Butcher's Road (3 page)

He shook his head, lit a cigar, and waited for the sirens and the hubbub. He ran his story back and forth until he had it solid.

• • •

Exhausted, Butch stopped on the busy street, to get his bearings and to catch his breath. His heart felt like an icy metal glove trying to punch its way up his throat. He flagged a cab on Michigan Avenue and climbed in the back, breathing heavily and sweating under the layers of his suit and overcoat. He held a handkerchief over his wounded ear. It burned and ached, and still bled, dripping warmth down his wrist as he tried to hide the injury from curious pedestrians. The kid behind the wheel twisted round and fixed Butch with a grin. “Big night?” he asked.

Feeling exposed as if every winter-wrapped shape on the street was gunning for him, Butch slunk down in the seat and turned his face away from the window. He gave the boy, who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, his address on the west side of town and said, “Keep the chatter down.” He’d heard more than enough talk for one night.

With little success, he tried to think around his temper, but the anger screamed in his head; it demanded bones for breaking and blood. But who the hell had set him up? Musante hadn’t been whistling in the wind. He’d known exactly what was going down, and Butch should have listened. He should have asked some questions of his own. Questions about Impelliteri, about Powell.

He considered Musante’s suggestion that Powell’s woman had made him a target; it didn’t fly, and neither did the idea that one of the other guys in the crew—Terry or Hank or Joey—would have something against him. He did his job—did it right. He didn’t get into their business. He barely even knew them. It wasn’t like he socialized with the men he worked with, didn’t take much joy in shooting pool or trying to talk through the noise and smoke of the speakeasies; he entertained himself with the ladies Powell paraded through his clubs like cuts of veal on a meat cart, but kept his involvement with them shallow, skin and banter; he had no opinions to share about Hoover or Roosevelt. He went to the pictures, went to the lake, went to the gym owned by his friend Rory to keep his muscles up; ate his dinners at the Emerald Cafe, breakfasts too. In the evenings he bounced the door at Elysium, Powell’s upscale club off the lake. Every few days he’d get a call—Joey or Terry or Powell himself. Butch would be given an address; told an amount to collect or the description of a package to pick up. He wasn’t close enough to any of those sons of bitches to step on their toes.

The cab hit a hole in the street, bouncing Butch against the window and driving his kerchief across his bleeding ear. He bit down on a groan and squeezed his eyes closed.

He’d find a doctor to stitch the wound, if he had the time. Ears always made good show wounds; they hurt like a fucker, and they bled enough to make a substantial mess—a fine display for the crowds—but they weren’t much of a deal. Herb Tenor had lost his whole ear, grappling with Del West and it hadn’t done him in. It could wait. He had BC Powder in his room and a few rolls of gauze and tape. He could patch himself up until he found a professional to do the job right.

At his apartment house, the driver pulled to the curb, and turned to face Butch, still grinning like he knew all the secrets of the world. “You have a good night, mister,” the kid said after Butch paid him.

The lobby of his building was icebox cold, but it kept the wind off his face. Gloom filled the entryway and staircase like ink, one hue of gray atop another coalescing into fluid shadows. His landlord was a cheap bastard. All of the light fixtures on the stairwell and in the hallways had been left empty to save a few pennies on the power bill, and the heat came on for about three hours every night to polish the edges off the icy air, but the building was never warm. It was cheap, though. That had been the point. Butch wanted nothing these days but to save money, build a good bank. Chicago wasn’t home, just another place on the road. Had he not just witnessed Musante’s murder, he might have stayed for another year, maybe two, but that option no longer made sense. He was leaving this particular place in the road as soon as he cleaned up his ear and grabbed a few things, then to a hotel to ride out the night. In the morning, he’d visit the bank, and then the train station after that. From a distance he could make calls, find out who he should plan to visit once the dust settled. Or maybe he’d just stay gone.

This kind of life was for lower men, and he’d only signed on because the world had left him few options.

