Killing Pilgrim (27 page)

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.

“Yes, 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.

“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.”