by Lee Thomas
Chapter 6
Out on a Rail
Three days after witnessing Lonnie Musante’s murder, Butch woke disoriented and freezing in a house on the outskirts of Cincinnati. He sneezed. He sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand; a cold had set up shop in his head and throat. The night before, unforgiving weather had about done him in, and he’d considered breaking down and renting a cheap room for the night to escape the winter chill. Then he’d seen the house with its Foreclosure sign nailed to the front door. He hadn’t even had to break in. A hobo, a thief, or local children had already cracked the backdoor’s lock, so Butch had simply stepped in out of the wind and made himself at home. The ousted family had taken most of the comforts with them, but a large sofa—perhaps too bulky to relocate—faced off on the fireplace from the center of the room, and Butch found a set of thick brown curtains in a second-floor bedroom. He carefully removed these from the rod to use as blankets. The possibility of diligent neighbors kept him from lighting a fire, and though the layers of fabric—his clothes and the curtains—didn’t keep him warm, they had been enough to keep him from freezing to death.
He rolled his head on the arm of the sofa. On the wall next to the fireplace was a hole the size of a fist. A scrap of plaster hung from the ragged upper edge against ribs of lath. It was one of three such holes that marred the wall separating the hearth from the dining room.
The hole in the wall and the frost on his bones recalled fragments of his childhood. He hated that time in his life. It was ugly. Confusing. So many of the memories were alike, it was difficult to place them in a rational chronology, particularly since he’d spent so much time trying to erase them completely.
His mother wipes a tear from her eye, the lids and cheek already growing puffy and discolored. In the next room, his sister, his only sibling—Clara—screams. A crack, like gunfire—a father’s hand across the soft cheek of his daughter’s face ended the shrill cries, leaving only sobbing echoes to ooze through the walls. The scene is familiar, as common as fish on Friday and church on Sunday, and Butch doesn’t know anything else; he only knows he’s scared, and Clara is wonderful, and their father should know that. Robert Cardinal should know his daughter is wonderful. Butch—who wasn’t yet Butch but rather Billy—tries to get off the bed. His sister’s muffled sobs gather and coil in his stomach and turn hard and aching, and he doesn’t ever want to hear the sound again. His mother holds his shoulders and shakes her head and more tears spill down her cheeks, and Butch tells her he has to talk to his father. She tells him he can’t because his father isn’t really there at all.
Sitting up on the sofa, squinting through the diffused light seeping in around the paper on the front windows, Butch knew it was time to head south. No matter what else happened, the weather would only be getting worse in the northern cities. He felt uncertain about taking Rory’s advice, looking up Hollis Rossington. Butch didn’t know the man. Rossington might have owed Rory a favor, but how strong was that obligation? Strong enough to house a fugitive? He’d thought about going to New York and losing himself in the swarms of unemployed while he tried to sort out what had happened to his life, but Butch only had the money in his pockets—another gift from Rory—and it would have to last until he managed to wrangle some work. In New York, he might find labor on the docks or in a warehouse—the kind of jobs he’d done fresh from the Navy—but no one was getting fast work. It could take some time, and what would he do until then? The idea of scrounging in a bread line was too shameful for him to consider, and he couldn’t imagine enduring weeks of bitter cold in some confiscated shelter.
No, he had to go south, and there was no reason not to choose New Orleans. Even if Rory’s friend Rossington didn’t pan out, Butch could get by cheap in that city. Between the brothels and the burlesques there were a hundred places he could bounce, and the people there knew how to keep their secrets.
A sneeze took him off guard and the two that followed were each more powerful. He sniffed and rubbed his watery eyes. He preferred the sneezes to the coughing. He’d started coughing the night before, and each barking hack produced instant agony.
