The Butcher #12: Killer’s Cargo

The Butcher #12: Killer’s Cargo, by Stuart Jason

September, 1974  Pinnacle Books

James Dockery returns to The Butcher after taking a few volumes off (his last one was #8: Firebomb), and he does the same thing he always does: he basically rewrites the first volume. At this point the “wash, rinse, repeat” nature of this series is insulting, that Dockery, series owner Script Associates, and publisher Pinnacle thought so little of their readers that they figured no one would notice that each volume of The Butcher was an echo of the one that came before. 

To wit, we’ll meet Bucher, aka Iceman, formerly known as The Butcher, in some unstated city as he’s being stalked by a pair of deformed Syndicate goons he used to know back in the day. He’ll kill them easily, get arrested due to all the shooting, and then be sprung, to the slackjawed amazement of the top cop who is about to throw the book at him. Then our hero will be briefed by the never-named White Hat Director on a Lear jet as it wings its way somewhere, usually Europe. Bucher will be informed of the latest globe-threatening plot that involves another of his former Syndicate pals. Bucher will investigate, usually a lovely female White Hat operator at his side. He’ll gradually find the time to engage that lovely female White Hat operator in some off-page lovin’, though Bucher will initially fend off her eager advances. Ultimately he’ll find himself either in Mexico or the Middle East, where the “goddamn crazy caper” will prove to have multiple strands, and also there will be the revelation that one of Bucher’s colleagues is actually working against him. Things will generally end on a grand guignol vibe, with the final scene taking place in a torture chamber or something similar. Also generally at this point Bucher will have to kill an evil woman, even though he’s “never killed a woman before.” And, of course, the final line will be a variation of “the bitter-sour taste of defeat,” as Bucher grimly walks off from this latest massacre…to go through it all again in the next volume. 

All of that is true for Killer’s Cargo, with only the most minor of deviations. For once Bucher does not go to the Middle East, but he does spend the entire second half of the novel in the jungles of Mexico. Otherwise it’s all here, even the “abritrary” pondering from Bucher that he’s never killed a woman before. All of it a complete lift/ripoff of previous volumes. It makes so little sense to me. How could a writer just do the same exact novel every single time – and how could the publisher not say anything about it? I guess Pinnacle just didn’t question it, as the series clearly sold enough to keep running through the ‘70s. Maybe Pinnacle figured their readers didn’t notice. But at this point I’d say that I like Death Merchant better than The Butcher. Hell, so far as Pinnacle publications go, I think I’d even say I like The Destroyer better, and that series bugs the hell out of me. 

About the only new thing this time is the cover art; gone are the sketch-like illustrations that previously graced the covers, replaced by staged photos. There was a photo cover on the second volume, but this new direction is a different design…and it must not have gone over well, as it only lasted a few volumes. I personally liked the sketch covers of the previous volumes; I thought the illustrations of Bucher perfectly captured the character, though I can see how they might have seemed repetitive, with Pinnacle concerned that readers might not be able to tell volumes apart. Hey, that just occurred to me – the covers of The Butcher were just as identical as the plots! But anyway, these photo covers are nice if for no other reason than that many years later they’d lead Zwolf to write, “Some of these books had a picture of a real guy on the cover instead of artwork.  Wonder what that guy's doing now.  Probably sitting in some nursing home telling people ‘I used to be the Butcher!’” For years and years now that line has popped into my head at the oddest of times and made me laugh. 

My favorite part of this series is always the opening, with Bucher being stalked by goons. It always gives the impression that James Dockery’s Syndicate is made up of inhuman freaks: they usually have “lizardlike tongues” and some physical abnormality, and of course they get off on killing people. The two this time aren’t as memorable as previous ones, but another notable thing about Killer’s Cargo is that for once Bucher goes up mostly against Syndicate freaks this time. Usually we just see them in the opening, and then Bucher will go off on his assignment. Bucher only kills a few people this volume, but all of his victims are Syndicate torpedos, all of them with either some physical deformity or some weird sexual kink, like Pierre, the guy who enjoys strangling women for a full hour. And as ever Bucher is familiar with all these guys from his past as a Syndicate bigwig himself; Dockery has never reconciled how Bucher was able to deal with these mutant freaks back in the day. Even though he too was a crook, it would appear that Bucher was always essentially good. 

