by Alen Mattich
“I meant you being the right man to get us to Mr. Djilas, of course.”
“Of course. Oh, before I forget. No guns. Even if you were to get one past the border police, his people would find it. And they wouldn’t be happy about it.”
“Who said anything about guns? We’re just going for a chat.”
• • •
They went for a swim in the afternoon after talking to Strumbić, who seemed to be enjoying the Argentina. He’d also had some success digging up information on the Montenegrin.
Rebecca wore her loose cotton shift down to the quay. The material was translucent, patterned with bleached red and white vertical stripes. Which was why della Torre saw she was naked underneath, even before she stripped it off and dove into the sparkling water.
Della Torre sat on the stone and watched Rebecca for a long while, until she gave him a quizzical look and swam up to the jetty. She held onto the hard edge, resting her chin on the back of her hands, lazily kicking her legs behind so that he could see the small of her back and the firm white roundness of her ass.
“What?”
“You know, I don’t know anything about you,” he said.
“So what do you want to know about me?”
“Anything. I don’t know if you’re married. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure of your name.”
“My name’s Rebecca. And I’m not married. I was, but it didn’t last long.”
“Who do you work for?”
“The U.S. government.”
“Which part?”
“Does it matter? It doesn’t matter what my boss’s first name is or the size of my office or the address of the building I’m based at. None of that matters. I work for the U.S. government, just like you work for the Croatian government now and used to work for the Yugoslav government.”
“I suppose so. What do you do for them?”
“What you see me doing.”
“You hunt and kill men.”
“I’m given a job and I do it.”
“Those Bosnians weren’t the first men you’ve killed, were they.”
“That a question or a statement?”
“A statement.”
“So what’s the question?”
“Do you like it?”
“Do I like it? I do it. You ever ask Djilas that question?”
“No. But what makes you do it?”
“I’m American and I love my country. I’m from a military family. Not one of those fucked up military families but one that works. My parents are still married and nobody’s an alcoholic. I’m the first woman in my family to have been in the military. I was taught to shoot by my grandfather, who bought me my first gun when I was six. It was a .22 rifle with a shortened barrel and a pink stock. My grandfather died a couple of years ago. He was eighty-six and hunting alligators the week before he died. He had an annual bag limit, 160 alligators, and every year he filled it with 160 shots.
“My father was in the Marines and stayed with the Marines even after he retired. My mother was a Marine’s daughter, a Marine’s granddaughter, and a Marine’s wife, and she never complained about the life she was given. She had three children. The two boys died when they were little, one drowned and another got meningitis, both before I was born, so you can feel sorry for my parents but not for me.
“When I went into the Marines, my mother knew it was something I had to do. Because it was what she’d have done when she was young if her parents had allowed her to. The Marines sent me to university and they told me they wanted me to learn engineering and Russian, and that’s exactly what I learned. And then the Marines told me that they wanted me to work for another part of government, and that’s what I did too. Understand, Major Gringo?” She said it in a matter-of-fact way, but with a smile that left him unsure of what to believe. Maybe it was true.
“I understand,” he said. “What’s your rank?”
“I don’t have a rank.”
“When you left?”
“Well, I happened to be a major too,” she said. There was a levity to her tone, an irony. Maybe it was because she knew she could control men and enjoyed doing it. She stared at him with a gently ironic look until he had to turn his eyes south across the water and then towards the mainland.
“We’ll be wishing Mr. Strumbić a fond farewell,” she said eventually.
“Oh?”
“Yes. I think it’s time he went back to Zagreb. We’ll see what he happened to find for us first though.”
“You don’t seem too sad about it.”
“About not seeing Julius again? Why should I be sad?”
“You seemed to have developed quite a . . . rapport.”
“Sex, you mean?” She laughed. “He’s half man, half pig, and all dog. I won’t miss him.”
Della Torre’s look of disquiet at her cruel description stayed her.
“That’s just Strumbić. Don’t worry, I don’t say the same about you.”
“No?” he asked.
“No. You’re a lot like your father. A lot.”
His shock at what she’d said was palpable. She laughed and dove under the water, surfacing next to him, grabbing him by the leg, her breast brushing against his foot. “That’s not a bad thing, by the way. It’s a good thing.”
“Thanks,” he said, not the least mollified.
He pushed himself off the edge, pushing past her brusquely, sliding into the water, where he stayed under for long strokes, plunging so deep that he risked running his belly across the black sea urchins, their needles pulsing as they moved across the stony sea floor. He surfaced, slightly dizzy from holding his breath.
“Bravo,” she called. “Must be some kind of record there. Thought I’d be fishing you out with a hook.” She swam over to him. “I’m a little bit curious about something.”
“What?” he asked coldly.
“Those shooters. Strumbić told me those weren’t the first Bosnians out to get you. A man with a hard-on can’t keep secrets. A couple followed you to London.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Said you upset somebody, stealing files from your employer. But it wasn’t your employer that put the hit on you. Somebody else did. Who was it?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. I’m not sure they were just after me. They probably didn’t like Strumbić either.”