At the window, he pulled back an edge of butcher paper, which had been used to cover the glass. The weather kept the neighborhood quiet. No one occupied the sidewalks or streets. At a mirror in the upstairs bath, Butch combed his hair down and did his best to straighten his jacket. For three nights he’d worn his clothes to bed. Creases lined his jacket and his slacks. The gauze on his wounded ear looked foul. Blood and sweat soiled the cotton padding. He tried to peel it off, but the cotton was glued to the wound, and he felt certain if he ripped it away, he’d ruin another collar and further stain his overcoat.
He coughed violently, producing a thick wad of phlegm that he spat into the sink, which he leaned on until the worst of the ache faded from his chest. He released a deep breath in slow, measured sighs, afraid that expelling the air all at once would produce another round of painful coughs.
In New Orleans, he could get his feet under him. He’d have time to think through his situation. He had enough money for a train ticket and maybe enough to get him through a few days in a cheap flop.
It wasn’t much. It was all he had.
• • •
At the train station, he bought a ticket for the Pan-American line. Then he sat on a bench and nearly fell asleep. He’d exhausted himself crossing town from the empty house. His chest felt heavy and his head felt light. The train wouldn’t be leaving for hours. In the men’s room Butch cleaned up a second time, grateful for the hot water that scalded the chill from his fingers and cheeks. His suit looked worse in full light. He might as well have been one of the bums curled on the benches of the station. Unshaved. A filthy bandage over his ear. He admitted that vanity was a peculiar thing to worry about, but he’d spent his life running from the little boy with ripped trousers and smears of mud on his knees, and now that same little boy peered from the mirror at him. Butch left his reflection, left the men’s room, and bought a newspaper from the stand. He took a bench. His nose ran and his head throbbed. The chill he’d felt for days now radiated outward, rather than in. Opening the paper, he searched for his name, and more importantly a picture. He found both on page seven, and though initially the sight of himself staring from the page startled him unpleasantly, he realized the photo the papers had rounded up was more than seven years old. He hadn’t even had a mustache then, and the young man with the pronounced muscles, striking a threatening pose, looked so little like the ragged man he’d left at the toilet mirror Butch felt relieved.
He folded the paper and then he relented and made his way to the bank of phones at the back of the station. He had a call to make, a call he had been putting off.
After telling the operator to connect him with a number in Chicago, he tapped a finger against the side of the booth as he waited for the call to go through.
“Yeah, this is Powell,” a reedy voice answered.
“Angus, this is Butch.”
“Is it?” Powell asked.
“Yeah, look—”
“Where the fuck are you, Cardinal?” Angus Powell’s bellowing voice filled his ear.
“That’s not important.”
“Oh, so now you know what’s important? You stupid piece of shit. Now you know what’s important? You ice one of Impelliteri’s cabinet without orders?”
Butch swiped his palm down his face. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no other travelers were within earshot before saying, “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Save your bullshit, Cardinal. Just tuck that shit right in your cunt, because we got a war on our hands, and we got that war because you spent your day off popping some greasy, little fuck. You think the Italians are spraying bullets for grins? This is vendetta shit, and you brought it down on our heads.”
“The police killed Musante,” Butch said. He coughed violently into a fist as he pulled the phone away from his head. By the time he got the earpiece re-situ
ated, Powell was in the middle of another rant.
“…work for the Italians. They don’t wipe their asses without clearing it with Impelliteri. So try another one, Cardinal. Better yet, get your ass back here. Lie to my face. See what kind of pain that brings you. Think you’re so fucking tough? Well, you ain’t shit, Cardinal.”
“Talk to Terry,” Butch said. “He’s the one that called me. He sent me to Musante’s. He’s the one that set this whole thing up.”
“Terry?” Powell shouted. “I’ve known Terry since we were kids, pinching candy and tobacco. You telling me I should take your word, the word of a side of beef I bought secondhand, over a guy I’ve known my whole life? You really think that’s gonna play, Cardinal?”
“Okay, Angus.” Butch closed his eyes and ground his teeth. Powell’s tirade was working on his headache like a pickaxe.
“Okay? Nothing is okay. You get your ass back here so I can feed you to Marco Impelliteri, and then things will be okay.”
