The Butcher's Son

by Grant McKenzie

  Ian opened the large overhead door, allowing the woman ample exit to the rear yard. High fenced for privacy, the yard was an overgrown mess of healthy weeds, choked grass and loosely scattered gravel that had been used to fill in the low spots. At the rear was a sliding gate that led to the alley for deliveries. Like the fence, it was topped with a coil of rusted barbed wire that was ready to crumble at the slightest touch.

  Sitting off to one side, beneath a tattered canvas tarp, was his grandfather’s delivery van: a 1950s era Ford F-1 panel truck in original cherry and cream. All four tires were flat, and it was doubtful the engine would turn over, but it still looked in better shape than Ian’s current ride. His grandfather had been a meticulous man and would be embarrassed by the state of it.

  Prune Face produced a small electronic gadget not much larger than a Zippo lighter. When she touched a button on its side, a small glass tube extended and a red LED light switched on. When the LED turned green, she placed the tube between her lips and inhaled. When she exhaled, her breath was a cloud of sweetly scented vapor.

  “Is that weed?” asked Ian, only half serious.

  “I wish.” Prune Face exhaled another cloud. “Nah, just e-juice. Half the fun of tobacco with half the guilt.” She waggled the mottled yellow and brown fingers on her smoking hand. “I’m getting these puppies bleached next week. Soon, I’ll be invited to all the best galas. No longer a pariah on the social scene.” She chuckled to herself. “The boys can have their cigars, but Heaven forbid a lady wants to suck on something satisfying.”

  Holding out her hand, she introduced herself. “Babs. Full title, Dr. Mary Beth Walkerton, but everyone calls me Babs.”

  Ian squeezed her hand, and nodded back towards the interior of the shop. “And those two?”

  “Cute, ain’t they? I get new interns all the damn time. Love to fuck with ’em. Jersey said there wasn’t an urgent case here, so figured it would be a good field exercise for them. They’re chomping at the bit to see dead bodies in situ.”

  “They’ll get their wish,” said Ian. “I uncovered the faces, but haven’t touched anything else.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The way she said it made Ian ask, “What’s that mean?”

  “Nothing.” Babs sucked on her vaporizer. “Just odd is all, finding a dead body in your basement and then deciding to dig around looking for more.”

  Ian had to admit she made a good point. “I needed to make sure they were all male.”

  “Oh?”

  “There were rumors. About my grandfather.”

  “But dead men are okay?”

  “Yeah.” Ian allowed the flicker of a grin. “Dead men are fine.”

  Babs took one final drag on her vaporizer before sliding the glass tube back into its base and returning the unit to her pocket.

  “Okay, then,” she said, exhaling a large cloud of vapor. “Let’s go say hello to these dead fellas.”

  *

  When the cleaning crew arrived, Ian apologized that the rear room was off-limits for the day. He asked if they could dismantle and discard the oversized glass and stainless steel display cabinets to open up the front room instead. He had no intention of selling meat, so the refrigerated displays were taking up valuable floor space.

  “I’ll need to call a guy,” said Clark. “Can’t just dump them as the refrigeration units could still be holding Freon gas. You inhale too much of that and it can cut off the oxygen to your lungs.”

  “Appreciate it,” said Ian.

  Returning to the back room, Ian approached the dark hole and overheard the excited male intern telling his colleagues, “This is cool. His tie tack is the bottom end of a brass .45 cartridge. You can still read the writing. Federal 45 Auto. This guy was awesome.”

  Ian grinned. Every profession had its nerds.

  He stepped back from the hole when his phone rang.

  “You called me at four a.m.,” said the caller. “That’s too late even for a drunken booty call.”

  Ian laughed. “Yeah, sorry, couldn’t sleep.”

  “Thinking of me?” asked Rossella.

  “Not exactly.” He told her about the four bodies in his basement.

  Instead of being horrified, Rossella’s first reaction was, “Do you need a lawyer?”

