CHAPTER TEN

Apparently, I’d be dining in a fairy kingdom. The restaurant had rooftop seating which overlooked the city. A marble fountain large enough to bathe in was the major source of light: it was surrounded by lanterns, and a soft warm glow swam up from spotlights set below the waterline. Trees grew from huge planters between the tables, carving out niches of space and privacy.

I was accidentally-on-purpose fifteen minutes early, and was wearing something tiny, expensive, and red. Blood red, really, that one dark shade you get when the injury is on the bad side of serious. The sound of my heels smacked down the rest of the ambient noise as the maître d' showed me to my table, and I smiled and waved when people called my name.

If I had to meet a stranger a couple thousand miles outside of my home territory, I was damned sure I’d make myself some witnesses.

I took a few selfies with the waitstaff, and chatted up a very nice American couple on their honeymoon. Then, halfway through the new bride’s story about a dress fitting gone awry, her mouth dropped open and the rest of her face fell slack.

I turned to look at what had caused her mental hard drive to crash. She was staring at the man who had just walked into the restaurant and…

Wow.

Let me remind you that I’m usually surrounded by good-looking men. My husband is finger-licking delicious, and most of the guys in OACET are at least on par with him. There may be one—*cough*Josh Glassman*cough*—who is sex appeal incarnate.

What I’m saying is, I’ve had to build up an immunity to Grade-A prime beefcake just to get through the day.

But this guy?

Wow.

He had thick, dark hair and smoky Mediterranean skin, and was in a suit that was barely a button away from being a full tuxedo. He wore the jacket open, and it spilled in clean lines over a broad chest and a pristine white shirt.

A small boutonniere on his lapel held a rose that matched my blood-red dress.

“Ah,” I heard myself say. “This must be my dinner date.”

I’m not sure what happened to the honeymooners, since I spent the next thirty seconds watching an authentic Greek god walk towards me. He had that smooth, rolling stride of a man who enjoyed long jogs on the beach, and listening to live music at sunset. His turnoffs included—

Sorry. As I said, wow.

He was standing over the table for a good few heartbeats before I remembered I should, you know, talk or something.

I arched an eyebrow instead. It seemed safer.

“Atlas Petrakis,” he said with a grin. There was a little bit of devil in it.

“Of course you are,” I replied. “Please, sit down.”

He reached for my hand. Like a dummy, I thought he was going to shake it. Instead, he kissed it, a perfectly gentlemanly gesture with the bare minimum of lips and spit.

And it still sent a shivering tingle down to my southern inlet.

Some men know what they’re doing. Atlas Petrakis knew what he was doing.

He released my hand—again, not too fast, not too slow, but juuuust right—and I gestured towards the other chair. “Please,” I said. “Sit down.”

Atlas seated himself, carefully tucking his leather satchel between his feet. I noticed he looped the strap around his knee, and realized he had brought samples.

Oh boy.

See, I wasn’t quite sure whether I, a wealthy American tourist, could visit a foreign country and walk off with a part of its history. I definitely wasn’t sure if Atlas Petrakis was a legitimate archaeologist. What’s the etiquette when an edible hunk of a man offers you (possibly) stolen antiquities? Slap him and walk away? Wait for the third date to buy them? I had completely skipped over this chapter in The Ladies’ Guide to Felonies.

“So, Mr. Petrakis—”

“Atlas, please. Ms. Blackwell…”

He waited to see if I’d give him permission to use my first name, but he wasn’t about to get lucky tonight. “So, Atlas, what is it you do? Goodwin said you’re the best in your business, but he was vague about what that business actually is.”

“Easiest to think of me as a professional treasure hunter,” he said. “Would you object if I ordered us some wine?”

I would not object, and Atlas called the waiter over and asked for something in Greek. The waiter returned with a bottle of a local vintage, Xinomavro, which I thought was somewhat spicy.

It sure went down easy, though.

