The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

I’m American now. I’m Friendly! The line moves pretty quickly. This will be easy, I tell myself. I find the holy man’s passport in the inner breast pocket of his black coat, step up to the glass booth, and hand it to the officer, a dark-browed guy with a grayish beard. He opens it and then says something in his own language. I give him a blank look. As he repeats himself I realize he’s speaking Russian. The motherfucker is speaking fucking Russian.
    “I’m sorry?” I say.
    “You don’t speak Russian?” he asks in English.
    “No, I was born in the States.”
    He holds up my passport. “It says here that you were born in Smolensk?”
    Suddenly all the veins in my neck become as thick as strings on an electric Fender bass. Fuck. I gave him the wrong passport! I gave him Igor’s passport. I’m Igor now, not Friendly. Big, big fuck.
    “Eh…Yeah. I was, actually, but we moved…my parents moved to America when…when I was six months old, so in…in my mind…”
    “So you’ve been living in America since then?”
    “Ah, yes. Yes. Exactly.”
    I’m relieved.
    “But you speak with a Slavic accent?” the motherfucker asks. What the fuck is going on here? This guy’s way too qualified for his job. Your average Russian physics professor working as a passport control officer?
    “Eh…yeah, it’s a kind of strange story. My…my parents…I was living alone with my parents all my childhood, deep in the woods, and I learned the language from them. And they spoke English with a very strong…very strong Russian accent.”
    The officer looks at me for two long seconds. Then his eyes glide down to the collar.
    “You’re a priest?”
    His accent is difficult to decipher.
    “Ah, yes. I’m Reverend…Reverend Illitch.”
    This is getting ridiculous.
    “But it doesn’t say so in the passport.” Damn. He’s like some super stubborn Serbian shitfucker.
    He asks me to wait and leaves his glass booth. I hear restless sighs in the line behind me. I don’t look back.
    A minute later he’s back in the booth with an older officer in a blue shirt. They look me over like a gay couple auditioning for a threesome. Finally the older one says, in an accent I recognize from Wise Guy and the stewardesses, “You are priest?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are you doing here in Iceland? Are you here for business or…?”
    Finally I find the voice of Igor. His true orthodox spirit.
    “The minister’s job is all pleasure, but you may call it business if you like.”
    The blue shirt looks impressed. He looks me over one last time, hands me the passport, and tells me, “OK. Have a good stay.”
    Shit. How could I have been so careless? How could I…Or no. Maybe it was the right thing to do. The Feds will probably have found Rev. Friendly’s body by now. How long will it take them to identify it? When they do, it’s better they not find out that someone is surfing the northern seas on his passport. Yeah, it was pure luck.
    I follow the flow of passengers deeper inside the air terminal. There is carpet on the hallway floor. And the soft-floored silence brings out the squeaking of Mr. Friendly’s leather shoes. Igor’s running shoes are inside the briefcase, along with his leather jacket. I reach the main hall and wonder what to do. I go to a desk and ask for flights to Frankfurt, Berlin, London, anywhere but here. There are flights, the blonde MILF says, but they’re all sold out. The next available is three days from now, to Copenhagen and then on to Zagreb. I wonder what my bags will say when no one claims them. I find Igor’s VISA card and buy him a ticket to Tomislav’s fatherland. Mr. Friendly looks on as Toxic signs Mr. Illitch’s name. Suddenly my simple life has become quite complicated. A layer cake of IDs.
    The mature blonde recommends I go into town and hands me a hotel address. “It’s only forty minutes with the bus,” she says and smiles. Ah, well, I guess three days in Vikingland won’t hurt. Three days without a gun will be hard on Toxic, though.
    An escalator carries me down one flight and I walk through the busy luggage hall. The exit gate is divided in two, for those with something to declare and not. My latest identity asks whether I shouldn’t use this opportunity to declare myself guilty of sixty-seven homicides, but I wave all the angels away, like the cloud of mosquitos.
    Surprise awaits me outside the exit gate. Out in the small welcoming area, a man with thinning hair and a