The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

^{CHAPTER 20} TORTURE THERAPY

If sleep is a broadcast from heaven, there is too much static on my radio. I can’t sleep. Too many things in my thawing, aching head. The unsuccessful suicide mourns the death he did not get. I have delivery trucks coming at me by the minute. One moment I’m making love to Munita in the middle of the road, the next her lips are frozen and a bumper hits me in the back of my head. One moment I’m going through hit #23 and the next I’m decorating my funeral home in Smolensk. I better rent a nice street-front space and cover the windows with big letters, American style: “YOUR FAVORITE UNDERTAKER — Death’s Best Friend.” And maybe add some recommendations from satisfied customers. “Excellent coffin and solid manicure. Thanks to Igor, I will rest in peace. —Vladimir Fedorov (1932–2006).”

I do the mummy, lying on my back, totally still, like Fedorov in his grave. Every small movement brings pain. When Goodmoondoor drops by, I ask him for some aspirin.

“A spring?”

“No, aspirin. Medicine. Painkillers.”

“Oh, I understand. No, I’m sorry. We don’t have it. The Lord is our painkiller.”

And then once again that stupid smile of his. I’m in Amishland.

They didn’t dare touch my jeans, so I wear them to bed. My cell phone is still in the right pocket and from time to time I can hear Gun calling. The phone’s vibrations have a strong appeal to its neighbor, at the other side of the pocket wall, but I’m too weak to be able to bring it out and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to answer. I don’t want her to see me now.

It’s probably afternoon when Torture arrives. He enters the white room like a doctor, with a small briefcase. The combed back hair and the thick Lennon glasses are in place. He looks me straight in the eye and speaks to me in the most commanding voice of God himself.

“You are the sinner of sinners. You must know that. You have killed the messenger of God’s holy scripture, the holy bringer of the living Word. You have committed the worst of crimes. Are we in agreement on this? Do you admit to your crime and sin?”

The mummy nods.

“Could you please put your holy confession on your satanic tongue?”

“Yes. Yes, I confess. I am sinner,” the Elephant Man weakly issues through his thick rubber lips.

“And a killer.”

“Yes. Killer.”

“You are the true murderer of Father Friendly, our beloved brother and savior of millions, so help me God?”

“Yes. I killed Father Friendly. It was… not good.”

“It was NOT GOOD? No, you were not even worthy of being in the same room as he. My dear friends here, Guðmundur and Sigríður, are risking a lot for saving your lost soul. And me as well. We are all taking a great risk. You should know that. They risk their jobs and they risk their reputation, their TV station, their house, their car, their everything.”

The good couple is standing behind him, with big eyes and proud lips.

“But saving one soul into the Kingdom of heaven… Saving one soul, even though it’s the most sinful one, as yours truly is… Saving one soul is worth every jeep, every house, every job. Like true believers in the faith of the living God, they do believe in love and forgiveness of the highest kind. Following the good example of Jesus Christ, they’re willing to offer their love and forgiveness, even in the face of their most vicious enemy. So you should know that you owe your life to them for the rest of your days and for the rest of all time. For heaven knows that kindness offered in the face of evil, at the risk of one’s life, is a gift that lasts forever, for all time. A gift that cannot be returned, so help me God. Let us pray.”

They pray for me and my lost soul. To claim it back I have to lie here for seven days and seven nights, and during this time I must fast. I’m allowed one glass of holy water per day. Only by removing the needs of the body will the soul come forth, Torture assures me as he stitches up the cut on my forehead with a knitting needle and heavy string. It reminds me of when my father stitched my small leg wound in the back of an old school bus our first night of the war. The same silent and forceful concentration on the broad, bearded face. Goodmoondoor helps Sickreader keep the bleeding away from their church-white linen.

“For he opened up his wounds and let the blood of Christ, his Savior the Lord, flow from the heavens and into his flesh…” Torture murmurs as he ties the knot on my forehead.

Fasting would be OK if I didn’t smell their cooking downstairs. It’s the story of the perfume and the boner all over again. I take small sips from my glass of water, trying to make it last throughout the day. Torture is a tyrant. There is absolutely nothing left in my stomach except the broken tooth, gnawing away at my guilt.