“What does a professional treasure hunter do?” I asked, swirling the wine to make its long legs crawl down the side of the glass. The torchlight sparkled within the wine’s deep reds. “Tomb raiding, dodging giant boulders, and such?”

Atlas chuckled. “I’ve played those games. No, I have never raided a tomb. Collectors hire me when they want an item, and I locate it for them. I’m an art broker for antiquities.”

There we go. Art broker sounded much less sexy than professional treasure hunter, but I could wrap my mind around it. When Ben and I first started making money in the stock market, I had gone through a brief period where I acquired paintings as quickly as I could. I sold most of them the following year when I finally accepted that Abstract Expressionism was lost on me. My rapid churn rate on Rothkos and Kandinskys had been a fast introduction to how the art world catered to the wealthy: if you hired the right broker, you could point and shoot him at what you wanted, and he’d spring out to grab the item like a meaty grappling hook.

“Do you have a client list?” I asked, and he flipped open his satchel to retrieve it.

“Some clients request their privacy be protected,” he said, handing me the list. “They have asked to be kept anonymous.”

Yup. On of a list of a hundred names, the first twenty were Anon, followed by a description of the item that Atlas had acquired for them. All of the items sounded exotic. Like, birds with crazy claw-hands in their wings exotic.

“What’s a nábrók?” I asked.

Atlas feigned a shudder. “You’re better off not knowing.”

“Hah,” I said, and poured myself a little more wine. “Now I have to know.”

He told me. I regretted asking. [7]

“Where did you find one of those?” I asked, and then amended the question to include the rest of the list. “Where did you find all of these?”

He smiled. “I am quite skilled,” he said, and I swear his eyes twinkled at me.

“Pretend this is a job interview,” I said.

It came out a little harsh, and he sat up and smoothed himself down. “Ah…yes. Many private collectors are willing to part with some items in exchange for others. I facilitate the trade between interested parties.”

“Where do the items come from?” I asked. “You know…originally.”

“You’re concerned about what is legal and what is not?”

I nodded. “Very concerned.”

“Collecting relics of lost civilizations is not a new phenomenon,” Atlas said, as he ran a finger over his blood-red rose. “Much of what I find has been bought and sold many times, long before cultural property was formally recognized. Such items have been in private possession for many years, and are often treated as exempt from current standards. If these items go to a museum, they are removed from private circulation.

“Except…” Atlas gestured over his shoulder, calling my attention to the city spread out beneath our rooftop patio. “Greece? It has many museums. Not all of them will survive our depression. It is sad, but the smaller museums, they are selling off parts of their collections to survive. Many of them have approached me and have asked me to find them buyers for items that will not be missed.”

It was sad, the idea that museums needed to trade their treasures to keep their doors open. I followed his gaze towards the city, where the outlines of the acropolis were soft against the twilight sky.

I felt his hand on mine. It was warm—like, a sitting-by-the-heat-vent-on-a-January-morning warm. “We are an old people,” he said. “This is not our first challenge. It shall not be our last.”

And he gave me that twinkling smile again.

I decided to fire another warning shot.

“Love your flower,” I said.

“Thank you,” Atlas replied. “I see we have similar tastes, yes? Your dress, you see? A complement?”

I didn’t reply.

“We Greeks believe in Fate,” he said. “Perhaps, Fate tells us we shall work well together.”

“Sure,” I said. “Or you arrived early and waited outside, saw me come in, and then ran down to the florist on the corner to find a boutonniere that matches my outfit. Great trick, by the way. Suggests there’s already a bond between us.”

He flashed his devil’s grin. “Caught,” he admitted. “Did you learn that from your friends, the spies?”

“No. It’s something con artists do.”

The grin disappeared.

“Ms. Blackwell, I didn’t mean to—”

“Of course not,” I said. “But don’t try to jerk me around. Now, do you want to start over?”

He busied himself with his napkin, unable to meet my eyes. “I would like that, yes.”

The waiter arrived and we went through the traditional Dance of the Breadsticks. They were delicious, warm and buttery, and I devoured my share.