He used to dream about another time, used to dream about home: a sturdy house on good land in a valley beneath endless sky. He dreamt of a porch and a comfortable chair and a glass of beer. In the house someone put away dishes, or fiddled with the stove or poured another drink, making him wait. But that was okay, because in the dream they had all of the time in the world, and in the dream there was warmth and there was trust and there was familiarity—no transient acquaintance to be left when the train pulled out of the station, no face to escape when lust was sated and nothing remained in its place. He rarely mentioned the dream to anyone, and on those few occasions he had discussed it, he’d failed to make himself clear. Those listening believed he had meant a return to childhood terrain when he spoke of home. They mistook a dream for a memory, and a memory was no more a dream than yesterday was tomorrow.

Childhood, his childhood, had been a cold, ugly place. Back then he’d been called “Billy,” but he’d left that name in Burlington along with his parents, his church, and every other fucking thing he’d hated. In the Navy his shipmates had tagged him “Butch,” and he’d liked it well enough. Like the tattoo of the swallow on his shoulder, the name had gotten in deep enough to stick.

His ear began to throb and ache in earnest as he made his way up the stairs. The numbing effect of adrenaline—minimal as it had been—was fading, leaving the sharp screaming pain. He grasped the railing tighter until a wave of nausea passed over him. In his room he sat down and waited for the place to stop spinning, and despite taking immense comfort in the soft cushions of his davenport, he forced himself to his feet only two minutes later. If Powell had set him up, it wouldn’t be long before Terry or Joey came knocking on his door.

Butch stripped off his overcoat, and looked with unease at the smear of blood covering the right shoulder. He’d need to clean that up before he tried booking a room for the night. Most desk clerks knew to keep their mouths shut, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He removed the jacket of his suit and loosened his tie.

After removing his collar and tossing it on the floor, he made quick work of the wound. It was hardly a nick, but it felt like half his ear had been taken off. Butch cleaned it with a molar-grinding splash of alcohol, a square pad of gauze, and a few strips of tape. From the shelf above the sink he opened a pouch of BC Powder and dumped it on his tongue, hoping the pain medication would be sufficient to quell the sting and the ache. He washed it down with a pull from his tooth glass, and then he leaned on the sink and caught his breath.

In the mirror, he saw a haggard face, wet with sweat and wind blushed. He splashed his cheeks with tepid water from the tap and ran a comb through his hair, pasting it down tight to his skull, and then he dragged the comb through his mustache and let loose a noisy sigh.

From the wardrobe, he pulled a fresh shirt, and tossed the one he’d been wearing, its cuffs spattered with blood, on the floor. Butch affixed a collar and cinched a new tie. He lifted his topcoat to the sink. The parcel Musante had given him made a lump in the pocket that bumped against his stomach as he hoisted the coat. In his rush to get home, Butch hadn’t even thought to open the thing. He removed the box and carried it to his bed. His muscles went loose the moment he dropped to the edge of the mattress, as if they believed the night was over. The feeling couldn’t be entertained for long, he knew, but it would have been damn nice to just lie back and close his eyes for a minute and let his head catch up to all that had happened to him.

Instead he tore the paper away from the package, revealing a simple cardboard box. He lifted the lid and pushed air against the back of his throat like a growl. Just cotton padding. The fucking package was a dummy, a prop in a game. Butch threw the parcel against the wall and was surprised to hear the clink of metal hitting wood. He stood from the bed and walked over. In the gloom, he saw the snaking chain of a necklace, affixed to a smudge of reddish gray. He bent down and lifted the jewelry. Immediately, he questioned its value; it didn’t have the color of a precious ore—not gold, not silver. The metal had a red cast, a genuine red, not the approximate red of copper. It seemed to weigh less than a strip of tin. Butch leaned to the side so the pendant could get some light.

“Shit,” he muttered.

It was ugly and it was cheap, and as far as Butch was concerned the box might as well have been empty. He slid the thing into his pants pocket and then returned to the sink with his overcoat. He scrubbed at the shoulder and cuffs to get the worst of the blood off. Some salt would help scrub away the stains, but he wasn’t going to take the time to grab any out of the kitchen. Instead he rubbed with a wet towel, grinding one fabric into the other.

