A Study in Sin

by August Wainwright

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he sat down across from a shorter, uglier second man. He was dressed identically to his partner.

  “You must be Claire’s boyfriend,” the shorter man said. “We were just getting reacquainted with Jimmy here, it’s been a while since the three of us last saw each other.”

  “I’ve never met either of you assholes before today,” Jim said.

  “Come on now, Jimmy. We all know each other here. Hell, you could even say we’re family. Isn’t that right?”

  Jim sat in silence and stared back at the flat-faced man in front of him.

  “Yea, all family,” the man continued, turning his attention towards Aiden, “And Claire’s boyfriend here is family too. No sense in keeping him in the dark, since the reason we’re here is ultimately a family matter. I’m sorry, I’m being rude, let me introduce myself: my name is Patrick McCarty and this is my brother Mike McCarty,” he said, motioning in the direction of the taller man who stood in the doorway. “We’ve come from Dublin to meet with Jimmy here. ‘About what?’ you ask. Well, I’ll tell you. We’re here about a debt. You see, a few years back Jimmy here took out a loan that he knew he couldn’t pay back. And not only did he default on this loan, turns out he never had permission to take out this loan in the first place. Needless to say, he’s angered quite a few people back in Dublin.”

  Aiden glanced over at the man named Mike who stood behind the ugly one. His eyes were burning a hole in Jim, glued to the man Aiden knew only as a devoted father and farmer. Aiden noticed the bulge in the man’s waistband at his right hip.

  Patrick McCarty continued: “The person who Jimmy took this loan from sent us here to work out – let’s call it the repayment terms,” he said smiling. “First, I’ll ask an easy question. Jimmy, do you have the Colonel’s money?”

  Jim hadn’t moved since Aiden sat down. He showed no emotion towards the comments the man was making, and his only response was silence.

  “Right. Well then, Claire’s boyfriend, you wouldn’t happen to have the Colonel’s money would you?”

  Jim decided it was time to speak up.

  “Leave him out of this, you little cunt.”

  The remark brought an even uglier smile to the short man’s face.

  “My name is Clery,” Aiden said. “How much do we owe?” he asked.

  Jim turned and looked over at the young man and was proud this was the person his daughter had chosen for herself. It made him feel like he had gotten at least one thing right in his lifetime. At the same time, he knew that if he didn’t play this the right way, his daughter and future son-in-law would more than likely be cut down for something he had done nearly twenty years ago. The thought smoldered inside of him.

  “Six hundred thousand pounds,” Patrick McCarty said.

  “No. I don’t have that,” Aiden answered.

  “I didn’t think you would. Worth a shot though. Alright, well here’s what we’re going to do: The Colonel has instructed us to give you seventy-two hours to come up with the money. So we’ll be back in three days,” he said, rising from the chair. “It would be in everyone’s best interest if you just repaid what you owe.”

  “And if I can’t come up with it?” Jim said.

  Again, Patrick McCarty smiled like he was taking pleasure in holding the debt over Jim’s head.

  “You lose everything,” he said.

  Aiden took that to mean the truck and the farm and the land. Jim knew better.

  “Oh, and Jimmy,” Patrick called back before the two brothers left, “You best make it seven fifty, you know, with interest and all. Wouldn’t want to make the Colonel feel like you pulled the wool over his eyes.”

  Jim and Aiden sat in silence for a moment, each waiting for the other to talk first. Jim was furious with himself for thinking that he could ever outrun his past. He had wanted so badly for his daughter to grow up in her home, in her mother’s land where she belonged, that he had grown lazy. He cursed himself for bringing this trouble down upon his daughter. Aiden finally broke the silence.

  “So should I be worried about that?”

  Jim Ryan took a deep breath and cleared his head of all the rage and hatred he was feeling. Every moment counted now and there was much to do if there was any chance of them surviving the next few days.

