Butcher's Road (25 page)

“The phone lines have been down,” Mr. Brand said. “The last storm took a good number of them out. He probably didn’t want to leave his post.”

This was the third time his partner had mentioned the downed lines, but both men knew that if Humphrey had wanted to contact them, was
able
to contact them, he could have left a note at their hotel. Hayes had already pointed this out to Mr. Brand on several occasions, but now he remained silent out of respect for his associate. Mr. Brand had a special affinity for young Humphrey. He had mentored the boy for years, teaching him the history and the application of every weapon in the chambers beneath 213 House. To add to their fraternity, Mr. Brand had begun courting Humphrey’s older sister only the year before, and he was on the verge of proposing marriage to the girl.

Though his life had been troubled since youth, fighting his way through the cruel gutters of Brooklyn with his handicapped arm, Mr. Brand had managed to grow into something of a romantic, and he felt things deeply and carried them silently. Although he rarely allowed his sentiments to escape through word or voice, emotions lived in Brand’s eyes.

“The phone lines,” Hayes said. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“I should have visited him. He’s still in training.”

“And part of that training requires independence. I’m sure Mr. Bell is fine, Mr. Brand. He was instructed to watch for Mr. Cardinal’s return and follow the man if necessary. You have given him excellent instruction over the years. He would never take action on his own. If he’s not in his room, we’ll wait and clarify the proper procedures with him when he returns.”

“Yes,” Brand agreed.

To his sadness, Hayes believed little of what he’d just told his associate. Looking up at the sky, which again wore a blanket of furious gray clouds, Hayes struggled with pessimistic thoughts. Their work rarely brought them into contact with good men, and the days they’d spent in Chicago had done nothing but reinforce Hayes’ disdain for a corroded humanity. He vilified the entire city, though he knew it was no worse than his neighborhood in New York, nor was it worse than the neighborhoods surrounding his. Maybe it was no worse, at least no different, than any bloated city. What bothered Hayes so greatly here was the celebrity afforded to the gangster faction. Chicago’s killers and thieves were heralded, celebrated like movie stars and royalty. Hayes could understand weak men cutting a crooked path through a society, but he could not understand a society that not only accepted such deviation, but also aspired to it with shameless zeal. In this place, this Chicago, all that mattered was power. Commerce was God, and He had a taste for human sacrifice.

“I intend to set that kid straight,” Mr. Brand said, again speaking of Humphrey Bell. “I’ll give him a couple of good knocks in the head if that’s what it takes.”

Hayes tried to chuckle, knowing Mr. Brand would do no such thing, but the fabricated laughter fell on his tongue like ash. He turned to look across the street at the building in which Butch Cardinal had rented a room. It could have been a twin to the building at his back, except it was squatter by two floors.

Unable to put it off any longer, Hayes pivoted on his heel and walked up the stoop. When he opened the door a blast of warm air that smelled of cabbage, garlic, and cat urine washed over his face.

“I’ll bet he met a girl,” Mr. Brand said.

“Then you will have my permission to knock him in the head.”

“I’ll do more than that.”

Hayes fixed a tight smile on his face, listening to Brand’s speculations and threats, which followed him to the third floor of the building. Outside of Humphrey’s room, Hayes knocked on the door and listened, but the only sound was an undulating moan of wind. The noise made him uneasy. It was too cold to leave a window open. He knocked a second time. Mr. Brand nudged him aside and rapped more forcefully. “Mr. Bell,” he barked. Hayes gently tapped his associate on the shoulder and waved him back. Then he removed a four-inch steel pin from his pocket and slid it into the lock. The metal melted and bent, all but disappearing into the mechanism’s hole. What remained was a knob, approximately the size of a dime. Hayes turned this and the lock disengaged. Once the newly fashioned key was removed from the hole, it shifted its shape, lengthened and narrowed, until it was again a narrow pin, which went back into Hayes’ pocket.

