WRONG WAYS DOWN

A Downside Story (1.5)

by Stacia Kane

To all of you, because you asked for it.

CHAPTER ONE

TERRIBLE HAD SEEN a lot of dead bodies in his life. He’d created a lot of dead bodies in his life, done a lot of damage to living ones. Were part of his job; being Bump’s chief enforcer meant he watched over a lot of things, collected a lot of debts, handled a lot of problems. Meant a lot of people got hurt. Usually not him.

But he’d only a few times seen a body like the one in front of him now, flesh torn and frozen into jagged chunks, covered in blood turned to ice. Slick Michigan, one of Bump’s street-dealers.

What was left of him, leastaways. He were barely recognizable: sliced to shit, with nothing but bloody holes in he chest and stomach, between his legs. His throat was slit. His skin were shredded.

That was part of the problem. Terrible knelt by the body to get a closer look. Had somebody chopped Slick up like that, or had animals got to him? There were plenty around. Not just dogs and cats, neither. Never could tell what might come outen an alley, especially where they were, near the docks. Dock people kept all kinda shit as pets; hell, he wouldn’t be surprised to find some of them had been eating off Slick. Terrible hated being by the docks.

He scanned the streets over and over, watched the windows of the buildings nearby, ready to move fast if he saw even a shadow. The barrel of his gun dug into his side; usually he left it in the car, but on the border streets, or the docks …

“What you thinking?” Roley stood on Slick’s other side, shifting from foot to foot. Anxious. Terrible guessed he couldn’t blame him. The sight of Slick ain’t exactly made him feel good, neither, even if they weren’t where they were. “Like a pack of dogs got he, aye?”

Terrible shook his head. “Somebody had a knife. Slit he throat. But the rest … ain’t know.”

He stood up. “Get he packed up, dig, take he to the cooler. Let Bump get a look in.”

He weren’t thinking just of Bump having a look, though, were he? No. He weren’t. Which made sense. Got a mutilated body, it made sense to have a witch look at it. Even if there weren’t any real obvious magic drawn on it or cut into it. Aye, some people mutilated bodies for fun, but some did it for other reasons. The wrong reasons, using wrong magic.

So it made sense to think maybe he oughta give Chess a ring-up, see was she busy, if she minded having a look. He hated to do it to her, since Slick ain’t exactly looked pretty, but still. Made sense.

Made sense to step back as Roley and Winchuk started moving Slick’s body, too. An unburied body were like a magnet for a ghost, or could be. Chess taught him that; well, he’d always thought it were true, but she’d confirmed it. Sometimes they’d try coming back from the City of Eternity underground, getting back into they bodies. Why them had to be buried so fast, burned so fast. Were why he made sure them at the Crematorium got their money every month, right on time, so bodies could get dropped off there and taken care of.

Just then he ain’t felt that kind of … unease, like he’d learned he felt when ghosts were around. Good thing, too. But he still didn’t like the look of that body, and he still thought it were best to check with Bump and get the aye to bring Chess in.

Had nothing to do with wanting a reason to spend more time with her. Nothing at all. Just doing he job.

And now he job was to learn what happened to Slick, and why. Slick’s clothes weren’t on him or nearby, and he wallet weren’t around anywhere Terrible could see, so he guessed it coulda been robbery. That ain’t seemed to fit right, though. Somebody killing to steal ain’t usually spent time there slashing up their victims.

Slick had only been dead half a day at most; he picked up he product the night before just like he ought but ain’t showed up that morning to turn in he earnings. So no more than fifteen hours, and long enough to freeze solid, or at least for he skin to freeze solid, causen he might just be so stiff from being dead.

He’d died sometime during the night, was all Terrible knew. Figuring shit like that weren’t what he done best; well, figuring any shit weren’t what he done best, was it?

A small crowd had started forming, attracted—he guessed—by the sight of him, Roley, and Winchuk. Maybe attracted by the body, now the the sun were up so it was visible in through the tall weeds where it lay.

But a crowd in the docks never were a good thing. He knew enough of the dock-people not to be worried. Knew what to do if they started getting too close, if it started looking like they realized they outnumbered him. But he ain’t exactly wanted to do it, so better to just get out clean.

And try figuring why Slick were up in that part of town to start with. He worked Fifty-ninth, nowhere near the docks. No reason for him being up there, where most of the buildings ain’t even had roofs and most of the walls were more like piles of rubble. No place in Downside looked real nice or clean, but the docks … like a world alone, up there, a cold and real hard one.

He gave Roley and Winchuk the nod to lift the body. No blood. A little on the grass and trash under it, but looked like it smeared off the body rather than running into it from the wounds. None soaked into the dirt. Slick ain’t been killed there, then. Just dumped there.

He looked at the little crowd. “Anybody hear aught? See anything?”

Heads shook all around. Shit. Were what he expected, but still shit.

A dame stepped forward, her skin as pale as Slick’s from cold and lack of sun. Terrible ain’t felt the cold much neither—and even if he did he wouldn’t have showed it—but he couldn’t imagine how that dame weren’t shivering so hard she could barely stand. Barely dressed at all, she was, just wrapped inna dirty blanket scrap with holes for her arms, tied around her waist with a blue ribbon. Bright blue, only barely smudged with dirt. Like she tried keeping it clean and nice, tried making herself pretty the only way she could. Something about it made sadness echo in his chest.

Specially since there wasn’t shit he could do on it, not really. He’d slip her some cash for her knowledge, but it wouldn’t go past her next meal, maybe whatever man she gave herself to; no woman went alone on the docks. Not even a tough little one like this one, standing straight and ignoring the cold.

Then he looked a little closer and saw part of the reason why she ain’t felt the cold, leastaways. Her pupils were hardly visible, just tiny black dots practically spinning in her eyes.

“Be Unk’s place, there,” she said, in such a high, squeaky voice he almost expected dogs to start howling. Her bony arm stretched out, her bony finger pointing at the paper-covered window—weren’t even a real window, just an irregular hole knocked in the brick wall—next to where Slick’s body had been. “Could be Unk see or hearn aught, could be, you asking he.”

Terrible turned, stared at the window-hole. Whoever Unk were, he were likely watching now. He’d come out in a minute, when he saw them all looking, saw Terrible looking. Least Terrible hoped he would. He’d heard Unk’s name before, and them at the docks seemed to respect the dude. Terrible didn’t want to have to go in after him.

And he didn’t have to. After a minute or so—a minute or so in which Terrible unfolded his arms, straightened his back, lowered his chin, making the threat more clear—the tied-together battered slats of wood that worked as a door opened, and Unk stepped out onto he front walk.

Old and skinny, bundled in scraps of burlap and fur that looked like dog. A bright green stocking cap covered his head all the way down to his eyes. Bright, aware eyes. Unk had seen something, aye he had.

“Dumped he here roundabout darktide,” he said. “Darktide, it were, hearing me a car, an gave me a peek. Fast peek, ain’t watching long. No headlights. No moonlights. Ain’t seed it much. But hearing me a voice. Man voice. Hearing the trunk close.”

He looked at Slick’s corpse, or what there were of it, wrapped in plastic hangin between Roley an Winchuk. “Hearing a thud. Car drives off.”

Terrible nodded his thanks. “Drive off fast? Only one voice?”

“One voice. No tires squealin or whatnot.” Unk bowed. “Be all.”

Terrible nodded again. So two people—only one talked, aye, but who’d he be talking to iffen he were on his alones?—dumped Slick there at low tide, which would be just before dawn if he had his knowledge right. Which maybe he ain’t, of course. He’d have to check.

And whoever it was doing the dumping either figured he weren’t seen, or ain’t gave a fuck iffen he was, causen he ain’t bothered to take off fast.

Which sounded like it were planned, not panicked. People panicked and killed somebody, they were terrified of being seen and caught. They fucked up, made mistakes, ran around tryna hide. But people who planned murders, they didn’t worry so much. They studied, hunted around for places to dump the body, set on times to do it when almost nobody be up to see or hear.

Meant good chances they knew the docks, too, knew how the dock-people had theyselves such a superstition about darktide. Bad luck, so they thought. They ain’t gone out during it. They ain’t liked it when the tide came in, neither, but then Terrible felt the same way. The air felt weird when the tide come in, like charged with electricity.

Weren’t the time to start thinking on it. Unk had already gone back inside, so Terrible pulled two twenties from his wallet and held them out to the woman. She stepped forward like she were walking on jagged glass, every step real hesitant and scared, and tugged them out of his hand from arm’s length.

Terrible tipped his head toward Unk’s house, seeing the paper over the window gapped on the side. So Unk were watching, would know he had lashers coming. “Pass he one, dig?”

The dame nodded.

Behind her the crowd started shifting. Time to get gone. He could stay longer, aye, but better to save that for when he needed it. Best thing to do in that part of town was get in fast, get out fast. Hand out a few lashers or a few broken bones, depending; enough of both so they didn’t forget who he was.

He gave Roley and Winchuk the nod to toss the body into the back of the truck, and watched them get in the cab theyselves. Time to go.

Time to start trying to find out who killed Slick Michigan, and more importantly why.

Bump’s annoyance came through loud and clear when Terrible walked into the red living room. Always hurt his eyes a little at first, afore he got used to it. He weren’t real happy with the pictures on the walls, neither, dames with their legs spread and all, but weren’t his place to say on it. He just tried not to pay em too much attention.

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.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE'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.”

Beaten. Raped. Drugged. Left in an alley on the freezing ground. Just thinking on it made his breath come hard. Finding them who killed Slick were important, something he needed to do. Finding who attacked Clapper Sue, that were more than important. That were something he were dying to do, something his entire fucking body were tight with the need to do.

Sue ain’t had any real knowledge for him, though. Dude in a light-colored sedan picked her up, drove into an alley, then started punching. Did what he wanted to her, took back the money, shoved a needle in her arm and the next thing she knew she were waking up with Leela standing over she. She ain’t known the dude and ain’t had a good description of he, causen they all looked the same.

The only good knowledge she had for him was that Slick had been there when she got to her corner. About an hour in—so maybe ten o’clock—he said he’d be right back, wandered off down Ace, and ain’t returned. He’d been gone maybe half an hour, she said, when she got picked up. So Slick made it to the street, leastaways. Terrible weren’t sure how much good knowing that did him, but he figured at that point knowing anything were lucky.

