Then followed a night and a morning in which the priest got no sleep to speak of. As the sun began to shine through the blinds, she realized she had no choice but to wake the receptionist and confess the facts: she had accidentally caused Hitman Anders to find Jesus, and Jesus, in turn, had caused Hitman Anders to give up alcohol and beating people up for money.
Effective immediately.
Starting now, the only people on Earth whose heads he would even think of harming a hair on were theirs. And harm them he would, if they didn’t acquiesce to his demands.
“His demands?” wondered the bleary receptionist.
“Well, we owe him thirty-two thousand kronor, and he wants us to pay up so he can give it to the Red Cross. I think that was it.”
The receptionist sat up. He felt an urge to become very angry with someone, but he wasn’t sure whom. Grandfather, the priest, Hitman Anders, and Jesus were closest to hand. Yet he knew that there was no point.
Might as well get up, have breakfast, stand at his goddamned reception desk, and think logically to see where that might lead.
So their assault-and-battery business no longer had anyone to do the assaulting and battering, which meant they could not expect any further income. His revenge on Grandfather had been interrupted—unless Hitman Anders changed his tune. For that to happen, they would have to guide him away from God, Jesus, and the Bible, the trio that was such a bad influence on him, and move him back towards alcohol, pubs, and kicking his heels.
Per Persson barely had time to convey these thoughts to the priest before the former hitman arrived—at least two hours earlier than ever before.
“God’s peace be with you,” he said, instead of asking for beer and sandwiches as had been his habit until now.
It couldn’t be easy to go from being an alcoholic to a teetotaler in the span of one day. The receptionist suspected that an inner battle was raging in Hitman Anders, even if Jesus was still holding his own. This led Per Persson to launch a plan as hasty as it was treacherous. Hasty and treacherous plans were usually the priest’s specialty, so the receptionist soon felt extra proud when the outcome was as intended.
“I understand you’ll have a cheese sandwich, as usual, but surely you’ll want communion rather than beer, as one who walks with Jesus.”
Hitman Anders understood the part about the sandwich, but not the rest. He had never seen a church from the inside and, as luck would have it, he had no idea what communion was.
“Half a bottle, I’m guessing, since it’s still morning,” said Per Persson, placing some red wine next to the plastic-wrapped sandwich.
“But I don’t drink alcohol.”
“I realize that—anything but communion wine is out of the question. The blood of Jesus. Would you like me to remove the plastic from Jesus’s body for you?”
The priest realized what the receptionist was trying to do and came to his aid. “We didn’t quite get that far in our Bible study,” she said. “But I’m sure, Hitman Anders, that you take your faith seriously and don’t want to neglect consuming the body and blood of Jesus. As is becoming more and more common in our secular world.”
Hitman Anders had no idea what a secular world was, and he didn’t understand the connection between Jesus and plonk—but he thought he grasped that, in the name of Jesus, he could down half a bottle of wine with his cheese sandwich. Which would be fantastic, because something along those lines happened to be just what his insides were screaming for. Leaving all the drinking behind had been a hasty decision. “Well, no one’s perfect,” he said, “least of all those of us who are new to our faith. I realize I have no choice now that I walk with Jesus. But he and I actually met each other last night—doesn’t that mean I’m half a bottle behind?”
There it was. A small success amid all the misery. By now, Hitman Anders was convinced that he who truly walked with Jesus had better start with morning and afternoon communion and proceed with a more substantial evening communion before it was time for a free-for-all night-time communion starting sometime after nine p.m. He kept the thirty-two thousand kronor he’d been planning to donate to the Red Cross so he could invest it in the blood of Jesus.
But his refusal to work still stood. Four orders lay waiting, all accepted just before Hitman Anders and Jesus had run into each other. After that, the receptionist had been rather vague when contacted by potential clients. He’d said, “We’re fully booked at the moment,” or “We’re experiencing a temporary disruption in service.” But he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. Was it time to give up the business? There was quite a bit of money in the shoeboxes, after all—not for that striking hitman, but enough for the receptionist and his fairly beloved priest.
Yes, the fairly beloved agreed. There were no signs of improvement—that is, worsening—in Hitman Anders’s belief in God. So the priest saw no reason for herself and the receptionist to keep dealing with him. For all she cared, the hitman and Jesus could continue to walk side by side, preferably off a cliff if one happened to get in their way.
She could also live without the Sea Point Hotel, she said, but she added that she had become awfully used to Per Jansson’s company. It was like it was the two of them against everything else, and she would be happy to share both the shoeboxes and her life with him for all eternity, if he saw fit.
There was something special about a woman who, like himself, didn’t fully understand the purpose of fighting life’s battles. Yet they fought well alongside each other against everyone and everything. So Per Persson was also keen to continue along the path upon which they were already walking, on the condition she eventually remember his name.