Butcher's Road (6 page)

Butch Cardinal stands on a desolate road. The highway lies beneath three inches of snow. Fields on either side of him are the icy blue-white of an arctic wasteland. No homes. No barns. The few trees that remain are skeletal, showing no more signs of life than the snow-blanketed fields or the steel gray sky above. Butch’s ruined overcoat is fastened tightly at the neck. The collar is raised. His thumb is extended in anticipation of an approaching car.

Sunlight cuts through a bedroom window like a golden ramp, ascending from a dull cotton carpet to the upper window frame. A white chair rail circles the walls. Above the rail, a dense linen-textured paper with a magnolia blossom pattern rises to the crown molding. Below it, the wall is painted violet. Across the room is a narrow bed. Two men are tangled on the mattress. One man is short and burly, his skin is pale and smooth and unblemished. The other man is darker, tall, hirsute, and bulky in the manner of an athlete who has let his muscles soften. He lies on his back and the younger, smaller man straddles his hips.

Hollis Rossington lived in the converted slave quarters of a French Quarter home owned by a young man named Brugier. The two-story bungalow stood across a courtyard dense with succulent foliage. A narrow balcony, painted the same bright white as the building’s trim, ran the length of the sky-blue structure. The building had been updated with the latest comforts—a serviceable kitchen, indoor plumbing, a telephone of its own—and while it lacked the elegance of the main house, the residence more than met Rossington’s needs. Besides, the rent was cheap, and these days, that was far more important than grandeur.

He slid from beside Lionel, his companion of the past two months, and climbed off the foot of the bed. Lifting his dressing gown from the floor, he noted the twinge in his lower back, a reminder of his age. He wrapped himself in the robe and passed into the hallway. The phone bell rang again. It seemed to have been ringing all morning. He’d never grown accustomed to the sound. It grated on his ears like the squeal of a pig being hauled hoof-high over a killing floor. To make matters worse, he rarely received welcomed calls. There were the occasional dinner invitations, but generally, the calls came from angry bookkeepers insisting they receive their checks before the week’s end.

At the midpoint of the hall, he grasped the iron rail of the spiral staircase and began the task of cautiously descending the steps. Though he admired the architectural benefits of the case, he’d more than once slipped on its metal rungs and brought his knees to misery against one of the cold metal spindles.

Downstairs he gazed to his right toward his kitchen. The phone pealed yet again. He turned left.

The parlor was a small front room, barely large enough to entertain guests. Red velvet wallpaper, the kind Rossington had only seen in bordellos, covered the walls, and the sofa and chairs, with their intricately carved frames and plush, richly colored materials, added to the impression. The rooms had been furnished and decorated when he’d leased them, and though they did not reflect his taste, they struck him as generally cheerful.

He picked up the phone and an operator informed him he had a call holding from Chicago. The caller’s name was Rory Sullivan.

“My god,” Rossington chirped happily. He hadn’t heard from his friend in ages, and the call reminded him that he owed the old man a letter. “Hello? Rory? You there?”

“Hollis?” a scratchy and distant voice asked, sounding like the moan of a ghost with bronchial complications.

“Rory, I don’t believe this. How are you? It’s been too long.”

“This isn’t exactly a social call, Hollis.”

Typical of Rory to get right to the point. He didn’t bother with subtlety and he didn’t need to. Rossington generally found his friend’s directness refreshing after all of the silk-over-horseshit conversations in which he found himself. “Is something wrong? Is Molly okay?”

The line between them was scratchy. Mysterious pops and crackles punctuated Rory’s words. “Fine, Hollis. Fine. I’m calling you about something else.”

Rossington listened through the static as Rory told him about a friend who was in trouble. Because of the poor connection he had a difficult time making out the exact nature of the problem: something to do with the
obs
?

“Hold on, Rory,” he said. “What are obs?”

“Mobs.
Mobs,
” the Irishman shouted, “He’s in trouble with the mobs, but he’s a good guy, just a little naïve.”

“A young kid?”

“No,” Sullivan said, “not young. Just kind of ignorant to the depths of shit he’s stepped in.”

“Okay,” Rossington said, also shouting. “What can I do?”

“I sent him your way, Hollis. I need you to put him up until he gets his balance back.”

Rossington would have said yes to nearly any request the man made of him. Giving a beleaguered gentleman a bed and a roof was a paltry request—or should have been—but there were things Rory didn’t know about Rossington’s current situation, things (like Lionel) he didn’t
need
to know. Still, could he say no? He didn’t see how.

“It’s a lot to ask,” Sullivan said. “This guy is in deep with some nasty people. Sounds like he’s got both sides of hell closing in on him. It could—”

“I didn’t catch that last bit.”

“Dangerous,” Sullivan said. “It could be very dangerous to have him in your house.”

“Who is this guy?”

It took three tries before Sullivan’s voice came through clear enough for Rossington to catch the name:
Butch Cardinal.
Rossington smiled. Had he heard that correctly? He remembered Cardinal, had even seen one of his bouts in Kansas City. Good-looking kid, as he remembered it. Even for a wrestler he was big, and not the kind of big that came from padding his physique with fat: pure muscle, that one. On top of that, he was one hell of a wrestler. He’d pinned Joe Means in less than thirty minutes and had hardly broken a sweat.

Rossington had to admit he liked the idea of connecting with someone from the ring. He’d left the mats himself a decade ago, and except for taking in the occasional bout, and his ongoing friendship with his dear friend Rory Sullivan, he’d completely severed himself from the sport. It would be nice to have another wrestler in the house, if only to swap war stories over whiskey and cigars. But athletes, too many of them, had rather limited tolerances; the ones he’d met had proved to be less than accepting of uncommon emotional perspectives.

