The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

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.

CHAPTER 21
THE GATES OF HELL
    05.31.2006
    It’s Torture Therapy: Step 2.
    I’m standing on the carpeted floor in the bearded man’s church, with a big Band-Aid on my forehead and one tooth missing. But the swelling is gone, my ankle is bearable, and the right shoulder only shrieks a little. I must have lost twenty pounds. For the shy stomach, fasting works like psychotherapy.
    They made me lie in the trunk for the drive up here. Those guys have my total respect. I don’t get it, really, why they’re going to these lengths for their friend’s killer. Why don’t they just send me straight to hell? Or maybe this is it?
    “The Gates of Hell.”
    The church is empty. Mr. T went to his office. He comes back in a funny white robe, plus he’s barefooted. Around his waist he wears a black belt, and as he comes closer I can see that this is actually a karate—karaoke?—outfit. Something Japanese at least. It has that gung-ho gay feel to it. A barefooted fighter wearing a lady’s robe.
    Torture tells me to follow him out in the lobby. To the right of the entrance there is a dark red door. We enter a square room about fifteen feet square. At least the ceiling is high and the walls are white, with small windows on top. A solid white, squared column stands in the middle of the room. The floor is covered in mattresses with dark red plastic covers. The air smells of old sweat.
    “Take off your shoes, shirt, and pants,” he says, while locking the door and turning on the lights.
    I’m in for a manly rape, Japanese style.
    “As you must have heard, the world is divided in two: heaven and hell. Separating the two is The Great Wall of Fire. It runs all the way from Eden to our present day, from the depths of the darkest coal mine to the fingertips of the Universe. No bird can fly over it. No fish can swim under it. NO SOUL CAN PASS THROUGH IT!” he suddenly shouts, before whispering: “But there is a gate.”
    He walks in a big circle around the column, breathing heavily, looking very much like some movie madman. I take off most of my clothes and put them away in a corner. Even I can smell the underpants I’ve been wearing for days; some black-and-white Joe Boxers from Mr. Maack’s great collection. Torture picks up his speech:
    “Now, you know THE GOLDEN GATE, right? People think they can enter The Golden Gate. Even the sinner of all sinners thinks he can enter the Golden Gate. Not so,” he says, waving his index finger in the air. He’s walking pretty fast now, circling the room and me. “Not so. People think they go to heaven or hell when they die. Not right. THEY ARE THERE ALREADY! You are there already. Either you are in heaven or you are in hell. There is nothing in between. There is no fumbling about. There is no compromise! And you, my friend, YOU ARE IN HELL!!! And now that you want to go to heaven, you first have to leave hell. To be able to enter The Golden Gate, you first have to exit THE GATES OF HELL!”
    Suddenly he turns fatherly:
    “Tell me, Tomislav…my dear friend Tomislav…Tell me why all the fancy entrances, like the ones you see in banks and churches, like the one out here for example…Why they all have TWO DOORS? Why are they all built with DOUBLE DOORS?”
    “I don’t know. So it’s not easy to…escape?”
    “So the air outside won’t mingle with the air inside. The first one closes before the second one opens. It’s a perfect system. And the same principle applies for THE TWO GATES. The golden one and the burning one. You wouldn’t like the nasal-burning air of hell to get inside our air-conditioned heaven. So now you have to go through THE GATES OF HELL!” he shouts like a Serbian general high on gunpowder before he suddenly jumps at me, Jackie Chan style, crying out some karate shit and kicking me hard in the face with his right foot. My lips explode as if he just hit a balloon full of blood.
    WHAT THE FUCK!
    Then he comes at me from behind, hitting me in the back of my head with his brick of a hand. I fall on the floor. Blood stains the mattresses. I’m half out of this world and inside those fucking GATES, when the Bible-blaster grabs me by the ears and starts pouring his blessed acid into them:
    “YOU FUCKING BALKAN SON OF A BITCH! YOU FUCKING DESERVER OF NOTHING! YOU FILTHY MURDERER AND MUDDY MANSWINE! YOU