by Lee Thomas
The bartender dropped ice in Lennon’s glass and then covered the cubes with a hefty pour of Canadian whiskey. Nodding to the bartender, he took the glass and turned back to the throng. So many black suits. So many polished shoes on the expensive crimson carpet. So much bullshit. They were supposed to be the city’s protectors, upholders of the law, and yet they stood around guzzling illegal booze, using it to toast the passing of a murderer.
A bland looking young man whom Lennon found vaguely familiar walked up and shook his hand and offered his apologies for Lennon’s loss. “Those fucking Paddies are going to wish they’d never been born,” the young man said. “Curt was one of the best. A fine detective.”
Lennon agreed and then excused himself. Obligation had brought him to the wake, but he wished he could find a place to hide, wished he could grab one of the whiskey bottles and vanish into a corner, so he could observe the ridiculous scene rather than be a part of it. He wanted to be on a train. He should have been on his way to New Orleans to find Butch Cardinal, to warn him. The urge to do something to strike back against the mockery this entire night represented, to throw the smallest wrench into the big machine’s gears, burned in his chest. But he couldn’t leave before the funeral. No way. There was no excuse good enough to get him out of that, not as the partner of the murdered man.
A round man with a bad toupee waddled up and stuck out a palm. Lennon heard more wonderful things about Curt Conrad. The porker in the cheap wig called Conrad “Upstanding,” and “Dedicated,” and “An example we should all aspire, too.” Lennon wanted to laugh in the man’s face, or maybe punch him in the throat, anything to shut down the torrent of unadulterated shit spilling over his plump, wet lips.
All evening, he’d thought that there had been some mistake. The stories and condolences and the wishes for a peaceful rest couldn’t have anything to do with the crooked son of a bitch who’d skulked through the station unshaven, more times than not with a drop of crusted egg yolk on his tie. A man who bragged about leaving bruised whores in alleyways once they’d finished him off. A man who hadn’t done an honest day’s work in years. A sloth. A slob. A murderer.
In death, Conrad had become a symbol of courage and honor. Hell, he’d become a fucking martyr. It was ludicrous, and it was disgusting. The entire façade confounded Lennon. Everyone in the room, or nearly so, knew that Conrad had been dirty. Many of them knew the darker streaks that ran beneath the grimy film of his personality, and yet they played this game. Why? Was it true generosity of spirit that compelled them to speak so highly of one so low, or were they simply wishing that others would say equally kind things of them when they went to the grave? With the mayor in attendance tomorrow, it was a certainty the press would be on hand, and they would spread the lie of Conrad’s valor across the state, possibly throughout the country, and a murderer would be mourned and heralded and those who remembered him would remember the name of a saint. Death was bleach and it burned away the stains, leaving nothing but white.
It makes us all angels, he thought again. What a crock.
Across the room, Captain Wenders spoke with Detective Glaser. The two men were already drunk, smiling, leaning on one another as they shared stories. Wenders looked up and noticed Lennon and his smile faded. He nodded solemnly and lifted his glass, a silent toast. Reflex caused Lennon to return the gesture, and then he veered left and lost himself in the crowd. But this was a mistake. Men gathered around him, patted his back, filled his ears with more manure. It occurred to Lennon that he was the closest thing to a widow Curt had left behind, and as such he was being given the full treatment.
Late in the morning, he’d received a wire from Edie, saying that she and the girls were settled in nicely but she wanted to come home. Lennon had crumpled the telegram and dropped it in the trash. He missed Bette and Gwen, missed them terribly, but he didn’t want them in the house either. With everything hanging over his head, he couldn’t imagine being a kind father.
Lennon guzzled the remainder of his drink, hoping to excuse himself from the group to get another. Someone at his side insisted Lennon stay. “I’ll get that for you,” a man said with so much sorrow in his voice it made Lennon grind his teeth.
There was no escape. His life—work, home—had become a rash. It covered him from head to toe, and Chicago offered no quarter from the prickly discomfort.
Tomorrow he’d be on a train to New Orleans. He’d leave the charade and the machine behind. He didn’t know if he could help Butch Cardinal, but it was enough for Lennon, at least in that moment, to know he was going to try.
Chapter 32
Where Have All the Good Times Gone?
Hollis Rossington and Butch Cardinal wore evening attire—dinner jackets and white waistcoats. Each had parted his hair impeccably, smoothing it against his scalp in sleek, oiled sheets. The large men cut impressive figures sitting at the table against the wall. Neither of them smiled. If anything, they seemed awkward in each other’s company, though they did their best to hide it.
Similarly well-dressed patrons occupied the other tables in Galatoire’s front dining room. Chair legs scraped over the small, white, hexagonal tiles. Hushed voices, like distant surf, murmured. The click and clink of silver on china and glasses meeting in toast, created a soft, syncopated rhythm. Enchanting scents from the kitchen and from fine cigars wafted through the room, and though the restaurant was lovely and the appetizers exceptional, Hollis found himself disappointed.