Had Slick been killed right away, or had he done something else first? He ain’t should have just wandered off like that, no, but it weren’t unusual; not the first time he’d been caught heading off to spend fifteen minutes with some dame when he oughta been working. Dealers weren’t there specifically to keep an eye on the whores, but being a dealer meant he were supposed to stay on he corner. People got to know who were there and when, who they wanted to deal with. Were the dealers’ job to keep an eye on shit, too, make sure everything were right, and they had to know their street to do it. Had to be there if aught went down so’s they could call it in. If Bump and Terrible ain’t had knowledge on everything going on, they could get fucked real fast.

Which was part of the reason why Terrible stood in the alley where Leela found Sue, getting ready to walk across the street and start asking people iffen they saw or heard anything. He doubted any would, but he had to ask. And he ain’t had a lot of time to do it in. Were three o’clock already. It’d start being darker soon.

In fact, were only a couple of days past what Chess said were the longest night of the year. That used to be called Christmas, he thought, before Haunted Week and the Church of Real Truth and religions being illegal; he had a couple memories of that, vague recalls on colored lights and people wearing red suits ringing bells. Very vague. He weren’t even certain they were real. But he knew Christmas used to be just before the year changed, and that were only a few days on, so he figured that were it.

He’d be with Amy on New Year’s, leastaways that were the plan. But with it looking like somebody were out there killing street-men and attacking whores, he maybe wouldn’t be doing aught but hunting em down. Probably best not to mention that to Amy, though, till he was certain.

And best not to stand there in the cold thinking on any of it. Had he work needed doing.

He studied the buildings around the alley. It looked like any other alley in Downside, any other street: broken windows, graffiti, crumbling bricks, litter and shards of glass strewn over the cracked cement. Not a single eye peered out of any of the holes in the walls or from behind any corners, but he knew they were there. Knew they’d all gone and hid when he parked outside. They ain’t knew why he was there, and nobody wanted to take the chance it was because of them.

He leaned against his car and thought for a second. Wayne Oldham lived on the top floor directly across the street, and Wayne had a few owes. Nothing big, only a couple hundred or so, but enough to start a conversation.

Wayne was also an asshole. An asshole who knew a lot of other assholes, and an asshole who needed to be handled in a particular way, which was just fine with Terrible because thinking on what had happened to Sue made his vision narrow, and he wouldn’t mind at all getting to beat somebody down.

And Wayne was home. He opened the door, his eyes too-wide with fake innocence. Like he ain’t fucking knew he owed money. “Terrible,” he said. “Nice—”

Terrible closed his fist around Wayne’s throat. Tight, and hard. “Fifty. Gimme fifty now, an I ain’t break any bones.”

He gave Wayne a few seconds to think about it, watching his face turn an interesting shade of purple. The darker it got, the more eager Wayne would be to talk.

When Wayne’s eyes started rolling back Terrible let him go. Wayne crumpled to the floor, coughing and gasping like an engine ain’t wanted to keep running. Terrible ignored the sound. He reached down to grab Wayne’s arm, yank him back to his feet, and hustled him into his shitty apartment.

Looked like every other junkie’s place—almost every other junkie’s place. Wayne was a banger, though. Used needles. Not like Chess. Different thing. Totally different. Bloody tissues littered the floor, along with charred spoons, balloon shreds, matches and tiny bits of cigarette filter. The ashtrays overflowed.

Terrible saw the woman before she moved. Easy. He sidestepped, swinging his arm—the arm holding Wayne—to the right as he did, putting Wayne’s scrawny shoulder in the way of the woman’s blow. The crack the bat made when it hit Wayne’s bone—might even have broke it, from the sound, and from Wayne’s shriek—seemed to echo in the almost-empty room. Coursen it was almost empty. Wayne had sold anything he could.

Damn it. He hated having to do this with dames. He dropped Wayne and grabbed her by the back of the neck, pushing down so first her knees, then her forehead hit the floor. Both she and Wayne were screaming. Fucking annoying.

He knelt between them, keeping his hold on the back of her neck and doing the same to Wayne, leaning forward so his weight pushed both their faces into the dirty floor. “What money you got?”

“Got no,” Wayne said. Hard to understand him, since he were talking into the thin carpet. “Sorry, sorry, got no, waitin on … Louann here, she gonna get me some, she gonna … gonna earn us some … ”

Aw, fuck. He gave them both another hard shove into the floor, tightened his fists. Their necks were so fucking stringy and skinny in his hands. “How? How’s she earning it?”

Wayne apparently realized he’d said the wrong thing. “She … she … ”

“Aye? What?”

“Only be a couple dudes we knowing,” the dame—Louann—said. Squeaked, more like. “Wanted it from me, them did, not from just any dame. Them ain’t be paying for it any elsewheres, true thing them ain’t.”

“Maybe—maybe she coming work for Bump.” Wayne tried and failed to lift his head so he could look at Terrible. “Maybe she work off my owings. Maybe you wanna take she off inna bedroom, give she a try? Be—”

Terrible shifted his weight, pressed his knee into the dame’s back so he had a free hand. He needed it to smash into Wayne’s face. Which he did, with a satisfying crunch of bone. Fucker. What kind of man whored his woman like that, ain’t even checked with her first?

And as if he had even the faintest interest in that dirty, ragged, starved sack of bones under his knee, with her broken teeth and bruises. Even if he needed to take a whore to his bed, he wouldn’t be interested. Bump’s whores were clean, and most of em were pretty, and he could have any one of them he wanted any time he wanted, for free.

He never did, but he could. He weren’t so desperate he needed to jump whatany dame waved it in his face. Specially not one like this one.

“You knowing how this goes,” he said, loud so they could both hear him over their wails. “Money, or knowledge. Which you got?”

“Knowledge on what?” Louann asked.

He lessened the pressure on their necks. Not a lot, but a little. Let them think he were thinking on it, trying to come up with something they could maybe give him, so it wouldn’t seem so important.

He counted to fifteen in his head, nice and slow, then said, “Last night. ’Cross the street there. Had we a robbery happen. You hear any on it? Heard anything last night, round one?”

Silence. Fuck. They was trying to come up with a lie to give him, he bet. The longer them paused the bigger the lie would be. Always worked that way.

“Heard screams,” Louann said. “Lotsen em. Shouts an screamin.”

Just as he’d figured on. Bullshit. He’d play along. Maybe they’d let slip something he could use just the same. “What kinda screaming?”

“Like a argument,” Wayne said. “Like threats an all.”

“Who it was? You hear who? Any names or aught like that?”

“Just some dudes, some dames. Dudes saying ‘Gimme the money,’ an the dames screaming, they was, big loud screams.”

“Aye,” Louann said. “Heard on that, an were afraid to look outen the window, aye? Figured were maybe Slobag’s men like afore—”

“What?”

Louann tried to twist her head to look at him. It didn’t really work. He just caught the side of one bloodshot eye rolling in its socket. “Slobag’s men, like two days past, were onna street tryna load off some bags, dig me? So figured on you hearing on it, maybe them coming back.”

What the fuck. Slobag’s men there? At Fiftieth?

He bet they used them fucking tunnels again. No matter how many times he chained up them doors, tried cementing em closed, bricked em over … they kept fucking getting em back open.

And not much else he could do on it. Slobag’s men knew those tunnels too well. Be too hard to fight em down there, leastaways just then it would. So he and Bump let em have their little tunnels, seeing as how all they ever did with em was sneak around and annoy. Bump had enough spies over there that he and Terrible’d know iffen those tunnels was gonna be used to start up a battle. Until then, better to just let em think they had one over.

But iffen they was going to start tryna use them for doing business … shit. “An you ain’t said shit on this? Ain’t told any street-men or any else?”

Wayne whimpered; Terrible realized his grip had tightened, harder than he meant it to. He loosened it some, so Wayne could talk again. “Sorry … sorry, ain’t thought—we just ain’t thought on it, were all, was … busy usselves was, see, us busy.”

Busy. Bullshit. Were holding on to the knowledge, he bet, knowing they had owes and that he’d be around to collect. Or maybe they was just too fucking dumb to think on it. Were possible. They both were idiots.

And they both smelled. He wanted to take himself another shower after this, after touching them. Chess always carried baby wipes with her. He figured he’d look like a pussy iffen he did the same, but times like this he maybe didn’t care so much.

“Be the first time they down there, two days past?”

“First I knowing.” Wayne’s breath stirred the dust on the carpet. “Ain’t can say sure, I ain’t can.”

Coursen he couldn’t. Probably spent so much time on the nod he ain’t known one day from another. “Any buy offen em? Any talking to em?”

“Ain’t can say on that neither,” Wayne said. “I ain’t bought any, an they leaving fast then. Ain’t looked out the window last night, I ain’t.”

So maybe them weren’t lying on having heard something. Still didn’t mean what they heard had any to do with Sue, though. Coulda been just a street-fight. Coulda been Slobag’s men, aye, he guessed, but he figured iffen fighting started he’d have heard on it, somebody woulda given him a ring-up.

And that were all shit he’d have to worry on later. “You keep yon ears open, dig? Iffen you hear aught, you give me it. Nobody else, just me, aye?”

They both nodded. Well, nodded as much as they could, with their heads pressed into the floor.

“I come back soon, you have the lashers for me. At least fifty. Ain’t playin here. You owe, you pay. Dig?”

More nods. He’d believe that one when he saw it. He’d already put Wayne in a cast once, a year and a half or so past. Since then he’d been good on paying, mostly, but he’d started slipping again. “Ain’t gonna keep givin you the chances, Wayne. Don’t make me get mad, aye?”

He let go of their necks and stood up fast, pushing himself back as he did so he hit the doorway before they started to get up. Fuck. The last thing he needed was Slobag getting he nose in this, but when had the world gave a fuck what he needed?

CHAPTER THREE

CHESS AIN'T LOOKED like she were home; her car weren’t outside, and he didn’t see any lights on in her place, neither. Fuck. Hadn’t seen her in two days now. Were dumb keeping track, but it were still true. And he was edgy and pissed off—weren’t unusual, to be fair—and … would be cool to see her, was all. Even only for a while, cause he were seeing Amy that night.

And he were gonna see Bump, too, but not for half an hour or so. To kill the time he wandered in the Market. He had a large number of quiet snitches—he guessed they weren’t really snitches, since they talked only to him and he sure as fuck weren’t no cop—but they gave him what knowledge they had, mostly on where he might find whoever had some owes that day, but sometimes on other shit too. Shit he might could use. He’d find a few of em there, and from there he could maybe head out and find more, see what was being said.

