Butcher's Road

by Lee Thomas

  “Bodies stacking up in barber shops and on the sidewalks and you think it’s a game?”

  “You know what I mean.” He wasn’t in the mood for a semantics lecture. Any lecture.

  “No, I don’t,” Rory snapped. “I don’t know what you mean. Fill me in. How is this a game, Butch? I offered you work at the gym five minutes after you settled in town. Solid work. Real work. I told you to get away from Powell, but you laughed. What did you tell me? You told me you weren’t really involved.”

  “I’m not,” Butch said. “I bounce at his club, and sometimes I collect a few bucks.”

  “Every tooth in a shark’s mouth is involved. You think you just go along for the ride and no blood gets on you?”

  Butch lowered his head. He felt cornered, and a hot rage boiled up the back of his skull. “Rory, we should talk about something else.”

  “You telling me I’m wrong?”

  “No,” Butch said. He couldn’t even comfort himself with denial. Like Rory said, he was in the shark’s mouth and he was there of his own choosing, but Jesus if that explained what was happening to him. “The other way around. I know you’re right and it makes me gut sick. But it’s done. Now I’ve got to deal with it. That doesn’t mean I have to go over it a hundred times.”

  “Well, you don’t have the luxury of letting this one slide, Butch. You need to size up your opponent and find a hold that’ll take him down.”

  “Between the cops and the gangs there are about two thousand opponents, Rory. And if you heard about this on the radio, then that number is just getting bigger while I sit here.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rory lunged forward and slapped the side of Butch’s head. “You’d better know something, Butch. Now what’s your plan?”

  Grateful his friend hadn’t hit his bad ear, but distracted by a ringing the attack had brought to his head, Butch sat back in the chair. How could he have a plan? He’d only just found out the extent of his problems. Rory crossed his arms and sat up straight and glared, wanting an answer. He had to say something.

  “I’m going back to my room. I’ve got some money stashed there. When the bank opens, I’m going to get that money out, too, and then take a train east. I’ll catch a boat, go back to Paris. I did a tour there…know some people. I can lay low.”

  “Except you can’t,” Rory countered. He stood and poured coffee into two tin cups. He handed one to Butch and said, “The police are involved. They’re already at your place, and anything you think you want, they’ve already got it. You walk into that bank, and they’ll walk out with you. You walk through the doors of that train station and—”

  “Okay,” Butch barked. “I get it.” But the import of what his friend was saying had only just reached him, the cry inciting an avalanche. Everything he had, every damn thing, was gone, and if not gone, inaccessible, which was the same thing. Years of work and saving and living like a bum just to have enough money for a house, and peace, and quiet… Meaningless. Wasted.

  “But why is this happening?” he asked. How had he crossed Powell or Impelliteri in the first place?

  “What makes you think there is a why?” Rory asked. “Case you haven’t been paying attention, your buddies don’t make up the sanest group of folks this side of the Mississippi. They get ideas—foul, rotten ideas. They get these ideas and they can’t get rid of them until they do something about them.”

  Butch nodded his head, but the explanation fell short. The Italians and the Irish gunned each other down the way most people did their laundry, but there was always a reason—even if it wasn’t particularly rational.

  “So what do I do?” he asked.

  “Right now, this city is your opponent, and it’s too big and too well-trained for you to do anything but forfeit.”

  “I told you I was leaving,” Butch said.

  “Okay.” Sullivan shrugged. “Where are you thinking of going? With no money and little chance of finding enough work to feed yourself?”

  “Does it matter? I can’t stay here. Maybe I’ll head south and see if I can pick up with one of the carny tours. I can’t take the chance with a vaudeville troupe or serious promoter up this way. They’re all tied into the syndicates.”

  “What about that sister you used to talk about?”

  “First place they’d look, and I haven’t spoken to her in a long time.”

