Wrong Ways Down (2 page)

Not that he ain’t liked seeing dames without any clothes on. Coursen he did. Nothing prettier in the world than that. He just ain’t necessarily wanted pictures like that on his walls, ain’t necessarily liked having em all stare at him whenever he were in that room.

Bump paced up and down the floor, his gold toe-ring flashing with every other step. His cane leaned against the couch; he wore loose black pants and a blue button-front shirt, and his eyes were bloodshot. Looked like he’d been up all night celebrating something. Terrible wondered when he’d left his house last.

“Be Slobag, betting,” Bump said, without stopping he pacing. “Fuckin betting him behind this one, yay, tryna take heself over, gots he—”

“Naw.” Interrupting Bump wasn’t always the best idea, but he really ain’t wanted to see this one turn into an all-day tirade. There were lots of tirades could be had on Slobag—always tryna grab more territory from Bump, always tryna sneak past Forty-third, always causing trouble—but Terrible weren’t in the mood. Especially when he ain’t guessed this one was Slobag, at all. “Ain’t thinkin so. Thinkin be some else. Slick all cut up, dig, ain’t just were shot or whatany, like that kinda killing. Lookin like … like be personal, maybe. Or got some other reasoning’s behind it. An Slick ain’t work near the borders, neither. No reasoning I see why it’d be him them went for.”

“Maybe Slick be fuckin spyin.”

Terrible shrugged. “Know Slick gots heself a rep, likes the dames already got men, dig. Maybe one of them catch up to he. Ain’t be the first time he been in trouble over it.”

Bump waved his hand. “Maybe. Maybe you got it right, yay, got the fuckin recall now on that. Only I ain’t wanting counting Slobag the fuck out, yay, ain’t wanting fuckin forget on he. You give it the check-on, you get onna street.”

That one wasn’t too bad. Calmed down fast that time. Good thing, too, causen what Terrible was about to say wouldn’t make Bump happy. “Also … had the thinkin could be magic, dig. Them making sacrifices cut bodies up. Like be some ritual or whatany like that.”

“You just fuckin sat there gave me how it probably some fuckin dude ain’t liked Slick fucking he woman. Which one it fuckin be?”

“Just sayin, is all.” He pulled out a smoke and lit it up, spent a few seconds arranging the ashtray to give himself time to think how to put it. Damn it, he should have thought on it more in the car, gave himself time to get the words right. “Ain’t know which it is. Were thinkin … maybe oughta give Chess a ring-up, ask her take a look. Just for certain, dig.”

Silence. He kept staring at the red carpet, tryna pretend there were nothing more to his thought than wanting to make sure they had everything covered. Aye, that was the reason, true thing. He wouldn’t ask on bringing Chess in iffen he were certain what or who got Slick. But he knew Bump wouldn’t see it that way, not after some of the comments he’d made over the last month and a half. 

Sure enough, when he glanced up Bump was watching him, arms folded, leaning against his desk. “Thinkin be magic? Or thinkin be a fuckin excuse spend you some time with the ladybird?”

“Ain’t needing an excuse.” He shrugged as he said it, like it ain’t mattered. “Wouldn’t say iffen I ain’t think it could be something.”

Bump held out his hand. “Lemme have a look-see on them fuckin photos again.”

The camera sat in Terrible’s bag, at his feet. He dug it out and handed it over without meeting Bump’s eyes. Maybe he were wrong. The only evidence he had that it could be something to do with magic was his own suspicion. Maybe he
was
just wishing it causen it’d be a chance to see Chess more.

He already saw her a fuck of a lot more than he’d ever expected, or hoped. Almost every day. Never would have seen that one coming; iffen he’d been asked two months past he’d have said she may have been the prettiest dame he’d ever met but she seemed like one of the bitchiest too. But turned out she weren’t a bitch at all. She was fucking amazing, and iffen he could spend all his time with her he would. 

But he didn’t think that were why Slick’s death had him thinking. He just didn’t. Something on this one were setting off alarms in he mind, makin him feel like … like something was wrong. Something starting that weren’t good, wouldn’t end well.

