t you know it? I can’t deal with all the modern crap they call music. But give me just about anything before the advent of the internet, and I’m a happy man.”
I could relate. My grandmother had always referred to me as an old soul. From a young age, I preferred the offerings of the past over just about anything the modern world had to offer. Every time, I would choose John Wayne over John Stamos, the Carpenters over Coldplay, and a fishing rod over a gaming controller. Not much has changed since.
Nowadays, it seems like the world speeds up a little faster every year. You can’t seem
