Zagreb Cowboy Read online

  “So don’t breathe, see if that makes you feel better.”

  “Haw,” he said, but that just made him cough, which he regretted.

  “Sure you don’t want to come in with me tomorrow? I can arrange a discreet X-ray.”

  “And what’s an X-ray going to tell me that you haven’t?”

  “Not much, I suspect.”

  “And what exactly am I meant to do with a ligament-­damaged knee and a cracked rib?”

  “Well, if the damage is bad enough, you might need an operation from a top knee surgeon. I can recommend one in Zurich, a former colleague.”

  “Gee, thanks. You think he’ll take an old Yugo as a trade-in?”

  “No. As for the rib, best we can do is put your arm in a sling. But that’s just to stop it hurting. Otherwise the prescription is just a bit of tender loving care. Which you’re not going to get here.”

  “What about a warm hug?”

  “Sure, that might do you some good. Don’t know where you’re going to find one this time of night, though. And it’s only a single bed in the small bedroom, in case you start thinking of ordering in. Goodnight.”

  HE JUMPED OUT of bed, startled. He instantly regretted the sudden movement. It felt like some small, vicious animal was trying to kick its way out of his head.

  He’d slept badly. Despite his tiredness, anxiety and sore ribs made worse by an overly hard mattress had given him a restless night. He’d lost consciousness only in the small hours. But his nerves remained taut. So when Irena came into his room to see if he was still sleeping, her presence triggered a sudden panic that he’d be too late to catch Anzulović.

  “Ow,” he said, the pain migrating to his knee and then to his chest. “You didn’t spend last night braining me with a frying pan by any chance, did you?”

  “Nope. The thought barely crossed my mind.”

  “Oh. Then it must have been something I ate.”

  “Liquid supper, was it?”

  “Barely a snifter.”

  “Remember, it’s not only the quantity, it’s also the quality.”

  “Gee, thanks. I’ll pop that little gem of insight in my mental drinks cabinet,” he said sarcastically, though she had a point. Strumbić’s slivovitz always left him feeling like there was no mercy left in heaven or earth. “What time is it?” He noticed she was fully dressed and wearing her outdoor shoes.

  “Don’t worry, it’s only six.”

  “Six? How long have you been up?”

  “A while. I woke up early and then couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ran a couple of errands. Got some bread for breakfast.”

  “You’re going to be dead beat. Take the day off.”

  “Gee, thanks, boss. But I can’t. I’ve got a list of appointments that if I miss, people might die.”

  Zagreb’s doctors were busy. Croats were leaving the parts of the republic where large communities of Serbs had created mini-republics, carving out a third of the province. They had grown belligerent in their desire for an independent Croatia. And the Yugoslav army was backing the Serbs. Some of those displaced Croats found shelter with relatives. Many had made their way to Zagreb. It wasn’t a big migration. Yet. But it had started to put pressure on local services, not least the hospitals.

  So far in Zagreb there was only the smell of war, the general glumness and worry. The streets were full of more uniforms than he could ever remember, ill-fitting surplus, including ridiculous baseball caps they’d copied badly from the Americans, with the ubiquitous chequerboard crest. Reserve police they were called, though nobody was fooled.

  But there were incidents in the regions, small but ugly skirmishes and sieges. Mostly it was the two sides trying to decide who they were before squaring up.

  “And don’t worry about my sleep. I can survive on a lot less than you think. You know, it’s the woman thing. We’re designed for babies crying all night and then waking before dawn,” she added.

  “Touché,” he said.

  “I also went to your flat.”

  “You’re kidding. See anything? Has anyone been around?”

  His place was, strictly speaking, an UDBA flat given to him not long after he’d joined. He and Irena had been married for a year or so and living with his father when they’d been offered the apartment. It had come up suddenly, and della Torre leapt at it.

