Cause and Effect

Chapter 4

strikhedonia [strikhe·do·nia]

(n). the pleasure of being able to say "to hell with it" 

//--//--//

Charles drove his bike up to the Matthews ranch, the quiet drive of the secluded back roads was more than enough for him to think over everything. 

Colm O'Driscoll had called him, called VDL, and asked for a tune-up on one of his cars, one of his prize cars, and the way Charles saw it, if he were Colm he'd be calling a car shop miles away before coming to a rival. 

But he weren't Colm, and he weren't Dutch. 

He met Arthur out on the porch, the other man drinking and staring out into the fenced-off pastures. 

"It's jus' Dutch'n'Hosea tonight," Arthur said. "Dutch didn't see any reason to bring anyone else in to talk this over, says it gets too loud."

"Sure," Charles said gruffly, before clapping him on the shoulder and heading in. 

The Matthews ranch was comfortable, big, and sprawling, put up by Hosea's own hands back in the day. He'd been married once, the traces of her presence still lingered in the soft touches of feminity in soft faded curtains, and in an old untouched record player that lay dust-covered in the corner. Hosea had put his grief of his wife's passing into extending, building rooms that she had never touched, into places he could maybe feel whole in without feeling a ghost of a memory lingering behind him, and he built and built and built until his house grew into a sprawling home, empty rooms upon empty rooms. 

Most of the old rooms that he lived in with his wife, and in the later days Arthur too, stayed boarded off, and the newer rooms while carrying her grace and presence into them in the shape of lace curtains and quieted music, never knew the person that was Bessie Matthews, only the idea that Hosea carried in his heart. 

Charles was in one of these rooms now, Arthur close behind. 

"Charles," Hosea said warmly, offering him a seat near the fire. "Sit on down."

He did and nodded to Dutch, who nodded back, worrying a ring around his thumb. Arthur dropped down heavily beside him and glanced between the two men. 

"Goddamn Colm." Dutch spat out, grounding the toe of his boot into the wooden slats beneath him. "Interferin' where he shouldn't, just going to bite him in the ass."

"That's the thing," Hosea said, staring into the blazing fireplace. "You'n'him? been at each other's necks for god knows how many years, we've been exchanging hits for years but he ain't really touched VDL in the fifteen years you've owned it. So, what made him change from his comfortable li'l routine?"

Dutch shrugged angrily. "Hell if I know, I didn't give him reason, we didn't steal anything off of them Arthur?" He said suddenly turning to Arthur.

Arthur stood up, shaking his head. "Ain't been over that way with the boys in a while, so we shouldn't." He pulled a ledger off a bookshelf, flipping through it. "Naw, last place we picked up was that semi down on I-90." 

"And you brought everything over to VDL's? All the money right?" Hosea said leaning forward. "We gotta run it through the system, make it legitimate." 

"Shit, Hosea, this ain't my first rodeo." Arthur put the ledger back, moving back to the couch. "Colm's probably jus' tryin' to shake our chains a li'l and he's doin' jus' fine if you ask me." 

Charles nodded. "More than likely, he just wants to get inside, to see what we're really doing. We'll scope the car out for cameras and anything else he might have planted before even bringing it inside the garage."