The Heart of Hell by Alen Mattich Read Free Book Online Page B

from a traffic beat, Anzulović had created a smart and solid team.
    There was something deeply paternal about Anzulović. But della Torre reminded himself that his old boss had survived so long for a reason.
    Anzulović rubbed his hand over his face, and della Torre inadvertently did the same. Even now the absence of his moustache, which he’d shaved off earlier in the year, caught him by surprise.
    “Gringo, just a bit of advice: lay off the political jokes. Our masters are touchy. And they’re keeping tabs.”
    “I’ll bear it in mind,” della Torre said. “But we didn’t come out here just for you to tell me to shut my mouth.”
    “No, I want to ask you what happened in Dubrovnik.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m curious about what you’re going to tell the Americans.”
    “You read my reports,” della Torre said, shifting slightly. Their coffees arrived. Della Torre spooned sugar into his double espresso and lit a cigarette.
    “And if they were satisfied with what you gave them, why do you think they want to talk to you?” Anzulović pressed.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Are you about to tell me I need a lawyer?” della Torre said. He made it sound like a joke, but the levity fell flat.
    Anzulović considered the question for a long moment. “I think it’s fine for now. Shall we go over what happened?”
    Della Torre dragged on his cigarette. He felt the urge to talk. Anxiety had slowly been consuming him over the weeks. “Are you asking as an interested friend or as a cop?”
    “Gringo, when haven’t I ever been both?” Anzulović sighed. “Look, I’ve been asked — informally, mind you — to supervise the case. From our end. Rubber-stamp whatever it is that comes my way, for want of anybody else fit and proper to do the job.”
    “Horvat gave you authority?” della Torre asked, incredulous. The deputy minister had a deep antipathy for Anzulović, resenting his lack of zeal for the nationalist cause.
    “No, Horvat gave authority to Messar. But seeing as Messar is still out of sorts —” Major Messar, an efficient secret policeman with enough private wealth through relatives in Germany that he remained an incorruptible and committed Communist, had taken a bullet to the jaw in the same incident that injured della Torre’s elbow. “— he passed it onto me.”
    “Does Horvat know?”
    Anzulović’s shrug at once said: yes, no, maybe, I can’t do anything about what he thinks anyway, I just do my job.
    “It’s like this, Gringo. The Americans want to think of themselves as St. Nicholas. They want to know when you’ve been good, when you’ve been bad, and when you’ve lied, so they can reward and punish fairly. Who knows, maybe they are — St. Nicholas, I mean. They’re certainly fat enough — at least the ones who come to our beaches. Maybe the thin ones stay at home. We don’t know what they know, what they think they know, and what they know they don’t know. So your best approach is to tell the truth and to be consistent to the point that you don’t incriminate yourself.”
    “You make it sound like you think I’ve got something to hide.”
    Anzulović ignored this. “So, two rules. Number one, don’t lie. Number two, don’t help them dig your grave. Understand?”
    “Yes.”
    “Right, so let’s start with the dead Americans.”
    “A couple of guys called Bill and Rob.”
    “And your friend Rebecca Vees . . .”
    Della Torre momentarily lifted his hands and then sat back. “Where did they find her?”
    “She washed up on an Italian beach and was formally identified by people from the American embassy in Rome. Though our guy from Dubrovnik had already had a look and was pretty sure it was her. I don’t think the Americans ever seriously thought she’d be found alive, do you?”
    “No.”
    Della Torre had written in his report that both he and Rebecca had been thrown off the Montenegrin’s boat. He’d neglected to mention that his bindings had