Butcher's Road (40 page)

“Don’t move,” he said, pressing the muzzle of the gun to the man’s temple. “I’m still feeling a little upset about the shit you pulled in Chicago.”

“An unavoidable situation, Detective Lennon,” said Hayes.

“My ass,” the man named Lennon replied.

Butch backed up another step, gripping the copper rod as tightly as he could.

Lennon looked at him and said, “Hey, Butch, some weather we got, huh?” He looked back at Hayes. “You and your buddy should take a walk, now. I need to speak with Mr. Cardinal, and it’s a private conversation.”

“Who are you?” Butch asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m a friend. But I need you to drop that stick.”

Appearing in the windows across the street, Butch noticed faces like pale, bland masks. Sheets of rain added a hoary quality like a shimmering shroud settling over a mass grave. He took a step back, looking at Hayes and the gun at his temple and then at Lennon, who had lost the expression of amusement he’d carried into the fight.

Then Butch turned to the shorter, stocky man, with the withered arm the guy his buddy had introduced as Mr. Brand. He saw determination in the eyes, and even before the man took his first step, Butch read Brand’s face, and the message there was one of pure violence.

Brand gamboled gracefully from the side, drawing Lennon’s attention. Hayes spun away as Lennon repositioned his gun, taking aim at the shorter man.

“Don’t!” Lennon called.

But it was too late. Brand barreled forward, shoulder down in a ramming posture. Lennon fired into the man’s chest at point blank range and Brand dropped to the walk.

“Son of a bitch,” Lennon shouted. He repositioned his aim toward Hayes. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”

Hayes didn’t answer. He dropped to his knees to tend to his friend, though Butch imagined the man was long past care. You didn’t take a bullet to the chest at that range and shake it off.

Cheeks burning red, Lennon stomped away from the men and headed for Butch. “Drop the fucking stick, Butch. I feel bad enough as it is. Don’t make me feel worse.”

Butch did as he was told. The staff couldn’t outreach a bullet. He dropped the copper rod on the sidewalk, where it clinked and rocked before coming to a stop.

“Turn around and walk,” Lennon said. “And walk fast.”

• • •

Butch expected to be directed into an alley, where the man would put a bullet in his head. Hayes had addressed the man as “Detective Lennon,” which meant the guy was probably one of Impelliteri’s cop puppets sent to clean up the problem of Butch Cardinal.

Instead, the man walked him onto Royal Street and down several blocks. When they reached a glass-faced restaurant, the man with the gun said, “This’ll do. Just don’t cause any trouble.” Then he holstered his gun.

Inside they took a table away from the window, in a dark corner by a cart that held dirty plates and glasses. Butch used the napkin on the table to wipe his face and hands.

“Who do you work for?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Lennon replied. “I’m a detective with the Chicago Police Department, let’s just go with that.”

“I didn’t kill Musante,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” Lennon replied, “but that doesn’t change your situation.”

“Come again?”

“Give me a minute. I just shot a guy.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if you’d shot a lot of guys over the years.”

“Well, I haven’t. I figure he deserved it, but that doesn’t make it easy.”

They sat quietly and then a waiter arrived to take their orders—coffee for both. Lennon removed his hat and stared at it before setting it on the floor.

“I need you to keep your lid on when I tell you this,” Lennon said. “You’ve tossed me once before, and I’d rather not have it happen again.”

Butch looked at the man and tried to decipher what he meant. Had they met? When? Where? He searched Lennon’s face and remembered the mustache, of all things. This was the guy he’d bowled over at Musante’s, the guy he’d mistaken for a shooter coming through the back door.

“So you know I had nothing to do with gunning Musante down, because you were one of the guys hired to do it.”

“Not exactly,” Lennon said. “But I was there.”

Butch listened as Lennon laid it out for him: Curt Conrad’s guilt in Musante’s death; Terry McGavin’s involvement; the conversation he’d had with his captain, who’d told Lennon that Butch was taking the fall regardless of what the evidence said. As he listened he felt his anger ticking up by degrees until he found himself barely suppressing the urge to flip the table over in Lennon’s face.

“Now just settle down,” Lennon said, noticing Butch’s ire.

“Are you serious? Settle down? I’m supposed to drink this up like lemonade?”

“This doesn’t have to be the end of the line. I came down here to warn you, to keep you from trying to work a deal with anyone involved in this shit, because there is no deal. I figured you might be looking to put things together, maybe trying to exonerate yourself, but it doesn’t matter what you find. You need to know that. As for whatever it is you have that Impelliteri wants, hold on to it or sell it or throw it away. If you ask me, you should get your ass on a train to Florida, change your name, and then find a rich widow or get a job on a fishing boat.”

Lennon lit a cigarette and looked at Butch.

So that was it? Some miserable little thug like Terry McGavin has a beef—nothing real, nothing deserved—and with a single phone call, he destroys Butch’s life? It could have been any guy in Musante’s rundown house, any punk off the street. All of this misery and death because a petty man with a bit of power decided Butch was an annoyance, not even a threat, but an irritation he intended to scratch out of existence.

“Of course the guys this afternoon are a different matter. I’ve met them before, and they have some interesting and dangerous toys. I don’t know who they work for though.”

“They work for themselves,” Butch said. “Did you follow them down here?”

“I thought they followed me.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

Lennon flinched at the question. He drew on his cigarette and looked over his shoulder. With his thumb and index finger, he picked a bit of tobacco off of his tongue and dropped it in the ashtray.

“Something happened to Rory,” Butch said. That was the only answer. Rory had sent him to Hollis Rossington, and Rory wouldn’t have talked unless he’d had no choice. No one else in Chicago knew where to find him. “He’s dead.”

