The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Yeah. Never,” she says with a short laugh. “A Mafia guy….”
    I should maybe thank the Talians here. They’ve really done the image work for us mobsters. Though the girls of Manhattan may treat us like second-class citizens, we’re still king overseas.
    “You didn’t like me when I was playing the priest.”
    “No. That’s right.”
    “Well. I’m a bad actor.”
    “No, it was because you’re such a good actor, I guess.”
    “You hate your dad?”
    “No. I don’t hate him,” she says with a soft voice. “But it’s hard being brought up in a church. I wasn’t even allowed to dye my hair. ‘We have to respect God’s original design, blah, blah, blah…’ I mean, I just had enough. I had to break away. And that was pretty tough. Like coming out as a lesbian or something. When Dad found out about me smoking, he had his friend Torture come by the house to exorcise the evil spirits from my body. It was insane, really.”
    “And he didn’t succeed?”
    “Well, in a way. I went from Winstons to Winston Lights.”
    I get pregnant with laughter.
    “So you don’t have much contact with your parents then?”
    “No. The least possible. I only go there two times a year. For Christmas and Eurovision.”
    “What about Truster?”
    “Truster?” she laughs. “You always call him Truster. It’s Þröstur. Like ‘thrush,’ you know, the bird. ‘Thrush’ and then T, U, R. It’s not that hard.”
    “OK. Sorry. But what about your dad and him?”
    “Oh? They’re OK. Dad likes him. He’s quiet, handy, and helpful. He’s done tons of work for him at the TV station. Without getting paid at all. ‘The Lord will pay him in heaven, blah, blah…’ You get it? My parents are just impossible people, really.”
    Then she goes to fetch her post-orgasm cigarette. Because of the low ceiling, she’s forced to walk like a hunchback towards the open hatch. Her small breasts stay put (I mean, there is no flopping around) as she bows over the opening in the floor, but shake a bit as she descends the staircase. Moments later she’s back with her packet—polished pink nails tiptoeing across the rough floor—and lays herself beside me. Her butter-blonde hair is combed back in a small bun at the back of her head. I gently stroke it from forehead to bun. It feels kind of hard and sort of reminds me of the helmety hairdo of my black NY-doorman, though I’ve never dreamed of touching that wonder of nature. I let my eyes travel along her white, healthy body, from toes to cigarette, with short stopovers at her trimmed triangle and the pierced navel. She sucks on the slim stick of poison.
    “How do you say ‘love,’ in Icelandic?”
    “ Kynlíf .”
    “Queen Leaf?”
    “No, kynlíf .”
    She’s fucking playing with me. Those bloody Icelanders can never be honest, apart from the ones that God has ordered to. They always have to be cool. Must be the cold.
    “What’s it in Croatian?” she asks.
    “ Ljubav .”
    “That’s like ‘love’ with a B.”
    “Yes, it’s love to be. Yours is with a Q or a K…”
    “I was joking. Kynlíf means sex. Love is ást .”
    “Wow. That’s harsh. How do you spell it?”
    “A with hat, S, and T.”
    “AST? That’s Ax and Saw Treatment in our language.”
    “What does that mean?” she asks.
    I don’t answer. Munita suddenly breaks into my brain and fills it like a balloon. Munita, my love. Sorry. I have slept with another woman behind your butt. But it’s not my fault, really. If there’s someone to blame it must be the local police. Had they found me, this would never have happened. Gunholder tells me it’s common knowledge that the White Hats are hopeless and that Iceland has its own SWAT team called The Viking Squad, but they’re not available all the time.
    “There is only one squad. They must be busy now.”
    I feel a bit offended, jealous even. How could they possibly have found a more serious assignment on Gun-Free Island than capturing the triple six-pack killer of an FBI agent and a world-famous priest?
    “What could that be?”
    “I don’t know. They do all kinds of things. Maybe some president’s in town, or they’re monitoring a high school dance up north.”
    “A high school dance? The kids have guns?”
    “No, but Icelandic kids, when they get drunk, they go nuts.”
    So, guns against nuts. I count myself lucky to have stumbled upon Rev. Friendly at the JFK toilets. I could have killed someone with a ticket to Baghdad. Iceland is a