Zagreb Cowboy

by Alen Mattich

  Serbia was changing too, just like Croatia was. The nationalists were also running the show there. The old cadre who’d helped Tito build a Communist Yugoslavia from the ashes of the Second World War had been sidelined everywhere. Even the Yugoslav army barely clung to the Yugoslav ideal. Every day it became more and more an instrument of Serb nationalism.

  What had he done to nettle the old Yugoslav Communists?

  Della Torre figured they’d used the Bosnians because the UDBA had made a fine art of integrating criminals into the secret service, hiring them as assassins and agents. Old habits . . .

  Pilgrim. Swedish centrifuges. The Montenegrin. That’s all he had in his little notebook. The centrifuges were cylinders like big pipes, two metres or so in length, shipped to Belgrade in their thousands during the mid-1980s. From Belgrade, they’d been sent on abroad, only he couldn’t recall where to, if the files had even mentioned it. It was only because the file had been connected to the Montenegrin that he’d noted it, collected it, added it to his curiosities. What the Montenegrin had to do with it wasn’t clear, just that he’d been involved with something called Pilgrim and Pilgrim had something to do with centrifuges.

  He was a strange curiosity, the Montenegrin. A thorough, utterly ruthless professional killer. Sometimes he was subtle, slowly reeling in his quarry with the right bait, placed perfectly on the right hook.

  Della Torre had been the hook when, more than a decade earlier, they’d first met in London.

  What had the Montenegrin said? “You work for the prosecutor’s department. As an officer of the Yugoslav state, you have some responsibilities. I have one for you to discharge. There is a man called Svjet who goes to the Croatian Mass at the Brompton Oratory on Sunday mornings. Go to the service. Get to know him. You don’t need to record anything; just make sure he gets to know you and trust you.”

  He dared not ignore the UDBA man.

  So he met Svjet. Got to know him and his family. The old man had married late because of the interruption to his life — seven years on Goli Otok. He could be tedious about politics, but drag the conversation away from the Church and Croatia and he changed. He was full of humour and insight into film and art and books. He played the viola and performed duets with his daughter on the violin.

  When, at the end of the academic year, della Torre had to go back to Zagreb, the Montenegrin came to see him again, handing him a package. Papers, he’d said, about Bušić’s killing. Give them to Svjet.

  Della Torre hastily arranged a meeting with the old man. Nothing could have kept Svjet from coming. Ante Bušić had been a close friend, another dissident writer and also part of the Croatian Spring movement. He’d been killed in Paris by the UDBA a couple of years before. Svjet had more than once told della Torre how he reminded him of a younger Bušić. Maybe his fondness for della Torre had really just been nostalgia.

  Years later, when he left the prosecutor’s office and joined Department VI, della Torre became reacquainted with the Montenegrin. Though now the Montenegrin wasn’t just an UDBA agent but also the head of the wetworks operation.

  With the job came the opportunity for della Torre to look into the UDBA file on Svjet, though he’d long suspected what had happened. He’d been coaxed to Trieste by the package della Torre had given him about Bušić. He’d been picked up there by UDBA agents, people who worked for the Montenegrin. Svjet had been taken back to Belgrade. And then he’d disappeared. The file said nothing more. But it didn’t need to. It had been the story of many other dissidents. Kidnapped and disappeared.

  As far as he knew, Svjet’s wife and daughter still lived in London. As far as he knew, they’d spend their lives wondering. He’d never spoken to the Montenegrin about it. It was never one of della Torre’s cases.

  There was a certain irony to his present circumstances. He’d spent years hunting down the UDBA’s killers. Now he was the hunter hunted. His big hope was that Croatia would win her independence. Soon.

  He’d walked a big loop around the centre of Zagreb. The fine morning mist penetrated the city’s mood, leached right through him.