An announcement played loudly from a speaker above Butch’s head. “The Continental leaving Cincinnati serving stops in Lousiville—”
“Cincinnati,” Powell said.
“I gotta run.”
“You do that,” Powell said. “I got another call to make. You’re dead, Cardinal. You know that, right? You’re—”
Butch hung up the phone and hurried back into the station as if a paper screen rather than hundreds of miles of wire separated him from the furious thug. Once he had a moment to settle himself on a bench, his head cleared. He saw that the phone call had actually been useful. Powell wanted him dead, no question, but the man had had no idea what was going on. He hadn’t said word one about the package, the necklace. Powell didn’t seem to have a clue about the cop-shooters or the set-up. Terry might have called Butch, might have sent him to that miserable house, but he hadn’t done it on Powell’s order.
Butch didn’t know exactly what that meant. Did Terry have a personal beef with him? With Musante? Was Terry working his own swindle, playing the sides against each other?
When they called boarding for the Pan-American, Butch walked with his head down all the way to the platform. He sat at a window with no one beside him and no one facing. He slumped down low in the seat, covered his face with the front page of the newspaper and drifted off to sleep as the whistle blew and the wheels began their chugging rotations, and…
Sleep.
Butch woke, and snatched the paper from his face. The musty chemical reek of the printers’ ink remained in his nostrils; it felt alive, squirming down the back of his throat.
A woman had taken the seat across from him. She was a fine-looking woman, with a round face and button nose and thick brunette hair swept back and held in place with a number of pins. She wore the smart jacket and skirt set of a secretary.
A sneeze came over him so quickly he didn’t have time to cover it.
The woman winced in disgust and covered her own mouth and nose with a gloved palm.
“I’m sorry,” Butch said.
She offered him a tight smile. Her eyes flicked a gaze at his wounded ear, and then she hugged herself as if cold and turned her head to the window. He followed her example and stared through the glass, surprised to find the sun setting over a distant ridge of hills.
• • •
When he woke the second time, the car was dark. His head ached and his chest felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. The disapproving secretary had apparently found another seat and a portly man with a scruff of graying beard snored lightly in her place. Full night had fallen. A thumbnail moon hung on the horizon.
Butch sneezed twice in quick succession and the man with the gray beard mumbled in his sleep. Folding the paper, Butch decided to stretch his legs. He felt miserable just sitting there, stewing in the cold. The train wobbled as he got to his feet and the motion nearly sent him crashing back into his seat, but he steadied himself and began walking down the aisle, occasionally glancing at the faces bathed in gloom. Briefly he wondered what took these other people from Cincinnati to New Orleans. Were they traveling toward something—the promise of work, loved ones—or were they running away like Butch?
The idea of skipping out sat wrong with him. He understood the repercussions of remaining in Chicago and taking on Powell or Impelliteri, but he’d never surrendered before, even when Jerry Simm had cheated him out of the title and sent Butch on the downward slide. Even then he’d held his own, though it hadn’t done him any good.
After his return from an exhibition tour in Europe, Butch had begun training for the match of his career. He would be taking on the World Champion, Jerry Simm, in front of thousands of spectators in Madison Square Garden. He’d heard the rumors about Simm: how he’d oiled his body to defeat Krasner in Milwaukee, and how he’d hired a Russian to cripple Morey the morning of their title bout in Kansas City, but Butch had let the rumors roll off of him. Simm was a sportsman, and he was at the top of the game.
Simm didn’t want the match, Butch had heard, but the promoters called the shots. This sort of manipulation was all part of the show. The championship belt had to switch hands every so often or the audience lost interest. Fixes were made. Fights were thrown. The promoters controlled the game top to bottom, and they understood the value of showmanship, likely more than they understood the value of athleticism.