Unfortunately he found out what was being said almost as soon as he got to the Market. He’d headed for Edsel’s booth, thinking there was a chance Chess might be there, but she weren’t. He liked Edsel, though. Got to know him a little better, hanging out with Chess, and liked him.

And Ed heard on everything. Maybe causen everybody liked him, maybe causen he were so good at being quiet, maybe causen he wife had she one of the biggest families Terrible ever knew of. Whatany reason for it, though, he did.

“Hey, Terrible,” Ed said, as Terrible walked up to the booth. The front table was covered in magic shit; Terrible even knew what some of it were now, iron and bones and little bottles of blood. “You right?”

Terrible nodded. “You?”

“Aye, be all good, all right up.” Edsel leaned forward some, holding he hat with one hand while he glanced around. Least Terrible figured he were glancing around, seeing as how Ed wore them dark glasses to protect his eyes. “Hear we maybe got weselves a ghost problem hereabouts.”

“What?” A ghost? Where the fuck that came from?

“A ghost, aye? Killed a street-man, I’m hearing. An one of Bump’s dames get attacked, too. Be true?”

No point lying on it. “Street-man dead, aye, an aye a whore got robbed an all. But no ghosts. Ain’t even magic, lookin like.”

Edsel shrugged. “Ain’t what word I’m getting, dig. Galena got she a sister lives on Ace, said she neighbor say she saw a ghost out there on the last night, right by Slick.”

What the fuck? A ghost killed—no, no, couldn’t be. Ghosts couldn’t talk, and Unk said he’d heard them dumped the body talking. Or at least a dude talking. Couldn’t be a ghost alone. Ghosts ain’t could drive, neither, least not what he knew. Oughta ask Chess on that one. But he ain’t see any ectoplasm on Slick, nothing that said might be a ghost.

Especially if it were true Slick got killed so somebody could get at Sue. Definitely weren’t a ghost attacked her.

“Weren’t a ghost,” he told Edsel. “Slick got dumped by a car, dude driving it talked an all. Weren’t a ghost. Got somebody looked out a window, ain’t seen a ghost neither.”

“Only sayin what I hear. Ain’t just Galena’s sister neighbor sayin it, neither. Be all over. Hear it more’n a few times this day, dig?”

Fuck. The last thing he needed was people getting all fucking scared thinking be a ghost loose in Downside. Make people more fucked-up than they was already.

“Ain’t a ghost,” he said again. “You tell em, aye? Just some fucker gonna get heself killed when I’m finding him. Be plenty in it for anybody gives me a name, dig, you tell em.”

“Aye, pass it on, I will.” But he ain’t looked convinced at all, not what Terrible could see. “The girl … she be right? Ain’t hurt bad?”

“Not too bad.” That was a lie, and he hated telling it. Sue’d been hurt bad. The kind of bad that ain’t ever could be forgotten.

But that were her business, hers alone, lessin she decided she wanted it told. Weren’t his place to pass that on, so he wouldn’t; far as any would hear from him or Bump or any Bump’s people, Sue got beaten up and that was it.

Then, without him even meaning them to, the words slipped out. “Seen Chess?”

Ed smiled a little. Fuck. Shoulda kept his mouth shut. Bad enough people had seen what happened that night he tried to forget. Bad enough they’d asked him on it, and he’d had to say nothing happened and nothing were happening, and say it hard enough that they knew they better not talk on it again to anybody. Bad enough he got shit already, and who he got it from. Not that Ed would give him any, but still. “Ain’t today, nay. On the yesterday she stopping by, but ain’t stayed long. Figuring she score, she take off. Oughta give she a ring-up, you ought.”

No, he wouldn’t do that. If she weren’t home she could be working, and he didn’t want to bother her.

He shrugged, like it ain’t mattered. “If people thinking be a ghost, had the thought maybe I oughta ask her on it, is all.”

“Aye, I dig, be a good thought.” Ed nodded. But that knowing look ain’t left his eyes, and Terrible’s neck started getting warm. He reached up to try and rub the heat away, but he knew it wouldn’t work.

Ed made it even worse when he said, “I see she, I say you looking?”

“Naw, naw. I just catch she some other time, aye? No need to say on it.” That sounded like something some dumb fucking kid would say. Like he were tryna hide. “Ain’t need to bother, is all.”

Edsel paused. “She gave me the ask when I seen she yesterday, dig. Iffen you around. So guessing she be glad hearin from you.”

Terrible didn’t know what to say to that. Weren’t really a surprise. Chess was, he guessed, his friend. She thought of him as her friend. Why wouldn’t she ask on him? She rang him up sometimes, too, or texted him to see what was he up to. Ain’t meant shit. Or, ain’t meant what he wished it did.

“Aye, well,” he said finally, causen Edsel looked like he were waiting for him to speak, “guessing I talk to her later. No worryin on it, aye? Just get that word out, iffen you ain’t minding. No ghost, what I got. Just some dude, an I wanna find he.”

He pulled another twenty out of his pocket. Tryna give lashers to Ed were always tricky; he’d take it after he done something but never wanted to take it before, and never would take too much neither. But it were always worth the try. “Here. For the help.”

For a second he thought Ed would give him the no, and started thinking what to say next, but Ed took it. “Thanks. Do what I can do.”

Terrible gave him a nod, lifted a hand to say bye, and left. Hopefully that’d make a difference. Hopefully the ghost rumor ain’t would take on any momentum, because he really, really didn’t need that shit in the middle of everything else. Five years or so past there’d been a ghost scare in Downside—before Chess moved in—and it had been a huge fucking mess. No ghost, just a story started by Slobag to make trouble, but it’d taken he and Bump weeks to get everyone calmed the fuck down.

People started thinking on ghosts in town, made em start wondering why Bump ain’t protecting em. People started wondering why Bump ain’t protecting em, made em wonder what else Bump couldn’t do. Fighting with Slobag they expected. Fighting with ghosts they didn’t, and making them doubt Bump’s control led noplace good.

So he needed to get that shit stopped right away.

And hope to fuck it weren’t true.

He ain’t minded the cold, or the dark, but it did make shit harder. Finding people on the street weren’t as easy, and not as many people out there who might try starting shit with him he could finish. And fuck how he wanted to finish something just then, when Bump’s anger still made him tight inside. And fuck, wasn’t he glad he got the chance; third name on he list were home.

He flexed his fingers, stretching them, before curling them into a fist and slamming them into Sharp-Eye Ben’s face again. Ain’t should have felt good doing it, but it did.

And it helped him forget all the other shit. Helped him forget how he’d failed protecting the girls and how maybe he weren’t smart enough to find the dude attacked Sue. Helped him forget how his daughter ain’t even knew she was his, that she thought some other dude was her dad and he couldn’t ever, ever say the truth. Helped him forget how he looked, how fucking pitiful he was when it came to Chess, how he weren’t good enough to even be her friend, weren’t good enough for much at all.

Except this. This was the one thing he did better than anybody else, leastaways better’n anybody else he’d ever met. He’d never lost a fight. And when he was doing it, using his fists, his whole body … he felt right. Like his body did the thinking he mind couldn’t seem to get, and when he was fighting he thought faster than anybody else. If fists were brains he was the smartest dude in the city, and he couldn’t help how that made him feel good.

“Two weeks is up, Ben,” he said, letting his fist hang cocked in the air so Ben could see it. “Ain’t seein any lashers in my hand.”

“Sorry,” Ben gasped. Kinda hard to make out the words, what with he mouth all puffy and bloody, but Terrible had a lot of experience with that. “Tried, I done, I tried, but I ain’t got it yet. Just another week’s all I need, another week—”

Terrible hit him again. “Don’t got another week.”

He dropped Ben—he’d been holding him up by the hair—and turned away as Ben crumpled to the floor. Ben were a speed-banger; his place looked like a banger’s place, almost empty, and cold in the merciless light from the unshaded overheads.

But Ben were a cutpurse, too, which meant he might have something hidden away. Some last valuable thing, pass on to somebody who’d buy he a bag with it, since Ben couldn’t buy from any of Bump’s until he’d paid up. Also meant he knew other thieves, more’n Terrible did.

“Gonna have me the money soon,” Ben whined behind him. Terrible hoisted the end of the cheap-ass couch to look underneath it. Nothing but dust and bloody tissues. “Met—met me a dame, says she give me it, she do. Just ain’t knowing you be here on the today. Can have it on morrow, I can, have it for you then I’m swearing, just … ”

Terrible ignored him. No food in the kitchen cabinets—no surprise there—cepting some dusty hard candies loose on a shelf. Nothing in the fridge but cheap beer. He opened the drawers, the freezer, looked under the sink. Dead bugs and rat droppings. Why anybody live that way when they had the choice? Terrible’d had enough filth around when he were a kid, sleeping on the street, staying with any lonely drunk or junkie offered him a bed or some food. Now he had he own place, he ain’t ever wanted to sleep with rats or roaches again.

Ben was still on the floor, ain’t moved at all. Blood dripped out his nose onto the thin dirty carpet. Terrible stepped over him to look in the bathroom and bedroom. Better chances on finding aught in there.

Couple loaded needles. He didn’t touch those. Didn’t really wanna touch shit in that bathroom, actually, or in that apartment. Chess carried gloves, just like she carried baby wipes. He wished she were with him. She’d help him search, help—no, he didn’t wish it. He hated her seeing him work, leastaways like that. It were different when he was protecting her or helping her, but … he hated her seeing him work.

Not causen he were embarrassed by what he did. More like he were embarrassed causen of how he felt about what he did, and it were just more evidence that he was a dumb fucking savage or aught like that, not the kinda man a dame like her even should talk to.

He’d found two gold watches tucked up under the mattress, obviously stolen, before Ben spoke again. “Please … hear you had you a robbery on the other night, I hear. Maybe I can get some knowledge on it for you.”

So Ben only knew about Sue, not Slick. Or was pretending he only knew on Sue, but Terrible guessed he honestly ain’t. Shit like that weren’t Ben’s style; he didn’t think Ben had any at all to do with the attacks, only that Ben might be an ear to the ground and Ben would be happy as hell to pass on whatany knowledge he got.

Ben musta seen him thinking. “Please. Terrible, maybe I find somethin out, maybe I give you what I find, maybe that be a help? Them watches—that one be my daddy’s, it were, my daddy’s watch.”

