could ruin the reputation of my place. You ask, you get.''
Great, thought Andreas. 'Did you show the photos to the club's employees?'
'Yeah, to the ones working tonight. Just about everyone recognized the girl, she'd been in before. But no one knew the guys or ever saw them before. Thought they were private security wearing club tee shirts so not to look conspicuous. Happens all the time they said.'
'Anybody else work last night?'
'Yeah, I got their names and addresses. Thought I'd try to run them down now.'
'Okay, let me know.' Andreas hung up.
He waited a minute before buzzing Maggie to come in. She was by his desk in less than five seconds. 'Yes, Chief.'
His voice was calm. 'Maggie, why didn't you tell me the Kostopoulos murder was all over TV?' There was no reason to ask whether she knew. There was no doubt that she did. The department's secretarial gossip network must have gotten word to her within thirty seconds of it hitting the air.
She gave a motherly smile. 'I did, even though you told me not to disturb you with anything but the urgent.'
'You didn't think this was urgent?' His voice was still calm.
She shrugged. 'Not really. There was nothing for you to do but get aggravated. Everything's being handled by media affairs, and they didn't ask to speak to you.'
He looked down at his desk. 'And exactly how did you inform me?'
She leaned over his desk and hit the space bar on his computer keyboard bringing the screen back to life. Centered, within a message box, were the words, 'If you're interested, the Kostopoulos story is all over television.'
He hadn't touched his computer in a while, ignoring every message ping. Andreas nodded and said, 'Thank you.' He kept nodding for about ten seconds after she left. 'Damn it!' he yelled, slamming his hand on the top of his desk and scattering the photos everywhere.
He needed to do something, anything, to get this case moving. He thought of paying a surprise visit on the Linardos household but then thought better of it. He picked up one of the photos and studied it for about a minute. Then put it down, stood up, and walked out of his office. Finding Anna Panitz might work. Assuming she still was alive.
5
The area around Filis Street was not a place you came to by accident. It was north of Omonia, and cops generally avoided it. Sure, there were worse neighborhoods, but this was Athens' most notorious one for hookers and the parasites that fed off them. Here was where you came to find things the Bible forbade. That's probably what gave the neighborhood its 24/7 popularity, and cops the attitude of hey, you knew what you were getting into when you came here, so don't call us for help.
Andreas hoped he wouldn't need to make that kind of call. He'd come with no backup, and only Kouros knew where he was. He convinced himself that was the best way of protecting her, assuming he found her. If the bad guys knew cops were looking for her, she probably wouldn't live long. Assuming she wasn't dead already.
He borrowed a cheap, beat-up motorbike from the department's impound garage and wore the old jeans, work boots, and ubiquitous long-sleeve shirt of a laborer out for a good time. He wanted to look like any number of other horny guys trying to get laid.
Her last known address was in a dirty-yellow four-story concrete-slab architectural nightmare. It looked like one of those tenements you expect to see sitting on the outskirts of some third-world slum. Regrettably, they'd taken weedlike root in Athens and indelibly scarred parts of a city once compared in beauty to Paris.
He parked the motorbike across the street and a few doors down from her building. The street was packed with parked cars and motorcycles battered nearly as badly as his own. No one paid him much attention. Strangers frequented these streets. A couple of girls on a third-floor balcony of the building next to where he parked called out to him in broken Greek. He ignored them and walked as if he knew where he was going.
He stepped into the vestibule of the building, under the white light, and started climbing the concrete-slab steps. The address for the woman put the apartment on the top floor. He didn't bother looking for a buzzer. He wanted to surprise her.
Andreas noticed only two apartments per floor. That meant several rooms for each apartment. He wondered if someone else lived with her. That could be a problem. Just one of many things that could go wrong.
Andreas was at her door. Time to decide. He felt his crotch. That's where he hid his gun in an American- designed holster that fit around his hips under his jeans and held the gun flat against his family jewels.
He listened for a sound but heard nothing. He knocked lightly. 'Anna.' He whispered the word.
No answer. He knocked slightly harder and whispered again, 'Anna.'
He heard something move inside. He listened. The sound came toward the door.
'Anna.' He whispered without knocking.
He heard a sleepy, 'Who is it?'
'Andreas.'
'Andreas who?'
'From the other night.'
'I don't know you.' The voice sounded more slurred than sleepy.
'Sure you do. We met at the Angel Club.' He braced for a reaction. None came. 'Anna, open up. You know who I am.'
She practically yelled, 'Leave, or I'll call the police!'
She must be panicked, he thought. That was about the worst possible thing she could have said if the guy at the door was involved in the murder. 'Bingo, my love, you guessed who it is.' He no longer whispered. 'Look through your peephole at my ID.'
He heard her moving away from the door. 'Get back here.' It was his official, cop voice. 'If you don't cooperate, in five minutes I'll have cops all over this place, and you know what that means.' Andreas held his breath and stepped to the side of the door just in case something other than an eyeball aimed through the peephole. He heard her step forward and fidget with the cover on the inside of the door. There was no lens, just an opening the size of an egg.
'Where are you, I can't see you?' she said.
He leaned in from the side and saw an almond-shape, light-green eye, then stepped in front of the door and held the badge around his neck up for her to see. 'Andreas Kaldis, Special Crimes Division, Athens Police.' No reason to scare her with his title. 'You know why I'm here, open up.'
He heard a chain fumble along a channel, and the click of a dead bolt. The door opened slightly. He thought of going for his pistol, just in case, but didn't.
A dim light flickered inside, and only the eyes and hair of a woman's head showed around the edge of the door. She looked different from her picture, almost vulnerable. Her hair was auburn. He could tell she'd been crying.
'Come in.' She said the words without looking at him.
Andreas immediately looked behind the door, did a quick scan of the room, and opened the only closet in it. There was no one else there, at least in that room. A well-worn gray couch sat against the wall across from the door, just beyond a glass-topped coffee table. Two taverna-style wood and rattan chairs stood on the other side of the table and everything sat on a faded, gray-and-red carpet. Each wall had a picture of a different saint. There were two standing lamps in the room but the only light came from a television flickering at the near end of the couch. The sound was off.
'How many rooms in here?'
'Huh?'
She was out of it. 'How many rooms in this apartment?'
'Uh, this one… a bedroom… bathroom… the kitchen.' She couldn't seem to concentrate.