  Not since the fight. Not since the night he’d rushed her to the doctor. A sudden flash of memory—split knuckles, his sister screaming, so much blood. After what he’d done, she wouldn’t welcome him at the door, not unless she was holding a rifle to his chest when she did it.

  “Any other family?”

  “None that could help.”

  “Friends?”

  “They’re all on the circuits,” Butch said. “No place to hide. Too many eyes.”

  “Okay,” Rory said. “Okay. Okay. Let’s circle this thing, eye its backside. What was in the package?”

  “Huh?”

  “The package,” Rory repeated. “You said Musante handed you the package before he got himself shot, so what was in the package that’s so god damn important?”

  “Nothing,” Butch said, “I mean, I don’t know. Just some ugly piece of jewelry. No diamonds or rubies on it. Looks like lead—ugly rusted lead.”

  “You got it on you?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” he said and reached into his pocket.

  Butch withdrew the pendant, and handed it across, laying the chain over Rory’s thick palm. The man sneered and squinted and tested the ornament’s weight in his palm before shrugging again and handing it back to Butch. “You’re right. It doesn’t look like much. Musante say where he got it?”

  “I don’t even think he looked inside the package,” Butch said. “I think someone handed it off to him, and he handed it off to me.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a puzzle for a few fillings worth of metal.”

  “I’m thinking I should send it on to Powell. Might take the heat off.”

  “Don’t be feeble,” Sullivan scolded. He huffed out a breath and looked away in frustration like a disappointed parent. “Those two cops expected to walk away with that thing last night, and they didn’t expect to leave anyone who’d touched it breathing. And don’t count on this being Powell’s racket. It could be Impelliteri and the Italians. Either way, the cops and the gangs are the same thing. I don’t trust the cops in this town any further than I can piss, but they follow the money and do what they’re told. You work a deal with whichever side wants that thing, and this Musante business will go away.”

  “If I live long enough to make the deal.”

  “Finish your coffee,” Rory said. “I think I can get you out of the city, and I have a good idea about where you should go.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “New Orleans. I’ve got a friend down that way named Rossington. Owes me a favor or two.”

  “Name’s familiar.”

  “He was a second-tier grappler. Had a lot of flash and style. Not much on the technical side, but he was good with the crowd.”

  “Why’d he throw it in?”

  “Couldn’t really get used to the life.”

  Butch didn’t like the sound of this. Rory was the straightest arrow he’d ever met, but putting his life in the hands of a stranger at this point, after what he’d already endured, was just plain foolish. “You trust him?”

  “Like I said, he owes me. I’ll call ahead.”

  Butch would keep it in mind. It was a long shot, but maybe his only shot. He needed time to think it through. Another concern was at the top of his mind. “Rory, I hate to ask, but I need you to do something else. It’s important, and if it doesn’t help me, maybe it will help you.”

  He leaned over the edge of the desk and whispered to Rory, the way he would if they sat in a crowded room, surrounded by strangers. Butch told his friend about the loose board under the davenport in his apartment,
told him about the money.

  “Maybe the cops won’t find it. Once things cool down, you could go by my place and pick it up.”

  “And you want me to send it along?”

  “Unless things go south,” Butch said. “Then you keep it. There isn’t enough money in the world if things go south.”

  Chapter 4

  Like Postcards from the Inferno

  1.

  Detective Roger Lennon sits in an armchair. He wears a cream-colored cotton robe. A white bandage wraps his head like a turban and blends seamlessly with the lace doily draped over the back of the chair. Smoke rises in a twisting column from the cigarette he’s placed in the crystal ashtray on the table beside him. His daughters sit on the floor at his feet. Both wear crisp, golden-yellow dresses tied at the waist with white sashes. Their hair has been parted down the middle and pulled into pigtails. They look up at him, mouths open, bombarding him with questions. Edie leans over him from the back; her arms rest on his chest and her lips are pressed in a kiss against the strip of bandage above his ear. The corners of his mouth are lifted in a shallow smile. His gaze is distant, removed, as if staring at something miles away, like a convict imagining a field of grass, an open road, a room built of anything but concrete and steel bars.

