Zagreb Cowboy

by Alen Mattich

  “Shot in a train. Don’t tell me, they were minding their own business and somebody decided to use them for target practice.”

  “No. It seems they’re part of a gang that robs passengers on trains.”

  Della Torre looked at him in astonishment. “I think they might be some long-lost friends of mine. I was robbed on a train in south London.”

  “You were robbed on a train?”

  “Yes. Two months ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Not that it’s infrequent, but it still requires a big dose of bad luck to have that happen to you. Not quite as bad, mind, as they had it, robbing somebody with a nine-millimetre gun.”

  “Nine-millimetre? Standard issue?”

  “Probably.”

  “Were you just passing through? Is that why you got the job?”

  “Oh, no. I specialize in gunshot wounds.”

  “David spent a year in your part of the States, Marko, doing on-the-job training,” said Irena.

  “I was in Chicago, patching up holes. It’s amazing how many extra holes people in the U.S. develop. Are you from Chicago?”

  “No, Cleveland.”

  “Not far, but I never ventured. We were busy enough where we were, and when we had a chance to get away, we’d go as far as possible.”

  “I don’t think you missed much. So there’s a dearth of people here who know an entry wound from an exit wound, is there?”

  “There aren’t many of us here who have the expertise. Some in Northern Ireland, but not so much in London. Usually if there’s something interesting happening, they send for me.”

  “So what happened to those boys?”

  “One had two slugs in the abdomen. His spleen had to come out, and he’s got a shorter intestine than he did yesterday morning. One of the kidneys might pose some problems too. He’ll live, but he’ll remember that adventure for the rest of his life. Another one got plugged in the chest. Bullet flattened itself against the back of the rib. He’ll make it too, though we’ll advise him not to take up smoking. Or the triathlon. The third boy, we don’t know yet. He’s still alive, but the bullet went up under the chin, made a mess of his palate, and ended up in his brain. He could be back on the street in a few months, no dumber than he ever was, or he could be in a morgue tomorrow.”

  “Marko,” Irena interrupted, “David really ought to be going. He looks as if he’s about to fall over with exhaustion. I’ve written down my details. Put them in your wallet and don’t lose them. We’ll talk tomorrow evening. Come at around six; we eat early. Okay? Tomorrow evening. I’ve got your details from what you wrote on the records. They are correct, aren’t they?”

  “Harry filled in the forms, so they must be right.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Marko,” said David.

  “The pleasure’s all mine, Doctor.”

  STRUMBIĆ WOKE UP with a hangover. No, that was an understatement. It was to an ordinary hangover what the Hindenburg disaster was to a barbecue flare-up. Encyclopedia entries could be written about the state of Strumbić’s head.

  He rubbed his face, the bristles making a coarse brushing sound against the rough, broad palm of his hand. Small empty bottles seemed to cover the floor around the bed.

  He sat up, instantly regretting moving. What he needed was seltzer water and a good, solid shot of slivovitz, followed by one of those English breakfasts that either cured or killed.

  But he didn’t have time for any of that. Didn’t matter. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d gone to work not having showered or shaved, having slept in the car after a hard night on the booze because he couldn’t see the road.

  Luckily the estate agents weren’t far, a few streets away in Mayfair. Besides, who cared what they thought about how he looked or smelled? They worked for him. They could keep their opinions to themselves. Not to mention he’d rip their throats out if he found they were cheating him.

  The Saturday morning tourists were already filling Piccadilly. Strumbić walked through them, still struggling out of the fog of the previous night. Had he been less hungover, he might have noticed the tall, blond woman standing at the curb, waving down a taxi.

  A young and expensively groomed man stood up as Strumbić walked into the office. The man wore his hair slicked back and a tailored blue pinstripe suit with a fraction too much cuff showing. Strumbić noted his square gold cufflinks, as he was meant to. There was a vague scent of lavender about the man.

  “How can I help you, sir?” If the man was surprised at Strumbić’s appearance, the grey stubble and bloodshot eyes, the heavy smell of sweat and dissolution, he didn’t show it. It didn’t do to prejudge Mayfair clientele. Sometimes millionaires dressed like bums. And many bums dressed impeccably. He maintained an interested expression of solicitude, though his body tilted back a couple of centimetres.

  “I want Harry,” Strumbić said in his ponderous accent, the w coming out as a v and the Harry sounding more like harim without the m.

  “You’ve only just missed her. She went out to see a client. I don’t think she’ll be back this morning, but she should be in Monday. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “You are agents for me. I have apartment in Hampstead.”

  “Are you selling, or are we your letting agents?”

  “No, you do my bills and have keys when I am away.”

  The young man looked towards an unoccupied part of the open-plan office.

  “I’m afraid there’s no one around in that department. There are usually only a few of us in on Saturdays, and only when people have made appointments. Can I take a message for someone and they’ll get back to you on Monday?”

  “No. I have lost keys to apartment and need keys you have. You keep them here. I need to go to my apartment today.”

