“What is this Golden Gloves?”

  “Amateur boxing. The guy who decked me went on to last five rounds with Rocky Marciano after he put on a little weight and turned pro. It was before Marciano was champ. As for Marciano he never had to go the distance. Thirty fights or something like that and thirty K.O.’s. Some record.”

  “Boxing is a barbaric sport,” Enisa said.

  “You’ve got a guy in Trieste, which used to be part of Yugoslavia, who won the middleweight championship of the world.”

  “I liked you better when you were talking about the wife that you don’t have. You know, on the beach?”

  “I once had a wife,” I said. “I left her on the beach of my past. Flotsam.”

  “Or jetsam,” Enisa said.

  “Where’d you learn your English?”

  “School. And dealing with American tourists. Name an American magazine.”

  “The Saturday Evening Post,” I said, thinking big.

  “Splendid. You are working for the Saturday Evening Post. I’ll have a press card for you in an hour. Just let me have your passport.”

  I gave it to her. “What time is dinner around here?”

  “Nine o’clock is fashionable. Why?”

  “To let you know how I made out with Jovanović. You choose the restaurant.”

  “I said I am not permitted to date the guests,” Enisa told me. She smiled. “But I am from Montenegro, and the women of Montenegro are notoriously independent. Nine o’clock will be delightful. Have you an expense account?”

  “No,” I said.

  “A pity. I’m an enthusiastic eater.”

  TWELVE

  AN HOUR LATER I was driving south on the high coast road past the white walls of the city in a little Zlastva sedan I had rented from Putnik. The road led past umbrella pines and gray-green olive groves and a lot of bare red unplowed earth. A heat-haze hung over the Adriatic and the distant offshore islands shimmered in it, pink and insubstantial like puffs of cotton candy. The press card Enisa Zemko had obtained for me was in my pocket.

  I found the narrow unpaved road that turned left and climbed toward the gray cliffs towering above the littoral. It led through olive groves at first and then steeply tilted vineyards with each gnarled vine carefully staked and all the vines in leaf. The road twisted its way up among the terraces and then ran straight the final half kilometer toward a big white house in a walled enclosure that was crumbling to ruin. I drove between two big gateposts that had rusty hinges on them but no gates into a bare ochre courtyard that spewed dust as the Zlastva rolled across it and to a stop between a well and the house. A couple of guys stood at the well with a bucket of water and a dipper. They were wearing identical gray double-breasted suits, rumpled enough to have been slept in, white shirts open at the throat and identical mustaches of the soup-strainer variety. One of them put the dipper back in the bucket and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. They both gave me bored flinty-eyed looks and ambled slowly toward the car. I cut the ignition and got out. The late afternoon air was hot and motionless; the dust was still settling. I began to wonder if I’d come to the right place.

  I decided I had when one of the mustaches pulled a Luger and the other one gave me a quick, expert frisk without malice. I was glad the .44 Magnum that Jerry had given me was back at the hotel in Ploce.

  The one with the Luger said something in Serbo-Croat. I smiled and showed them my brand-new press card. The one with the Luger gave it the same bored, flinty-eyed look they both had given me. The other one smiled back at me, figuring it didn’t cost him anything.

  I said: “I’d like to see Ivo Jovanović.”

  The Lugerless one said something in Serbo-Croat.

  “Ivo Jovanović?” I said.

  They held a conference.

  Music drifted toward us from the house suddenly. It was the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. I cocked an ear. I like Beethoven.

  One of the mustaches drifted toward the house and went inside. The other one took a cigarette from a red pack, stuck it in his mouth, looked at me grudgingly and offered the pack. I took one. The brand name was Kolo. We smoked in silence and sized each other up. He had the movements of a professional gunman, relaxed and lazy the way a hungry cat is relaxed and lazy.

  We got through our cigarettes without anything happening. I was thirsty. I gestured toward the well. He shrugged and I went over there and had a dipperful. The water was cool and metallic. As I turned away from the well I saw a cloud of dust trailing a car up the unpaved road. It was coming fast, a little gray Zlastva just like mine. The mustache watched it. He patted his left armpit, where the Luger lived.

