Free Shattered by Jay Bonansinga

with the notions of black magic, dark forces in the universe, and hell. Especially hell . Not the Hollywood version, but the intricate, protean territory first depicted by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy , and later by Milton in Paradise Lost . He had begun to believe in the existence of a literal hell. Perhaps it was located in invisible regions, perhaps merely in the convolutions of the human mind, but he was more and more certain it existed. And all the requisite denizens—the fallen angels, the demonic entities—were as palpable as the ragged souls he hunted. And somehow, in some inchoate way, his mother served as connective tissue to all these unseen realms.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Mom?”
    The old woman turned, the wind from the open window tossing her tiny kente braids. She proffered a dignified smile. “Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask such a thing?”
    Grove drove for a while. “I heard it in your voice last night. Something’s bothering you.”
    She shook her gray head emphatically. “Nothing is bothering me, Uly. This is all in your mind.”
    â€œThen why the surprise visit?”
    â€œUly!” She shot him a look. “I did not teach my son such bad manners.”
    A ragged sigh from Grove. “Okay, okay…play it your way. Everything’s peachy.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Grove looked at her. “And you just came down here on a moment’s notice with the heat and with your arthritis and your sciatica because you wanted to burp your grandson and play another round of gin rummy with me and Maura.”
    Vida looked out the window with an implacable little smile on her ashy lips. “I could not have said it better myself,” she mumbled.
    â€œAlright. Fine. Whatever. It’s good to have you, Mom.” Grove searched the hazy distance for his exit. “There’s a lot of burping to be done.”
    Vida smiled and said nothing…just kept staring out the window at the afternoon’s lengthening shadows.
    Â 
    Far to the west, the rains rolled into the Mississippi River valley. Gray sheets billowed across the metro St. Louis area, flooding back alleys and low-lying gullies along the river. Steam oozed from the cracked thoroughfares and pocked asphalt. Lightning veined the heavens and volleys of thunder crashed over the Gateway Arch like an aerial dog-fight.
    Henry Splet witnessed most of the storm through the narrow windows of his equipment room at WJID, sitting at the coffee-stained editing bay, angrily burning copies of a public service announcement for the station manager. He seethed with anger as he sat there twisting knobs and poking buttons, staring at the cathode ray screen, not really seeing anything, and whenever an assistant came in to help, Splet would snap at them to get the hell out.
    It went on like this for most of the day, the passage of time losing all context for Splet. He felt as though he were floating above his body, buoyant with hate and contempt. It all just seemed so unfair. All he wanted to do was hire somebody to kill a Fed. You would think he asked Milambri to hit the Pope. What was the big deal?
    By six o’clock that night, Splet needed to feed the furnace inside him—the one in his brain—the smoldering embers inside his mind-space. He needed to answer the compulsion. But this time, he dispensed with the watching ritual. Instead he called Helen and told her he had to put in an all-nighter at the studio, then he went down to the warehouse district along the river and waited for a prostitute to approach.
    The first one came off the stroll like a clerk in a fresh produce department—a heavyset black woman that didn’t quite fit the profile.
    Henry shooed her away.
    Finally, around 9:30, a lanky young white girl accosted Henry, and he gave her a courteous nod, then led her around behind the Pillsbury building where he drove a screwdriver through the base of her neck with