  “Ah, I see, you want the spares. What’s your name and where is your apartment?” the young man said, walking towards a locked filing cabinet in a separate room at the back of the office.

  “Smirnoff. My name is Smirnoff and apartment is in Hampstead, East Heath Road.”

  “Oh yes, of course, Mr. Smirnoff. You rang a few times asking for Harry over the past month, didn’t you. She was away on holiday, and unfortunately she was the only one who knew about your circumstances. Something about work to your building. It happens all the time. Clients are always shocked by how much the management companies charge for works, and how extensive they can be.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, your keys should be no problem. All I need is a piece of photo ID. A passport is probably the best thing.”

  Strumbić was stopped dead. He kept his passport with the Smirnoff name in a safety deposit box in a bank around the corner from the estate agency. It was not an ID he wanted to lose or anyone to find. It was his U.K. ID, and it had been incredibly expensive to produce. It was a genuine British passport and not obtained through official UDBA channels or the unofficial sources he had in Croatia. It had been done through friends of friends of friends. Unfortunately, the safety deposit box key was on the chain della Torre had stolen. Luckily, the estate agents had the spare.

  “I haven’t got ID. Not now. But you give me keys and I get you ID.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, it doesn’t work that way. I need the ID before I can get you the keys.”

  “Passport is in bank. You have keys to bank safety box. Give me keys and I go to bank and get ID.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Really, I can’t give you the keys without some ID first.”

  “You take keys, you come to bank with me, and we get passport together, then you give me keys. Okay?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t leave the office, and the only other people here have appointments they’re waiting for, so there’s no one we can spare to go to the bank.”


  “Okay. When your office close, you come to bank. Okay?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re open until twelve-thirty, and most banks shut at midday on Saturdays. If you come back on Monday, Harry will be able to vouch for you. She knows you and she won’t need an ID, or she can go to the bank with you, but there’s nothing I can do right now.”

  Strumbić was beginning to get agitated, and the young man saw it. He took a step back as Strumbić clenched and unclenched his fist. Strumbić looked around. There were other people in the office; besides, this man knew where he lived. If he threatened him or used force to get the keys, the police would be onto him pretty quickly. This might not have bothered him ordinarily, but he’d shot three kids the previous night. It made him a little sensitive about calling attention to himself.

  “Really, sir, I would love to help. I know you’ve had some problems with your apartment and now with your keys, but I assure you, come in on Monday and it will all be resolved.”

  “Do you have Harry’s address and telephone number for home?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, we can’t give our staff’s private details to clients. I know it doesn’t sound very helpful, but there’s nothing I can do for you today. You really will just have to wait until Monday.”

  Strumbić knew there was no way around the problem. Or at least not immediately. He couldn’t go to the bank and ask them to open a safety deposit box for him because, for one thing, he didn’t have the key. And for another, they had his ID. But he wasn’t going to let this pomaded, self-certain prick win out either. He left the office without another word.

  Instead, he took a stroll around the block. Halfway up the street parallel to the agency, he saw the alley. He walked along as if he were meant to be there, past the Dumpsters and chained-up motorbikes, until he found what he was looking for: the back of the estate agents’ offices. He went up to the door, gave it a slight push, took note of the lock. He looked at the bars on the windows and at the alarm box higher up. He wandered up and down the alley, having a good look at all the buildings, making mental notes the whole while.

  And then, when he was satisfied, he wandered off to look for a new suit. Blue pinstripe. He rather liked the effect. Maybe he’d look for some cufflinks while he was at it.

  Which was how the afternoon went. A handful of shops, interwoven with stops in the local pubs. The English were mean with their whisky, measuring it out to the last exact drop with an instrument better suited to a chemistry lab. But he liked the beer. And the atmosphere.

  He came back from shopping laden. And mellowed. In one set of big green M&S bags, he carried a blue pinstriped suit and a dark grey suit. And in a generic yellow plastic bag, a boiler suit. He dropped the business suits off in the hotel room and got dressed in the universal workingman’s uniform, slung a bag of tools he’d picked up at a Soho hardware shop over his shoulder, and went wandering into the hotel’s service areas looking for a ladder.

  Fully equipped, he went out the hotel’s back entrance and made his way through the Piccadilly crowds, his labourer’s clothes granting him instant invisibility, to the alley behind the estate agents’. It was as empty as it had been earlier.

  He propped the ladder up against the back wall and secured its feet with a heavy lump of concrete that was probably used to hold open self-closing fire doors. The back of every office building had one. The ladder wasn’t quite as long as he’d hoped, but the alarm box was fixed fairly low on the wall and he could just reach it. The unit was sealed to prevent it from being disabled. But with a bit of muscle power and the aid of a crowbar, he managed to lever a small opening in the case. He sprayed the contents of a can of insulating foam into the box until it leaked out. Then, with red electrical tape, he covered the alarm light as neatly as he could. Of course, it was possible the alarm was linked to the local police station. But even if it was, they’d send a cop round and when he didn’t see a flashing light or hear a deafening clanging, he’d probably just shrug it off. He would if he was like any of the cops who’d worked for Strumbić.

