Black widow, red secrets

Myrto Zervou adjusted her black shawl and peered through the lace curtains of her Kaisariani apartment. Across the street, two men in ill-fitting suits lingered near the kiosk. They weren’t locals.

“Ari,” she called to her son, who was sanding a wooden chair leg in the kitchen. “Those men, they’ve been there since morning. Who waits that long for a newspaper?”

Aris wiped sawdust from his hands and joined her. “Maybe tourists?”

“Tourists don’t wear shoes that cheap,” Myrto muttered. “And they keep looking at old Manolis’ building.”

Manolis, the retired bookseller, had been acting jumpy lately. Just yesterday, he had pressed a foreign magazine into Myrto’s hands at the market, whispering, “Hide this.” She had tucked it between her groceries, but now she wondered, was this why those men were here?

*    *    * *    *    *

That evening, Myrto knocked on Manolis’ door. No answer. She tried the handle, unlocked. Inside, the apartment was ransacked. Books torn from shelves, drawers upended. And in the corner, Manolis sat slumped in his armchair, a bruise darkening his temple.

“Manoli!” Myrto rushed to him.

He groaned. “They took them… the magazines…”

“Who?”

“Security police. They think I’m spreading… lies.” He coughed. “But I just wanted people to know the truth.”

Myrto clenched her fists. “Don’t worry, old fool. I’ll fix this.”

*    *    * *    *    *

The next morning, Myrto marched into the local police station, where her nephew, Lieutenant Dimitris, sipped bitter coffee.

“Thea Myrto,” he sighed. “What trouble now?”

“Manolis was beaten. His things stolen.”

Dimitris shifted. “It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated?” She slapped a wrinkled hand on his desk. “Since when do police let thugs attack old men?”

He leaned in. “Orders from above. Those magazines, anti-regime material. Dangerous.”

Myrto scoffed. “Dangerous? A few articles?”

“People get ideas.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Who took them?”

Dimitris hesitated, then scribbled a name: Kapetan Stavros.

*    *    * *    *    *

That night, Myrto and Aris crept through the back alleys of Exarchia, following whispers of a secret police stash house. Aris, nervous, whispered, “Mama, this is crazy.”

“Quiet,” she hissed. “A fox doesn’t announce its hunt.”

They found the building, a crumbling neoclassical with a broken lamp. Inside, voices argued. Myrto peeked through a window. There, on a table, lay stacks of foreign magazines.

Aris swallowed. “Now what?”

Myrto smirked. “Now we remind them that grandmothers know best.”

She threw a rock through the back window. As the men inside shouted and scrambled, she and Aris slipped in, grabbed an armful of magazines, and vanished into the night.

*    *    * *    *    *

The next day, Myrto distributed the magazines to trusted neighbors, whispering, “Read fast, then burn.” By afternoon, the whole neighborhood knew but no one talked.

When the suits returned, they found nothing. No evidence, no witnesses. Just an old widow sweeping her doorstep, humming.

Kapetan Stavros glared at her. “You’re hiding something.”

Myrto smiled sweetly. “Me? I’m just a grandmother. What do I know of politics?”

As the men left in frustration, Aris exhaled. “We did it.”

Myrto patted his cheek. “Of course. As the ancients said: ‘The mouse laughs when the cat’s away.’”

And with that, she went inside to make coffee, the last of the magazines already turning to ash in her stove.

THE END

The broken icons

The morning sun bled through the thin curtains of Myrto Zervou’s small Kaisariani apartment as she sipped her thick Greek coffee, the grounds swirling like dark omens at the bottom of the cup. Across from her, her son Aris, a broad-shouldered carpenter with sawdust perpetually clinging to his clothes, tore into a piece of toast.

“Another church vandalized last night,” he muttered, shaking the newspaper. “Saint Demetrios this time. Icons smashed, walls spray-painted. Politika, they say.”

Myrto’s lips pursed. “Politika, my foot. When men have no respect, they blame politics.” She set her cup down with a clink. “Who would do such a thing? A church is a home, too.”

