Butcher's Road

by Lee Thomas

  “Merry Christmas,” Lennon said. He kicked the back of Cardinal’s knees, and the wrestler dropped to the snow, head still lowered. Defeated. “When we spoke on the phone earlier you said something about my present. Ten grand?”

  Before Marco responded to Lennon he grasped either side of Cardinal’s head and leaned in close. “They’ll find pieces of you inside,” he said, his voice barely audible through the wind and the roar of flames. “Give me the Rose and I’ll put two behind your ears before we start sawing. Fuck me around, and you’ll be wide awake when we take your arms.”

  Cardinal didn’t respond, and his silence infuriated Marco. He wanted to hear excuses and pleading, and he wanted to hear the voice of the son of a bitch who had run him around the pole a hundred times. But apparently the wrestler had become resolved to his fate and saw no point in wasting his breath.

  Marco turned to his guards. With a voice as serene as if he were asking a florist for a particular cut of flower, he said, “Jake, I want you to strip this guy down and check every pocket. Search him from tits to toes. Put your hands up his ass if you need to. If this guy is hiding anything, I want it found. Luke, you cover them. If Cardinal breathes wrong, blow out his knees.”

  As Jake stepped forward and Luke took a firing stance at Cardinal’s side, Lennon lowered his gun and returned it to his holster. “Now how about you come across with that reward, so I can get back to my family?”

  Marco eyed the detective with annoyance. The guy had nerve, Marco had to admit that, but he didn’t have to appreciate it. He pointed over his shoulder at the burning house, “Access to my funds is a little complicated right now. I know where to find you. You’ll be paid.”

  “I hope you’ve got a fireproof safe,” said Lennon.

  Why was the cop needling him? Did he honestly think now was the time to play it cute? When Marco’s house was about ten minutes from collapsing? He checked on the progress with Cardinal. Jake had the man’s overcoat in his hands and was searching the pockets.

  “Check the lining as well,” Marco said. Then he turned back to Lennon. “You’d better be on your way, detective. I’ll be sure there isn’t enough of Cardinal left to warrant an investigation.”

  “Actually, you’d be doing me a greater favor if you left him intact,” Lennon said. “We get a clean identification and we can close Musante’s case and everyone gets back to a normal life. Carve as many pieces out of him as you want, I’m just saying leave the face alone and have one of these saps drop the body someplace public. Or just shoot him as a trespasser and let us clean up the mess.”

  Though it didn’t play into his need to hear Butch Cardinal’s screams, the detective’s suggestions were logical enough. Marco wasn’t completely swayed—there was a lot to be said for watching a rival bleed—but he had time to think it over.

  “It’s no sweat off my brow one way or the other,” Lennon continued.

  “You can go now, detective,” Marco replied.

  “Boss,” Jake said, drawing everyone’s attention to where he stood beside Cardinal. “You wanna tell me what the hell that is?”

  What looked like a wide, flat bib made of golden chain draped Cardinal’s shoulders; it lay across his chest and stopped at mid-belly. Though he couldn’t be certain, Marco wanted to believe it was another artifact from the Alchemi’s vaults, another bit of magical metal. Maybe Cardinal had several more pieces on him—a fine start to Marco’s collection.

  “Take it off of him,” Marco said. “Toss it over here.”

  “You’re a fancy dresser,” Jake told Cardinal. He lifted the odd garment over the wrestler’s head and flung it to the snow at Marco’s feet.

  But Marco barely noticed the metallic bib. Once it was removed, he saw the necklace dangling from a chain at Cardinal’s throat. He recognized the ugly blob of metal from a sketch Lonnie had drawn him. It was the Galenus Rose. Anticipation suffused his system like a drink of water after a long dry spell. His nerves tingled and his head went light. All of this happened in a second, the length of time it took for the Rose to settle against Butch Cardinal’s chest.

  “Stay back,” he told Jake. Marco walked toward Cardinal, extending his hand for the treasure hanging from the man’s throat. It was a beacon guiding him to peace. It was salvation.