  His buddy came out of the house with a tall old number wearing sandals and dirty white trousers and nothing else. His bare chest was deeply-tanned and covered by a mat of white hair. A thatch of wild white Ben-Gurion hair crowned his head, and a white Santa Claus mustache but no beard grew on his face. He gave me a mildly interested look out of clear blue eyes, but nothing that indicated my arrival had made his day complete. The mustache with him, the one who had frisked me, was watching the car.

  It came barreling in past the gate posts and jarred to a stop right behind my car. Both doors flew open in a cloud of ochre dust. The bare-chested old man called out something and started to turn back toward the house. A dim figure crouched in the roiling dust on either side of the car. Both figures spouted flame. By then the mustaches had gone for their Lugers and gunfire crackled across the courtyard.

  I was in the cross fire. I went down fast alongside the well, banging my head against the stones. The old man jerked in the doorway and slid down to the base of his spine with a spreading red stain in the middle of his bare, leathery chest. The car doors slammed and the Zlastva jerked into motion backward, careening toward the gate posts and then bouncing forward and then backward and forward again as it turned. One of the mustaches stood in the open between the well and the house, calmly taking potshots at the car. The car fired back at him and he fell down as the car zoomed dust. Figure thirty seconds for all of it, from the time the car entered the courtyard.

  The mustache who hadn’t been hit ran for my car. The key was still in the ignition. He got in, backed and filled and streaked off in pursuit. I coughed dust out of my lungs and watched his buddy climbing slowly to his feet, his left arm hanging limply, his face gray and sweat-covered as he lurched toward the old man who had come to rest jammed on the base of his spine in the doorway, his eyes staring without any interest at the blue sky. The wounded man saw those eyes. That ended his examination of and curiosity about the old man. He turned in my direction, cocking the Luger. Figure another ten seconds for all that, from the time he had lurched to his feet.

  I got up, my head still ringing from where I’d banged it against the well-housing. The muzzle of the Luger followed my progress like an adventitious eye staring at my head. The hand that held the Luger moved a casual quarter of an inch, and the gun fired. Lead whined past my ear. White teeth appeared under the mustache in a mirthless smile as he cocked the Luger again, jerking it toward the house and stepping to one side of the doorway. What message there was I got. Inside. He seemed to want me inside. That was where I went, stepping over the dead man. My knees were quivering like jello pudding. Nobody, least of all a wounded man, is that good with a hand gun, even at a distance of fifteen feet. I had been very close to death. He wanted me to know that. It was his way of telling me to be a good boy while we were waiting for whatever was going to happen next. A gimmick like that can take the place of language to get your point across any old time.

  THIRTEEN

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT, after the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth had faded into the hot summer afternoon’s silence, was the arrival of a third car.

  It brought a large sweaty man in unpressed khaki slacks, a tattletale gray shirt opened almost to his belt and a pair of scuffed sandals. He was large the way a well-fed Kodiak bear is large—big head, big sloping shoulders, big hairy chest, big but firm beer belly straining at his belt. Six-three and a good two hundred thirty pounds. Unruly head of hair going gray and a two-day stubble of beard like steel wool bristles sprouting all the way up to his small dark eyes. He looked like a panhandler who managed to keep himself well fed, possibly by threatening to twist your head off with those big hands if you didn’t give him eating money. He didn’t look like anyone you would fool around with unless you were suicide-prone.

  The wounded mustache didn’t fool around with him. He stood at attention, despite the useless left arm and the obvious pain it was causing him, every now and then looking at the blood still seeping through the shoulder of his gray jacket, and gave his report. The large man listened. He nodded and turned around and said one word. A guy who had been stooping over the corpse in the doorway came inside toting a black leather bag and went with the mustache through the living room and into the kitchen. That left the large sweaty man and me alone with a lot of rustic wood furniture, a few scatter rugs in white, red and black that looked like items the Navajo Indians might have sold through their Dubrovnik outlet, and a chance, which the large man seemed to want, to get acquainted.

  “Drum, Chester,” he said in the sort of voice he would have, a basso profundo. “You are carrying press card?”

