by Lee Thomas
Butch tensed, prepared for a fight. After a morning of frustration and shame, he wanted a fight, wanted the chance to prove, if only to himself, that he wasn’t completely useless. It wouldn’t be much of a fight, though. He had six inches of height on the kid and a good thirty pounds, not to mention years of training on his side.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
“Got plenty on my mind,” Lowery said. “Most of it ends with you face down and bleeding.”
“I’ve got the time if you do.”
Lowery’s cheek twitched with the invitation, but he remained where he stood and scowled. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Couldn’t mind your own fucking business.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been playing Hollis for a chump.”
“We got along just fine before you showed up.”
“I imagine Hollis will still get along fine.”
“You shouldn’t have crossed me.”
Butch grinned at the threat. “You gonna talk me to the ground?”
“You’ll see,” Lowery said. “Hollis took your side because he wants to ride your tail, and from the looks of you, you’ll let him, but don’t get too comfortable. I know your name, Butch Cardinal. I know your name.”
Anger like matching swarms of hornets teemed in his gut and behind his eyes. The kid’s grubby claim brought heat to his face. Butch tightened his hands into fists and took a lumbering step forward. He liked the look of fear the movement put into Lowery’s eyes. A part of his mind screamed through the buzzing fury. It demanded he cut his losses. The kid might be easy to drop in a fight, but that didn’t mean he was harmless. If Lowery talked to the right people he could bring a lot of trouble down on Butch and Hollis.
“You better leave now,” Butch said through a clenched jaw.
The fear cleared from Lowery’s expression. Satisfaction replaced it. The kid sneered at Butch and dipped low to retrieve his baggage. “You’ll see,” Lowery taunted.
“Get your ass out of here.”
Butch watched the kid walk to the gate. Once Lowery was gone, he relaxed a bit. He breathed deeply.
He’d made a mistake. God damn it. It was bad enough he had all of Chicago chasing him down, now he would have that snake Lowery slithering through New Orleans, spitting venom at anyone who got close. Hollis had said the southern syndicate was closely tied to the northern. Butch’s name could have gone out over a wire, might be printed large on a sheet of paper with a dollar amount beneath it. Every thug in the city might have it. Did Lowery know those people? Would they be hard to find if the punk went looking?
Inside the bungalow he found Hollis in the kitchen, standing beside the sink and holding a glass of water. Hollis’s eyes were half closed and his expression showed extreme sadness or advanced exhaustion. Butch didn’t want to add to the man’s burden, but he couldn’t stay quiet about Lowery’s threat.
“He said something similar to me,” Hollis said. He put the glass on the counter and turned to Butch. “This was one of the reasons I was worried about having you stay here. Under ideal circumstances, Lionel is barely stable, and our circumstances have moved a good ways from ideal. Still, it may be hogwash. My guess is his first move will be to find a new place to lay his head. He never had trouble with that before. If he settles into a comfortable situation he might forget all about us.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No,” Hollis said. “No, I don’t believe that at all. But he doesn’t really know anything, Butch. More than anything else, he was needling you. I didn’t spill your life story to him. I said you were in some trouble up north and needed a place to get back on your feet. That’s it. I didn’t mention the police or the syndicates. He might put it together, but I don’t see how. You didn’t make the papers down here. I haven’t heard a thing on the radio. And Lionel’s not from the city. He doesn’t exactly have friends. He’ll need to get settled, as I said, and then he’ll have to start asking questions. If he’s determined, he’ll figure it out, but it won’t happen fast.”
“What’ll happen to you if the gangs find out I’m staying here?”
“Hard to say. I’m not particularly useful to them. I’d imagine the only threat I have to worry about is if I’m around when they come after you.”
“Then I shouldn’t be around.”
Hollis stepped away from the counter and placed a hand on Butch’s shoulder. “Don’t be silly.” He forced a weak smile that made him appear even sadder.