  Chapter 48

  Flashes Before Your Eyes

  Butch tensed as Impelliteri prowled forward. Snow melted beneath his shins, soaking his pants and affixing to his legs like frozen steel plates. Instinct insisted he lunge at the son of a bitch before Impelliteri wrapped his fat hand around the Rose. A mental picture show played in which Butch found his footing and drove his shoulder into Impelliteri’s gut, taking the filthy punk down, and then grasping his head and snapping the gangster’s neck with a satisfying crack, the way he’d done to that mad dog, Rabin. But Butch resisted any such dramatic display. A gun pointed at his head, and more could be drawn in seconds. He stood no more chance of outmaneuvering bullets than he did of sprouting wings and flapping his way into the snowy night.

  How many seconds left before he died? How many thoughts? Would any of them be worth spit on a griddle? Where was the epiphany, the moral? His entire life had been one long rigged bout. He couldn’t beat it. No one could. You were either in on the rig or you got taken by it.

  The crooked cop kept his hand on the butt of his gun. He wanted to draw the weapon, Butch could see the eagerness in his eyes, like a kid eyeing a plate of his mama’s chicken. Each of Impelliteri’s steps cracked like applause from a distant crowd. His eyes sparked pure longing for the bauble dangling from Butch’s throat. As he planted his feet in front of Butch’s kneeling form he peered down and released a smirk of scalding disdain. Bum, that face said. Just another speck of human shit needing to be wiped from the earth.

  Where is Hayes? Butch wondered. Had the old man escaped? Had he collected the copper staff and the Alchemi’s other precious articles and limped off into the night? Or had a different squad of Impelliteri’s men broken through the door of the study, chased him across a side yard or through the house, only to shoot the injured man down like a lame horse? He’d liked Hayes. He hoped the man found his way far from this place and managed to leave the infected city.

  Impelliteri yanked off a glove and reached for the Galenus Rose. His warm hand brushed over the cold-pimpled flesh on Butch’s chest. Grasping the pendant tightly in his fist, Impelliteri yanked it away from Butch and lifted his hand close to his face to better inspect his prize. He turned in the snow and set off toward the cop’s side. The thug named Jake sidled up to his boss and leaned in close to get a better look at the Rose, and like a child who refuses to share the joys of a special toy, Impelliteri shoved the man away. Jake stumbled in the snow.

  With the two men distracted, Butch knew his only opportunity had been presented. He rolled the thorn Hayes had given him on his tongue and pushed it out over his lips. Turning himself for a better angle, he spit the thorn at Luke, who had turned his head to grin like an idiot at his stumbling counterpart. The thing struck the distracted gunman in the cheek, and his expression of amusement froze. His body stiffened and he teetered for a moment before crashing back into the snow, like a statue that had been pushed from its pedestal.

  Butch reached for Keane’s knife, which had been lashed to the side of his ankle with a strip of shirt. His fingers grazed the hilt, and then a sudden punch at his shoulder knocked his hand away. Warmth ran over his skin, emanated from a place beneath his collarbone that pulsed with ache.

  He lifted his head and saw the crooked cop, Lennon, aiming down the barrel of his revolver. Smoke rose from the gun’s muzzle. Steam lifted from the barrel. Light flashed. The second bullet punched into Butch’s chest just above his left nipple. Another shot. Another punch. More warmth. The pain erupted across his body. His chest constricted as if pinched between two train cars. He struggled to breathe.

  This is how it was always going to end.

  A final shot.

  Butch experien
ced no flood of emotion, no parade of memories from a life that had proved misspent. He saw no welcoming light, nor felt the overwhelming caress of peace he’d often heard men experienced in their last moments.

  His thoughts emptied and his senses closed down. All but for sight.

  Before him stood a static tableau, like a photograph that filled his vision with motionless figures. Fire raged through the Impelliteri house, but the guttering dance of flames had stopped as if frozen by the unforgiving cold. The smoke was similarly captured, no longer drifting skyward, but rather casting an unmoving haze over the decimated home. In front of these was the tree decorated for Christmas, and each ornament, each shining piece of cheap metal, was vivid and etched with the finest detail. To the left of the tree, Detective Lennon, wearing a rigid, inscrutable face, pointed his gun. And there was Jake staring dumbly with the barrel of his tommy gun planted in the snow. Two other men were frozen in mid step as they ran around the side of Impelliteri’s house, machine guns at the ready. And there in front of him, Marco Impelliteri threw a glance over his shoulder at Butch. He wore an expression of surprise that had been captured in the moment it was transitioning to amusement. From his hand, barely visible beneath the cuff of his expensive overcoat was a chain, and at the end of the chain, an ugly wad of metal dangled like the pendulum of a melted clock.