  “First, I have to apologize to you Aiden. You shouldn’t be involved with any of this. Neither should Claire. I’ve made mistakes in my life and no one should have to pay for those mistakes other than me. Unfortunately, it’s too late to go back now,” he said. “When I was young, I worked for an organization in Dublin that was responsible for doing bad things – very bad. I was just a kid when I started, and as I got older, I kept telling myself that what I was doing wasn’t right and that I would eventually step away from it, but a month became a year, and a year became five. Then I met Claire’s mother and she got pregnant with Claire and I knew I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing; if not for my own sake, for the safety of my family. I tried to get out, I tried to start new. But it doesn’t work like that. So I did what I had to do.

  “The loan those two men were talking about wasn’t a loan at all. One day, I woke up and told my wife to meet me at the airport. I went to work, gassed the entire building, and walked out with over half a million pounds. We flew to Paris and lived in a small little place on the river. My wife had Claire and the three of us spent every second together for over two years. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. But my wife got sick –” he paused, “None of that matters. What matters is that they’ve found me and they want retribution.”

  Aiden listened to his story and tried to picture what he was hearing, but all he could think about was the part where Jim gassed a building and stole more money than Aiden had ever seen. Jim felt his attention drifting.

  “There’s something you should know, son: life isn’t what it seems. It’s not one long story; it’s a series of very specific choices, each one linked to the next. But we don’t see it that way and we get complacent. We brush off beautiful things and we lose perspective of how important every moment is. Then, suddenly, something happens to you and it seems to jump up from nowhere and we curse our luck and ask ‘Why?’. Shame on the man who doesn’t see his life for what it is; shame on us, shame on all of us for not seeing.”

  Aiden didn’t know how to respond.

  “So… what do we do? Can we come up with the money” he said, fully aware of how ridiculous the thought was before he said it.

  “No, we don’t have nearly enough. And I’m afraid it won’t matter.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Forget it. Listen, you need to promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll look after Claire. You keep her safe –”

  “I’d never let anything happen to her.”

  “I know that, but you need to be prepared to do anything. These are very dangerous people. You might very well be faced with a choice where there are only two wrong answers. If that happens, you put Claire above everything else.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “I know you will. There’s one more thing: this stays between the two of us. Claire isn’t to know unless it is absolutely necessary. Agreed?”

  Aiden hesitated. “Agreed.”

  “Good. Now that we’re clear, I want you to try not to worry. I think I know a way to make this work and I need your full attention. Claire should be home in an hour, and you and I have a lot to go over. Come on, I’ll put some tea on.”

  But Jim knew there was no way out. He had escaped his life once, and now it had caught up to him. There was only one thing to do, only one real plan of action, and it involved forfeiting his own life in exchange for his daughter. Even that was a longshot.

  He led Aiden to the kitchen as he envisioned the last time he had seen the Colonel’s face.

  The next night, after Jim had been very adamant that he take a few hours to relax, Aiden sat at a nearby pub, attempting to drink his way to an answer.

 
He found himself thinking about what his own life had become and he thought about what Jim had told him, about losing sight of the small things, about not recognizing what was happening all around him.

  Patrick McCarty had been right when he said they were all family. Aiden had been on his own since the time he graduated high school, and even before that, he had practically raised himself. Jim and Claire were his family; he cared about the two of them more than anyone he had ever come across.

  The more he drank, the more he felt certain there was only one thing to do: fight. He was an excellent shot with his rifle; he’d been hunting since he was seven. And based upon what Jim had been telling him, he was no slouch with a gun either. Aiden knew the land and the woods better than anyone. It was their best shot; get Claire as far away from the farm as possible, and hole up. Wait and see what those Dublin boys had in store and shoot their way out. If they got away, it would give them enough time to grab Claire, explain what was going on and leave Ireland for good.

  It made the most sense to Aiden as he sat at the bar.

  But it would never come to that, as the resolution to the saga of the infamous Jimmy Rhino was already in progress.