The sensation of Hollis’s fingers pressing on the fabric of his jacket and the muscle beneath ran through him, warm and reassuring. Butch felt a strange and sudden urge to step forward and wrap his arms around the man, but he fought it back. He didn’t understand the connection he felt to Hollis Rossington, but he knew better than to encourage it. He needed to know the necklace’s secret, if it had one, and then he needed to go.
“Truth is,” Butch said, “I’m having no luck with that list you gave me. I’m pretty certain the necklace is a dead end. I’m heading back out after I grab some lunch, but if I don’t come up with something, it’d be best if I got out of here.”
“Give it some thought,” Hollis said. “I’m heading up for a couple hours of sleep before I have to go in to the club.” He lifted his hand from Butch’s shoulder and clapped him on the back. “Don’t let that prick get under your skin. He’s a manipulative and utterly miserable kid, but he isn’t the genius he thinks he is.”
“Yeah,” Butch said. “Okay.”
Except the uncertainty and fear persisted. He knew he should have handled things differently with Lowery. He didn’t need any more enemies.
• • •
The man’s name was Seward. He was a short and slender man with a neat thatch of white hair that gently receded from his brow. A crimson velvet bow tie clashed with his blue seersucker suit, but the effect wasn’t wholly awful. If anything, it added to the man’s impish appearance. Seward’s shop, a retail nook hardly larger than the room in which Butch stayed, stood between a tobacconist’s and a haberdasher’s on Decatur Street near Canal. In his small hand, Seward held the necklace. He lifted it close to his eyes and then pulled it away as if a change in focus might reveal something astounding.
“What do you think?” Butch asked.
“I think you’re on the wrong track,” Seward said. His pinched, nasal voice was so pronounced, it sounded like a put on, like a radio comic impersonating a child. “You’re speaking with jewelers and the like, but not everything has an obvious value.”
“I don’t understand. Do you know what it is?”
“No sir,” Seward said. “But that doesn’t mean much. Like I said, you could be on the wrong track.” The diminutive shopkeeper eyed Butch through his lashes and frowned. “You don’t look like the sort that puts much stock in the otherworldly.”
“Come again?”
“The supernatural. The occult. Alchemy. Mysticism.”
“If you’re asking me about the spook rackets, no I don’t think much of them.”
“Can you accept the notion that other folks think very much of them?”
“Sure,” Butch said. “People waste their time with all kinds of horseshit.”
Seward’s lips curled, and Butch realized he’d made another mistake. The shopkeeper, the first one to do more than rush him out of the shop, was offended, and Butch had done the offending.
“Regardless,” Seward said, “there are a number of organizations the world over who are devoted to the investigation of and are in service to the horseshit you referenced.”
“I’m sorry about that. I—”
Seward clucked his tongue and held up a hand. “No need. No need. The ignorance of the masses is what gives these organizations their power. I know of only a handful, and by ‘know,’ that is to say I have heard of their existence, though their specific practices are unfamiliar to me. It’s clear that you feel this object is incredibly important, though it appears to have less than no value. As suc
h, it could be assumed that you—or one who has influenced you—believes the object is precious, perhaps even immensely powerful in the right hands. So I would suggest you discard your current list. There are really only three people you need to speak with. If what you’ve got there is a talisman or a spiritual icon, one of these three will know it.”
Seward retrieved a sheet of lime-green notepaper, and he removed the pen from the holder on his countertop. After dipping the pen tip in ink he began to write.
“Thank you,” Butch said.
“Eh, now, don’t get too excited. You may find you’re holding onto nothing more than a bit of scrap. And I’d suggest you refrain from comments about horseshit and the like. The people on this list are believers. They won’t feel particularly generous to some bull who starts crashing around their respective china shops. Show them a bit of respect.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Seward said. “And give my regards to Hollis. He’s a fine gentleman. I’m glad to learn he’s done away with that Lowery fellow. Nothing but darkness around that boy.”
