Zagreb Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page A

How the hell do I know what they wanted to do with you?”
    “Maybe because you set me up.”
    “I didn’t set you up. What happened was these guys wanted to talk to you and I . . . I arranged an introduction. That’s it.”
    “Is that why you were sitting here with a gun on your lap? You knew they’d be back for you.”
    “Thought crossed my mind.”
    “D’you really think you’d be able to fight them off with that?” Della Torre pointed at Strumbić’s handgun with the toe of his shoe.
    “Gringo —”
    “Julius, please just answer my questions.”
    “Okay. Look, I thought they might be a little crooked so I was playing it safe. It’s one of my failings. To be suspicious. So I figured if they came back I might take a little walk in the woods and then call some of my colleagues from the village.”
    It wouldn’t have taken Strumbić long to disappear in the forest. He could have made it to the village on the valley floor in a quarter of an hour with the aid of a small flashlight. Any stranger following him ran the risk of missing the path and falling into one of the hill’s steep gullies, breaking a leg or a neck.
    “So you’d have had the terrorist squad bottle them up here on the hill and then pick them off.”
    “You’ve got to have contingencies,” Strumbić said apologetically.
    “Nice. You’d figured out how to double-cross them just as they were double-crossing you.”
    “Only if they came back to bother me.” Strumbić shrugged. “It came to me that those Bosnian boys might have wanted to tidy things up a little. It’d have saved them some money, and what could be neater than making it look like you and I had shot each other? I mean, if that’s what they were looking to do. Which I doubt. Like I say, I’m sure they only wanted to talk to you. But if they didn’t, well, Zagreb cops and the UDBA have never been the best of friends.” He paused, giving della Torre a cringe-making smile. “Us excepted.”
    “Makes me well up to think of what a good friend you’ve been,” della Torre said, deadpan. “So why’d you do it?”
    Strumbić looked pained.
    “Why’d you set me up? What was in it for you?” della Torre pressed.
    “Why do you think I did it? To gain personal advantage? Why do you always think the worst of people?” Strumbić said, his expression showing deep hurt.
    “Because that’s what you’re like, Julius. How much did you sell me for?”
    “Gringo, really, it was never about the money. I swear on my grandmother’s grave.”
    “Your grandmother was alive last I heard, and if I remember right you don’t care much for her. How much?”
    “I can honestly say that I did not do it for money. I did it because I had no choice. It was me or you. Probably would have been both me and you. I figured this way at least one of us would have been okay. Just by accident that happened to be me.”
    “Spill.”
    “The money was incidental.”
    “Julius, will you just give me a straight answer before I decide to shoot you out of frustration and malice?”
    “Fifteen thou, give or take.”
    “Dinars?” Della Torre was puzzled. Like most people he still thought in terms of the old dinars, before they knocked four zeros off the bank notes to pretend the currency wasn’t becoming worthless by the day. Fifteen thousand wouldn’t have bought a loaf of bread. On the other hand, fifteen thousand new ones — well, that was real money. For at least a week or two, anyway.
    “Dinars? Who talks dinars these days unless you’re buying a newspaper or a packet of sweets? Deutschmarks.”
    Della Torre nodded. That was a decent-sized price on his head. He worked it into dollars — about ten thousand as near as he could make it.
    “Who wants to pay fifteen thou to kill me? Put a bum in an old Yugo and they could have run me over for the price of a bottle of booze.”
    “Gringo, don’t sell yourself so cheaply. I wouldn’t have taken a penny less. I value you too