Zagreb Cowboy Read online

  Copyright © 2012 Alen Mattich

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  This edition published in 2012 by

  House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4

  Tel. 416-363-4343

  Fax 416-363-1017

  www.houseofanansi.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Mattich, Alen, 1965–

  Zagreb cowboy : a Marko della Torre novel / Alen Mattich.

  ISBN 978-1-77089-227-9

  I. Title.

  PS8626.A874Z32 2012 C813’.6 C2012-902171-7

  Jacket design: Alysia Shewchuk

  Cover image: Figure with gun © Sameh Wassef/Getty Images

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  For Lucy, with love

  THE MERCEDES SALOON ran a red light, barely slowing as it turned into King Tomislav Square. The medieval warrior-king’s bronze statue stood in the middle of the manicured public garden, silhouetted against a lowering purple sky. He sat high on his horse, spear raised in memory of the country’s brief flowering of independence. A millennium ago. Tomislav had been somewhere in his mid-thirties, roughly Marko della Torre’s age, when he’d vanished from history.

  Maybe Bosnians had carted him off into the night too.

  Della Torre didn’t find his own joke very funny.

  Apart from the big Mercedes and an occasional tram grinding its way through the still evening, Zagreb’s streets were largely empty. It was the spring of 1991 and civil war was in the air. Croatia was struggling to become a separate country as Yugoslavia fragmented. Money was short, and besides, there was nowhere for anyone to go; shops and cafés shut early if they opened at all. So people stayed at home, watching the news on television and waiting. Pensioners were reminded of what it had felt like waiting for the Germans in 1940.

  The atmosphere in the car was close. One of the Bosnians was driving, while della Torre was wedged between the two others in the narrow half-seat in the back. The Bosnians smelled of acrid sweat and farmyard. Wailing pop, influenced as much by the Ottomans as by ABBA, pumped out of the car’s countless speakers.

  Once they’d driven through the city’s centre, with its long rows of elegant five- and six-storey Austro-Hungarian offices and apartment houses, they crossed the Sava on a characterless bridge where the river had been made canal-straight between high, grassed embankments.

  They’d taken a funny route, heading out of town in the wrong direction and now doubling back through the new town. Zagreb’s drab southern suburbs blurred past in an artificially lit, nicotine-tinted wash of concrete tower blocks.

  “You sure you wouldn’t like help with the navigation?” della Torre asked.

  The driver muttered something incomprehensible.

  “We want suggestions, we’ll ask for them,” said the skinny, doleful Bosnian to his left. “I didn’t hear anybody asking anything.”

  “Maybe you could turn off the wailing and I’ll spare you the advice,” della Torre said. The music set his nerves on edge.

  “No,” said the skinny one, the only one who’d done any talking.

  “Customer’s always wrong, eh? In that case, you fellows wouldn’t happen to have a spare cigarette?”

  “Besim doesn’t like smoking in the car. Says it gets into the upholstery. Cuts the value.”

  Besim, the driver, grunted his agreement.

  “Oh.” Della Torre didn’t know what to say. The thought of not smoking in a car for any reason short of a leaking fuel line was astonishing enough. But for Bosnians not to smoke, Bosnians who as a rule breathed tobacco from the moment they were born? Della Torre would have been less surprised to discover Karl Marx had, in fact, been a bearded lady in a French circus.

  He tried to cover his annoyance.

  “So, have you guys worked with Strumbić much?”

  “First time,” said the tall, skinny one.

  “Is that right? How’d you find each other? D’you advertise?”

  “We’ve got friends in common.”

  “Like?”

  “Like it’s none of your business.”

  “Ah, don’t tell me, he once arrested you for soliciting, and since then you became the best of friends,” della Torre said.

  “Nope.”

  “You do know he’s a cop?”

  “Course we know. Doesn’t matter, does it, boys?” the skinny one said to his companions. “We handle them all the same way, cops or wiseguys like this one.”

  The offhand rudeness surprised della Torre. He was having a hard time figuring out what Strumbić, a detective on the Zagreb police force, was doing with these guys. But then again, Strumbić was involved in all sorts of unorthodox sidelines.

  “So what sort of stuff are you doing for Strumbić?” della Torre asked. “Besides your very fine taxi service. Singalongs?” He couldn’t get over how much they looked like Elvis impersonators.

  “Are you being smart?” The skinny one turned to della Torre, his face for once animated.

  “Take it easy,” della Torre said. “It was just a joke.”

  “Watch what you say.”

  “Never mind, you’re best off sticking to what you do. Whatever that is,” della Torre said. “What is that, by the way?”

  “We do odd jobs.”

  “Yes? How odd are these jobs? Any I might have heard about?”

  “Maybe the one down in Slavonski Brod. Probably the one in Karlovac last month —”

  “Shut up.” The talkative Bosnian was cut off by the hitherto silent one to della Torre’s right, a stocky, square-headed type.

  Slavonski Brod didn’t ring bells, but Karlovac made della Torre squirm.

