The Athenian run

The summer heat clung to Kaisariani like a sweaty shirt. Myrto Zervou sat on her balcony, fanning herself with an old newspaper, her sharp eyes scanning the neighborhood below. Her son, Aris, was hammering away in his small carpentry workshop across the street, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud mixing with the distant hum of motorbikes.

A sudden commotion broke the afternoon lethargy. A sleek black Mercedes screeched to a halt outside old man Karabatsos’s kiosk. Two men in dark suits stepped out, their polished shoes clicking ominously on the pavement. Karabatsos, a wiry man with a permanent cigarette dangling from his lips, paled as they leaned over the counter, voices low but sharp.

Myrto’s nostrils flared. "Trouble smells like burnt coffee," she muttered, an old proverb surfacing in her mind.

She shuffled downstairs, her black dress swishing, and crossed the street just as the men sped off. Karabatsos was trembling, counting a wad of drachmas with shaky fingers.

"Eh, Kostas!" Myrto barked. "Who were those jackals?"

Karabatsos jumped, nearly dropping the money. "Nothing, Myrto, just business."

"Business doesn’t make an honest man sweat like a pig at Easter," she shot back.

He hesitated, then leaned in. "They… they wanted me to hold money. Big money. Foreign transfers. But it’s..."

"Illegal," Myrto finished. The junta’s currency controls had turned Athens into a cage. Moving money out was a crime, unless you were rich, connected, or stupid.

That evening, Aris found her at the kitchen table, surrounded by newspapers, her reading glasses perched on her nose.

"Mama, what’s this?" He eyed the scribbled notes: names, numbers, bank acronyms.

"A puzzle," she said. "And I don’t like missing pieces."

*    *    * *    *    *

The next morning, Myrto marched into the local kafeneio, where the old men sipped muddy coffee and traded gossip. She zeroed in on Spiros, a retired bank clerk with a fondness for ouzo and loose lips.

"Spiro," she said, sliding into the chair opposite him. "Who in this neighborhood moves money like water?"

He choked on his coffee. "Myrto, some questions drown a man."

She leaned in. "And some silence buries him."

Spiros sighed. "There’s talk… a lawyer, Vlassis. Handles ‘special’ transactions for the wrong people."

Myrto’s blood hummed. Vlassis, a slick, silver-haired snake who dined at expensive tavernas while pensioners counted pennies.

*    *    * *    *    *

That night, she enlisted Aris and her nosy neighbor, Toula, for surveillance. They parked across from Vlassis’s office, watching as shadowy figures came and went.

"Mama, this is dangerous," Aris hissed.

"Life is dangerous," she retorted. "So is stupidity. Now hush."

A delivery van pulled up. Two men unloaded heavy suitcases. Myrto’s eyes narrowed. "No fish smells fresh at midnight."

She dialed her son-in-law, a mid-level cop with a grudge against corruption. "Yianni, bring friends. The big kind."

*    *    * *    *    *

Chaos erupted an hour later. Police swarmed the office, catching Vlassis mid-transfer, stacks of foreign cash spilling from the suitcases. The lawyer’s face twisted in fury as he was dragged out, spitting curses.

"You meddling crone!" he snarled at Myrto.

She smirked. "The fox screams loudest when the trap snaps."

The next morning, the neighborhood buzzed. Karabatsos poured her a free coffee, his hands steady for the first time in days.

"How’d you know?" he asked.

Myrto sipped, savoring the victory. "A grandmother knows two things: when a child lies… and when a thief sweats."

Aris shook his head, grinning. "You’re impossible."

She winked. "And you’re welcome."

As the sun rose over Athens, Myrto Zervou, the widow in black, returned to her balcony, ever watchful, ever ready.

The End