  Claire Ryan was in the back of the bar, tuning her guitar, waiting for her set later that night. She felt like shit. She didn’t want to go on and was thinking about asking the manager if he had anyone to fill in.

  And there was the other thing; for some reason, she couldn’t shake the thought that something was wrong. She didn’t know what, couldn’t think of anything she’d done, but both Aiden and her father had acted unusually strange the night before. Although the two had always been friendly towards each other, neither was the type of man to sit around and spend their days gossiping with the other. They acknowledged each other, respected each other, and neither had a bad thing to say about the other, but they were by no means friends. Talking really wasn’t their thing.

  But that’s exactly what they had spent all last night and the better part of the day doing. When Claire had gotten tired the night before, she whispered to Aiden to let him know, in an attempt to steal him away for a few minutes. Instead, she got a kiss on the cheek and a promise he’d see her in the morning. She fell asleep to the hushed sounds of her two boys talking downstairs.

  The more she focused on it, the worse she felt. She decided it was worth asking if anyone could go on in her place. So, she found the manager and convinced him she couldn’t play that night, explaining she was feeling under the weather and telling a harmless little lie about how her throat was sore.

  Claire packed up her gear and threw it in the back of the truck. As she drove towards home, she was hopeful that she had just misread the mood, that her father and her fiancé were just getting to know each other a little better. She quickly convinced herself she was being ridiculous and that nothing was wrong, replacing her worry with thoughts of a cozy night at home.

  The Colonel sat in the back seat of his car as his driver pulled out of the alley and into traffic. His week had been an interesting one, and he was more than pleased with finding that fucking langer Jimmy Rhino after all these years. He hadn’t entirely believed when Daugherty interrupted to tell him the news.

  “Boss?” Daugherty had butted in, a phone in his hand.

  “Not now.”

  “Colonel, you’re going to want to hear this.”

  “I said not now.”

  “No, now. We found Jimmy Rhino,” he said.

  The Colonel demanded to speak with the man who was wasting his time with such a ridiculous story.

  When Daugherty handed him the phone, Jack Clarke told him that he’d seen Jimmy with his own two eyes, knew where he lived, and would be more than happy to stay out in the country until the artillery arrived.

  “I’ll take care of everything, Colonel,” Jack said. “I promise you, I’ll bring him back and lay him at your feet, dead or alive. Your call.”

  But now, as his car rolled through the streets of Dublin, the Colonel found himself just as irritated as he was pleased.

  The problem lay in the fact that Jimmy Rhino was a legend in Dublin. The young guys didn’t even believe he was a real person. They’d tell stories about some massive man who stole millions after taking out an entire building of people with nothing but his bare hands. The Colonel once saw Daugherty backhand a kid so hard he blacked out after the kid had said that he heard Jimmy Rhino was shot nine times on his way out of the building and that it never even slowed him down.

  After the robbery, they had done everything they could to spread the rumor that Jimmy had quickly been found and cut up into little pieces, but most of the guys at the time knew it was bullshit.

  Now, those idiot McCarty brothers, in all their wisdom, had spread the news that Jimmy Rhino was in fact alive and well and had bragged about how they were the ones called in to rain down real justice. The brothers were more than capable, in fact, the Colonel had only known them to be ruthlessly effective, but the younger one had a big mouth. That won’t serve him well, the Colonel thought.

  The news of Jimmy Rhino being alive, and in-country no less, had caused a stir in Dublin, and this left the Colonel in quite a predicament. He never had any intention of letting Jimmy live, although he did want to collect as much of what was owed him as possible before his men brought Jimmy back to Dublin in a body bag.

  But if the rumors started to fly that the Colonel was taking it easy on Jimmy, giving him a chance to pay back what he had stolen, well, that just wouldn’t work. And the Colonel knew how that shit went. First, one guy thinks it, then another says it, and then it’s common knowledge.