How would he explain Lionel’s presence? The place wasn’t nearly large enough to pull off some screwball cinematic subterfuge. He could always ask Lionel to find alternate lodgings for a time. Lionel had been a popular visitor, if not exactly a houseguest, for a number of Hollis’s acquaintances. Certain transactions of skin and spit were invariably negotiated in those instances, which made Hollis all but immediately discount the idea. Still he didn’t mind the idea of Lionel being gone for a time. Frankly, Hollis could use the break.

More and more, the kid’s presence grated on his nerves. Some time apart might be just the thing they needed. But Lionel wouldn’t be easy to relocate. Any way he looked at the situation it came out awkward.

“He may not be comfortable here,” Rossington said, finally. “I can get him set up in one of the hotels in the Quarter and keep an eye on him if that helps.”

“He’s tapped out, Hollis. He needs to lay low and he needs to do it on the cheap.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll handle it, Rory. When will he be here?”

“No idea,” Sullivan said. “But I gave him your number.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m counting on you, pal.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Rossington said.

They spent another few minutes on the telephone, trying to get caught up, but the connection continued to deteriorate. By the time they said their goodbyes, Rory’s voice was little more than a thunderous buzz. Rossington hung up the phone and turned away from the desk only to discover the young man staring at him from the archway. His mouth was ticked down into a frown. His arms crossed over his bulky chest.

Three days after witnessing Lonnie Musante’s murder, Butch woke disoriented and freezing in a house on the outskirts of Cincinnati. He sneezed. He sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand; a cold had set up shop in his head and throat. The night before, unforgiving weather had about done him in, and he’d considered breaking down and renting a cheap room for the night to escape the winter chill. Then he’d seen the house with its
Foreclosure
sign nailed to the front door. He hadn’t even had to break in. A hobo, a thief, or local children had already cracked the backdoor’s lock, so Butch had simply stepped in out of the wind and made himself at home. The ousted family had taken most of the comforts with them, but a large sofa—perhaps too bulky to relocate—faced off on the fireplace from the center of the room, and Butch found a set of thick brown curtains in a second-floor bedroom. He carefully removed these from the rod to use as blankets. The possibility of diligent neighbors kept him from lighting a fire, and though the layers of fabric—his clothes and the curtains—didn’t keep him warm, they had been enough to keep him from freezing to death.

He rolled his head on the arm of the sofa. On the wall next to the fireplace was a hole the size of a fist. A scrap of plaster hung from the ragged upper edge against ribs of lath. It was one of three such holes that marred the wall separating the hearth from the dining room.

The hole in the wall and the frost on his bones recalled fragments of his childhood. He hated that time in his life. It was ugly. Confusing. So many of the memories were alike, it was difficult to place them in a rational chronology, particularly since he’d spent so much time trying to erase them completely.

His mother wipes a tear from her eye, the lids and cheek already growing puffy and discolored. In the next room, his sister, his only sibling—Clara—screams. A crack, like gunfire—a father’s hand across the soft cheek of his daughter’s face ended the shrill cries, leaving only sobbing echoes to ooze through the walls. The scene is familiar, as common as fish on Friday and church on Sunday, and Butch doesn’t know anything else; he only knows he’s scared, and Clara is wonderful, and their father should know that. Robert Cardinal should know his daughter is wonderful. Butch—who wasn’t yet Butch but rather Billy—tries to get off the bed. His sister’s muffled sobs gather and coil in his stomach and turn hard and aching, and he doesn’t ever want to hear the sound again. His mother holds his shoulders and shakes her head and more tears spill down her cheeks, and Butch tells her he has to talk to his father. She tells him he can’t because his father isn’t really there at all.

Sitting up on the sofa, squinting through the diffused light seeping in around the paper on the front windows, Butch knew it was time to head south. No matter what else happened, the weather would only be getting worse in the northern cities. He felt uncertain about taking Rory’s advice, looking up Hollis Rossington. Butch didn’t know the man. Rossington might have owed Rory a favor, but how strong was that obligation? Strong enough to house a fugitive? He’d thought about going to New York and losing himself in the swarms of unemployed while he tried to sort out what had happened to his life, but Butch only had the money in his pockets—another gift from Rory—and it would have to last until he managed to wrangle some work. In New York, he might find labor on the docks or in a warehouse—the kind of jobs he’d done fresh from the Navy—but no one was getting fast work. It could take some time, and what would he do until then? The idea of scrounging in a bread line was too shameful for him to consider, and he couldn’t imagine enduring weeks of bitter cold in some confiscated shelter.

No, he had to go south, and there was no reason not to choose New Orleans. Even if Rory’s friend Rossington didn’t pan out, Butch could get by cheap in that city. Between the brothels and the burlesques there were a hundred places he could bounce, and the people there knew how to keep their secrets.

A sneeze took him off guard and the two that followed were each more powerful. He sniffed and rubbed his watery eyes. He preferred the sneezes to the coughing. He’d started coughing the night before, and each barking hack produced instant agony.

At the window, he pulled back an edge of butcher paper, which had been used to cover the glass. The weather kept the neighborhood quiet. No one occupied the sidewalks or streets. At a mirror in the upstairs bath, Butch combed his hair down and did his best to straighten his jacket. For three nights he’d worn his clothes to bed. Creases lined his jacket and his slacks. The gauze on his wounded ear looked foul. Blood and sweat soiled the cotton padding. He tried to peel it off, but the cotton was glued to the wound, and he felt certain if he ripped it away, he’d ruin another collar and further stain his overcoat.

He coughed violently, producing a thick wad of phlegm that he spat into the sink, which he leaned on until the worst of the ache faded from his chest. He released a deep breath in slow, measured sighs, afraid that expelling the air all at once would produce another round of painful coughs.