Oh, and another recurring gimmick is that Bucher has a score to settle with one of these guys; in this case it’s Nick Ferroni, established early in the novel as being behind this latest plot. Bucher’s already vowed to kill the guy, given that Ferroni murdered a woman Bucher cared for, many years ago. So what is this latest plot? The usual series Maguffin; the White Hat Director informs Bucher of Professor Bruno von Kessler, a German scientist living in the US who has developed a tranquilizing gas called H(G) A-7. But Kessler and his daughter have gone missing – and it’s yet another recurring gimmick that the guy Bucher will be looking for has a hot daughter. In this case it’s Isabella von Kessler, and she will prove to be the novel’s main female character; she’s a hotstuff brunette Bucher first meets in Europe, though initially he thinks she’s an enemy. As ever Dockery doesn’t do much to exploit his female characters; Isabella’s most memorable physical quality is that “Maverick” is tatooed on her abdomen. 

Prior to Isabella, Bucher spends his time with Yvette, the template-mandatory lovely female White Hat operator Bucher meets in Paris. She’s a blonde of such beauty, with “full, ripe breasts,” that Bucher can’t stop staring at her. But again, Dockery is not one to exploit. Those “ripe breasts” are only infrequently mentioned, and even a seemingly-random bit where Bucher and Yvette visit a nude spa, Dockery does absolutely nothing to bring the sleaziness to life. Mostly Bucher just tells Yvette that the towel he carries with him isn’t just to hide his Walther P-38, but also to hide his, uh, tumescence. I think the adjective “jiggling” might be used here, but that’s about it – what I mean to say is, even though this blonde of gobsmacking beauty with an awesome bod is fully and completely nude as she walks around a Parisian spa, the reader could come into the scene late and not even be aware of it, for Dockery does precious little to exploit the situation. Indeed, one almost gets the impression that the nudity and “girl stuff” has just been added due to editorial pressure. 

And, par for the series template, when Bucher does get down to it with his female colleauges, Dockery leaves the entirety of the event off-page. It’s not with Yvette, though; Bucher’s attracted to her, but as usual is all business and fends off her open interest. Then he takes off for Mexico, leaving Yvette in Paris…and ends up with Isabella. She is Bucher’s comrade during the majority of the text, traveling with him in a Land Rover through the jungles of Mexico. She also soon begins throwing herself at him, even though initially she’s afraid he will “molest” her. But the tomfoolery is not at all described, and again seems like Dockery catering to a requirement. But pretty much the entire second half of Killer’s Cargo is comprised of Bucher and Isabella driving through the jungle, with intermittent action scenes – usually just Bucher quickly and easily dispatching some Syndicate goon who is involved with Ferroni’s plot. 

Another recurring element of The Butcher is the reliance on exposition. It becomes especially grating this time, with Bucher, Isabella, Ferroni, and others baldly expositing; the impression given is that Dockery paints himself into such a corner, with his endless spiral of plots, counterplots, and reversals, that his characters have to exposit in order to make sense of it all. So that’s true here, with Bucher working his way through a variety of underworld thugs who give him a progressive breakdown of the plot. And of course along the way Bucher will find out someone else is really behind it all, someone with a goofy code name; this time it’s the mysterious “Number One.” The veteran reader of the series will already know where this is headed when Bucher demands “Who is he?” when grilling some thugs on Number One’s identity, and the thugs look confused…the veteran Butcher reader, of course, will deduce from this that Number One isn’t a “he” at all. Plus, Bucher always ends up taking on a female villain, even though the series reset at the start of each volume causes him to forget this. 

No spoilers, but this volume does detour from the template in that Bucher does not kill that female villain; another character does, in ghoulish fashion, strapping her to a torture chair with an iron collar. But yes, that part of the template is in place – the torture chamber-set finale. Speaking of female characters, poor Isabella gets raped by a few Syndicate thugs in the last quarter, the event occurring off-page…and happening, of course, because Bucher’s left Isabella by herself. Every time Bucher leaves a female acquaintance she suffers miserably, but again the series reset causes Bucher to forget this. Well anyway, Bucher’s attempt at consoling Isabella comes off as unintentionally humorous in our #metoo era, given how unfeeling it is: “Don’t think about it and it’ll go away. You’ll forget about it time.” When Isabella starts to cry over the situation, Bucher scolds her, “You’re not the first woman ever to be forced.” To which Isabella responds, “Damn other women!...Do you know the definition of gangbang?” 

Compared to this sort of insanity, the climax itself is almost forgettable. As mentioned it features a villainous female character choked to death by an iron collar, and then another of the villains, crazed by the H(G) A-7 gas, trying to go after Bucher. But at this point my enthusiasm for the whole thing was at a complete nadir. Even the recurring final line (“The bitter-sour taste of defeat strong in his mouth”) did little to flag my spirits. I felt that I’d read this same sequence, or at least a variation of it, several times already. Perhaps Dockery’s intent was that the reader would feel as benumbed as Bucher by this Groundhog Day-esque repetition of events, volume after volume, but for me personally it made me question if I should wait even longer between volumes. At this point the repetition is just getting old.