Butcher's Road (9 page)

“I read the paper.”

Conrad grunted. Nodded. “Butch Cardinal. We lost him. Your guys and my guys. I don’t know how he slipped but he did it. He might’ve gotten out of town. We don’t know, so Impelliteri wants you to find him and do whatever the fuck it is you do.”

Rabin sat in the car, enduring the stench of the detective, listening to the plan that had failed and the steps his employer was taking to correct that failure. Rabin thought it providence that he should have considered Cardinal such an interesting opponent, only to have the opportunity to find out firsthand dropped in his lap. Near the end of their conversation Detective Conrad mentioned an item of interest, a trinket Rabin was to recover for his employer, but the details were, at best, vague.

“How am I to know what the item is if I don’t know what I’m looking for?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve got a picture of it. It’s a necklace, and it doesn’t sound like shit to me, but Impelliteri wants it. He said it looks like a squashed rose. Cardinal probably won’t be carrying too much jewelry, so it shouldn’t be all that tough to figure out.”

“Indeed,” Rabin said. “Is this item of sentimental value to Mr. Impelliteri?”

“Does Impelliteri strike you as sentimental?”

“Remarkably on point,” Rabin noted.

“Just don’t come back without it.”

Conrad slapped his fat hand down on a wide envelope. “We got what we could about Cardinal in here. Didn’t do us a shitload of good, but you seem to have your ways. Everything we know about him is in here. Plus your retaining fee, of course.”

Rabin lifted the package and asked, “Officer Conrad, how much of a commission did you remove from this envelope before I arrived home?”

Conrad sneered and shook his head like the question was an inconvenience rather than an insult. “Delivery charge,” he said.

Rabin considered the ice pick in his pocket. His heart beat against its handle. Killing the detective would only take a second. It would feel so very good. But it would complicate things with his primary employer. Maybe another day.

“Have a fine day, Officer,” Rabin said. He let himself out of the car and frowned. Despite enjoying the notion of a new project to keep him busy, the detective’s visit, like the earlier imposition of Irene’s nurse, had soured his morning.

Rabin returned to his own car to retrieve the thermos of coffee before walking up the stairs to his home. He quickly unlocked the front door and entered. After securing the three bolts to lock himself in, he paused to enjoy the comfortable surroundings. He’d stoked the furnace before leaving to visit Irene, and the heat wrapped around him like a blanket. His breakfast of bacon and fried tomatoes still scented the air. If he closed his eyes and pretended, he could imagine hearing Irene in the parlor, could hear the clicking of her knitting needles as she made a sweater for one of the unfortunate children at St. Michael’s. With her gone such dreams were all that remained, and sadly the illusion couldn’t last.

Rabin had to clean up some old business before he began his new assignment.

“Sooner than later,” he whispered, and then he opened the basement door to descend the stairs.

Much cooler than the rest of the house, the basement nonetheless brought pleasures of its own. To his right was a broad alcove he’d made into an office. Here he had a small rolltop desk and a comfortable wingback chair for contemplation and reading. Rabin placed the pick on the desk and began unbuttoning his vest. He removed his coat and vest; his money clip, cufflinks, and studs went into a fine china saucer on the desktop.

After rolling up his sleeves, Rabin closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting his mind drift, waiting for serenity to welcome him. He’d learned the meditative technique from a palm reader on Clark Street, and though her talent to see the future was decidedly in question, Rabin had found her relaxation regimen thoroughly effective.

Now peaceful, Rabin opened his eyes and retrieved the ice pick from the bench. He turned to face the center of the room, where muffled sounds called to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve been called away on business.”

The man sat tied to a sturdy wooden chair. He was short and round and fat with a thick pelt of hair covering his belly and his chest. The shrub at his crotch was so thick that the man’s meager sexual apparatus was all but obscured. He tried to keep his eyes on Rabin, but the lids drooped from exhaustion and pain. His head lolled. Disappointing, really. Rabin had hoped to spend a few more days in his company. The only benefit to his wife’s affliction was a level of privacy with which he could explore his craft more fully. But like the carnations in Irene’s room, the man wilted. Bruises stained his neck and shoulders. Tiny cuts ran like ruler marks along his hairy upper arms. Blood had seeped from one to the next like a marble water installation Rabin had seen in New York many years before.