  2.

  A man in a double-breasted, forest-green suit stands before the door of a crematorium. Flames jump behind the grate. A blanket of coal and coal-coke glows orange at the bottom of the incinerator. The name etched into the clay pad nestled beside the cheap wooden casket reads Musante. Fire climbs the coffin’s sides. Smudges of char ring the box in black waves. The observer’s name is Marco Impelliteri. His hair is thick and the salt and pepper strands lie neatly against his head. Agitation is clearer on his face than grief. He clutches a crucifix in his plump palm, which he holds firmly against his hip.

  3.

  Butch Cardinal stands on a desolate road. The highway lies beneath three inches of snow. Fields on either side of him are the icy blue-white of an arctic wasteland. No homes. No barns. The few trees that remain are skeletal, showing no more signs of life than the snow-blanketed fields or the steel gray sky above. Butch’s ruined overcoat is fastened tightly at the neck. The collar is raised. His thumb is extended in anticipation of an approaching car.

  4.

  Sunlight cuts through a bedroom window like a golden ramp, ascending from a dull cotton carpet to the upper window frame. A white chair rail circles the walls. Above the rail, a dense linen-textured paper with a magnolia blossom pattern rises to the crown molding. Below it, the wall is painted violet. Across the room is a narrow bed. Two men are tangled on the mattress. One man is short and burly, his skin is pale and smooth and unblemished. The other man is darker, tall, hirsute, and bulky in the manner of an athlete who has let his muscles soften. He lies on his back and the younger, smaller man straddles his hips.

  Chapter 5

  Oh, When the Saints…

  Hollis Rossington lived in the converted slave quarters of a French Quarter home owned by a young man named Brugier. The two-story bungalow stood across a courtyard dense with succulent foliage. A narrow balcony, painted the same bright white as the building’s trim, ran the length of the sky-blue structure. The building had been updated with the latest comforts—a serviceable kitchen, indoor plumbing, a telephone of its own—and while it lacked the elegance of the main house, the residence more than met Rossington’s needs. Besides, the rent was cheap, and these days, that was far more important than grandeur.

  He slid from beside Lionel, his companion of the past two months, and climbed off the foot of the bed. Lifting his dressing gown from the floor, he noted the twinge in his lower back, a reminder of his age. He wrapped himself in the robe and passed into the hallway. The phone bell rang again. It seemed to have been ringing all morning. He’d never grown accustomed to the sound. It grated on his ears like the squeal of a pig being hauled hoof-high over a killing floor. To make matters worse, he rarely received welcomed calls. There were the occasional dinner invitations, but generally, the calls came from angry bookkeepers insisting they receive their checks before the week’s end.

  At the midpoint of the hall, he grasped the iron rail of the spiral staircase and began the task of cautiously descending the steps. Though he admired the architectural benefits of the case, he’d more than once slipped on its metal rungs and brought his knees to misery against one of the cold metal spindles.

  Downstairs he gazed to his right toward his kitchen. The phone pealed yet again. He turned left.

  The parlor was a small front room, barely large enough to entertain guests. Red velvet wallpaper, the kind Rossington had only seen in bordellos, covered the walls, and the sofa and chairs, with their intricately carved frames and plush, richly colored materials, added to the impression. The rooms had been furnished and decorated when he’d leased them, and though they did not reflect his taste, they struck him as generally cheerful.

  He picked up the phone and an operator informed him he had a call holding from Chicago. The caller’s name was Rory Sullivan.

  “My god,” Rossington chirped happily. He hadn’t heard from his friend in ages, and the call reminded him that he owed the old man a letter. “Hello? Rory? You there?”

  “Hollis?” a scratchy and distant voice asked, sounding like the moan of a ghost with bronchial complications.

  “Rory, I don’t believe this. How are you? It’s been too long.”

  “This isn’t exactly a social call, Hollis.”

