small stand on the docks to serve hot food to the stevedores on the night shift. He had
scraped together half the money for the enterprise, but when it had become successful
Nicholas had forced him out of the business and had taken it over himself. Demiris had
accepted his fate without protest and had gone ahead to other enterprises.
Over the next twenty years Spyros Nicholas had gone into the meat-packing business
and had become rich and successful. He had married, had three children and was one of
the most prominent men in Greece. During those years, Demiris patiently sat back and let
Nicholas build his little empire. When he decided that Nicholas was as successful and as
happy as he was ever going to be, Demiris struck.
Because his business was booming, Nicholas was contemplating buying farms to
raise his own meat and opening a chain of retail stores. An enormous amount of money
was required. Constantin Demiris owned the bank with which Nicholas did business, and
the bank encouraged Nicholas to borrow money for expansion at interest rates that
Nicholas could not resist. Nicholas plunged heavily, and in the midst of the expansion his
notes were suddenly called in by the bank. When the bewildered man protested that he
could not make the payments, the bank immediately began foreclosure proceedings. The
newspapers owned by Demiris prominently played up the story on the front pages, and
other creditors began foreclosing on Nicholas. He went to other banks and lending
institutions, but for reasons he could not fathom, they refused to come to his assistance.
The day after he was forced into bankruptcy Nicholas committed suicide.
Demiris’ sense of thekaeossini was a two-edged sword. Just as he never forgave an
injury, neither did he ever forget a favor. A landlady who had fed and clothed the young
man when he was too poor to pay her suddenly found herself the owner of an apartment
building, without any idea who her benefactor was. A young girl who had taken the
penniless young Demiris in to live with her had been given a villa and a lifetime pension
anonymously. The people who had had dealings with the ambitious young Greek lad forty
years earlier had no idea how the casual relationship with him would affect their lives. The
dynamic young Demiris had needed help from bankers and lawyers, ship captains and
unions, politicians and financiers. Some had encouraged and helped him, others had
snubbed and cheated him. In his head and in his heart the proud Greek had kept an
indelible record of every transaction. His wife Melina had once accused him of playing
God.
“Every man plays God,” Demiris had told her. “Some of us are better equipped for
the role than others.”
“But it is wrong to destroy the lives of men, Costa.”
“It is not wrong. It is justice.”
“Vengeance.”
“Sometimes it is the same. Most men get away with the evil they do. I am in a
position to make them pay for it. That is justice.”
He enjoyed the hours he spent devising traps for his adversaries. He would study his