  There’d been a hit on a local businessman who had crossed one too many people in power. Nobody would have known anything about the killers had they not made a mess of the job the first time round. The victim had four holes in him but still managed to stay conscious till the ambulance got him away.

  Two days later, witnesses described how three Bosnians had shown up at the hospital. The receptionist could tell they were Bosnians by the accent of the guy asking directions. And because they wore black pointed shoes with white socks and trousers that ended a couple of centimetres above the ankle. For some reason the local police hadn’t bothered to put a guard on the businessman. Della Torre could guess why.

  The Bosnians shot the businessman dead this time. And his mistress, who by a stroke of bad luck had come to make a surprise visit while the businessman’s wife also happened to be at his bedside. It hadn’t been a happy scene when the Bosnians got there, but it was downright ugly by the time they left. They’d emptied more than two magazines into the room.

  Even so, they got away with at least a quarter of an hour to spare before the police bothered turning up. Witnesses spotted them driving off in a Zastava. Della Torre su
spected their payoff might have involved an upgrade.

  Come to think of it, he remembered something about a grenade thrown into a café in Slavonski Brod around the turn of the year . . .

  “Shut up? Why do I have to shut up?” the tall one to the left said, patting della Torre’s chest. “What’s this?” he asked, pulling a notebook out of della Torre’s inside coat pocket.

  “My notebook,” della Torre said, wincing. He didn’t like anyone handling the book. He’d taken too many risks taking the notes he had, even if they were largely indecipherable to anyone else. “Mind if I have it back?”

  The Bosnian ignored him, dropping the little black book into his own pocket.

  “See, he’s not tooled up. And he’s not going to be telling anyone much of anything after tonight. Neither’s that cop. Maybe we should charge extra, eh, boys?”

  “I said shut up,” said the one to della Torre’s right.

  “Besim, I thought you said your cousin had manners,” the skinny Bosnian muttered to the driver. Besim didn’t say anything.

  Della Torre smiled rigidly, as though he hadn’t understood. In truth he felt like he’d been slapped by a corpse. There wasn’t much doubt about what the Bosnians were there for.

  A sliver of rising moon flashed in and out between the high-rises. Wherever they were planning on killing him, it seemed they were first going to Strumbić’s, or at least they were heading in that direction.

  Reflexively, della Torre reached for the side pocket of his jacket, twisting a little to free his shoulder. The Bosnian to his right jabbed his arm back. It didn’t matter. Della Torre didn’t have any cigarettes on him anyway. He was sure there was a last packet of Camels somewhere in the apartment. He’d looked for it under the piles of papers on his kitchen table. But maybe it was skulking in the laundry basket. Keeping his gun company.

  What he would have done for a smoke right then. And the Beretta.

  He ran his hand over his top lip, smoothing his moustache, as he did when he was feeling tense. His thoughts flitted around, trying to stitch together what was going on.

  It was hard to credit now, but he’d almost laughed when he first saw the Bosnians. They’d arrived early. They pressed the buzzer and then kept pressing it. Della Torre’s intercom no longer worked; it hadn’t done for a long time. He’d been tempted to throw a window open and shout down to the street to tell them to knock it off, but the catch stuck and he didn’t want to risk not being able to shut it again. It was a mild spring day, but mild spring days in Zagreb had a habit of turning sullen. As it was he could only afford to heat a couple of rooms in the flat. A window blown open would have meant sleeping in his overcoat.

  So he hurried out, taking two stairs at a time. The maddening bell was still echoing down the high stone stairwell when he got to the entrance hall. Glass shards crunched under-foot. The window in the heavy wooden front door had been smashed again. He was starting to think it wasn’t accidental. Luckily the ironwork grille had held.

  His irritation had melted into bemusement when he stepped onto the pavement. The Bosnians were caricatures of country boys come to the big city from the deep black valleys a long drive to the south. Their suit trousers were too short, exposing lengths of white sock ending in brothel creepers at least thirty years out of fashion. Their vinyl jackets were the roadkill equivalent of imitation cowhide. He was sure they Brylcreemed their hair.

  But the bulges under their arms had made him bite his tongue. It seldom paid to laugh at people with guns. Even ones who looked like an Elvis tribute band.

  Am I the only secret policeman in the world stupid enough to forget his own service pistol when every yokel in the country’s armed these days? della Torre thought.

  Not that it would have helped. They’d quickly frisked him as he got into the car. It was a clue he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary taxi service. Though it took the conversation for him to figure out what they were really there for.

  Della Torre shook his head imperceptibly. He hired farm boys to butcher me like some smallholder’s hog.

  He couldn’t understand it. What did Strumbić have against him? Why had Strumbić set him up, especially if he was going to come out of this just as badly? It sounded like he was being double-crossed. But you could never take anything for granted with Strumbić. It took some skill to be as corrupt as he was and to grow as rich without ever having met a bullet or a jail cell.

