The Heart of Hell

by Alen Mattich

  He looked at his watch again. Just as well he wasn’t hungry. There wasn’t enough time to stop for an early dinner before getting the ferry. He wasn’t looking forward to the journey back.

  DUBROVNIK, SEPTEMBER 1991

  STRUMBIĆ’S TONGUE FELT its way uncertainly around his mouth, as though it was travelling an alien landscape. He was once again surprised by the jagged corner of the bicuspid two back from his left upper incisor. The gouge inside his left cheek was no longer hot and swollen but it itched and demanded to be prodded until the pain came back. The bitten flesh on the tongue itself had become a knot, lumpy and huge as it slowly healed.

  A sharp, pungent odour hit him. It took him a few seconds to realize it was his own clothes he smelled, his own stench. They hadn’t let him change his suit for . . . how long was it? Two weeks? No, more. At least he’d been allowed to shower in that time — a special privilege, as his jailers let him know. But Strumbić had a talent for getting things out of people.

  He’d been waiting in the interview room on his own for a good ten minutes before the detective showed up, carrying a case file.

  “So, Mr. Smirnoff, shall we try this again? Maybe a few days in the cells has cleared your head. Let some of those memories fall back into place.”

  Strumbić hadn’t met this cop before, the third one to interrogate him since his arrest. He was a few years younger than Strumbić, dark hair, medium height, and solid build. He wore a cheap suit, the tie hanging loose around his collar. A moustache followed the full length of his top lip. His stubbled cheeks, puffy eyes, and sagging expression spoke of very long nights. The detective didn’t seem dissolute, so it must have been work keeping him up.

  It was unconscionably early. Strumbić hadn’t even been fed breakfast yet. He’d had to be roused from his bed, though he wasn’t quite sure of the exact time. The clock on the wall was stuck on half past two. The first thing they’d done when they booked him was take his Rolex. He’d signed a receipt, but he was certain he’d never see it again. If he was lucky, they’d replace it with a cheap East German Timex knock-off. He knew how these things worked.

  “Okay, so, for the record, could we have your name again?”

  Strumbić hesitated, almost said “Julius,” and then remembered Josip.

  “Josip Smirnoff,” he said.

  “How is it that the only identification on you is a . . . what is this, a loyalty card for a British department store?” the detective asked, stifling a yawn. “What the hell’s a loyalty card?”

  “Well, Detective . . . I’m sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

  “It’s Brg. Mr. or Detective to you.”

  “Not from around here, then, Detective Brg?” Strumbić said.

  “Perceptive,” Brg replied. It wasn’t a conversation he was interested in having right then. “So where’s ‘Smirnoff’ from? Other than a bottle of vodka.”

  “Russian. I still have spiritual ties,” Strumbić said.

  Brg nodded, too tired to appreciate the wit. “You were explaining the . . . loyalty card.”

  “I’m loyal, it’s a good shop. Marks & Spencer. They do nice suits,” Strumbić said. “You should try them the next time you’re in England.”

  The wallet Strumbić took on his jobs only ever had cash in it. Not all criminals appreciated doing business with a cop. Explaining a lack of ID, when it came to it, was easier. The card must have been an oversight from when he’d been in London earlier that summer. Stupid.

  Brg rested his eyes on Strumbić. Yet another middle-tier crook. All Brg wanted to do was get home and go to bed, but he had to deal with this asshole first. He wished he hadn’t gone back to the office to drop off the documents from his Italian trip. He wished he hadn’t seen the prosecutor’s note sitting face up on his desk: You’ve run out of time on this guy. Charge him or let him go. This morning.

  They’d have done it two weeks earlier if he hadn’t somehow fallen through the cracks. If the arresting officers had taken proper interview notes. If somebody had been paying attention. Well, it was down to him. Quick interview and then a quick charge. Leave the rest to the prosecutors.

  “So maybe you can explain how it is you came to be in possession of two thousand compact discs and to be consorting with people who shoot at police officers?” Brg asked.