Aris shrugged. “Some anarchist kids, maybe. Or worse, people trying to stir trouble before the elections.”

Myrto’s eyes narrowed. Trouble had a smell, and this stank worse than week-old fish.

*    *    * *    *    *

By noon, Myrto was marching down the narrow streets of Kaisariani, her black dress flapping like a crow’s wings. The neighborhood buzzed, old men in cafés muttered, women at the market crossed themselves. The vandalism had shaken them.

She found Father Nikolas sweeping broken glass from the church steps, his face ashen. “Kalimera, Patera,” she said. “Who would do this to God’s house?”

The priest sighed. “If I knew, I’d drag them here by the ear.” He pointed to the spray-painted words: “LIES IN GOLD.”

Myrto frowned. “Strange words for anarchists.”

“Not anarchists,” whispered Maria, the baker’s wife, sidling up. “I saw him, a man in a nice coat, slipping away before dawn. Not some punk.”

“A rich vandal?” Myrto’s eyebrow arched. “Now that’s interesting.”

*    *    * *    *    *

That evening, Myrto cornered Aris at the kitchen table. “I need your help.”

He groaned. “Mama, no. Last time, I ended up in a fistfight with a goat thief.”

“This time, just drive.”

They parked near Kolonaki, Athens’ wealthy district, where the streets gleamed too clean for Myrto’s taste. A name had surfaced, Leonidas Vouvalis, an art collector with a sharp tongue and sharper lawyers.

“Why would a rich man smash churches?” Aris muttered.

“Maybe he’s not smashing them,” Myrto said. “Maybe he’s stealing.”

*    *    * *    *    *

Breaking into Vouvalis’ gallery was easier than expected, Aris’ crowbar made quick work of a back window. Inside, Myrto’s flashlight danced over canvases, statues… and then, tucked in a hidden drawer, a small, ancient icon.

“Saint Demetrios,” she breathed. “The one ‘vandalized’ last night.”

A voice cut through the dark. “You’re smarter than you look, old woman.”

Vouvalis stepped into the light, a pistol glinting in his hand.

Myrto didn’t flinch. “You fake vandalisms, steal the treasures in the chaos. Clever. But greed is a bad thief.”

Aris lunged, Vouvalis fired. The shot went wide, shattering a vase. Myrto swung her handbag like a club, knocking the gun loose. By the time police arrived, Vouvalis was groaning on the floor, Aris sitting on his back.

*    *    * *    *    *

Back in Kaisariani, Myrto shared coffee with Father Nikolas. The icon had been returned, the neighborhood at peace.

“How did you know?” the priest asked.

She smirked. “A snake in a suit still sheds his skin.”

Outside, the church bells rang, and Myrto Zervou, the black-clad widow of Kaisariani, smiled. Another mystery solved.

The End

Blood on the rally stones

The summer heat clung to Athens like a wet rag, and the air in Kaisariani was thick with the smell of souvlaki and exhaust. Myrto Zervou adjusted her black dress, fanning herself with a folded newspaper as she watched her son, Aris; hammer away at a broken chair in their cramped apartment.

"Poutana, the heat," she muttered, wiping her brow. "Like Hades opened his doors early."

Aris smirked. "Maybe you should sit down, Mama. You’ll melt before the rally even starts."

"Rally?" Myrto’s sharp eyes flicked to him. "What rally?"

"The pro-junta one," Aris said, shrugging. "Down in Plateia. Some big-shot colonel’s giving a speech. Police everywhere."

Myrto’s lips twisted. "Fascists." She spat the word like rotten olive.

Then BOOM.

The explosion rattled the windows. Myrto’s coffee cup trembled.

"What in God’s name...?"

Aris was already at the door. "Stay here!"

"Like hell!" Myrto grabbed her shawl and followed.

*    *    * *    *    *

The square was chaos. Smoke curled from a shattered podium. Police shoved through screaming crowds. A man in a bloodied shirt lay on the ground, groaning.

"They threw a bomb!" a woman shrieked.

"No, it was a gun!" a man argued.