He’d expected something different from the evening. Galatoire’s was Hollis’s favorite restaurant, but all of the fond memories he attributed to the setting couldn’t breach the crust of disenchantment. Though he could hardly afford the extravagant restaurant, he’d thought a night out would loosen up his friend, get his mind off his troubles, but Butch had carried his distracting concerns across the Quarter, and they’d dropped down in the chair with him. Though the clothes Hollis had given him looked quite fine, Butch fidgeted with discomfort, running his fingers under his collar and rolling his shoulders as if trying to dislodge something captured beneath his jacket. They’d already consumed salads and bowls of a delicious turtle soup, but Hollis had yet to engage Butch in easy banter. All of the talk of the “good old days” had never emerged, despite his numerous prompts.
“What do you think of the place?” Hollis asked, hoping to rekindle the conversation.
“The food is good. Thank you,” Butch replied.
“I’m glad to see those clothes fit.”
“Yeah,” Butch said. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. Then he swept his gaze around the room. He seemed to have a difficult time looking at Hollis.
“Is something wrong?” Hollis asked. “I mean, I know a hell of a lot is wrong, Chicago and all, but is something else going on?”
Butch’s eyes lost focus. He appeared to be staring off into the distance, rather than simply across a table. When he spoke, his voice was restrained. “It’s been a long day,” he said.
“But the list proved useful?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s good,” Hollis said with a smile.
“Yeah,” Butch said, but remained distracted. A prolonged silence followed, in which both men drank from their water glasses and wiped their lips with their crisp white napkins. They busied themselves with the formalities of dining to fill the awkward moments. Hollis considered a number of topics of conversation, but all died in his throat as he struggled to form phrases that would introduce the subjects without jarring his companion.
Then Butch leaned on the table and asked, “Do you believe in magic?”
Clearly Butch wasn’t as concerned about making jarring statements.
Of course Hollis didn’t believe in magic. He’d seen the local voodoo nonsense paraded in the faces of tourists and superstitious old women, but he no more believed a needle in a doll would make his neck hurt than he believed a potion would bring him love. He never said these things out loud, because he lived in a
superstitious city, but Hollis considered himself a rational man, well grounded, and though his philosophies might not have been conservative or even moderately acceptable to America at large, magic played no part in them.
“You don’t,” Butch said.
“It’s not that simple,” Hollis said. “We believe the things we need to believe to get through the day. For some that means there’s a god watching their every move, judging their behaviors and threatening punishment. Others believe they interact with their gods, believe they can influence their deities with rituals and gifts. I think it’s all bunk, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have power. Believing a thing, really believing it, makes it real on some level.”
It appeared that Butch didn’t like this answer. His face sagged and he looked around the room. “I need a drink,” he said.
“They only serve in the private rooms,” said Hollis. “I couldn’t get a table.”
“It’s okay,” Butch said. “A belt would grease my tongue is all.” He ran a finger under his collar and scratched at his jaw. “What I saw today, Hollis, it wasn’t a trick or a vaudeville illusion. It couldn’t have been. I see this thing and I realize I don’t know a damn thing. I’ve been outmatched since this started, you know, and I pretty much figured I wasn’t going to slip the hold. I knew that from day one, but now I don’t even know what kind of game I’m playing, let alone the rules.”
“What did you see?”
“I’d rather not go into it,” Butch said.
“You can’t tip that cart in the middle of the street and then just walk off. What did you see?”
“Hollis, you don’t want to get involved, and I don’t want you involved. It’s better for us both if don’t get mixed up in this.”
“I’d say I am mixed up in this.”
“And I wouldn’t. I appreciate the hospitality, but the less you know the better.”
Hollis thought that was horseshit, but he wasn’t going to waste the whole evening trying to pry information from the man. Things had been awkward enough between them.
“But it’s about the necklace?” he asked.
“Everything is,” Butch said, “but it isn’t. I mean, it’s all connected.”
“You’re not making this easy. But let me see if I’ve got this straight. The bottom line is once you find out what the necklace is, what kind of value it has, you can use it to clear your name?”
“My name is never going to be clear, Hollis. Even if I get out from under the Musante rap, the life I had is over.”
He was probably right about that. Once a scandal got stuck to you, guilty or not, you were pretty much sunk. You didn’t get a second round.
“Even so, the necklace is key. If it’s valuable you have leverage. If it isn’t… Then what?”
“I lay low,” Butch said. “There are a hundred towns I could disappear into if I had to. Even here I’m relatively safe, depending on that Lowery kid.”
“So you’re planning to stay on with us for a while?”
“We’ll see,” said Butch.
Their entrees arrived. Both had ordered the prime rib of beef, and they set into their steaks as the waiter refilled the water glasses and removed the ashtray from the table.
After dinner, over cigars, Butch said, “So how do you know Rory?”
Hollis coughed on smoke and reached for his water as Butch clapped him lightly on the back. “We actually met after a bout I had with Simm,” Hollis said.
“You wrestled Simm?” Butch asked. His brows knit and his jaw went tight.
“Early in both of our careers,” said Hollis. “That son of a bitch about took my head off.”
“The stranglehold?”
“Yeah, he put that hold on me and I tried every which way to slip it. But I dozed off like a baby with a full tummy. Couldn’t turn my head for a week after that.”
