Excerpt from SOFIE METROPOLIS, a Forge June 2005 hardcover:

Chapter One

There are two kinds of people in this world: Greeks and those who wish they were Greek.

At least that’s the maxim to which my grandfather Kosmos subscribes. Me? Well, I suppose maybe we all are divided up into two groups. But I don’t think it has much to do with ethnic makeup because, let’s face it, we’re all pretty screwed up no matter where our parents, grandparents or forefathers hail from.

The first group is made up of those who follow the road well traveled. Maybe because they’re afraid of losing a heel, getting a run in their stockings or, worse, disappointing their families. Then there are those who take an alternate route – or perhaps even forge a path all their own – so focused on the road twisting and turning before them they don’t have much time to think about what kind of shoes they’re wearing, much less what anyone else is thinking.

I know the difference between the two groups because I used to belong to the former. Now I’m happy to say I’m a card-carrying member of the latter.

I used to be Sofie Metropolis, waitress, good Greek daughter – not necessarily in that order. Now I’m Sofie Metropolis, P.I.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Sofie Metropolis, P.I. I definitely like the sound of it. Even though I won’t be legally licensed for another three years (the result of some hokey New York State law). And even though some might argue my abilities as a private investigator rate somewhere between amateur sleuth and pet detective. Of course, it doesn’t help that I don’t even rate myself anywhere near my own idea of what a private investigator should be. When I think P.I., I think Phillip Marlow, James Garner in the Rockford Files or V.I. Warshowki. Or, at the very least, my Uncle Spyros, who’s not anybody’s idea of what a P.I. should look like but has made a passable living at it for the past thirty years.

Anyway, Uncle Spyros is to blame for my quitting my waitressing job three months ago and hiring on at his P.I. office. All because he asked one simple question: “What do you want to do with your life, Sof?”

Or maybe it wasn’t so much the question itself, but the mud puddle I was knee deep in the middle of when he asked it.

But where Uncle Spyros is to blame for my professional woes, the rest of my family is responsible for my personal instability, no matter how much I love them.

You see, three months ago, on the day I was set to marry a good Greek boy, just like any good Greek girl eventually does, I caught my groom shtupping my maid of honor in a back room at St. Constantine’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral. It was then I realized good was overrated. I’d spent so much time trying to be good, trying to live up to others idea of what good was, that I never stopped to ask myself what I wanted, good, bad or otherwise. Which is why Uncle Spyros’ question and the time he asked it will be forever burned into my brain.

So I nixed the groom and kept the wedding gifts – the biggest the six-unit apartment building my family bought and couldn’t exactly return on credit. A lot of the other gifts still sit, unwrapped for the most part, in the corner of my bedroom on the top floor of my biggest gift. From time-to-time I pop open one of the bottles of reception champagne then unwrap one or two of the gifts that don’t look like toasters. My mom thinks it’s bad etiquette that I don’t return the gifts. Me? I figure since everyone knew about my groom’s extracurricular activities but me, I deserve a little slack. Besides most of the gifts I kept are from his family. And since he’s threatening to sue me for the cost of the two-carat engagement ring I fed to the garbage disposal…well, let’s just say I’m glad I arrived early on that fateful day or else I might even now be married to the lousy skirt-chaser.

Still, after all this, my mom Thalia Metropolis never gives up on the idea that someday I’ll get married. Someday as in tomorrow or the day after that. You know, so I can produce more little Greek children who’ll suffer from their own cultural identity crises.

And in case I needed a reminder of that, a prime example of what my mother thinks is groom material sat staring up at me with a goofy grin from her plastic-covered sofa. He was Greek. Of course. And he looked like he could do with a good salon referral. Preferably one that included body waxing.

I’d stopped by my parents’ house to see if my brother Kosmos or my maternal grandfather – also Kosmos – were around so they could help me carry the mammoth area rug in the back of my convertible Mustang up the two flights of stairs to my apartment. It was a Saturday morning and a hot spring day in June and I’d gone into the city to do a little shopping at Chelsea Flea Market. And I’d spent the half hour sans traffic driving back to Astoria in the NW corner of Queens wavering between shopper’s high and guilt.

Of course, right now all I felt was exasperation. The guy in front of me on the couch hadn’t blinked. And I’m pretty sure I was scowling.

“Sofie! I was just telling Themios that you might stop by.” My mother came in from the kitchen carrying a tray of the standard Greek coffee, glass of water and something sweet. In this case the sweet was koulourakia, my mother’s version of a Greek vanilla cookie that turned rock hard five minutes out of the oven and was inedible unless you first dunked it into the coffee.

I look back at Themios.