  I showed it to him. He tossed it back at me without reading it. “Not legal,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He pulled out a large sodden handkerchief and mopped his wet face. He couldn’t stop sweating. It was very hot. “Press card is for journalist, yes? You are no journalist.” He waggled a banana-sized finger in front of my face. “This is not wise, what you do. You will now tell me what happens here.”

  I told him, from the time I drove past the gateposts until the wounded man led me into the house at gunpoint.

  “You know men in car?”

  “I never got a look at them. The dust.”

  He nodded, either sagely or because his neck was tired of holding up the big head. His face wore a perpetual half-frown. The frown looked here and there in the rustic room and suddenly he propelled himself up out of the chair, took two lumbering steps, reached and opened a cabinet, withdrew a bottle of what looked like water and two less than clean tumblers that would have given a fingerprint man a hard day’s work. He poured two big drinks. “Slivovitz,” he said. “Medicine for hot day. You drink, you sweat, you feel cool. Drink!”

  He sat again. We both drank. The innocent-looking slivovitz tasted like distilled crankcase oil.

  “You like slivovitz?” His laughter would have shaken the seismograph in Dubrovnik, had they had one. He drank some more, in large, thirsty gulps. His face was red and shiny. “For journalist,” he said, “death of Ivo Jovanović is big news. Is scoop. Too bad you are no journalist. Except for one thing. Journalist would be having big disappointment.”

  I waited. He said: “Dead man is not Ivo Jovanović.”

  For no reason at all I said: “I knew a guy who did that back in the States, pretending to die so he’d be free to do what he had to do.”

  The large man smiled. “Hokay,” he said. “Now we talk, Mr. Drum. Dead man is actor named Anton Ilić. Very good actor, double for Ivo Jovanović while living. In America is different. In America man is double for Mr. Axel Spade after he is dead.”

  My mouth must have hung open. I poured slivovitz into it.

  “Drum, Chester,” the large man said. “Born, Baltimore, Maryland, nineteen thirty. Six feet one inch tall, weight 190 pounds. Eyes gray. Small knife scar, left cheek. All informations from passport, yes? But rest not from passport. Occupation, detective. One office Washington, one office Geneva. Has worked for InterKant, big Swiss bank, on problems of secret accounts. Has worked with Mr. Axel Spade, famous for Black Marketeer’s Year-book. Famous for advising smugglers and other international hooligans. Mr. Spade does not like regulation of flow of currency or gold across frontiers. Fights this. Is rich, is unpopular with finance ministries of Europe. Is criminal in twenty countries, but not Yugoslavia.”

  I took all that in and said nothing for about ten seconds. Then I said: “Where can I find Spade?”

  He ignored the question. He finished his slivovitz and poured more. The sweat was streaming down his face. He looked at my glass and topped it off. We both drank slivovitz and sweated.

  “I am Captain Storz,” he said. “Is difficult keeping Ivo Jovanović alive, as you see today. But is my job.”

  “Where’s Jovanović now?”

  “Ivo Jovanović,” Captain Storz said, “is individualist. Wants no bodyguards. Bodyguard like jailer. We compromise. Bodyguards for actor Anton Ilić. Was talented man. Had two press conferences as Jovanović. No one knows difference. Jovanović is seeing only important people.”

  “By important you mean people you approve of, Captain Storz?”

  “I? I am only civil servant,” Storz said deprecatingly. “I follow instructions.”

  “What instructions did you get regarding me?”

  Captain Storz had a way of ignoring questions, but it didn’t matter because how he ignored them was to answer other questions you hadn’t got around to asking yet. “Axel Spade arrives in Dubrovnik last Friday,” he said. “Asks for and is granted interview with Ivo Jovanović. Or with actor Anton Ilić. Interview lasts five minutes. We have tape. Mr. Spade asks four questions, listens to answers, says: ‘You are good actor, but not that good.’ Next he sees me. ‘Take me to real Ivo Jovanović,’ he says, ‘or world will hear of double.’ I have no choice.”

  “What kind of questions did he ask?”

