Butcher's Road

by Lee Thomas

  • • •

  Lennon stood in the doorway of Curt Conrad’s apartment, staring at his partner’s corpse. The detective lay face down. A blood-stained rope snaked away from his throat. His arms were curled under him, like a baby sleeping on its stomach. The room reeked of sweat, grease, old cigar smoke, whiskey, and the combined death scents of blood, urine, and excrement. Lennon put a hand over his mouth. A door opened in the hallway to his left, and Lennon stepped into the apartment, closing the door behind him. He felt little in that moment. Nothing, in fact. A perplexing numbness had overtaken him the moment he’d pushed open the door, replacing the anger he’d carried with him from the station. He’d come for a confrontation and had found his partner was beyond accusation or explanation.

  The room was a mess. Cluttered. Dirty. Typical for the corpulent son of a bitch. Conrad’s service piece lay on the floor next to his body. A pile of bullets had been left beside it.

  Lennon knelt and grasped Conrad’s wrist. He checked for a pulse, but Conrad was already cold.

  “Stupid,” Lennon whispered. Playing both sides only doubled the number of people gunning for you.

  Before calling the station, Lennon made a thorough search of his partner’s home. In a beat-up nightstand he found a bankbook with a surprising total jotted in black ink on the last page. Conrad kept a rigorous accounting of his spending—from cigars and egg sandwiches to the car he’d bought last spring. It was, perhaps, the only evidence of organization in an otherwise cluttered life. Beneath the bankbook he found a small journal, bound in cracked black leather. Lennon flipped through the notes inside. The journal contained names and phone numbers, jotted down in no particular order. With no time to read every entry, and wondering if his own name was among those listed, Lennon put the ledger and the journal in his coat pocket.

  Lennon finished his search, went to his car, and deposited the few items he’d taken from Curt Conrad’s apartment in the glove box. Then, back in the apartment, he called the station. After the call, he returned to the living room and sat in a wooden chair by the window, waiting for the homicide squad to arrive, waiting to feel something about the man lying dead on the floor before him.

  • • •

  The next hour played slow and murky for Lennon. He rose from the chair when his colleagues arrived, but it was like trying to swim to the surface of a mud pit. Everyone offered outrage and condolence in equal measure. Men clapped him on the back, expressing heartfelt sorrow that Lennon had lost his partner in such a violent manner. They assured him they would find Conrad’s murderer: they would find the pig, the fucker, the son of a bitch, the rat. Lennon nodded through it all, unable to summon the same level of fury as his colleagues.

  Lennon remained at the scene for over an hour, though he added little to the investigation. He listened in on conversations, speculations. He answered a few pointless questions. Just before leaving, a detective named Glaser, a smooth creep in an expensive hat, burst into the room to announce that one of the other residents had seen the killer exiting the building.

  “She figured he was about my build,” Glaser said. “Fifty years old. Dressed to the nines. She said he was a very pleasant and polite gentleman. He held the door for her and fed her some chit-chat before leaving the scene.”

  “How’s that make him our killer?” Lennon asked.

  “Like I said, he was holding the door while he was chatting the old lady up. She said she saw blood on his glove, said she knew what blood looked like.”

  Lennon catalogued the information, building a mental picture of the killer in his head. He noted Glaser’s squared-off shoulders and short stature. He figured the detective’s weight to be just around a hundred and ninety pounds, and then wondered how a middle-aged man of that weight could have kept hold of a rope with a guy of Conrad’s considerable girth, trying to buck and shake him loose. The thought came and went quickly, though. It was apparent that Conrad’s nose had been broken. Who knew what additional damage the killer had managed before getting the rope around the fat neck?

  Back at the station, he mulled over his history with Conrad, which amounted to a combative six years. For Lennon, death had not polished away the tarnish of Conrad’s life, the way it apparently had for the other men in the department, who made it a point to stop by his office and express their condolences. Lennon thanked the men, but he deflected all conversation meant to extol Conrad’s virtues, all of which were nothing but the fantastical creations of his colleagues. Curt Conrad hadn’t died in the line of service, at least not in the service of his city. He’d died a crooked death, but Lennon would be the one shamed if he exposed that fact. You didn’t speak ill of the dead, especially under his brothers’ roof.

