Butcher's Road Read online

  Butcher’s Road

  Lee Thomas

  Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords.com

  Copyright © 2014 Lee Thomas.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2014 by Lethe Press, Inc.

  118 Heritage Avenue, Maple Shade, NJ 08052 USA

  lethepressbooks.com / [email protected]

  isbn: 978-1-59021-470-1 / 1-59021-470-6

  e-isbn: 978-1-59021-515-9 / 1-59021-515-x

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Interior design: Alex Jeffers.

  Cover design: Matt Cresswell.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thomas, Lee, 1965-

  Butcher’s road / Lee Thomas.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-59021-470-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-59021-470-6 (pbk. : alk.

  paper)

  1. Criminals--Illinois--Chicago--Fiction. 2. Criminals--Louisiana--New

  Orleans--Fiction. 3. Noir fiction. I. Title.

  PS3620.H6317B88 2014

  813’.6--dc23

  2014006083

  ~

  Also by Lee Thomas available from Lethe Press

  The Dust of Wonderland

  (Lambda Literary Award winner)

  The German

  (Lambda Literary Award winner)

  Like Light for Flies

  ~

  For Jim Moore, a gentle giant

  whose talent, good nature, and optimism I admire more than I can say.

  And John Perry, as always.

  Author’s Note

  I enjoy research and have done a considerable amount of it to give this story some meat. Not only do I want a novel to accurately convey the period in which it is set, but I also don’t want to hear about all the stuff I got wrong from readers. That noted, this is a work of fiction, and I’m sure I got stuff wrong. Things have been tweaked. Rules have been broken. Regardless, I hope you’ll enjoy the story, and if you do find errors, please let me know. Future editions will benefit from your observations. Thanks ahead of time.

  —LT

  ~

  They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,

  When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.

  They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,

  Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

  —“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney

  He who allows oppression shares the crime.

  —Desiderius Erasmus

  ~

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Table of Contents

  ~~Part One Chicago November 1932

  Chapter 1 Far from Home

  Chapter 2 Wake Me When It’s Over

  Chapter 3 A Lovely, Simple Frame

  Chapter 4 Like Postcards from the Inferno

  Chapter 5 Oh, When the Saints…

  Chapter 6 Out on a Rail

  Chapter 7 Dancing in the Attic

  Chapter 8 Mumbo Jumbo

  Chapter 9 A War on Crime

  ~~Part Two New Orleans December 1932

  Chapter 10 Under the Weather

  Chapter 11 Speak When Spoken To

  Chapter 12 Monster in the Closet

  Chapter 13 Life Expectancy

  Chapter 14 Delusions in a Strange Bed

  Chapter 15 Interrogating Humphrey

  Chapter 16 The Hot and the Cold of It

  Chapter 17 Nostalgia and the Blank Page

  Chapter 18 The Way It Is in Rossington’s House

  Chapter 19 Simpler Times

  Chapter 20 Things to Feel

  Chapter 21 Human Sacrifice

  Chapter 22 …A Man When He’s Down

  Chapter 23 Failure

  Chapter 24 Top of the Morning

  Chapter 25 Shit on a String

  Chapter 26 One Single Thing

  Chapter 27 Killing Grounds

  Chapter 28 Into Fire

  Chapter 29 The Cold City

  Chapter 30 Violent Sport

  Chapter 31 Bleach

  Chapter 32 Where Have All the Good Times Gone?

  Chapter 33 Like Postcards from a Snake Pit

  Chapter 34 Char

  Chapter 35 Funeral Weather

  Chapter 36 Two for the Show

  Chapter 37 Monsters with Eyes of Blue or Green

  Chapter 38 The Galenus Rose

  Chapter 39 Convergence

  Chapter 40 The Last Night in New Orleans

  Chapter 41 Blood Loss

  Chapter 42 Enter, Monster

  Chapter 43 Back from the Dead

  Chapter 44 Never Meant to Win

  Chapter 45 Steel to Blood

  Chapter 46 Seeing the Future

  Chapter 47 Forfeit

  Chapter 48 Flashes Before Your Eyes

  Chapter 49 Common Valor

  Chapter 50 The Last Violent Business

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part One

  Chicago

  November 1932

  Chapter 1

  Far from Home

  Butch Cardinal stood in a rundown house in Chicago’s Southside, enduring a tedious and one-sided conversation with a man who would be dead in less than seven minutes. Since entering the ugly room with its stained and peeling lime green wallpaper, Butch had heard about sports, politics (both local and national), and the weather, which had taken a turn to the snowy earlier that evening. Normally Butch was an easygoing guy, even gregarious when the situation called for it, but this one didn’t. The talker was Lonnie Musante, a short and slender man with big ears, skin as white as milk and a single lopsided tooth that rose and fell like a guillotine behind the mushy curtains of his lips. He was an ugly little man, but Butch had seen worse in his day. Much worse.

