Zagreb Cowboy (3 page)

THE CIGARETTE IN
one hand and a tumbler of wine in the other made Strumbić slow to reach for the gun.

Della Torre shook his head.

Strumbić cocked an eyebrow and then gave him a broad smile. “Ah, Gringo, what a nice surprise.”

“Do me a favour, Julius, and knock that paperweight off your lap and then nudge it away with your foot,” della Torre said. Strumbić let the gun slide onto the floor and gently lowered his drink so that his hands were free and visible to della Torre.

“I’m guessing that’s not sausage for me in your pocket.”

“You’d be guessing right.”

“Not usually a man for carrying his gun. World must be changing.”

“Oh, not that much. I borrowed this one,” della Torre said.

“You look like you’ve been in the wars. Like you could do with a glass of something.”

“Thanks. I’ll help myself.”

“I didn’t hear the car. What happened to the other fellows?”

“They decided they’d rather drop me off. They seemed a little distracted when I left them. Something about the Merc’s engine being in the back seat and a tree growing out of the bonnet.”

“I see. Well, can’t be helped. Shame about the motor, though. Rather nice piece of Germany.” Strumbić moved to get out of his chair.

“Listen, Strumbić, I know you won’t take it the wrong way, but would you mind terribly if you just sat there for a while? In fact, I’ll tell you what. My nerves are a bit on edge. Probably comes from spending too much time with Bosnians who want to kill me. Would you be a sport and put the wine down and stick the cigarette in your mouth and pop your hands on top of your head. Only for as long as it takes me to find those handcuffs you always keep around.”

“You want to make it interesting, let me get my girlfriend to come over. The things she does with handcuffs.” Strumbić gave him one of those winking leers he always used when telling dirty stories.

“Or Mrs. Strumbić.”

“You know how to hit a man where it hurts.”

“You’re hard on the poor woman,” della Torre said, not really meaning it. She was a shrew with a cat’s ass of a mouth. He’d met her only a couple of times, but that was enough.

“What I have to put up with, Christ, you don’t know the half of it.”

“So where are the cuffs?”

“In the jacket, on the table. Don’t worry, you can come in. I won’t jump a man with a gun in his pocket,” Strumbić said.

Della Torre was getting chilly standing by the door. He sidled into the cellar, kicking Strumbić’s gun across the floor, the movement making him wince with pain as he put his weight on his sore knee. He reached into the cop’s jacket, where he found the cuffs. He threw them onto Strumbić’s lap.

“It’s been a while since I last had occasion to use any of these. Would you mind slowly getting them with your left hand, popping a cuff onto your right wrist, and then putting your hands back on your head.”

“Sure, what are friends for?” With a practised hand, Strumbić clicked the cuff onto his wrist.

Della Torre edged around Strumbić, pulled the cuffed right arm behind his back, and then the left, and then tightened the cuffs to his satisfaction, pocketing the key.

“You couldn’t get the cig out of my mouth, could you? I don’t want it dropping on my lap. New American jeans.”

Della Torre took the cigarette out of Strumbić’s mouth and took a long drag. Lucky Strike.

Now that he had Strumbić secured, he relaxed a bit, sitting on a wooden stool by the little table. The table was covered in a blue gingham waxed cotton cloth that spoke of a history of spilled drinks, dripped wax, dropped cigarettes, and bread and ham cut a little too hard. The cellar was more than five metres wide on each side. It had a packed dirt floor and the sour smell of old wine, blended with tobacco and cured meat. The walls were rough, with horizontal stripes where the concrete had bulged between the planked frame when it was poured. There were three big wooden barrels on their sides, the newest one yellow, the other two blackened with age, all raised off the ground on wooden cradles. A Pirelli calendar hung on one wall, showing an exotic topless girl leaning back against an exotic topless car, but otherwise it was undecorated. A single unshaded bulb hung towards the front of the room.

Della Torre kept his eyes on Strumbić. They were around the same age. Maybe Strumbić was a couple of years older. He couldn’t have been more than forty, but it was hard to tell from just looking at him. He looked old enough to be della Torre’s own father. Strumbić had the flabby, doughy face of a man who lived hard. He smoked heavily and drank constantly. He enjoyed his work, thriving on the adrenaline of both the legal and illicit stuff he did on the side. But you could see it also wore away at him. And then there were the women.