Thanks to that, my Torture Therapy is going pretty good. I’ve had time to peek through every hole that I’ve made in people’s lives. In my mind I have followed all my bullets down people’s throats, into people’s heads, and up people’s rectums. And fueled with regret, I’ve played them all in reverse, making them return to source. By making a hundred holes in my head, I’ve made it a showerhead: all my deadly sins come hissing out, mixed with blood and urine, puke and poop.

The week of cleansing.

On day seven Gun shows up at her parents’ house. You can’t fail to notice. Some hefty arguing between her and her parents is followed by a sour howling that somehow seems to be a part of a phone call. There must be a crisis in Sibling Town. She would never come here without a reason. Or maybe I’m the reason. After a long mother-daughter conversation downstairs, I hear them come up the stairs.

Super slowly, Sickreader opens the door to my room and lets the red-eyed beauty inside. Out of habit I suck in my stomach, though there’s not much need to, I guess. It hasn’t been filled for a week now, plus the eiderdown bed sheet is pretty thick. Gunholder snails over to my bed, looking a bit surprised by my mummy disguise. Her face fills my eyes, my dead hungry eyes that haven’t seen anything delicious for a week now. I really want to eat her. Her mom remains by the door with a stern face telling me that she’s not being nice to me: this is no visiting hour. It looks like she’s using me for fixing the broken bond between Gun and her. Letting the girl in on their big secret will possibly help restoring her lost respect for her parents. The fact that you’re secretly nursing a broken-nosed cop-killer wanted in various countries around the world can only make you more exciting. And that’s fine with me. I can be their Savior. Wow. Therapy seems to be working a bit too well.

The house phone rings downstairs, and Sickreader disappears for a while. We’re left alone. Me and my teary Gun.

“Hi,” she whispers in a weak voice. It’s the tone that people use when they enter their deserted house after the hurricane.

“Hi.”

“I’ve been calling you.”

“I know.”

My talking ability has been somewhat restored.

“How are you?” she asks.

“Hungry.”

She smiles.

“Why did you leave our house? What happened?”

“I… I got some bad news.”

“What news?”

“They killed my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend? Who?”

“The Mafia. Either us or the Talians.”

“No, I mean… You have a girlfriend?”

“Had. They killed her.”

“OK. Yeah. Good for you.”

“Good for me?”

“Yes, that you had a girlfriend. I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were just, you know… dating.”

“For how long?”

“A year and a half.”

“That would qualify as a marriage in this country. For how long can you be ‘dating’ in America?”

“Forever, I guess, but it does become a bit more serious in the thirty-fifth year, when you get inheritance rights…”

She laughs a bit.

“What was her name?”

“My girlfriend’s? Munita.”

“Munita? What was she like?”

“She was… meaty.”

That’s the tooth in my stomach speaking.

“Meaty?”

“Yes. She… she was like a… a main course.”

The butter-blonde looks at me as if my problems are not only physical. I tell my tooth to shut up.

“OK,” she says, wetting her sorbet lips with her strawberry tongue.

“But somebody ate her. They ate her body but left the head in the fridge. For me.”

A short silence here, and then she asks like a doctor who’s testing the sanity of his patient’s:

“And you loved her?”

“No. Not then. But I do now, I guess.”

Death is a love drug. I didn’t know I loved my father until after he was dead.

Gun remains silent for a while until she leans over and places her medium rare lips on mine, creating one of the strangest feelings of my life. In record time I need to arrange some round-table negotiations between penis and stomach. The hungry bastards both claim the kiss as theirs. Before the incredible thing is over, I manage to force them to an agreement—standing between them like Bill Clinton out on the sunny White House lawn, presiding over the famous handshake of Rabin and Aarafat. I wonder which one is playing the penis?

She rearranges the bandage on my nose.

“My parents have this big plan for you. They’re very excited about it. It’s almost as if you are the challenge of their lives.”

“OK. I better not let them down.”

“No. At least don’t kill them.”

I like this girl.

“What about you and Truster?”

“We had a fight. It’s been a crazy week.”

“OK.”

“I’m sleeping here tonight. In my old room, for the first time in six years or something. Þórður is coming tomorrow.”

“Oh? Torture time?”

She laughs.

“Yeah. He’s gonna take you to his church.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You have to pass through the Gates of Hell or something, my dad says.”

Holy shit.