Zagreb Cowboy

by Alen Mattich

  “Hey, it was useful, wasn’t it? I mean, close enough to Venice for me to get to your friend before anybody else did.”

  “What did you do with della Torre?”

  “I told him to get lost. I pointed him to the train station, and that’s where he headed.”

  “Haven’t heard from him in months. You did a good job.” He pulled out another note and put it by the bedside.

  “So you going to London?”

  “Yeah. Needed to get out of Zagreb for a while anyway. Some UDBA guy is giving me serious grief, fucking Nazi. Looks like one too. And I’m being harassed by a couple of Bosnians who labour under the mistaken belief that I owe them. I’d kill them if I could just find them.”

  “How you getting there?”

  “I don’t know. I was going to drive. Booked a Merc from the car hire in Trieste. They kept telling me they had this great red sports car, just up my alley. Two-seater, soft top, pull all the birds I could possibly want. So I said put the red sports car aside for me. I get there and the bloody thing’s pink. Not red. Pink. I had to drive to Mestre in a pink Merc because I’d already paid for it. Bloody pink Merc.”

  The man on the bed laughed until he choked.

  “Were you talking in Italian?”

  “Sure, those idiots don’t speak anything else.”

  “You must have been saying rosa instead of rosso. Happens all the time.”

  “Thanks for nothing, Mr. Berlitz.”

  “You going to bring back the keys?”

  “I’ll leave them with the old hag concierge in your building. I nearly punched her when she wouldn’t let me in your apartment.”

  “Too right. I don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry walking into my place. Before you go, have you got any cigs?”

  “Here,” said Strumbić, leaving a packet by Branko’s bed. “Just don’t blame me if you get cancer. Make sure you do something about that leg.”

  “See you, Julius.” But Strumbić had already left the room.

  • • •

  The morning faded into the early afternoon, the patient slipping into the state of semi-comatose boredom that had made up his days since he’d woken up from the emergency operation more than a month earlier. They’d wheeled him in a couple of weeks before that, but he didn’t remember any of it.

  His leg had been killing him, so he’d taken a taxi to the emergency room, and then when the doctor was checking him out, he’d fainted. Out cold for nearly three weeks. He was lucky to be alive. Or at least that’s what the nurses kept telling him. He didn’t feel so lucky when the matron came in to give him his painkillers after lunch and found the cigarettes by his bedside. She pocketed them. He was sure she was taking them for herself, but he wasn’t in much of a position to run after her.

  Strumbić was long gone and Branko was dozing when the glass door to his room slammed shut, waking him. There were never any loud noises in this ward.

  “Hey, Branko.” The nasal and aural foliage were unforgettable, but he couldn’t quite pull the name out of his memory. “Branko, remember me? It’s Anzulović. From the detective squad.”

  “Anzulović? So it is.” Branko smiled. “What a treat. Nobody visits for weeks and then bam, two in a day.”

  “Branko, this is Captain Messar.” Anzulović waved at a tall, blond man who looked as if he’d stepped out of some Second World War poster.

  “Mr. Krushka,” Messar said.

  “Branko, everyone calls me Branko. So, looks like my number’s up. You guys finally found me. Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere for a while, eh?”

  “Mr. Krushka, we’re here on other business,” said the Nazi.

  “Yeah? So I’m off the hook, am I?”

  “No, the law will catch up with you eventually. But there are more pressing matters now.”

  “Listen, Branko, we’re not here to give you a hard time,” said Anzulović, soothing the sick man. “What’s past is past. Times have changed. I mean, politics are all up in the air. I’m not even sure the indictment holds anymore. The courts would have to dig it up and make sure there’s no political motivation behind it and that it was purely a criminal matter. And you know how long these things take.”

  “Yeah, it was entirely political. I had to run out of the country because of political persecution,” said Branko.

  “And there I was thinking it was because you were about to be done for corruption,” said Messar.