  Strumbić got down and slid the ladder behind some rubbish bins before admiring his handiwork. Unless they looked hard, they wouldn’t be able to tell there was anything funny about the alarm light. And the damage to the box was negligible.

  The question now was how he was going to get in. The windows were all barred. The back door was metal with a metal frame built around it. But there was enough of a gap to get a sharp edge in where the latch was. It was crude, but a good push with a crowbar would snap the emergency lever on the inside and pop the door open. He’d be able to use the same method on the interior doors as well.

  With the crowbar hidden behind a Dumpster alongside the rest of the tools, Strumbić headed off to find something to eat.

  He found a steak restaurant in Soho. It looked like a bordello, furnished almost exclusively in red velvet, and was almost completely empty even though the street outside was heaving with tourists, drunks, locals, freaks. The whole world was there.

  Strumbić took a window seat, from which he watched a couple of black women standing against a wall slightly apart from each other on the opposite side of the road. They were engaged in a running conversation broken frequently by comments to passing punters and the occasional thigh-slapping laugh. They were tall, built like Amazons, huge chests and bottoms stretching their tight leather skirts. The whole while they watched him watching them, giving him beaming smiles. As he finished his well-done rib-eye and baked potato, he threw them a wolfish look and they sauntered across the road. They joined him in his booth by the window. The restaurant’s management didn’t seem to mind.

  “You looking like you could use some company, honey.”

  “You could get two for the price of one, tonight only, honey. Aren’t you going to offer us a drink?”

  “What you want to drink?” he asked in his cartoon accent.

  “Oh, you foreign.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Russia.”

  “Russia. We love Russia.” One of them called the bored waiter over. “Three black Russians for us, honey.”

  “Anything else?” the waiter asked.

  “Three more,” said the other Amazon. “Our white Russia friend love black Russians. So long as the black don’t be rushin’ too much. Honey, we be nice and gentle and slow.”

  They threw themselves into a conversation Strumbić understood only half of, maybe less once he’d downed the cocktails. But there was no confusing the message on either side. He had time. He wouldn’t go back to the estate agency until later. He had a whole evening to kill. All that was left was to negotiate a price for two hours and all the frills.

  As a cop, he knew the risks of being rolled by prostitutes when the punter took on more than one. It wasn’t so much the women who represented the risk but the fact that one could keep him occupied while the other opened the door for the pimp, who’d usually come in packing a gun. But he was confident the hotel would do a good job of keeping out any unsavoury characters. Other than the ones brought in by guests. Besides, he’d hidden most of his money, only keeping handy enough to have a good time.

  “You one rich Russian,” the taller, more buxom one said as she wandered through his bedroom suite.

  The other one cracked open the bottle of champagne from the mini-bar fridge. Strumbić sat on the sofa drinking the fizzy wine as they danced for him to music with an electronic beat piped in through the hotel system. One then pulled his shoes and socks off as the other did a striptease, exposing her pneumatic chest. The girls were down to their leather skirts, dancing, kissing each other, when he decided to join the fun. He got behind one, pulled her skirt up, and pulled down on her thong, reaching around.

  He wished he hadn’t. For a moment, he was confused. Very confused. He knew what it was but not why it was there. He jumped back as if it’d bit h
im. He’d been feeling up a man. Through his horror, all he could think of was getting hold of the Beretta, which was hanging up under his jacket in the cupboard.

  He flew into a rage, but before he could do anything he regretted, the transvestite hookers did something he’d never have expected in ten lifetimes.

  They apologized.

  “We sorry, man. We thought you looking for our type of fun. Hanging in Soho in a boiler suit, we thought you gay. We don’t be charging you. Be cool and have a good night.”

  They were big. Much taller than him and, he saw now, muscled. But they held their hands up and made to leave, as if it had all been a misunderstanding. He hadn’t even shown them the gun.

  Strumbić didn’t hold grudges. And he could see the funny side of things. They were so solicitous of his feelings, blaming themselves for not making it clearer what was happening, that their regret shone through even his poor English and their West Indian accents. He’d never seen or heard anything of the sort. Normally, outraged punters get beaten up by the transvestites, who then clean him out. Or the transvestite demands the agreed-on fee and ends up getting shot or bludgeoned.

  But never, ever had he heard of an amicable apology and willingness to go without payment, or even to find someone who might suit him better so that they could all party together.

  Which was what they did. One went down to the hotel bar and picked up a couple of normal, good-looking hookers. And they all had a party. They ordered more booze — much more booze. One of the real girls had some decent white powder, whatever it was. He paid for the lot. It wasn’t a cheap night, though he wasn’t exactly sure quite how expensive. Didn’t matter. This was exactly why he wanted to move to London. To do stuff he couldn’t even begin to imagine doing in Zagreb.