The Butcher's Son

by Grant McKenzie

  Ian had caught her mid-bite.

  The woman released one hand from her sandwich and held it up in apologetic greeting while she quickly chewed the large mouthful that engorged her cheeks.

  Smiling in return, Ian closed the door behind him before taking a seat by the woman’s desk. It took her a minute to finish chewing what was in her mouth as it had been a privacy bite — the kind you only take when you are comfortable and alone.

  Ian enjoyed watching her eat. When she saw that he didn’t appear to be judging, her panicked chewing slowed down and returned to savoring the sandwich.

  Beside her on the desk was a half-full plastic cup of red wine with a lipstick smudge on the rim. She wasn’t quite as young as she had sounded on the phone, closer to forty than thirty, but as Helena had intimated, she was definitely striking. Olive skinned with sharp cheekbones and a proud nose, she could have given a young Sophia Loren a run for her money.

  While the woman lifted her plastic cup of wine to her lips, Ian took in the surroundings. Along with the usual law school certificates, Harvard no less, the walls were also decorated with framed newspaper articles about Roberto Ragano — founder of the firm and, judging by a resemblance to the companion by his side in some of the earlier photographs, this woman’s grandfather.

  Several black-and-white photographs showed Roberto with such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Jimmy “The Schnoz” Durante; others Ian recognized as notorious mobsters Carlo “Don Carlo” Gambino and John “The Teflon Don” Gotti. The color photos showed four presidents: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Not one of the photos showed Roberto smiling. The effect was that it made him the focus, as though each of these famous men were the ones who had asked to pose with him.

  The woman put down her wine and wiped at her mouth and hands with a paper napkin. She reached out her right hand, as bare and unadorned as her left.

  “Mr. Quinn? My name is Rossella Ragano.”

  Ian took her hand in his and squeezed it lightly. It was warm, slightly sticky and surprisingly soft. He had an urge to touch it to his lips, but resisted the notion as more creepy than gentlemanly.

  “That looks like one hell of a good sandwich,” he said.

  Rossella laughed, her eyes and lips in perfect simpatico. “It is. Want a piece?”

  “Normally, I would decline just to be polite, but the look on your face as you’re eating actually makes me envious. I would love a bite.”

  Rossella laughed louder and with genuine mirth. She opened her desk drawer to pull out a small switchblade. Pressing a button on the handle, a four-inch blade shot out with a powerful, spring-loaded click.

  Grabbing a spare napkin, Rossella cut a large chunk off the end of the sandwich and passed it over.

  “Wine?” she asked.

  “Only if it’s a screw-top. I’d hate for you to get the idea that I’m an expensive date.”

  With a coy smirk, Rossella grabbed a fresh plastic cup from beside the water cooler and filled it with red wine from a bottle hidden out of sight.

  “This is nice,” she said, taking another but much smaller bite of sandwich. “I normally eat alone.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, it’s true. Sadly.”

  “Are all your suitors turned off by your eating habits?”

  Rossella’s eyes went large as she almost choked on the food in her mouth by trying to chew and laugh at the same time.

  “That was cruel,” she said after swallowing.

  Ian smirked. “True.” He indicated the side of her mouth. “You’ve got sauce.”

  Rossella wiped the sauce away with her napkin and took another sip of wine.

  “You know what the best way to eat a sandwich like this would be?” Rossella answered her own question before Ian could respond. “Naked in a bathtub. Then you could really get messy.”

  Ian laughed loudly, choking slightly on his own bite of sandwich while trying not to picture the scene in his head. It was an impossible task.

  “Now that was cruel,” he said.

  Rossella’s pink tongue skipped across her lips in a gesture of playfulness.

  “So tell me about yourself, Mr. Ian Quinn, no middle initial.”

  Ian sipped his wine, enjoying both the meal and the company. He normally ate alone, too. “Not much to tell. I’m a child protection officer with Children First, a private company that has an official mandate through the state government to supervise court-ordered visitation rights between feuding parents and the poor kids stuck in the middle.”

  “I know of it. Married?”

  “Divorced, but it’s amicable.”

  “Kids?”

  “I had a daughter. She died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  “So you protect other children now?”

  “I try to.”

  “That’s noble.”

  Ian shrugged. “Some days are easier than others.”

  “Hobbies?”

  “I play a little jazz guitar. Used to be pretty good.”

  “What happened?”

  “I stopped playing after Emily’s death. Emily is my daughter.”

  “Did she like to hear you play?”

  Ian smiled in remembrance. “She did.”

  “Then you should start again. She would like that.”

  Ian sipped his wine, but didn’t answer. Instead he looked over at the framed photographs and changed topics.

  “Your grandfather knew some interesting people.”

  “People of influence,” said Rossella. “Nonno is always teaching me that influence is the grease of civilization. Make friends on every side of a battlefield and your own chances of success are guaranteed. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily true, but it certainly worked for him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  The light in Rossella’s eyes dimmed a little. “He stays at home. I have a full-time nurse looking after him. Alzheimer’s.”

  “Sorry, that’s a difficult illness for everyone involved.”