  He had to do something about the car. It was a shame; he was getting to like driving a BMW. But Anzulović was right — the minute Strumbić was free, he’d have every cop in Zagreb looking for it. Della Torre would offload the BMW after he’d had a bite to eat.

  There was a decent sausage stand at Černomerac, near the garage Anzulović had told him about. He drove there, parked just off the square, and bought a fat steamed kobasa, pinkish red and swollen to bursting out of the ends of its skin. It came with a thick slice of white bread and a dollop of hot, smooth mustard. He bought a third-of-a-litre bottle of Karlovačka beer and, briefly, thought about the Bosnians. He wondered if they’d been found yet and whether any of them had survived. Certainly not the swimmer.

  “Dead today.”

  “What?” della Torre said, startled out of his reverie by the sausage man.

  “I said it’s dead today. I mean, plenty of people around, but not a lot of business. I guess nobody eats anymore.”

  “The country’s on a diet.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s some that eat very well. All those Bosnian smugglers are onto a gold mine. They go south, they go north, but wherever they go, there’s a Deutschmark to be made. They keep the business pretty sewn up too. Try and muscle in and they plant you in the ground headfirst. I hear there’s whole fields of sprouting legs in the hills down south.”

  “Paints a picture. You seem to know a lot about it.”

  “Nah, just what I hear. Černomerac is where they all come through if they’re coming this way or going that way,” he said, pointing towards Bosnia. “Reason I mention it is because you look like you might be interested in something like that but might not know too much about how to set yourself up, if you know what I mean. For a consideration, I could acquaint you with people who could help make sure you don’t get hurt.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” della Torre said. “Soon as I leave the police, I’ll come straight to you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the sausage man said, suddenly wary. “I mean that — don’t mention it, and the sausage is on the house.”

  “Gee, thanks,” said della Torre. “But I distinctly remember having paid for it already.”

  “So you did, so you did.” The sausage man turned away, busying himself in the kiosk.

  Della Torre noticed that there were indeed many Bosnians about. All those slightly too short trousers, white socks, and dark shoes. Was there really a uniform? he wondered. He washed down the last bite of sausage with the beer and entered a stall that fringed the Dolac market. He picked up a cheap imitation leather shoulder bag, something to hold his passport, wallet, Beretta, and carton of Luckys minus a pack. He lit one and sauntered over to the BMW, which he’d parked within sight.

  He circled around a bit before he found the entrance he was looking for. It was a narrow, unmarked carriageway that ran through a late-nineteenth-century block of flats. Once through he was in a large courtyard with rickety wooden garages all along one side. He supposed they must have once been either stabling or cover for carriages and wagons. An old and very large walnut tree grew in the middle of the courtyard, and beyond it was a car repair shop. The courtyard was surrounded by five- and six-storey apartment buildings with the same thick walls, dormer windows, and red-tiled roofs as his own. They formed the perimeter of a rather large city block. Della Torre suspected there was another carriageway leading through the apartment block on the other side, though he couldn’t see it. Cars, mostly decrepit Zastavas and Yugos, littered the yard.

  Della Torre drove slowly around the walnut tree and stopped near the repair shop’s open entrance. Someone was standing in the mechanic’s pit, underneath a Citroën, hosing it with compressed air. Della Torre wandered into the oil-stained workspace, where he spotted a
man sitting at a desk in a corner office. He realized he’d forgotten the name of the man Anzulović had told him to talk to. He hadn’t even written it down. He cursed himself.

  The man looked up. “What can I do for you?” he asked between blasts of compressed air.

  “I wanted to talk to somebody about my car.”

  The man got up and moved close enough to della Torre to see that the car in question was a BMW. He was short, solidly built but not fat, and about ten years older than della Torre, with a big widow’s peak and watery blue eyes. A friendly-looking fellow.