  Two thousand? Strumbić’s eyebrows climbed. It had been three thousand dockside. It seemed that a couple of Dubrovnik cops were richer not just to the tune of an expensive Swiss watch but also by a thousand pirated compact discs.

  A wave of regret washed over Strumbić. The scam had had so much potential. A Turk copied American rock and heavy metal CDs in Istanbul, packaged them with photocopies of their proper labels, and packed them into boxes. His associate took them up the Adriatic, along with other goods for other clients. Some Montenegrin fishermen picked up the cargo in international waters and delivered it to Strumbić at night in the mainland village. All Strumbić had to do was load them in his car and drive them up to Zagreb. He’d lined up buyers, quoted competitive prices to whet demand. Restricted his initial investment in case they were duff, but he’d had a good feeling about this line of business. He had generated interest in five times as many CDs as he’d ordered from the Turk.

  And then it went sour.

  How was he to know the Dubrovnik cops were staking out the village dock? Bad timing. The stakeout had nothing to do with him or the Montenegrins. The village was opposite a pretty island called Šipan, where, unbeknownst to him or anyone other than the local cops, there’d been a double murder a couple of days before. A pure coincidence.

  Though maybe not so coincidental. Strumbić had chosen this particular loading point because he knew the area well, and he knew the area well because he owned a villa on Šipan.

  The Montenegrin smugglers had shot at the cops and got away in their very fast boat. And Strumbić had been left flat on his belly, licking the salt off the stone breakwater as he tried not to get in the way of any passing bullets.

  Once things had calmed down, Strumbić’s first reaction had been to do what any Communist apparatchik did as a matter of course. Because that’s what he was. A senior detective on the Zagreb police force, recently seconded to Croatian military intelligence as a captain. High-intensity beams still on him, he jumped up and, as pissed off as a bear who’d lost his dinner, made ready to tear strips off the cops for ruining what he was going to tell them was an undercover sting operation.

  Only he didn’t get the chance.

  The cops were still shaking with anger, fear, and adrenaline over being shot at. And the bigger one of the two hit Strumbić hard enough to chip a tooth and knock him down onto the stone breakwater before he’d managed to say more than two words.

  By the time Strumbić got his jaw working well enough to string a comprehensible sentence together, he’d worked out that he was better off keeping his mouth shut. Better off praying the cops didn’t figure out who he was.

  “Two thousand?” Strumbić asked. He was surprised that only a third of the CDs had gone walkabout. Had the tables been turned, he’d have taken half. More, even. Leaving only enough to give the investigating prosecutor sufficient evidence for a smuggling conviction.

  “That’s how many my officers tell me were in the boxes,” Brg said, his look challenging Strumbić to contradict him.

  “Seems an awful lot,” Strumbić said mildly. “Didn’t think there was a big enough market for the things. On account of how nobody has any money these days.”

  “Couldn’t say. I’m not much of one for economics.”

  “Nor accounting, it seems.”

  Brg started to say something, but thought better of it. He took on a chillier formality. “So what were you doing with those CDs, Mr. Smirnoff?”

  “Me? Like I’ve been telling your colleagues, I had nothing to do with any CDs, Detective. I’d just been out
for a bit of night fishing and these gentlemen landed the boat and started unloading the boxes.”

  “An innocent who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what happened to your rod and reel?”

  “Must have fallen off the dock in all the excitement.”

  The detective paused to riffle through the thin file in the blue folder.

  “So you’re from Herzegovina, are you, Mr. Smirnoff? The Yugoslav army’s between here and there. How’d you get over?”

  “Hitchhiked. A tank stopped for me, said they were heading in this direction anyway,” Strumbić said.

  Brg nodded, cursing himself for expecting anything other than obstruction. There was a long silence. Brg’s eyes became slits. Sometimes cops did that because they thought it might catch the suspect off guard. Sometimes they did it because they were finding it hard to stay awake. Strumbić figured Brg was on his last legs.

