The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

At first I think he must be toasting my fresh hairdo, but he explains that this is the Icelandic version of “cheers!” The Vikings used to celebrate their victories by filling their victims’ brain shells with booze.
    I love this country already.
    After dinner I try to fall asleep. I really need my after-killing nap. But I seem to be the only one who wants to shut his eyes. The Vikings scream for another skull of cognac. And then the captain starts his voice-over bit, his manly voice tuned to the max in the overhead speakers. As with all his colleagues around the world, he speaks in Airish, the incomprehensive language of the skies. Those cockpit-monologues always sound to me like some Latin prayer, asking God for permission to cross his lawn. This one is fourteen minutes long.
    I keep my eyes shut. Being Friendly is an iron collar around my neck.
    Behind me I can hear the stewardess take yet another drinking order from two happy Vikings. And down the aisle, a group of chubby women have drunk themselves back to their high-school days. The Icelanders seem to be related to the Russians, who can never leave their motherland without being totally hammered and would never return to it in a sober state. Makes me think of old Ivica, who used to live in our street in Split. He was so afraid of his wife that he had to soak himself in courage each time he wanted to leave the house, and never dared return unless he was deaf from booze.
    “Skull!” “Skull!” I hear them say behind me, all around me. I give up on sleeping and open my priestly eyes.
    Now it’s selling time. They’ve turned the plane into a flying mall, with the stewardesses all busy running credit cards and handing out sunglasses and silky ties. I’ve never seen that before, not even on Aeroflot. But it seems like an effective but deadly combination: drinking and shopping. I think to myself that Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s should definitely consider opening bars in their men’s and women’s departments. Or, maybe there are no shops in Iceland?
    Despite the captain’s prayer, the angels keep on pinching my legs and punching a conscience I thought I’d lost. Normally my profession carries no side effects, though I do get tired after a hit. The post-slaying siesta is a close relative to the after-sex nap; though there’s little physical effort (she always prefers to be on top), the inner achievement calls for a little rest.
    I finally manage to tune out the drunken shopping of my fellow travelers and fall asleep with Munita on top of me—her wonder balls bouncing and her long, black hair tickling my chubby chest, like the tip of God’s long white beard touching my sick soul.

CHAPTER 4
“FATHER FRIENDLY”
    05.16.2006
    The landing wakes me up. It’s a harsh one, with the plane shaking all over, from nose to tail, long after it has touched the ground. A bright, sexy voice rings out over the system, first in the lunar language, and then in English, welcoming us to the local temperature of three degrees Celsius.
    I guess Iceland is the right name after all.
    The photos didn’t lie. It does look like the moon. Nothing but gray rocky fields topped with moss with small blue mountains in the distance. It’s lava, I guess. Lava fields. This is Volcano Island.
    The stewardess gives me another platonic smile as I leave the aircraft. The walkway is made of glass. Actually, the landscape looks like a huge set design from a Star Wars movie. I attempt to enter this strange land like a regular visitor, trying hard to walk like the man I killed last night, swinging his black briefcase like a happy priest, wearing his all-black shoes, shirt, jacket, and coat plus the white collar. I kept the jeans on. I’m a modern minister.
    I follow the basketball player inside the terminal. He’s way too small for his profession, shorter even than six-foot me. Maybe they ship all the smallest players to the small nation leagues. Wise Guy said the Icelandic nation only counted three hundred thousand people. Is that even legal? It’s like if Little Italy was a country, with its own flag and everything, a small Olympic team. They’d sure take the Gold in Restaurant Shooting.
    The basketball player leads me to Passport Control, where two lines have formed in front of a glass cage housing two officers. One line is for the people of the European Union and the other is for the rest of the world. I’m trying to remember if Russia is a member of the EU when I realize that