His name was Barney. Hardly of any importance. He was a numbers man whose numbers didn’t add up. Normally, such a meaningless specimen would get a bullet to the brain and cease being a problem once they hoisted his bulk from the sidewalk, but Barney had connections that went higher than Impelliteri, which was why he’d assumed his theft would be overlooked. Marco Impelliteri overlooked nothing. Not a ledger page, not a slight. The man wanted his ducks in a row. It made them easier to shoot. Impelliteri did know how to cover his tracks, though. Instead of a public execution, a common enough warning to the other Southside scavengers, Barney would disappear along with a sum of cash sufficient to imply an early retirement. The questions would be few. The rumors unsustainable.

Rabin crossed to the chair and placed his hand on the man’s forehead as he’d done with his wife only two hours before. Beneath his palm, dry red eyes pleaded with him. Barney mumbled something into his gag, and then Rabin stepped behind him. He stroked the man’s bald pate a single time and then grasped his forehead firmly. Applying all of his strength, he yanked the head back as he drove the ice pick through the base of Barney’s skull, and then he waited for the convulsions to cease before smoothing the hairs over the seeping wound.

Once the fine texture of the hair became thoroughly damp and matted with blood, Rabin stopped petting and stepped away. He crossed to a faucet, which jutted from the wall, suspended over one of two large drains he’d found intriguing when first viewing the house. He rinsed his hands in the icy water, and then dried them on a towel. As he did so, he checked his shirt and suit trousers for spots of blood but found the fabrics unblemished. Satisfied, he returned to the alcove and his comfortable chair. Rabin drew the envelope from his desk. He opened it. Then he began to read everything the Chicago police knew about Butch Cardinal.

Roger Lennon had arrived at the station with a sense of relief, having an excuse to be out of the house and away from rooms full of exaggerated concern, but when he’d received his orders, his good mood rapidly eroded. Because of his doctor’s report, Lennon would be on desk duty for a week, and possibly longer, pending a follow-up examination. So instead of sitting at home with Edie eyeing him and asking him how he felt every goddamn minute, he had to sit in the smoke-filled office, reading reports that had already been compiled, congratulating his colleagues on cases that had been solved without him, and hearing about the action on the streets.

These days there was plenty of it.

Musante’s murder had sparked a street war between the Northside and the Southside gangs. So far, there had only been two fatalities. Unfortunately both victims were bystanders, but last night two gunmen had sprayed the front of Elysium with their tommys and the doorman had only managed to save his ass by diving behind a concrete planter. Cardinal had worked the door at Elysium, so the message wasn’t exactly subtle.

Lennon leaned back in his chair. He still couldn’t remember much about the night at Musante’s. Something about Conrad’s story didn’t click with Lennon but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Add to that the fact that Cardinal made an unlikely shooter, based on what Lennon had read in the wrestler’s file, and the day’s frustration just grew thicker.

He had no doubt that a man with Cardinal’s background could kill. That wasn’t the issue for Lennon. He’d seen fairy lounge singers go blood crazy because their dope supply was running low, and he’d seen fine and proper housewives busted in warehouse brothels with their asses in the air because they wanted bigger iceboxes or a string of pearls. Nothing a person did surprised him, but the syndicates weren’t people. They behaved with a far more predictable logic, and using a high-profile guy like Cardinal to hit a smalltimer like Musante—a geezer any kid with a .38 could pop—made no sense. Of course Cardinal could have been flying solo, but what was his beef?

Which led Lennon to his next question: who the hell was Lonnie Musante anyway? Why wasn’t that file on his desk? Anyone who’d spent real time on Impelliteri’s crew had a record. Even if the geezer had managed to avoid a rap sheet, there should have been a background file accompanying Cardinal’s. A coroner’s report. Something. Conrad was out, probably stuffing his face, so Lennon checked the man’s desk, pushing aside piles of papers that should have been filed weeks ago. When this turned up nothing, he walked across the station to his sergeant’s desk.