By the time I had gotten a nice soggy layer of appetizers in my stomach, I felt secure enough to shift from small talk to the real stuff.

“You’ve heard about the discovery of the new piece of the Antikythera Mechanism?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Finding it has been good for OACET’s reputation,” I said. “If there were another lost fragment out there, OACET would like to be involved in its location and recovery. We would turn it over to a museum, of course. I’m here because they can’t leave the country, and they need someone they trust as their representative to put the feelers out.”

There. Nice and solid. Probably aligned neatly with what little information he had gotten from Ambassador Goodwin. Who says I can’t lie worth a damn?

Atlas Petrakis gave me a very cautious nod. Suspicion, so well hidden I almost hadn’t noticed it, left him. “Yes,” he said. “I see how that would bring you to me.

“But, Ms. Blackwell,” he said, as he reclined in his chair. His shirt shifted slightly, the space between the buttons stretching to show that smooth chest…oh wow. “Finding a single fragment of the Mechanism was a miracle. If there are more of them at large, they are most likely at the bottom of the sea.”

“Or in a private collection,” I pressed. “There might be something out there that’s been…lost.”

“Many things have been lost,” he agreed.

“As you’ve said, it’s your job to recover such items for interested parties.”

He nodded again. “But it’s never so simple. Understand, please, that this new discovery is likely to bring out the frauds. Every collector with an unidentified fragment in their possession will think they’ve had a piece of the Mechanism all along.”

I shrugged. “So what? I’m rich, and I bet you work on commission.”

Atlas blinked.

“I’m not very subtle,” I added helpfully.

“I have noticed,” he replied.

“If I decide to hire you, you’ll be paid for each possible lead, false or not. I want anything connected to the Mechanism, not just actual pieces of it. Documents, scraps of paper, family anecdotes… It’ll all be good for OACET’s reputation.

“For the record,” I added, “anything you obtain for me must be done legally. OACET is dissected in the media on a daily basis, so I’m going to personally check each lead.”

I paused. This was the tricky bit.

“If,” I continued, “you do find a solid lead, I’ll want to know the source. I’ll be checking how that source acquired the fragment. Especially where they found it. It doesn’t matter if it was discovered five or five hundred years ago—I’ll still want to check the data myself.”

“It’s my job to establish provenance—”

I cut him off. “And mine to make sure anything I bring back to my husband won’t bite him in the ass. With that said,” I continued, “you’ll still be paid for these solid leads, even if the provenance falls apart when I check it out. It’s not your fault if a seller lies to you.”

He shook his head, bemused. Apparently, this is not how such deals were usually done in the gray areas of the antiquities trade. I wondered how much he’d jack up his price for leads that he knew would dead-end on me.

I also wondered how long it would take him to realize that I was hoping he’d find these dead ends.

“It’s my spring break, so I’m here for one week,” I said. “Two, if your best leads can’t be resolved quickly. Again, you’ll get a bonus if they—”

“No.” Atlas cut in. “Ms. Blackwell, what you want, it cannot happen. The art world moves slowly. It takes time to find what you are looking for, more time to arrange meetings, and still more time to check provenance.”

“Then I hope you’re caught up on your sleep,” I said.

He stared at me for a very long moment. I thought he might walk out. I really wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. Instead, he nodded, as if agreeing to terms.

“Now,” I said, as I reached for the bottle to refill my wine. “Before I decide to put you on the payroll, show me what you’ve brought.”

Atlas reached for his satchel.

He was definitely a pro. He hailed the waiter and asked for a clean dishtowel, which he laid on the table; on top of that, he placed a piece of clean white linen which he removed from a large plastic Ziploc baggie. He tucked the plastic baggie between the dishtowel and the linen, making a sanitation sandwich to keep any grease from floating upwards through the layers of cloth.

Then, he started placing small boxes on the linen.

“If these aren’t enough to prove my skills,” he said, “I have more at my office. Larger pieces, very lovely. But more expensive, of course.”

