Butcher's Road

by Lee Thomas

  “Big fan,” Ross said, pumping Butch’s hand forcefully. “I saw you grapple Zbyszko, and I had tickets to your bout with Simm. Damn shame about what happened there. Damn shame. I heard rumors Simm rigged it up, had that Hungarian hobble you. Is that true? Did he have that Hungarian hobble you? I saw him, the Hungarian, not Simm mind you, in a bout with Jesse Petersen, and he wasn’t nothing much to see, and I couldn’t imagine him hobbling you, but who can say?”

  “Mr. Ross,” Hayes said dryly.

  “Sure, yeah, sorry,” Ross said, releasing Butch’s hand. “I hope we get a chance to talk later. Big fan.”

  “Thanks,” Butch said. He couldn’t help but smile.

  Ross’s demeanor changed instantly, though. His smile vanished and the star struck glimmer in his eyes faded. He cleared his throat and stood rigidly, facing Hayes. “Mr. Musante owns a small house on the lake. Six rooms total. No basement. There is a crawl space beneath the house, but I found no means of egress around the foundation. Two doors: front and back. Windows at points around the perimeter, eight total. He owns a small rowboat, which has been removed from the water through the winter. The lake has a frame of ice, which would make escape via water unlikely. As such, his means of transportation are limited to one car, a Ford Model T in working if not pristine condition, which he keeps parked in a detached garage.”

  Ross completed his report and folded his hands behind his back, appearing quite pleased with himself.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ross,” Hayes said. “You and I will enter the house and apprehend Mr. Musante. Mr. Cardinal will wait in the car and be prepared should Mr. Musante escape.”

  “Wait a minute,” Butch said. “I’m not just going to sit on my ass.”

  “Alchemi protocol dictates that Mr. Ross and I go in alone.” Hayes delivered the information dryly, like a beleaguered schoolmaster. “We can’t guarantee your safety in this matter.”

  “Is that a joke?” Butch asked.

  “Mr. Cardinal—”

  “Stop calling me that,” Butch said. “And stop with the protocol horseshit. Unless you intend to tie me up, knock me out, or kill me, I’m going in.”

  Mr. Ross struggled to suppress his amusement and surprise. Mr. Hayes simply looked frustrated.

  “This must be done with absolute precision,” said Hayes. “If Mr. Musante incurs any injury, any at all, the Rose will absorb into his system.”

  “Fine, I don’t clock the guy,” Butch said.

  “It’s more delicate than that, Mr.…” Hayes shook his head. “Mr. Musante may injure himself to keep us from the Galenus Rose in the hope of escaping or perhaps negotiation.”

  “If he’s wearing it,” Butch said.

  “If you were in Mr. Musante’s position, would you ever take it off?”

  Butch thought this over and decided Hayes was right. If he possessed the Galenus Rose, he’d wear it day and night. Musante might well feel that he’d succeeded and his old friends—mobster and Alchemi alike—were no longer a threat, but accidents happened.

  “So what’s your strategy?” he asked.

  • • •

  Hayes and Ross circled the tree line, leaving Butch positioned behind a balsam at the back of the house. On Musante’s front stoop, Hayes tested the knob and found the door unlocked. He waved Mr. Ross to the side, on the off chance the house was protected by traps, and then he pushed open the door. No explosion of gunfire followed. No surprise or shouts from Mr. Musante. Hayes stepped into the house and Ross followed. The rotund man shut the door behind them.

  Compared to the hovel Mr. Musante had kept in Chicago, this house had a cleanliness and warmth to it. Though sparsely decorated, with a simple sofa, table, console radio, and rocking chair, the home appeared comfortable. A fire burned on the hearth, sending waves of heat over them. The adjoining room, visible through a plain archway was apparently the dining room, though it remained unfurnished. Anyone might have lived in this place. No trinkets or photographs of a particular life adorned the walls or ornamented the table or mantle.

  Hayes took a step into the living room and then paused when he heard a board creak at the back of the house. He lifted the iron rod to his side, ready to throw it if Musante leapt out with a weapon, but when Lonnie Musante appeared, it was clear he had not seen their approach, nor had he expected anything of this sort to happen.