  “It is.”

  They both sipped their wine and nibbled on the sandwich for a few minutes before Ian broke the silence with a contented sigh.

  “This might sound odd,” he said, “but I’m enjoying this. Watching you eat.”

  “Watching me eat?”

  “You do it with such gusto.”

  “I’m Italian, we do everything with gusto.”

  They both laughed.

  “And,” Rossella continued, “if you think watching me eat a sandwich is fun, you should take me out for spaghetti one night — that is a real treat. You need to hose me down after.”

  “I’d enjoy that.”

  This time the silence was a touch more awkward until Rossella crumpled the sandwich’s waxed paper wrapping into a ball and sent it sailing toward a wire wastebasket nestled a short distance away. Swish — didn’t even touch the sides. Ian tried to do the same with his napkin, but it failed to make the distance.

  “More wine?” asked Rossella, stopping him from rising to help the fallen comrade, showing him she didn’t mind a little mess.

  “Please.”

  With their cups freshly filled, Rossella retrieved a file folder from a nearby cabinet and laid it on the desk in front of her. Ian glanced at the folder, but the blank cover gave away nothing about its contents.

  “Jack Quinn was a client of my grandfather’s,” Rossella began. “This file dates back to 1978.”

  “That’s the year he walked out on us.”

  “Yesterday, a letter arrived from Boston with instructions to contact you and hand over the contents of this file.”

  “A letter? Was it from—” Ian didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t. The very idea that for all these years his father might have been living another life on the other side of the country turned the wine to vinegar in his mouth.

  “The letter used a code word for verification,” ex
plained Rossella. “That code word had been established with our firm when the file was opened. I’m afraid the protocol put in place at that time was only to be used upon the death of our client.”

  Ian sucked in his breath. “He’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But he died recently? Not thirty years ago?”

  “It appears that way. I’m sorry.”

  Ian went limp, his body melting into the chair’s backrest in search of support, and buried his face in his hands. After all this time, all those years of wondering, of burying the bastard’s existence over and over, and yet never being able to quite say a final goodbye. And now this. A random letter out of the blue announcing that Jack Quinn was dead.

  His father was dead.

  His Da.

  Ian wiped at his eyes, cursing himself for the emotions that flooded through him. The abandoned son inside this adult shell was being torn in half, and although Ian desperately wanted to yell at the boy not to feel, he knew he would never do that to any other child under his care. And like it or not, this boy needed to grieve as much as anyone.

  “Are you okay?” Rossella asked. She had moved around the desk and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was light, her fingers gently probing the rigid muscle.

  When Ian dropped his hands from his face, he was eye level with her generous bosom. A tiny splotch of red sauce was staining her silk blouse, enticing him to lean forward, pull the fabric into his mouth and suck.

  “I’m fine,” he said, clearing the emotion from his throat and lifting his gaze away from her chest, away from the gap between straining buttons that hinted at warmth, comfort and pleasure. “So what’s in the file?”

  Rossella removed her hand from his shoulder and returned behind her desk. She opened the folder and handed over its contents. There were three items.

  The first was an identical pair of old-fashioned door keys with huge teeth and long shafts. Each key was tarnished with age and flecked with rust, but still appeared usable.

  The second was a property deed for his grandfather’s butcher shop. Ian had driven by the shop numerous times in the past, often wondering who had bought the place and why they had never bothered to tear down what remained of a garish tin pig above the doorway. His sister, in particular, had never liked that pig. Before she disappeared, Abbie confided in him that its sharp slash of a mouth gave her nightmares.

  The third item was an envelope. Written on the front of the envelope were three words: For My Son.

  Ian glanced over at Rossella. She was leaning back in her chair, sipping her wine and studying him with concern. The top two buttons of her blouse had come undone, and he wondered if they had always been that way.

  For My Son.

  What he wouldn’t have given for those words when he really needed them. Back when the child was still a child, when the schoolyard bullies labeled him a bastard and he became a favorite target. When Bo Kemp and his minions chased him through the woods in junior high, throwing rocks at him when he tried to escape across the river. He had nearly drowned when a large rock hit him square in the back and the swift current swept his legs out from under him.

  My Son.

  Or when he wanted to ask Angelina out in high school, but didn’t know how to act on his feelings. His mother told him to write a poem and give it to her. He had, but things didn’t go as promised. Angelina shared the poem with her friends and everyone laughed.

  Son.

  When Emily was baptized, Ian remembered looking around at the congregation, his baby daughter gurgling happily in his arms, and searching for a familiar face. It was only later he realized whose face he had actually been searching for.

  Would having had a father to talk to change any of that? And if it had, would Ian still be the same person he was today?

  Ian opened the envelope and retrieved the letter.

  It was handwritten and short.

  Sorry for everything, son.

  I don’t expect you to understand or ever forgive. I tried to fix it, that’s why I had to leave, but if you’re reading this, I failed.

  My heart is heavy, but I’m afraid it’s your burden now.

  — Dad

  *

  Ian crumpled the letter in his hand and squeezed as though trying to turn the paper back into pulp.

  What the fuck did that mean? What burden?

