by Alen Mattich
“Is true?” Strumbić seemed doubtful.
“She stays at home. That’s why he invested so much in the local clinic. A nurse does therapy with her, but she doesn’t leave the house much. He doesn’t usually let people see her.”
“Shame,” Rebecca said.
“Are you saying it’s a shame or that he’s ashamed?”
“Course it’s a shame,” said Rebecca. “I was saying he’s probably ashamed to let people see her.”
“I don’t think so. I think he doesn’t want her to hear and be hurt by what people say. People in this country aren’t always delicate, especially about the handicapped. Before they learned better, the villagers used to ask why he bothered to let her live. In fact, that’s probably why she’s not more common knowledge. She’s officially registered as his housemaid’s daughter, in case something happens to him.”
Rebecca nodded. “So another daughter is in the house too?”
“No, other daughter live in village, is married,” Strumbić continued. “Old lady live in house too. She Djilas cousin, do cooking and cleaning. And woman comes from village to help cleaning.”
“The old lady is the housemaid,” della Torre said.
“What other security do they have?”
“You mean besides thirty armed men plus the local militia and police force?” Della Torre laughed.
“Yes.”
“Have two dogs on chain. Big dogs,” Strumbić said.
“So no burglar alarms or surveillance systems?”
Della Torre and Strumbić caught each other’s eyes.
“I think you might be confusing Montenegro with Washington, D.C.,” della Torre said. “They rely on people and relationships around here rather than technology. I bet he never locks his front door.”
“Do his guards live on site?”
“Is little house next to big house for when men stay there, but not same men all time, change. Mostly from village, but always two men stay during night and one more at day,” Strumbić said.
“He sounds like he’s worried about something.”
“Most men in his line of business have short lifespans. And it’s not because the work causes cancer,” said della Torre.
“I can imagine.”
“That’s why he moved back to the village. It offered him the best buffer. Strangers don’t often just show up, and when they do, they’re outnumbered and outgunned. He’s well connected to the Montenegrin power base. He keeps the local militias equipped and makes sure the local politicians drive German cars.”
“Sounds like a godfather.”
“A reasonable description. He put in the years in civil service, and these are his fringe benefits.”
“How old?”
“Fifty-four,” della Torre said. “But he looks younger than Strumbić here.”
Strumbić, who was barely forty, gave della Torre a baleful look and straightened.
“What about getting from here to there?”
“Militia at border crossing. Smugglers cross inland from Cavtat,” said Strumbić. “But problem is now also paramilitary from Belgrade there.”
Della Torre sat up. “Not just the Yugoslav National Army?”
“No, paramilitary come. Gorki wolfs. Is not very nice.”
“Gorki? I thought he was in Vukovar,” della Torre said.
“He here now.”
“Shit,” said della Torre. Gorki’s Serbian paramilitaries were spreading across the country like a poison. Hitherto, the Yugoslav government in Belgrade could argue that it represented the Yugoslav ideal, a single state formed of a number of nationalities for the wider socialist good of the southern Slavs. But as Gorki’s men became ever more prevalent and powerful, the Yugoslav fiction would fade and naked Serb hegemony would surface. The Serbs had a lot of long-lasting grievances against the Croats. Gorki here, in Vukovar, wherever, could mean only one thing. A return to the ancient blood feud.
“What?” Rebecca asked.
“Gorki is a very nasty piece of work. A criminal the Yugoslav secret service used to use in other countries.”
“You mean like the hit squads?”
“Something like that. Anyway, he’s got a band of paramilitaries. They’re Serb ultra-nationalists. Last I heard they were killing civilians near Vukovar. Maybe they’ve got plans for here. Not a nice bunch of people. They are best to be avoided. The name fits the man. Gorki means ‘bitter gift.’”
“It does in Russian too,” Rebecca said, indulging him with a brief smile.
“Sorry. Forgot you’d know that,” della Torre said. For a moment, he was tempted to tell her about Gorki’s grudge against the Montenegrin. The personal vendetta. Not that he was certain about much of it himself. But then, he thought, why complicate matters?
Rebecca looked at her watch. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, I have a prior engagement. Please don’t stand, I’m sure you have plenty to talk about.”
After Rebecca left, there was a long silence between the two men.
“It wasn’t me, Julius.”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance, Gringo. Both times.”
“Look, I don’t know where she gets her information, but she does. She probably didn’t need the stuff you got on the Montenegrin. Somebody’s kept her incredibly well informed. And it’s not me. She knew all about London and the Bosnians, the first Bosnians sent to kill me. I hadn’t told her a thing.” Della Torre tried to catch Strumbić’s eyes, but the cop had put on his mirrored sunglasses.
Long silence. And then Strumbić grudgingly said, “I might have mentioned something about it. She was curious after those pricks shot at us. Kept pestering me to tell her. Must have caught me at a weak moment.”
