Then again, being a twice-divorced P.I. with alimony and child support payments, where else was I to take my meals if not a diner?
“My condolences, Kiria Abramopoulos.”
Hermioni blanched, possibly tired of like sentiments even though her husband wouldn’t be lowered into the ground until the day after next, when the M.E. officially released the body. “Can you do it? Find my husband’s killer? I’ll pay your going rate.”
Probably she didn’t know what my going rate was. Probably she would change her mind if I told her. “Kiria Abramopoulos, I’m sure the police will find your husband’s killer.”
And I had every confidence that they would. Not because I was a big fan of the NYPD, but because I used to count myself as one of them.
“The police have their hands full with the blackout. Mikey’s death is a low priority.”
The blackout. Over 100,000 Queens residents had gone without power for almost two weeks, predominantly in the Astoria area. LaGuardia Airport had been closed down, parts of the subway, and even Rikers Island’s jails had to rely on backup power for the duration. Many businesses were forced to close their doors. But the diner had remained open, Mike relying on propane burners and a grill set up out back to offer a short menu of items, and a generator to operate a couple of fans and a cooler.
The blackout had coincided with a heatwave that left residents scrambling to find someplace with air-conditioning or sweating it out. And all my good shirts bore sweat stains to prove it.
Then the night before last, the lights came back on. Revealing Mike Abramopoulos lying on his diner floor in a pool of his own blood. The floor I was looking at filled now with white orthopedic shoes as Petra, the young Albanian waitress I’d come to know since she hired on eight months ago, approached to top off my coffee cup. I noticed her smooth alabaster arms as she poured, as well as her other fine parts; she was a very attractive kid. She asked if Hermioni wanted coffee. The widow waved the girl away.
There had been a rash of restaurant robberies in the Astoria area of late, perhaps blackout-driven, perhaps not. Chances are, Mike was a random victim. Greeks worked hard for their money and were loathe to give it up. Especially to a masked man who would make in two minutes what it had taken the Greek all day to earn. It was the principle of the thing.
It was also what tended to get Greek business owners into heaps of trouble.
Hermioni covered my hand with hers where mine held my coffee cup, a damp Kleenex between her skin and mine. I grimaced and pulled my arm back and pretended to fix the right cuff of my white long-sleeved shirt that I had rolled up to my elbows. My wardrobe was limited to white shirts, plain ties, and dark slacks in the summer, and varied little in the winter except for the addition of a black trenchcoat and hat. My appearance had never been a priority for me beyond staying neat. I’d been cursed with a Greek nose that my brother said you could see turning a corner at least half a minute before I did. And the march of time on my hairline couldn’t be stopped with a lifetime supply of minoxidil.
“Please, Spyros. I... need to know who killed my husband. I need justice.”
Dishes and silverware clanked where Stamatis, the busboy, cleared the table behind Hermioni. The widow slanted him a glance that told him he could have picked a better time. I agreed. Stamatis ignored us both.
I drew my attention back to Hermioni. “Did Mike have any enemies?”
“No, no.” She smiled feebly. “Aside from me, of course.” An attempt at humor. “But you know I could never do that to him.”
Did I? Over the course of my career, I’d seen a lot of things I’d originally thought were impossible. Learning that Hermioni did away with Mike so she could take over the diner and move in with an Ethiopian half her age would rate somewhere on the less-shocking end.
“So you’ll take the case then?”
I told her my going rate.
I had to give the old gal credit. She didn’t even blink.
“I’ll bring the retainer by the agency this afternoon,” she told me.
My intention had been to scare her away. Instead, I’d just let her in the front door.
Murder cases didn’t make up a large percentage of my caseload. Mostly because they were best left to the boys in blue and it wasn’t a good idea to get in their way when you were a P.I. But those I had worked had taken a great deal of detective work that rarely included any fancy crime lab results. Fact was, a lot of evidence was contaminated and untraceable. And the results on most of the potential evidence they collected was slow in coming. New York’s forensics labs were so backed up that a suspect on a case stamped low priority could have skipped to a foreign country and started a new family by the time the authorities caught up with him.
As far as I was concerned, solving any case almost always came down to pounding the sweltering NYC pavement and examining a few rocks to see which way the moss grew, in order to find the answers.
Later that afternoon, I stopped on the corner opposite the diner and lit a cigarette. Whereas before I might have taken a seat in the restaurant opposite to watch the joint, now New York City law had chased me outside. Oh, a lot of places had smoking areas. Usually outdoors in the back surrounded by neighboring buildings and glass. But I didn’t particularly like the feeling of being walled in, put on display like a smoking turtle in a terrarium for the other diners to stare at as they ate. Which was probably a good thing, because I didn’t smoke half as much as I used to. But I wasn’t going to admit this to anyone that mattered.
I drew deeply on my cancer stick and slowly released the smoke, watching as Petra updated the chalkboard propped outside announcing the dinner specials. I had half hoped that Hermioni Abramopoulos wouldn’t come by the agency. But she had, putting down the retainer I’d asked for. Which meant I was pretty much in this till the end.
Inside the diner I could make out at least seven regulars. Whereas before I might have viewed them simply as fellow diners, now each and every one of them was a suspect.
Could a customer have been upset at his burned steak — earlier thrown out of the house by his wife, fired from his job — taking his rage out on an unsuspecting Mike? Or, in the case of the young couple holding hands in the first booth and sharing moussaka, could an argument have grown loud, causing Mike to intervene and become victim rather than mediator?
At any rate, I didn’t have many resources to dedicate to this case. Sure, Hermioni was paying me. But I was in the middle of a sticky job that commanded most of my attention.
Since Mike had been a friend of sorts, however, and a fellow Greek, I figured I could give him at least a fraction of the time I’d spent eating at his establishment.
I looked up and down the street. To my left, Ditmars Boulevard would take me toward the East River and Astoria Park, the Hellgate Bridge looming as a reminder of history in a city full of history. To my right, the street would take me to LaGuardia Airport.
But it wasn’t the river or the airport I was interested in now. I turned and walked east, crossing 31st Street, the squealing brakes of the N train announcing its arrival at Ditmars station, the last stop on the elevated line, a regular sound that blended with the din of cars and airplanes sweeping down from the northwest. I stopped and bought a fresh peach from the Top Tomato on 35th, then walked further up still, to the only spot I’d been able to find in this parking-challenged area. I climbed into my old Pontiac and pointed the car in the direction of the 114th Precinct on Astoria Boulevard at 34th Street.
A little while later, I sat opposite Detective Sergeant Tom McCurdy, who I’d learned was the guy in charge of the case after a quick call to my NYPD mate, Officer Pino Karras. If the files littering Tom’s desk were any indication, Hermioni was right: It might be some time before anyone got around to finding out who had killed her husband.