“Aye?” Damn it, why’d Ben have to fuck up a good deal with such a dumbass lie? He checked the back of the watch face, read the monogram there. “This one? What it say on the back, then?”

Ben hesitated. He’d managed to stand up; Terrible strode over to him and knocked him back down. Fuck, he were pissed enough already, and he’d just started feeling a little better, and now there Ben was pissing him off again. He’d learned a long time ago that when he got mad while he was beating on people, it ain’t ended so good. But now he was. “Don’t fuckin lie to me, Ben. Gets me mad, people lie to me. You want me fuckin mad?”

Ben shook his head, wiping at his mouth with shaking hands. “Nay, sorry, sorry, only I—weren’t thinkin, I weren’t, sorry.”

Should he hit him again? He wanted to. Ben was lying, and—aye, an that’s why he had to. Let people get away with shit, and they’d try getting away with it again. They’d think he was an easy touch, that he ain’t could figure out that they was lying. He hit Ben again. “Think better. Said you could get me some knowledge on that robbery?”

“Can—can try, I can. Bettin I can, I find somebody knows aught they can give me, I bet.”

Terrible pretended to consider it, then nodded. “Aye, right then. On morrow, dig? On morrow I come back. You better fuckin be here, an you better fuckin have the knowledge. And Bump’s money.”

Ben’s mouth fell open—as much as it could. “Thought I give you the knowledge, you take them watches, I ain’t got owes no more—”

Terrible shook his head. “Still got owes. Have em on morrow, and the knowledge. Or I come find you. And then I be mad. Dig?”

Ben nodded.

Terrible reached out and patted Ben’s shoulder, harder than he had to. “On morrow, then.”

He pocketed the watches and left, not looking back.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHESS ANSWERED HIS text fast, the text he sent almost the second he left Ben’s. “Yeah, come up.”

He parked, ignoring the way his heart sped up, got out and went inside. Up the stairs, to stand outside her door for a second and feel, like he always felt, the little buzz. Came from them magic locks she had around the frame, maybe. Maybe just from knowing where he was and that in a second she’d open the door. He didn’t know. Just like a lot of other shit.

The knob turned almost as soon as his knock died. And there she stood, smiling at him like she meant it, in faded black jeans and a t-shirt the same color that showed all those magic tattoos she had on her arms, her pretty little feet with red toenails bare. It was like … like something inside him got cheered up, just seeing her smile at him. Like he relaxed. “Hey,” she said, already heading for the fridge. “Want a beer?”

“Aye, thanks.” He watched her walk to get him the beer. Watched her bend over to grab it off the shelf. Then, feeling guilty, he turned away fast before she could catch him at it. “You right?”

“Yeah, right up.” She handed him the beer—her fingers touched his—and wandered into her living room to sit on the lumpy brown couch. The TV was off, the stereo off; she’d been reading a book, and it sat pressed open next to her. She moved it so he could sit, too. “You? Everything okay?”

He was careful not to sit too close. If he sat too close he might forget and touch her, like resting his hand on her knee or some shit. Hard to remember sometimes that she weren’t his, that just cause he wished she was and sometimes felt like she was, ain’t meant she was for real. “Aye.”

She looked at him a little more closely. Her eyes under her heavy black Bettie Page bangs were clear, not glassy at all, so she’d been having a good day. “You sure?”

Shit. He’d hoped to find a better way to introduce the subject, a smoother way. But if he wanted to find that he shouldn’t have come right over to hers so fast after leaving Ben. Words weren’t his strong suit; always felt like he ain’t knew enough of em, like he couldn’t get em to say what he wanted them to say. So he shoulda gone home, or stayed in the car til he’d thought of a good way to say it.

But he hadn’t, cause knowing he was about to see her made it hard to think on shit like that anyway. When he was going to see Chess, all he could think about was Chess.

But then, when he wasn’t going to see Chess, all he could think about was Chess, so …

She waited. Didn’t raise her eyebrows. Didn’t look impatient. Just waited, like she ain’t cared how long it took him, it ain’t bothered her none. Or, more like she ain’t even noticed when it took him a long time to answer.

“Dame got attacked,” he said finally. “One of Bump’s, dig. Clapper Sue she name. Ain’t got who done it.”

“Is she okay?”

He nodded. “She be right. Ain’t—ain’t hurt bad.” It had felt bad enough lying to Edsel on it. Lying to Chess made him feel like shit.

But he didn’t have a choice, not on this. Weren’t just about Sue’s privacy, neither; aye, she deserved it, but he trusted Chess. She wouldn’t play pass-on with that.

Weren’t because of Sue that he couldn’t tell Chess what happened, or ain’t wanted to tell her. Were because of her.

She’d never outright told him anything. But she’d never had to. He knew. Dames like her didn’t hunt down an addiction lessin there was a damn good reason, and she’d sure as fuck hunted it down. He’d watched her do it, from the first time she showed up in Downside. Watched her not even fight with herself over it, least not what he could see.

And that was way before he really knew her, back when he’d just paid idle attention to her, kept track of her owes and every once in a while said something to her on them. Before he got to know how tough she were, and how tough she weren’t, too. Before he got to know just from the way them greeny-blue-brown eyes of hers clouded, or her mouth turned down, or she suddenly looked so sad and scared and pissed off at the world, what she was thinking on. Why she felt about herself the way she did. What they’d done to her, all them bullshit foster families or whatany they were.

Seemed like he were the only one who saw it, but he did. He knew. So how could he tell her about what happened to Sue, and watch her smile fade and darkness bloom behind her eyes? Watch her reach for that pillbox in she bag and down a couple? He couldn’t do that to her. He just couldn’t, not if he ain’t had to. Specially not when it seemed like she were in a good mood.

Funny, she had all that ink on her skin to protect her from ghosts and magic, and he were damn sure doing what he could to protect her outside that, but weren’t anything he could do to keep her safe from the memories.

He knew how that felt, too.

Chess studied him. Waiting to see would he say more. But she didn’t reach for her bag, so he breathed a little easier. “He just grabbed her off the corner? Or … ?”

“Lied like him were buyin. Robbed her in the car.” He reached for his smokes and raised his eyebrows at her. She nodded. He lit two and handed her one.

“Any clues?” She dragged off the smoke, her fingers slim and delicate around it, her gestures soft and graceful. “Did she get a description of him or anything?”

“Said had dark hair, but not much past it. Saying them all looking alike, dig, ain’t paid attention.”

She thought about it for a second. Like she always did. That thing in his chest, whatever it were, relaxed more. Chess was smart. She knew all kinds of shit he’d never even be able to imagine, and she thought on things and had opinions like he’d never consider himself. He bet she’d have some good ideas for him.

And if she didn’t? Just chattering on it with her made him feel better. Like he ain’t had to worry on it all on his alones. Like he had somebody besides Bump backing him up.

“Do you think he was just looking for somebody to rob, or something else was going on? Like he’s targeting hookers for some reason?” she asked.

“He ain’t said aught to Sue, like any on bein dirty, if you dig. Whores get attacked just for bein whores, usually they hearing that kind of shit.”

Shit. He shouldn’t have said that. What the fuck was wrong with him, how fucking dumb could he be?

“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes darkened. “I guess they do.”

Maybe he could change the subject. Or move it on, or whatany. He spent too long thinking of something else to say, then finally came up with one. “Got you plans for the new year? Heading out anywheres?”

Her expression cleared, and he felt better. Some. Trouble was, every fucking time he saw that look in her eyes, every fucking time he saw her frown like that, it got harder and harder not to tell her to write down a list of names for him. Every single name she had a recall on, causen he wanted to hunt em all down one by one and make sure they knew why as they died. He honestly couldn’t think of much he’d like more.

“Not really,” she said, obviously not knowing he sat next to her planning bloody revenge on everyone who’d ever so much as looked at her sideways, much less hurt her. “I think the Runouts are playing at Chuck’s, right? I might go. You?”

“Be a fight on. Figured on watching it. Maybe head Chuck’s on the after, aye.”

But he wouldn’t. Because Amy’d be at his place, and iffen he took her out after the fight he wouldn’t want to take her anywheres Chess was. Amy ain’t exactly liked Chess; the few times they’d been out somewheres and Chess showed up Amy’d wanted to leave right away. She’d been real casual on it, made up some other reason for taking off, but it ain’t been hard to catch that as soon as Chess walked in Amy wanted to walk out.

Weren’t hard to figure out why, neither, or that it was his fault. He knew that when Chess were around he looked at her, watched her for too long. He knew he kept glancing at her. He knew his eyes followed her when she moved, and that they ain’t stayed on her face neither. He couldn’t help it, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Boxing?”

He nodded.

She did that considering thing again, and his neck got warm. He could see it on her face, in her eyes, that look that made him feel like she saw right through him and pegged him to the wall. “You ever think of doing that? Like, prizefighting.”

He shrugged, trying to think of a way to answer, trying not to be uncomfortable. Not causen the question were a wrong one, but causen he ain’t wanted to think on it. On what happened. Ain’t wanted to recall how aye, he had thought on it. More than thought.

Funny thing was, though … he’d tell her, iffen the discussion went that far. He’d never told anybody; well, Bump knew, coursen, but nobody else. But Chess would understand. Chess he’d tell. Iffen it came down to it.

He ain’t wanted it to, though, leastaways not just then. She’d heard enough shitty stories. So he tried to think of a way to say it that wouldn’t be a lie but wouldn’t be opening it up, neither. “Thought on it, aye. When I were a kid. Only … met up with Bump, dig, he find me an took me in, an … just stayed.”

He waited for her to ask more, while the memories flashed in his head, harder and sharper because he ain’t had been expecting them. Darren who said he were a fight promoter. Darren’s huge house filled with expensive shit, the big gym, all Darren’s friends—powerful friends, connected friends—coming to meet him and telling him how he were gonna fight for real, in a ring.

And all of it a lie. And Darren climbing into his bed that night, and the next thing he knew there was blood everywhere, a bloody knife in his hand, and Darren were dead. Then running and hiding, knowing those friends was after him, hearing they was offering money for his head.

Bump found him first. He’d never looked back.

He felt Chess’s curiosity. He also felt her caution. Aye, she knew there were more than what he were saying. Question was whether she’d ask on it.

She didn’t. Instead she said, in the kind of light tone that meant she knew something were up but were letting him decide iffen he wanted to chatter on it, “Lucky for all the rest of them you like working with Bump better.”

Heat crept farther over his neck, up his cheeks. “More happening, aye?”