Damn. I realized, almost too late, that he expected me to buy at least one of these samples as proof that I was committed to the hunt. I hoped he took personal checks.

“All of this is legal?” I asked.

Atlas twitched. “Ms. Blackwell—”

“’cuz I’ll walk out of here right now if you can’t prove that you’re the rightful seller.”

“Of course,” he said, resigned, and reached back into the satchel for the documentation.

He spread this out on the table, tucking each piece of paper underneath its corresponding box. I didn’t recognize any of it—all Greek to me, haha—but I took a couple of photos and sent them to Speedy.

The koala answered in record time. Mike must have been typing for him; Speedy’s claws are too bulky to bang text out on a cell phone. “Either authentic or good forgeries. It’ll hold up.”

“K,” I replied.

“My friend says these look authentic,” I said. “I’m sorry if I implied a lack of trust.”

“You have made it quite clear how you stand on the matter of legality,” he said. “I’ll respect that.”

He waited, probably for me to say that I’d start respecting his own professionalism.

Nope.

Listen, any dude who smarms his way through the appetizers is probably going to keep pushing me until he gets it through his head that I push back. Sooner or later, Atlas Petrakis would grok me, and then we’d be friendly friend-friends. Until then? Game on.

Atlas stifled a sigh. “Greece is protective of its treasures. If the original owners didn’t give me permission to sell these items, they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country.”

I nodded, and he began opening the boxes.

He went from largest to smallest, showing me ancient items. Here, a miniature marble frieze. There, a necklace. A strip of leather cut and twisted into the figure of a bull…

Then he got to the smallest box, and that same heart-halting moment that had slammed into me back in my kitchen grabbed me again.

I pretended to inspect the necklace as I ignored what was shouting at me from inside a ring box.

Petrakis lifted its lid. Inside, three pieces of glass—no, three beads, but flattened so they looked more like shards of glass than beads—lay on the satin cushion.

One was a vivid bottle green. The other two, pale blue. They tugged at me in the same way the fragment of the Mechanism had, and I knew these little beads had history.

“Aw!” I said in the same voice I’d use if a friend was showing me an especially average cat, and not as if I was strangling myself to keep from grabbing the beads and running. “Cute.”

Then I went back to inspecting the necklace.

The waiter arrived and reminded us that our meals were soon to come out of the kitchen, and Atlas packed up his goods with the same careful precision he had used to set them on the linen cloth.

I’m serious about food. I didn’t let us talk business during the meal. Fish and meatballs and spanakopita, which I had had a zillion times but had never really experienced before, and something that Atlas insisted were fried zucchini flowers stuffed with rice.

And pita bread? The kind that’s made on a baking stone and slathered in farm-fresh butter? Divine.

Dessert was a custard, which sounds boring until you try it. Lemon, sugar, a thin crust on the bottom? Simple can still be perfect.

Through it all, Atlas told stories about Greece. Ancient Greece, mainly, stories he had come across in his travels. Stories of gods and heroes, of enormous troves of gold and riches still waiting to be found among the islands…

Mostly, he spoke of kings.

Hundreds of kings, with dynasties lasting for millennia, and I was suddenly glad that America only has a few centuries of history behind it. Seriously, I have my hands full dealing with a bunch of Founding Fathers. Thank God and any other deity listening that I was born to a relatively new culture. I don’t know how I’d handle three thousand years’ worth of ghosts bobbing around my personal periphery all the damned time.

When our waiter had whisked the custard plates away, Atlas finally started on the queens. Hippolyta, ruler of the Amazons. Penelope, who drove men to ruin through waiting. Hecuba, the grieving mother.

And Helen of Troy.

I rolled my eyes when he got to her. I couldn’t help it: I’d never been a fan of Helen of Troy. Yay, she was pretty. Everybody cheer for pretty.

“Ah,” Atlas laughed. “You’re familiar with the American version of Helen. What a shame—did you know Helen was a warrior?”