  Musante walked into the dining room space, rubbing a towel over his head. He wore a clean white sleeveless undershirt over tan trousers, and as he scrubbed his head, the trinket around his neck jostled noticeably. He’d bought a new chain for the Galenus Rose, a short length of gold that kept the pendant tight to his skin, just below his throat. Musante finished drying his hair and lowered the towel. Then he saw Hayes and Ross and gasped, startled. He stumbled back a step, eyes wide and mouth absently open.

  “Mr. Musante,” Hayes said. “Please remain where you are.”

  Except for the photographs from the Chicago morgue, Hayes had not seen Lonnie Musante in decades. His hair was black and lustrous with streaks of gray at the temples. His full face, never a handsome face nor even a pleasing one, was cocked to the side. His surprise faded, leaving behind an expression both relaxed and smug. Musante grinned, revealing rows of perfect, white teeth; he dropped his towel on the floor; and he faced off on Hayes and Ross.

  “So what brings you by?” Musante asked. He drew a small knife from his belt and held it over his forearm, a move Hayes had feared from the start. “And you could have wiped your feet. For the love of fuck, look what you’re doing to my floor. That’s bad manners, right there. Your mother would have something to say about that.”

  “Mr. Ross, please remain at the door,” Hayes said, ignoring Musante’s rambling. He left his colleague and crossed to the center of the room, pausing only when Musante made a show of placing the blade of his knife against the exposed skin of his arm. “Mr. Musante, we are representatives of the Alchemi. You are in possession of an item which is our responsibility, and we’ve come to—”

  “Yeah. Yeah,” Musante snapped. “But you know what? You…can’t…have it.”

  “It is the property of the Alchemi.”

  “People help themselves,” Musante said. “Keeps the world turning. Ol’ Marco Impelliteri taught me that.” He looked up at Hayes. “Now there’s a sick fuck for you. You know why he wants the Rose? You have any idea what sickness he’s trying to cure?”

  “It’s not our concern,” said Hayes.

  “Me, I had the cancer real bad, not to mention a laundry list of other aches and pains and problems that needed fixing. I only had one tooth left in my mouth before I got my hands on the Rose, now look at my choppers.” Musante curled back his lips in a grotesque smile to expose his large white teeth. “But Impelliteri, his sickness goes deeper than any cancer, worms its way clean through his body and into his soul.”

  “Is that so?”

  “That is most certainly so,” Musante said, his tone mocking. He rocked the knife back and forth over his arm. “Impelliteri is a wonder, he is. He never goes for the whores, keeps himself away from all those flapper sows with their clap and syph. Keeps himself clean. He’s got himself a lovely wife and a beautiful daughter. Problem is, he gets them confused every now and then, if you see where I’m going with this? Treats his daughter like he treats his wife. Keeps his cock in the family, you know?”

  Hayes nodded, disgusted by the information.

  “As a Catholic boy, there’s little worse, ’less he had a son instead of a daughter.” This made Musante chuckle. “He thinks the Rose will cure him of his urges, will wipe them clean away. Oh, he’s also interested in staying alive, no doubt, but it’s this other, this living sickness inside of him, that makes him want the Rose.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Hayes asked.

  “I talk,” Musante said. “It’s what I do. I wonder on things, and I talk.”

  “You’re responsible for the deaths of a number of people.”

  “No, I am not! I n
ever killed nobody but myself,” Musante said. “Wasn’t me who told McGavin to use Cardinal for the hit. Wasn’t me telling Cardinal he needed to quit his strongman act and start busting heads for Powell. No, sir. My plan was that everyone else walk out of that house alive. I wanted Cardinal alive, needed him to get away, and he did. After that, folks did what folks always do when they want what they want.”

  “I see,” Hayes said. Musante’s denial sickened him. It was like a man accusing his bullets of bad behavior. He turned to Ross who stood rigid and attentive by the front door. The man shook his head all but imperceptibly.

  “And you want to make this my fault. It’s not right what you’re planning to do,” Musante said, his voice quiet and earnest. “Not right at all. You’re blaming me for what other people done, and you’re going to murder me for it.”

  “You should know that’s not how we do things,” Hayes said.

