The inside of the church was pungent with the smell of polish and perfume. Matt could hear the whispered prayers of visitors, their tense heartbeats and could smell the salty tears falling down on their face. Matt took an empty seat at the back of the church, hearing the footsteps and muffled discussions of nuns and priests until he heard footsteps approaching.

“Counsellor,” said a man, from the way the air ruffled around his feet Matt assumed he was a priest. “What brings you here on a day like this?”

Matt smiled. “Word around here travels fast.”

“Very,” the priest said. “Newspapers are calling you the new hope of Crime Alley.”

“That’s a little much,” Matt said. “I don’t think we’re that affordable.”

The priest chuckled. “So, what brings you to a dingy old church like this instead of doing whatever it is you lawyers do?”

Matt sighed. “My father used to come here. He uh, used to come here a lot, before a big game or a…” Matt cleared his throat. “A job.”

“Yes,” the priest said. “I remember your father. He was a good man.”

“Ask anyone around here and they’ll say otherwise,” Matt said. “Especially after the jobs that bastard…”

“Language.”

“Sorry father,” Matt said. “Especially after those jobs that Roscoe Sweeney used to make him do. Speaking of, have you heard the news?”

“Yes,” the priest said. “Whatever he did on this planet, only God can judge him now.”

“After Roscoe died, I’ve been thinking about God,” Matt said. “About how he gives and how he takes. About punishment and I want to know father, is God punishing me?”

“What makes you say…” Father paused. “Rather what makes you think that?”

“I lost my eyesight a long time ago, Father,” Matt said. “It was a scary experience. Not only did I lose my eyes but there was this noise, everything hurt. My senses felt like they were on fire. I felt like I was in hell. After everything cleared, after I recovered, I realised even though I couldn’t see, God had given me other gifts.”

“What kind of gifts?”

“You had eggs and bacon this morning,” Matt said and smiled. “Not very kosher of you might I add. Your wife gave you a kiss on your… left cheek. Very cheap lipstick might I add. I guess those donations you ask for aren’t enough. You stopped by at a hot dog store, spilled some mustard on your sleeve I believe before you stopped by at the church and sat in front of me.”

There was a pause. Matt could hear his heartbeat race for a minute before the priest cleared his throat and his heartbeat slowed to a calm rhythmic beat. “Under normal circumstances I’d have called the police but we live in a time where a man dresses up as a bat and another climbs on walls.”

Matt chuckled. “Yeah. I thought these gifts were a blessing but it was when I grew up that I realised it was a curse.”

Matt paused. “You see, my father died. He got shot by those men. Ordered to be killed because he wouldn’t bow down to their demands. I was ten at the time and…” Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. “Every day, father. Every day, I would go outside this bar. Their… their hideout and I would listen. Listen for any signs of regret or remorse, any signs of repentance, praying I would find some sign, something to show that they felt something when they separated a vulnerable little boy from his father and I didn’t find anything. God knows I tried, God knows I risked my life going to that man’s house only for him to drink a beer, read a newspaper and go to sleep without a care in the world.”

Matt paused, feeling something wet fall down his cheek. He wiped it up before continuing. “But it didn’t stop there. No, every night I would hear the atrocities he committed against the people here. Every night I would hear his men assaulting, raping and even killing innocent men and women. Separating even more children from their fathers. And Father, I couldn’t sleep. I heard every single moment of their exchange. I heard their heartbeats stop but I was powerless to do anything to help them. To save them. I made a vow. A vow that I would do everything in my power to put that men behind bars so that he wouldn’t harm another human life.”

Matt tightened his grip around his walking stick. “I tried the legal way but he was too smart, Father. His defendants played around with the evidence and he went off scot free. There was not enough evidence to lock him up. I tried, believe me I tried to put him away but the court wouldn’t have it. If I insisted, I would have gotten disbarred. Everything I did to become a lawyer would have been flushed down the drain. So, I handled him the only way I knew how to.”

There was a silence. It took a while for the words to dawn on the priest and when he did the priest, his heartbeat fast but once it did, he looked at him with an expression that was as cold as stone. His heartbeat was slow, steady. The heartbeat of one disappointed.