He’d been married for twenty years to a fierce, hard, unyielding harpy. She could never have been remotely attractive. But she’d also been the only daughter of Zagreb’s chief of police when her eye settled on Strumbić, a young cadet straight out of military service with a streak of primitive but cavalier charm and an instinct for his own best advantage.

Her father, himself a self-made peasant and Partizan during the war, was opposed to the match. He thought she could do better and made every effort to frighten Strumbić off. It might have worked had his daughter not had twice the will of both men put together. Whatever either man thought of the matter, she got her way.

Strumbić may not have had a university education, but he was canny enough to marry well. For her part, his wife drove him relentlessly through the police hierarchy. Maybe she’d seen something of her father in him.

Her saving grace, as far as Strumbić was concerned, was that she understood what it meant to be a cop — the strange hours and frequent silences — which allowed Strumbić plenty of opportunity to indulge his sybaritic tastes. He was discreet. But she wasn’t all bad. She made delicious cherry strudels.

Strumbić’s girlfriends, on the other hand . . . Della Torre couldn’t think of them without shaking his head. Pneumatic, lewd, tacky, and dumb. And undoubtedly damn good at whatever Strumbić wanted from them.

“So . . . ?” Strumbić asked.

“I’m thinking. I don’t suppose you’d be wanting to answer any questions?”

“Sure, why not?”

“And incriminate yourself?”

“Incriminate? You’re starting to sound like a lawyer, Gringo. Trust me, this is not a case that’s going to court.”

Della Torre knew he had a point. Strumbić’s cash had pull with prosecutors and judges and plenty of his bosses besides. What’s more, if he brought Strumbić in, della Torre would also have to explain his little document-selling sideline. Bad as it might be for Strumbić to have been buying the files, it would have been worse for della Torre. Yugoslav courts took a dim view of
UDBA
agents selling secrets, especially when they included foreign bank records of leading prosecutors. Or surveillance photographs of minor politicians snorting drugs. Or judges in bed with their mistresses.

“It’s not just about the files, Julius. It’s about those men you hired to kill me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You set me up to have those Bosnian hicks kill me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I merely facilitated them offering you a ride. Which is all they said they wanted to do with you.”

“That doesn’t wash,” della Torre said.

“Calm down. What are you going to do? Shoot me? You’re not the kind,” Strumbić said, giving della Torre his Cheshire cat’s grin. He was a cool one.

“Julius, who were those guys?”

“How the hell do I know? Farmers who think they’re Elvis.”

“You’re the one who sent them to pick me up, to bring me here. Remember?”

Strumbić shrugged.

Della Torre had been finishing a bite of supper in his narrow kitchen when the phone rang. He was on his last cigarette. Somewhere, he had a packet left from the stack of imported cartons he’d bought off a friend coming back from Austria, but hadn’t been able to find it.
It’ll be back to the local lung-rot tomorrow.

“Hey, Gringo, it’s Julius.” The only people who called him Marko were his family and his ex-wife. Otherwise it was della Torre or Gringo, a nickname he’d always loathed but couldn’t shed.

“Yes?” Della Torre was wary on the phone.

Life in Communist Yugoslavia was full of awkward compromises and hedged conversations. Especially when someone else could be listening in.

“Listen, Gringo, I’ve got a job that might interest you. It shouldn’t take much time. And I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I’m listening.”

“Not really something I can talk to you about over the phone, if you know what I mean,” Strumbić had said.

“When do you want to meet up, then?”

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’ve sent round a couple of boys to pick you up. They’ll bring you over to my weekend house. We can discuss it here.”

“At this time of evening?”

“Like I said, I’ll make it worth your while. We’ll be able to finish up tonight, and there’s the small matter of four thousand Deutschmarks.” He was being indiscreet, but the bait worked.

Della Torre whistled.