  “And you didn’t tell us where you were staying in Dubrovnik, did you, Mr. Smirnoff.”

  “Hadn’t gotten around to finding a place. Nice of you folks to help out, though I don’t like abusing your hospitality. Shouldn’t you have charged me for something by now? Or let me go?”

  The police jail cells weren’t bad. It had taken Strumbić a couple of days to sort himself out, but he knew how cops operated, he knew the rule books, and, more than anything, he had a roguish charm that made people warm to him, do things for him they might not otherwise. Besides, anyone who owned a Rolex and wore a British suit was given the benefit of the doubt.

  It didn’t take him long to organize a private cell and decent food and even clean underwear, though he hadn’t managed to get his suit laundered yet.

  Life wasn’t bad. And it had been as good a place as any to stay safe, as long as he remained anonymous.

  “Bags?”

  “I travel light.”

  Brg stood up, walked around the desk, and perched on the corner. He must have seen that in a movie, Strumbić thought. Be friendly with the suspect. Coax a confession out of him. Or maybe it was the best way for him to keep from falling asleep.

  It was the opening Strumbić had been looking for.

  In a breach of interview protocol, Strumbić stood up too, catching Brg by surprise. Strumbić moved in a way that deliberately wasn’t threatening, shifting his limbs as if they creaked from the hard bed of the past couple of nights. A supplicant approaching the great lord.

  Strumbić knew that if he tried anything, the cop stationed just outside the interview room would finish the amateur dentistry his colleague had started the night he’d been arrested.

  Brg wasn’t alarmed, just taken aback slightly.

  Strumbić knew he had to work quickly, that he had maybe a minute before the detective put him back in his place. He took the detective’s hand, grasping it gently but refusing to let go. He used the pressure of two fingers on the inside of Brg’s wrist so that Brg swivelled slightly, opening up his body. As he did, Strumbić stepped deeper into Brg’s personal space, forcing the detective to rise up off the desk. All the while, Strumbić kept up an inane patter.

  “Detective, I know you’re a kind man, you’re so gracious in seeing me. I mean, someone of your seniority taking time over such an irrelevant little person like me, I know it will be no time at all before a man of your capabilities will be able to resolve the matter . . .”

  The fingers of Strumbić’s free left hand brushed the detective lightly, like a tailor taking pride in a suit he’d just fitted. Even above his own jailhouse stench, Strumbić could smell that Brg was a smoker. A heavy one. He hadn’t lit up yet, but it wouldn’t be long.

  What Strumbić was doing wasn’t so unusual in ordinary life, though maybe it wasn’t quite normal for the subject of a police interview. People in the Balkans often had a strange sense of propriety, needing to touch the person they were talking to, to get as close as lovers, especially when dealing in confidences.

  Strumbić continued to work quickly. Brg might be tired, but he was still a professional and didn’t seem stupid. Adrenaline sharpened Strumbić’s wits. He had thirty seconds left maybe. He lifted his forearm so that it hovered at Brg’s chest, not touching but close. Now he finally let go of the man’s right hand.

  Working, the whole while working, Strumbić’s fingers remembering everything they’d learned two decades before, when he was a rookie cop. The things he’d learned watching the street criminals and gypsies, interviewing them, standing them drinks in bars to draw out their secrets. And if they were recalcitrant, he’d make them talk by arresting them and threatening to break their fingers.

  Distract the mark’s attention. Shake his hand and keep hold of it while drawing closer, into his space. Use a forearm as cover to keep him from seeing what was happening. Keep the friendly, subservient chat going. Apologize for not being more helpful, tell him it was a misunderstanding. All the while, the hands move fast, lightly touching the mark, feeling pockets, patting his back.

  Not once during Strumbić’s brief performance did Brg show any sign that he realized what was really happening. Strumbić returned to his seat after less than the full minute. Brg, ever so slightly perplexed but not entirely sure why, returned to his side of the desk.

  “Detective, can I ask you a favour?” Strumbić said.