  Chapter 49

  Common Valor

  On the third day of 1933, Detective Roger Lennon stood on stage next to Police Commissioner Allman. Before him his colleagues, wearing dress blues and faces of sedate admiration, listened to a tale of Lennon’ bravery in his apprehension of wanted killer William “Butch” Cardinal. If they knew the commissioner’s words were nothing more than fabrication, as Lennon did, the knowledge was absent from their expressions.

  As for Lennon, his back and feet hurt from standing at attention for so long. He’d already listened to the same horseshit falling from Wenders’ fat, wet lips, and had endured poorly worded accolades from two other detectives on the subject. The steam heat clutched his uniform and soaked into the fibers, pushing through his shirt and skin like burrowing insects. Perspiration saturated his collar and cuffs, and he experienced moments of light headedness so profound he felt certain he would topple over.

  But he stood there. He heard the lies, though they hit his eardrums in a hum as if the organs refused to translate any further deceit. The voices he heard in his head belonged to the man he’d killed and to himself.

  On Christmas Eve, he’d stood outside the gate to Marco Impelliteri’s home, watching the blaze from a distance and hearing the occasional pop of gunfire. He’d spent a long time debating the situation, wondering if there was anything left to be done. And then Butch Cardinal emerged from the shadows, holding a tommy gun on him. Two minutes later, Butch explained the situation.

  Then he told Lennon he had a plan:

  “You may have to shoot me,” Butch said. “I don’t want Impelliteri to have the satisfaction. Things go bad and you do the shooting yourself. It may be the only thing that saves your skin.”

  “I’ve got more than enough rounds for Impelliteri and his men,” said Lennon.

  “You can’t count on that,” Butch said. “I made a mistake letting Hayes get involved in all of this. He’s trapped in the house, and he’s got himself a bum peg. We need to give him some time to get clear.”

  “We can all get clear.”

  “No, we can’t.” Resolution hardened the frown on Butch’s lips, tightened the line of his jaw. “Too many men. Too many questions to answer. If Hayes gets away he can fix this. He’ll bring men. They can retrieve what was lost. You have to take me in there and give me a chance at Impelliteri, but if it goes bad, you do the shooting.”

  Then Butch managed to take out Luke Chalice, but he wasn’t going to be fast enough to get a drop on Impelliteri. More men were racing through the snow. Jake would see, and he’d get his gun up plenty quick, and though Lennon might have been able to thin out the crowd, he’d put his neck on the block in the process. If even one of Impelliteri’s men escaped to tell the tale, Lennon and his family might as well cut their own throats because no amount of talk or scratch would save their asses. So Lennon had taken his shot. He’d wanted to get a clean shot to the heart, but his hands were shaking and his aim went foul. Realizing he’d only wounded the big man, Lennon took a second shot, and this one had hit the mark, just above the lower arc of the pectoral, but Butch had reacted as if he hadn’t noticed, so Lennon had shot again and again, wanting nothing more than to put the wrestler down, put him out of his misery, and bring the whole mess of a night to an end.

  Eventually Butch had toppled in the snow, but not after what struck Lennon as interminable minutes. Sadness and perplexity cast shadows over the man’s eyes, even as the light from Impelliteri’s burning house reflected on the glassy lenses.

  Regret seized Lennon’s chest and head before Butch crashed into the snow. How could he have done it? Why had it been so easy to shoot the wrestler? Lennon would have taken longer to bring down a rabid dog. Had he wanted to murder the man who’d brought so much turmoil to his life? Was he that kind of man? He didn’t want to believe it, but killing Butch Cardinal had been the easy thing, the smart thing. Now, normality could return to Lennon’s life. The balance was restored.

  Standing on the stage in front of his equally corrupt brothers, Lennon felt as if wishing for normality in this city was like praying for the clap, begging for a tumor. He knelt before the throne of a diseased king and ate grapes from his shit-smeared fingers and he considered himself blessed.