“And not so many rules?” She were smiling when she said it, though. Like she even accepted that, like it ain’t bothered her none.

Which meant he could agree, and admit it, without feeling like shit. “Aye. Ain’t much for those. An ain’t wanting all the shit goes with it, anyroad. Havin pictures taken an all.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to do that, either.” She tilted her head. Her hair fell over her shoulder. He wanted to reach out and brush it back, let it slip through his fingers. Her hair was really fucking soft. He remembered that, remembered it so hard sometimes—the way it had felt, the way she’d felt, her hands on him—he thought he were gonna pass out. Probably because when he remembered it all the blood left his head and went somewheres else. “No privacy at all.”

Aye, he knew that about her. Funny thing was, he doubted she realized, or thought on, the fact that she ain’t had much privacy anyway. Everybody knew she were Bump’s witch now. Everybody knew she were his friend. Everybody knew who she were, was the point. And Bump’s people watched to make certain she were safe, causen he told em to.

But he ain’t said that. “How you case going? The one you told me on last week, them in Northside?”

She rolled her eyes, but she smiled, too, and shifted position to face him better with her legs tucked up underneath her. It amazed him, like it always did, how she changed when she talked about her work. All that … all that fragility, all that loneliness, faded, and she were confident. Not just tough the way she usually were, but confident. “They’re such morons. They have a projector set up, you know, to show an image so they can claim it’s a ghost? It’s not a horrible projector, actually, it’s a pretty good one, but it generates a lot of heat. And they tried to hide it by sewing it into a teddy bear. Like a nanny cam or something.”

It felt good to be amused by something. “Caught fire?”

“Yep. Dumbasses. It’s a good thing I was still in the room—they had it set up to go off when a light beam was broken, and I went at night, you know—because if I hadn’t been there to put it out their house would have burned down.”

“Too bad they ain’t thought on that afore. Coulda just burned them house down for insurance, save the trouble.”

She gave a short, light laugh. “They never do that. They’re so sure their insurance company will catch them but they never think we will.”

“They ain’t know you,” he said.

That flash of surprise on her face, just like every time he said shit like that, before her cheeks went pinkish. Looked so pretty it made his chest tight. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing it.

She took a drink of water from the bottle she always had on her. He bet she weren’t thirsty at all, just trying to cover like she heard how fucking amazing she was all the time, like it ain’t mattered.

Coursen, she probably did hear it all the time from dudes who wanted to fuck her. Wasn’t like he could say anything on that, neither, seeing as how he was one of em.

But he didn’t say it causen of that. He said it causen it was true. If he spent the next year doing nothing but thinking on it, he still wouldn’t be able to figure out why a dame like her wanted to hang out with him.

“Well,” she said. “I’ve got them, anyway, and this week I’ll file the paperwork.”

“Cool.” He finished his beer. He oughta go; were almost eight. And she were reading and all, she probably didn’t want to be bothered for too long.

He stood up. “Gotta get moving, aye? Still got shit needs doing.”

“Oh.” A flash of disappointment across her face. Aye, he felt the same way. “I thought—well, good luck finding the guy, anyway.”

He nodded and headed for the kitchen and the door, the desire to stay making him move slow. Not just wanting to stay, but something else, too. Something he needed to say, but had to be damn careful he didn’t say it wrong. “Hey, watch youself onna streets, dig? Know you careful an all, just sayin.”

For a second he thought she was going to be annoyed. He half expected her to be; he’d never known any dame who hated having people worry on her as much as Chess did.

But the second passed. She still ain’t looked happy, but he didn’t get the sense that came from bein mad or aught like that. “Good to know. Thanks for telling me.”

“Aye.”

“Hey … ” She followed him to the door. “I’ll probably be around all night. You know, if you wanted to come back later. I’ll be up.”

He wondered what she’d say if he told her how much he wanted to come back, how much he wished he didn’t have to leave at all. But then, he knew, didn’t he? She’d blush and stammer, maybe tell him a lie to try and spare his feelings like she had after that night, but that would be it. He could picture her shutting down, picture how uncomfortable she’d look, just like it were really happening.

Ain’t mattered. He’d be with Amy, and Amy’d expect to stay at his place or have him at hers, and he couldn’t very well dump her on her porch so he could come back and see Chess. Wouldn’t be right. Amy didn’t deserve that.

But Chess ain’t needed to know that, neither. “Aye. I come by, iffen I can.”

He walked into the hall, fast to remind himself he couldn’t kiss her goodbye, and heard the door close behind him.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE FELT LIKE shit. And Amy’s cheeriness weren’t helping, especially since he couldn’t figure out why he felt so shitty. Just tense, he guessed, with all that were happening. Slick and Clapper Sue and the idea that Slobag’s men were on the move into Bump’s territory …  Coursen, they always were, it seemed like, but still. Them tryna sell on the border streets were one thing. Them heading that far in and trying selling there, that were another. That seemed like part of some plan.

Could be part of the same plan. Could be Slobag’s men killed Slick. Could be Slobag’s men attacked Sue. He ain’t wanted to think that one, but it were possible.

Fuck, it’d been a long-ass day. He ought should have cancelled with Amy. He just weren’t up for hanging out with her and listening to her chatter on TV shows or them she worked with or whatany else. Usually it ain’t bothered him—he liked Amy, true thing, she were a cool dame—but tonight … no, just not up for it.

Had he lied to Chess, by not giving her a full answer to her question? Or, no, he ain’t lied, but … maybe he’d done the wrong thing, brushing over it all. Maybe he’d hurt her, not telling her. Maybe she’d thought it meant he didn’t trust her.

Fuck, he hated this shit.

“Terrible, is you listening to me?” Amy set her hand on his chest. “You ain’t sayin much, you ain’t.”

“Aye, sorry.” Shit, what had she been saying? “Just got a lot on, aye? Some shit happening, is all.”

Her bright pink mouth twisted down. “Oughta just cancel with me, aye, iffen you ain’t gonna pay attention. Wanting chatter with you.”

“Sorry,” he said again. “You was sayin on you work, aye? What happen?”

“Two dudes coming on, telling me be a ghost around. Say a ghost kill Bump’s man on the other night. Be true? It a ghost?”

Her brown eyes were wide; she looked scared, and he hated that his first thought was to be annoyed instead of wanting to make her feel better like he should. With effort he kept his voice casual. “Naw, ain’t true. Don’t know where them dumb fuckin rumors starting, but ain’t true. Ain’t a ghost.”

Amy worked at a secondhand store up Sixtieth, old furniture and appliances and whatany. Fuck. Now she got people just coming in offen the streets, chattering on ghosts?

“Then why they—”

He shrugged. “Somebody tryin stir shit up, is all.”

Amy glanced around. “Slobag?”

“Maybe.” Probably. But until he were certain he ain’t wanted to say, and he were trying real fucking hard not to get mad thinking of it. Why the fuck all this shit starting up now? “Don’t need to be worryin on it, aye? No ghost.”

She nodded, but he could see the question starting behind her eyes, could see her wondering did he wish it were a ghost so’s he could call Chess, or was he saying weren’t a ghost causen he were already working with Chess.

He cut that off with, “Want me getting you a beer?”

“Aye.” She leaned back on the seat and folded her pale arms over her chest in a way that let him know she caught on that he were trying to change the subject. She wore a skimpy little pink dress, with thin straps and a short skirt. How she ain’t froze in that outside he didn’t know, but he couldn’t deny he ain’t minded at all when she looked mostly undressed.

Which kinda made him feel worse, causen they’d hang out there an hour or so, and then they’d go back to his and get that dress off her, and despite the fact that they never made any promises or aught like that—and he weren’t the only dude she saw, neither—he couldn’t help thinking he weren’t really treating her right. No. He didn’t think it. He knew it. And he knew why, which was worse.

The thought stuck in his head as he got up and pushed through to the bar. Thursday night, and especially crowded causen of the cold. Were hot inside Chuck’s; lots of people ain’t had heating, or tried to save what they had causen they couldn’t afford to use it all the time, so anyplace that were warm inside found itself awful fucking popular in winter. Just like places with air conditioning in summer.

But it meant a lot of people to shove aside, and feeling off like he was it only pissed him up more till he got to the bar and held up two fingers. Last time he’d been there he’d met Chess; they’d stood in the back then headed to her place, and he’d stayed til about four. That had been fun. A fuck of a lot more fun than he were having now, with Amy glowering from the booth and the memory of Sue’s face and ghost rumors and trouble from Slobag and the way Chess might think he ain’t trusting her …

Somebody banged into him, hard. On purpose; nobody hit that hard, that direct, without meaning to. He paused, turned around real slow.

He ain’t knew the dude. But he knew what the dude wanted, knew that look. Happened every once in a while, somebody got a few beers in em and decided they was gonna give him a try, prove to some dame or some gang of equally dumb fucks how tough they were.

The gang of equally dumb fucks stood behind him, off to the left, watching.

Normally he wouldn’t bother much. A stare and they backed down; if they did try to swing he caught it and knocked em over or something. Weren’t worth his time.

But this night … this night he were in a bad mood already, and that bad mood made his body feel tight and anxious. This night, instead of being bored or half-amused, heat started building in his chest the second he turned around, the kind of heat that turned into anger. The kind of heat that wanted to get out, like something living inside him, like an itch everywhere he could only scratch by hitting somebody.

The kid—he were a kid, maybe twenty or twenty-one, and big enough that he probably thought he were real hard causen he’d never tried to fight anybody his size, though he were still smaller than Terrible—gave him a smirk, lifting his chin the way dumbasses did before they got smart enough to know they were offering a target to somebody and making oncoming punches harder to see.

Terrible grinned back. The kid wanted to get beaten on? Fine with him. Better than fine; just what he were looking for. He could feel how ugly his grin was, saw it reflected in the way the kid dropped his and tried to take a step back.

Too late. His hand was on the back of the kid’s neck before the kid had a chance to get away, and the feel of the kid’s head slamming into the bar, the way all the bottles on the bar jumped, made his grin widen.

The kid made some sound; Terrible ain’t paid attention. He just grabbed the kid’s hair, yanked it to lift his head—weren’t really necessary since it bounced—and slammed it into the bar again. Then a third time for good measure.

The kid’s friends took off. Some fucking friends. Terrible let go and watched the kid slide to the floor. Then he grabbed the beers from the now-bloody bar and turned back to Amy. A few people were staring; they looked away fast when he met their eyes. The others just went on with whatany they were already doing. Weren’t like him beating on people were a surprise.

