The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

houses with gabled roofs and French windows fill the slopes around the water, gazing out at it, like over-proud guests at a New Year’s ball standing around an empty dance floor. But we’re not there yet. The girl is still driving a highway called Killing My Rabbit or something close to that. Icelanders seem to have a Native American taste in naming people and places. Gunholder tells me we just drove through a town called Cop War.
    “But this is Reykjavik?” Father Friendly asks her, adjusting the stiff collar to his thick neck with one hand while pointing out the windshield with the other.
    “Yeah, now we’re in Reykjavik.”
    “They say it’s a Tarantino town?” Oops. This sounds a bit too cool for the churchman. I quickly add, “I mean, Tarantino’s favorite city?”
    She quickly looks me over—wondering whether she’s sitting in a car with some famous Scientology pastor, a man who spends his holidays playing golf with Tom Cruise and John Travolta—before saying:
    “Yeah. He was here for New Year’s Eve. My girlfriend knows him. He’s OK.”
    I’m glad I didn’t kill him.
    Across an islanded bay, a long mountain guards the city to the north. It has the shape of a giant whale stranded ashore. Further north and out east, more mountains surround the city, lying out along the horizon like blue leopards dotted with white snowdrifts. Though they are as far away as the Hamptons from Harlem, I can see them as clearly as the tips of my shoes, for the air is as clean as a Trump Tower window. The ocean is a strong blue, and I can see waves forming and breaking as far as the eye can fly. Everything around here is crystal-clear. Like in the mind of a cold-blooded killer.
    The car radio delivers Justin Timberlake. The streets are buzzing with traffic, but the sidewalks are totally empty. Kind of reminds me of Sarajevo during the curfew. Excellent conditions for roof-to-sidewalk hits. The cars are mostly Japanese or European, and all of them look brand new. These people have money. Every other one is an SUV, and many of them are driven by butter-blonde ice-queens like Gunholder. Where are all their husbands?
    “Did you have a war recently?” I ask.
    “A war? No. We don’t even have an army.”
    Tell me another one.
    “Why do you ask?” she asks.
    “I just wonder where all the men are. I only see single women driving those cars.”
    “Most people have two cars. One for him, one for her.”
    I look at the black Range Rover in the lane next to us. One of those Virginia Madsen types is at the wheel.
    “I see. But that’s not exactly a lady’s car?”
    Gunholder gives me a fierce look.
    “In Iceland women are equal to men.”
    I look at her for a moment, and judging from the determined tilt of her ice-cream nose, I should at least try to believe her. Equal to men. No shit.
    She is clearly pissed at me and only gives the shortest possible answers to my following questions. Yes, five degrees is a bit cold for this time of year. Ten degrees is normal(!). Yes, she was partying last night. And yes, Justin Timberlake is quite big in Iceland. (I seem to have decided that Father Friendly is a pretty boring guy.)
    Gunholder enters the old town. Here the trees are taller and the streets more narrow. She parks her Škoda on a steep side street, outside a small green house with a rusty red roof. Like the other downtown houses, this one is covered in curly-waved iron on all sides, dressed to kill in a suit of armor. Actually, we could have used this back home: bulletproof vests for buildings.
    Gunholder lives on the second floor. Father Friendly does the sign of the cross in front of her door before unlocking it with a small kitchen knife from her mother’s collection. The girl looks at him as if she just witnessed a miracle.
    “Here you go,” I say in the most blessed way and open the door for her. She tells me to wait and disappears inside. Her place is the total opposite of her face; it’s a complete mess. I notice a tower of empty pizza boxes on the kitchen worktop; underwear, jeans, and jerseys on the floor; a half-used lipstick and a half-eaten sandwich. The smell of beer that has been sitting open for a week. Yet, in some strange way, this apartment seems much closer to Christ than her parents’ place. It’s much more believable as an apostle’s den.
    Gunholder works in a café downtown. She’s a fellow waiter. She offers to drive the miracle man back to the holy house, but I can’t stomach going