He threw open the door and was startled by a length of cloth, a blanket, that dropped over the top edge of the door. Freezing air blasted into the room from the open window. Gusts of it animated the simple shade and the white curtains which danced like ghosts. To the left of the window, beside a large console radio was a chair bathed in gloom, and in the chair was Mr. Bell.

Beside him, Mr. Brand emitted a groan so filled with pain it momentarily bested the howls of the wind. Both men stepped cautiously into the room. Mr. Hayes went directly to the bound and tortured body of his associate, while Mr. Brand stomped heavily across the floor to close the window. Observing the door remained open, Mr. Hayes hurried back and closed it before returning to Mr. Bell’s remains.

He noted a number of cuts and bruises on the young man. Crusts of rust-colored scab marred his arms and throat. A gag had been tied so tightly that the skin of Mr. Bell’s cheeks rose in ridges around it. But it was in seeing the eyes, or rather where the eyes should have been, that made sickness blossom in his gut; the sight punched Mr. Hayes and he covered his mouth and he stepped away. Behind him, Mr. Brand paced between the window and the door, his footsteps heavy and brutal on the stained boards. To the window. To the door. He resembled a wild cat that had taken all of the captivity he could endure.

He turned back to the poor young man’s body and winced. All morning, he’d expected to find a sad tableau inside this room, but his imagination had taken him no further than the likelihood of finding Mr. Bell lying on the floor with a gunshot to the head. The level of savagery exhibited in the young man’s treatment would never have occurred to him, and if he were being honest with himself, the fact that someone could perpetrate this kind of violence on the young man terrified Hayes. This wasn’t the clean kill of mob muscle; this was the work of a madman.

“Humphrey. Humphrey. Humphrey.” Mr. Brand spat the name in time with his tromping steps.

They would have to clean the room and remove the body and Mr. Bell’s belongings, which would need to be searched. The corpse would need to be thoroughly bathed to afford the sad young man his dignity. A report would have to be made. The remains would need to be secured and transported back to Red Hook for a proper burial. Mr. Bell’s family would have to be notified—his dear sister would be devastated. But Mr. Hayes refused to focus on this particular issue. His mind was incapable of managing the sight of the bloodied, eyeless body, and he couldn’t endure thinking about the young man’s last moments of life. Instead, he wanted distraction. Tasks.

First, Mr. Bell had to be unbound and properly, carefully, wrapped so he could be taken from the room and… And what? They couldn’t carry him back to their hotel. They couldn’t prop him on the seat of a train like an old, rolled rug.

“We need a car,” he said.

“I’ll rip his head off,” Mr. Brand said. “When I catch Cardinal, I will cut his throat and tear his fucking head from his carcass.”

Hayes hadn’t considered the identity of Mr. Bell’s assassin, except in the broadest of terms. His mind had been filled with gangsters, the highbrow cousins to the street scum they’d interviewed over the past two days. Oddly, he hadn’t thought of Butch Cardinal once, but now the name was lodged in his mind, and his anger began to form around it like a pearl hardening over a speck of grit. Except he could not let his emotions loose. Not now. There were tasks. Details. They needed to focus and manage this place and care for Mr. Bell’s earthly remains. Then they could pursue justice.

“We need a car,” Hayes repeated. Brand continued his vicious pacing from one side of the room to the other, oblivious to the statement. “Mr. Brand,” Hayes said tersely. The tone of his voice did the trick and Brand came to a stop. “We need a car to transport Mr. Bell’s body. You will go and buy a vehicle. It should be used, but not so old that we are likely to need it repaired. I will remain here and put the room in order and prepare Mr. Bell.”

The muscles on Brand’s face twitched and shifted as if parasites scrambled beneath the skin, but then the spasms calmed and he appeared earnest. Only his eyes remained disturbed. Anger and loss came through them as if the emotions were cast by a projector at the back of his skull. Brand faced off on Hayes and threw back his shoulders. He brought his arms to his sides like a soldier awaiting command, though he’d already received his orders.