Sometimes it seems my mom always has another potential groom hanging around, you know, on the off chance I might stop by (which is often because I only live a block away and, yes, I admit, every now and again I get a little homesick. But that’s between you and me). My mom recently read that you could surgically have your hymen replaced and wants to schedule an appointment for me yesterday. You know, so she’s not ashamed on the rare occasions I go to church. Oh, and for the guys like Themios that she’s always trying to fix me up with because, you know, no man wants a girl that’s “been around.”

I can see it now. Sofie Metropolis, P.I. and born again virgin.

“Themios Kokotas, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Sofie.” Mom put the tray down and leaned closer to me. “You could have cleaned up a bit.”

I was wearing jeans, a black Lycra t-shirt and a pair of Skechers slides. Comfortable but not exactly groom-nabbing material. Not that I intended to nab any grooms in the near or far off future. I stared at Themios. Especially not this groom.

“She’s older than I thought,” he said in Greek.

I squinted at him. He couldn’t possibly be implying that I wasn’t the right bride material?

“Is Grandpa around anywhere?” I made a point of asking my mother in English.

“Funny you should say that,” she said, sitting down on the far end of the couch and motioning for me to sit between her and the human Chia Pet. I ignored her. “He stopped by earlier looking for you.”

I headed for the kitchen where my grandfather always hangs out.

“Only he left straight after.” My mother put the coffee, water and cement cookie down in front of Themios. “And before you ask, your brother’s not here either. He went to some sort of seminar or another downtown.” She smiled at her guest. “My son’s going to be a doctor.”

That’s doctor as in Ph.D., not physician, but try explaining the difference to Thalia Metropolis.

And that’s my brother. Always expanding his mind and making me, his older sister by a year, look like an even bigger idiot. It was all I could do to graduate from high school eight years ago while he was a year away from a double doctorate in psychology and education.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of my little brother. But sometimes I think he stays in school just to get out of working at the family restaurant.

“I’ve really got to go, Mom.” I aimed what I hoped was a smile in Themios’ direction. “It was really nice meeting you. I hope you enjoy your visit to The States.”

“Visit? I’ve been here twenty years.”

Oops.

I bent to kiss my mom’s cheek and swiped the cookie at the same time.

She caught my arm in a death grip. The kind only mothers know how to give.
“I’ve got something else I need to talk to you about.” She slid a glance toward “our” visitor. “Something about Mrs. Kapoor.”

I held my breath.

“And Efi’s upstairs. She’s got another one of those…things in her face. Her eyebrow this time.”

Efi is my nineteen-year-old sister and she recently developed a fetish for needles. When she’s not piercing something, she’s tattooing something else. Mom keeps telling me to do something about it, but beyond running a chain through Efi’s many piercing rings and fastening her to the radiator, I haven’t a clue.

“Tell her I’ll call her later.” I extracted my arm from my mother’s grip and dove for the door and sanity.

Being twenty-six and single in a Greek family isn’t easy. I think it’s one of the reasons why I’d agreed to marry Thomas-the-Horny-Toad Chalikis in the first place. Sure, he was a cheating bastard, but could he carry my rug up to my apartment?

Sometimes I think it would be better if I just packed up and moved to someplace like…I don’t know, Omaha, maybe. Being in a place where everyone knows your business (especially the wince-worthy groom story and the honeymoon I took by myself that I spent drinking worm shakes [long story]) is more than a challenge. I stopped outside the front door and bit into the koulourakia with my back teeth, looking around the neighborhood in question. But then I ask myself where would I go? I mean, this – Astoria – is it for me, you know? No matter how many issues I have with my neighbors. Or how many questionable men my mother tries to match me up with. This is home and these guys, all of them, are my family.

Well, okay, except for maybe Mr. Romanoff down the block. Everyone thinks he’s a vampire. Oh, and my mom’s next door Bangladeshi neighbor and best friend Mrs. Kapoor, who’s forty years overdue for a new pair of glasses.

I stuffed the rest of the cookie into my mouth then waved at Mrs. K even though I couldn’t see her. For all intents and purposes she couldn’t see me either. But she seemed to have some sort of Sofie radar that let her know when I was around in case, you know, I was getting into some kind of trouble. Again.

I climbed into my 1965 candy apple red Mustang convertible. Well, okay, the car’s really more bondo gray than red and looks like she belongs in a scrap yard, or at the very least a prime candidate for a car version of Extreme Makeover. But I see through all her imperfections to the hot mama that lies underneath. And as you know any hot mama needs a hot name. In this case, I’d christened my car Lucille. I’d even tried to break one of the bottles of my reception champagne over the front fender when I bought her a couple months ago. After several failed attempts I’d settled for pouring the bubbly over the hood.