  Lennon packed all of the evidence he’d gathered on Musante, all except the Mauser 14, and sent the box back to the basement. He was flipping through Conrad’s address book when he received a summons—the Captain wanted to see him.

  In Captain Wenders’ office he took a seat, once again accepted condolences that raked across his ears like sandpaper, and waved off the offer of a whiskey.

  Wenders, a blubbery man with a shiny handlebar mustache, knocked back a shot and leaned forward on his desk. On the wall behind him were a dozen framed certificates of commendation. From the superintendent of police. From the chief. From the mayor.

  “This changes things,” Wenders said. “Those dirty fucks can kill each other until the cows come home, and that’s not a thing I’ll lose a wink of sleep over, but coming after one of ours? No, sir.”

  “You seem pretty sure this is connected to the syndicates.”

  One of Wenders’ eyebrows ticked upward as if waiting for the punch line to a joke. “Everything in this town is connected to the syndicates.”

  Including you and me, Lennon thought. He’d seen Wenders picking up his monthly bonus from the same restaurant where Lennon collected his envelope. Once he’d considered it harmless. Irrelevant. Standard operating procedure. Now, it sickened him. The entire system ran on the syndicates’ fuel. He’d always known it, had been a part of it since his first promotion, but he felt as if he had just turned this particular rock over to see the repulsive creatures writhing beneath. Suddenly the day-to-day corruption—predictable and bland—had taken on importance. It had touched too close to home.

  “Now, I know you boys draw envelopes,” said Wenders. “Most of the station does. I never put my nose into your business when it comes to that. Folks have to feed their families, but we have a dead detective, and that’s not the kind of thing that money is going to make go away.”

  “No, sir,” Lennon agreed.

  “So which side were you two drawing from?”

  “Sir?” Lennon shifted in his seat and leaned on the arm of the chair. He didn’t trust the captain. For that matter Lennon wasn’t sure he could trust anyone living in the city limits.

  Wenders rolled his eyes impatiently. “You playing the coy whore with me? Your partner is dead, about had his head sawed off with a rope, and you want to pretend you never spread for the thug fuckers who done it?”

  “Sir, it’s not that simple.” He looked away. His gaze landed on a framed commendation from the mayor, hung only a few inches above the trashcan Wenders kept in the corner.

  “Look, Lennon, I’m not gunning for you. Like I said, I don’t give a shit about your take. But I got a call a little over thirty minutes ago and I need some confirmation before I throw this department headlong into a gang war.”

  “A call?”

  Wenders worked his lips silently as if testing the shape of the words before speaking them. “A tip-off.”

  “About Conrad?” Lennon sat up straight in the chair and turned to the captain.

  “Yeah, about Conrad.”

  “What did they say?”

  “You running things now?” Wenders asked. He sneered at Lennon, and then appeared to deflate as if too tired to sustain a performance of authority. “Just tell me who was slinging his envelopes.”
/>   “Curt was drawing from both sides,” Lennon said.

  Wenders’ face went rigid. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. We both drew from the Italians, but Curt was also drawing from Moran’s crew, likely somebody under Powell. I think I should leave it at that.”

  He wasn’t ready to discuss Curt’s involvement in Musante’s murder, might never be ready. What good would it do? The guy was scum but hardly more crooked than anyone else in the department. Musante was one of the bad guys, even if he wasn’t particularly good at it. When all was said and done, the world would keep on turning as it had. The only thing talking would accomplish was to earn Lennon the label of rat.

  “You’re not leaving it at that,” Wenders said.

  “Sir, there are extenuating—”

  “Fuck your extenuating and fuck this bullshit. We have the Feds and the press spitting on their dicks, looking for a place to park them. Let’s have it.”

  Lennon felt like a chicken on a spit, roasting under Wenders’ angry impatience. He cleared his throat and swallowed twice. He could lie, but none came to mind. “I think, no, I’m pretty certain, that Curt murdered Lonnie Musante.”