“But it had nothing to do with the Montenegrin?”
“No. I doubt it,” della Torre said. He was being truthful, if evasive. There was no need to tell her about Pilgrim, about the Bosnians who’d been after him earlier in the year, or that these Bosnians almost certainly had been trying to finish the job on Strumbić, if not him. She might know already. She seemed well informed about everything. But he didn’t feel like discussing it with her.
“Good. That was why we’ve been hanging out here for the past week. I wanted to make sure nobody else was following us. A little island like this is a good place to keep an eye out for enemies. As long as you’re well prepared,” she said, treading water.
“In that case it looks like we’re in the clear.”
They pulled themselves back onto the stone jetty, where they let the warm morning sun dry them — her naked, him in his small, tight swimming shorts from when he’d been a teenager, which felt even more constricting than they normally did. The sea shimmered like a sequined dress. The mainland looked bare, the white and grey stone mottled with drab greens and burnt yellow browns. It had been a dry summer. He tried to avoid looking at her, but couldn’t. Knowing she was a killer and a practised whore, however she justified herself, made no difference.
“But the real thing I wondered about was that boy. The Bosnian boy,” she said.
Della Torre froze. “What Bosnian boy?”
“One
of the ones who was shooting at us, the one you chased. Why did you let him go?”
She knew.
“He got away. Too fast for me. I smoke too much,” he said. He could feel his heart hammering in his throat.
“For a smoker, you seem to have some decent lung capacity.”
“Good genes, I suppose.”
“You see, when I went back to the woods, I found where you’d had him. Up by the cliffs. There were some bloody handprints on the stone. Must have cut himself trying to climb.”
Della Torre listened, not moving a muscle.
“He seemed to get up to a certain height and then come down. There was what looked like a couple of bullet marks in the stone, but it’s always hard to tell. He must have passed you when he came down.”
Della Torre didn’t answer.
“I tracked him through the woods. Wasn’t hard. Got to a hayfield after that. Very easy to follow a path through a hayfield. I didn’t chase after him. But you know what? He’d stopped. Must have been sick. He was bent over. More than half a mile away, probably closer to three-quarters. The range on these rifles is only half a mile. If I’d started running after him, he’d have heard and bolted, and you don’t want to have been running if you’re going to be doing long-range shooting. Be lucky to hit anything farther than a hundred yards.”
The hollowness he’d begun to feel dissipated, and della Torre breathed a bit more easily. She dressed, pulling the shift over her head. She put on her broad-brimmed sun hat and her big sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes.
“So you came back then,” he asked, trying to sound disinterested.
“There was a useful rock, perfect height above the ground, and I thought it would be a real shame not to try. I mean, what the hell, eh?”
“Yes?” Della Torre shuddered involuntarily, though the air was still and warm and the water had mostly evaporated off his skin. She sat next to him, naked under the gossamer-thin shift, which clung to her skin as it dried.
“I missed,” she said.
Della Torre’s elbows trembled behind him, almost giving way with relief.
“I missed twice,” she said. “But then he stood up and looked back. Bullets probably passed close to him and he must have heard them. That’s when I got him. There was no wind, but even then it was a lucky shot. Middle of the belly. Once he was down it was easier for me to get another bullet into him. He’d fallen on a little rise. Took me a few tries to range it properly. But it’s a terrific scope. I thought about walking over to make sure, but even if he wasn’t dead straight away, there was no way he was going to last, and I thought it best to get out of there. It was too far for us to drag him back, so I guess it’ll be a mystery for the local cops to solve.”
Della Torre got up, numb and unsteady, the stone hot underfoot. Without a word he turned and walked back up the hill to the house, feeling like Jason fleeing the horror of Medea.
They arrived at the Hotel Argentina just before lunch. A large pink stuffed toy bear sat at one end of the reception counter, where any other hotel might have had a vase of flowers. Shaking off Communism was one thing, but eliminating Communist kitsch was going to be a higher order of struggle. Della Torre and Rebecca checked into separate rooms, after which he went down to the terrace and found Strumbić attached to a bottle of beer.
“Julius, you seem a contented man.”
“Gringo, I am, I am. Rebecca not with you?”
“She’s unpacking or something.”
“It’s been a thoroughly satisfying couple of days. Found a friend from Zagreb to keep me entertained.”
“A retired cop?”
Strumbić laughed. “A working girl. She’s on the game in Zagreb except during the holidays, when she comes down here. I get professional courtesy rates.”
“Is that better than wholesale? Thought that part of your life had been happily organized in Šipan.”
Strumbić looked around before continuing. “Tell you the truth, our redhead scares me.”
“I don’t want details.”
“Performance flags when you feel that from one minute to the next somebody might shove a loaded gun up your ass.”
“And I thought you were having fun.”
“Well, you know, I had to make a stand for the masculine gender, but truth be told, I felt like I was the woman in that particular relationship. Nice to be reminded of how things ought to be over the past couple of days.”