I could already tell it was going to be a scorcher. Not just the day, but the summer as a whole. And where there are hot temperatures, wicked thunderstorms are sure to follow. I eyed the sky and the bruised clouds creeping in from the West. It wouldn’t dare rain before I got this rug home.

I took a sip from my ever-present portable cup of Nescafe Frappe then started up Lucille.

Everywhere you looked people in the neighborhood watered, clipped and trimmed the flowers and foliage lining their narrow front porches, washed the cars parked in their narrow driveways or sat on their porch chairs to watch others work. I knew that a couple blocks up on Broadway the Greek sidewalk cafés would already be filled – mostly with Greek men gathered for coffee to unwind and share any interesting gossip they’d picked up during the week. (I know this because my father and maternal grandfather own rival cafes kitty-corner from each other and I’ve worked at both of them. Although never at the same time because of an age-old feud between the two most important men in my life that began long before I was born.) I took a deep breath. I was in luck. The wind was blowing just right and I caught a whiff of the souvlaki stand at 32nd Street and the Greek patisserie churning out tsoureki (braided Greek sweet bread) a couple blocks up from there, reminding me of some more of the things I liked about the neighborhood.

If Astoria is the American equivalent to Athens, then Broadway is the agora or city center. An all-inclusive neighborhood where Greeks are still prominent, but aren’t the only game in town. I don’t know how people in Omaha live beyond what I see on TV, but I don’t think they can walk two blocks to the south and enjoy a Tai dinner, a Muslim community center snuggled against a Catholic church across the street.

I drove down the one-way street away from my apartment building and hung a right. The route would take me by my uncle’s P.I. agency sandwiched between a fish store and a Thai restaurant on Steinway. I figured that since I was presently the only full-time investigator – however unlicensed – working there right now it might be a good idea to check in with Rosie, the office manager, to see if there were any potential clients.

I hung a right and immediately spotted a guy outside the office window, a hand shielding his eyes from the morning sun. He tried the apparently locked door then went back to the window.

It looked like I was the only one, period, working at the agency this morning.

I pulled up behind a ten-year-old white Cadillac bearing a Giants bumper sticker and one of those crown air fresheners in the back window and cut the engine. The Mustang coughed and sputtered before finally going silent.

“Who you looking for?” Frappe in hand, I got out of the car.

In his mid-forties with a receding hairline and a slight cushion around the middle, he looked like any one of a hundred guys from the neighborhood. I took some comfort in knowing that in ten years Thomas-the-Toad would look the same. “I’m looking for the P.I.”

I stuck out my free hand. “Then you’ve found her. Come on in.”

The outside window read “Spyros Metropolis, Private Investigator” in gold and black stenciled letters so I could understand the man’s squinty-eyed look. Uncle Spyros owned the place and would until I qualified for a P.I. license. Or maybe that should be ‘if’ I ever qualified because I haven’t made a solid decision one way or another on my new vocation beyond liking the sound of the acronym behind my name.

Anyway, right now it’s my uncle’s name that brings people in. No matter how strange the people.

To date I’d worked on a missing iguana case, investigated the chef at a nearby bakery on behalf of a silent partner who was convinced he was skimming (I’d discovered the only thing the baker was skimming came out of his display case and, given his girth, his personal appetite ate into an interesting percentage of the profits) and an uncomfortable number of cheating spouse/lover cases. But if it had been my name on the window, I was sure that the only work I’d have gotten would have been the iguana case.

I could only hope this guy would offer up something interesting. That didn’t include scaly pets that liked to hide out in the neighbor’s mailbox.

I unlocked the glass door and led the way into the gloom just beyond, switching on the overhead light as I went. The place probably hadn’t been painted since the 1970’s when my uncle first opened up shop and the once psychedelic green walls now fell somewhere between pea green and baby poop brown. The front room took up half the space with two desks – the battered metal one to the right is mine – and a line of dented filing cabinets, faded posters, maps and old calendars pinned to the walls. Three doors opened to the back. One was the bathroom that was little more than a closet with running water. The other two rooms were offices, one belonging to my Uncle Spyros, the other to his one-time full partner now silent partner Lenny Nash. Lenny looked older than dirt and was just as responsive. I wasn’t sure if that was because he couldn’t hear anyone or if he just plain didn’t care, but I was relieved that he didn’t seem to spend much time at the office. Ever since I was a kid and used to do some odd jobs for my uncle, Lenny had always reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge before his ghostly visitors.

My cousin Pete, Uncle Spyros’ oldest son from his first marriage, hung around sometimes, usually when he needed cash, and took over his father’s office when he wasn’t around. Which was often lately.

