Халлгримур Хельгасон - The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Oops, there went my wife. This is like watching a thriller movie backwards.

“Yeah, you bet. It’s hard being alone.”

“And you don’t have any children with her?”

Wow. That’s a tough one.

“Eh… No, I don’t think so.” Fuck. That was terrible. “I mean, no. Not technically.” Don’t ask me what I mean by this. I have no idea.

He drives on in silence. He doesn’t ask any more questions. It’s quite uncomfortable. Does he suspect anything? I break the silence by going back to the start of the conversation, women and work.

“But Gunholder, she works in a café?”

“Yeah. I am giving her time. She has time to think. When I was thirty year old, I was on the street. I was drinking. I didn’t see the light. When the wine goes in, the brain goes out.”

I take a good hard look at him. Not so holy after all.

We visit his friend’s church in the neighboring town of Cop War. It looks more like an aerobics gym than a regular church, and the smell of sweat fills the air. His friend’s name is shorter than either of my hosts,’ but it’s much harder to say. Written as Thordur, it sounds like “Torture” when they try helping me out. He has a round face with round glasses and a full, biblical beard. The only modern thing about him is his long hair that he anoints with blessed gel. Actually, he reminds me a bit of my broad-faced father, bless his soul. Goodmoondoor tells me that Torture appears on his TV channel every day. It shows: His speech is loud and clear, as if he were still on camera. He doesn’t let go of the Bible the entire thirty minutes, holding it in his hand like a holy hammer. Once or twice he pounds it into the air as if he were nailing his theses to the front door of his church. His views are unorthodox and extreme, his language more colorful than most.

“People sometimes ask me if you need to be circumcised to enter into heaven. I tell them no. There is no need to. It’s not about the genitals, but the heart. The question is: are you ready to open up the foreskin of your heart and let in the light of the living God?”

The fire of homophobia rages in his eyes. When I look deeply into them I see, through the flames, a skinny gay fellow nailed to a cross belting out “I Will Survive.” Father Friendly adds fuel to this fire, while Toxic remembers his night with Andro.

“We used to have this gay guy at our congregation in Virginia,” I say. “But after I ripped the ring out of his earlobe with pincers, he went from GAY to OK.”

Goodmoondoor looks at his bearded friend like a small boy, and Torture laughs like the devil himself, answering in his fine English:

“ Heh, heh . That’s the way to do it. Brand them by the balls!”

Friendly gets carried away. “Or use them as fire extinguishers. I once had an altar boy who looked way too feminine for his age. I had to teach him a lesson. So I used him for putting out candles. With his mouth. I used to tell him, ‘Better to blow the light of the Lord than the dick of darkness!’”

They both stare at me for a moment before they start laughing like two middle-aged fraternity brothers having a chance meeting in a hotel lobby forty years later. “The dick of darkness! Ha ha!”

“Father Friendly was very good on TV last night. Did you see him?” Goodmoondoor asks his friend.

“Yes, I saw him. He’s an excellent footman in the army of God,” Torture says and puts his right hand on my shoulder. The arm of fire.

The days go by. I slowly adapt to exile existence. It’s going OK. I’m getting used to the silence and the brightness, as well as the sterility of the house, but the cold is more difficult to handle. It’s the coldest May of my life. Still, everywhere they talk of the loveliest spring.

“We are happy if we get ten degrees here in Iceland,” Sickreader explains.

Poor guys. I’m happy if I only get ten more minutes up here.

In the morning Father Friendly visits various churches and volunteer organizations where they treat him like the pope on tour, fill him with coffee and cookies, and load him up with booklets and brochures that show off their good work. They’re building a kindergarten in Kenya, a primary school in India. The priests are all men, the volunteers all women. I make my objections to Goodmoondoor once we’re in the car.

“I’m worried to see all those women working outside their homes,” I say.

“It’s all right because they are not paid,” he answers and winks at me in the funniest way.

My afternoons are usually my own. I walk around the city LPP-style, moving slowly down Liquor Vicar, the main street, women-watching and window-shopping, forever seeking the gun of my dreams. I follow my weight all the way down the hill, to the main square, which looks more like an empty parking lot than a city plaza. In a warm bookstore near the square, you can buy Handgun Magazine , the hitman’s favorite. Seems Smith & Wesson has a new model out. “Easy on your hand, easy on your target.” Pretty close to the “guilt-free gun” that we hangmen have been dreaming about for six hundred years. I wrap my scarf around the collar before paying for the mag at the cash register. One more local wonder girl, a Day 3 type, hands me the receipt. It’s a well-known fact that Croatia has the most beautiful women in the world, but Iceland might be a close runner-up. They are very different, though, those butter-blondes from our dark-haired ljepotice . From a bench by the big pond behind the cathedral, I watch the ducks and swans sail about. It’s a beautiful setting, really, perfect for a cigarette. But I won’t break my five-year abstinence from tobacco, even though I guess I’ve got good excuses to do so. Have to take care of my health. Instead I read about this innovation called NSK (No Spill Kill) made possible by the new, revolutionary bullet from Eagle Eye “big enough to ice your victim instantly, but so small that it won’t spill any blood at all.” Only in the most God-fearing, Christian country on the planet would they allow such a publication. Who’s buying it up here, on Gun-Free Island? I throw it in the garbage before entering Café Paris. The butter-blonde is on duty. I suck in my stomach and pick one of her tables.

The priest is worried about her relationship with her dad and asks her if she dislikes him.

“I think my father is more interested in God than his own children,” Gunholder strikes back, unusually hostile, while she cleans the table with a wet rag, head wagging like a sistah.

“Well, we are all God’s children. Sons and daughters of the Holy Father,” I respond, all Friendly.

“Holy Father, holy shit. Where is the holy mother then? She’s a virgin. Wow. Great. The church is good only for stupid white men,” she spits out. She leaves with her cloth and tray. I have to say that I’m pretty impressed, but Father Friendly thinks otherwise. When she returns with his latte, he says, “Your parents are holy people and I think they deserve your respect.”

“They’re not holy. Not committing sins for some years doesn’t make you holy. An inactive alcoholic is just as much an alcoholic as the one who’s drinking.”

Wow, this one is way too deep for me. I concentrate on her lips instead. Behind the heavy church gates of my priestly exterior, I keep a crazy Croatian army dog. Sooner or later he will break out of this fucking dog collar and start licking those glistening strawberry lips.

I’m supposed to be back at the holy house by six. I usually travel by cab, even though I could fly from New York to Boston for the same amount. Igor can afford it. Money’s never an issue in our game, though Friendly’s American Express Gold card probably has a higher limit. But using his pious plastic would be like sending an invitation to the Feds.