“Helen, the face who launched a thousand ships? That Helen?”

He nodded. “The mythology puts her as a child of Zeus, but no matter who her father was, she was born a princess of Sparta. All Spartan children were raised in a culture of war. Some of the stories say that she was trained in the martial arts from childhood, and was equal to her brothers in battle.”

My memories of seventh-grade world history are a joke. “Her brothers…?”

“Castor and Polydeuces. Legendary fighters. Savage, cunning, and possessed with the strength of the gods. They were among the best of Sparta’s legendary warriors.”

They sounded familiar. “Gemini? The Twins?”

“Yes!” A bright smile lit his face. This one, as opposed to his devil’s grin, seemed sincere. “The constellation of Gemini. Polydeuces was Zeus’ son, and when Castor was to die, he petitioned the gods to let his twin share his divine nature. They were transformed into stars, to never be separated, not by death or by distance.”

“Helen was a twin, too, wasn’t she?”

Atlas laughed aloud. “Yes!” he said again. “Twin to Clytemnestra, who became the wife of Agamemnon.”

“Agamemnon… He played a small part in the Trojan War?”

That smile faltered a bit. Apparently I needed to brush up on my Greek myths. Or…poetry. Or history. Something.

“A large part,” Atlas said. “He was the brother of Menelaus, the king who married Helen. When Paris kidnapped Helen and began the war, Agamemnon brought his armies to fight by Menelaus’ side.”

I sniffed. “Helen couldn’t have been that hot a warrior. Not if she let herself be taken captive by the Trojans.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Atlas said. “We know about her from stories in which she was no one’s hero. Hard to say what kind of person she was, when she was alive. It’s a sad truth of history: men are remembered for their deeds; women, for their beauty.”

“If she lived at all,” I said.

“I’m sure she did,” Atlas said. He returned to his satchel, and removed the smallest box. He was not as careful with it this time, merely flipping his saucer over so its clean underside kept the box out of the crumbs we had left on the table. He opened the box to show the three little beads and said, “The man who sold me this? He claimed they belonged to Helen.”

I poked the velvet box with my pinkie. The three beads rolled around their satin bed, and the sound of them brushing against each other chimed like small bells. The sound was barely loud enough to hear, but it bypassed my ears completely. That chiming resonated within my brain, kicking and punching in its eagerness to tell me things.

“Sure,” I said. “Can you prove it? That these were once Helen’s?”

He hesitated. It was quick and hard to notice, but I was already there. “Of course not,” I answered for him.

“If I could,” he replied, “these wouldn’t be for sale. They would be priceless, artifacts owned by one of the most memorable women who had ever lived.”

“Uh-huh.” I jabbed the box again, and reminded myself that if I grabbed the box and leapt over the edge of the balcony, it would go badly for me. The fall to the ground, for starters. Then, the police, and the arrest, and having to explain to Ben and Sparky that the beads were screaming at me…

“They have been dated to when Helen most likely lived,” Atlas said, as he tried to push the smallest items he had brought with him into my checkbook. “Some historians say that such beads were given as prizes in battle. Perhaps Helen herself won these in a tournament.”

“A few chunks of glass? Some prize.”

“They would have looked different when new,” he said. “Such beads were often covered in gold sheaths to bring out the details in the relief.”

I craned my neck down towards the beads, and saw that two of the beads might have had faces stamped in them. “So what you’re saying is that these are damaged?”

This time, his sigh was audible.

I grinned at him. “Good job,” I said. “Spinning a story about a warrior woman because you know your audience. Let me see the necklace again, and we’ll pretend Helen of Troy owned that instead.”

He paused, and then told me why that wasn’t possible. The necklace was made during a different period, used distinct craftsmanship, didn’t align with what was known of Helen’s life or location…blah blah and blah.

So Atlas Petrakis passed that test, too.

I walked out of there with a pretty necklace, and a gorgeous man on my payroll.

And the beads, of course.