“I can imagine how weak that moment must have been. You were drunk and she was on top of you. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“Look, Julius. She is well plugged in and she isn’t a person to fuck with. She executed one of the Bosnians. Maybe two of them. Hell, maybe all three. Only one of them was an immediate danger to either of us. And it didn’t seem to me that she’d only just discovered killing doesn’t disagree with her.”
“She got her first rifle, a .22, when she was six.”
“Story sounds familiar,” della Torre said.
“Shortened barrel with a pink stock? I think she mentioned it as a warning, just in case I hadn’t noticed how good she is with a rifle,” Strumbić said.
“I guess she’s got a spiel. Sorry, Julius. If it’s any consolation, she’s got me by the short and curlies too.”
“Only thing to do is what you have to do when you get crabs. Shave ’em off and burn everything you touched. Including the mattress.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
• • •
Strumbić disappeared immediately after lunch to put his interesting business enterprise on ice until he could get back from Zagreb.
Della Torre was smoking on his own, drinking a Karlovačka beer, considering Rebecca, when a familiar face popped up.
“Marko.” It was the Canadian from the previous day.
“Hello . . .” della Torre said.
“Steve.”
“Steve,” he echoed, having forgotten the name.
“So you’re back.”
“For a couple of days only. How’s your hunt going?”
“Oh, it goes,” Higgins said. “I went up into the hills with my waiter friend. Scary. There are lots of militiamen around, irregular army types. It smells like they’re getting ready for something.”
“War, you mean.”
“I guess so.”
“How did you get across the border?”
“The usual. Showed my passport with a hundred-dollar bill inside.”
“They give you trouble?”
>
“Not too much. My waiter talked to them, told them I was a journalist and that he was a translator.”
“Did you have a visa?”
“You mean other than the one with Ben Franklin’s picture on it?” Higgins said. “Sure, but they didn’t bother to look. Just the cover of my passport and the colour of my money.”
Della Torre nodded. He was convinced that if the right people could be found and the right bribe offered, the whole war could be called off.
“You going across yourself?” Higgins asked.
“Maybe. I thought it might be pretty difficult.”
“Not if you’ve got a good guide and adequate paperwork. Dollars. Or Deutschmarks, probably. I’m not sure Canadian bills would have worked. My waiter told me that they’re mostly just a bunch of country boys. Everyone’s heavily armed, but they’re not professional border guards.”
“Which post did you go through?”
“The one near the airport.”
“Cavtat.”
“Yes, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it for most. My waiter seems to think they shoot at strangers, though they seemed to know him and his car pretty well.”
“They check his car documents?”
“I don’t think they even noticed him. Just my passport. And the cash.”
“Any other impressions?”
“My impression is that there are a lot of soldiers on that side, mostly paramilitaries, though they also seem to be mobilizing regular army in this direction. You could see some heavy artillery parked up. But it was a weird feeling. Not really threatening. But dangerous.”
“Strange. There’s nothing militarily strategic for the Serbs down here. Dubrovnik does tourists and nothing else. There aren’t any Serbs on this side either, so that’s not much of an excuse. Maybe they’re just collecting some Montenegrin and Bosnian troops with a view to advancing them north,” della Torre said, more to himself than the other man.
“Maybe. But I think I’ll stick around anyway. Like I say, it smells like there might be a story here. Besides, I feel like a holiday. It’s pretty nice here, especially now that all the tourists have been scared away. And there’s not much competition around. I’ve sold a couple of stories over the past week.”
“A couple of stories will cover your costs at the Argentina?”
Higgins shrugged. “Money isn’t everything.”
“Handy to know, thanks. You writing anything now?”
“Not yet. You know anything interesting?”
“Ever hear of a guy called Gorki?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“You will. He’s a Serb paramilitary with a criminal record across the whole of western Europe. Last week the rumour was that he was killing civilians by the Danube, up near Belgrade on the Croat border. This week it’s said he’s here.”
“In Dubrovnik?”
“The other side. Maybe some of the people you talked to were his.”
“Gorki, you say?”
“Gorki. It’s said he has a wolf, a real wolf, not a dog that looks like one. Keeps it on a chain and takes it with him wherever he goes.”
Higgins looked skeptical. “Wolves don’t much like being on a leash. You hear of people up in northern B.C. or Alaska who try to domesticate wolf pups. They don’t tend to stick around. But I’ll keep the name in mind.”
“Anything else new?” della Torre asked.
“Oh, nothing really. Except that your friend Horvat is here,” Higgins said.
“Horvat?”
“Saw him last night, he came to the hotel for dinner. Private room. Business.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. My waiter friend said there were some discussions about imports.”
“Like?”
“Guns, among other things.”
“Guns? He’s a deputy defence minister. Of course he’s looking to import guns.”
