The Button Man and the Murder Tree by Cherie Priest

Author:Cherie Priest [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Story, Shared World
Publisher: Tor
Published: 2013-05-15T07:00:00+00:00

On the way home, sitting on the El and watching the city lights streak past, Raul thought about calling Moe tonight and getting it over with. He couldn’t ask too many questions or make too many demands—no, not even him—but he and Moe were tight enough that he could risk a query or two. Of course, Moe might not know the particulars. Galante sometimes played it close to the chest—closer than the old boys, who’d known Moe better and knew how far they could trust him.

So he didn’t call. Besides, like he’d told Benny: Moe was an early riser. Early risers tend to be cranky when their phones ring at 2:00 a.m.

And later that morning, Raul awoke to a ring that summoned him to Moe Shapiro’s office.

Moe’s office was in a nice building on a nice side of the city. Not too flashy—that wasn’t his style. Tasteful and full of books, like a lawyer or a head-shrinker, except Moe’d actually read them all. Once over drinks, he’d told Raul that when he was a kid, his fellow upstart gangsters made fun of him for having a library card. He laughed it off, and kept on reading, and now he sat on top of a big pile of money—the last man left of the old guard. He’d been in the racket since the twenties, when he was one of the new guys who’d taken the game away from the big guys with narrow visions.

Behind his back, people called him “Shorty” or “Specs,” and he didn’t care. He was short and he wore glasses. He knew it as well as anybody. You could rib him if you liked, so long as you kept it friendly and left out anything about him being a Jew. He knew that too, obviously. But he’d be damned if he’d let anybody use it against him.

“What can I do for you, Moe?”

A brunette secretary hustled out of the way and left the two men alone together. The door closed behind her with a click. The button man took off his hat. Moe Shapiro gestured at a stuffed leather chair. “Thanks for coming, Raul. Can I get you a drink?”

“No thanks.”

Moe poured out a dollop for himself, something much nicer than what Sammy’d last sipped, decanting it from a big crystal jug into a matching glass. While he worked, Raul pulled out a cigarette and lit it off a pack of matches he’d picked up at a hotel in Phoenix. “I heard the news about Ricca,” Moe said as he slid a brown ashtray toward his companion’s elbow. It wasn’t as nice as the glass because Moe didn’t smoke.

“Shame about that.”

“Always is. I heard they picked him up in an alley.”

“That’s right,” the button man said. And before Moe could ask, he added, “He had a wife and kids. Life insurance, you know how it is.”

Moe nodded, but it was sometimes hard to read him. “You think Elaine knew what he was up to?”

“No. That’s why Sammy didn’t take a bath.

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