The Proxy Assassin by John Knoerle

through.
    I needed to get Stela someplace where we could talk. A cup of mud on the veranda maybe. What was the drill? Was I supposed to moan and groan and whisper sweet nothings to the light fixture? It seemed so silly, and dispiriting. Making fake love to a beautiful woman.
    Princess Stela returned to her seat at the head of the table, smiling pleasantly. “You are enjoying the repast,
Monsieur
?”
    â€œNot sure,” I said. “But the food’s great!”
    No laugh from the Princess. I titled my head toward the courtyard, mimed holding a coffee cup. But Stela was watching the chef in the kitchen. She reached over and took my hand. Hers was warm, silken. Mine clammy. She gave me a squeeze, whispering, “Crepes Suzette.”
    The NKVD chef wheeled a cart to the head of the table. The cart held a sauté pan heated by a can of Sterno, inside the pan were thin folded-over pancakes. He poured in a glug of brandy which he ignited with a long-snouted lighter apparently invented for the purpose of serving
Crepes Suzette en flambé
.
    Communism, it seemed to me, was rife with contradictions.
    After dessert we sat and drank coffee. The chef remained in the kitchen, stacking dishes for the maid. We drank more coffee.
    Stela excused herself once more to freshen up. I thought this odd so I titled my chair back and watched her. She didn’t duck into her bedroom. She slipped into the bedroom across the hall. She returned a minute later, her face a mask of grim purpose.
    PrincessStela resumed her seat. “And what is news of your American election for President?” she said apropos of nothing.
    I told her what little I knew about the Truman-Dewey race. Governor Dewey had a good lead heading into the home stretch. President Truman was banging on about a ‘Do Nothing’ Congress.
    Stela reached into her beaded purse while I was talking and removed something you don’t expect to find in a beaded purse. A leather sap. She slid it to me under the table and looked at me, meaningfully.
    â€œDmitri is busy. Please to fetch me fresh cup.”
    I slipped the blackjack into the game pocket of my hunting jacket. “My pleasure.”
    I ambled over to the coffee urn on the kitchen counter. Dmitri, to my right, cranked his pale face in my direction, eyes narrowed.
    Perhaps he noticed I was carrying the cup and saucer in my left hand. So I used both mitts to set the cup down and said, “Excellent meal, Dmitri, best I’ve had.”
    Dmitri grunted and turned away. I filled the cup with my left hand, dug out the sap with my right, stepped back and crowned him a good one.
    He was out on his feet. His forehead would have smacked the counter on the way down so I grabbed him from behind and laid him out on the floor, face up. I owed him that for the good eats.
    I opened his eyelids. His pupils were rolled up and blank. I patted his pockets. No gun to steal.
    I stood up. Stela was gone.
    Then she was back, lugging a suitcase. She hurried to the side door, opened it and snapped, “Are you coming?”
    No, your highness, I think I’ll remain behind, take long, moonlit walks around the lake, work on my memoirs
.
    â€œGimme a second.” I inspected the carving knives tucked in a wooden block. I selected one with a five inch blade, wrappedit in a linen napkin and put it in my pocket with the leaded sap. “Let’s go.”
    We crunched across gravel to a sturdy old carriage house made of planed and varnished tree trunks. Behind the garage stood a newer, smaller stucco building with narrow pillbox windows and a flat roof sprouting a six-foot antenna. The radio room. The comm center. The transcribing-Stela’s-nocturnal-adventures general HQ.
    The slotted windows were dark. I pointed. “Anyone in there?”
    Stela shook her head, and opened the swinging doors of the old carriage house to reveal an amazing sight. A groundbreaking automobile I first read about in the pages