  “I’m afraid we’re pretty booked up for repairs. Wouldn’t be able to see to your car for a couple of weeks, and then it might take a while to get parts. You know how it is. You’ve got to pay the suppliers with marks first, and then a week later they tell you they haven’t got it in stock and they have to order it from Germany. You might try the Mercedes garage on the Samobor road. They do all the German cars. Should be able to sort you out,” he said, edging back to his desk.

  “You must be the only people around with a full workload. Outside of the hospitals,” della Torre said.

  The man shrugged. “Lead a good, clean life and the Lord rewards you.”

  “I’m not really here to get my car serviced. Actually, I was told that you might be interested in buying it.”

  The man walked back towards della Torre, passed him, and did a little turn around the car.

  “Nice Beemer, good condition, what is it, last year’s model? I’d be tempted to buy it for myself if I had the money. But I don’t. And we only mend cars here.”

  “Shame, really. A friend of mine said he’d used your sales service and found it impeccable.”

  “That’s nice of your friend, but either he’s pulling your leg or you’ve got the wrong garage.”

  “Sorry I wasted your time. I’ll tell Mr. Anzulović that the garage no longer does the special service he promised me.”

  “Anzulović, you say?”

  “Yes, Anzulović.”

  “Colleague, is he? Or a neighbour? Or somebody you met in a bar?”

  Della Torre considered his answer and decided the truth was as good as anything.

  “I work with him.”

  “And what line of work might that be?”

  Della Torre was at a loss. He hadn’t expected this question and didn’t know how to answer it. Had Anzulović been on an official job here? Had he told them what he did or had he used some cover occupation?

  The man rubbed his stained hand against his overalls and pointed it at della Torre. Della Torre wasn’t sure what had happened.

  “My name’s Fresl. Come on in.”

  He shut the door behind him and signalled della Torre to sit. Della Torre offered Mr. Fresl a Lucky from his new pack, figuring the full ashtray on the man’s desk wasn’t just there as an objet d’art.

  “Thanks, but I prefer my own Player’s,” he said. “I can see from your inability to answer my question that you are in fact in Mr. Anzulović’s line of business,” he added, laughing. Della Torre was still none the wiser.

  “Not many people go around advertising that they’re secret policemen.”

  Della Torre smiled uncertainly.

  “If Anzulović sent you, either you’re sound or my number’s up. Not much I can do about the latter, but if it’s the former, we can do business.”

  And then it dawned on della Torre. Anzulović had been selling the UDBA’s official Mercedes to this outfit. And he’d been reporting them stolen to recoup more cash from the State insurer. It was one of the ways he’d managed to keep his staff paid. Another dangerous game.

  “We can do business.”

  “Great. So, you want shot of the BMW. Can I assume there is something, how shall I say this . . . tricky about the sale?”

  “You can assume it’s tricky. The car’s stolen.”

  “Ah. I like a man who doesn’t beat around the bush. Because if it was a legit sale, I was going to warn you that there are many places you could get a better price for it. Many, many places.”

  “I’d like to trade it in for something that is legit, has all the right documentation. If you have something.”

  The man thought hard. “I’ve got something, but unfortunately, it’s not the same calibre car.”

  “Does it run?”

  “Runs perfectly.”

  “Is it falling apart?”

  “Excellent nick.”

  “So what’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s a Renault 4.”

  “A Renault 4?” Della Torre was incredulous. He was offering to trade a BMW for a farmer’s runabout, a car even less fashionable than a Yugo, though he had to admit the Renaults were much better built. And with a top speed somewhere around seventy kilometres an hour and what were effectively motorcycle tires, it wasn’t much of a getaway car.

  “A Renault 4. But all the papers are pristine. They ought to be, it’s my car,” said Fresl.

  “A late-model BMW coupe for an ancient Renault 4 is hardly what you’d call a deal.”

  “Oh, I’d throw some money in too.”

  “How much?”

  Fresl thought for a little while and then said, “Two hundred thousand.”

  “I take it you’re not talking Deutschmarks.”

  Fresl almost choked with laughter. “That, my dear sir, is probably the funniest thing I’ve heard this month.”