What was a surprise was seeing Roley sitting in the booth with Amy. Shit. The tension that had just left him started coming back. Aye, could be Roley just happened to be there and thought he’d say hey—Amy ain’t met him before, what Terrible could recall, but he’d probably have seen her and would know who she was. Iffen he wanted to talk to Terrible it’d make sense he’d go sit with her.

Or maybe he ain’t knew who she was and were tryna pick her up. Terrible ain’t could blame him. Amy were real cute, she were, with that blonde hair all curled and them big brown eyes. Not as pretty as Chess, but nobody were pretty like Chess. He ain’t could blame Roley, leastaways, much as he probably oughta be pissed.

Amy ain’t looked happy he were next to her, though, and the way she jumped up when he got close, the way she grabbed him … Roley were bugging her.

He slipped his arm around her and gave Roley a short half-nod. The kind let Roley know seeing him there weren’t a thrill. “Hey,” he said, and waited for a response.

Roley ain’t looked guilty or aught like that, so guessing he knew who Amy were after all. He nodded toward the bar. “Dude making trouble?”

Terrible shrugged. Weren’t something he wanted to explain, or talk about. He ain’t felt bad about it—the kid asked for it, and he couldn’t let people get away with that shit if he wanted to keep doing his job right—but he did feel … sort of exposed, like everybody knew the kid were just an excuse.

He looked back at Roley. Waiting, and letting Roley see he were waiting, until Roley finally spoke. “Hoping for a quick chatter, you got a minute?”

Funny. He ain’t really realized it til just then, but he didn’t think he liked Roley much. Something about him were just … he ain’t knew a word for it. Smug, maybe. Like he figured everybody owed him everything, everybody loved him, everybody’d do what he wanted.

Problem was it were sorta true. Bump dug Roley’s cousin Lacey; she’d been around longer than a lot of his women, though not as long as a few. But Bump wanted to keep her happy. And Roley’s other cousin Vole had worked with Bump seven years gone, were a good solid man to have around. Vole had proved heself more’n once. Meant Roley had some trust, some name, right up front.

Shit like that might go to a lot of dudes’s heads. Or Roley maybe were just one a them awkward people always seemed like he were being a dick when he weren’t.

None of that mattered iffen Roley had knowledge for him, which were the only reason Terrible could think on why he’d need to talk right then. So he gave Roley a nod, jerked his head toward the back of the room so Roley knew to follow. Roley maybe could have something good for him. Roley knew a lot of people, seemed like.

Or Roley were just a dickhead after all, because as soon as they got to the back, he said, “Were wondering on New Year’s, aye? Supposed to be workin, I am, but got asked to spend time with this dame I’m tryna fuck. Were thinking maybe you let me off, dig? Been tryna fuck she for weeks, see, thinking this might be my shot.”

That were what he had to talk on just then? That were what was so fucking important? Getting inside some dame? He stood there staring probably longer than he ought, because what the fuck he were supposed to say?

Cepting for “No,” which he said as soon’s he found his tongue again.

Roley’s brows drew together. Suddenly he face didn’t look so open and friendly no more; he looked … weaselly. Ratlike. “C’mon, Terrible, gimme a fuckin break here. Tryna fuck this dame, figuring maybe be my fuckin chance. Gots other dudes you can put onna street that night, can—”

“Other dudes been workin longer. You ain’t—”

“Other dudes ain’t near family with Bump,” Roley said. Interrupted him to say. Roley fucking interrupted him. Shitty little asshole.

But shitty little asshole who were true thing closer to Bump than most new ones, or leastaways, were close to somebody Bump wanted kept happy. Were Terrible to do what he wanted to do—which was knock Roley to the floor—it might make Lacey unhappy, which would be an unfairness to Bump. Bump would understand once he heard why, but still. And Bump had he a bigger tolerance for assholes than Terrible did, specially when he were getting laid from it.

So instead of planting his fist in Roley’s face he narrowed his eyes. “You working the night. Can fuck her some other time.”

“Ain’t will be able to get she so drunk some other time, aye?” Roley smiled when he said it, like it were a joke, but his eyes had the look of a junkie whose stash had just been stolen.

Then he voice changed. Turned all soft and confidential, like he were Terrible’s fucking friend or some shit. “C’mon, Terrible. Been wanting this dame ages now. You knowing what that one’s like, aye? Ain’t you ever had a dame you wanted? How bout that Churchwitch? Were she alla sudden saying she wanted you, ain’t you would wanna skip working?”

Terrible stopped himself. Barely. Just barely stopped himself reaching out and introducing Roley to a whole new world of pain. And good thing, too, causen doing that would be admitting Roley were right—would be letting Roley know he were right. Which he was. If Chess said she wanted him … he couldn’t think of a thing he wouldn’t skip for that. Not a single fucking thing.

Weren’t Roley’s business, though. “Ain’t knowing what the fuck you talkin on. Or why. You work the night.”

“Guessing I gotta ask Bump.”

Fuck, how he wanted to punch Roley. Wanted it so bad he could hardly think, that dull mist creeping through his head.

He forced himself to shrug, to keep looking Roley right in the eye and keep his face and voice calm. “Aye, you go ahead then. Whatany you want.”

Just like he’d thought, Roley ain’t looked happy with that. Dumbshit thought talking to Bump were a threat?

He oughta enjoy it while it were lasting, causen Bump might still want Lacey around, but Terrible guessed she had maybe a couple months left on the outside. And when she were gone, so would Roley be. Terrible would make real fucking certain on that one.

Roley’s gaze fell. “Hey, just askin, is all, aye? Ain’t no need to be lookin so hard at me. Only saying. Sucks to work the night, were thinking maybe you could do me a benefit. Ain’t meant nothin by it. Just … ain’t so good with people alla time, I ain’t, guessing.” He shrugged with his hands in his pockets. “Try to be, but I just ain’t. People ain’t seeming to like me much.”

And instead of guessing on why they ain’t liked him and trying not to be an asshole, Roley were just gonna fucking whine on it. “Sometimes best to be keeping yon mouth shut, dig, you knowing people take you wrong ways. You an me ain’t friends.”

Roley nodded. His head were down so Terrible couldn’t see his eyes, but he had the feeling iffen he could they’d be pissed more than sorry.

“Got any else you needing?”

Roley shook his head.

“See you on the later, then.” He left Roley there and headed for the door, grabbing Amy along the way. The cold blast of air helped his temper some but ain’t done much else.

Amy sucked in a breath next to him and hugged herself. “Ain’t like he, I ain’t.”

“Aye?” He put his arm back around her shoulders, pulled her tighter to help her keep warm. “Why come?”

She shrugged. “Come sit down, an askin on you, but ain’t look in my face. Starin down my dress, he were, and kept putting he hand on my leg. Pervy, dig? Like he thinking I just a dame an be he right touchin me.”

That heat again, hotter and stronger in he chest. He stopped walking. Touching Amy like that, looking at her like that? No. He started to turn back toward the bar. Oughta at least say more to Roley, he ought, let him know how just like Chess weren’t he business, so Amy weren’t—

Amy grabbed him. “Nay, let’s go. Cold, me. Wanna get home, aye? Ain’t so big a deal, Terrible, he just an asshole. Ain’t like he the first tried touchin me or getting he a peek in.”

Terrible hesitated. Ain’t wanted to make Amy cold, but …

She tugged his arm, teetering a little on her big platform shoes as she tried to pull him down the sidewalk. “C’mon. You wanna get you upset some other dude tried lookin at me, take me home show me how much. Aye? Let’s us go on.”

The doorway were only ten feet or so behind. Wouldn’t take he a minute to get back in there.

But Amy were smiling at him, like she’d forgotten all about how she’d been unhappy earlier. He sure weren’t gonna fuck that up by explaining it weren’t about being jealous or some shit—he weren’t—just that by doing that to her Roley had been challenging him. Just like he saying on Chess, just like he saying he were gonna chatter with Bump. All Roley trying him.

Not to mention he ain’t liked men pulling that kinda shit with any dames.

But dealing with Roley weren’t something he had to do that minute, neither. Weren’t like Roley wouldn’t be around the next day or the day after. No emergency or aught like that.

And he couldn’t deny that taking Amy home sounded good. Two ways he’d found to calm heself down: hitting were one, and the other was what she was clearly inviting him to do.

So he pushed thoughts of Roley, Slick, the whores, and especially Chess outta he mind, and headed for the Chevelle.

CHAPTER SIX

SHARP-EYE BEN WEREN'T answering he door, but Terrible knew he were inside; he’d been watching for over an hour, and he’d seen Ben go in not two minutes afore. Couldn’t wait longer than that, causen Ben probably scored while he were out, and iffen Terrible gave him long enough to shoot up he’d be too juiced to be any use at all.

He gave one more knock, banging the door hard. No answer. Right, then. Ben’s own fucking fault. He stepped back and kicked the door, hard, so it bulged and splintered at the frame. “Ben! Open the fuck up.”

No answer. He kicked the door again. This time a couple shards of wood broke off; the door cracked down the middle but ain’t split. “Last chance, Ben. I gotta break you door, I ain’t be happy, dig?”

After a second Ben’s voice came thin through the destroyed wood. “Aye, just a—just gimme one, aye, just a hold-on one minute.”

Was Ben tryna climb out a window, or get that spike in his arm before he had to talk? Fuck that. Terrible gave the door a final kick; it broke down and across, the parts with hinges falling open and the bottom falling to the floor.

Ben shrieked. Tryna get the needle in, he were; already had heself tied off. Terrible crossed the floor in three steps, used his open right hand to smack Ben’s face while yanking the needle away with his left. He held it over his head. “Where the money?”

Ben held his cheek. Fucking drama queen; Terrible barely hit him. “Got it. I got it. Swearing I do. Got me some knowledge too, got it, asked like you said. Gimme my spike, aye? Just gimme it, I give you—”

“Lashers an knowledge,” Terrible said, shaking his head. “Then you get yon spike back. Dig? Not before. Give it over.”

He tried not to look at Ben’s arm, the ugly tracks up and down the inside of it. Made him sad, iffen he were honest. The needle … the needle were the last place, the place where they admitted they weren’t even trying no more. And as always when he saw those, on anybody, he thought of Chess, hoped she never got there. Wondered what he’d do iffen she did.

