Zagreb Cowboy (33 page)

“Who was that?” Strumbić knew from the old-lady lisp that it was Besim asking.

“Don’t know. You hurt?” asked the other Bosnian.

“Didn’t hit me.”

“Me neither. Got him, though.”

“Who is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Is he dead?”

“Don’t know. I think I winged him with the first one. The second one took him down.”

“What’s he doing walking around the woods with a gun?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, see if he’s still alive.”

Strumbić could hear the one who curved like a banana walking away, then shouting back: “He’s breathing, but he’s very sleepy. Got him in under the jaw.”

“In the neck?”

“Naw, under the jaw and up. At least I think that’s what happened. Bleeding a bit. You’d have thought it’d be more, though.” The talkative one sounded disappointed.

“It’s that crap gun you use. Couldn’t put a hole in a turd. How many times did you have to shoot that guy in Karlovac?”

“Got him four times.”

“And he lived.”

“Well, I nailed that woman of his with just the one.”

“Heart attack,” Strumbić muttered.

“What?” asked Besim.

“She died of a heart attack,” Strumbić said a little louder, regretting calling attention to himself.

“See? What’d I tell you?”

“You going to talk to that tree or are you going to shoot it? Time we were leaving.”

“Heart attack. Should have guessed. That crap gun of yours.”

“My lucky gun. Anyway, let’s get on.”

“Hands up. Put your hands up.” The order came from behind a holly bush.

“What now?” asked Besim.

“I think it’s the cops,” said the talkative one.

“London cops talk Croat?”

“Hands up or I shoot.”

“Hey, I recognize that voice.”

“Last time. Hands up.”

“Okay. Shoot then,” said the talkative Bosnian.

That had della Torre stumped.

• • •

The shooting made Anzulović hurry. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t likely to be good. He told Messar to stay put and keep his head down while he went round through the shrubbery to cover the little knoll from the opposite end, bottling up the Bosnians in that patch of open wood. How was he to know he’d have to go through a bog to get there? And now that the shooting had started, there was a solid wall of brambles and holly between him and them. Anzulović hauled himself through the squelching mud as quickly as he could, breathing hard, stumbling in the deepening gloom. Twigs scratched at him. Cattle would have made less noise.

By the time he got there, all he could see was one Bosnian at the big tree in the middle and the other one a little further down the slope. Where the hell was Strumbić? And then he heard someone shouting from one of the bushes to the right for the others to get their hands up. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said it was della Torre.

In unison, the Bosnians fired into the shrubbery, their gunshots echoed by the sound of their bullets rending foliage. Anzulović rose from his crouch, holding the gun in regulation two-handed stance — unlike the Bosnians, who fired like cowboys in a third-rate western — and squeezed off one, two, three shots. The Bosnian in front of him spun and dropped to his knees, taking cover behind the tree. At exactly the same time there were two muzzle flashes directly opposite, on the path where Messar was hiding. Anzulović heard branches parting twenty metres above his head.

“Besim, what the hell happened?” asked the thin Bosnian.

“Get down. There’s somebody back that way.”

“There’s somebody this way too. You okay?”

“Bastard got me in the wrist. Hurts like hell,” Besim said in his odd, snuffling voice.

“Can you hold a gun?”

“Shooting hand’s fine.”

“Somebody’s shooting this end too.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Three at least,” said the skinny one.

“That’s two too many. Come on, we can get out back this way, that way’s the swamp.”

“What about Strumbić?”

“Oh yeah,” said Besim.

He stuck his gun into the tree and pulled the trigger twice. Anzulović could see enough of him to fire again, then the Bosnians made themselves scarce.

Carefully Anzulović crept forward, but the Bosnians had gone.

A flashlight shone in his face.

“Stop. Put the gun down. Put your hands up.” It was a woman, speaking English.

He left the gun on the ground and raised his hands, motioning her to lower the light. It was blinding him.

“Jesus,” he said once he could see her. It was Grace Kelly. Pointing a gun. Straight at him.

The bushes to his right moved. She half turned.

“Marko.”

• • •

Della Torre had been winging it, and then suddenly there was cavalry on both sides.

“That you, Gringo?” asked Anzulović.

“Anzulović? Where’s Strumbić?”

“No idea.”

“Who’s that?” Harry asked.

“Harry, what the hell are you doing here?” della Torre demanded.

“I brought your gun.”