  “So what am I supposed to do with two hundred thousand sheets of toilet paper?”

  “It’ll give your ass something to laugh at. I’m afraid, as a patriot, I can only deal in our country’s currency,” he said. “On the other hand, I can direct you to some bureaux de change that offer favourable exchange rates.”

  “I’m sure you can,” della Torre said sourly. Once he had been fleeced by the money-changers, he figured he wouldn’t get much more than two thousand marks. He doubted the Renault would be worth as much again. Clearly Fresl was taking advantage of him. He shook his head and thought, What’s the world coming to when people no longer respect even secret policemen?

  “Do I take it the deal is not agreeable to you?” Fresl asked.

  “No, it’s not that. Look, I’m not going to haggle. It’s not even my car, so hell, a Renault 4 and two hundred thousand dinars is more than I had this time yesterday.”

  “Excellent.” Fresl held his hand out and della Torre shook it again. But he stayed in his seat.

  “Just out of curiosity, what are you going to do with it?”

  “Ah, trade secrets.”

  “Come on. Who am I going to tell?”

  “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’ll put Greek plates on it —”

  “Greek plates?”

  “Sure. A guy drove up with a vanload of them and adequate blank paperwork to make the cars legit.”

  “Wouldn’t the Greek licensing people be able to cross-­reference against their records?” Della Torre reached over the desk to flick ash into the ashtray, but it just rolled off the heap onto the floor.

  “Greek records? You are pulling my leg. The Greeks make us look like Germans. As far as I can tell, the Greek licensing archives are a dry well into which they drop any official paper the goats won’t eat. As long as the documents are filled in properly and have the right stamps — and our van driver brought the right stamps — then the papers are legit.”

  “Won’t it seem suspicious when Zagreb is full of expensive cars with Greek plates?”

  “It would be if we resold the cars in Zagreb. But we don’t. We have drivers who take the cars up to Austria or Germany, where we sell them. The Germans take the Greek documents, change them into German documents, and presto, they’ve got legit cars and we’ve got Deutschmarks . . . which, we, ahem, change into our national
currency.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “So, before I forget how this works, let me run it back by you to make sure I understand. You take German cars we’ve imported. Put fake Greek plates on them. And sell them back to Germans.” Della Torre admired Fresl the way he might have admired a well-executed painting. Worth millions.

  “We’d do it with Zastavas and Yugos too, but for some reason the Germans prefer their own Mercs and Beemers. Volkswagens and Audis in a pinch. Opels aren’t worth the effort.”

  Della Torre shook his head again. Socialism might have been a crap system, but at least you knew where you stood. If you were one of the chosen, you got to choose. If you weren’t, somebody made the choice for you. Capitalism, on the other hand . . . well, it meant selling stolen German cars with Greek plates back to Germans.

  Fresl unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out a stack of dinars. Della Torre didn’t bother to count them. He handed Fresl the chain of Strumbić’s keys. Fresl separated the one for the BMW from the rest.

  “This one I can use. But until I figure out how to ship apartments from Zagreb to Munich, these keys you can have back.”

  Della Torre shrugged and put them in his pocket. He gave the BMW a fond stroke as he passed.

  “Nothing of yours in the car?”

  “Nothing.”

  “In that case, let me introduce you to your new love,” Fresl said, waving della Torre towards three cars that at first sight looked like abandoned wrecks. On second sight it was two wrecks and a red Renault 4.

  “You know how to drive these, with the gear lever on the dash?” Fresl asked as della Torre got in.

  “My father has one.”

  “So your father knows how to drive one. What about you?” He gave della Torre a big smile. Almost as if he felt bad about fleecing the secret policeman. “Key’s in the ignition. Every day I pray somebody will steal it. And what does God do? He replaces it with a Beemer.”

  “I see this has only half a tank of petrol. Any chance of topping it up as a way of thanking God?”