Chapter 25
I figured the only shot I had at uncovering some vital information was to somehow charm it out of someone. And my best chance of success was to target Ulysses Karydes’s handsome young assistant, Philander. After all, he was sending me clear signals during my visit with his boss. My challenge was isolating him from Karydes and his two ripped goons, Leandro and Khristos.
When Laurette and I strolled past the pool inside the Andromeda Residence, I saw Delphina stretched out on a chaise lounge and wearing a bright lime green bikini that accentuated the curvy contours of her supple body. She was a knockout. Laurette took one look at her and sighed, defeated. She was always comparing her own body to other women and was constantly in a state of hopelessness. I had long given up that practice, especially after filming a TV movie with a young, shaggy-haired buck named Brad Pitt. I played his younger brother in the film about a group of teenagers exacting revenge on the town bully, which we shot a few years before Brad’s breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise. I worked out at the gym for three hours every day, hoping to develop at least a fraction of Brad’s sculpted abs. But it was an exercise in futility. You can’t fight what nature gave you. Laurette, however, never learned that lesson.
“I’ll be in the room sulking,” she said to me and then shuffled off, rifling through her bag for our room key.
I watched her go, and then turned to Delphina. Her eyes were closed as the sun’s warm rays washed over her lean, deeply tanned form.
“Delphina?” I said, leaning down. My body cast a shadow over hers, and she opened her eyes, surprised. She shielded her eyes with her hand, and then smiled.
“Jarrod, did you find Mr. Karydes?”
“Yes, he was exactly where you said he would be. Turns out he saw the show I was on when I was a kid. He asked us to join him.”
“That’s wonderful. You’re very lucky to have Mr. Karydes for a friend. He’s a very powerful man. He can give you anything you want.”
“Well, there’s one thing I want that I’m not sure he’s willing to give me.”
“What is that?”
“His assistant.”
She gave me a knowing wink. “Philander. Isn’t he adorable?”
“Oh, yes. I think we really hit it off.”
“Well, I would tread very carefully. He used to be Mr. Karydes’s lover.”
“Used to be?”
“Mr. Karydes has what you might call a short attention span. He goes through boyfriends faster than J Lo goes through husbands.”
We both laughed.
Delphina reached down, picked up a green-tinted martini glass, and took a sip of her happy hour cosmo. “But Philander was special and Mr. Karydes knew it, so he kept him on as his assistant.”
“Do you think they still sleep together?” I asked.
“Maybe every now and then, but like I said, whenever Mr. Karydes is around beautiful boys, his head is like an oscillating fan. Back and forth. Back and forth. Always cruising for his next conquest.”
“Well, I have it on good authority that Philander might be interested in me.”
“What good authority?”
“His hand on my knee.”
“That’s a very reliable source,” Delphina said with a chuckle.
“You seem to know a lot about what goes on around here.”
“You live on Mykonos your whole life, you get plugged into all the gossip.”
“Tell me, is there a place where I might find Philander when he’s not tending to Mr. Karydes’s every whim?”
Delphina thought for a moment. “Montparnasse.”
“What’s that?”
“A piano bar. About a ten-minute walk from here. Philander goes there every night around eight when Mr. Karydes is having dinner. He has a few cocktails, silently curses his boss, and then scurries back to the compound by eleven to tuck him in for the night.”
I gave Delphina a peck on the cheek. “Thank you.”
She gently took my wrist in her hand and squeezed. “Be careful, Jarrod. Mr. Karydes is a very jealous man. It doesn’t matter that he and Philander are no longer involved. Once you belong to Mr. Karydes, you belong to him for life.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
I hurried back to the room. Laurette was curled up in bed underneath the comforter and sleeping soundly. We were both exhausted from our travel adventures, but after taking a long nap myself that stretched into the early evening hours, I had to shower and change and slap on some sweet-smelling cologne if I was going to try and seduce my prey.
After slipping on some white pants and a beige silk shirt, I kissed the still-slumbering Laurette on the forehead and quietly left the suite. Delphina, the doll she was, had dropped off some written directions to the Montparnasse Piano Bar on her way to dinner. I followed them to the letter up a steep incline to a row of bars and shops facing the vast expanse of the Aegean, which glittered and danced under the bright, blinding moonlight. When I reached the Montparnasse, I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my silk shirt to show off some skin, hoping Philander might be impressed, before opening the door and entering.