Butch readied himself to respond, then realized he had not mentioned Hollis at all to the man. He certainly had said nothing about Lionel Lowery or his recent eviction from Hollis’s home. Had Hollis called ahead to grease wheels with the shopkeeper?
“It’s not all horseshit,” Seward said. He smiled warmly and his eyes twinkled. “Good luck, Mr. Cardinal, and I promise your secrets are safe with me.”
“Yeah,” Butch said uneasily. He backed away from the counter. “Sure.”
“One more thing,” Seward said.
“Yeah?”
“Despite what you’ve been through and what you will go through, there is still joy in the world. Don’t argue yourself out of it, and don’t let others take it away. For most men, joy is the only magic they will ever know.”
“Okay, sure,” Butch said, feeling the cryptic message worm its way into his mind.
He turned and lifted his hand in a wave. Then he fled the shop.
Chapter 24
Top of the Morning
Rory Sullivan’s wife, Maureen, had been dead for the better part of a decade, but still her face greeted him every morning when he woke. Smiling uncomfortably, she peered at him from a silver frame. Maureen had been a beauty, but cameras brought her panic. She hated the idea of having her image captured, frozen, unchangeable. Once she’d told Rory that she imagined being trapped in a picture, paralyzed and forced to see the world from a single angle for all of eternity.
Maureen had a lot of strange thoughts, and he remembered these as fondly as he remembered the curve of her hips and the shape of her earlobes.
It was five a.m., and as was his custom, Rory left his bed and went to the bathroom. He splashed his face with water and using his palm sluiced it over the crown of his head so that he could tame the tangles of white hair with a comb. He avoided the oils and pomades that were all the fashion, because he thought they made men look too polished and because they invariably made his scalp itch.
He dressed in gray trousers and his favorite green shirt, a gift from his daughter Molly.
At his chest of drawers he paused and looked over the box of cash he’d spent the previous evening wrapping in butcher paper. Once the police had given up watching Butch Cardinal’s apartment, Rory had let himself in and made his way to the loose board in Butch’s floor. To his surprise, the money Butch had stashed there remained untouched. Even more surprising was the amount: far more than he would have expected a shlub like Butch to sock away.
Rory ran his hand over the smooth paper. He hadn’t addressed the package yet. Something told him it wasn’t a good idea. Until he was in the post office and certain he hadn’t been followed, he would refrain from writing Hollis Rossington’s address on the box.
His concerns weren’t imagined. Rory knew he was being followed by at least two parties, neither of whom struck him as representatives of the law. Granted, one of the guys, a young kid who’d pretended to push papers outside of Butch’s apartment house and had sniffed around the exterior of the gym a few times, hadn’t shown his face in a couple of days, but the other one, the older guy, was still on Rory’s tail. He’d seen the old guy at the Indianapolis train station on the evening he’d traveled south to retrieve his car, and he’d seen the same man a day later, sitting in a Packard at the end of the block. The guy played it casual, pretended to read his newspaper as Rory passed on his way to the bank, but he’d recognized the cruel face under the fedora.
Likely enough the men were hoping Rory would lead them to Butch, but that wasn’t going to happen. He might never see his friend again. Mailing the package to New Orleans might well be the last contact he ever had with Butch. He couldn’t say the thought didn’t sadden him a good deal, but he knew it was for the best. Likely his friend would be on the run for the rest of his life, and that life would prove very short if he didn’t lay low. Besides, Rory had Molly to think about.
In the kitchen, he smeared strawberry jam on a thick slice of bread and carried his breakfast downstairs to the gym, which he opened promptly at six every morning, except, of course, for Sundays.