“Did Rory teach you how to get out of that one?”
“Nope. He just brought me a drink and some BC Powder, told me to get a new trainer.”
“Did you?” Butch drew on his cigar and held the smoke in his mouth.
Hollis shook his head. “I…did…not. Two weeks later, Rory dropped me with the same hold.”
Butch laughed at this, sending a cloud of smoke over the table. Hollis hadn’t heard the man laugh before and it was a rich, deep-down chuckle that boomed in the high-ceilinged room. Ashing his cigar in the crystal tray, Butch said, “I never got to wrestle the old guy.”
“It was like trying to move a boulder. Rory was some kind of solid.”
“By the time I saw him, he’d lost a lot of his speed,” said Butch. “He still had the strength, but he moved slow and didn’t have the flexibility. I’ll bet he was something to see in his prime.”
“He was that.”
For a time the meal took on the tenor of the evening Hollis had wanted. They talked about the ring, about opponents they’d both faced and those they’d never had the chance to meet. Hollis warmed to the conversation, as did Butch, but the man’s enjoyment seemed to come and go, perhaps replaced by thoughts of magic or a tenuous future over which he had little control. The oddest moment of the night came as they finished their cigars.
Across the room a waiter set light to the contents of a silver chafing dish, likely cherries jubilee or perhaps a bananas foster, and as the alcohol burned the flame rose high, much to the delight of the restaurant’s patrons, most anyway. Hollis turned to Butch to note his reaction to the scene and was surprised by the look of dread and awe drawn across the man’s face. His eyes were large and held fear, as if he thought the flames alive and predatory. The expression only lasted a moment and then passed, but Hollis thought there was something to it, something about the fire.
“Everything okay?” asked Hollis.
“Fine,” said Butch. “Everything is fine.”
• • •
The umbrellas proved insufficient to their task during the return trip to Hollis’s bungalow. By the time they reach the gate, both men were soaked from the waist down and their socks squished in their shoes. Butch, who had spent the better part of a week in one form of discomfort or another, hardly minded. Though he could not shake the sight of Delbert Keane erupting into flames, a scene he imagined would always be very near the surface of his thoughts, he was feeling considerably better physically. The fine meal had helped. So had the conversation as it allowed Butch to thumb through good memories, memories of the sport, of the ring, of the men he’d called friends before they’d uniformly turned their backs on him.
Beneath the balcony, both men shook out their umbrellas and laughed at the state of their drenched attire. Hollis told Butch he had a bottle of decent whiskey to help get the chill off. “I’m going up to change out of this soaking rag.” Butch remained outside, listening to the marching rain and observing the big house across the courtyard. The building loomed, enormous and dark. Though he knew a teaming city went about its business beyond the high and shadow-drenched walls, Butch felt a sense of pleasant isolation. They were alone here. Anything that happened here would be between Butch and his host. Anything said need never leave these walls.
In his room, Butch stripped out of his wet clothes. He draped the trousers and his drawers over the back of a chair. He hung the jacket from one of the bed’s posters. He wrung the socks out into the porcelain bowl on the nightstand and then laid them out on the windowsill. Butch took the silk robe from the armoire and draped it across the bed. At the mirror, he smoothed down his hair and checked his teeth for scraps of food. Once he felt sufficiently dry, he wrapped himself in the robe and left the room.
He hadn’t heard Hollis coming down the stairs, so Butch was surprised to see the man in the parlor, already holding two glasses of whiskey. Hollis had changed into dove-gray pajamas and a thick crimson robe.
“Nights like this I wish I had a fireplace,” Hollis said. He handed a glass toward Butch. “This should take the edge off, though.”
Butch accepted the glass and touched it to
Hollis’s before downing the contents in a single slug. Hollis chuckled at the display and reached to take the glass back. “It’s going to be an early night if you keep that up.”
At the tall silver cart, which served as the bar, Hollis set down his drink and Butch’s empty glass. Butch stepped forward with feet that felt as if they’d been dipped in lead. Hollis chatted as he poured another drink, but the words were lost on Butch. He could only hear the sound of blood rushing to his ears. The whiskey’s warm trail led to a coal burning low in Butch’s gut. At Hollis’s back he laid a hand on his host’s shoulder. Hollis turned, and Butch grabbed the lapels of his robe, squeezing the fabric tightly in his fists, wringing it. Surprise widened Hollis’s eyes, but before the man could voice concern, Butch pressed forward and kissed him.
When their lips touched, the roaring in Butch’s ears intensified, became deafening. His heart kicked hard behind his ribs, and it felt as though he couldn’t breathe. Hollis’s beard tickled the soft skin between Butch’s lower lip and chin, and the feeling proved intensely sensual. Hollis’s hand went around the back of his head, holding Butch tightly in the kiss. Butch kept his grip on the lapels of Hollis’s robe, choking the material between his fingers and keeping a narrow gap between their bodies.
Then Butch shoved Hollis away, but he maintained his grasp of the man’s robe. He held his host at a distance. His elbows were locked and his arms strained.
