The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

^{CHAPTER 30} SCHMAU-WAYISH

I’m Catman. I’m crouching on top of the wall between the dead man’s cell and the next one, holding on to the thick overhead ceiling beam touching the back of my head. I have a fly’s view of the whole floor. Some six stalls on this side and another six on the other. A narrow hallway between. In the far end, the kitchen.

I can hear the officers talking down the corridor. They speak in Icelandic between themselves and in English to one of the Poles, who sounds both drunk and as if he just woke up.

“Are you Polish?”

“No, you police!”

There are two cells between the wall I’m crouching on top of and my space. The closer one is empty. I wonder about the other. My heart skips from trash metal to speed metal when I hear the policemen try to open the door to the closest cell. But after shaking the handle for a second, I hear the Polish guy murmur no, no, and soon they’re at the dead man’s door. I just hope my saw log will keep quiet.

I wait until they start hammering loudly on the door and working on it with a crowbar. Then I gently slide myself down the wall, Catman style, and onto the windowsill in the cell next to the one I just robbed. The white police car outside is empty. No hat to be seen, though the night is still bright enough for reading. The police continue their carpentry and I climb the next wall, carefully peeking into the cell behind it. It belongs to one of the Poles, probably the squealer, because the bed is empty and the door is open.

I turn down the music in my heart before gliding down from wall to windowsill and then move across it, soundless, with my eyes on the open door. Nobody sees me, and then I’m in my room. Speed metal gives way to power ballad. It almost has me singing “With Arms Wide Open.” My favorite Creed song.

I spend the next fifteen minutes thinking where to hide the gun—THE GUN!—but I still haven’t made up my mind when the White Hats knock on my door. There are two of them standing out in the hallway, two round pebble-nosed snowballs in uniform, and suddenly I’m dead convinced that they’re the same guys who had a small chat with Tadeusz, the Polish housepainter, that fateful night last May. Some of Tadeusz’s vodka-weary countrymen are standing behind the two policemen, and one of them explains to them that I’m a local.

“You are Icelandic?” the police asks me in Icelandic.

“Schmau-wayish,” I answer with a lot of nods and a smile.

This means “a tiny bit,” a magical word Gun taught me this summer that turns out to be a real ass-saver here. I then bring out my mountain-blue passport, and my heart plays the drum ‘n’ base version of the Icelandic national anthem while they ponder the impeccable craftsmanship. They read my name aloud, examining my Slavic face, with a stern look.

“Tómas Leifur Ólafsson?” they say.

“Jau. Tommy!” I hit back with an acting-stupid smile and tell my right hand to stay the hell out of my right pocket.

“Where do you work?” they ask me in their cold language.

I switch to English (explaining that my father was half American and all that shit), and tell them about Samver. Their faces instantly light up.

“Do you know Sammy?”

The Good Samaritan’s name works like a hair dryer on the frosty situation, and we talk for a while about the small man with the dancing glasses. The two policemen know him from work. One of the most fun guys to arrest, they assure me. Then they get serious again and ask me whether I’ve any connections with the Kaunas guys. I tell them no.

“Did you notice something spacious in the house today or tonight?”

“Suspicious, you mean?”

I’ve got the upper hand now. I can relax.

“Yes,” they say.

Without thinking or blinking, I decide to be a good sport, forgetting all about the Lithuanian threats. Must be the gun. Or a belated show of gratitude towards the White Hats for giving me the summer of my life.

“Yes. I saw them take the dead man’s body outside, just some twenty minutes ago. I saw it from my window,” I say, inviting them inside my cell. “They had it in a big suitcase. It looked quite heavy. They put it in the back of a white van and drove away.”

“Did you see the number of it?”

“The license number? Yes. It was SV seven-four-one.”

I’m not kidding. I remember the fucking license number. The two officers look at me as if they want to invite me on a Caribbean cruise. First class. Next summer. Just the three of us. They then come to their senses.

“And where was the car?”

“Just… right here below. Outside the entrance.”

We’re by the window and one of them leans over to my side to have a better look outside. In doing so, he accidentally touches the hard little thing in my pocket with his left hip. The policeman automatically turns his face towards me and says in the most polite way:

“Afsaky.”

This is Icelandic for: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your gun.”

The day after, when I come home from work, I see three white police SUVs parked outside our beloved hotel. Some yellow police tape rattles in the freezing summer breeze, and a White Hat guards the entrance. I keep walking past the building, at a good distance, once again taking on the role of the odd stroller on the empty sidewalks of Iceland.

An hour later I ring Gunnhildur’s bell. She opens the door and soon we’re up in her messy kitchen, kissing like a pair of desperate lovers. I completely forget myself and hug her too hard: she feels the hard thing in my pants.

“What’s that?”

“German steel.”