Lennon nodded. “The doctors said he probably wouldn’t have made it another month anyway.”

“What does that mean? What happened to him?”

“There’s another player in all of this,” Lennon said. “I think he’s on Impelliteri’s payroll but I can’t get any confirmation of that. I spent a couple of days up north trying to ID the guy, but came up with nothing. What I know is he killed my partner, and he tried to kill Rory Sullivan and his daughter.”

“Molly?”

“She’s okay. The killer got a shiv into her father’s shoulder. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except Sullivan’s heart gave out. He made it through the day, but he had a second attack a couple of nights later. I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.”

Butch’s anger collapsed. It dropped through him, tearing a path from his throat to his belly. He began to cry. He hadn’t cried since childhood, but the tears welled hot in his eyes and his chest hitched and before he even understood what had overcome him, he was sobbing. Lennon looked away and finished his cigarette, and Butch shoved the napkin against his eyes, and he fought against the miserable expression of weakness, but he had no power over it.

“Pull yourself together,” Lennon whispered.

“Fuck you,” Butch managed between sobs.

“Then listen,” the detective said. “This other player, the mystery hitter, he also knows you’re down here. On the bright side, Molly Sullivan shot him in the gut, and that might lay him up for a while. You might even be really lucky and the fucker is already cold, but he knows what I knew: that you’re staying in New Orleans with a guy named Rossington. It took me all of five minutes to find the address. So he’s going to need to be warned before you take off.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Butch said. He sniffed loudly and wiped the last of the tears from his eyes.

“Let me be clear, Butch. It’s all coming down on you, and it’s coming down
here and now
. Those men, Hayes and Brand, followed me to Rossington’s place, and they saw you standing at the gate. Brand is gone, but Hayes probably has friends. Then you’ve got this hitter from up north, and if he is working for Impelliteri then all it’s going to take is a phone call to a local boss, and this whole place turns into a war zone.”

And it’s all for nothing,
Butch thought. It should have been funny; all of this fuss and energy wasted on a useless chunk of metal. But there was nothing funny here. How many people were about to die pointlessly? He knew he’d never be able to convince Impelliteri or anyone on his crew of the Rose’s uselessness, and what were the chances the men he sent would spare Hollis? No. He couldn’t leave. He had no choice, at least no choice he could live with.

“Are you listening to me?” Lennon asked.

“I think I’m ready for a fight,” Butch said. “What about you?”

Lennon closed his eyes in apparent frustration. “I have a wife and two daughters to think about, so I’m not looking to play cowboy. I took a big enough chance just coming down here.”

“Then you should go,” Butch said. “Thanks for your help.”

“You can’t win.”

“I was never meant to win, Lennon.” Butch stood from the table. “Thanks again,” he said, and then he walked out of the restaurant into the persistent thunderstorm.

At the gate to Hollis’s house, Butch paused and checked his surroundings. Seeing no one on the streets, he opened the gate.

Hollis was home. He hugged Butch when he stepped through the door.

“I thought you were at the club,” Butch said.

“I was. I had a visitor.”

Butch listened as Hollis related the exchange he’d had with a gangster named Remy Long. Though Hollis didn’t know how the thug had come across his information, Butch figured the Lowery kid had finally put it together and sought out a syndicate man to set his revenge in motion. Considering the direction of his luck, Butch shouldn’t have been surprised.

Lennon had been right. It was all coming down on his head. Right here. Right now.

He needed to get Hollis out of the house, had to keep him away until this mess was handled. Looking into Hollis’s concerned face, a face he wanted to hold close, the lie formed easily.

“We can’t stick around here,” Butch said. “I have one more guy to see about the necklace. He’s Uptown so it’ll take me a couple of hours.”

“Can’t it wait?” Hollis asked.

“Wait for what?” Butch asked. “The longer I’m in town, the more dangerous it gets.”

“Then let’s leave,” Hollis said. He stepped forward and rested his hands on Butch’s shoulders. “I can scrape some money together, enough to get us by for a couple of months until all of this quiets down.”

Butch pretended to think it over, though his mind was already made up. “Then you should start scraping. Get the money together. But I have to see this man. He’s the only one who knows exactly what this necklace is, and I need to know. Once I do, I’ll meet you at the club and we can decide where to go from there.”

“I think it would be better if we stuck together.”

“There’s no time. Look, if they know I’m here, then the longer we stand around talking the more trouble we’ve got. Get your ass back to the club. I need to change into something dry, and then I’m leaving too. They aren’t likely to spot me on the street, especially once I get out of the Quarter. When I get the information I need, I’ll meet you at the club. Do not leave the club until I get there, because we’re going to need to leave fast, and I can’t be looking all over town for you.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

Butch moved in and kissed Hollis on the lips, but he couldn’t enjoy the intimacy. He felt the outside world encroaching on this place, felt eyes on him. Shame and uncertainty rushed in, and he pulled away. He patted Hollis’s chest.

“Go,” Butch said. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

Concern pinched Hollis’s lips, but he gave a quick nod. “Okay. Sure. You know where the club is?”

He couldn’t even remember the club’s name. “Yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Hollis leaned in and kissed him again. Butch felt uneasy but refused to pull away this time. He wrapped his arms around the man and held him tightly. Once the kiss was broken, he whispered, “Thank you,” into Hollis’s ear, and then he said, “You have to go now.”

And Hollis left. Butch watched him pause at the door. He lifted his hand in a half wave and waited for the door to close behind his friend. The
click
of the door securing triggered a dull pain in the center of his chest.