“I’m looking for a file on Lonnie Musante.”

“Conrad may have it,” Palmer said, gruffly as if his time were too valuable to be wasted on his job.

“It’s not on his desk.”

“Maybe he took it home.”

“Conrad doesn’t take work home.”

“Then it’s a mystery. Don’t detectives solve those?”

“Fuck off, Palmer.”

“Kiss me first.”

On his way back to his desk, he waved a rookie uniform over and told the kid to run down to records to see what he could bring back on Musante. He also wanted whatever they had on file for Cardinal. Then Lennon went into his office and made a phone call.

All the paperwork in the world wasn’t likely to get him close to an answer, but every now and then useful information showed through the dreary veneers. More times than not, the real information, the raw skinny, came from the streets, and Lennon was more than happy to dredge the gutters for bits of shiny fact, even if he had to wade through filth to get it. Which was the only reason he was making an appointment with a man he so thoroughly loathed.

“Hey, Valentino,” Lennon said. “I need a word.”

“Is this Lennon?”

“Yeah.”

“Heard you took a good knock. Went out like a kitten.”

“I’d be glad to discuss that face to face.”

“Can’t do it, Lennon.”

“And then I say,
you will,
and then you say,
there’s no way,
and then I remind you of all the prison time you could do and you whimper and grumble and we dance for five minutes on the phone, and I don’t have the patience for that shit, so meet me at Cucina Napoli in thirty minutes or all of the bad things I always have to threaten will happen.”

“I hate you, Lennon.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” he said and hung up the phone.

• • •

Cucina Napoli was an upscale Italian eatery with the best pasta in Chicago, and an extensive wine list available to patrons who could afford to eat in one of four private dining rooms. The restaurant catered to a clientele certain to be discreet about the serving of spirited beverages, as the customers were the men who profited from their distribution. Lennon was led to a booth at the back of the restaurant, near the kitchen. He always got lousy tables when he came in, but he always got seated, even if the lobby was swarmed. The place had red velvet wallpaper and white tablecloths and tiny lanterns—wicks burning in oil—in lieu of candles.

Henri Fiori arrived ten minutes after Lennon. Fiori was a Corsican who passed for Italian. He was uncommonly handsome, if on the feminine side, which was how he’d earned the nickname Valentino. Despite having a soft and pretty face and mannerisms not altogether masculine, Valentino was no fairy. He had been considered a prize by the socialite ladies of whom he’d made a career. These days his addictions to opium and cocaine were drawing deep and dark lines across his face, but in dim light, like the restaurant’s, he still carried a movie star patina.

For the most part, Lennon despised the man and his vices. The gigolo was a dope fiend and a gambler, and he tossed other people’s cash around like rose petals in a ritual of constant seduction like a charming virus that had stricken Chicago years ago and continued to infect. But he was useful.

“I really do have some place to be,” Valentino said, sliding into the booth across from Lennon.

“Then let’s not waste our time together. Tell me about Lonnie Musante.”

Valentino laughed and shook his head. “Are you off your nut? Why would you care about a freak like Lon?”

“Well someone must care. Your boss declared war on the Bug’s crew because Lonnie was killed.”

“A baby cries if you take away a toy, even if he doesn’t like playing with it anymore.”

“What did Musante do for Impelliteri? Or was he lined up with Ricca and Nitti?”

“He was all Marco’s,” Valentino said. He peered around the restaurant. “He gave everybody the jimjams. For that matter, he gave Marco the jimjams, but they had a history. I need a drink.” When this statement didn’t make a server magically appear, Valentino slid from the booth and walked to a plump waiter with a fringe of gray over his ears. He spoke, laughed, pointed at Lennon, clapped the waiter on the back, and then returned to the table. “You’d think a place that charged so much for a plate of spaghetti would be on the ball.”