  “It was a frame-up. They could have had half the force up on charges worse than mine. And the only reason it was only half was because the other half were just too stupid to figure out how to make themselves a bit of extra dosh,” said Branko.

  “So which were you?” Messar asked Anzulović.

  “Oh, I was definitely in the stupid half. That’s the only reason the UDBA took me on. I got a sufficiently low mark on their intelligence tests,” Anzulović replied, unperturbed by the insinuation.

  “I can vouch for that,” said Branko. “Never met a dumber cop. Haven’t got a clue how he made detective inspector.”

  “Alright, you don’t have to lay it on with a trowel,” said Anzulović. “And if you’re so smart, how come you ended up running to a shithole like Mestre?”

  “I like to be near refineries; you never know when you might need to fill up.”

  “Enough of the pleasantries,” said Messar. “We’re here about Julius Strumbić.”

  “Who?”

  “Strumbić.”

  “Name rings bells, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Shame when old age catches up with you and you can’t remember your old partner on the force.”

  “Oh, you mean that Julius Strumbić.”

  “Are there many that you know?”

  “Loads and loads. Used to meet a new one every other week. Got very confusing.”

  “It seems Julius Strumbić has been phoning a number in Mestre for the past few weeks. Yours, I believe. In fact, we got word he might be heading this way. Any idea what it’s about?”

  “Love to chat, but the throat dries up lying in a hospital bed. Water is such a poor lubricant, don’t you think?”

  “So what might be sufficiently soothing?” asked Messar.

  “Oh, a nice bottle of whisky or brandy. One of the big ones,” Branko said.

  “Get him some cheap vodka, half-bottle,” Anzulović said. Messar took one of the ten-thousand-lira notes from Branko’s bedside table.

  Branko stayed quiet until Messar got back, and then he drank down two fingers of high-octane spirits in a swallow.

  “My thanks to you gentlemen. Gets the engine running. Haven’t had a drop since they took the old leg off. It’s like coming home after a six-month tour in the army.”

  “We were having a conversation about Strumbić,” said Messar.

  “Were we? Remind me, name rings a bell.”

  Messar got up out of the worn visitors’ chair, the foam padding coming out of its torn covers, walked around the bed, and punched Branko in the stump, first shoving a corner of a pillow into his mouth to stifle his scream.

  “Hey, Messar, all he needed was a couple more glasses of this stuff and he’d have been happy to talk. You don’t need to torture the poor guy,” Anzulović said, jumping off the windowsill where he’d been perched.

  “Now, you are not going to shout and make a fuss, or you die of a suspected heart attack in the next ten minutes,” Messar said. “And you are going to talk about Strumbić. Nod if you understand. Shake your head if you want me to keep the pillow in your gob.”

  Branko nodded vigorously. He’d actually developed a tinge of colour. Didn’t make him look any better. Messar left him to catch his breath.

  “So why was Strumbić calling? What does he want?”
Anzulović asked.

  “I wasn’t there to take his calls. I swear. I’ve been in hospital. Whoever’s been monitoring his calls for you people should have been able to tell you that.”

  “He rang from phone boxes. All we got was the number, not the content of the conversation. Why would he be calling? What deal have you got going with him, other than the fact that you two did very dirty stuff together once upon a time?”

  “Nothing. I swear. I’m just a post box for him. He gets mail sent to him here. I forward it, that’s all.”

  “Where do you send it?”

  “To some girlfriend of his. It gets packed with underwear for her. Frilly black stuff. Customs never bothers with that sort of thing. I don’t think they know how expensive it is.”

  “Where’s the mail from?”

  “England.”

  “Where in England?”

  “London.”

  “We can go back to my way of playing the game. Where in London?”

  “How do I know? I just collect the stuff and send it on. If there’s a real emergency, somebody might phone. But they know I don’t speak English and nobody’s ever had reason to call.”

  “Any more of these letters at your apartment?”

  “I haven’t been there to collect them in a while. I’ve been indisposed.”

  “I think we might check. Where are your keys?”