  It had been occupied by a senior UDBA operative who had come under suspicion for reactionary views and anti-socialist leanings. And taking bribes. The file had been passed through the anti-corruption unit, where della Torre helped to check on legal details, though largely for form’s sake. People arrested by the UDBA didn’t get off on technicalities.

  He should have felt bad about scavenging the place, because that’s what he felt like, a scavenger. Here was a man in late middle age who was now going to spend the rest of his days chipping stones on Goli Otok, blistering in the heat of the summer, cut by the northeast bora in the winter, and whose family would be left with at most some modest savings and a severely curtailed pension, homeless and almost entirely cut off from human sympathy. On the other hand, he’d been a crook and had himself stolen the flat from its rightful owners, using his UDBA authority to do so.

  The flat was situated on a big road, so the front windows were never opened. Worse still, it was largely unchanged since the late 1930s. The paint was new, the bath had been replaced, and a gas water heater had been installed, but little else. It was one of those large Austro-Hungarian apartments with enormously high ceilings, hugely thick walls, interconnecting rooms, and large ceramic stoves to heat each of the four main rooms. But there was something oppressive about it, gloomy and haunted.

  Irena had always refused to live there. So he rented the place out to students and pocketed the money. After the split, della Torre moved in.

  “The flat was fine,” Irena said. “If anyone’s been round, they certainly did a poor job of cleaning it. There wasn’t any obvious evidence someone had been through your stuff. I couldn’t tell if anyone was watching it. Not really my line of business. But I brought this back for you anyway.”

  Irena pulled from her straw shopping basket a leather case about the size and thickness of a hardback novel.

  “And before you ask, nobody’d moved it. It was where it always is, in the dirty laundry.”

  Della Torre kept it there because that was the last place an ordinary burglar would look. Secret police, on the other hand, knew where people who knew where to hide things hid things. So either the place had been searched by amateurs or it hadn’t been searched at all. He plumped for the latter. This was a good sign. It suggested that whoever had hired the Bosnians didn’t know they’d failed. This happy ignorance wouldn’t last long, though. The crashed Mercedes would be found soon. And he’d have to arrange to have someone release Strumbić within a day or two.

  He unwound the elasticized string that kept the case shut and checked that everything was where it should be. His Yugoslav passport was there. Fat lot of good that was, though. The rest of Europe was already terrified that refugees would flood out of the country when the shooting started. More useful was the Italian passport. A fake, but a real fake, so good and built on such solid documentation that the Italian government was happy to keep renewing it. When he’d been jailed in Rome, the Questura had spent four days trying to decide whether it had somehow been forged. They’d been through all the official records but couldn’t come up with anything. They were sure he and his papers were as fishy as week-old mackerel and told him as much. But they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So they gave the passport back to him when they let him out of jail. Together with the blue silk tie.

  And then there was the precious U.S. passport. That was real, a hundred percent bona fide, from when he was a kid and had been naturalized alongside his mother. As far as he knew, the UDBA we
re unaware of it, and he’d always been careful to get it renewed abroad. It was his version of Strumbić’s London flat. His ultimate safe haven. The magic key. He pulled it out and kissed it.

  “You know, Marko, you’re probably the only person in this country with one of those who isn’t either underage, retired, working for the U.S. government, or in some mental institution. Anyone with the smallest grain of sense and one of those would have left this wretched place and taken his wife back to America long ago.”

  “Ohio’s overrated.”

  “So you say. It’d have been nice to find out for myself.”

  “I’ll go back one day. We’ll get you a green card.”

  “Too late. I’ve got my own plans.”

  “To go to America?”

  “No. Remember Vesana, the one who used to work in the radiology department?”

  “Cute, but a bit short and fat?”

  “That sort of thing.”

  “What about her? She went abroad somewhere, didn’t she?”

  “She did. She went to London. We keep in touch. Anyway, she was back for a visit over Christmas and we met up. She said there were some good jobs to be had, X-ray technicians. So I applied for one at her hospital and they’re interested. If I bring my diplomas and show I can speak English well enough, they’ll give me a job. The pay’s about three times what I earn here.”

