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“I am former KGB,” he said, pressing a finger to the side of his nose. “Is very hush-hush. But I have no secrets from my friends.”
“And we’re friends?”
“Of course! I lay out red carpet for you.”
“But why? I’m nobody.”
“Ah,” he said, standing from his chair. “Any friend of our mutual friend is a friend of mine.”
As he walked over to me, I got the uneasy feeling that we weren’t on the same page. “And who is our mutual friend?”
He leaned over, his hand resting on the arm of the chair as he whispered in my ear. “He walks in the dead of night like ninja.”
As if that was supposed to tell me something. I had no clue who he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to let on that little fact. If I was no longer a friend of our mutual friend, he might have me killed.
“So, if you already knew who I was, why did you ask me to tell you about myself?”
“Because I want to know real you,” he said, strolling around the room. “You see my paintings. Everyone tells a story, but to really know what the artist is thinking and feeling, you must meet the man, yes?”
I nodded, understanding what he was saying. I had a choice now. I could tell him about myself or I could choose to keep things a secret. Either way could be dangerous. But better to keep my enemies close, and until I figured out if he was friend or foe, I had to play this safe.
“Well, first, I would ask your name.”
He walked back to his seat, smiling at me the whole time. “Ivan.”
Well, at least I had a name to go with the face. “Alright, Ivan. What do you want to know?”
He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Tell me, how do you come to be called FNG?”
How the hell did he know that?
“Um…I was the new guy on the job.”
“And this is some kind of good nickname?”
“Fucking new guy,” I answered. “It’s a military thing.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “When I joined military, they call me Ivan the Slayer.”
“That’s…okay. And was that because you slayed dragons?”
“No,” he chuckled. “No, I was slayer because of how I kill my enemies. Sadly, the name dropped when I join KGB.”
“What was that like?” I asked curiously.
“It was…the best of times,” he said poetically. Heaving a big sigh, he stared up at the ceiling as if remembering a great memory. “Those were the days. Do you know, I have not killed a man since the dissolution of the Soviet Union? Is very sad.”
“Yeah, I can understand that.”
“But…here I am, surrounded by beauty. I want nothing more than to live the rest of my days in peace.”
Yeah, I believed that after he said he missed killing people. I raised my juice glass, hoping to keep him happy. “To peace.”
“To new friendships,” he saluted.
We drank to our new relationship, but I was still wary, unsure how this would end for me. We ate as he filled me in on the good ol’ days in the USSR. With the fall of the Communist Party, his days of ruling were over, aside from the fact that he was rich and still at the top. And in order to stay at the top, I was pretty sure he still had his fingers in some rather illegal operations. After all, he was former KGB.
“So, you stay with me, Mr. Helmer. You serve me as Sasha and Alexei serve me.”