“Hey, give me a hand with Messar. He’s been hit,”
said Anzu-lović to della Torre, though he kept his eyes on the English blond.

“Dead?”

“No. He’s got a hole in his chin. But he’s breathing. He’s out, though.”

“Shit. Where’s Strumbić?”

“Think those Bosnians took him with them?”

Della Torre looked at Anzulović and then at Harry, and made up his mind. He switched to Italian.

“Harry, give me the gun and the flashlight. You two, see if you can get Messar back to the flat. You speak a bit of Italian, don’t you, Anzulović? Harry does too. I’ll see you back there.”

Della Torre went charging after the Bosnians.

• • •

Anzulović had just shifted Messar into a position where he could lift him when he heard a noise. A sort of grunt coming from the tree. He let Harry take Messar’s sitting weight, put his fingers to his lips, and did a squat run towards the tree. There was definitely a rustling, scraping noise coming from it. With some difficulty, Anzulović hauled himself up the trunk to where he could see into it. He half-expected some wild animal. No, he wasn’t sure what he expected. Certainly not what he found.

“What the —”

“Here, give me a hand.”

“Strumbić.”

“Yeah. Who’s that?”

“Anzulović.”

“Who?”

“Anzulović.”

“Fucking Anzulović. I owe you one. Well, give me a hand out of this fucking tree.”

“What are you doing in there?”

“Sightseeing. What do you think? Getting shot at by a couple of fucking Bosnian jokers.”

Anzulović hauled him up. Strumbić slithered out over the edge of the trunk and down heavily, so that the two men fell in a heap.

“Bloody hell, you’re heavy. You okay?”

“I’ll live. Took a chunk out of my leg, though, bastard. Hurts like hell. I think I’m deaf in one ear. And I can’t hear out of the other one.”

“Can you help me carry Messar back to that apartment?”

“He dead?”

“No, though I don’t know how badly hurt.”

“Where’s della Torre?”

“He’s gone after the Bosnians. Thought they’d taken you.”

“Has he? Crazy bastard. Here, give me your gun. Wait, who’s that there?”

“Grace Kelly, I think.”

The woman looked familiar to Strumbić. It was too dark to tell, but he could have sworn it was that estate agent woman. “Well, you and Grace Kelly are going to have to deal with Messar on your own. I’m going to hobble after della Torre.”

“Can you manage? You’ve just been shot.”

“Flesh wound. Took a slice out of me, but that’s all. Give me your gun and I’ll make hamburger out of that Bosnian prick.”

• • •

Della Torre kept the flashlight aiming down in front of him. They had a lead on him but no light. He thought he heard them somewhere ahead. But when he got there, nothing. The woods had an earthy smell of rotting wood and leaves, a verdant and mossy maze. Now and again he could make out velvety sky. Overhead a songbird chirped bursts of sweet, high rhythm.

There was just enough remaining dusk to move at a cautious speed. He used the flashlight as little as possible, not wanting to draw attention to himself. This bit of the woods was mostly open, with not much undergrowth, though there was the occasional fallen tree to negotiate. He moved carefully across the soft, springy ground as it sloped gently downward. There were hardly any low branches to walk into. He took care not to stumble over protruding roots.

There. It sounded like somebody falling into a pile of kindling off to the right. Della Torre flipped on the flashlight and swung it round. He wasn’t sure. Yes. It looked like one of them. He kept the beam on the Bosnian, who was struggling through a barrier of heaped dead branches.
Got you now,
he thought to himself. Only then did he wonder where the other one was. Maybe the thought was prompted by the sound of a fat length of wood whistling through the air just before it hit him on the side of the head.

• • •

Strumbić’s leg hurt like hell. He didn’t get a good look at the woman, but it sure wasn’t Irena. The more he thought about it, the more she reminded him of the estate agent. Grace something-or-other, Anzulović had said. No, that wasn’t the name of the estate agent woman. It was . . . He couldn’t remember.

Had Gringo given them his key? If they were going to the flat, one of them must have it. Didn’t matter; Strumbić was going to get his own back from those bloody Bosnians.

Bloody, bloody Bosnians. Fancy them wanting to shoot him inside the tree. He’d straddled the hole as best he could, pressing his legs against the sides, lifting himself up out of range, but not high enough that a bullet didn’t put a furrow in his calf. It felt like a line of hornet stings, but at least he could walk. Problem was, he didn’t know where to go.