  Thirty years and all I get is a cryptic note?

  Ian hurled the letter toward the trashcan, wanting to cause some form of destruction, some noise that signified all the hurt and anger he was feeling. But the paper bounced noiselessly off the rim of the wire basket with no more impact than if a fly had died mid-flight.

  Tears rolled down his face and the salty tracks filled him with even more anger. Jack Quinn didn’t deserve these tears, he didn’t deserve this rage, he didn’t deserve anything from him.

  Rossella came around her desk and grabbed Ian’s face in her hands. She pulled him close to her bosom, smothering him in her scent. Ian’s eyes rolled and filled with lust. He pulled her down onto his lap and pressed his mouth between her breasts, tasting her.

  Rossella gasped and elicited a low moan as Ian’s tongue and lips explored her fragrant flesh. With his hands pressing her close, Ian looked up into Rossella’s face to see her smiling down. He uttered a low growl as their lips collided, locking together in a vice of passion while an insatiable hunger took them over.

  Their lovemaking quickly became a blur of torrid flesh as Ian ripped open Rossella’s blouse and yanked up her short skirt. Her breasts filled his mouth to overflowing as her hands eagerly tore at his belt and freed his manhood. Ian enveloped her with all his being, body and soul.

  Together they filled the office with noise, flesh against flesh as though this was the end of all things and they needed to be completely sated before release.

  Ian’s tears were kissed away and his pain transformed into intense pleasure.

  *

  “Well, that was unexpected,” said Rossella as she picked her scattered clothing off the floor, unraveling each crumpled piece before slipping it on like a striptease in reverse. “Was it the sandwich or the wine?”

  Half-dressed himself, Ian crossed to her and encircled her waist, pulling her body tight against his and kissing the nape of her neck. “It was all you.”

  “Flatterer.”

  Ian grinned and inhaled her fragrance deep into his nostrils before releasing her to continue dressing.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Rossella asked.

  “I’ll be fine, but—” Ian stopped, a sudden thought making his throat dry.

  “But?”

  “I received a strange package today. I didn’t know what it meant, but now…” He stopped again, clearly troubled by the scenario running through his mind.

  “What was in the package?” Rossella pressed.

  “An ear. Somebody sent me a severed ear.”

  “Not what I was expecting to hear.” Rossella winced. “No pun intended. Was there a note with it? A ransom demand or—”

  “Nothing. Just the ear inside a plain black box.”

  “And?”

  “And.” Ian swallowed hard. “I think it was my father’s.”

  6

  Leaving the lawyer’s office, Ian stood on the street for a moment to embrace the night. It was wet and it was cold, but he didn’t care. Rossella had pressed her lips to a dead ember deep inside his chest, and with a simple exhale of air made it glow again.

  He turned to face the building and looked up. Rossella was standing by the office window and looking down at him. He raised a hand and wiggled his fingers. It was the same whimsical way he used to wave to his daughter when they both decided it was the very best technique after watching an old Laurel and Hardy movie. Emily adored Stan Laurel, although it was Oliver Hardy who perfected the simple wave.

  Rossella waved back in the normal fashion, but she dressed it with a smile that lit most of her face. Only her eyes escaped t
he glee as they were too locked in concern.

  Turning up his collar against the rain, Ian strode off down the street. Out of habit, he had parked in the lot at Children First. The familiar spot always gave him his bearings.

  As he walked, Ian thought about his father. Was the delivery of his ear a warning? And if so, a warning about what? He thought about the letter. What was his burden? What had his father tried to fix? And why did that mean he had to abandon his family?

  When Ian buried his mother, she was a broken and bitter shell, tortured in both body and mind. If she had ever known a reason for her husband’s disappearance, she never shared it with her son.

  A dog’s bark startled him and made Ian turn to look over his shoulder. On the sidewalk a short distance behind, a young man was dragging a short terrier into the doorway of a coffee shop. The rough-coated mutt was straining against its leash, teeth bared at something across the street.

  Ian followed the dog’s agitated stare to where a dark silhouette was barely visible in the misty haze of rain. It looked like a tall, thin man holding a black umbrella. Two large dogs were sitting silently by their master’s feet, ignoring the undisciplined animal on the other side of the street.

  A shiver of recognition ran down Ian’s spine, but he couldn’t be certain it was the same man from the cemetery. Whoever he was, he had chosen to stop equidistant from two streetlights where the dull yellowish glow was at its weakest.

  Not wanting to extinguish the warmth he felt inside, Ian turned his back to the stranger and continued walking to his van.

  On the second floor of the building where he worked, the lights of Children First were dark. As they should be, thought Ian as he climbed into his van and started the engine. His partner had been known to burn the midnight oil on more than a few occasions as she struggled to keep the agency afloat in a time when government bureaucrats could find millions to renovate their art-deco palace, but didn’t have money to spare a child from being torn apart in an ugly divorce.

  A few colorful tents had popped up in the empty spaces at the rear of the parking lot, a small encampment of people struggling with mental health, addiction and poverty. Ian knew a lot of the men and women by name. A few knew him in return.