“Nice, eh? Only I need you here. I sent the boys off already; they’ll arrive to pick you up in half an hour, tops.” Strumbić wasn’t asking any longer. He was telling.

“Your people?”

“Cops, you mean?” asked Strumbić.

“Yes.”

“No. These guys are just muscle, they don’t have anything to do with anyone. Best that way.”

“Muscle? What do we need muscle for?” The only extracurricular work that interested Della Torre was trading information.

“We don’t. They happen to be around. I’m using them for some other stuff. And right now I’m using them to get you here.”

“A delivery service.”

“Something like that. I told them to buzz and you’ll be down straight away. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Do I need to bring anything?”

“No, just your happy, smiling face,” Strumbić said. “I’ll see you in around an hour and a half and they’ll bring you back home before midnight, so you don’t have to worry about turning into a pumpkin. I promise.”

Those alarm bells that people living in Communist countries spent their lives cultivating, plus the bigger ones lawyers and secret policemen got with their diplomas and their badges, should have been sounding for della Torre — if they hadn’t been muffled by money.

“YOU WEREN’T REALLY
expecting me to come back here, were you?” della Torre asked. “That’s why you looked surprised when you saw me. What’d you think? That those guys would take me to Belgrade, where somebody would rip my toenails out or break my knees? Or did you think they’d just pop me one on the street when I came down?”

“Gringo, you take these things too personally. How the hell do I know what they wanted to do with you?”

“Maybe because you set me up.”

“I didn’t set you up. What happened was these guys wanted to talk to you and I . . . I arranged an introduction. That’s it.”

“Is that why you were sitting here with a gun on your lap? You knew they’d be back for you.”

“Thought crossed my mind.”

“D’you really think you’d be able to fight them off with that?” Della Torre pointed at Strumbić’s handgun with the toe of his shoe.

“Gringo —”

“Julius, please just answer my questions.”

“Okay. Look, I thought they might be a little crooked so I was playing it safe. It’s one of my failings. To be suspicious. So I figured if they came back I might take a little walk in the woods and then call some of my colleagues from the village.”

It wouldn’t have taken Strumbić long to disappear in the forest. He could have made it to the village on the valley floor in a quarter of an hour with the aid of a small flashlight. Any stranger following him ran the risk of missing the path and falling into one of the hill’s steep gullies, breaking a leg or a neck.

“So you’d have had the terrorist squad bottle them up here on the hill and then pick them off.”

“You’ve got to have contingencies,” Strumbić said apologetically.

“Nice. You’d figured out how to double-cross them just as they were double-crossing you.”

“Only if they came back to bother me.” Strumbić shrugged. “It came to me that those Bosnian boys might have wanted to tidy things up a little. It’d have saved them some money, and what could be neater than making it look like you and I had shot each other? I mean, if that’s what they were looking to do. Which I doubt. Like I say, I’m sure they only wanted to talk to you. But if they didn’t, well, Zagreb cops and the
UDBA
have never been the best of friends.” He paused, giving della Torre a cringe-making smile. “Us excepted.”

“Makes me well up to think of what a good friend you’ve been,” della Torre said, deadpan. “So why’d you do it?”

Strumbić looked pained.

“Why’d you set me up? What was in it for you?” della Torre pressed.

“Why do you think I did it? To gain personal advantage? Why do you always think the worst of people?” Strumbić said, his expression showing deep hurt.

“Because that’s what you’re like, Julius. How much did you sell me for?”

“Gringo, really, it was never about the money. I swear on my grandmother’s grave.”

“Your grandmother was alive last I heard, and if I remember right you don’t care much for her. How much?”

“I can honestly say that I did not do it for money. I did it because I had no choice. It was me or you. Probably would have been both me and you. I figured this way at least one of us would have been okay. Just by accident that happened to be me.”

“Spill.”

“The money was incidental.”

“Julius, will you just give me a straight answer before I decide to shoot you out of frustration and malice?”

“Fifteen thou, give or take.”

“Dinars?” Della Torre was puzzled. Like most people he still thought in terms of the old dinars, before they knocked four zeros off the bank notes to pretend the currency wasn’t becoming worthless by the day. Fifteen thousand wouldn’t have bought a loaf of bread. On the other hand, fifteen thousand new ones — well, that was real money. For at least a week or two, anyway.