  “Come again?” The captain’s voice had turned to flint. Beneath his impressive handlebars, his mouth pinched tightly, as if daring Lennon to continue.

  “The gun used in the Musante murder, the Mauser, was the same weapon Curt and I pulled off of Dickie Mayr for the Gladson’s hold up. I checked the serial number on the weapon we found at the scene. It matches the Mayr piece. No way a guy like Cardinal could have gotten his hands on it.”

  “But you were there when Musante was shot.”

  “Yeah, I was there,” Lennon said, again looking toward the certificate of commendation hung on the wall. “But I didn’t see any of the action. I didn’t see anything, except Cardinal fleeing the scene.”

  Even though the details of that night eluded him, Lennon knew what he was willing to do, and pulling a hit for the Irish wasn’t on the list. Curt had taken the job. Considering how careless the fat slob had been, he’d probably bragged to Lennon about it. Whatever the case, Lennon knew he wouldn’t have chewed the news and sat back while his partner made such a profoundly stupid move.

  He pulled his attention away from the framed document and looked across the desk. Wenders wasn’t enjoying the report. His fat jowls burned crimson and his eyes, already curtained by heavy bags of skin, were all but slits.

  “Considering Musante’s relationship with Impelliteri,” Lennon said, “it only stands that the Irish made the call. They brought Curt in to make it clean and set up Cardinal to take the fall. He was a petty player. Expendable. They didn’t want to risk any of their real talent, and they probably thought they could pass it off as a personal gripe between the two.”

  “I don’t see it,” Wenders said, shaking his head. “Musante was a penny among dimes. Hell, he was trouser lint. The Irish wouldn’t start a war over a guy that small.”

  “But they did,” Lennon said. “Don’t ask me why. What I know is that Curt was supposed to be working for Impelliteri. If he moved against Impelliteri, then it was coming from the Irish.”

  “Fuck,” Wenders said. He pushed himself away from the desk and knit his fingers behind his head.

  “Sir?”

  “The call I got. The tip off. The guy identified a lowball named Terry McGavin for Conrad’s hit. McGavin is Powell’s second-in-command.”

  “Does he match the description Glaser took off the old lady at the scene? Fifty years old? Five-foot-nine or ten? A hundred and eighty, maybe ninety pounds?”

  With a weary expression, Wenders shook his head and said, “Not even a little.”

  “Then it’s a set-up. Impelliteri’s crew called it in to give Powell grief.”

  But again, Lennon had to wonder why. What had the gangster lost with Musante’s death? Was Impelliteri really fighting a war over such a loser? A con man fortuneteller? Or was it something else entirely? Lennon considered the two men who had put a knife to his neck in Musante’s home. They hadn’t been worried about Musante at all; their concern was for some bauble Musante was supposed to have had. They’d threatened Lennon’s life and the lives of his family in order to extract everything Lennon knew about the trinket, which was nothing. Maybe Musante had muled the thing, run it from a seller to Impelliteri.

  “Yeah, it’s probably a set-up,” Wenders said. The loose skin on his plump face sagged further as if someone had poured water into reservoirs behind the flesh.

  “McGavin is already here,” Lennon said, realizing what the frustration weighing Wenders’ face meant. “Christ, he’s a dead man.”

  “They just brought him in,” the Captain said, placing both palms on the top of his desk as if trying to soothe the piece of furniture. He pushed air from his mouth, a silent whistle achieving little but the flutter of his lips. “These fuckers keep playing us like bums.”

  “Only because we let them.” Lennon stood. He needed to get to McGavin while the man was still alive.

  “Hold on. We’ve got a story to get straight.” Suddenly the strength was back in Wenders’ voice. He’d made up his mind about something, and he was ready to deliver an order.

  “What story?”

  “The incident at Musante’s. You need to forget about Conrad,” Wenders said. “You didn’t say it. I didn’t hear it. As far as this department is concerned, Butch Cardinal killed Lonnie Musante. He acted alone. That part of the story doesn’t change.”

