The symphonic gong chimed and chimed.

Mom regarded my meteoric descent. Her lips parted into a soundless shriek that boiled the water and engulfed me in a wave of abject rage. The shock wave stripped my flesh to bone, powdered the bone, and I dissolved into the waking world; the world of the unreal and the impermanent.

■■■

Another day of knocking on office doors and putting the lean on friends, colleagues, and old, tenuous acquaintances of Sean Pruitt. Ted texted the address of Lenny Herzog, custodian to the Jeffers Colony. A relatively short drive, but located in a sketchy rural neighborhood. I tabled that interview and headed home in the midafternoon, grateful for a long weekend, even if it meant glue, scissors, and, God love me, glitter, in service of an elementary school project. That evening, I rubbed Meg’s feet and stared at whatever movie played on TV without registering the meaning of the images.

Somewhere along the line, I shook off the stupor and actually processed that it was a news report about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the thousands upon thousands of man-hours of investigation that unraveled certain aspects of the mysterious tragedy while deepening others.

Despite the incompetence and the lies of a corrupt Malaysian government, some semblance of the truth emerged. Forensic detectives, psychologists, intelligence operatives, and armchair detectives played a communal role in piecing together the puzzle. We can imagine that the senior pilot depressurized the plane and killed every passenger and colleague. We cannot imagine why he perpetrated this unspeakable act. Upon going silent, MH370 continued at cruising altitude for over six hours before “presumably” crashing into the Indian Ocean. Ah, but those six long hours she was a ghost plane, for all intents and purposes . . .

I’ve seen and committed my share of dark deeds. I can’t decide whether it’s a comfort that the enormity of some actions remains inconceivable, even to a guy who made a career of evil. There’s always something worse, something beyond the scope of our experience. This was one.

At the credits, Meg switched to the true-crime channel, where a police detective monotoned the particulars of a case that was proven by science, and twelve inconvenienced citizens, to be a gruesome crime of vengeance. An adolescent boy emptied a handgun magazine into his stepdad’s head as retaliation for real or imagined abuse.

She didn’t cut a glance at me. I felt the weight of her regard anyway, hot as a branding iron. I’m sure this was firmly categorized as “inconceivable” in her mind alongside the ghost flight. I dared not admit that, yes, the plane crash was a tragedy perpetrated by an evil person, but, baby, I kind of see the kid’s point of view.

PART II

JOHN HENRY IN THE PIT

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I returned to Horseheads on Sunday night and hit the bunk at a reasonable hour, vowing to get plodding bright and early. Hotel Roan was quite pleased to book me into the very same room I’d recently inhabited. I’ve always been a generous tipper—graft and wanton largesse are the Outfit way—and with a pocketful of Adeyemi’s dough, I was practically Daddy Warbucks.