concern, and offering regrets that he no longer was in a position to help.
Almost everyone asked why he was there. He said he missed the island and decided to come over for the day. He wasn't sure they believed him, but everyone said they understood how getting out of Athens to Mykonos, even for a day, made perfect sense.
He kept refusing offers of ouzo, beer, and all sorts of other booze, claiming he needed a clear head if his office called, but his resistance was fading. There was a certain rhythm to this place that did that to you. He was contemplating an ouzo when a hand touched his shoulder and he heard a familiar voice. 'Hi honey, I'm home.'
It was Lila.
The look on Andreas' face fell somewhere between shock and horror.
'Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?' Lila smiled and, with her hand still on Andreas' shoulder, nodded to the six other men at the table.
He said nothing but several of the men asked her to join them. One got up and took a chair from the next table while the others scrambled to make room for her to sit.
'No thanks, we've got to go.' It was Andreas speaking.
Two men asked, 'What's the hurry?' The others didn't say a word, just exchanged grins and tried sneaking knowing nods and smiles to Andreas. He quickly stood and offered to pay, but didn't insist when they refused. After a fast thank-you, he pushed her out from under the taverna's awning onto the harbor front road in what anyone watching would think a cutesy gesture. Lila probably knew better.
They walked south along the harbor, the sea to their right. He smiled and waved to a mix of people calling out his name, but his voice was angry. 'What the hell are you doing here?'
'Put your arm around me so they get the right idea.' She seemed to be having fun with this.
'Sure, honey.' He reached behind her and gave a long, visible squeeze to her ass. She jumped. 'What do you think you're doing?' Now the anger was hers.
'Just making sure they get the right idea.' He smiled, leaned over, and kissed her on the cheek. Then put his arm around her waist, gripped like a vise, and dragged more than directed her forward. 'Like I said, what are you doing here?'
She practically had to skip to keep up. 'We had a deal, remember?' There was a different anger in her voice.
He mumbled something Lila couldn't hear.
'What?'
'I don't want to talk about this here.' He turned their bodies toward an opening between two jewelry shops. It was one of many twisting paths that opened onto the harbor from the maze known as the old town of Mykonos. Most lanes weren't much wider than six feet, many narrower. Each was paved with island-quarried flagstones outlined in white and ran between two-story, all-white buildings accented by bright blue, green, or red doors, banisters, and window frames.
At a sandwich shop about thirty yards from the harbor, Andreas made an abrupt right onto a smaller path. He still didn't let go. A few turns later the path opened up into a tree-filled square lined on the east by four small churches snuggled together in a row. He stopped, dropped his arm from her waist and pointed to a low wall flanking three steps leading up to the first church. 'Sit there.'
She was wearing a scoop-neck white peasant-style blouse over straight-leg designer jeans, and dark brown Tod's — the shoes with little bumps for soles and heels. Her hair was in a tight bun, and large Chanel sunglasses covered her eyes. She wore only a hint of makeup, and a dark-blue Longchamp tote bag probably held whatever she thought she might need for the day. Andreas wondered if she considered this her I-can-blend-in look.
Lila sat on the wall as if waiting for him to join her. Instead, Andreas stood a few feet in front of her, staring up at the church. Then he looked at her and told her what he was thinking. 'You're the only person in the world I can trust.' He kissed her.
Anna didn't respond.
'I'd do anything for you and the baby, you know that.'
She didn't answer. Demon didn't care. He'd come to her place for a reason and didn't have time to fuck her. She'd just have to stay moody.
'I need a telephone number for that old friend of yours, the one from Sardinia.'
She flinched. 'Efisio?'
'Do you have it?'
'Why?'
Demon touched her cheek and gently stroked two fingers back and forth along her jaw line. 'Don't worry, my love, it's not about you.'
Efisio was her ex-boyfriend and the first to pimp her out. They'd met in her home country. He fled there to escape the Italian police. A year later she fled to Greece to escape his beatings. In an intimate, misguided moment of after-sex trust Anna confided her story to Demon, and he became the second. He didn't beat her. He had more insidious ways of controlling her.
She shook her head. 'I can't. If he ever finds out where I am…' her eyes moved toward the baby's crib, 'where we are…'
Demon's fingers kept moving along her face. 'He'll never find out. But I must find him. It is very important. Please, help me.'
She shook her head and said, 'No.'
'Please, I don't want to have to go to Sardinia.'
This time he felt her flinch. 'He's not there, he can't go back.'
'Yes, yes, I know but he has family there, and they must know how to reach him.'
He felt a twitching begin in her cheek.
'What is the name of his village?'
'I don't remember.'
He kept stroking. 'That place in the mountains. In north central Sardinia.'
She said nothing and turned her eyes away from him.
'Ah, yes, Mamoiada.'
She jerked away from his hand.
'My love, please, I don't want to have to go to that village. You know how dangerous those people are. You're the one who told me. They'll start asking why I want to find him, how I know him-'
She locked her eyes on his. 'You miserable bastard.'
'I'm not trying to harm you. But you're leaving me no choice than to bring up your name. Otherwise, they might kill me. But, if you find him for me he'll never hear your name. There will be no reason to tell him.'
She stared at the floor.
'If I wanted to harm you, do you really think I'd need to call your old boyfriend?' He touched her cheek. 'Besides, you know I'd never harm you. You are my love.'
When she looked at him there were tears in her eyes. 'Please, don't make me do this.'
Demon said nothing, just kept stroking her cheek. The tears now touched his fingers.
'I don't have a number for him.' Her lip was quivering. 'I'll have to find someone who does.'
'That's my girl. But please, try to find it before tomorrow morning. My plane for Italy leaves at noon. I don't want to go if you can get me the number.' He kissed her on the forehead and left.
Demon never heard the tearful string of curses, in several languages, that followed his departure. But Kouros did. 'I can't trust you.' Andreas didn't move.
Lila didn't say a word.
He waited for her to speak but all she did was stare. Or at least he thought she was staring. He took a step forward and lifted her sunglasses onto her forehead. He wished he hadn't, her eyes were filled with tears.
'What's wrong?'
She shook her head, and reached into her bag. 'Nothing.' Out came a handkerchief. She patted at her eyes. 'Absolutely nothing.'
Andreas knew he was losing ground fast. This was not the sort of response he expected. His immediate instinct was to console her, be her rescuing knight. Perhaps she knew that too. He better be careful. There was too much at stake, and too many intrigues.