“You know where the money is kept in our room. At the hotel, send a wire to 213 House so that an apprentice can be sent by train. He will drive Mr. Bell home.”

“I have to go with him,” Brand said. “I have to tell Marie. She’ll need me.”

“You’re needed here, Mr. Brand. I’m sorry.”

The burly man’s expression didn’t change. “This is unacceptable.”

“We need a car,” Mr. Hayes said again. “You will go and buy one.”

His chest ached with regret as he gave the orders. He knew Brand should return with the young man’s corpse, but they couldn’t afford that kind of delay. They were facing something Hayes had never imagined. He quickly looked at the dead boy bound in the chair and then yanked his gaze away. No longer did he believe they were in the land of men; this place was far darker and inhabited by vile things. A soulless beast was leading them away from civilization and would one day turn on them; Hayes could feel it. What waited ahead was not simply criminal. It was sinister. It was evil.

Hollis never did answer Butch’s question: What is Lionel to you?

Butch didn’t really need an answer. It was clear enough. For two days, ever since he’d confronted Hollis and been summarily knocked down a few pegs, Hollis and his housemate had done nothing but argue, sounding like a married couple, reminiscent of Butch’s parents, only without the inevitable bloodshed. They were at it again, and the angry tones drove Butch outside.

Vines and succulent plants filled the courtyard. Even so late in the year, flowers blossomed white and violet amid low shrubs of green. The scent was a sugary perfume of rose, sweet olive, and jasmine, and Butch filled his lungs with the cool fragrant air. It felt good to be outside after so many days cooped up in his room. He’d experienced a similar cabin fever in Chicago, where the brutal winds had forced him inside and kept him there for entire days unless work called him away. But the weather here was agreeable. Cool but not cold. A soothing climate, particularly after so much snow. And it was a pretty place. At the center of the flagstone patio stood a granite fountain like a stone wedding cake. Ivy blanketed the brick wall, and the house rose like a sheer mountain precipice, above which a square of sky revealed dove-gray clouds.

Behind him, the door opened and Lionel emerged, slapping a cap on his head. The kid fixed Butch with a hateful glare. Then he smirked and stormed away, slamming the gate behind him with a clanging crash.

Butch had managed to avoid the punk for the past couple of days. He heard Lionel Lowery stomping about the house, climbing the spiral staircase, playing records in the upstairs bedroom, but they’d seen little of one another, and that was just fine with Butch. It was bad enough he couldn’t clear his mind of the act he’d witnessed Lowery performing. The scene frequently interrupted his thoughts, leaving him baffled and agitated. He didn’t need to interact with the kid who’d put those thoughts in his head.

Hollis appeared a few minutes later, looking worn out. The man crossed to Butch and handed him a folded sheet of paper and then clapped Butch on the shoulder and turned back for the door.

“Hey,” Butch said.

Hollis paused and asked, “Yeah?” over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry about the ruckus,” he said.

“Well, I think things will be a lot quieter now.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve asked Lionel to leave.” Hollis turned. His lips curved down in a frown. His eyes appeared dull with exhaustion. “He’s never been a good fit for my life. Best to just accept that and get on with things.”

Butch wanted to say something comforting like “It’s probably for the best,” but he had no right to make such a claim. In fact anything he said, outside of praise for Hollis’s decision, would have been forced, inappropriate, or fraudulent. He thought he might like Hollis, figured they’d be friends under different circumstances. Maybe they were anyway. He felt comfortable in Hollis’s presence. The man’s strong yet kind face and powerful physicality reassured him. Hollis had been good to him, and he felt pretty low about hurting the man. But he did believe it was for the best. Fairy or not, that Lionel kid was trouble. It showed on his face and sounded in his voice like a snake’s rattle.

He unfolded the paper Hollis had given him and found a list of names and addresses. “What’s this?”

“A few jewelers and antique dealers I know. It should get you a good start on finding information about that necklace.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Hollis replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll lie down for a bit before I head into work.”