Myrto’s eyes narrowed. She spotted something, a single leather glove, dropped near the wounded man.

"Ari," she hissed, "that’s not a bomb wound. That’s a knife."

Her son frowned. "So?"

"So someone wanted it to look like an attack on the rally… but this was personal."

*    *    * *    *    *

Back home, Mary called, panicked. "Mama, the police are arresting people! They think it’s anarchists!"

"Idiots," Myrto muttered. She dialed her old friend, Sergeant Kostas.

"Kosta, the glove, check who lost it."

"Myrto, stay out of this!"

"Or what? You’ll arrest a widow?" She hung up.

A knock came. A nervous young man, Dimitris, a waiter from the café near the rally.

"Kyria Myrto… I saw something. A man in a suit stabbed the speaker, then dropped the glove. But he ran when the explosion happened."

"Whose explosion?"

"I don’t know. But the stabber… he had a tattoo. A snake."

*    *    * *    *    *

Myrto and Aris tracked the tattoo to a retired army doctor, Lambros Vlachos, who’d been kicked out of the junta years ago for stealing morphine.

They found him in a dingy Piraeus bar.

"You stabbed the colonel," Myrto said flatly.

Lambros laughed. "Prove it."

"The glove. The tattoo. And the fact you hated him for ruining your career."

Lambros’s smile died. "He deserved worse."

Aris stepped forward but then gunfire erupted.

A masked shooter, junta loyalists, cleaning house. Lambros took a bullet to the chest.

Myrto and Aris barely escaped.

*    *    * *    *    *

Back home, Myrto pieced it together.

"Lambros stabbed the colonel. But the bomb? That was the junta’s own men—to blame anarchists and justify a crackdown."

Kostas arrived, grim. "You’re right. We found wires, staged."

"And now Lambros is dead," Myrto said bitterly. "Convenient."

Kostas sighed. "Some battles aren’t ours to win, Myrto."

She poured him coffee. "Maybe. But I’ll still say what happened."

*    *    * *    *    *

Days later, whispers spread. The junta’s lies unraveled. The colonel survived but his reputation didn’t.

Mary brought the grandkids over, fussing. "Mama, you could’ve been killed!"

Myrto shrugged. "Better than staying quiet."

Aris grinned. "Next time, maybe warn me before we run from gunmen?"

She smacked his arm. "Next time, be faster."

Outside, Athens burned with protests. But in Kaisariani, Myrto Zervou sipped her coffee, quiet, watchful, and far from done.

The End

Journalist's dread

The summer heat clung to the streets of Kaisariani like a sweaty shirt. Myrto Zervou sat on her balcony, fanning herself with an old newspaper, her sharp eyes scanning the neighbourhood below. Her son, Aris, was hammering away in his small carpentry workshop downstairs, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap blending with the cicadas' drone.

Then, the shouting started.

"You think you can write whatever you want? You’re playing with fire!"

Myrto leaned forward, squinting. Down the street, a broad-shouldered man in a tight suit loomed over Nikos Karas, the young journalist who wrote for The Athenian Voice. Nikos, slight and bespectacled, took a step back, but the man grabbed his collar.

"One more article, and you’ll regret it."

Before Myrto could shout, Nikos twisted free and bolted into his apartment building. The thug, because that’s what he was, no doubt, glanced around, then slipped into a black sedan.

Myrto huffed. "Like a cockroach in the flour," she muttered, recalling the old proverb. "Where there’s one, there’s a whole nest."

*    *    * *    *    *

"Mama, what’s wrong?" Aris wiped sawdust from his hands as he climbed the stairs.

"That journalist boy, Nikos. Some malákas just threatened him."

Aris frowned. "Probably over his articles on the junta’s old cronies. You think we should call the police?"

"Police?" Myrto scoffed. "They’ll come when the bread is already burnt." She stood, adjusting her black dress. "I’ll talk to him."

*    *    * *    *    *

Nikos’ hands trembled as he poured Myrto a coffee. "Mrs. Zervou, I appreciate the concern, but this isn’t your problem."

"When a wolf enters the village, it’s everyone’s problem," she countered. "Who was that man?"