Bump flipped through the images on the camera, the pictures Terrible had taken an hour or so before in the cooler. “Just looks like fuckin slices to me, yay? Come fuckin on, Terrible, you done worse damage than that you own fuckin self, you done, specially you lose you fuckin temper. You fuckin knowing that.”

“Aye.” He did know that, ceptin he ain’t lose he temper with knives, not since he were a kid. “Only, some of them patches missing, were thinking maybe were shit carved into he skin.”

“An now them fuckin gone. So what you fuckin think the ladybird gonna pick fuckin up offa that? Nothin to fuckin see is nothing to fuckin see, yay?”

Fuck. He ain’t thought on that one. Made sense, though. Chess were smart, real fucking smart. Had she all that school, and knew more than he could ever hope to. But aye, even she probably ain’t could figure on what magic might be used iffen there weren’t any evidence of it. And the body ain’t felt like aught were happening with it, neither; Terrible weren’t real good on all that, but he knew how he’d felt when everything went down at Chester Airport, and he ain’t felt anything like that with Slick’s body.

Maybe he
were
just wanting to get Chess involved so he could be with her. Maybe all he concerns were just bullshit made up for an excuse. “Just figured it ain’t hurt askin.”

Bump snorted. “Askin to get you some fuckin trouble, yay. Oughta fuckin know you better. Ain’t can trust a junkie.”

“You trust her.”

“Nay, I fuckin ain’t. Trust her do what I fuckin ask she doing, yay, causen her does it, her gets she needs, dig? Puts Bump in control. Only ain’t fuckin seein you given em to she, so ain’t can guess on why you givin she the fuckin trust you do.” 

He forced himself not to move. “Chess ain’t like that.”

“Yay, her is. Only you ain’t fuckin seein it, causen you wanting in she panties so fuckin bad, yay, gots you all crazed up—”

“Ain’t—”

“Don’t got the knowing why you ain’t just fuck she already, get you fuckin over you bullshit on it.”

Like it was that simple.

No point explaining, though. Explaining that he didn’t try because if she didn’t let him they’d both feel awkward and he wouldn’t get to see her anymore. He didn’t try because if she did let him—and she might, sometimes she looked at him a certain way or stood real close and he had the thought she just might—she’d run away from him as soon as they were done. He knew she would. She’d done it before. She’d done it that night, the night he couldn’t forget no matter how hard he tried. And he’d tried real fucking hard. No point explaining that she preferred her bedpartners first-name- and one-time-only.

So pretty much, he didn’t try because no matter if she let him or not, he wouldn’t get to see her anymore.

And definitely no point explaining how that would kill him. He’d already had a taste of what he were missing—that night, kissing her, her kissing him back—and it was fucking torture. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be to actually
have
her, to have her bare skin against his and her warm body under his, to touch her everywhere, kiss her everywhere … and then lose her. For good.

Bump must have seen something on his face. Or maybe it was just that Bump already knew all this; not in those exact words, aye, but enough had been said before. His expression changed, the sarcasm and irritation leaving. “Be fuckin careful, yay? Alls I meaning. Dig me that you and she got some fuckin friend thing on, her likin you and all that fuckin shit. Can see her fuckin does. Maybe you gots the right, there, yay. Her do got the knowing how to keep she fuckin mouth shut, her do.”

He shifted position, crossing his ankles in the other direction. “Only still wanting you bein fuckin careful. Gots some fuckin experience on this one, Terrible. Ain’t can trust a junkie, causen it fuckin comes down to you or them pills? Them takin the pills every fuckin time. Wishing it weren’t the fuckin truth, yay, I do, only it is. And ain’t wanting you fuckin get the hard find-out on it.”

H
E'D JUST SLAPPED
together a cold steak sandwich later that day when his phone rang. He checked the display. Not the street-man number, the one rang at one of Bump’s safe houses and got sent to him iffen it were important. Red Berta’s code popped up. Shit, that probably weren’t good. Red Berta handled Bump’s whores, decided where they’d go and when, trained em up, all that shit. The only time Terrible really dealt with em—beyond keeping an eye out, driving em iffen they needed it, that kinda shit—was when a problem happened. If Red Berta was calling, it meant a problem.