  “Haven’t got them. They must have fallen out of my pocket when they cut my leg off. Try the concierge at my building. She’s a lovely, accommodating old lady.”

  “We’ve met her.”

  “Terrific. Listen, when you see her next, can you give her something for me?” Branko asked.

  “What?”

  “A pat on the back for telling you guys I’m here. With a tire iron. Visitors like you I can live without.”

  Messar got out of his chair.

  “Do us a favour in return. Give our regards to Strumbić. And remind him that he hasn’t asked to take any holiday time off. So it’s unpaid leave,” Messar said. “It’s been nice chatting. Next time I see you it’ll be either in the morgue or in the dock of a Zagreb courtroom.”

  “And you have a nice day too,” said Branko through gritted teeth, the pain in his stump shooting up his side.

  He’d medicated himself with the grappa bottle he’d hidden so that when Matron came to give him his painkillers, she didn’t confiscate it. Eventually, the agony in his stump muted into a low throb.

  • • •

  It was after visiting hours when Branko felt somebody shaking him awake. At first he thought Anzulović and the Nazi had come back, but as his eyes drew back into focus he saw, instead, a pair of ghouls. The one shaking him was bent to the side like a banana, while the other was missing the whole top row of his teeth. Branko could tell because the man seemed able to breathe only through his mouth; his nose was mashed flat.

  “We were told you were here,” said the human banana with a heavy Bosnian accent.

  “Who the hell are you? You shouldn’t be here, it’s after hours.”

  “That’s okay. The nurse is fine about it. She might not be when she wakes up, though.” His shoulders rose and fell as though he was laughing, though no sound came.

  “I cannot tell a lie. You’re right, I’m here. That still doesn’t tell me who you are or what you want,” Branko said.

  “We think you might know where Mr. Strumbić is.”

  “I should have guessed it might have to do with Julius. What do you want?”

  “He owes us some money.”

  “Look, he’s usually good for it. Send him an invoice.”

  “Can you tell us where he is?”

  “Everyone wants Strumbić. I’ve got no idea where he is. Hey, put that down,” he said to the mouth-breather, who’d opened the bottle of grappa and was taking a long drink. The mouth-breather ignored him and offered the bottle to the banana, but the banana shook his head.

  “He picked up a pink Mercedes in Trieste this morning. We lost him for a while, but then we saw his car pulling away from your building. Must be the pinkest Mercedes I’ve ever seen. Actually, I’ve never seen a pink Mercedes before. But we lost him again. It might be pink, but it’s fast. So we went back to your place. The old woman said everyone’d been looking for you today. She didn’t sound happy about it. We figured if Strumbić was looking for you, he’d found you and you might be able to tell us where he was going.”

  “You speak Italian?”

  “Not a word.”

  “I’d have paid to hear the conversation you had with the old lady.”

  “Yeah, it was a real problem to make ourselves understood. We thought it was our accent at first. Didn’t we, Besim?” The banana grinned, but the mouth-breather didn’t say anything.

  “So how’d she tell you Strumbić had been looking for me and where I was if you couldn’t talk to her?”

  “Took us a while but we got there, didn’t we, Besim? She showed us.”

  “She’s here?”

  “Oh no, she’s in the boot of the car. We’ll drop her off later. I think she’ll be okay, but she is pretty old. Where’s Strumbić?”

  “What’d you do to the old lady?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Where’s Strumbić?”

  “Hey, what are you doing there?” Branko said to the mouth-breather, who had unscrewed the top of the invalid’s drip — one of the old-fashioned glass bottle kinds — and was pouring the rest of the grappa into it.

  “Where’s Strumbić?”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t, that’s not nice. I’m not a well man.”

  “You going to tell us or are we going to have to operate on you? Looks like they forgot to take one of your legs off. We can fix that for you.”