  Before settling in Chicago he’d scraped by doing wrestling exhibitions and strong man acts on the vaudeville and carny circuits. On those stages and in those tents, in the trucks and train cars, he’d interacted with variations of humanity: the pinheads and dwarves; living skeletons, all transparent skin and knobby bone; bloated and hirsute women; men with afflictions Butch could hardly describe. The most profoundly disturbing character he could remember was the geek, Despero. He was one-armed and had fashioned a set of teeth from tin. He kept them polished and they shone through his curtain of wild hair as he stalked whatever unfortunate creature—usually a chicken—the show’s captain chose to toss into his ring. With only one arm, Despero had taken to kicking and stomping his chickens into a daze before shooting out his bone-thin arm and grasping them by the necks. Then he’d smile his cold-tin smile and commence the atrocity his audience had paid to witness.

  Butch preferred the work in Chicago, even though it was miles from the life he’d once lived—a life of real money and arenas and respect.

  He’d been sent to Musante’s on business, a simple transaction that should have taken no more time than a handshake or a yawn, but the creep wouldn’t put a sock in it and finish up their business so the polite smile Butch had affixed to his mouth was growing tighter by the second.

  “Why don’t you hand over that package now?” Butch asked.

  “Don’t you never ask why?” Musante replied. The man stomped from one side of the room to the other as he spoke. He acted nervous, like he was expecting Butch to p
ull something. “I mean, you’re muscle for Moran.”

  “I don’t work for Moran,” Butch said. He remained at his place by the door, hands in the pockets of his wool overcoat.

  “You work for Powell, and Powell works for Moran, so you work for Moran.”

  “Never met the man.”

  “What the frosty fuck difference does that make? You think you only work for the people you know? You that much of a knucklehead?” Musante asked. He paused, waiting for an answer from Butch, who chose to remain silent. “Nah,” Musante continued, “you ain’t that much of a knucklehead. Even the things you don’t wanna know, you know. In this town you either work for the Italians or the Bug. Now me, I work for Impelliteri and that’s a straight line to Nitti, to Capone, but you’re tied up in the Bug’s crew, so don’t you never wonder why Powell would send you over here to make a pick up?”

  Butch let his smile loosen a bit as he silently wished Powell had sent him over to crack the blabbermouth’s skull. It would have been quicker and the pain would have been on the other side of the conversation, but he knew better than to get rough with the member of a competing syndicate without orders. He left the real thug work, the blood work, to men who had sewn themselves deep into the gangland quilt. Butch wasn’t one of them. To his mind, he was a bouncer at Powell’s club, and the other duties—the errands, roughing up the occasional deadbeat—were just part of the job description. He didn’t need any trouble so he wouldn’t start any.

  “I don’t ask questions,” Butch replied, “makes life easier.”

  “And longer, sometimes,” Musante said. He cackled out a laugh with an ample spray of spit. Then the man chewed a bit, saying nothing but crushing his lips together. He returned to pacing. “But see, I do ask questions, even if no one’s around to hear me but the roaches.”

  “That so?” Butch asked.

  “Figure people don’t ask questions ’cause they’re afraid of the answers, right?” Musante said. “Their daddy or their boss or their priest or their senator tells ’em a thing is a thing, and they lap that up like starving kittens, because otherwise they got to find their own supper. They gotta think for themselves is what I’m saying, and that takes guts, which most feeblos ain’t got.”

  “Look, Musante, I don’t have all night. We can talk philosophical some other time.”

  “That’s the thing, Butchy.” Musante’s eyes narrowed and his lips clamped down so tight his nose and chin nearly met. “Ain’t likely to be another time. I got to asking myself about this particular situation and do you know what answer I came up with?”

  “How about you just give me the package, and I’ll show myself out?”

  “Hold your horses,” Musante said as if scolding a child.

  Butch clenched his fists in the pockets. His patience was running out of him like a stream of piss after a hard night of drinking. He checked the grandfather clock in the corner of the room; its walnut cabinet was chipped and scratched. The glass face was cracked over filigreed hands that put the time at nine minutes past seven. Butch had come in as the weathered device was chiming the hour.

  “You used to be somebody,” Musante said. “Used to be a big deal on the wrestling circuit. Heard you used to be the best there was, except for Simm.”

  And he was a crooked pile of horseshit, Butch thought.

  “But you ain’t somebody anymore,” Musante said. “Fallen good and far, ain’t ya? Powell probably brought you in because he saw you in your glory days and thought he’d like having you around. Thing is, you don’t belong in this game. You might be tough enough. Might be shrewd enough. But you don’t belong here. You didn’t grow up on our streets, and you don’t have any threads tying you to anyone, least of all Moran and his syndicate.”

  “Musante, you’ve got three seconds to give me something besides your lip. Then I’m putting your lights out. I’ll tell Powell you held out on me. He can decide what to do about it.”

  The aged man kept stomping across the floor, wholly unaffected by the threat. “Like I said, I got to thinking about this situation, and I got to wondering what Marco Impelliteri could possibly give the Bug. They say we got an all’s-quiet, and that’s a fine thing, but that don’t mean we’re working together.”

  “Just give me the package, Musante.”