“I know. But like I say, he’s got a reputation for being canny. Plenty of smuggling goes on up this coast. I don’t know why a defence minister would want to be smuggling guns, unless he can get them at a low price and then sell them on to the government at a higher one. But that’s just a guess. A lot of that sort of stuff seems to go on around here. Turkish, Chinese, Egyptian, Lebanese boats go up the Adriatic, stop in international waters, then a fishing boat pulls up at night. That friend of yours who looks like a cop seems to know something about it.”
“Strumbić?” Della Torre bit his tongue. He paused for a beat. “What does he know about it?”
Higgins shrugged. “Ask him . . . Anyway, a colleague in Toronto says Horvat’s got a rep.”
“Rep?”
“Reputation. Raised money from the Croatian expats in the States and Canada. The U.S. State Department doesn’t like it because there’s an unofficial embargo on selling weapons to Croatia. They figure if Croats can’t get guns, there won’t be war. So everything’s got to be black market. And Horvat seems to be good at gun smuggling. You might ask around if the price is commensurate with the quality, though.”
“How the hell do your guys in Canada know this?”
“Because he told them.”
“Horvat told them?”
“Yes.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Nope. Told a reporter in Toronto when he was there on a fundraiser recently. Off the record. Said he was done buying Bulgarian crap. Even the criminals didn’t want it anymore. And that he’s getting good Chinese Kalashnikovs and Hungarian machine guns.”
“Mr. Higgins, it has been an enormous pleasure to get to know you.”
“Marko . . .”
“Della Torre.”
“Marko della Torre, the feeling is mutual. And I hope one day it’s as rewarding for me as it seems to be for you.”
“You are an exceptionally perceptive person, Mr. Higgins. I’m sure you will always know more than us mere plodders.”
“Mr. della Torre, in my line of business you starve if you’re stupid. Actually, you don’t starve. You go home and get a job selling insurance. Even so, we hacks can only ever write a tenth of what we know.”
“And the other ninety percent?”
“We trade for food.”
“In that case, it would be my pleasure to buy you dinner sometime.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Irena?”
“Marko, is that you?”
Della Torre was standing, staring out of the hotel window as he held the phone, surprised to hear her voice.
“You’re a hard woman to get hold of. How’s Vukovar?”
“It’s been busy.”
“Nobody seems to know you there, or if they do they never know where you are.”
“The doctors share the ambulance rotation, so I’m often out. And I hadn’t realized that this office is in the teaching wing and there’s not a lot of teaching going on.”
“Where are you living?”
“In the hospital. Honestly, it doesn’t make sense for me to spend time coming and going, so I’ve just made a little home for myself in the nurses’ dorm.”
“You’ll burn yourself out.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. Besides, I’m going to be in Zagreb for a few days next week.”
“Oh.” Della Torre felt something sink inside him. David really was coming. He’d been hoping the start of the war might have put off the British doctor.
“Look, Marko, I’m sorry. It’s not like you’ll ever stop meaning a lot to me. It’s not like I ever fell out of love with you. But you don’t want the life I do.”
“You mean operating on bullet wounds while you’re being shelled by Serb guns?”
“We’re fine. Vukovar’s fine. They’ve been shelling the villages but we’re okay.”
“He going to go out
there with you?”
“I told you, he’s coming out to train some of the doctors here.”
David Cohen had pulled the bullet out of della Torre’s elbow. Maybe he should be more grateful.
“He’s going to spend his holiday operating on people?”
Irena laughed. “Funny thing is, he’s not allowed to work here. He’s restricted to lecturing.”
“You mean gunshot wounds in Croatia are different from ones in London?”
“Blame the bureaucrats.”
“He must be pretty keen to see you if he’s willing to go to a war zone.”
“He says that he might do a bit of research while he’s here.”
“I can just imagine the sort of research he’ll be doing.” Della Torre tried to say it with a certain levity, but it sounded more bitter than funny.
“Don’t be like that, Marko.”
“I might be back in Zagreb then. Maybe I’ll look you up.”
“Come for dinner.”
“Do you remember last time?” he said, hopeful of igniting some small longing in her, hoping that stumbling night of painkillers and booze and exhaustion not so many weeks before had meant something to her. Even if nothing had happened between them. Had it? He sat back on the bed.
She ignored him. “How’s Dubrovnik?”
“The way down was a bit rough.”
“I heard the traffic jams have been awful.”
“Deadly, you could say.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing. But the rest has been a holiday. It’s strange. I’ve been made almost entirely redundant. Just waiting to be told what to do.” He stared out the window, watching the black clouds build, reminded of that day he’d met Horvat in Vukovar. When the heavens opened on him. How long ago had it been? A lifetime squeezed into a couple of weeks. The rough polyester bedcover scratched the backs of his thighs.
“Isn’t that what the army’s meant to be like?”
“I suppose it is. I keep forgetting I’m back in the army,” he said.
“The boys here say it’s ninety percent boredom and irritation, and ten percent sheer, mind-freezing terror.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Well, I hope it’s all nice, sunny boredom for you.”