  “Christ almighty. He’s gone to London. Somewhere in London. He’s got a place on somewhere called E-A-S-T H-E-A-T-H R-O-A-D, that’s all I can remember. I think it’s a road or something. The place is an apartment building. It doesn’t have a number, just a name. That’s all I know, I swear, guys.”

  Branko’s speech was already slurring and the room was spinning around his head like a helicopter blade. He felt numb. He certainly couldn’t feel the pain in his stump anymore. In fact, he couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.

  As they went out, the banana helped himself to the ten-thousand-lira notes by Branko’s bed. Branko didn’t look like he’d be needing them.

  “SO HOW WAS your holiday?” della Torre asked.

  “Fantastic. Just terrific,” Harry said. “Really relaxing. The food was delicious; they’ve got such a good cook. But even when we had to fend for ourselves, you’d always have nice cheeses, or pâtés for a picnic lunch, or cold chicken. A couple of times we picked mussels. You just pick huge mounds of them off the rocks and piers and then you collect as many dry pine needles as you can. You know, those Mediterranean pines with the really long needles? Once you get inland the ground’s covered in them. You put the mussels on top of a big sheet of corrugated steel and then pile on the pine needles and set a match to them. The whole thing goes up like a petrol station. It’s got to be on the beach, otherwise you’ll burn the whole forest down. The mussels cook instantly and you eat them there and then, and they’ve got a pine-resiny flavour. Not something you’d order in a restaurant, but on the beach it was delicious with some of the local iced rosé. We’d have the pick of their cellar too, really yummy wines: Bordeaux reds and whites and some mind-blowing Sauternes.”

  “For somebody who spent two weeks eating and drinking, you don’t look like you’ve put on any weight.” Was it only two weeks? It had felt longer to della Torre. She’d gone when much of the Heath was in that fuzzy springtime, its hedges covered with pale green and white blossoms. But now most of the candles were gone from the horse chestnuts and t
he grass was waist-high.

  “Don’t you believe it,” said Harry. “This frock just hides it well.”

  Della Torre’s eyebrows shot up. He couldn’t imagine the short, tight black cocktail dress she wore hiding so much as a Band-Aid. The thin cashmere cardigan she’d pulled over her shoulders merely drew attention to the lithe figure underneath the dress.

  “So did you do anything other than eat and drink?”

  “We swam all the time. And bicycled. That’s mostly how you get around the island, on a bicycle. They’ve got these great long cycle paths and there aren’t many roads. So we spent a lot of time exploring. We went swimming every day. They’ve got a pool at the villa, but the beach was only a couple of hundred metres down a path. It seemed like a hundred kilometres of sand. On the other side of the island there are these nice coves. It’s rockier there, and that’s where they keep their dinghies. So we’d cycle across and do some sailing. The cook packed perfect picnics.”

  “Back to food.”

  “You’d have loved it there, I’m sure. Had I known you longer, I’d have asked to take you along, but it was a group of such old and close friends that it’s hard to bring somebody new in. What did you do with yourself? Were you lonely?” She paused. “Did you miss me?”

  He looked at her. They’d met up for dinner at a fashionable restaurant in Chelsea, her recommendation.

  After returning to London from their — what was it? a romantic entanglement? — they had hardly seen each other. Harry was busy with work and social engagements and then suddenly she was gone, off to France.

  This was the first he’d properly seen of her since that weekend by the coast. He wasn’t really sure where they stood with each other. For the moment, it didn’t matter. He had her to himself.

  The sun had turned her skin golden, making her eyes even bluer and her hair a richer, paler straw. The truth was he’d missed her very much, and he felt a pang of self-pity that he’d had so little of her to himself.

  During that time he’d been in some sort of limbo. He’d gone to various clinics and medical libraries to do research on blood and AIDS but got no further with his far-fetched thesis. He monitored developments in Yugoslavia as best he could, growing anxious at being away from it. He knew he wouldn’t be able to influence matters. But even so, it was worse to be watching from London. The collision was coming and, in his bones, he felt it was going to be a bloody one. He felt guilty at having run away.