Audiences needed a constant supply of heroes, as they grew tired of the ones they were given. So the word had come down that “Butcher” Cardinal would be taking his place at the top. Maybe for a week. Maybe for a month. It didn’t matter. A championship win would solidify his future, and he wanted it. Not only for what it would mean to his career, but also because Butch knew he was a superior athlete to Simm, and he wanted the chance to take the man in a straight shoot.
Three days before the match, Butch had been sparring with a young Hungarian named Dobos, who had been recommended by the owner of the Hell’s Kitchen gym where Butch had been training. Dobos was a bear with a thick shrub of beard and his hair sheared flat on top to make his face look absolutely square. The kid had twenty pounds on Butch, but he was graceless, and on the first day, Butch had found it easy enough to throw holds and bring the enormous Hungarian to the mat. The second day, the kid planted a knee in Butch’s balls, and while he was incapacitated, Dobos wrenched his arm behind his back. Without so much as a “fuck you,” Dobos snapped Butch’s wrist and dislocated his shoulder. And that was it.
Simm’s manager refused a rematch, telling Joshua Liszt, Butch’s representative, that most kids never got that close to the champ, and if you were given the opportunity, you didn’t muck it up. Opportunity knocking once and all. Furthermore, the promoters, though not pleased with Simm’s behavior, knew he was a cash cow, and they weren’t about to put him to pasture. Liszt had told Butch to let it go. The promoters ran the circuits, and if you got on their bad side, you might as well get used to digging ditches.
Butch hadn’t listened.
Once his wrist had mended, he’d tracked Dobos to a club in Alphabet City, and the second the square-headed cheat laid eyes on Butch he sprang to his feet and produced a spring-knife with a four-inch blade. Butch wasn’t concerned. He wrestled the knife out of the kid’s hand with remarkably little effort and then dropped him with a punch to the jaw. Then Butch had Dobos on his feet, locked in a full nelson with the kid’s head shoved into a corner of the bar. From there it had been easy enough to get the story. Simm’s manager had slipped the Hungarian five hundred bucks to make sure Butch didn’t make the bout in the Garden.
Instead of confronting Simm, Butch had gone to the papers, but they had unanimously dismissed his account: not because they didn’t believe him, but because they didn’t care. Simm had greased wheels and palms, and the sports reporters could expect perks from a guy like him. They didn’t know what, if anything, Butch Cardinal could do for them. Besides, they all knew that wrestling was a game, a show, no different from the fan dancers in a burlesque to them. Most of the matc
hes were fixed to begin with, and Butch was just showing his naïveté—or flat-out ignorance—by thinking sportsmanship played any part in the goings on.
He couldn’t let it go, though, no matter how hard Joshua Liszt insisted.
Bouts were canceled and new ones never materialized. Liszt dropped him as a client. Two months later, the manager signed Dobos and started selling him all over the Northeast.
Butch’s career collapsed, but it didn’t end there. His friends in the sport deserted him, refused his calls and turned away when they saw him on the street. Even those that sympathized with his plight and believed his account of the fix made it clear they couldn’t be seen to take his side in the matter, not if they wanted to keep careers themselves.
He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d played by the rules, except he hadn’t truly understood that the rules were different for people with real money.
Butch opened the door between cars and stepped into the night. The bitterness was out of the air, and he wondered how far south they’d traveled already. He sneezed twice, and a small voice from above said, “Bless you.”
Butch craned his neck and saw the face of a little boy peering over the roof of the next train car. He smiled and waved at the boy and said, “Thank you.”
But the boy was gone before the words were out of his mouth. Butch thought he heard voices from up there, but the train’s grinding chug and the rushing wind made it impossible to say for certain. Not wishing to exacerbate his burgeoning cold, Butch returned to the car and his seat.
Instead of replacing the newspaper and going back to sleep, Butch stared out at the night and the crescent moon, remembering things he’d rather not remember.
Because of Simm, his career had been derailed, though Butch believed the setback a temporary one. Free time on his hands, he’d decided to visit his sister and her husband in New Hope, Pennsylvania, but that had ended in a night of blood and screaming and what Butch could only consider another betrayal.