Nothing, probably, causen it weren’t his fucking business, and he oughta stop thinking like it were. She weren’t his woman. Just his friend, and he had no right telling her what she oughta do or not do. Hell, even were she his woman he wouldn’t have that right. Specially when it weren’t like he were perfect, and specially when he knew—he’d come to know—that she had some serious shit to forget, and who the fuck was he to say she took the wrong way on forgetting it? Some might say he were just as bad, beating on people to forget whatany bothered him.

Some might say he were worse. They’d be right.

Ben’s head dipped. “Lemme get it, aye? Inna kitchen, see? Onna counter. See it?”

The money were on the counter, a fold of crisp new lashers layin there. Looked like all of Ben’s owes. Guess that new dame he said he had really were gone on him, iffen he ain’t been lying on where it came from.

Were Ben’s apartment too quiet? Like somebody waiting for him to turn he back? Or were he just jumpy, or maybe just itchy causen of the thoughts on Chess and needles, causen how fucking depressing Ben’s place were?

He jerked his head, took a step back so he were angled to keep a better eye on the broken door and the entrance to the hallway. Just in case. “Go get it, then.”

Ben did, brought it back. Terrible relaxed a little. He flipped through the bills with he thumb, making sure it weren’t bills wrapped around paper or aught like that; when it weren’t he nodded and put the fold in his pocket. “What knowledge, then?”

Ben’s reddish eyes kept jumping from Terrible’s face to the needle, from the needle to Terrible’s face. He licked his lips. “I tell you, you gimme back my spike?”

“Just said so, aye?”

“An maybe I gets me a credit? You tell Bump I’m all paid up on, an I gave you some knowledge helped, aye?”

“Getting fuckin bored here.”

Needle, face, needle, face. Terrible ain’t could figure on how Ben weren’t dizzy yet. “Aye, right. Right. Know a dude knows a dude, plays the duff up Northside. Dig?”

Terrible nodded. Somebody passing fake jewelry, maybe running cons with it. Northside were the place for that kinda shit, aye, where them had money. Nobody were cheap like rich people.

“Dude livin heself inna squat here, roundabout Forty-eighth an Grant.” Ben’s gaze skittered to the needle again; he licked his chapped lips again. “Say he gots a partner there got kicked some lashers for to be a lookout for a robbery. On the other night, dig? Thinking you got knowing what I’m meaning.”

Aye, he knew. Somebody got paid to be a lookout while somebody attacked Sue. Meant it weren’t an accident, somebody pulling it just on the moment. Meant somebody planned it, got ready.

Made it a fuck of a lot more likely whoever done it also killed Slick.

But iffen they’d killed Slick, why they ain’t needed a lookout for that? Or maybe them just figured be easy finding somebody willing to be a lookout for robbery but not so easy finding somebody willing to help with murder. Especially not murdering one of Bump’s men.

“Terrible?” Ben rubbed his hands together. He whole body were jerky, actually, like he wanted to get up and grab the needle but knew there weren’t a point to trying. Which there weren’t.

Terrible looked down at him, slow. Letting Ben see he had all day. “Any else?”

“Nay, nay, ‘sall.”

“You certain? Ain’t be too happy you call me up next time you got owes an say you forgetting to tell me aught today, dig? Better you get it all out on the now. I finding out you holding back, ain’t good for you.”

Ben twitched again. “Be all. Swearing it to you, be all. C’n I getting my spike now? Please, gave you all of it, all what knowledge I’m getting.”

“Got a name?”

“Aye.” Ben bobbed he head, too fast for a nod. Looked like some kinda spasm. “Aye, got me a name. Forgetting there, on the second. Got me a name. Gav, be what I hear. Gav be he name.”

For fuck’s sake. “Which one be Gav? The lookout or the dude knowing the lookout?”

“The lookout. Be Gav. Lives inna squat, he do, living there, you find he there. Gav, you look for he.”

Gav. Gav inna squat at Forty-eighth and Grant. Terrible thought he knew the place; year or so past a couple fuckheads decided to start cutting and selling their own Dream a few doors down, and he’d gone there to find em. They’d promised to stop and hadn’t, so nobody ever found em again after that, cepting them at the burnhouse.

He checked his watch. Just past four. No point hunting around there now; anybody working cons like that woulda just gone up Northside, probably stay there til their marks finished drinking in whatany shitty overpriced bars they avoided going home in. Better targets when they was drunk.

So not much point looking for Gav til late, and Terrible ain’t wanted to give him any tip-off by checking the place out ahead of time. Iffen he knew what he’d been look-out for he’d be extra scared of seeing Terrible around.

Ben had started sweating and wringing his hands. Terrible lowered the needle a couple inches. “You certain that all you got?”

Ben nodded.

Terrible brought the needle down more, then lifted it back up. He ain’t liked teasing Ben like that, but he had to keep his attention, let him know he were serious. “You tell any on this? You tell any I’m looking, or what you gave me?”

Ben shook his head so fast it almost made Terrible seasick seeing it. “Nay! Ain’t said to any, I ain’t. I won’t, neither. Won’t never say, I swearing it. Swearing it. C’mon, I ain’t lie on this, you got the knowledge I ain’t a liar, aye?”

What knowledge Terrible had was Ben would lie as soon as look at him, iffen he thought it’d get him what he wanted or get him outta trouble, but he ain’t bothered to say. Ben knew it anyway. “I hear you saying on this to any else, you find youself tryin shoot up through a cast, dig? Ain’t fuckin playing here. You keep you fuckin mouth shut.”

“Not a speak. Swearing, not a speak, not any, not to any.”

Ben’s word weren’t worth much, but it was about all Terrible were gonna get. He couldn’t lock Ben up or whatany till he’d caught the motherfuckers pulled this. He only choice were to threaten hard and hope it stuck.

So he handed the needle over. The sigh Ben made turned his stomach. “Better not be lying, Ben. I ain’t wanting come back here.”

Just as he pushed himself through the pieces of the door, he stopped and turned back around. “I find the dude, an turns out him involved like you say? You get you credit back. Aye? But only when I finding him, an finding out you got true knowledge. Othersides that, you get shit.”

He had to wait on the couch; sucked, causen he had shit he needed to chatter on. But Bump were still in bed, with a couple of his women. Terrible ain’t bothered learning their names anymore. Or, he ain’t bothered til they’d been around a while. Dames moved through Bump’s life—through he bed—like it were some sort of machine that created em; new ones popping out regular and then disappearing out the door. Terrible would disappear out the door heself at that moment, seeing as Bump were either sleeping or busy, but Bump had summoned him so would expect to see him when he came out the room.

He’d wonder how it happened Bump were able to get all them dames iffen he ain’t knew from his own experience. Were easy to find a dame willing to fuck him if he ain’t cared who they were or why they wanted him. He had money, he was with Bump, everybody in Downside knew who he were. For some dames that were enough, and all they wanted was a couple orgasms, a chance to say they’d been with him, and maybe to be bought shit.

Coursen, the fact that he made certain they got those orgasms were a help. He’d learned real early that a dude looked like he did had to offer something iffen he wanted to get laid, and dames talked to each other.

When he were younger he’d taken advantage of it, too, and he ain’t looked quite as bad then as he did now—still ain’t ever been much, with he big jaw and brow and mean eyes, but not so many scars and shit—so it’d been even easier. And he guessed he still took advantage of it, iffen he were honest. He ain’t had too much trouble, leastaways, finding dames who’d let him in their beds for the night.

Only seemed like lately it were … not so much fun as it used to be. Or, still fun—coursen it were fun, what the fuck could be not fun about it?—but it were different. What he wanted were different.

He ain’t knew for certain how old he was; he figured somewhere roundabout twenty-seven, or more likely twenty-eight, but for all he knew he could be as old as thirty. Seeing as how he could only guess from remembering Haunted Week and a couple vague things before, like the red-suited men waving bells in the snow, he had no way of being certain. But he were at least twenty-seven, and he’d stopped being a virgin for real about sixteen years past and he’d had himself a lot of women in between. He guessed that meant he were old enough and been around enough to start thinking on being with just one woman. On having one he could call his, for good.

Bump thought he were crazy. But Bump had he a wife somewhere he ain’t seen in twenty years, and Bump had he some fucked-up thoughts on dames heself.

Voices from Bump’s room, now; they was either waking up or finishing up. He ain’t wanted to know which, so he tuned it out, sat there smoking, planning what he needed to say and writing it down in his notebook. Bump’d ask a lot of questions, and Terrible oughta have answers fast. That meant thinking ahead on what he’d say, causen it seemed like he got the answers in he head but they ain’t seemed to make it out right. Like he had some disconnect there, between he mind and he mouth. Guessed iffen he were smarter he wouldn’t, but since he weren’t smart he had to think of how to say everything ahead so he ain’t would get stuck.

The bedroom door opened, and Bump came out, knotting the belt of his purple silk robe. Under it he wore silk pajama bottoms the same color. His hair stood up in tufts off he head. “When you fuckin getting here?”

“Couple minutes past.”

Bump nodded and sat on the edge of his desk. His black box sat on it, the one he kept he stash in; he pulled it up to his side, opened it, and started chopping heself a line while he talked. “What knowledge you fuckin got? Gots me some, yay, sure fuckin do, but you telling me on the first.”

Terrible flipped open he notebook, squinted at it for a second. Bump’s ex-woman Lisa taught him to read, aye—among other things—but she ain’t cared too much on what he writing looked like; sometimes even he had a hard time figuring it out, least when he wrote fast he did. “Talked to Sharp-eye Ben, you know he? Gots he some connections, Ben do. Gave me that he knows a dude knows a dude got paid to be a lookout when Sue got attacked.”

He glanced up, expecting Bump to comment, but he were busy sucking up he lines so Terrible kept talking. “Say be a dude name of Gav, squats at Forty-eighth an Grant. Works a duff game up Northside, so won’t be there now, aye? I give it a look-in later.”

Now Bump did respond. More like he spat, he voice a furious cat-hiss, he face pinkish, but whether that was from the speed or from being so pissed Terrible didn’t know. “Bring that fucker here, yay? Ain’t you even—nay, nay, not fuckin here. Take he the warehouse. You taking he the fuckin warehouse, yay, you strap he down an gimme a fuckin ring-up so’s I getting my fuckin look-see.”