Nikos hesitated. "Grigoris Voulgaris. Ex-military, now ‘security consultant’ for old regime loyalists. My last piece linked him to embezzlement funds from the ’70s."

"Ah," Myrto nodded. "A snake sheds its skin but stays a snake."

"He’s not alone," Nikos admitted. "There’s a meeting tonight, warehouse near Piraeus. I have a source who says they’re moving money. But if I go..."

"You’ll end up floating in the Saronic," Myrto finished. She sipped her coffee. "So we go instead."

*    *    * *    *    *

Aris drove his battered pickup, grumbling. "Mama, this is crazy."

"Life is crazy," she said, clutching her handbag like a weapon. "Park there."

The warehouse loomed under flickering streetlights. Two men guarded the entrance. Myrto marched forward, chin up.

"Hey! No entry!" one barked.

"I’m here to clean," she snapped. "Unless you want to explain to Mr. Voulgaris why his office is full of mouse droppings?"

The men exchanged glances, then waved her in.

Inside, crates were stacked high. Voulgaris stood near a table, counting cash with another man.

"What the...?"

"Good evening, kyrie," Myrto said sweetly. "You forgot to pay your electric bill. The power’s about to go out."

Aris, hidden in the shadows, yanked the main switch. Darkness swallowed the room.

Chaos erupted, shouting, stumbling. Myrto snatched a ledger from the table and slipped out.

*    *    * *    *    *

By morning, Nikos’ new article with photographic evidence, was front-page news. Voulgaris and his men were arrested mid-transfer.

"How did you do it?" Nikos asked in awe.

Myrto shrugged. "A thief fears the moon, a liar fears the truth." She patted his cheek. "Now go write. And next time, lock your door."

As she walked home, the sun warming the Athenian streets, Aris sighed. "You’re impossible, Mama."

"Good," she said, smiling. "Impossible means they’ll never see me coming."

THE END

Kaisariani knife

The summer heat clung to Athens like a wet rag. Myrto Zervou fanned herself with yesterday’s newspaper, perched on her balcony, watching the neighborhood simmer. Below, her son Aris hauled planks of wood into his workshop, shirt soaked through.

A sudden scream cut the air.

Myrto’s head snapped toward the sound old Mrs. Kalliope’s grocery. A man in a black hood bolted out, clutching a bloody knife and a cash box. Kalliope staggered after him, clutching her arm, wailing.

"Thé mou!" Myrto crossed herself, then hollered, "Ariiiis!"

Her son looked up just as the robber shoved past him. Aris lunged, but the man twisted free, vanishing into the alley maze.

By the time Myrto thundered downstairs, a crowd had gathered. Kalliope sat on the curb, her sleeve dark with blood.

"Bandits! Animals!" the old woman spat. "He cut me for fifty euros!"

Myrto clucked her tongue, pressing a handkerchief to the wound. "A knife for chicken feed. ‘Poverty makes thieves, but stupidity makes corpses.’"

Policemen arrived, young, tired, uninterested. Myrto eyed them. Amateurs.

That night, over fasolada, Aris groaned. "Mama, stay out of it. Let the police handle it."

She snorted. "The police couldn’t find their koloi with both hands."

Her daughter Mary called, panicked. "Mama, be careful!"

"Po po po, worry makes you old," Myrto chided before hanging up.

The next morning, she marched to Kalliope’s shop. The old woman hissed, "It was Nikos, the butcher’s nephew. A vlakas, always drunk, always trouble."

Myrto nodded. She knew Nikos, a lanky, twitchy boy with bad teeth. But something gnawed at her.

She visited the butcher. The man sweated like a sinner in church. "Nikos? No, no, he’s in Thessaloniki!"

"Liar," Myrto muttered.

At the kafeneio, old Manolis coughed into his ouzo. "Nikos? Saw him last night. With Spiros that mangas from Exarchia."

Spiros. A known thug.

Myrto’s bones hummed. She called Aris. "Bring your hammer."

They found Nikos in a derelict building, shaking, bruised. "Spiros made me do it! He said he’d kill me!"