  “What?” A wariness had crept into Brg’s expression.

  “Could you spare a cigarette?”

  Brg gave Strumbić a look that said, You’re pushing your luck. But he clearly needed one too. The detective patted his jacket pockets. One side, then the other. He patted the front pockets of his trousers and then his jacket again. A cloud of consternation passed over his brow and then he stood up, patting himself over again.

  “I seem to have left them in my office. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Try anything stupid and the officer outside will have something to say about it,” Brg said, and left the room.

  Strumbić counted twenty seconds after the door shut and then reached forward for the phone on the interview table. He picked up the handset. It was for the cops to make internal calls only. But internal calls could be switched through to other police stations — it was one of the country’s few communication systems that actually worked properly.

  Strumbić called the Zagreb police department’s automated switchboard. Once he had a connection, he dialled the code to get an external line. And then, from memory, the private number he needed. Easy.

  The phone rang. And rang. Della Torre didn’t answer.

  Strumbić figured he had five minutes. Maybe ten at most. He held the phone to his good cheek with his shoulder, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a packet of Lords and a transparent orange imitation Bic lighter.

  Brg’s Lords and Brg’s cheap plastic lighter.

  As the phone continued to ring, he checked the contents of Brg’s wallet and took out a couple of thousand dinars, just in case he needed money to bribe the guards — he didn’t know how long he’d be the guest of the Dubrovnik police — but he left enough that Brg wouldn’t immediately suspect he’d been robbed, and then he flipped the wallet under the table, where it landed just under the detective’s chair.

  Strumbić had spent years perfecting his pickpocketing and lock-picking skills, which he had learned from the masters. Thieves as good as the Serb Borra, who’d become famous travelling around Europe in circuses, entertaining people with his magic: his ability to take watches off men’s wrists; ties from around their necks; hell, even glasses from their faces, without their noticing. Strumbić’s gypsies were just as good. Only for some reason they’d never managed to become as rich as Borra.

  Where are you, Gringo?

  He pressed down the receiver. He had to find somebody to get a message to della Torre. Anzulović? No, too risky.

  He dialled another number.
A squeaky voice answered.

  “Hey, doll, it’s Julius.”

  “Yes?”

  “Listen, it’s urgent. I need a favour from you.”

  “Julius? No one here by that name. I’m afraid you have the wrong number.” She hung up.

  “Bitch,” Strumbić said aloud, grinding the cigarette butt onto the linoleum floor. This time, he’d really sort her out. Like he’d done for her cop boyfriend. Even now it galled Strumbić to think how one of his own men, one of his own police officers, had been sleeping with his mistress in the secret little apartment Strumbić had set up for her. He gave her money and she’d done the dirty on him. Cretinous cow. And now she refused to help him.

  For some stupid, sentimental reason, he’d let her stay in the place after finding out her deceit. He was too soft. No, it was her tits that were too soft to give up. But Strumbić had made sure that the squaddie got busted down to traffic — and then, when cops were being transferred into the civil defence force, Croatia’s proto-army, that he was sent to the front line in Vukovar.

  He wouldn’t forgive her again, though. He’d sort her out properly this time. He’d put her back on the street, where he’d found her.

  His mental clock was ticking. Three minutes? Four, tops? There was one last chance. One last call. He had to make it count. He knew he had no other choice. He’d do it only as an act of desperation. Not just because he’d rather have his teeth knocked out with a chisel than talk to his wife, but because he knew they’d be monitoring his home phone.

  “It’s me.”

  “Where are you?” Her voice grated on him like steel on slate. “The light in the toilet has gone again, and all sorts of people have been trying to get in touch with you. Phoning non-stop. Constantly at the door.”

  “Listen. Take a message, will you.” He tried not to raise his voice, tried not to yell.

  “Minute you leave the apartment, that light stops working. What did you do to it? You rig it up to make me miserable, don’t you? Have to use candles. A month you’ve been gone, without a word.”