Jeffrey Siger_Andreas Kaldis 02 Read Online Free PDF Page B

murdered buddy was not.
    George continued. “He didn’t want to be tied down to any one girl. That’s the way a lot of guys are these days. If you have sex with the girl she thinks it’s serious, and if you have it with her regularly she thinks you’ll marry her.”
    This I’m hearing from a high-school kid, thought Andreas. He smiled at how much simpler his own teenage years might have been had he known that little secret then. Even now, it might be useful.
    Time to see if his challenge to teenager machismo resulted in an among-us-guys discussion of his real subject of interest. “Okay, George, so tell me more about this hot girl Sotiris met last night at the Angel.”
    “We never saw her before. As I told you, she looked about twenty, light brown hair, green eyes, great figure. Taller than me.”
    Andreas smiled. “So, guys, now tell me exactly what you said when you first saw her. Let’s start with what Sotiris said. Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He leaned over and gave Theo a man-to-man smack on the knee.
    “‘Look at those tits.’ Those were Sotiris’ first words. ‘Fantastic ass,’ were mine. George said, ‘She must be Olympiakos’—we’re big fans of soccer—because she was wearing red.”
    George added, “Not just red, Olympiakos red. The dress, an Armani, drapeé mini, and Jimmy Choo stilettos perfectly matched in our favorite team’s color.”
    Andreas nodded. “Theo, anything to add?”
    As if consciously trying to distance himself from whatever impression George may have been trying to create about his own preferences, Theo said, “George’s parents are in the fashion business; he knows that sort of stuff. Personally, I thought she was the greatest piece of ass ever to walk alone into that place.”
    “We all agreed on that, Theo,” said George. “But Sotiris said she had to be a hooker. ‘Nothing that beautiful could be in here for free,’ he said. We thought she was waiting for someone. But she sat alone at the next table just listening to the music. Didn’t even try starting a conversation with us.”
    “Was that unusual?”
    “Well, a lot of people tried breaking into our crowd. They’d do whatever they could to get noticed by us,” said Theo.
    He wondered if these kids had any idea how the other half—make that 99.5%—lived. Andreas actually felt a little sorry for them. In a few years they’d be breaking into a new crowd, one the Greek media liked to call “the 700ers,” kids raised among the clothes, cars, money, boats, and vacations of their (often debt-strapped) parents, thinking life always would be easy for them, until running head-on into the typical Greek university graduate’s starting salary of seven hundred euros per month. Hardly enough to pay one night’s bar bill at the Angel Club.
    “So, how did they hook up?”
    “Sotiris leaned over and asked if she wanted to join us. She said, ‘No.’ He asked if he could buy her a drink. She said, ‘No.’ He asked if he could marry her, and she laughed.”
    “That’s when he made his move,” said George. “He slid out of his chair and onto the one next to her.”
    “He was the best at picking up girls. A super- kamaki ,” said Theo.
    They were talking more naturally than they had in front of their parents, and it made them sound like bravado-driven sixteen-year-olds; but he couldn’t fault them for being so naïve. Most men, make that virtually all, would be the same in pursuit of a woman that hot. And once there’s booze involved, every guy thinks he has a shot. It’s the Greek man’s mentality. They take great pride in what they imagine to be their skills at pursuing women, even describing their “whatever-it-takes” behavior by the name for the little trident their ancestors once used to hunt octopus: kamaki.
    “Did anyone else talk to her?”
    “Not that I noticed,” said Theo.
    Andreas looked at the other boy. George gave a quick upward jerk of his head in the Greek style for