Page 135 of The Skeikh's Games

George grinned whitely. “You’re the boss.”

That he was, and he paid his people to indulge his whims, of which he had many.

It was a short hop, and the noise from the chopper wakened the caretaker who unlocked the gates for Simon for a generous tip.

Simon walked up to the temple and sat down on one of the fallen stones in what would have been the naos, or hall of worship. “Father Poseidon,” he said, “Marissa and I have broken up. I first kissed her here in your sacred place, so I thought you deserved to be the first to know. I brought you a bottle of wine.” He uncorked the bottle and poured it onto the ground. “It’s French. I hope you like it. Thank you for the calm sea.” It wasn’t as if he believed in the old gods, but he did enjoy little rituals.

He sat for a while, just enjoying the early morning breezes and the warmth of the sun. Tourists would be showing up soon, and he wanted to be away by then, but he couldn’t resist lazing there a bit and thinking about what it must have looked like before it had been destroyed, a handsome, open building with an enormous gold-leafed statue of Poseidon at the head of the naos.

When he got up, he went over to the spot where the poet, Lord Byron, had incised his name into the stone. He ran his fingers over it and murmured the words of the poet, Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep... Byron who swam out to sea to watch the funeral pyre of his friend, Shelley, who had drowned.

“Excuse me?” Simon turned to find two young women standing outside the fence. “What time does the temple open?”

He pretended to check his watch. “For you, right now,” he told them, then opened the gate to let them in. The girls thanked him, and he thought about inviting them out to his yacht, but he’d just gotten rid of one woman, what did he want with more?

On the way out, he told the caretaker about the girls, and gave the old man his other bottle of wine. Then he flew off like some modern-day godling, which, if money counted for anything, he probably was. Simon Katsaros probably had more money than any god, if you counted his family’s fortune. He had an allowance, and a little side business to bring in more; not something he would ever have told his mother and father about since it was probably not entirely legal, but nobody had to know.

By the time he got back to the Kallisto, he was tired and ready for sleep. He told the Captain to head for Pireas where most of his guests would have cars waiting for them. They’d spend the night in port where Simon would talk to his business partner, Kosta Papachristos, about whom there was nothing Christlike, and the next morning, head for Halithos, a little island in the Gulf of Corinth, owned by the Katsaros family. He was tired. He wanted to go home.

Gretchen, or whatever her name was, was waiting for him in his bed. He thought about throwing her out of his cabin, but she looked like an angel with her snow-blonde hair spread out across his pillows. How could Simon resist?

“Hello, beautiful,” he said as he began to undress.

Later that afternoon, Simon said farewell to the last of his guests at the Pireas harbor, and walked over to a little espresso bar nearby. He read the newspaper and drank coffee until Kosta showed up.

Kosta always looked, as Simon’s rather colorful mother would have said, like he tried to and couldn’t. There was always something a bit off. Too flashy and yet too tailored, too much the fake-looking tough guy in over-priced clothing. He was reasonably nice looking, and attracted women right and left. If he dressed better, Simon might have occasionally included him in one of his cruises, but as it was, he wouldn’t have fit in at all. That was just as well. He didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.

“Why on earth did you want to meet here?” Kosta asked as he sat down.

“I like their coffee. You said you had something to discuss.”

Kosta waved the waitress over and ordered an espresso and “something sweet, I don’t care what; two of them.” Then he pulled out his phone. “I have a line on some merchandise from Egypt,” he told Simon. “Some art glass, pottery, that sort of thing.” He flashed a photo at Simon of a crate with a half-wrapped blue bowl sitting on top of it.

“Are you asking for my permission to move on the deal?” Simon asked.

“It’s your money.”

Simon understood what that meant. The shipments were likely to be carrying something more than art glass and pottery, something more expensive, but with the potential to earn a great deal of money. “I don’t know, Kosta. I’m not sure we want to get into that.”

“This is a sure thing, man.” The waitress brought his espresso and a plate filled with loukoumades swimming in syrup. “That looks great,” Kosta said and swatted the waitress on her ass. “Thanks.”

She was not pleased, but said nothing. Probably worried about keeping her job.

“You shouldn’t do that to strange women, Kosta.”

“Why not? They love being told they’re desirable.”

“I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, but remember, she’s quite capable of spitting in your coffee next time you come in here.”

Kosta’s eyebrows shot up. “You think she’d do that over a simple little pat?”

“I think if you did that to my sister I’d do worse than that to you.”

“Okay, okay, calm down.”

“I am calm. Let’s talk.” Simon hadn’t been averse to importing objets d’art from Russia, pre-revolutionary things that netted a lot of money on the black market. But antiquities? That was something else. He had a healthy respect for the ancient. “What exactly are you going to ship?”

Kosta assured him it was minor league stuff. “Nothing like out of Tut’s tomb!” he insisted as he licked the syrup from his fingers. “These are terrific. You sure you don’t want some?”

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