  Another wave of dizziness overwhelmed him, and Lennon adjusted his stance. He breathed deeply, enduring one spike of shame after another. Even telling himself that he’d only done as the wrestler had asked achieved nothing but greater levels of grief and self loathing, and there was no way to make this crime right, no way to cleanse his soul of this shame.

  When the commissioner said Roger Lennon’s name and then pulled away to lead the applause, Lennon stepped forward to accept his commendation.

  Chapter 50

  The Last Violent Business

  On the sixth day of the new year John Hayes organized his men outside of a squat office building in Chicago’s Southside. The sun shone, but an icy wind cut down the streets, blowing past pedestrians whose brows were chafed red by the cruel air. Men and women spotted the group of well-dressed men congregated before the building and crossed the street to avoid involvement in what was likely violent business.

  They weren’t wrong.

  After his house had been reduced to condemned cinders on Christmas Eve, Marco Impelliteri had moved his family into the Drake Hotel, where they were pampered to assuage their grief and frustration, but he spent little time in their company. Hayes’ men had reported that with the exception of New Year’s Eve Impelliteri had slept elsewhere. His men had tracked Impelliteri constantly in the days following the gangster’s acquisition of the Galenus Rose and several other items of interest to the Alchemi. Butch Cardinal’s ill-conceived attack on Impelliteri’s home had resulted in the loss of not only the Rose, but also a Petrification Thorn, a bullet-resistant tunic, Brand’s copper arm band, and the Promethean Blade. It had been a dreadful night for everyone involved, if not a complete failure. Mr. Cardinal had managed to send Impelliteri’s gang into disarray. With so many men dead and injured, the gangster had been forced to begin rebuilding his mob, starting mostly from scratch, which had slowed his plans to mount an attack on 213 House. For that, Cardinal had Hayes’ gratitude. But while his family enjoyed the comforts and the services at the Drake Hotel, Impelliteri spent most of his time, day and night, in an office on the second floor of the Southside building.

  As with their capture of Musante (Butch Cardinal’s capture of Musante, Hayes noted to himself), they had to tread lightly. If injured while wearing the Galenus Rose, Impelliteri would have to be taken into custody and observed until the Rose emerged. Hayes didn’t want that. He wanted a clean o
peration that put the Rose in his hand and put Impelliteri in the ground. Once he had regained possession of the Alchemi’s property, Hayes intended to leave Chicago and never return, and that could not happen fast enough for him. He associated the city with misery, like the wind, all but constant with only subtle lulls to make the next gust all the more dreadful.

  He reiterated caution to his men. Impelliteri’s guards would be armed and ready to kill. They were not the sort to question or bargain. “Immobilize on sight,” Hayes said. “Do not hesitate.”

  Limping to the door, Hayes held it open and ushered his men over the threshold into the shadowed foyer of the building. A click at the end of the hall announced a door being latched shut. Another door, this one on Hayes’ right, opened a crack to reveal a curious eye before slamming closed.

  With his injured leg, Hayes could lead his men only in strategy. As they raced up the stairs to the office where Marco Impelliteri had spent the last several nights, Hayes hobbled up the stairs, clutching the rail tightly and occasionally wincing when his weight came down wrong and sent a flare of pain from ankle to groin.

  At the landing he paused to give his leg a moment to recover. From the end of the hall, came a great racket of voices and shuffling feet. He was surprised to hear nothing in the way of gunshots or cries of pain. Soon enough all sounds hushed. He limped down the hall and entered an office lobby that held a small cherry-wood secretary’s desk and chair. Sun streamed through the wooden blinds in harsh planes that stung his eyes. He observed the small space, and was again surprised. There should have been bodies here: Impelliteri’s guards.

  Hayes continued into the main office and found his men lining the perimeter of the room, all of their eyes focused on the same spot. The office décor consisted of half a dozen filing cabinets along the back wall, a small radio, a steel fan, a large black safe with its door open, and Impelliteri’s desk and chair. Impelliteri sat in the chair, holding a gun in one hand and the Galenus Rose in the other. His eyes were moist from tears and his cheeks burned crimson. He raised his gun and pointed it at Hayes’ chest.