Butcher's Road by Lee Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
     
     

Chapter 6
Out on a Rail
     
     
     
    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