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

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.
    In New Orleans, he could get his feet under him. He’d have time to think through his situation. He had enough money for a train ticket and maybe enough to get him through a few days in a cheap flop.
    It wasn’t much. It was all he had.
    • • •
     
    At the train station, he bought a ticket for the Pan-American line. Then he sat on a bench and nearly fell asleep. He’d exhausted himself crossing town from the empty house. His chest felt heavy and his head felt light. The train wouldn’t be leaving for hours. In the men’s room Butch cleaned up a second time, grateful for the hot water that scalded the chill from his fingers and cheeks. His suit looked worse in full light. He might as well have been one of the bums curled on the benches of the station. Unshaved. A filthy bandage over his ear. He admitted that vanity was a peculiar thing to worry about, but he’d spent his life running from the little boy with ripped trousers and smears of mud on his knees, and now that same little boy peered from the mirror at him. Butch left his reflection, left the men’s room, and bought a newspaper from the stand. He took a bench. His nose ran and his head throbbed. The chill he’d felt for days now radiated outward, rather than in. Opening the paper, he searched for his name, and more importantly a picture. He found both on page seven, and though initially the sight of himself staring from the page startled him unpleasantly, he realized the photo the papers had rounded up was more than seven years old. He hadn’t even had a mustache then, and the young man with the pronounced muscles, striking a threatening pose, looked so little like the ragged man he’d left at the toilet mirror Butch felt relieved.
    He folded the paper and then he relented and made his way to the bank of phones at the back of the station. He had a call to make, a call he had been putting off.
    After telling the