A couple of times he thought he saw a flash ahead. Little staccato spikes of light and then lengths of darkness. He couldn’t hear much beyond the constant motorway sound in his head. It was unbelievable, the concussive sound of the explosions concentrated in the hollow of that tree. So he kept his eyes as focused as possible inside the constricting darkness of that wood.

The light shone again, further to his right but now fixed on, bouncing slightly.
Della Torre?
he wondered.
The Bosnians? Somebody walking a dog?

• • •

The wood was soft, mostly rotted through, which was why it splintered when it hit della Torre. Had it been fresh, the force of the blow would have fractured his skull. As it was, he figured on being left with an ugly headache. Which, under the circumstances, would probably last for the rest of his life.

“Who is it, Besim?”

“You got the flashlight?”

“Recognize him?”

“Maybe.” Besim bent down and tugged on della Torre’s tie.

“This thing sure smells familiar.”

“I do think it’s our old friend. The one who didn’t like your driving.”

“I think we owe him something.”

“Shame we haven’t got time to pay him back fully. I’d like to peel his skin off and salt him first, like the Turks do.”

They were distracted by a noise behind them. The skinny Bosnian swung della Torre’s flashlight in the general direction, raising his gun at the same time. A couple of men, naked below the waist, ran off into the undergrowth.

“You see what I see, Besim?”

“I see it. But I’m not understanding it.”

“I think that’s what we heard last night. I told you it wasn’t wild boars.”

The skinny Bosnian fired.

“Shit. Oh my god. Shit, oh my god, I’ve been shot.” The men raced into the woods screaming with fear and pain as the Bosnians doubled over with laughter.

“He shouldn’t have looked back. Think he’ll remember to wear trousers next time?”

“Uh-uh,” said Besim through bouts of snuffling-dog laughter.

“Your turn,” the banana-shaped one said, his attention shifting back to della Torre.

Besim raised the gun in his good right hand while the skinny Bosnian kept the light on della Torre.

“I’d rather throw you out of a moving car. But this will have to do,” said the banana-shaped one.

The two gunshots came so close together that della Torre could have sworn they were one.

BETWEEN THEM, THEY
managed to drag Messar through the woods and up to the building. He was a big man, tall and muscular, and it wasn’t an easy job. They didn’t talk much, just enough for Anzulović to tell Grace Kelly that he worked with della Torre. She said, “I know.”

She went through the front door on her own, for once not passing the time of day with the porter, and then opened the back door by the garbage bins so they could take the service elevator up and avoid bumping into any people. Messar wasn’t bleeding too heavily, but his neck and chest were a mess. They got him to the apartment and laid him down on the bed in the spare room.

“He needs a doctor,” said Harry.

Anzulović shrugged. A doctor, once he’d seen the bullet
holes, would mean police. Police would mean an inquest. And that would mean jail time for them all. Yugoslavia barely existed. There was little chance of the embassy’s bailing them out, getting them off the hook. The Croats wouldn’t do it for a bunch of
UDBA
people. And neither would Belgrade for a bunch of Department VI Croats. Besides, who knew how the
UDBA
would react?

On the other hand, if there was a friendly doctor, one who could keep things quiet, maybe keep Messar alive long enough to be got back to Yugoslavia, or what was left of it, maybe they’d be able to work something out. They’d driven to London in less than a day. He was sure that with Strumbić’s and della Torre’s help they could do the trip back even faster.

Anzulović knew he was clutching at straws.

“We need doctor, yes, but quiet doctor. Not talk about this to police,” he said.

“Do you think Marko’s wife, Irena, would help?”

That was it. He’d known she was in London. Only problem was, where? And did she care enough about della Torre to help?

“Yes, but how find her?” he asked.

“She works at the hospital down the hill. I’ll try her.” Anzulović had too much on his mind to think about how Grace Kelly and della Torre and Irena and Strumbić were tied together. But he made a mental note to find out. Some other time.

Harry spent a quarter of an hour on the phone, at first not getting through to the switchboard and then not getting through to the X-ray department. When she did, they told her Irena wasn’t working that night. And they wouldn’t give Harry her home number.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Anzulović.

But he had a thought. “Wait. I get.”

He’d taken the Department VI job so he’d never have to run stairs again. But the lift was busy and he didn’t have time to wait. He was out of breath by the time he got back to the flat, a folder in his hands.

“I have number for Irena home,” he said. It was from the time she’d called della Torre’s father. He gave it to Harry.

