Butcher's Road Read Online Free

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.
     
     

Chapter 2
Wake Me When It’s Over
     
     
     
    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