“Perhaps you had her killed, eh George?” Lupus looked him square in the eyes. His icy stare made Milev swallow hard. A strong surge of adrenaline pumped into the police chief’s bloodstream, making his heart sink deep into his chest.
“Me?” Milev laughed. He had to suppress the urge to stand up and run out of the restaurant. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Maybe she knew something about you that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” Lupus said as he reached beneath his jacket and pulled out his Luger.
The German was right. Milev had sent an assassin to kill Helen Noverman, and the killer had done his job, because he brought the police chief back photos and a lock of her black hair as proof. Milev silently prayed for mercy, closed his eyes, and waited for a bullet to end his life. He could only mutter, “All I know is that she was a beautiful woman.”
“Beautiful and dangerous, George, but not necessarily was.”
“Shut up and listen,” Lupus commanded. “I telephoned Captain Nedim Kerim of the Perra Police Department and asked him one simple question.”
“Which was?” asked Milev.
“Did the dead woman have a large scar on her left forearm?”
“And what did he say?” Milev’s face grew hot as he waited for the answer.
A moment later Lupus’s hobbling footsteps echoed though the empty café as he left General George Milev, Chief of the Bulgarian Secret Police, to pay the bill.
About the Authors
Ivan Roussetzki was the assistant secretary to Bulgaria’s Finance Minister and lived in Sofia, where he died in 2007 at the age of 50. Before entering government, he was a journalist and a historian. He lived in New York for several years, where he met and worked with Don Gabor on The Laugh of the Hyenas.