  “Right, you just stick a pin in my head and I go numb and blank for a few years, unless I get lucky and the petrification kills me.”

  “If you injure yourself, we will take you into custody,” Hayes said. “We can be patient.”

  “You’ll have to be,” Musante said, “because I will bite my fucking tongue off once a week to keep you from getting it. I’d rather turn it over to naughty papa Impelliteri than you smug fucks.”

  He resents us, Hayes realized. He’s jealous.

  Mr. Musante wanted to punish the group, wanted to shame it, because they’d once shown the good sense to keep Lonnie Musante away from the objects of power.

  “What if I just give you the Rose?” Musante said. He lifted the knife to his throat and scratched beneath his chin with the blade. “No foul. You take it and leave and I go about my business.”

  “If I agreed to that, you’d know I was lying,” Hayes said. “Even if we took the Galenus Rose and left, others would return. You can’t trick us again, and you know that, which makes your bargain somewhat empty.”

  “You’re a smart one,” Musante said, still scraping the blade over his neck. “I know you’re right. I know how this goes. Just wasn’t quite ready to put holes in myself. Guess I’m about there now, though.”

  “It won’t change anything,” Hayes said.

  “His pocket,” Mr. Ross said from behind him.

  Hayes had noticed Musante’s hand sliding into the pocket of his trousers, but his attention was fixed on the blade, knowing that once it opened the man’s neck the Galenus Rose would be, if only for a brief time, out of their reach. Apparently, that was exactly what Musante had been hoping for.

  From the pocket, Mr. Musante drew a familiar object, a disk only slightly larger than a half-dollar piece, intricately etched and weathered by time. Hayes cocked his arm to launch the iron rod at the man, but Musante moved too fast. With a snap of his wrist, Musante threw the disk into the air. It shattered, broke into thousands of tiny, glittering flecks. Light blinded Hayes momentarily and then it soothed him. At turns brilliant and then grim, the flickering chiaroscuro stunned him and then it entranced him. Moments of absolute serenity gave way to hard-edged dread and then returned again, lulling him as he stood transfixed and unable to move before the shimmering display.

  • • •

  Lonnie Musante sighed with relief and stepped away from the scene in his living room. Mr. Hayes and his lard-assed buddy wouldn’t be bothering him again anytime soon. In fact, the Mesmer Coin could keep those ass-wipes occupied for hours, days even if the circumstances were favorable. They could die on their feet. Dehydrate and starve while watching the pretty metal twinkle before their eyes.

  No skin off his ass.

  That wasn’t likely to happen though. No doubt they’d cleared their little plan with 213 House, so if Hayes didn’t check back in soon enough another squad of Alchemi bastards would drop on his head like a weak ceiling. Lonnie considered the knife in his hand, thought about running it ear-to-ear on Hayes and then the fat one, but Lonnie didn’t have the belly for wet work. Never had. No doubt he would have gone a lot further in the Chicago syndicate if he could have stomached a hit or two, but that wasn’t his way. He didn’t care if people died. He just didn’t need to see it.

  Besides, what he’d accomplished was so much better. Sweeter. It was the bee’s fucking knees. He’d made fools of them all: Marco Impelliteri’s gang, the Chicago death machine; and the Alchemi with their pompous, ridiculous devotion to squirreling away tools and weapons, instead of using those things the way they’d been intended. Marco had the right idea. He sure did, but Lonnie had learned to hate the piece of shit. He’d rather melt everything down than let the gangster get his hands on a single piece of the living steel.

  Musante slid his knife back into the belt of his trousers. He went to the window and peered at the unbroken snow behind his house, searched the tree line for signs of additional Alchemi intruders. Normally, the Alchemi travelled in packs of two, so he’d likely covered his ass by mesmerizing the two in his living room, but maybe he’d warranted more attention. The Galenus Rose wasn’t some prop in a parlor trick.

  He squinted through the glass, thinking he saw a shape hiding behind a balsam tree. He leaned in close.