Before Aris could react, Spiros lunged from the shadows, knife flashing. Myrto swung her handbag, loaded with a brick ...crack! The thug crumpled.

Aris gaped. "Mama!"

She shrugged. "‘An old woman’s anger is colder, but sharper.’"

The police hauled Spiros away. Nikos wept, confessing everything.

Back home, Mary scolded her. "You could’ve been killed!"

Myrto sipped her tea. "‘Better a brave widow than a fearful bride.’"

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

She winked. "And you’re welcome."

Outside, Athens buzzed on, none the wiser.

But in Kaisariani, the Black Widow had spun her web.

THE END

Blood on the balcony

The summer heat clung to Kaisariani like a sweaty shirt. Myrto Zervou fanned herself with an old newspaper, perched on her balcony, watching the neighborhood simmer. Below, kids played football, their shouts bouncing off the concrete. Next door, old man Dimitris watered his geraniums, muttering about the youth.

Then, the scream.

Aris, her carpenter son, dropped his hammer in the living room. "Mama, what was that?"

Myrto was already on her feet, her black dress swishing as she hurried to the railing. Across the street, a crowd gathered outside Andreas’s kiosk. A man lay sprawled on the pavement, blood trickling from his temple.

"Po-po-po," Myrto clucked. "That’s Spiros. The one who always bets on Olympiakos."

Aris grabbed his keys. "Let’s go."

*    *    * *    *    *

The crowd parted as Myrto elbowed through. Spiros groaned, clutching his head. His attacker was long gone.

"Who did this?" Myrto demanded.

Maria from the bakery wrung her hands. "I saw Nikos from the third floor running away! He was shouting about traitors!"

"Nikos the electrician?" Aris frowned. "Since when does he beat people?"

Myrto’s eyes narrowed. "Since someone whispered in his ear."

*    *    * *    *    *

Back home, Myrto stirred a pot of lentil soup while Aris paced.

"Nikos thinks Spiros is a mouchos," she said. "A police informant."

Aris scoffed. "Spiros? The man can’t even remember his wife’s name half the time."

"Exactly." Myrto tapped her temple. "But someone wants Nikos to believe it. And that someone doesn’t like Spiros."

Aris sat. "Who?"

Myrto smiled. "Who stands to gain if Spiros is too hurt to run his kiosk?"

*    *    * *    *    *

The next morning, Myrto marched to the kiosk, now being "temporarily managed" by Spiros’s cousin, Takis. A slick man with gold rings and a too-wide smile.

"Taki, mou," Myrto said sweetly. "How lucky for you, eh? Spiros gets hit, and suddenly you’re in charge?"

Takis’s smile faltered. "Family helps family."

"Like you helped Nikos believe Spiros was a snitch?"

His face darkened. "You’re an old woman. Stick to your knitting."

Myrto leaned in. "The snake that doesn’t hisse still bites."

*    *    * *    *    *

That evening, Myrto and Aris cornered Nikos at his workshop.

"Niko," Myrto said, "Takis played you. Spiros is no informant. But Takis? He’s got debts. And a kiosk is good money."

Nikos’s fists clenched. "That malákas lied to me?"

Aris crossed his arms. "Go ask him."

*    *    * *    *    *

They found Takis counting cash in the back of the kiosk. Nikos kicked the door open.

"You set me up!"

Takis lunged but Aris grabbed him. Myrto snatched the ledger.

"Ah! Loans to the wrong people. Shame."

The police arrived, led by Inspector Leonidas, an old friend of Myrto’s.

"Again, Kyria Zervou?" he sighed.

She patted his cheek. "The thief’s hand burns first."

*    *    * *    *    *

Epilogue: Spiros returned to his kiosk, head bandaged but grinning. Nikos brought him coffee every morning. Takis? Gone for now.

Back on her balcony, Myrto sipped her coffee.

Aris shook his head. "Mama, one day you’ll get hurt."

She winked. "Only the mouse fears the cat."

The neighborhood hummed on.

And Myrto watched.

The End

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