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I freeze, another fry halfway to my mouth. “What do you mean? Did something happen?”
He puts down his fork. “My grandfather was executed based on a political joke a neighbor overheard.”
Holy shit. I was not expecting that.
“That’s terrible,” I say when I find my tongue. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. This was before I was even born, so I’m okay.”
Whew. I thought I’d stepped on a major landmine. “That wouldn’t happen here and now,” I say. “What you’re talking about was Soviet Russia—a totalitarian regime.”
He spears another morsel from his collection—something that looks like two jumbo shrimp glued together. “You never know who’ll get power and what they’ll do with it.”
“I guess. But you don’t even have your picture on the company website. Or a bio. That’s another level of caution altogether.”
He devours the shrimp-looking thing so appetizingly I almost want to try it too. Putting down his fork, he says, “A while back, a local paper wrote an article about my parents’ restaurant. It helped the business, at first. Then, one day, racketeering mob types walked into the place, recognized my mom, and forced her to empty the safe at gunpoint. It was thanks to that article that they knew what she looked like, and that the restaurant was doing well.” As he says this, his eyes get flinty, hinting at how he got his Impaler moniker.
The bite I was chewing feels stuck in my throat. I think I’m beginning to understand his obsession with privacy. If that had happened to my family, I’d be paranoid also.
“That must’ve been terrifying for your mom,” I say, fighting the urge to put my hand over his. “Did the police catch the bastards?”
His mouth tightens. “Not exactly.”
“They got away?”
“Not exactly.”
I stare at him expectantly.
He sighs and sweeps his gaze over the nearby tables, as if checking for eavesdroppers. Then, in a lowered voice, he says, “Someone traced the criminals to their Russian social media accounts. Like the rest of the public, the gangsters weren’t big on privacy, so they openly discussed criminal activity in their messages. The FBI got the translated transcripts of that communication through an anonymous tip. Just as the mobsters were taken into custody, their offshore bank account got mysteriously wiped out.”
Whoa. Is he saying he robbed the robbers? If so, that’s pretty badass. I want to pry into it deeper, but he doesn’t look inclined to elaborate. If anything, he seems like he regrets saying what he did.
Not wanting him to worry, I raise my hands theatrically. “You win. I almost feel like shutting down my Facebook and Instagram. But if I do, how will I stay up to speed on the health of everyone’s cats?”
His expression warms by a few degrees, and he stabs his fork into another morsel on his plate. “You own a guinea pig. Cats are the enemy.”
“True, true.” I watch as he eats it with even greater gusto. Finally, I can’t help myself. “Okay, I think you’ve inspired me to be daring and try something from the chef’s selection. Assuming you don’t mind sharing?”
He smiles and gestures at his spread. “Be my guest.”
As I scan it all, my burst of enthusiasm begins to wane. “What would you recommend?”
“That.” He points at the glued jumbo-shrimp thing. “They’re divine today.”
Right. That was the item he seemed to savor the most.
I narrow my eyes at the thing but draw a blank. “What is it? Or is it better if I don’t know?”
He pushes the plate toward me. “It would be more daring if you did know and ate it anyway.”
I spear one of the things with my fork. “Fine. Hit me. What is it?”
“Frog legs,” he says. “French style—fried with parsley and garlic sauce.”
Right. Now that he’s said it, I can see it.
Not giving myself much time to deliberate, I stick the two legs dangling off the fork into my mouth.
