The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Helgason Hallgrímur Read Free Book Online Page A

passing the embassy with Gunholder as a human shield, LPP style. She voices her surprise at my sudden move, and her sweet fucking face brings out my own fucking self: I accidentally murmur a “fuck.” She hears it.
    “A priest that says ‘fuck’?”
    “Sure,” I say, “we can say it. We just can’t do it.”
    She slows down a bit.
    “Oh, right. So you’ve never…you’re a virgin?”
    “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Her café turns out to be a pretty cool bistro in the heart of town called Café Paris. It looks like a three-star Starbucks with a smoking section, but I’m happy to be inside, wringing my hands like it was January. They’re not kidding about the arctic spring. Gunholder puts on her apron and brings me an All Icelandic Latte with a double shot of irritation. Despite all his miracle-working, she still seems to hate Father Friendly and his deflatable stomach. He gives her a stupid holy smile.
    “Does your father keep a gun in the house?”
    “A gun? That’s a strange question.”
    “Yes. In the States we all keep a gun in the house. You never know. Especially if you’re a priest.”
    She rolls her great eyes.
    “Nobody has a gun in Iceland. It’s a safe country.”
    Safe country, my ass. I make a few calls and within a week it’ll be a Croatian colony.
    It’s 10:30 AM on a Wednesday morning and there are three of us in the café. I count two people out on the street. If this is downtown, no wonder the suburbs are silent. Cars sail by in slow motion. I can’t get over all these driving ladies that look like millionaires’ wives or daughters, with Prada sunglasses, Barbie hair, and airbag lips. On my scale, they all range from Day 2 to Day 4.
    It reminds me of my week in Switzerland, when my architectural studies took me to a small village in the Alps to research a brand-new skiing area. The week felt like a month. It was even calmer than the fucking Belarus. The only people out were some totally unfucked housewives with Gucci hairdos doing hundred-dollar lunches in the village restaurant. Their husbands spent their days in the city, locked up in their bank safes. They reminded me of the queen of Spain, these ladies in fur and heels, as they slowly passed the jewelry stores (rich people always walk slowly, because of the deep pockets, I guess). They were all Day 26 types, but by the fifth day, I was on the brink of a mass rape. I pictured the headline in the International Herald Tribune : “Student Fucks Fifteen, Then Self.”
    I finish my coffee and put it on Igor’s card. Gunholder doesn’t seem to notice. I ask her for things for the Friendly tourist to do. She points out the window.
    “It’s all there: the cathedral, the parliament, the statue of John Secretson, our national hero…”
    She must be joking. The cathedral is the size of God’s dog house (I imagine he has a tricolor Chihuahua), and the parliament building is no bigger than my grandfather’s country house in Gorski Kotar. I’m on Lilliput Island.
    I try to dive into the downtown area, but it’s only three blocks square. It’s easier to lose it than get lost in it. How am I to keep up my LPP in this town?
    I drift past a hunter’s shopping paradise, and the sight of a rifle tempts me inside. The clerk is a kind-looking gentleman with the soft eyes of a prey animal. I ask for a handgun, shotgun, whatever. Just something that’s good for mailing bullets. He looks at me for a moment before telling me, in a wannabe British accent, that they only sell rifles for hunting, no handguns.
    “OK. Can you tell me where I can buy a pistol in this town?”
    “I’m sorry, you can’t. Not in a shop at least.”
    What is it with these Icelanders? No army. No guns. No nothing. Only gorgeous women driving luxury jeeps, roaming around Big Chill City in their pussy-warm wagons, hoping to pick up a professional killer posing as a priest.
    Since I can’t get a gun, I settle for a Swiss army knife, similar to my old