Inside, the festive atmosphere startled me. All the tables were filled with straight couples, gay couples, groups of friends. Everyone sang along as the three-hundred-pound, bitchy English queen at the piano banged out a medley from Hello, Dolly. I felt awkward and self-conscious and didn’t know where to turn. There was an open stool at the bar, so I made a beeline for it. I hopped up on it, ordered a Coca-Cola Light and Vanilla Absolut, and then scanned the room for Philander. There was no sign of him. I checked my watch. 8:10 P.M. If Delphina was right, he should have been here by now. Maybe he was running late. Maybe Ulysses insisted he stay on the grounds tonight.
I joined the crowd in a rousing rendition of “When the Parade Passes By.” A drunken, red-faced Scot from Edinburgh sidled up and asked me if I was interested in taking a walk along the rocky beach outside, which was code for a sloppy quickie, but I politely declined.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the men’s room door swing open and Philander glide out. He wore a tight-fitting T-shirt and blue jeans. His long, thick hair was matted down by gel and his eyes were downcast. He was walking straight toward me. I suddenly realized his stool was right next to mine. I picked up his half-empty bottle of Amstel Light from the bar and held it out to him as he approached.
When he looked up to see me grinning at him with his beer in my hand, he stopped in his tracks. His mind worked quickly to process my presence, but I could tell he decided to chalk it up to coincidence, and only then did he offer me a smile.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” he asked before taking a long sip of his beer.
“Back at the hotel. Sleeping. And she’s not my girlfriend.”
“How fortunate.”
“For whom?”
“For both of us.”
Philander leaned up against the bar and kept stealing glances at me. The piano player had segued into A Chorus Line and most of the crowd had draped their arms around each other to sway in unison to his dramatic rendition of “What I Did for Love.”
I turned to the bartender and ordered us another round.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Philander asked, caressing my shoulder with the back of his hand.
“You have a problem with that?”
“No. But if I have too much, I’m not responsible for my actions.”
“That’s the plan,” I said, reaching around behind him and squeezing his right butt cheek.
From the bulge in Philander’s pants, I knew my little seduction dance was working. He spun my stool around so I was facing him and cupped my face in his hands.
“Do you know what ‘Philander’ means in Greek?”
I shrugged, not having the faintest idea.
“Lover of man.”
Perfect.
He guzzled his Amstel Light within two minutes, and I signaled the bartender to bring him another one. Meanwhile, I excused myself three times to go to the bathroom, taking my drink with me and pouring it down the sink each time.
After two hours of flirting and touching and singing, Philander was slurring his words, swaying back and forth, and raising his voice well into the red zone on the obnoxious meter. I had to work fast.
“Want to get out of here?” I said, slipping my arm around his waist.
“Yes. But where can we go? Your hotel?”
“Can’t. My friend is there. Where do you live?”
“In a guesthouse on the Karydes compound.” He laughed. “Forget going there.”
“Why not? You live alone in the guesthouse, don’t you?”
“Yes, but there are cameras everywhere. Uli watches my every move.”
I remembered the friendly, red-faced Scot from earlier in the night who had his own suggestion. “How about we take a stroll along the rocky beach outside. Plenty of little hiding places there, I bet.”
Philander lit up. “Sounds good.”
I tipped the bartender twenty euros for indulging our raucous behavior and nodded to the bitchy English queen at the piano as we passed. He sniffed at me derisively, and I concluded that he had probably been trying to score with Philander for months and resented me for succeeding during his opening set.
I wrapped my arm around Philander’s waist and led him off the cobblestone path onto the slippery rocks of the shore. I spotted a few pairs of men, their eyes darting about as they disappeared behind the jagged rocks to fool around in the darkness. Philander was already rubbing his hands over my chest as we walked, but his shaky attempt at a pass only caused him to lose his balance. I gripped him tighter to keep him from falling.