“Dinars? Who talks dinars these days unless you’re buying a newspaper or a packet of sweets? Deutschmarks.”

Della Torre nodded. That was a decent-sized price on his head. He worked it into dollars — about ten thousand as near as he could make it.

“Who wants to pay fifteen thou to kill me? Put a bum in an old Yugo and they could have run me over for the price of a bottle of booze.”

“Gringo, don’t sell yourself so cheaply. I wouldn’t have taken a penny less. I value you too much.”

“Thanks.”

Della Torre picked up the pack of Strumbić’s Luckys and lit himself another cigarette.

“Help yourself,” Strumbić said. Della Torre ignored him.

“So what happened? Why’d those yokels want me dead? And what I don’t want to hear from you is ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Because your name came up on a list.’”

“Like I’m going to be smart with a man who’s got a gun in his pocket. It is a gun, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s an Italian silk tie.”

“I’ve got a dozen of those. Can’t wear them around the office, though. People start asking where the hell I can afford silk ties from. Which is also why I’ve got to drive that VW of mine around town.” Strumbić, in fact, had two VW Golfs, exactly the same colour blue and with sequential licence plates. One was always hidden in his Zagreb garage so that his neighbours wouldn’t snitch. The amount of effort Strumbić devoted to hiding his wealth kept della Torre entertained.

“Nice Golf. I can’t afford one.”

“Course you can’t. Still, I’d rather get more use out of the Beemer. Now that’s class. Problem is, too many people get jealous when they see you with nice things — cars, watches, girls. Then they start making trouble. And that’s just the wife.” Strumbić laughed at his own joke.

“Julius —”

“Okay. Okay. I know you’re tense; I’m just trying to lighten the atmosphere a little. It’s like this. I’m up here for the weekend minding my own business, and these three Bosnians come driving up in this big brand-new Mercedes with fifteen thousand little storm troopers in an envelope wanting to set up a surprise meeting with you. Who am I to say no?”

“Julius. I’m not playing this game. I’m too tired to play this game. I’m going to shoot you in the kneecaps. First one and then the other if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Fine. That’s fine, Gringo. But let’s just establish the ground rules first.”

“Ground rules? You’re sitting in a chair with a pair of handcuffs behind your back. I’ve got a gun that wants to be used. You’ve just set a bunch of killers on me. What the hell sort of ground rules do you have in mind?” Della Torre was finding it hard to keep control of himself.

“I understand your unhappiness with the situation, Gringo, really.”

“Unhappiness? What the hell —”

“Yelling won’t do either of us any good.”

Della Torre hung his head for a moment, holding it with his right hand.

“Julius —”

“All I want to say is if you want honest answers you have to promise me something.”

“What?” della Torre asked through gritted teeth.

“That at the end of this inquisition you do not seek to exact revenge. That we part company with fond memories of a long friendship, for the most part a mutually advantageous friendship.”

“I’ll tell you what, Julius. If you give me an honest account, I won’t shoot you. I may just lock you in this cellar for a little while, until I can make sure you’re not lying. When the time comes, I will call your wife and get her to get you out.”

“That’s harsh, Gringo. I don’t deserve that.”

“I’m petty that way.”

“Okay. Doesn’t matter anyway. My girlfriend will probably come looking for me first. I hope. But if I’m really lucky I’ll get to wait until the end of the week, when the guy comes to check the vines. He’s got a key. Hey, I’ve got at least four hundred litres of wine and about three pigs hanging off the ceiling. If you bring down a carton of smokes and a loaf of bread from the house, I’ll be all set. There’s some cushions back there for the benches. I’ve had worse beds. I’ve got a couple of westerns down here and the radio. What more could a man want? Be a proper holiday, it will. I’ve been needing some time off.”

Della Torre marvelled at how Strumbić could keep his cool. Yet there was an edge to his insouciance, della Torre could feel it.

“So we’ve got a deal? No revenge?”

“We’ve got a deal, Julius. Now, for the love of God, spill.”