Authors: Lee Thomas
Tags: #historical thriller, #gritty, #new orleans, #alchemy, #gay, #wrestling, #chicago
Butcher's Road
Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords.com
Copyright © 2014 Lee Thomas.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in 2014 by Lethe Press, Inc.
118 Heritage Avenue, Maple Shade, NJ 08052 USA
lethepressbooks.com / [email protected]
isbn: 978-1-59021-470-1 / 1-59021-470-6
e-isbn: 978-1-59021-515-9 / 1-59021-515-x
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Interior design: Alex Jeffers.
Cover design: Matt Cresswell.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Lee, 1965-
Butcher’s road / Lee Thomas.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-1-59021-470-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-59021-470-6 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Criminals--Illinois--Chicago--Fiction. 2. Criminals--Louisiana--New
Orleans--Fiction. 3. Noir fiction. I. Title.
PS3620.H6317B88 2014
813’.6--dc23
2014006083
~
Also by Lee Thomas available from Lethe Press
The Dust of Wonderland
(Lambda Literary Award winner)
The German
(Lambda Literary Award winner)
Like Light for Flies
~
For Jim Moore, a gentle giant
whose talent, good nature, and optimism I admire more than I can say.
And John Perry, as always.
I enjoy research and have done a considerable amount of it to give this story some meat. Not only do I want a novel to accurately convey the period in which it is set, but I also don’t want to hear about all the stuff I got wrong from readers. That noted, this is a work of fiction, and I’m sure I got stuff wrong. Things have been tweaked. Rules have been broken. Regardless, I hope you’ll enjoy the story, and if you do find errors, please let me know. Future editions will benefit from your observations. Thanks ahead of time.
—LT
~
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
—“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney
He who allows oppression shares the crime.
—Desiderius Erasmus
~
~~
Part One Chicago November 1932
Chapter 2 Wake Me When It’s Over
Chapter 3 A Lovely, Simple Frame
Chapter 4 Like Postcards from the Inferno
Chapter 5 Oh, When the Saints…
Chapter 7 Dancing in the Attic
~~
Part Two New Orleans December 1932
Chapter 11 Speak When Spoken To
Chapter 12 Monster in the Closet
Chapter 14 Delusions in a Strange Bed
Chapter 15 Interrogating Humphrey
Chapter 16 The Hot and the Cold of It
Chapter 17 Nostalgia and the Blank Page
Chapter 18 The Way It Is in Rossington’s House
Chapter 22 …A Man When He’s Down
Chapter 32 Where Have All the Good Times Gone?
Chapter 33 Like Postcards from a Snake Pit
Chapter 37 Monsters with Eyes of Blue or Green
Chapter 40 The Last Night in New Orleans
Chapter 48 Flashes Before Your Eyes
Chapter 50 The Last Violent Business
Chicago
November 1932
Far from Home
Butch Cardinal stood in a rundown house in Chicago’s Southside, enduring a tedious and one-sided conversation with a man who would be dead in less than seven minutes. Since entering the ugly room with its stained and peeling lime green wallpaper, Butch had heard about sports, politics (both local and national), and the weather, which had taken a turn to the snowy earlier that evening. Normally Butch was an easygoing guy, even gregarious when the situation called for it, but this one didn’t. The talker was Lonnie Musante, a short and slender man with big ears, skin as white as milk and a single lopsided tooth that rose and fell like a guillotine behind the mushy curtains of his lips. He was an ugly little man, but Butch had seen worse in his day. Much worse.
Before settling in Chicago he’d scraped by doing wrestling exhibitions and strong man acts on the vaudeville and carny circuits. On those stages and in those tents, in the trucks and train cars, he’d interacted with variations of humanity: the pinheads and dwarves; living skeletons, all transparent skin and knobby bone; bloated and hirsute women; men with afflictions Butch could hardly describe. The most profoundly disturbing character he could remember was the geek, Despero. He was one-armed and had fashioned a set of teeth from tin. He kept them polished and they shone through his curtain of wild hair as he stalked whatever unfortunate creature—usually a chicken—the show’s captain chose to toss into his ring. With only one arm, Despero had taken to kicking and stomping his chickens into a daze before shooting out his bone-thin arm and grasping them by the necks. Then he’d smile his cold-tin smile and commence the atrocity his audience had paid to witness.
Butch preferred the work in Chicago, even though it was miles from the life he’d once lived—a life of real money and arenas and respect.
He’d been sent to Musante’s on business, a simple transaction that should have taken no more time than a handshake or a yawn, but the creep wouldn’t put a sock in it and finish up their business so the polite smile Butch had affixed to his mouth was growing tighter by the second.
“Why don’t you hand over that package now?” Butch asked.
“Don’t you never ask why?” Musante replied. The man stomped from one side of the room to the other as he spoke. He acted nervous, like he was expecting Butch to pull something. “I mean, you’re muscle for Moran.”
“I don’t work for Moran,” Butch said. He remained at his place by the door, hands in the pockets of his wool overcoat.
“You work for Powell, and Powell works for Moran, so you work for Moran.”
“Never met the man.”
“What the frosty fuck difference does that make? You think you only work for the people you know? You that much of a knucklehead?” Musante asked. He paused, waiting for an answer from Butch, who chose to remain silent. “Nah,” Musante continued, “you ain’t that much of a knucklehead. Even the things you don’t wanna know, you know. In this town you either work for the Italians or the Bug. Now me, I work for Impelliteri and that’s a straight line to Nitti, to Capone, but you’re tied up in the Bug’s crew, so don’t you never wonder why Powell would send you over here to make a pick up?”
Butch let his smile loosen a bit as he silently wished Powell had sent him over to crack the blabbermouth’s skull. It would have been quicker and the pain would have been on the other side of the conversation, but he knew better than to get rough with the member of a competing syndicate without orders. He left the real thug work, the blood work, to men who had sewn themselves deep into the gangland quilt. Butch wasn’t one of them. To his mind, he was a bouncer at Powell’s club, and the other duties—the errands, roughing up the occasional deadbeat—were just part of the job description. He didn’t need any trouble so he wouldn’t start any.