It was a problem. Red Berta’s voice, always so strong and clear from her days as a showgirl, sounded even harder. She was pissed, more pissed than Terrible thought he’d ever heard her. “You need to get over here now,” she said, cutting him off before he could even say anything. “One of the girls got attacked.”

Fuck. Before she’d finished the second sentence he was up, shoving on he boots and heading for the door. “Where you at?”

“My place.” Pause. “It’s bad, Terrible. Get here fast.”

Like he wouldn’t. He stepped on the Chevelle hard—fuck he loved that car—and pulled up at Red Berta’s place less than five minutes later.

She yanked her door open before he even got halfway up her front walk. Red Berta’s place were nicer than the others on her street; were relative, of course, but still. She weren’t missing as many shingles, her paint ain’t peeled as much, the wide front porch stretching across the length of her house only had a couple of broken and loose boards. 

One of them creaked under her foot as she stepped aside for him. “Took you long enough.”

He didn’t bother answering. He coulda been standing outside her house when she’d called and she still woulda said he took too long getting there. Red Berta had she some definite ideas on how shit should be, and she ain’t liked it much when things didn’t follow them ideas.

Besides, he couldn’t blame her being pissed. He weren’t too happy himself; he were tryna keep calm, and recall that sometimes Berta got all over herself over small shit, but …  “One of the girls got attacked” ain’t sounded small.

And it weren’t small. Berta led him through the fussy, multi-patterned house covered in pink fringe and fluffy dame shit to the back stairs, then up em and down the hall. The inside were nicer than outside, no peeling wallpaper or whatany like that. She took care of her place, she did.

She opened a door on the right and motioned him in, and he had to clamp his jaw hard, fold his arms tight over his chest. Talking loud, moving fast—like he wanted to do, fuck—might scare Clapper Sue, huddled on the bed under a blanket.

Bruises decorated her entire face, dark ones already turning yellowy at the edges. Her black hair tangled down one side and almost covered the eyes that were only slits in her puffy, swollen face.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Deep breath. Calm down. “When this happen?”

“Last night,” Berta said. The skin around her scars—she’d survived a ghost attack during Haunted Week—puckered, she were so mad.

What the fuck? Last—why the fuck was he only hearing on this now, why the—

Berta held up a hand; she must have seen what he was about to say. “She ain’t come back this morning, but sometimes she forgets to check in. We didn’t think anything was wrong because nobody told us she was missing, and then Leela found her an hour ago, in an alley off Cross. Fiftieth and Cross.”

Chess lived at Forty-seventh and Cross. He swallowed, shoved that thought to the back of his mind to worry on later, and pulled Berta back into the hall. Clapper Sue were watching him, watching both of em. Best to talk without her hearing for a minute. Shit. When he found the dude did that to her …  He couldn’t wait.

“What happened? What other girl she there with? What street-man?”

“She works with Alvia. They were on Ace, Fifty-ninth and Ace. So—”

“Last night? This last night, that where they were?”

She nodded.

Fuck. Meant the street-man should have been nearby was Slick Michigan. Slick, dead by the docks.

Maybe he
was
wrong. Maybe Slick got killed so somebody could attack Sue, an nothing to do with magic at all. “Alvia see the dude picked Sue up?”

“No. She was around the corner getting picked up by a customer. She was with him all night, which—”

“So nobody saw this dude. Nobody knows shit, cepting Sue in there.”

Berta shrugged. “I tried calling Slick, but didn’t get an answer. He never called in to say she wasn’t there, which is why we didn’t—”

“Slick’s dead.”

“Dead? What? Did they—you think they killed Slick to get at Sue?”

His turn to shrug. “Ain’t can say. Don’t know shit just now, aye? But awful fuckin lucky, Slick be gone an somebody come for Sue just then.”

“You want to talk to her?” Berta stepped back, gestured toward the open door.

Terrible glanced in. Sue still sat there with the blankets pulled up to she chin, looking like she expected somebody’d jump out of the shadows and hurt her. “She gonna want to gimme the tell? Maybe better you just say me, aye? She ain’t needing me in there—”

“Naw.” Sue’s voice, so soft and quiet, came through the doorway. “C’mon in here, Terrible, lemme say. Lemme tell you. Be all good, promising. You gimme you questionings, aye? Come on in.”