  Then an arm wrapped around his throat, and another slid around his side and quickly yanked upward, immobilizing Lonnie’s right arm. In seconds he felt the pressure of a stone-solid biceps pressing against the side of his neck. He struggled, but the man behind him had too much strength. The arm around his neck tightened, and the snowy field and the tree line began to pulse as if in respiration. The edges of his vision lost focus. His chest heaved for breath until it felt like a pair of fists beat at his ribcage from the inside. Then the white field raced toward him, filled his vision until it blinded him, leaving the world black and silent and motionless.

  Chapter 44

  Never Meant to Win

  During the two weeks following his return from New Orleans, Roger Lennon’s life had returned to normal, which was to say, the tedium had returned. Edie and the girls were home, and Edie was already pressing him to follow through on his promise of a Florida vacation. The talk around the station had moved away from Curt Conrad, except for the occasional idiot who tried to engage Lennon in an inspirational story about his late partner, as if Lennon might actively want to keep the man’s memory alive instead of forgetting him like a bad meal. His current caseload was light. It kept him busy during office hours, but it left him plenty of time to wonder about Butch Cardinal.

  He hoped the wrestler was taking his advice, moving on and starting a new life in a town where they’d never be able to dredge up his past. The guy deserved a little peace and quiet.

  At his desk in the station, Lennon sipped from his coffee and gazed across the room, where Sally, one of the switchboard operators, was delivering a telegram to Officer Evanston. Sally wore a bright red dress with a sprig of pine pinned to the lapel.

  The holidays had snuck up on Lennon. With everything else on his mind, he’d forgotten about Christmas until that morning, when Edie had insisted he bring home a “Nice, full tree.” Of course, he’d seen the decorations in the windows of the downtown stores and the radio played little but cheerful holiday tunes, but for some reason he’d taken none of it personally, as if it were a festival for strangers, a holy night for a religion he didn’t practice. Edie had bought the girls’ gifts. She’d managed the wrapping and decorating the house, which she’d been frantic over when Lennon had left for work that morning. None of it had felt quite real until Edie’s request for a tree, soon followed by the sudden, shocking realization that he hadn’t bought his wife’s gift yet. He knew he could take a long lunch to fight similar procrastinators at Marshall Field’s, but he had no idea what Edie might want. Surely she’d dropped hints, but Lennon hadn’t been of the mind to catch them.

  He thought about jewelry, clothing, and appliances—ran a list through his head to see if he could remember Edie having mentioned any specific want, but there was nothing but a hole where that kind of i
nformation should have resided.

  Sally appeared in his doorway. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, hardly pretty at all. Her face was severe, with thin lips and razor sharp cheekbones that made her seem always in a state of disapproval. Today she’d gone heavy on the rouge and the slashes of red on her cheeks looked like wounds. But despite her harsh appearance she was a good gal. Pleasant. Quiet. Quick with a laugh.

  Lennon experienced a brief dislocation. Suddenly, Molly Sullivan was on his mind; Molly who looked soft and sweet, but was as hard as nails. He wondered how she was holding up since her father’s death and even thought to pay her a visit, perhaps before the new year. This notion was easy enough to dismiss. He couldn’t even pretend that she’d welcome his company; he was part of the machine, and her father’s blood had helped grease its gears.

  “A letter for you,” Sally said. Her voice was bright and cheerful, a good switchboard voice. She handed him an envelope with his name scrawled in large letters across its face. Lennon didn’t recognize the handwriting, but notes and cards came in droves during the holidays. “Merry Christmas,” she said, giving him a little wave and spinning on her heels.

  He thanked her and returned the sentiment. Then Lennon opened the envelope and withdrew a stiff sheet of paper:

  Detective Lennon,

  Thank you for what you tried to do for me in New Orleans, but I can’t take your advice. I’m back in Chicago to finish this business. I have a request, and I suggest you carry it out and then remove yourself from this matter. Stay in your home tonight and enjoy the fire. I can’t ask any more of you.

  As for me, I’ve come for a fight. Too many people sit it out. They turn away and pretend nothing is happening because it isn’t happening to them, and men like Impelliteri feed on the things others refuse to protect. He grew strong not because people were afraid of him, but because no one cared enough to stop him. Or because they were getting just deep enough into his wallet to buy whatever toys or spirits provided their chosen distraction.