by Lee Thomas
“Tell me how it works,” the gangster said, his voice cracking with misery. “You have to tell me.”
Hayes recalled his conversation with Mr. Musante, who had been more than generous with his information about Marco Impelliteri’s personal deviations. He had wanted the Rose for a number of reasons, but the primary of those was the hope that it would cure him of a sickness that was not the result of virus or bacterium. He lusted after his own child and Hayes knew of no ameliorative agent for such a thing.
“It only mends the body’s tissues,” Hayes said. “Flesh and blood and bone. It can’t heal a diseased soul.”
“Liar!” Impelliteri cried, shaking his gun in Hayes’ direction. “Lonnie told me it would cure me. Now tell me how it works or I’ll start putting holes in your friends.”
Though disgusted with the man and wholly impatient with his irrational sense of entitlement, Hayes still found the expediency with which he killed Marco Impelliteri shocking. He hadn’t thought to cock his arm back, nor had he thought to launch the iron bar in the gangster’s direction. It happened so quickly, Hayes hadn’t given himself time to consider these things, but they happened nonetheless.
Impelliteri had his head turned, his gun pointed at Mr. Ross, who stood before the window. “How about fat boy?” Impelliteri said. “If I open him up, you think you might change your mind?”
Then the bar was rocketing through the air. Hayes had never put such force behind a throw in his life. The rod broke apart into dozens of needle-sharp spears, and they hit the gangster in the head. Impelliteri’s face and skull vaporized, broken and shredded and dragged away on the surfaces of the projectiles. Like the aftermath of a shotgun blast at close range, nothing but tattered flesh remained above Marco Impelliteri’s neck.
Hayes wondered how long it would take the Galenus Rose to repair that level of damage, or if it even could. He stepped forward, eyeing the pendant still grasped in Impelliteri’s motionless palm. Any second it would become liquid and then vapor, vanishing into the man’s pores to begin its reconstruction of him.
But that didn’t happen.
With his men still in position around the edges of the room, waiting for his instruction, Hayes approached the desk. He tossed a glance toward Ross, who showed his understanding of Hayes’ concern with a cocking of his head.
Hayes reached over the desk and lifted the Galenus Rose from Impelliteri’s hand.
He felt nothing.
At contact, he should have been accosted by a thousand memories of healing. Further, with his leg so damaged, the Rose should have begun its curative work on him, but there was nothing. The Galenus Rose rested in his palm, a hunk of red-tinged metal, with no more power than a wad of chewing gum.
Hayes turned to observe his men as he thought this development through. When his eyes fell on Mr. Ross, he noticed the man was fighting against a grin. His eyes sparkled with amusement.
And Hayes knew why. Ross had already figured what was just now occurring to Hayes: he was holding the copy of the Galenus Rose. For a time, Butch Cardinal had possessed both. He had gone to Impelliteri’s with a clear plan of dying, of being murdered, so that no one, not the syndicate men nor the police, would ever look for him again. Around his neck, the most obvious place a man like Impelliteri would look, he’d worn the fake Rose. As for the real icon, the one with power, Mr. Cardinal had likely hidden it lower on his body, in a region that a man like Impelliteri would only search as a last resort.
It was so simple. So obvious. But only obvious to those who had been part of the chase.
Hayes returned Mr. Ross’s smile and nodded his head. Then he ordered his colleagues to search the safe and the desk and the closet and Impelliteri’s person. He left them to their work and returned to the landing and the stairs.
Outside he limped to the car and opened the door.
It was there. Returned.
On the passenger side of the front seat laid the real Galenus Rose.
Hayes’ breath caught in his throat. Even without touching the pendant he could feel its authenticity. He pulled away and straightened up and looked over the top of the car at the sunlit streets, searching hopefully for a familiar face amid the harried pedestrians.
They moved as if in unison, a single herd. Wrapped in hats, scarves, and heavy coats, some so threadbare they seemed more like the garments of the long dead. Men and women made their ways to their homes, or their offices, or to shops where every purchase was the result of agonizing debate—every penny paid a sacrifice. Irretrievable. For some their destinations would prove dull, familiar, and colorless. Others would find joy. Others would find misery. But they carried on, moving forward, bundled and hunched, walking swiftly with their heads down to survive the cold.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to those talented writers who took the time to read and critique this work, either in whole or in part: Nate Southard, Connie May Fowler, Richard McCann, Abby Frucht, and Domenic Stansberry. Along those lines, I send additional thanks to the students and faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts Masters Program in Writing. I’ve enjoyed little in life as much as I enjoyed my time amongst them. May the circle be unbroken.
On the home front, thanks to my ever-enduring partner, John, and our “kids,” Mina and Buster. Much thanks to Ken Ingram and Don Denham for their friendship.
Continued thanks to Steve, Kip, Toby, and Alex at Lethe Press, and a special thanks to Matt Cresswell for his stunning cover design.
About the Author
Lee Thomas is the Bram Stoker Award and two-time Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The German, Ash Street, Torn, The Dust of Wonderland, In the Closet, Under the Bed, Like Light for Flies, and many other books. He lives in Austin, TX with his partner, John, his cat, Buster, and his dog, Mina. Find him on the web at leethomasauthor.com