  “I think I’m okay. Unless I was a true baby-faced gangsta, these bodies are too old to have any links to me.”

  “Well if things change—”

  “You’ll be my first call,” Ian finished. “Any luck on the tax records on this place?”

  “That’s why I’m calling actually. There’s a bank account in your grandfather’s name that has been making automatic payments to the city every year. We had no record of it here, which is odd, but I managed to track it down. There’s another odd thing though.”

  “Oh?”

  “The address for the account holder isn’t the butcher’s shop.”

  That was strange. He had only ever known his grandfather as part and parcel with the store. Then again, he had never expected him to have a hidden basement filled with dead bodies and dark secrets.

  Ian asked for the address, lifting his head to stare at the far wall as Rossella read it aloud.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes. All the bank statements are mailed there and none have ever been returned as non-deliverable.”

  *

  The address was directly across the street.

  Standing on the sidewalk in front of the butcher’s, Ian studied the neighboring building. At street level, the Dynasty Diner was open for business. Through streaky windows, several members of the idle cleaning crew were flirting with the young waitress as they stuffed themselves on full breakfasts and pots of coffee.

  As though sensing him watching, the waitress glanced over and offered a friendly wave. As he waved back, his gaze drifted skyward to the two stories that loomed above the restaurant, enough room for several apartments.

  Before Ian could step off the curb to cross the street, Clark came around the dumpster and hailed him.

  “Good news. I’ve got a guy interested in buying your cabinets. He was practically salivating when I told him what great shape they were in. He loves the whole retro thing, and he can pick them up today.”

  “That’s great,” said Ian, only half listening.

  “I’ve also got the security guys coming down to look over the store and make recommendations. We could have the plywood off that main window any day now.”

  “And new locks on the doors?”

  “You bet.” Clark grinned. “My kids could crack these relics. Any idea when the back room will be ready for cleaning?”

  “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “Are those cops back there?”

  “Forensics”

  Clark raised an eyebrow, but Ian didn’t feel the need to explain, so he said nothing.

  “Anything we can do in the meantime?” asked Clark.

  Ian turned and glanced up at the old sign dangling precariously by a lone bolt at its neck. “You could bring that pig down. She’s been hanging there far too long.”

  “You got it.”

  Ian crossed the street.

  Entering the diner, he was greeted with a bright smile from the waitress, Mei Song.

  “Do these men work for you?” she asked, her smooth brow glistening with perspiration from the morning rush.

  “They’re cleaning the store,” said Ian. “But there’s been a delay.”

  “Delay is good for business. They like to eat. My grandparents are very happy.”

  “Can I talk to them?”

  “My grandparents?”

  Ian nodded.

  She looked at him curiously before shrugging. “Okay.”

  Mei wiped her hands on her apron and led Ian through a set of swinging doors to the kitchen. The place was a clutter of a hundred hanging pots, racks of dried spices and herbs, and the cloying stench of hot grease mixed with steam.

  Mrs. Song was sitting on a t
all wooden stool making pork wontons from scratch. The tiny brain-like delicacies were an essential part of her famous Wor Wonton Soup. Although she was definitely Asian, Mrs. Song didn’t quite look Chinese. Her skin was subtly darker, her eyes fuller, and she was tiny.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Song was busy scouring the frying pans from the unexpected breakfast rush.

  “Grandfather,” said Mei. “We have a visitor.”

  Mr. Song turned around from the sink and squinted as he studied Ian from head to toe. The wrinkles lining his face made him look a century old, but he still moved with the easy grace of a man half that age.

  A barely susceptible smile flickered on his lips as he raised one finger and said, “You are a Quinn. I remember you as a child, always falling down and skinning your knees. My granddaughter tells me you are planning to return across the street.”

  “I am,” said Ian. “And I didn’t fall as often as I was pushed.”