“Did you kill him, Matthew?”

“No,” Matt said. “No. I didn’t. It was a heart attack that got to him. I tried to warn him but…”

A small crack formed on the top of where Matt had tightened his grip around the walking stick. “Father how do I know I’m being punished? I thought me being blinded was an opportunity, a gift from God now all it feels like is a punishment. God gave me the gifts to become a lawyer but the system is flawed, Father. A system I once had hope for lets people like Sweeney get away. You know what it feels like? It feels like God is laughing at me from above.”

Matt put his head down. He heard father turn his head, looking out at the distance, contemplating.

“I don’t claim to be the authority on God’s plan. I don’t think you and I can comprehend it’s magnificence or even its scope.” The priest put a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “But you asked me about punishment. You asked me how you know you’re being punished. I once attended a Muslim sermon…”

“Isn’t that blasphemy?”

“You’d be surprised what you can learn from other religions, Matthew,” the priest said. “Anyways, I was attending this sermon and the priest, the um… maulana I think they call them. He said something that stuck with me. He said punishment from God isn’t losing a loved one or losing your job. He told me punishment is when you’re given everything you ever wanted. He said punishment doesn’t bring you closer to God, it takes you away from him. Punishment makes you forget God. Takes you far away from him.”

The priest got up. “You chose to come here, didn’t you? To come to the house of God. This isn’t you being punished, rather it’s a test.”

“What… how is he testing me?”

“I can’t answer that,” the Priest said. “But you told me you had gifts, didn’t you? Do you hear her?”

“Hear who?”

“The woman sitting out in front?” the priest asked. “She’s praying.”

Matt sorted through the array of whispers flying by his ear like gusts of wind. He heard their heartbeats singing songs of fear, sadness and anticipation. The heartbeat in front sang a song of fading hope.

“Oh God,” the woman cried. Matt could hear her sobs, hear the tears falling down her cheeks. “Please bring my son back. Please bring my baby back…”

“Mrs. Grimshaw’s son has been missing for a week,” the Priest said. “She doesn’t know what happened to him. One moment he was out playing in the playground and the moment after she disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him.”

“God, I know I haven’t been the best,” Mrs. Grimshaw said. “But he’s all I have. Please, please bring him back. Please bring little Mikey back.”

“You can hear the rest to?” the Priest asked. “Can’t you?”

Like a choir, their whispers filled his ears. Singing a ballad of weakness and vulnerability, a song only Matthew could hear.

“… I can’t get off it, God. Please give me the strength…”

“… I’m weak. I’m so weak. Forgive me for what I did to my…”

“… They keep coming into my building. I’m holding them off but I don’t know what they’ll do to my wife. Please God, protect her…”

“Now I don’t know why God took away your father,” the Priest said. “I don’t know why he took away your sight. I don’t know why he didn’t bring Roscoe Sweeney to face justice in this world but Matthew, I think he brought you here for a reason.”

His phone started to ring. “Foggy. Foggy.” Matt found this peculiar. Foggy wouldn’t call unless it was something urgent.

“I didn’t catch your name, Father.”

“Please call me Lantom,” the Priest said. “Father Lantom.”

“Thank you, Father. For the talk,” Matt said. “But I have to take this.”

“No problem,” Father Lantom said. “See, you around Matthew.”

Matt nodded. He picked up the phone, leaving the church.

“What’s up?”

“Sorry to call you but you remember Mahoney?” Foggy asked. Matt didn’t need to be near him to know that his face was riddled with sweat, his voice told him exactly what he needed.

“Yeah, the officer we helped out of an assault case,” Matt said. “What about him?”

“Well, remember how I made a deal with him to hit me up when something interesting happened at the police precinct?” Foggy asked.

“No.”

“Anyways,” Foggy said. “He hit me up.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Remember the Grote family?” Foggy asked. “That Irish crime ring?”

“Yes.”

“Well one of the two Grote brothers were caught,” Foggy said. “And he’s asking us to be his lawyers.”