Free Evil Deeds (Bob Danforth 1) by Joseph Badal Page A

Radko?”
    “I don’t know. I heard he has a cousin or nephew, last name Milatko, living in Athens. I can’t remember his first name.”
    “Where are the kidnapped children being taken?” George asked.
    “Somewhere in Bulgaria.”
    “Does Petrich sound familiar?”
    “That’s it!” the Gypsy exclaimed. “How did you know?”
    Nothing’s changed, George thought.
    “Okay, one last question,” George said, while he pulled the handle to open the door. “Since you’re working for the Americans, why didn’t you give them this information before?”
    “No one asked,” the Gypsy replied, laughing.
    That drove George over the edge. The years of bottled-up anger and sadness overflowed. He leaned toward the Gypsy. “If Meers hadn’t brought you here, I’d slit your throat. You’re slime of the worst kind.” Then he spat at the man’s feet and turned to open the car door.
    The Gypsy lunged – something flashed in his hand. George felt a hot sensation just below his left armpit. He fell through the open door onto the sand. The Gypsy scrambled across the seat after him. “You bastard!” he screamed. “You fucking put your filthy hands on me! You call me slime!”
    George rolled on his back and kicked at the door, slamming it against the man’s knife arm. The knife fell to the sand. The Gypsy pushed the door open, tumbled out of the car, and lunged for the weapon. George grabbed the Gypsy’s wrist as the man wrapped his fingers around the knife handle. They wrestled in the sand, rolling over and over, gouging and hitting each other with their free hands, fighting for control of the knife. George felt blood running from the wound in his side. The Gypsy managed to roll on top of him and press his weight behind the knife – the blade quivering just inches above George’s heart.
    George got both hands on the man’s wrist and pushed up, fighting to raise the point of the blade higher. The two men matched one another’s strength, George pushing upward, the Gypsy pressing down. George suddenly changed tactics. Instead of pushing upward, he turned his wrists outward, twisting the other man’s hands and the knife back at the man’s chest. George pushed, driving the blade into the other man’s chest. The Gypsy groaned and then cursed George.
    George rolled the man off him at the moment Meers ran up.
    “Sonofabitch!” Meers shouted. “What the hell happened?”
    “He pulled a knife.”
    Meers knelt next to the now-still Gypsy. He pressed two fingers against the side of the man’s throat. “Damn!,” he said.
    “We’ve got to get rid of the body,” George said, as Bob and Liz ran up.
    “Oh my God,” Liz said breathlessly. “George, what happened?”
    George ignored her.
    Meers looked down at the Gypsy again. “Shit, shit, shit. How the hell am I going to explain this to my boss?”
    “It seems to me,” George said in a weakening voice, “that you’d be better off not explaining anything to your boss. Just dump the body and claim you never heard from him again.”
    Bob glanced at George who was pale and perspiring profusely.
    Meers suddenly blurted, “Help me put the body in my car. Then I want you all out of here.”
    Bob and Meers lifted the Gypsy’s body into the trunk of Meer’s car. Meers ran around the car and opened the driver side door. He yelled across the car roof, shielding his eyes from the blowing sand. “What are you waiting for? Get the hell out of here. I’ll call you at your house later.” He then got behind the wheel and drove off the beach toward the road.
    Bob started for his car when George groaned and sagged to the sand.
    “My God, he’s hurt,” Liz said. “He’s bleeding.”
    “Wait here; I’ll get our car,” Bob told her.
    When Bob returned and got out of his car, he and Liz helped George get up and into the back seat. After telling Liz to get the first-aid kit from the trunk, Bob removed George’s jacket. He tore a strip of cloth from George’s shirt to wipe