At any rate, a few questions told me the new client’s name was Bud Suleski and for some reason he looked a little nervous talking to me. I explained to him that my uncle wasn’t available on account of he was semi retired. (Actually, he was in Greece just then, but I like to make it sound like I’m running the place and that Uncle Spyros is only a phone call away.)

“I think my wife’s screwing around.”

I was pretty sure I winced.

So much for this case being different.

I put coffee on to brew. Even though I always carried around my own, the smell of the ancient coffee maker helped chase away some of the musty odor of the old building caused by lack of attention and decades of cigarette smoke although no one had smoked there since the City’s smoking ban went into effect. Activity also gave me a minute to get my thoughts together. Call me crazy, but every time someone came in with a cheating spouse case – which was way too often if you asked me – images of my own ex with his tux pants bunched down around his ankles came back to haunt me. It wreaked havoc on my nonexistent love life. And made sleeping next to impossible.

“And you want me to catch her in the act,” I asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

The door opened, letting in a rush of fresh air and office manager Rosie Rodriguez.

Rosie is a Puerto Rican dynamo who even when she isn’t moving she looks like she is. Her breasts easily comprise a full third of her body weight and are always displayed to what Rosie refers to as their “utmost flattering degree”. She has cheek dimples the size of plates and can disarm you with her surprisingly sweet smile or scald you with curse words that haven’t even been invented yet, depending on which side of the bed she woke up on. Uncle Spyros hired her a year ago for what, I thought, were reasons having to do strictly with her physical assets. But when I’d hired on at the agency, I discovered Rosie’s best features were above the neck and had nothing to do with her dimples. She’s smart as a whip, takes crap from no one and ceaselessly seems out of breath, giving her voice a high-pitched quality that only adds to her disarming personality.

She stopped in front of me and waggled her finger. “You’re not gonna believe this.” She made a tsking sound. “You know old Mr. Romanoff down the street from your parents? The tall, creepy one that’s whiter than my grandmama’s underwears? You know, the vampire? Well, supposedly he’s got a nephew visiting.”

I knew Rosie would get around to her point sooner or later. But with a client present, I wished it would come sooner. “Rosie, meet Bud Suleski.”

“Hey.” She spared him a glance, popped her gum, then turned back to me. “Anyway, ever since this nephew showed up, no one’s seen the old man, you know? It’s like he just up and vanished or something.”

“People don’t vanish, Rosie.”

Mr. Suleski spoke up. “I had a cousin disappear once.” He shrugged. “She showed up eight months later, in Ohio of all places, and married to a deadbeat from Minnesota, but she disappeared.”

Rosie and I stared at him.

Rosie turned her back on him and gave me an eye roll. “Anyway, I told the neighborhood you’d look into it.”

“What?”

Rosie shrugged, poured herself a cup of coffee then stuck her gum to the rim before taking a sip. She gestured with her hand. “Come on, Sof, the guy could be stuck in his freezer in the basement or something. Or cut into little pieces and stuffed into Tupperware containers.”

It wasn’t all that long ago that I would have taken great advantage of the opportunity to dish about the neighborhood vampire and his visiting nephew, preferably over a healthy helping of galaktoboureko – a Greek custard partry – at a Broadway cafe. But beginning the day I started at the agency it seemed everyone had a missing cousin, an old flame they’d lost track of, or a pet they lost two years ago and could I do them a favor and find her or him or it? At first I’d been excited that people sought me out. Until I figured out “favor” meant no money would be changing hands.

Now I asked Rosie, “Why don’t you look into it?”

She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Because in addition to all I have to do around here, I have that baby shower thing I’m putting together for my sister Lupe. Anyway, you know how I am about vampires.”

No, I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to either.

I sat on the corner of the desk I had inherited and crossed my arms. I’d watched Uncle Spyros do this countless times while growing up and I found it helped my concentration. And probably made me look like I knew what I was doing. Which never hurt.

“Do you have kids?” I asked Suleski.

He blinked.

“You know. Those humans that look like adults only smaller?”

“Two. A boy and a girl. Nine and seven.”

The same age as my cousin Helen’s kids.

Realizing I’d moved on, Rosie sighed and booted up an antique computer she swore at it in a way that could singe a body’s eyebrows clean off.

“And if I do this? Catch your wife in the act, I mean? What are you going to do with the information?”

“Say, you want the job or not?”

I didn’t want the job. But I needed the job. If only to use it to talk Spyros into a fresh coat of paint for the office and maybe a new computer for Rosie.

“Talk.” I picked up a pad and started taking notes...