  He remembered back to what it was like in 1977, how the other bosses had tried to move in on his territory after the word got out how easy it was to steal from the Colonel. It had been six months of chaos, where every criminal in Ireland treated it like open season.

  He couldn’t allow the rumors to get worse. He couldn’t be seen as soft. At his age, he already felt the walls closing in around him as the younger generation began to stake claims over what would be theirs when the Colonel finally retired.

  No, he had to end this now. There was only one choice left to him.

  The Colonel picked up the car phone and paged Jack Clarke, who at that very moment, was tucked behind a tree, silent and waiting, staring down at Jimmy Ryan’s house.

  Aiden decided the drink in front of him would be his last. He knew he needed a clear mind to plot out the best spots for traps, how to funnel anyone who came at the house into one area, where the high-grounds were, and where to shoot from. He was busy readying himself for war when two old guys shuffled past.

  “He’s probably just burning off some brush,” one of them said.

  “Yea, well I hope everything’s ok. Think we should call someone? Just to be safe I mean?”

  The comment caught Aiden’s attention.

  “No, no, I wouldn’t worry about it,” the first one said. “Two pints,” he called to the man behind the bar.

  Aiden turned towards the two. “What’s the problem?”

  “What?” the older of the two asked after he realized Aiden was talking to them.

  “The problem, what’s the problem? You were saying you should call someone just to be safe.”

  “Oh it’s probably nothing; there’s smoke coming from over near the Ryan’s place is all.”

  The stool Aiden had been sitting on hit the floor as he raced out of the bar. When he cleared the corner of the building, he saw the puff of smoke rising above the trees off in the distance. A pit took root in his stomach as he ran for his old truck.

  It’s always an interesting feeling when you talk yourself into a fight, your fists tight, your resolve set in stone. You pump yourself up for violence, for war, and you’re convinced you’re ready for whatever sets itself in the way of your rampaging path. No man, and no monster, can hold you back; you’re ready for battle.

  But the resolve that took such effort to build melts away when that momen
t finally comes. When that beast presents itself, you feel yourself sink inwards, as if it’s only the bones and organs underneath that keep you from imploding. The war-tested veteran knows how to push the feeling aside, possibly even harness it, but for the uninitiated, the fight you’ve prepared for is nothing compared to the internal struggle you now face.

  Aiden knew the feeling as he sat behind the wheel of his truck, pumping the gas pedal over and over. He twisted the key and tried again. The truck sputtered and lurched, but wouldn’t start. Aiden tried again. And again. Still nothing. He grabbed the keys, slammed the door, and leapt out, rust from the underside of the truck falling to the ground below.

  Night had fallen and there was a chill that hung in the air; Aiden noticed neither as he ran toward Ryan’s farm. When he crested over one of the hills, he caught a glimpse of the smoke the two old guys had been talking about, only now, it was accompanied by the orange glow of flames.

  He ran for what felt like hours until, finally, he reached the gravel drive. When he came upon the house, he was forced to stop in horror, for the entirety of the Ryans’ farm was engulfed in flames; not just the house, but the shed in the back, and the barn further down the drive. The heat licked at his face as he stood taking the scene in, frozen, incapable of knowing what to do.

  Amongst the chaos, Aiden saw something that was less-right than everything else: tucked away around the far corner of the house was the Ryan’s family truck. He could see the back end hanging out, just past the porch. But it shouldn’t have been there. Claire had a show in town and had taken the truck before he had driven up to the bar.

  He stared at the truck, and then back at the front door of the house, the smell of the burning wood filling the night air. The pit in his gut grew, but he pushed it aside.

  At a dead sprint, he ran onto the front porch and planted his foot near the handle, kicking the door in. The wave of heat that met him almost knocked him to the ground, but he fought his way inside.

  He screamed as loud as he could, first for Claire, then for Jim. Not only was the fire unbelievably hot, but it was so loud that he could barely hear himself yell. It was like trying to have a conversation with an airplane directly overhead.