“Yes?”

“Irena? Irena della Torre?”

“Yes. Who is this?” Her English was accented but clear.

“My name is Harry. I’m Marko’s friend.”

“Ah, yes, Marko. Don’t tell me, you’re calling because he wants to apologize for not bothering to show up tonight, but he’s too much of a coward to do it himself. I called the hospital; he was discharged this afternoon.”

“I don’t know about any appointment he had with you. But he couldn’t. He was tied up. I mean really tied up. With rope. Strumbić did it. And now I need your help.” Harry was talking too fast, maybe too loudly, the pitch a little too high. She wasn’t one to panic. Never had been. But the stress of the situation was palpable down the phone line.

“What is it?” Irena’s voice echoed Harry’s edge.

“There’s a man here. He’s a colleague of Marko’s who’s been shot in the jaw. We need a doctor, but it has to be discreet.”

“Let me speak to Marko.”

“He’s not here. He’s gone after the men who shot his colleague. We need help.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. You’re just up the hill, aren’t you? Give me the address.”

Irena was as good as her word. She came with a doctor’s emergency bag and didn’t stand on any ceremony, just asked where the patient was.

“Irena.”

“Anzulović, fancy seeing you here.”

“Funny circumstances.”

“Aren’t they. Where’s Marko?”

“He’s chasing a couple of Bosnians.”

“And Strumbić?”

“He’s chasing Marko.”

She nodded, not looking very happy about any of it.

Carefully, she tilted Messar’s head. She opened his mouth and a wash of blood and saliva flowed out. More came out of his nose.

“Lucky he’s not choking on the blood. There isn’t a huge amount of flow.”

She looked carefully at the wound in his mouth, inspected his tongue and his palate. She took his pulse and then his blood pressure with a cuff.

“There’s not a lot I can do here. I need to see what happened inside his head. I’ll set up a drip for him. There’s the hole in his shoulder as well, but that’s not important. The bullet might still be in there, but it doesn’t seem to have done any damage to any significant blood vessels. As far as I can tell, the one in his jaw skimmed the bone, mostly missed his tongue, but made a mess of his palate. I don’t know what it’s done to his brain, other than the fact that he’s unconscious and still has reflexes. That’s a good sign. But I need to get him to the hospital.”

“No police,” said Anzulović.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Once she’d got the drip into Messar and had Anzulović standing over him holding it, she asked Harry for the phone.

Irena got through to whomever it was she was calling much more quickly than Harry had, and then she talked for a long time in quiet tones. Harry didn’t listen in — tried not to listen in — but kept hearing bits like “autopsy” and “dentist,” none of which made any sense.

“Do you have a car?” Irena asked, when she’d finally hung up.

“Yes.”

“We’ll need to drive Messar down to the hospital. We’ll go through the emergency room entrance. There will be a wheelchair waiting for him there. But we won’t check him in. We’ll take him to the autopsy room. It’s quiet there this time of night, and it’s well equipped. It’s also clean. Even better, the old dental surgery rooms are on that floor. They’ve got X-ray machines, so we’ll be able to take a picture of his head without going into the main X-ray suites. To do that, he’d have to be admitted. Even so, we may have no choice. We’ll see. How quickly can you get the car out front?”

“Five minutes, max,” Harry said.

“Okay, then get it. Anzulović and I will bring him down.”

“If you go out by the service entrance, I can pull up right outside the back doors. Go down the service elevator. Anzulović knows where it is.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

• • •

Della Torre was looking up at the Bosnians, though one of his eyes seemed to have lost focus. They were laughing uproariously about something, and even though his head felt like a dropped watermelon, he smiled reflexively. And then realized they were probably laughing about how they were going to double his weight with lead. Once he’d recovered sufficiently from his laughing fit, Besim edged closer and pointed the gun down at him.

Funny to think they’d come to a wood in the middle of London to do what they’d intended to do in a wood outside of Zagreb.

Della Torre couldn’t tell what happened first. The explosion, the searing pain, the muzzle flash, or the explosion. That didn’t make sense. Two explosions? And then he realized that Besim was no longer standing up and that the banana-shaped one was crouching, little bolts of white light flaring from the end of his gun, one after the other, aiming into the trees. And when he stopped, he pulled another gun out from his trousers, and that one also sent strobes of light across della Torre’s retina. And then the tall, thin, banana-shaped Bosnia was also down.

