Personally, I thought she could do better.
I finished my food and pushed my plate away, craving a post-meal cigarette. But I just sat back and waited for the waitress to take my plate and offer me coffee.
When she popped up like clockwork, I motioned toward the empty seat across from me. “Sit with me a minute, please, Petra.”
Her movements slowed and her expression was pinched. She glanced around as if seeking an excuse to refuse my request. But I’d purposely come into the diner just before closing, so there were no other customers to be waited on, aside from an old man at the far end of the counter who was reading a newspaper and nursing the same cup of coffee he had been for the past hour.
Petra reluctantly sat down.
“You know that Mrs. Abramopoulos hired me, don’t you?”
She looked down at where she had her hands tightly clasped on the table in front of her, then nodded.
I took out my wirebound pad and pretended to consult notes that didn’t exist even as I looked in my pockets for a pen that wasn’t there.
Petra removed a pen from her apron pocket and held it out to me with her right hand. Her wrist was not only minus the Greek evil-eye charm that had been covered with blood in the crime scene photo, but the bracelet that had held it too.
“Did you lose your bracelet?” I asked, taking the pen.
Her face burned bright red. She nodded again.
I took a sip of black coffee. “There were times when you and Mike didn’t get a long all that well, weren’t there?”
Big green eyes looked up into mine.
“Yeah, I saw it. The old man making passes. The swats on the ass.” I shrugged. “Kind of hard to miss.”
“Mr. Abramopoulos was a nice man,” she said quickly.
Of course she would say that. Since I hadn’t been able to dig up much on her, I’d guess that Petra Ahmeti was illegal. Chased from a struggling homeland like the Greeks had been a generation earlier. Mike had paid her in cash, and since she was good worker, she took home good tips. Better than the other two waitresses who would just as soon dump your plate into your lap as serve you.
Maybe the night Mike was killed he had pushed things beyond an ass-swat with pretty Petra. And paid for it in spades.
A price exacted not by Petra, I was sure.
“When did you lose your bracelet, Petra?”
She began rubbing one of her thumbs hard against the other. “I didn’t. Lose it, I mean. I...” She appeared to be searching for the right words, as any non — native speaker might. But I guessed her hesitation grew more out of her not wanting to tell me what she had to say than her limited English.
I heard the sound of a tub of dishes being put down heavily on the table behind me.
“She gave it to me,” the busboy said. “So just leave her alone.”
Bingo.
You see, Petra had never been on my radar as a suspect. She was just too gentle. Someone had killed on her behalf. And it was a sure bet that the guy was Greek. Because while it wouldn’t be unusual for an Albanian girl to be wearing a Greek evil-eye charm on her bracelet, I’d gotten the impression from the way I’d seen her play with it that it had been a gift. From a Greek guy. And since Mike hadn’t been the gift-giving kind, that left one other Greek guy in the diner.
Stamatis came to stand next to my booth, his hands fisted at his sides. “What do you want with Petra? Why are you asking her these questions?”
I kept my gaze on Petra’s pretty face. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go in the back and see if you can scare up a piece of fresh baklava for me. Not the pieces that have been in the display all day.”
She briefly met my gaze and then scooted from the booth, disappearing into the back of the diner.
“How long you been working here, Stamatis?” I asked the kid as I peeled off a twenty from my clip.
The question was rhetorical. I already knew how long he’d been working there. Exactly eight months. Hired on the day after Petra, after the previous busboy had met with a hooded mugger in a dark alley.
Now, you might say that was just a coincidence. Then I would have to remind you of Rule #2 in the P.I. handbook: There are no coincidences. My inquiries had revealed that Petra worked at another restaurant in Jackson Heights prior to coming to the Acropolis. And so had Stamatis. And through NYCIS, that the young man also had two priors, violence-related. A name-check by my buddy McCurdy had produced that tidbit. Of course, being illegal, Stamatis had no Social Security number.
Enter Mike Abramopoulos, restaurant owner, husband, father of three, and pretty much harmless, if a bit lecherous. Being of the male persuasion myself, I knew that many of us appreciated the value of a pretty girl. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying that a man’s primal desire to spread his seed is, well, it is what it is.
As for the steak knife, it was an even bet that the forensics lab might discover that it had been used for its normal intended purpose — even though the photos of the entire diner post-murder had shown the tables and counter cleared of all plates, glasses, and utensils. Stamatis may have cleared the tables for some reason after using the steak knife to stab Abramopoulos.
A crime of passion, and a mundane weapon ready to hand.
Then he may have emptied the cash register to make it look like a robbery gone bad.
I noticed that Stamatis hadn’t answered my question, and his fists were still clamped tight at his sides.
I pushed from the seat, tucking a copy of the Queens Tribune under my left arm. Stamatis had to either back off or make good on his unspoken threat. I wasn’t sure how he’d play it. But he blinked.
I eyed the kid. A shame, really. He was all of nineteen and had his whole life ahead of him.
A life that would now include a sojourn at Rikers before a long stretch upstate.
“Tell Petra I changed my mind about the baklava,” I said, putting the twenty on the table and heading for the door.
A little while later, I watched from the opposite corner as Sergeant Tom McCurdy and his partner pulled up in front of the diner and went in to arrest Stamatis. While no confessions had yet been extracted, nor solid evidence produced, I’d suggested to Tom on the phone that a little pressure applied just so would get him both.
The homicide detectives led the kid out in handcuffs and nodded in my direction. I nodded back and then took a long pull off the cigarette I’d just lit. I coughed, stared at the burning end, let it fall from my fingers to the pavement, and ground it out under the heel of my shoe. As I turned to head to my car, the N train squealed to a halt on the elevated tracks a half a block up on 31st. I didn’t have to hear to know that inside the train the announcement was: Last Stop, Ditmars.
And for Mihalis Abramopoulos, Ditmars had been his last stop.
I looked at the sea of people coming down the platform stairs on their way home, and others out on the warm night with families and friends, gathering in cafés and restaurants and Astoria Park. For other immigrants and locals alike, Ditmars represented a beginning...
Part III
Foreign shores
Avoid agony
by Shailly Agnihotri
Jackson Heights
AVOID AGONY: Let me investigate the morals of your child’s intended before the sacred blessings of Marriage are arranged in America. Make sure your future son- and daughter-in-law are of pure values. Based in New York. $US 200 per report.