The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Christian TV station, along with some words from the preacher himself. I can picture his big-eyed llama-face on a long hairy neck in front of the reporter: “We are in big shock. We didn’t suspect anything. He was very friendly. We consider ourselves lucky to be alive.”
    Igor’s name is not mentioned. He’s my only hope now.
    I try to call Munita, using the Maacks’ house phone. I know it’s not the wisest move, but I just can’t resist. I have to talk to her. I call her mobile and her machine. “So please leave me a massage after the beep.” You got to love that voice. That soft, oily, hairy world that sucks you in like the mother of life itself. Even her speaking mistakes are sexy. She doesn’t answer. And she doesn’t call back. I wonder if she’s OK? Violent death runs in her family.
    I take a long hot bath in the biggest tub east of Vegas, letting bubbles bounce my belly for fifty minutes, then enjoy a naked walk of the house with a cold beer in hand, taking all possible advantage of the extraordinary feeling of being out of sight, out of time. I live in an empty house. I’m the no one who’s at home. I do not exist. I’m just that invisible force that moves a small green can of Heineken beer around this big house, slowly sucking away its contents.
    As I go back inside the bathroom, I’m unpleasantly surprised to see my face in the mirror. For a split second I see Father Friendly. I’m reminded of our quick eye contact in the mirror at JFK and my heart skips a beat. Mr. Friendly is stubborn like a stud on steroids. He just won’t let go. He keeps calling me from his grave like an angry senior complaining about his coffin. I even dreamt him last night. At some open-air gathering of long white gowns and tall green trees, he came over to me and kissed me on the forehead. His lips felt big, thick, and warm. As if he was black. And when he backed away, I saw that in fact he looked like Louis Armstrong, the good old trumpet man.
    I don’t get it. Sixty-six pigs have gone down, without the slightest twinge of conscience, and then all of a sudden: a bald priest killed in an airport bathroom keeps following me around like a retarded girl in love. Maybe he wasn’t just a holyman but a holy man? Like Louis Armstrong.
    The beer makes my brain swim inside my head, like a whale trapped in an undersized aquarium, and I get all confused. I look at myself in the mirror, look for myself in the mirror. Somehow I’m not there. I’m faced with a babushka doll with the face of an American TV preacher. Inside him there is the charming polish housepainter Tadeusz Boksiwic. Inside him is the Russian armsmuggler Igor Illitch. Inside him: Toxic the hitman. Inside him: The fresh-off-the-boat Tom Boksic. And finally, inside him, there is “Champ,” the tiny little Tomo-boy from Split, Croatia.
    Instead of getting depressed about the number and sizes of all my different selves, I add yet another one to the wooden doll: I walk out of the house as Mr. Maack, the successful business man of Guard the Beer, Iceland. I’m wearing a long light brown winter coat, a dark gray hat, and a red scarf around my neck. Shoes from Lloyds, London. On top of it all, I’m holding a brown leather briefcase containing my Russian sneakers and some clean underwear. I must look totally ridiculous, like a royal hitman on his way to a late night job.
    Still, I try to walk like a business man: with a straight back and belly out front. A man who’s got all his successes behind him now doing his victory walk. As if he was not moving his feet himself, but was being pushed down the road by the steady growing interests of his investments. This means that I walk rather slowly along the sidewalk. I’m the only one to do so here in the country of no streetwalkers. It makes me a bit nervous. Every fucking car is full of eyes. Apparently they’ve never seen a walking man before. It’s like being on stage to a full house at the HNK. But this is the only way. Stealing a car wouldn’t be Mr. Maack’s style, and a taxi was too risky.
    The light is on as ever. At 10:33 the sun is still burning on the horizon like an orange lantern at an outdoor Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn. It’s a beautiful evening, actually, with completely calm seas and the customary ten degrees.
    Damn it. Now I sound like a British gentleman. Must be the hat.

CHAPTER 13
MURDER & KILLING INC.
    05.21.2006
    I didn’t feel like killing Maack the couple. Their dog was enough.