  The old man nodded in understanding. “Bo Kemp was a little bastard, wasn’t he? I hear he’s on town council now.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “May even make a run for mayor in the next election if rumors are to be believed.”

  “And do you believe many rumors?” Ian asked.

  Mr. Song’s amused smile faded away. “Not many.”

  Ian dug in his pocket and produced the steel key with the letter D printed on its paper tag. He handed it over.

  “Your father?” asked Mr. Song.

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Zelig caught up to him.”

  “After all these years? The man is relentless.”

  “The burden has been passed onto me.”

  “I see.” Mr. Song handed the key back to Ian. “Come.”

  Mr. Song led the way through the kitchen to a rear staircase. The first floor consisted of the Song’s family home, a modest apartment decorated in a blend of Chinese and Western styles. Despite the age of the building, the apartment looked extremely well maintained. The number of oriental knickknacks on every flat surface, however, was tilting over the edge of kitsch into obsession.

  “My wife,” said Mr. Song. “She likes to collect precious things.”

  They continued up a second flight of stairs to a short hallway with a single apartment on either side. One was marked with the letter C, the other with a D.

  “Take your time,” said Mr. Song. “It is yours now.”

  25

  Ian unlocked the door and entered the small apartment. It was unexpectedly tidy.

  Against one wall was a single metal cot, sheets wrapped tight around a thin mattress with precision corners ready for a drill sergeant’s inspection. It was completed with a lone pillow, so thin it barely looked worth the effort, and an adjustable reading lamp clamped to a plain, wooden headboard.

  A small side table contained a collection of dog-eared paperbacks: My Gun Is Quick by Mickey Spillane, A Purple Place For Dying by John D. MacDonald, Shadow on the Trail by Zane Grey, and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

  At the foot of the bed, a well-loved easy chair was aimed at one of two windows facing the street. The view, like Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross, offered God’s perspective of the butcher’s rusting, iron pig. It also allowed Augustus to monitor all comings and goings at the store.

  A pocket door led to a small bathroom with sink, toilet and stand-up shower. Augustus’s steel safety razor and badger hair shaving brush hung on a chrome stand beside the sink. Nearby was an iconic bottle of Old Spice aftershave, a toothbrush and a comb.

  Everything had its place, standing at perfect attention and undisturbed for decades.

  Against the nearest wall was what he had come to find.

  Ian moved to the large desk and ran his fingers across a row of bound ledgers that lined one of its shelves. He left them undisturbed for now.

  The drawers were unlocked. Inside the first one, he found more legal documents: birth certificates, death certificates, applications for Social Security Numbers, blank driver’s licenses, plus several expired Canadian passports.

  Another drawer contained neat bundles of cash, mostly twenties and fifties, some still wrapped in paper bands. If the amounts shown on the bands were correct, it totaled around three thousand.

  A third drawer contained an opened box of .45 ammo, an unusual red butterfly knife with Hackman Finland stamped on the handles, and a dented metal cash box.

  Ian opened the cash box to discover a collection of postcards from across North America. He flipped the top one over and read. “I’m happy.” It was signed “Kc.” Ian pulled out another one. “I never knew the sky could be so blue. Thank you.” It was signed “Min.” A third one read simply, “I feel brave.” It was signed “Jb.” Digging through the layers of cards, Ian noted the postmarks spanned decades.

  At the bottom of the pile, a small metal loop snagged Ian’s finger. When he tugged it, the bottom lifted to reveal a compartment hidden underneath.

  Lifting the tray of postcards out of the box, Ian dug into the hollow and returned with a fistful of old IDs. Some were driver’s licenses, others were library or voter cards. Some had their photographs intact, others had been expertly removed — most likely to be re-used on one of the blanks under a new name.

  All of the cards were of women. Most appeared quite young, but not all. In the photos, very few of them were smiling.

  Ian rummaged through the cards until he found the one he was searching for: Constance Arianna Zelig.

