This recent business about our Commander in Cheetos looking for Ukrainian help has left me scratching my head. What, is Ukraine a country known for its expert investigators? Is there some sort of Samovir Spadovich over there who puts our guys to shame? And if so, how come no one has written about him yet?
If they did, maybe it'd start out something like this.
It was one of those cold, rainy days in Uzgorod--the kind that makes you glad you're a corrupt oligarch with a large stake in the natural gas industry.
I was sitting in my penthouse office, shooting the heads off of vodka bottles with a pocket Kalishnikov and watching Anya flip pirogis at the stove. Anya makes the best pirogis in Ukraine, but that's not why I hired her. She has two much more prominent attributes tucked into her bikini top: the kind that makes a guy's head run wild with crazy ideas. Namely, she has the business cards of her two important Americanski friends. They're a father and son pair, waiting to get filthy rich off of Ukraine gas contracts. But they were very patient men. You might say they were bidin' their time.
The phone started to ring. I almost shot it with the Kalishnikov, but thought the better of that when I saw the name on the caller ID: Volodymyr Z.
The prez.
"Volod," I said. "What's shaking? Besides your flimsy government, I mean."
"Igor, you are rude," he said.
"It's true, though. You're turning redder than a bowl of borsch in Kiev."
He nodded. "Government shakes. That why I call you. I need big favor. Or else we say das vedanya to American aid..."