  Lennon leaned forward on the desk. He couldn’t believe Wenders wouldn’t even consider the evidence. “You’re going to let an innocent man take the fall?”

  “I don’t give a good god damn about Cardinal,” Wenders said. His eyes glared from the soft face like two marbles nestled in a wad of dough. “The dumb fuck was in the wrong place at a very bad time. He’s not my problem. On the other hand, I do care about this department. I am not going to let it take the fall. We already have citizen groups hanging from the walls, and the Feds have taken just about every decision out of our hands.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

  “Really? And how’s that?”

  “Most of them aren’t playing the angles. You may not have noticed, Captain, but you just signed contracts on the lives of two men tonight: Butch Cardinal and Terry McGavin. And for what? From what I can see, the Feds are trying to uphold the law. What the hell are we trying to do?”

  Wenders’ expression didn’t change. He glared at Lennon with his hard marble eyes, and the indifference captured there swallowed light. The face disturbed Lennon; it disgusted him. And the well of emotions that had eluded him for hours suddenly gurgled into life. And it gushed. And it plumed.

  He stormed out of Captain Wenders’ office and headed for the stairs.

  • • •

  By the time Lennon reached the interrogation room, Terry McGavin had already been questioned within an inch of his life. It didn’t take long for Chicago’s finest to telegraph their displeasure to a suspect, and when the life of a cop had been taken, they sent a lot of messages. Subtlety went out the window. With the real movers of felony, even if they happened to be innocent of the charges they’d been hauled in on, nobody trod softly.

  When Lennon entered the room, McGavin was face down on the table amid a stippling of blood. The wall to his left was made of brick. It had a narrow, barred window. The other walls were plastered and painted the dull brown of dead grass, not that the color was easily identifiable this evening. A single, glaring bulb hung low. Its conical shade directed all of the light onto the table and the suspect, leaving much of the walls and the corners in gloom. The skin on the nape of McGavin’s neck looked bloodless under the harsh light. The man groaned and wheezed.

  The two detectives who had been interrogating the suspect stood off to the side, smiling, wiping their knuckles with their handkerchiefs. When they saw Lennon, their eyes lit up and their smiles broadened.

  “Give me ten,” L
ennon said. He knew they wouldn’t argue the request. His partner had been murdered and the man suspected of doing it was bleeding all over the table in the middle of the room. Cops had a code. Partners had rights.

  “Take as long as you need,” Detective Glaser said.

  Lennon dipped his chin toward the detective. Considering his mood, he’d rather have Glaser in the chair. The piece of shit had taken the old lady’s statement, and he knew damn well McGavin didn’t match her description. But that hadn’t stopped Glaser from beating the prisoner senseless. He wouldn’t let something as insignificant as the truth keep him from throwing pain. He enjoyed making men scream, liked to see their blood paint the table. For guys like Glaser, every interrogation was a wedding night.

  “Make Curt proud,” the other detective added.

  “Thanks,” Lennon replied. “Go get yourselves some coffee. I’ll let you know when I’m through in here.”

  After the men left, Lennon took the chair across the table from McGavin. He sat but said nothing for a time. Instead he listened to the struggling breaths of the suspect, and considered the position he was in. He didn’t know McGavin, but he knew he didn’t like the man, and he didn’t like the fact that things had gotten so cockeyed he had to consider an Irish mobster a closer ally than the men in his squad. The whole mess was like a knot of wires behind a fuse box, and he didn’t know which ones were live and which were safe to touch.

  Finally he said, “How long was Curt working for you?”

  McGavin made a sound, wet and deep. A cough? A laugh? He groaned and lifted his head. With his pale skin and numerous contusions, the suspect looked like a circus clown made up in the colors of violence. His right eye was purple and swollen. A deep gash over the left brow dripped blood into the socket, and McGavin blinked furiously to clear it away. A knot the size of a walnut had already swelled on his jaw. His lips were split and pulled back in a grimace. Blood ran into his mouth and framed his teeth like mud being pushed through fence boards.