  “And it’s not like Marco is going to be sending a token of his gratitude to the Bug. We Italians aren’t exactly known for our peace offerings, so what kind of gift is Marco sending? Why are you here, in the house of a Southsider? Why you, a thug for the Northside Bug?”

  “Been asking myself that very thing for the last ten minutes,” Butch said, snidely.

  “Me, I understand,” Musante said. “I been around too long. I’m tired of the rackets, and the rackets are tired of me. I’m an old man and I’d be in the dirt soon enough even if they weren’t going to… Even if things were different. Besides, I get a few drinks in me and I talk. Never used to, but these days these loose lips can’t stop a wagging once they get wet.”

  “I’m guessing you had a few before I got here?”

  “More than three,” Musante said. This busted the guy up, and he let fly another spit-drenched cackle. “Kills the pain.”

  “I’m just here to pick up a package, Musante,” Butch said. “Give me the damned thing and I’ll be on my way. I didn’t mean what I said about bustin’ your head.”

  “Yeah,” Musante said. “I figured that. Saw that clear as day two seconds after you stepped inside. That’s when I figured we were both in for a nap, just wanted to find out why Powell wants you sleeping.”

  A tremor ran up Butch’s spine. He didn’t know what kind of swindle Musante was playing with his head. He didn’t like it though, mostly because he’d had the same conversation with himself a few dozen times. He didn’t belong in the company of men like Powell, men like Musante. Butch knew that. He’d taken the job because he was tired of the road; because the money was a hell of a lot better than the strong man act and wrestling exhibitions with Mack Mack McCauley’s Traveling Wonder Show.

  “Got you thinking about it now,” Musante said. “If you’d’a asked yourself some questions thirty minutes ago, you might be on a train to Nebraska breathing easy. Now I’m thinking you best be happy with any breath you got left to take. See, I’m thinking there’s a shotgun or a tommy outside that door and as soon as I give over the package and show you out we’re both going to be introduced to sweet St. Pete, so I figure I’ll talk a bit, clear my throat and my head. Get a few things offa my chest, because I’m ready to go, just not quite ready this very minute.”

  “You’re crazy,” Butch said, but the confidence in his voice was gone.

  He looked away from Musante, fixed his gaze on one of the ugly green walls. It seemed to breathe, moving with the sudden pulse behind his eyes. Disturbed by the illusion, he dropped his gaze and caught sight of a deck of cards on the table beside him. It was a tarot deck, the kind the carnie mystics used. He didn’t like the sight of those either; most of the folks in the medium rackets were okay, but he’d met a couple that had made his skin shrivel.

  He looked back at Musante and said, “I haven’t done a single thing that was out of line with Powell.”

  “Maybe yes. Maybe no. His lady like the shape of you? You’re a big guy, lots of muscle, and your face ain’t bad. She spend some time looking you over?”

  “Haven’t noticed,” Butch replied. That was true enough. “Only met the lady once and she seemed happy with her situation.”

  Musante walked to the corner of the room where a rickety wooden table leaned against the wall. He snatched up a bottle, pulled its cork and threw back a long slug. Then he reached into the front pocket of his trousers and lifted out a package, no bigger than a pulp novel, wrapped in brown paper.

  “I guess I’m ready as I’m ever gonna get,” he said.

  “You really think you’re gonna get snuffed?”

  “Been around a long time, Butchy,” Musante said. “I know what I know
.”

  “You’re nuts,” Butch said, stepping forward. He reached for the package and noticed the tremble in his fingers as he waited for Musante to hand it over. “If you really thought that, you’d have skipped.”

  “Where am I gonna go?” Musante asked. He pushed the parcel into Butch’s hand and stepped away. “I got this shack and a place on Lake Wisconsin. Had a lady friend up that way. Saw the place and figured it wasn’t bad at all, dropped the cash on it right then. Can’t go there and can’t stay here. Can’t hide this face anywhere they won’t find it. A candle’s only useful while it’s got wax. After that, nothing but a burnt bit of string, and that’s me Butchy. They lit me when I was a kid and I’m all burned down, just waiting for one last hot puff of air.”

  Butch felt certain Musante was the one pushing hot air. No man just surrendered to death; it didn’t matter how little chance he had. Butch had heard this kind of tough talk his entire life—from schoolyard friends and naval buddies—but it was talk, empty chatter. You see a gun coming for you and you run or you duck, or you try to talk your way around. You don’t walk toward it.

  The package in Butch’s hand weighed so little; it could have been empty. And what if it was? What would that mean? After another uneasy glance at the tarot deck, he shook the package. The contents made no sound, nothing knocked against the sides of the box. What could be so important? It wasn’t heavy enough to be a meaningful amount of cash or dope. He stared at the brown paper enveloping the thing as if a clue as to what was inside might appear there. What if Musante wasn’t crazy?

  Butch slid the parcel into the pocket of his overcoat.

  Musante stepped around him. The ugly little man walked with his shoulders back, his chest pushed out, like a cocksure grappler strutting the ring. At the front door, he grasped the handle and gave it a twist.