He opened the back door and took a moment to let the scent of the place waft over him. The average Joe might only detect pungent sweat and leather and liniment and rubbing alcohol, but the odors transcended simple sensory stimuli for Rory. Those mingled scents comforted and summoned nostalgia; they spoke of the past and of the future. These were the scents that had perfumed his youth when wrestling was a respected sport. Back when athletes, not ridiculous show-biz hulks, entered the ring to pit strategy and muscle against one another. Back before the fixes and the flashy exhibitions. Those were the days when a man like Butch Cardinal would have shined, but he’d missed the era by a good number of years. He’d begun when the sport of wrestling had given way to the pageants of wrestling. Sad. No life for an athlete. As for the future, which Rory also detected in the mixed odors, he considered a Spanish boy named Manero, who trained daily with Marfus Cole. That Manero kid had the bulk, the dexterity, and the strategic mind that would raise him above the typical grappler. He had himself a fine future if he learned to ease off the gin.
Rory crossed through the unlit changing room and walked over the mats, headed for his office. With everyone pinching pennies and asking Rory to run them tabs on their workouts, he had had to trim corners. The lights stayed off until he was ready to open, and even then the gym remained in gloom. Half of the fixtures hanging from the ceiling were without bulbs.
He fixed coffee and sat in his chair and bit into the jam-frosted bread. Ten minutes later, he had finished the meal and poured himself a cup of coffee. He placed the sign-in ledger on the counter outside of his office, and he had his cash box—empty as it was—unlocked and ready to receive the day’s receipts.
The back door opened and closed with a thack that startled him, and he considered the possibility that the overly-curious strangers had decided that following Rory wasn’t enough. But more than likely, Rory’s daughter had come downstairs with a question.
“Molly?” Rory called.
Lately, his daughter had taken to waking nearly as early as he did. It wasn’t uncommon for her to check on him mornings when he was alone in the gym. She was worried about him, what with all of the interest bad folks were taking in his friendship with Butch Cardinal. He’d even caught her standing in the alley behind the building one morning, holding the Colt pistol he’d kept in his nightstand, because she thought she’d seen a suspicious man.
Rory didn’t approve of guns, generally speaking, but the weapon had been given to him by a beat-up old boxer who couldn’t afford to pay Rory’s daily gym rate. Rory would have let the unfortunate pugilist use the facility for free out of professional courtesy, but he knew it was an issue of pride for the man, so he’d accepted the weapon and then promptly put it away. After the incident with Butch, he’d told his daughter to hold on to the weapon, and he’d given
her two dollars to buy bullets and to have the weapon inspected and cleaned. He didn’t want the thing blowing up in her face.
“Molly,” he called a second time. He left his desk and walked into the darkened room. Facing the back wall, the heavy bag and the ring were to his left. On his right were medicine balls, dumbbells and barbells. The tumbling mats were at the back, near the entrance to the changing room.
He looked over the familiar shadows and then focused his attention on the archway across the room. A shadow too large to be Molly’s entered the opening and then passed through.
“We’re not open yet,” Rory said. His voice echoed like the whispers of ghosts against the high ceiling.
A soft padding of footsteps in the right corner sent chills over his shoulders. He knew every inch of the gym. The intruder was walking past the low rack of dumbbells. The footsteps stopped, and the silence was worse. Rory couldn’t tell if the man had ceased moving, or if he’d managed to mute the sound of his shoes on the floor. The possibility that the prowler was creeping closer through the gloom sent a drum roll through Rory’s chest. He backed up, making his way to the light switches on the wall beside the front door. When his shoulders bumped the plaster, he reached out and turned the switch.
Paul Rabin barreled across the center of the gym. Of course, Rory did not know the man’s name. He only knew him as the cruel-eyed stranger from the train station, the guy who sat in a Packard at the end of the block. A small black gun led Rabin’s way like an accusatory finger. His face was hard-carved with determination, and he cut the distance between them in a matter of seconds before pressing the muzzle of his gun to Rory’s temple.
With his wide mouth and pronounced brow, the intruder reminded Rory of a jowly, aged Frederick March. But the man was no silver-screen star putting on a show. Everything about the man, from his earnest, cruel eyes to his obvious strength, told Rory that Rabin was built for violence.