  Maybe if I’d smoked less. If della Torre hadn’t been paid in nearly worthless currency, he wouldn’t have had to spend most of his salary on American cigarettes. If he hadn’t needed the money, he wouldn’t have taken the risk of becoming involved in one of Strumbić’s little sidelines. If he hadn’t grown used to doing deals with Strumbić, he wouldn’t have so readily accepted the ride with the Bosnians. If he hadn’t got into the car with the Bosnians, he wouldn’t now be on a fast road to a shallow grave. If . . .

  Della Torre’s wife — ex-wife — used to tell him he wouldn’t make it past middle age the way he carried on, that he’d be spending his late forties or early fifties watching paint peel off the walls in some chronic hospital ward. She was wrong. The way things were working out, he’d never even make it to lung cancer.

  Cigarettes. American cigarettes and amateur killers.

  Funny to think he’d liked Strumbić. They’d almost been friends. He’d liked Strumbić’s roguishness and conviviality. In retrospect, he’d probably liked Strumbić’s money too much.

  Once through the suburbs, Besim the driver took the motorway west. He turned off where the Zagreb river plain rucked into the steep Zagore hills, and wound his way through a small town called Samobor.

  Della Torre had always been fond of the place, with its Baroque church and late medieval wooden houses jutting over a small river. It was close enough for short excursions out of the city, but still had plenty of provincial charm. In spring and summer it was vibrant with flower boxes and pretty country girls. In the winter, snow clung to Samobor’s narrow streets and broad square long after it had turned into sludge in Zagreb.

  But on a Sunday evening in March, the town didn’t hold many attractions for a condemned man. Della Torre felt an unfamiliar jab of compassion as they passed a heroic statue of a soldier toting a machine gun. It reminded him of the German sympathizers the partisans had hung in Samobor’s main square at the end of the Second World War.

  Besim managed to get through the narrow streets after four wrong turns and two near misses. He even reversed out of a dead end at rally speeds. And the pace didn’t slacken once they’d climbed the hill that rose like the back of a chair behind the town.

  Once beyond Samobor’s faint night glow, the Bosnian followed a narrow, roughly made road along a wooded ridge, neither nightfall nor tight bends convincing him to slow down. At the pace they were going, they’d be at Strumbić’s in little more than ten minutes.

  The atmosphere in the car was choking. Della Torre moved to unknot his tie. Force of habit made him dress professionally whenever work called, but he figured he didn’t need to be wearing one to get shot.

  The Bosnian to his right glowered and dug him in the ribs with his elbow.

  “Just taking my tie off. I’m getting a bit hot. It’s not a formal occasion we’re going to, is it?”

  The Bosnian shrugged.

  Della Torre felt the silk. A nice tie. It had been given to him on a job in Rome. The Italian police had kept him locked up for four days on suspicion of . . . they’d never said, not in so many words. It all sorted itself out in the end, and the arresting officer, in contrition, had given him the tie. A spare, he’d said. The Italian cop had probably been glad to be rid of it, but it was della Torre’s favourite — dark blue silk with a pattern of even darker blue foliage. All his others were a shiny socialist polyester. He slipped the tie through his fingers like worry beads.

  T
he Mercedes’s headlights swept across fields and small vineyards carved out of the hillside forest. The beams bounced around as the car twisted along the bumpy road. The reflection of a village boundary sign flashed up. In a few hundred metres they’d round sharply to the right as the road followed a gully carved out by a little stream, and then just beyond that was the turning to Strumbić’s weekend house.

  It was dark in the car, except for the blue, red, and green glows coming off the dashboard indicators.

  Tension had been building in della Torre’s muscles. The Bosnians next to him could feel it. They shifted away from him. They watched him. The blood had drained from his face and the insouciant air he tried to put on just made him look like he’d swallowed his own sick. He felt the sweat rolling down his chest. His shirt was sodden. His nerves resonated like the strings of a piano dropped down the stairs.

  Later della Torre couldn’t remember making any conscious decision or forming a plan. It could have been that stress had switched on his long-forgotten military training. But he couldn’t be sure.

  Some unconscious reflex made him jerk forward, loop the tie over the Bosnian driver’s head, and pull back. But if della Torre had intended to garrotte him, he’d missed. He only just managed to get the dark blue Italian silk under the driver’s nose.

  DELLA TORRE FELT the car grind over loose gravel and hit a little ramp or ridge, maybe a narrow verge of grass. For an instant he felt weightless.

  The car was airborne. It had come off the edge of the road and was heading into the gully. A tree stopped it, just short of the stream. Somehow the tree remained upright, though the rending crack of a rupture deep through its heart echoed the explosion of crushed metal.

  The two Bosnians sitting next to della Torre reacted a fraction too slowly.

  It was a spacious car, but even so, three grown men didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room in the back. Della Torre was taller than either of the Bosnians and his shoulders pressed against theirs so that when he sprang forward, they naturally twisted away and had to turn again to face him. The one to his right, Besim’s cousin, reached for his gun while the skinny, talkative one tried to knock into della Torre’s arms. But della Torre kept a tight grip on the tie, and the struggle merely whipped the driver’s head around.