When we were a safe distance from the horny tourists and the sounds of show tunes from the Montparnasse evaporated in the night winds, I sat Philander down on a flat rock. He fumbled for the zipper on my pants, but I managed to pull away without completely discouraging him. He sighed and was under the impression that it was his own inebriation that was preventing him from successfully getting inside my pants.
“Come here,” he slurred, reaching out for me.
I let him pull me toward him, and he awkwardly planted a few wet kisses on my mouth. I kept my lips sealed, hoping to avoid him driving his tongue down my throat. I had to keep him going, though, at least until I found out what I needed to know.
“You are so cute,” I said as I playfully ran my hand through his hair. The gel was so greasy I had to wipe it off on my white pants, leaving an unsettling stain. “I can’t imagine why Ulysses would throw you away.”
Philander frowned, stung by the words. “He didn’t throw me away. I’m still there, aren’t I?”
“Well, I heard he’s got a new boyfriend.”
This was news to Philander. “Who?”
“An American.”
“Uli would never date an American. They’re too loud and crass.”
“Well, someone saw an American on his property. Tall guy, black hair, well built.”
“Oh, him,” Philander said, relieved. “He’s not his boyfriend. He’s . . .”
“What?”
Philander sat back. His head was spinning. I was on the clock, because he was going to pass out at any time. “I can’t really talk about it.”
“Mr. Karydes is obviously just sparing your feelings. He doesn’t want you to know what’s really going on between them.”
“No!” Philander said, shifting his weight in a desperate attempt to stop the spinning. “That American wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for that good-for-nothing Indian.”
“You mean Akshay?”
“Yes, he betrayed Mr. Karydes. Tried passing off . . .” Philander was confused. He knew he shouldn’t be talking about any of this, but he was drunk and his guard was down.
“The Oscar,” I said. “Akshay stole it. He owed Ulysses a lot of money, and offered to give him Claire Richards’s Academy Award if he would erase the debt.”
“Yeah, but the stupid ass tried passing off . . .”
A fake. Akshay tried fooling Uli with a counterfeit statue. He planned to keep the real one and sell it for a lot of money. Dumb move, considering Uli was a connoisseur of memorabilia. The pieces were coming together. Philander’s eyes were half opened. He was struggling to stay awake. I only had seconds left.
“When Karydes realized he was being conned by Akshay, he decided he needed some bargaining leverage to show him he was serious?” I said.
Philander half nodded, his eyes getting heavier every moment.
“Why did he kidnap the American?”
“He sent two of his men to London to go rough up Akshay, who was there doing a play. They saw him with the American and assumed the two of them were a couple . . .” Philander said, his head drooping.
So Uli gave the order to kidnap Charlie, who he thought was Akshay’s lover. They spirited him here to Mykonos, probably on Karydes’s private jet, and stashed him somewhere until Akshay turned up with the real Oscar. It all made sense. But where was Charlie? He could be anywhere. Mykonos wasn’t a huge island, but there were a lot of discreet hiding places.
“Where is your boss keeping the American?”
Philander’s head swayed to one side and his eyes were clamped shut. I shook him, but he was out. I carefully lowered his head until it rested against a rock. I didn’t need anything more from him. I knew the whole story. It was all about an exchange. Charlie for the Oscar. Akshay was the thief in the red ski mask. He stole the award from Claire’s dressing room. But he got greedy. And it led to Charlie’s abduction. Akshay might have been a cad and a cheat, but he couldn’t just let Charlie die. So he booked a flight to Mykonos to hand over the real thing and get him back. Akshay had proven so untrustworthy, however, Uli wasn’t taking any chances and dispatched a couple more of his henchmen, the Hulk and Thing, over to London to ransack Akshay’s apartment for the statue in case of another double cross. That’s where Laurette and I came in.
But now, I was in the power position. I had the coveted Academy Award that Ulysses Karydes wanted so badly. All I had to do was contact him and arrange my own exchange. That still left some troubling questions. Why would Karydes kill Akshay before he got his hands on the Oscar? Or was it someone else? And was the person who shot Akshay dead at Super Paradise Beach the same person who somehow murdered Claire Richards on the opening night of Wallace Goodwin’s play? And if she didn’t die from the peanut oil, then what killed her? I had to find out the truth before the British police tossed me in prison for the crime. But first, I had to get Charlie back.