  “An X-ray technician? You’re a consultant and a damn fine one. Why are you taking a job as a technician? They train illiterate teenagers to do that.”

  “Because I can do it. I’m qualified for it, there’s a job on offer, because I feel like going abroad and starting over before I turn completely grey and lose my looks and the will to have children, and because if I work there for a while and then take some exams, they’ll eventually recognize my qualifications and I’ll be able to work as a specialist again.”

  “Yeah. But London? Why would you want to go to London? It’s the most miserable city in the world. It makes Belgrade look good. Hell, Skopje’s bearable by comparison. Why couldn’t you go somewhere civilized, like Rome or Barcelona or somewhere nice in France? Even anything in Germany’s better than London.”

  “Because my Italian and French aren’t good enough, I don’t speak Spanish, and I’d rather work in England than Germany.”

  “London, eh?”

  “London.”

  “Oh well, I suppose you’ll be coming back to see me occasionally.”

  “You can count on that. When it comes time to get you to sign those papers.”

  “You can be so cruel. So when are you going?”

  “In a couple of weeks.”

  Della Torre gawped like a beached fish.

  “A couple of weeks? You were going in a couple of weeks? Without telling me? How could you do that? Up and go without telling me?”

  “I just told you.”

  “But surely you ought to have discussed it with your husband first.”

  “Ex-husband.”

  Della Torre sat heavily back down on the bed. It was bad enough to have people wanting to kill him. But to also have his ex-wife abandon him . . .

  “Where are you going to live?”

  “Vesana has a spare bedroom. She’s happy to put me up until I get sorted with the job. It’s not far from a hospital called the Royal Free. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Better than the Socialist Worker’s Medical Institute or the Bloody Partizan Who Slaughtered Wounded Germans for the Glory of the Yugoslav Industrial Proletariat Pediatric Clinic. Anyway, she’s in a place called Golders Green. Do you know anything about it? You used to live in London.”

  “Never heard of it. Or the hospital either. The pediatric clinic rings bells, though. It’s in Pazin, isn’t it? Anyway, where in London are these Green Royals and Free Golders?”

  “She said north of the river. That’s supposed to mean something.”

  “Well, that narrows it down to around seventy percent of the city. I mean, the place is only around fifty kilometres across.”

  “It’s easy to get into the centre, she says. It’s a short ride on the underground.”

  He shrugged. They’d already spent more time talking about London than he cared for. Besides, he had to get dressed.

  “You didn’t by any chance think to pick up any clothes for me?”

  “You’ve got some of your father’s underwear here and I’m sure he won’t mind your borrowing a shirt. I brought you a pair of clean trousers. Oh, I also thought you might need these.” She pulled his service Beretta out of the straw bag, together with a box of ammunition.

  “Shit. You carried that around Zagreb in a straw bag? Had a cop stopped you, you’d have been in for some serious fun.”

  “I thought you needed it. And a policeman’s never stopped me for anything except to tell me how pretty my eyes are or how well my summer dress fits me.”

  “Modest, aren’t you.”

  “I am, rather. Which is why I never believe them.”

  “Anyway, thanks. You’re right. I could certainly use these . . . You didn’t happen to find a pack of Camels while you were at it?” he asked hopefully.

  “In your laundry basket?” He wasn’t sure whether the look she gave him was one of disgust or mere disapproval.

  “Never mind.”

  He dressed as he talked, getting Irena to help him put his undershirt on. She even tied his laces for him. He should have had a bath but didn’t really have the time. He didn’t want to miss Anzulović.

  “Are you taking your scarecrow coat?”

  “No, I’ll stick to the old cardigan I left here.”