The whole while, every last nerve cell in his body felt like it had lodged itself somewhere between his shoulder
and his wrist, sending explosive signals of violence into della
Torre’s brain until the deafening rattle of pain was overwhelming. At the same time, his ears were drumming with the sound of his heartbeat overtop of a woollen dullness as thick as felt boots.

In the fragment of light that remained, della Torre could see a dark form standing, pointing a gun down at him. His thoughts pushed themselves elsewhere, anywhere, to forget the impending end. He couldn’t see clearly, his eyes blurred. Was it Strumbić? Maybe it was Svjet . . .

In his mind’s ear the A minor third movement was playing, just as he’d listened to it with Svjet. Svjet had introduced him to the unutterable beauty of late Beethoven. He forced himself to listen to the remembered music as words came silently to his lips, a prayer for the hard road to heaven.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women now that the evening is spread out against the sky like the fruit of thy womb upon a table, let us go, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen, because this is the way the world ends, Hail Mary, full of grace, now and now and vides ut alta stet nive candidum Mother of God, les neiges d’antan now and now and yesteryear at the hour of our death, full of grace . . .

It was Strumbić. He was bending over him, shouting, though for some reason the sound of his voice was far away.

“What?”

Strumbić knelt by della Torre and pulled him up.

“Come on.” He’d finally made himself heard. “We’ve got to go. Now.”

“Go where? Aren’t you taking turns with the Bosnians? You’re going to shoot me next. Then one of them’s going to shoot me. Then you’re going to shoot me. Then the other one’s going to —”

“Shut up. Can you stand?”

The miracle was that, with a bit of help from Strumbić, not only could della Torre stand, he could even walk, with his left arm flopped down beside him.

“Come on,” Strumbić said. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here. There’ll be cops everywhere soon, and I thought I heard a helicopter. Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you going to shoot me?” Della Torre sounded almost disappointed, though it was the pain in his arm speaking.

“No, I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Why?”

“I’m sentimental. And because you’re more useful to me alive now that your
UDBA
friends know where I am.”

“What about the Bosnians?”

“What the hell do I care about the Bosnians? I got my wallet and keys back, and now I don’t give a fuck about the Bosnians as long as they can’t shoot me. And they don’t seem in much of a shooting mood anymore.”

They stumbled and staggered through the wood, using della Torre’s flashlight, which Strumbić had found by the glow of his lighter. They tried not to use it. Already they could see other lights being flashed elsewhere in the wood. And there was that helicopter somewhere overhead. Unable to walk straight, the brambles tore at them. A branch caught the corner of della Torre’s eye. Walking while trying to keep his arm from moving too much was harder than he thought possible, and no less excruciating.

They got to the edge of the woods and they could see blue lights flashing up and down East Heath Road, wailing sirens everywhere, though thankfully no police had stopped at the building yet.

“So how the fuck do we get in? That bastard porter will get the cops onto us before we press the button for the lift,” Strumbić said.

Della Torre jerked his head forward.

“Back door. Somebody seems to have propped it open.”

“So they did,” said Strumbić. “What are you waiting for?”

• • •

They got Messar to the hospital in the
2CV
, an old blanket wrapped around him. Anzulović and Irena shifted him from the front seat onto the wheelchair that had been left for them. Irena told Harry where to find them once she’d parked the car.

Harry made her way to the autopsy room without having to ask anyone. It was in a quiet part of the hospital, sheltered from the pandemonium brewing on the streets around it. She’d only just parked the car when she started hearing sirens coming and going from every direction, police cars flashing past in one direction while others headed in the other. The whole fringe of the Heath was a wasp’s dance.

No one was in the room, so Harry hovered outside until she spotted Anzulović further down the corridor.

“What’s happening?”

“They’re taking pictures of his head. X-rays in there.”

“Who’s they?”

“Irena and some doctor. Didn’t introduce to me.”

They waited, pacing nervously like anxious relatives. They were there maybe half an hour before Irena came out.

“The bullet shattered his palate and then dented his skull but didn’t make it into the brain. It doesn’t look like there’s any swelling of the brain, though you can never tell with these things. The doctor is patching him up a bit. He wouldn’t really be able to operate for another day or two, so we don’t need the autopsy room, but Messar needs to stay under close observation.”

“You mean in the hospital?”
Anzulović asked.

Harry stood back, not understanding what they were saying but not imposing herself either.

“I’m afraid so.”