  Typical of Rory to get right to the point. He didn’t bother with subtlety and he didn’t need to. Rossington generally found his friend’s directness refreshing after all of the silk-over-horseshit conversations in which he found himself. “Is something wrong? Is Molly okay?”

  The line between them was scratchy. Mysterious pops and crackles punctuated Rory’s words. “Fine, Hollis. Fine. I’m calling you about something else.”

  Rossington listened through the static as Rory told him about a friend who was in trouble. Because of the poor connection he had a difficult time making out the exact nature of the problem: something to do with the obs?

  “Hold on, Rory,” he said. “What are obs?”

  “Mobs. Mobs,” the Irishman shouted, “He’s in trouble with the mobs, but he’s a good guy, just a little naïve.”

  “A young kid?”

  “No,” Sullivan said, “not young. Just kind of ignorant to the depths of shit he’s stepped in.”

  “Okay,” Rossington said, also shouting. “What can I do?”

  “I sent him your way, Hollis. I need you to put him up until he gets his balance back.”

  Rossington would have said yes to nearly any request the man made of him. Giving a beleaguered gentleman a bed and a roof was a paltry request—or should have been—but there were things Rory didn’t know about Rossington’s current situation, things (like Lionel) he didn’t need to know. Still, could he say no? He didn’t see how.

  “It’s a lot to ask,” Sullivan said. “This guy is in deep with some nasty people. Sounds like he’s got both sides of hell closing in on him. It could—”

  “I didn’t catch that last bit.”

  “Dangerous,” Sullivan said. “It could be very dangerous to have him in your house.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  It took three tries before Sullivan’s voice came through clear enough for Rossington to catch the name: Butch Cardinal. Rossington smiled. Had he heard that correctly? He remembered Cardinal, had even seen one of his bouts in Kansas City. Good-looking kid, as he remembered it. Even for a wrestler he was big, and not the kind of big that came from padding his physique with fat: pure muscle, that one. On top of that, he was one hell of a wrestler. He’d pinned Joe Means in less than thirty minutes and had hardly broken a sweat.

  Rossington had to admit he liked the idea of connecting with someone from the ring. He’d left the mats himself a decade ago, and except for taking in the occasional bout, and his ongo
ing friendship with his dear friend Rory Sullivan, he’d completely severed himself from the sport. It would be nice to have another wrestler in the house, if only to swap war stories over whiskey and cigars. But athletes, too many of them, had rather limited tolerances; the ones he’d met had proved to be less than accepting of uncommon emotional perspectives.

  How would he explain Lionel’s presence? The place wasn’t nearly large enough to pull off some screwball cinematic subterfuge. He could always ask Lionel to find alternate lodgings for a time. Lionel had been a popular visitor, if not exactly a houseguest, for a number of Hollis’s acquaintances. Certain transactions of skin and spit were invariably negotiated in those instances, which made Hollis all but immediately discount the idea. Still he didn’t mind the idea of Lionel being gone for a time. Frankly, Hollis could use the break.

  More and more, the kid’s presence grated on his nerves. Some time apart might be just the thing they needed. But Lionel wouldn’t be easy to relocate. Any way he looked at the situation it came out awkward.

  “He may not be comfortable here,” Rossington said, finally. “I can get him set up in one of the hotels in the Quarter and keep an eye on him if that helps.”

  “He’s tapped out, Hollis. He needs to lay low and he needs to do it on the cheap.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll handle it, Rory. When will he be here?”

  “No idea,” Sullivan said. “But I gave him your number.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I’m counting on you, pal.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” Rossington said.

  They spent another few minutes on the telephone, trying to get caught up, but the connection continued to deteriorate. By the time they said their goodbyes, Rory’s voice was little more than a thunderous buzz. Rossington hung up the phone and turned away from the desk only to discover the young man staring at him from the archway. His mouth was ticked down into a frown. His arms crossed over his bulky chest.