  “You mean the one with paint on the sleeve?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll go shopping later. Listen, I might be back or I might not. So I’ll probably say goodbye now. There could be a bit of excitement over the next few days. If anyone asks, you haven’t seen me. If anyone saw you go to my place, it’s because you’re worried that the U-bend in the kitchen is cracked and the tap is leaking and you’re afraid I’m too incompetent to sort it out myself, so you’re dealing with it to make sure the place doesn’t flood. That’s all true, by the way. You wouldn’t mind lending me your Golf from tomorrow, would you? My car’s useless and the one I borrowed is going to attract a lot of attention pretty soon.”

  “How long do you want it for?” she asked.

  “Well, I need to disappear for a while. Call it five, maybe six years.”

  “Oh, is that all? I thought it might be a long time. No, you can’t borrow my Golf. I need it to go to London.”

  “You do realize that the steering wheel is on the wrong side for England.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  He shrugged. He reached into the leather coat and pulled out his tie, which he put on, his little notebook, and the envelope of money, both of which he slid into the leather wallet Irena had brought back from his flat. But first he took out four thousand Deutschmarks and handed them over to her.

  “Here, this might be useful.”

  “Where’d you get all these Deutschmarks?” she asked as she counted the money.

  “I’ve been taking bottles back for their deposits. I’m fortunate to know so many alcoholics.”

  “Fortunate is not a word I’d use about you very often. I won’t refuse. But I will pay you back. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, just give me a kiss.” She did. And she meant it.

  “Give me a call later, let me know what you’re doing. I should be back for lunch and then after around eight. I’ll leave my contact details with your father.”

  STRUMBIĆ GROUND HIS teeth. The throbbing stretched from his ankle to his prick; the whole of his shin blazed with it, as if della Torre had set light to the slivovitz he’d poured on him. Bastard. Strumbić could smell the slight oiliness in t
he almost neat alcohol.

  After shouting until he thought he’d strip his vocal cords, he shut up. Della Torre wasn’t going to change his mind and nobody else was going to hear. So he sat as still as he could for the first hour, until the pain died down enough to let him think that his legs might not buckle if he tried to stand.

  Getting up out of the low-slung lawn chair was harder than he thought. At first he’d got stuck tilted forward, the chair folding itself in on him. His ass had pushed through the gap between the fabric on the chair seat and the back, and for a while he was wedged and couldn’t get back into a normal sitting position. It was a strain on his good thigh, not to mention his gut, where his belt started to dig into his flesh.

  “Goddamn it.”

  But by leaning forward he managed to lift the chair off the ground, getting most of his weight on his left leg. There was the constant risk he’d overbalance and end up on his face, but by wiggling carefully and pulling on the back of the chair with his cuffed hands he finally managed to unwedge himself. The effort threw him forward so that he bent double over the rickety table. He could feel its legs tremble under his weight. When he straightened himself he saw that the keys had fallen.

  There was nothing for it. He tried to lower himself as gingerly as he could, but his good leg finally gave out from supporting more weight than it was used to, landing him heavily on the packed dirt floor. On the way down his wounded shin hit a table leg, making him shriek. He’d landed on the keys.

  For a long while he lay there breathing hard, until he thought he might hyperventilate. Some concerted floundering got him to where he could reach the keys. He struggled to unlock the cuffs behind his back but eventually triumphed. By the time his hands were free, he’d worked himself into a cold sweat and had to sit down in the lawn chair again. He poured himself a tin mug of slivovitz, but as he went to drink it, the smell made him gag, so he put it back down. So instead he focused on how he was going to get out of the cellar.

  The walls were more than half a metre of stone and poured concrete, and the ceiling was concrete reinforced with steel rods. He had only two options. The cellar’s foundations weren’t particularly deep, but trying to tunnel out through the packed dirt floor would be a day’s work at least. The tools he needed were in a neighbouring shed. He didn’t like the idea of pounding away with an iron bar and then scraping dirt out with his hands or a tin plate. Besides, it was stony ground up there on that hill. That left the door and the window.