The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Mother Earth.
    “If you are,” she adds.
    “Yes, of course I’m sorry.”
    “That’s good. You’re getting better.”
    And here comes the good part. She strokes my cheek with her big white hand. With her strong, soft fingers. If this was a movie, I would now grab her with my Tom Cruise arms and we would kiss like two people eating their first grapefruit after a week in the desert, and then I would tear off her clothes and in one cut we’d be making biblical love on my Old Testament bed. The movie would be titled Trinitatis , containing a love triangle between sinner, priest, and his wife.
    “I just think it could be good for you to write them a letter.”
    “OK. I’ll think about it.”
    Actually, I should write the other sixty-six widows as well. I should write them all a standard sorry letter.
    Dear Mrs. ___________,
    It is with great regret and a degree of sadness that I write to inform you that it was me who killed your husband. Of course, I know that nothing can replace the love of your life, and no matter how deep my regret will be, it can never bring him back to life.
    All the same I want you to try to understand my situation. At the time of your husband’s extermination I was a professional hitman for a certain national organization. Killing was my living. Between the years 2000 and 2006, I killed 67 men. Your husband was only one of many.
    Mr. ________________ was hit #__.
    I can assure you that his death was among the most memorable on my list. Your husband was a good man. He died with great dignity and did absolutely not complain about his fate.
    It is, however, with great pleasure that I inform you that I have now decided to thread a new path in the forest of life. As from May 2006, I am leaving the homicide industry. Shooting people is certainly one of the most difficult jobs you can find. The physical pressure and the psychological strain is very high. And now I have simply had enough.
    Therefore I can assure you, in case you have found yourself a new partner (which I want to congratulate you on, if this is the case), that I will not kill your husband again.
    Yours truly —Tomislav Bokšić .
    This is the last time I will use my father’s name. It’s dead now. My attempt at suicide wasn’t a complete flop.
    The new me comes with a new name. After killing two priests, I’m baptized by two more.
    “Good morning, Mister Ólafsson!” Goodmoondoor says as he suddenly appears at the end of my second week in hiding, smiling his teeth out. He hands me a brand-new Icelandic passport sporting my face and my own Icelandic social security number, called kennitala . I’m resurrected under the name of “Tómas Leifur Ólafsson.” The two preachers have a good laugh when they watch me read it. They just can’t control themselves. I don’t know exactly why, but they find it extremely funny.
    “Tómas Leifur Ólafsson! Congratulations! You are Icelandic now! You have to learn Icelandic!” Goodmoondoor almost shouts.
    I study the passport. It looks impeccable. Even more so than the Chinese-made one for Igor.
    “How did you…? Where did you get it?” I ask them.
    “It’s made in Iceland! Handmade!”
    Goodmoondoor can hardly control his joy, nor can he hide the immense pride he feels from having been able to arrange this illegal artifact.
    “I have a friend in the police,” he says and winks at me with the silliest of smiles. “And another one in politic party.”
    I want to run outside and laugh myself to death. There is nothing more hilarious in this world than holy men doing illegal things.
    They produce another round of laughs when they ask me to say my new name. “Thomas, leave her” is my first, and for me quite logical, attempt. Apparently “Toe Mash Lay Fur” is more like it. They make me say it some ten times before they’re ready to wet my post-Friendly hair with the tap water that Torture makes holy with a blessing and a smile. They’re having the time of their lives.
    “Actually, you should have been Tómas Leifur Bogason,” Torture explains. “That’s the direct translation of your Croatian name, and for a long time this was the tradition here in Iceland. Immigrants were forced to take on an Icelandic name that was usually a translation or some version of the original one. But we don’t want to risk anything, do we, so we came up with this one. Ólafsson means ‘son of Ólaf’ and that’s the name of our president.”
    That’s his first name, that is. Those