  The stories were true. She was a beauty. And yet Constance looked forlorn, her dark eyes sunk deep in shadow, long bangs brushed aside for a brief moment like the accidental unveiling of an unfinished piece of sculpture. Her cheekbones were sharp, her chin blunt, her slender nose almost Persian in its perfection.

  Her mother must have been stunning for she certainly didn’t inherit those looks from her father.

  Staring at the tiny photo, Ian felt a crack splitting the raw scar tissue of his heart. In his job, he had seen too many children with that exact same look. There were times when the palms of his hands had bled from the force of his fingernails digging into the flesh as he resisted leaping across his desk and snapping an abusive parent’s neck.

  And then there was the time he didn’t resist. When he tracked down the person responsible for the death of his daughter. The encounter that should have meant the end of his career, and yet…

  Ian wiped away an overflow of moisture from his eyes as he fanned out the discarded identities.

  His grandfather had been more than a butcher, that much was clear. But had that heavy, leather apron that terrified Ian as a child actually been a knight’s suit of armor? Had those bloodstained and callused hands that swung a cleaver with such force been capable of tenderness? And had Ian inherited more than stubbornness from the cold and distant man he knew so little about?

  Ian picked up the postcards, reading the short messages, understanding it wasn’t the words that mattered, just the acknowledgment.

  Each postmark was a simple code: I’m safe.

  *

  He turned to the ledgers. A dozen of them lined the shelf, nothing unique or unusual that made one stand out from the other. Ian plucked a book from the middle and opened it.

  Inside, the writing was big and blocky, letters jumping across faint blue guidelines like a kindergarten student high on sugary cereal learning the alphabet. It was the mark of a butcher’s hand used to scribbling on wax paper wrapped around a joint of meat rather than in neat, uniform rows.

  The clumsy writing made Ian smile. He knew how easy it was to be judged for having horrible penmanship. He still had memories, or at least echoes of memory, from when his first teacher tried to talk his parents into sending him to ‘special school’ because some of his words were spelled with backward-facing letters, even the simple ones like Ɔat and goD. He didn’t blame the school. The diagnosis and understanding of dyslexia wasn’t something teachers were
even aware of back then.

  Ian’s mother had resisted, not wanting a child of hers to be perceived as different since in those days differences meant exclusion. Being a voracious reader, Ian soon mastered the art of fitting in, of making his words look just like everyone else’s.

  Unfortunately his word scramble skills were drawing a blank on his grandfather’s notes. Everything was written in code.

  Taking the ledger to the easy chair by the window, Ian sat as he pondered what information his grandfather would want to keep a record of. Logically, he decided the base information would be original name, age, date of first contact, date of last contact, new name and forms of ID, payment, and, lastly, destination.

  New name and destination would be the hardest to crack as they were the two vital pieces that ensured the safety of his clients. And, naturally, if Ian hoped to track down Zelig’s daughter, those were the two pieces he needed.

  Ian thought about the postcards. If he knew Constance’s new name, then…Ian shook his head. Augustus had shown he was smarter than that. He would have asked his clients to send word they were safe, but he would have insisted they mail the postcards from somewhere other than their final destination.

  One thing still troubled him, however.

  He didn’t believe Augustus could have done all this on his own. Manipulating the system to create a new identity took more than the creative skills of a local butcher. It required someone who was an expert at maneuvering and exploiting the maze of bureaucratic loopholes.

  Augustus must have had a partner.

  And Ian knew who it was.

  26

  Ian drove up to the iron gate and pressed the intercom embedded in the stone pillar.

  “Mr. Quinn,” said the disembodied voice. “Are you expected?”

  “No, but it’s urgent that I speak to Mr. Ragano.”

  “Please hold while I check that we are up to receiving visitors.”

  Ian waited. It took ten minutes before Roberto Ragano’s personal assistant, Archibald Pierce, returned.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said the voice as the gate swung open on silent, electric motors. “Will Ms. Ragano be joining us?”