  Captain Storz sighed. “About Spaniard called Prieto, known by Ivo Jovanović thirty years ago, not known by Anton Ilić. About three-quarters of a billion dollars Spanish gold.”

  “That’s a lot of gold,” I said.

  “One million dollars gold bullion,” Storz said dryly, “is weighing three-quarters of ton. Spanish gold is weighing almost six hundred ton.”

  “They’d have needed a good-sized freighter to carry it from Cartagena to Odessa,” I said. “A ship of four thousand tons or so would have been about right for the job.”

  “Hokay,” Captain Storz said, “you are knowing things Anton Ilić does not know. You see what happens. Ivo Jovanović knows too much of events of thirty years ago, so actor Ilić is shot dead.”

  “Jovanović isn’t the only one,” I pointed out. “Spade knows too much. So do I.”

  Captain Storz shrugged. “I have no instructions to protect you.”

  “Look,” I said. “Axel Spade came to Yugoslavia to get at the Spanish gold through Jovanović. You think I came here to help him. You have a dossier on him and one on me, and not just any old country cop would have that. So you work for the secret police. In Yugoslavia that’s spelled UBDA, and in another minute or so Captain Storz of UBDA was going to apply a little pressure, hoping I’d slink out of Yugoslavia scared stiff. Have I got it right?”

  “Hokay,” Storz said, replenishing our supply of slivovitz.

  “You try leaning on Spade too?”

  “For impersonating journalist I can make you leave country.”

  “What would it buy you? You think those gunmen were working for me? Or for Spade? If we’re after the Spanish gold, Jovanović won’t do us any good dead.”

  “Nobody can get Spanish gold from Russia,” Storz said.

  “If that’s what the Russians think, what are you worried about?”

  “Walk outside, Mr. Drum. You will see body in doorway. I worry about that.” Storz went on: “Ten years ago I have job of arresting Ivo Jovanović as state criminal, as right deviationist betraying Party, people and Marshal. Is tried in People’s Court, sentenced to life in prison. Now is released. Now is Hero of People again. Now I must keep him alive. I do what they tell me. I do not wish to fail. UBDA does good work. Is not hated by people. Is efficient. But what is little Yugoslavia next to Russia? What is UBDA next to Russian secret police? You know of Spetsburo?”

  “The next time I see Colonel Katukov,” I said, “I’ll give him your regards.”

  I grinned, too pleased with what I thought a fair bit of repartee. I’d had a tumbler and a half of Captain Storz’s medicine, which, provided Storz had a hollow leg, was a pretty good method of interrogation. The grin went away when Storz said: “Where is your passport, Mr. Drum?”

  “They took it over to the Ministry of Information and Tourism earlier this afternoon to get my press card.”

  “I ask you now.”

  “Well, I guess I know where it’s not. It’s not back at the hotel.”

  “UBDA has it. You board plane, you get it back. UBDA pays fare to any foreign destination.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, but not very loud. I felt light-headed. I watched Captain Storz mop his face. “Use your head,” I told him. “Nobody can walk into Moscow and walk out with six hundred tons of gold bullion. You know that, I know it and so does Colonel Katukov. If that’s the case, what’s he after?”

  “My job—”

  “Is to keep Ivo Jovanović alive. Sure. But you already said that compared to the Spetsburo you’re a bunch of amateurs. That could change. Somewhere, some way, there’s a back door to the gold. Find it before Katukov finds it and you’ll have him where you want him.”

  “Back door?” Storz said, looking at me owlishly.

  “Axel Spade wouldn’t be here unless there’s a way he can get his hands on the gold.”

  “You think Colonel Katukov knows this?”

  “He knows Spade thinks so.” I stood up. My legs felt strange. Storz watched me and grinned in appreciation of his medicine.

  “If I permit you to remain in Yugoslavia,” he said, “what will you do?”

  “I told you. See Jovanović. Find Spade.”

  “Why, Mr. Drum?”

  I pulled his trick of answering a question with a question. “What’s your opinion of Colonel Katukov?”

  “My opinion? I respect him.”

  “If you had work that took you to Russia, what would Katukov do?”

 

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