When he returned to the living room he was feeling better, felt like his control had returned. He eyed the davenport, the rickety table in front of it, and the rug beneath them both. Under the furniture was a loose board below which he kept the bulk of his money; sure, he kept some cash in the bank so he could write checks, but he kept most of his capital close. Butch leaned forward and grabbed the edges of the table, but before he hoisted it off the floor, he heard a ticking sound at his front door. He let loose his grip and straightened up. The noise at his door became a rattle and then silence.

Someone was testing the lock.

Butch remained quiet, easing to the side of the room where he’d left his overcoat. Knuckles rapped on his door, and a thin voice—Terry McGavin’s voice—slid into the room. “Hey, Butch, open up. Gotta talk.”

Backing away, Butch pulled on his overcoat. What little trust he might have had for McGavin and the other boys in Powell’s crew was gone. He hadn’t recognized the shooters at Musante’s, but McGavin had sent him to that house, and for what? An ugly chunk of metal at the end of an ugly thread of chain?

Butch hurried to the far side of the room and unlatched his window. He looked over his shoulder at the flimsy table and the rug beneath it. His money waited there, nearly enough for the good house on a fine parcel of land, but he’d have to return for it. McGavin was turning the knob again. Butch had no idea if the man was alone, but he knew damn well he was armed—McGavin liked his guns, called them his “ladies.”

Though he tried to open the window quietly, it scraped in the frame, and Butch shoved it upward.

“I hear you in there, buddy,” McGavin called. A moment later, a shoulder collided with the door.

Butch climbed out and sat on the windowsill. Another booming collision was followed by the creaking of distressed wood. One more solid hit and the door would go.

Unwilling to face another gunman, Butch dropped into the snow. He landed hard and a twinge of pain shot through his knee, but he ran nonetheless, slipping and sliding on ice and snow, and making his way far from the room he called home.

Hours later, Detective Roger Lennon opened his eyes and instantly regretted the decision. Beside the hospital bed was a small lamp with an exposed bulb. Needles of discomfort and a penny nail of serious misery drove into the back of his right eye. Then the other pains surfaced. His skull felt like a bag of shattered glass, every edge and point scraping raw nerves. He groaned and reached for his head and groaned again. Another mistake. His back felt like it had been used for punting practice. After lowering his hand, he remained as still as he could, trying to figure how he’d made his way from a State Street speakeasy to a hospital bed.

After a shift, far quieter than most, he’d gone to the Zenith Club and had been throwing back shots of Canadian whiskey. As Lennon drank, the piano player tapped out a dreary rag on the upright against the back wall, his shoulders and arms moving sinuously behind a cloud of blue-gray smoke, his head locked in a downward and cocked position. Lennon was eyeing one of the new girls, who worked the tables on that side of the room. She wore a snug dress in a shade of pale green that reminded Lennon of pond water. Her eyes were big and her legs were fine, and Lennon watched, smiling against his glass, as the waitress fumbled with a lighter, trying to produce a flame for the cigarette of another detective, who worked homicide on the Southside.

His name was Smith, and he was built like a football, wide in the middle, with a head that looked absurdly small on his shoulders. Because of his portly build, the suit he sported had to have been finely tailored so the buttons on his jacket didn’t pull trenches across the lapels.

Lennon knew Smith was on a couple of payrolls: one was the city’s; the other was the Northside gang’s: “Bugs” Moran’s Irish crew. The Italians and the Bug had split the entire city, and that included the city’s employees. Lennon himself collected an envelope once a week, but his bonus came from the Italians on the Southside, once ruled, and some said
still
ruled, from a prison cell by Al Capone. Between that and his salary, Lennon could still barely stay in the black. The house his wife wanted, the clothes she wanted for their daughters and herself—damned if he could rub a couple of dimes together by the time payday came around again. He certainly couldn’t afford a suit the quality of Smith’s.