“Good hotel?”
“I could get used to it. Menu’s got a bit of variety too, so you aren’t stuck with either meat on a stick or squid that’s come frozen on a slow boat from the South Atlantic. I don’t know why more places don’t just do fish out of our sea.”
“That’s because there aren’t any left.”
“You might be right. Still, it’s been good. Found out some interesting stuff. Could be lucrative interesting stuff. Your Canadian friend Higgins isn’t the dumb cowboy he looks.”
“Shame you’ll be on the next plane back to Zagreb.”
“The fuck I will.”
“It’s not me saying it.”
“Ah, Rebecca,” Strumbić said, looking over della Torre’s shoulder.
“Julius,” Rebecca said. “Looks like a couple of days in a luxury hotel suits you.”
“Is good,” Strumbić said.
“So, what have you found out about our Mr. Djilas?” she asked, joining them at the table.
“Interesting things.”
“And you’re going to tell us?”
“Gringo says I going back to Zagreb.”
“I’m afraid so.” Rebecca unpeeled a stick of Wrigley’s gum and folded it into her mouth.
“I take some holiday, I stay.”
“I’m sorry, Julius. But my budget doesn’t stretch to any more time in the Argentina, and Marko and I will be too busy to have roommates.”
“Is okay. I pay.”
“Sorry. There’s a plane ticket for Zagreb with your name on it. You’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning. Your Colonel Kakav is expecting you back. We’ve locked up Šipan for you. I’ll send the keys back with Marko, in case we discover we’ve forgotten something there. We’ll make sure your motorboat is sorted out,” she said. “So, tell me about Djilas.”
Strumbić gave Rebecca a look that would have bled her dry if it’d had a handle and blade. “I’m sorry, I find so little out. I stay. I think I take holiday here.”
“Oh, shame, really,” she said, chewing her gum. “It’ll be awfully hard to unfreeze that British bank account you have.”
Strumbić flashed della Torre an angry look, but della Torre gave an almost invisible shrug and shake of the head. He hadn’t told her anything.
Rebecca looked at a printed roll of fax paper she had pulled out from her leather case.
“Oh, sorry, I’m mistaken. This can’t be your account. It’s in the name of Mr. Julius Smirnoff. Forgive me, Julius. There’s an awful lot more money here than a policeman would ever be able to earn, even a policeman with a villa on the sea and a country house and a couple of apartments in Zagreb. I guess then there’s nothing I can do to stop you from staying. Have a great holiday.”
Strumbić knew he’d been cornered. Smirnoff was the name he used to hold his English account. Only della Torre and Harry Martingale knew. Only della Torre could have told Rebecca.
Strumbić lit a cigarette and pulled a little notebook bound in creased dark blue leather out of his back pocket. “He have nice house in village on Bay of Kotor, big ground. He always have two or three men at house.” His words were hard and cold.
“Even when he’s away?”
“Always. Cousins of him, live in village. All village is cousins of him, four hundred cousins. He pay for ambulant . . . how say . . .”
“Clinic,” della Torre intervened.
“Y
es, doctor clinic in village, have good school, is rich village. He have twenty men from village work for him and twenty or thirty more men from other villages. Not work for him all time, but do little jobs and have guns. He afraid of Belgrade government. He have many friends in different militias in Montenegro, but Yugoslav National Army not so much. They mostly from Belgrade.”
“So he has a big, strong network,” she said, though none of it seemed to surprise her.
“Yes.”
“What does he do with all these men?”
“Many around Kotor Bay watching. Like army, Montenegrin’s army. They also go fishing. He have one big, one little fishing boat and village have ten more small and medium fishing boat.”
“Fishing?”
“Fishing. They go to Adriatic, find big boat, take drugs, go and take drugs to Italy. Or they get drugs from Albanian mafia and take to Italy. Bari and near Bari. Get paid, lira and Deutschmarks. Good money for business.”
“Do they sell drugs here too?”
“Maybe little in Dubrovnik, but most go to Italy.”
“Anything else?”
“They get guns from Yugoslav army or big boats from China and sell to people in Italy. To people in Croatia and Montenegro too.”
“Sounds like a good living.”
“Is better than work for police,” Strumbić said with a shrug.
Rebecca cocked her eye at him. “So what is his home life like?”
“He have two daughter. One live in village and one in Vienna. Grown.”
“Three,” said della Torre.
“Three?” Strumbić said, caught off guard by this gap in his knowledge.
“There’s a young one too. Lives with him. She has problems; her mother had complications at birth and died. The girl is . . .” Della Torre shrugged. How many years had it been since he’d seen the little girl? He’d brought her a soft toy, but it had been painful watching her trying to grip it. She had little control of her movement. She made sounds. Her father said she spoke to him; he said her mind was clear, that she was funny and a good conversationalist if you had patience. Della Torre wondered if it was true or if the Montenegrin was deluding himself, wishing something into reality.