“Aye.” He checked the notebook again. “Hearing from Edsel—sells magic in the Market, aye? There regular, every day—says people saying be a ghost. Amy say me the same on the last night, too, that she got told be a ghost killed Slick. Gave em the tell it ain’t, asked Ed spread that on, only—”

“Fuck. Last fuckin thing we needin, yay? That ghost shit.”

“Edsel got the hearing somebody say were a ghost around the night Slick killed.”

Bump tilted his head and drummed he fingers on his desk; the lamp-light hit he diamond rings and sent sparks jumping all over the red walls. “Thinking got truth in it?”

“Ain’t can say. Were told the dude dumped Slick’s body were talkin, dig, an ghosts don’t talk, but maybe we oughta—”

“Ain’t callin the fuckin ladybird on the yet.” Bump waved his hand. “Just causen one fuckin crazyass saying see them fuckin selfs a ghost. Half them inna fuckin pipe-rooms say them seein dead ones, yay, you fuckin knowing that shit. Ain’t can fuckin give the belief on one fuckin rumor.”

Shit. Bump were right up there; they ain’t wanted a scare happening, and iffen they brung Chess in so early on people would believe it were a ghost after all. Best to leave it til they had to.

He moved on. “Talking to people near where Sue found. One said Slobag’s men there on the other day, tryin unload bags, dig? Just showing up, sneaking off again just as fast.”

Bump leaned back and put his feet up. He big toe were smeared with lipstick. Terrible ain’t wanted to think on that one. “Wait til you fuckin hearing on what I got. Lenny Green, yay, fuckin gave me on the last night. Slobag planning he more moves, yay? More creeping in on them borders, starting he fuckin fights up. Lenny fuckin gave me some on distractions, too, sayin some distractions fuckin on the happening.”

That ain’t sounded good at all. Not at all. “Distractions” could cover a fuckload of troubles.

His cigarette was smoked down; he stubbed it out, hard. Fucking Slobag. All the other else happening and now this shit to handle too.

“Maybe Slobag finally gonna stand he fuckin up, make a real move, yay,” Bump said. “Stead of the fuckin sneaky-side bullshit he been playin.”

Aye. Somebody were probably gonna stand up, but Terrible guessed it weren’t Slobag. Or whatany they was doing ain’t come from Slobag’s mind, leastaways. He were still giving the orders, but he asshole son Lex were the one suggesting them. “Thinking them meaning Slick? Be a distraction tryin catch who done him.”

Bump shrugged. Seemed like it took a long time. “Could fuckin be. Could fuckin be Sue what they meaning. Ain’t would fuckin put past them scumfuck shitlickers. Ain’t can get them cocks fuckin wet no other way, yay?”

Terrible shook his head. He ain’t wanted a disagreement, but …  Damn. Slobag was scum and Lex was worse, but rape just didn’t feel like a game they’d play. Murder, aye; they’d killed Bump’s men before. But that was men, and it wasn’t rape, and Terrible just couldn’t see what fucking point rape would have as far as gaining territory or hurting Bump or whatany. Even as a distraction. Were lotsa other shit could be a distraction that ain’t meant raping whores.

So he said it. “Ain’t see Slobag ordering Sue, true thing. Slick, aye, but—”

Bump waved his hand. “Yay, were thinkin be fuckin wrongways, too, but who fuckin knowing fuckin plans they doin? What else they fuckin tryna get a takeover on, yay?”

Shit, he ain’t thought on that one. “Thinkin they do this, tryin get the whores come work for them? Sayin we ain’t can protect em, dig.”

“Yay, got the fuckin maybe on that one. Just might fuckin be it.”

Now that seemed more like the kinda game Lex’d just might play. Like he kinda move: sneaky, and who gave a fuck who got hurt.

But still. He couldn’t quite go that far. “Just seeming like rape be outside even them, aye? Hearing Lex awful fuckin protective on that sister he got, he taking that kinda shit real personal. Specially since she got sheself hit by that dude few years back.”

“Digging you fuckin meanings, yay, but ain’t wanting give the nay just on the yet. Ain’t put shit past them stealing motherfuckers. Ain’t got he no fuckin thought on what fuckin loyalty be, yay, so no fuckin thought on what fuckin be rightways an wrongways neither.” There was that hissy sound again. Bump’s eyes practically flashed red, he were so mad-looking; like he were a cartoon and had them wavy lines all around him. “Ain’t fuckin got none heself, yay, and none on that fuckin side, so’s him ain’t fuckin knowing any on what it meaning. Fuckin piece of shit scumbag fuck.”

That one were true, too. No loyalty that side of town at all; Slobag would sell out he own children iffen it’d put another lasher in he pocket, and Lex would do the same in return, so Terrible guessed. He’d only met Lex maybe three, four times, but it were enough to pretty much hate his fucking guts.

Enough to know he were a user, a liar, somebody sailed through life on all the shit he got just from being born: money he ain’t had to work for, power he ain’t had to work for, looks he ain’t had to work for. Lex always seemed surrounded by dames wanting him to walk all over em. And he did, and they begged for more. Must be nice being born lucky.

“I do some askin,” he said, causen Bump seemed to want him to say something. “See what I can find on it. An keep looking elsewheres too.”

Bump nodded and poured heself another drink. Were good, causen Terrible wanted him relaxed for this next one. Wished he ain’t had to talk on it at all just yet, but he did.

In the cabinet under the deer head were a little fridge; he got up and grabbed heself a beer, taking his time, taking a long drink. He lit a smoke. He sat back down and fidgeted around with he notebook and the ashtray until he couldn’t put it off no more. “Wanna chatter on Roley, dig. Got … got me some thinkin on he.”

“Roley? Cousin to Lacey an Vole, that fuckin Roley?”

Terrible nodded.

“So? What you fuckin thinkin, then, you wants chattering up on?”

“Thinkin … ” Fuck. All that considering he’d done and them notes he wrote, and none of it seemed any good. “Thinkin I ain’t like he, aye? Ain’t feel right to me.”

“Why come?” Bump ain’t sounded mad or any like that, only curious. That ain’t made it easier figuring out what to say, cause really, all Terrible had was a feeling. Cepting what happened the night before, he ain’t could really point straight at any one thing to say Roley were trouble. True thing was Roley’d been doing good, working hard, helping out and all. He just … something just ain’t seemed right.

But Bump’d want knowledge on specifics. So he took a deep breath and said, “Seen he on the last night, over Chuck’s. I were at the bar, he came sat with Amy. Upset her, aye? Tryin look down she dress, kept touching she thigh—”

“Thought you ain’t fuckin serious on Amy, yay? Why you fuckin caring iffen—”

“Naw, naw, ain’t that. Were—she push he hand off, he putting it back, dig? Like he got heself a right touchin any dame he wanting. An he had that she were there with me. Ain’t even tried hiding him knowledge on that, gave me the tell straight up, be why him sat with her. So when I at the bar he heads up to she, knowing she there with me, starts touching on she. An when she tries telling him stop he ain’t stopped. Dig?”

Bump considered it. “He ain’t workin near the fuckin whores, yay? Or no dames. Only fuckin working on side shit, an inna warehouses.”

“Aye, but weren’t all, neither. Asking me let he off work for the new year, got real fuckin shitty I gave him a no. Sayin he gonna talk to you, like makin a fuckin threat. Claiming him practically you family so he oughta get ahead on all them others been workin longer. An … ”

Had to be a good way of saying this, but he ain’t could figure out exactly how. Ain’t mattered, causen he could feel how hot his face and neck were. “Him started talking on Chess, dig. So I—”

“This ain’t—”

“Naw, naw. Saying on Chess an me, him were. Like he knowing some shit there. Were thinkin … maybe he getting some knowledge on shit we saying here, aye? You an me. Maybe somebody giving he the tell on it.”

“You fuckin out with she all the fuckin time, yay, buzzin around she like a fuckin fly with a hard-on, so why he ain’t would fuckin assume on it?”

“Weren’t assuming.” No point replying to the fly thing. “Said like he had knowledge how I—like he knowing all the tale. Ain’t were making guesses, dig. Said like him knew on it.”

Bump’s lips went real thin, he mouth almost disappearing. He leaned forward. “You fuckin got the thought Lacey giving the listening in, fuckin passing he knowledge?”

“Ain’t saying certain, dig, just … maybe she overhear shit, maybe she mentioning it thinking weren’t a big deal. But iffen she mentioning that, maybe she mention some else, too.”

Bump thought on it for a long time. Terrible waited. Ain’t really expected Bump to have a say for him just then anyroad; ain’t really expected Bump to give him what he were maybe thinking on how to chatter with Lacey on that.

Finally Bump said, “You be keeping you fuckin eyes on he, dig, you fuckin watching he hard. Ain’t fuckin letting he near Bump’s dames, yay, keeping he the fuck away an all, nowhere near. Lemme have the fuckin chattering on with Lacey, yay.”

Terrible nodded. “Any else?”

“Just you fuckin get em, yay? You finding who fuckin done to Sue, and you finding them fuckin Slobag men over here and make em dead, yay, real fuckin dead. Wanting dump them fuckin bodies right on the fuckin street there, let Slobag fuckin know he needs staying he own fuckin side. You get it done, Terrible. On the soon-as, you get it fuckin done.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

NOTHING HAPPENING ON any of the streets where he’d gotten knowledge Slobag’s men were before. A couple people he chattered with had seen em, aye—swore they ain’t bought any off em, but he figured on that being lies—and promised they’d give a ring-up iffen they seen em again, but that ain’t done him much good then. He stopped on Sixtieth to chain up the door to the tunnel there. Wouldn’t matter, causen they’d just cut the chain, but it were a reminder. A way of giving em that he knew what they was pulling there.

At least that were one thing he knew, and knew who were behind. Made a cool change from all the other shit.

What weren’t a cool change was getting a phone call from Felice. What did she want? He’d been out to see Katie just a week and a half past, and while he’d be happy to go more often Felice made it clear she ain’t really wanted him around that much. Would look weird, she said. Would make people wonder.

He’d say she ain’t exactly cared what people thought when she were showing up at his place nine years past wearing almost nothing and dragging him to bed, but really, that had been all about what other people thought, hadn’t it? About what her parents thought and her friends thought, and about using him to make sheself feel like she were daring and rebellious or whatany the fuck. He’d known it then—ain’t really minded, and liked her company anyway, but he’d known—and he guessed she knew it now, and that were why she got so antsy. Nobody liked to be reminded they’d gone ahead and done exactly what they’d said they wouldn’t do.

Guessed he’d find out what she were wanting. “Hey. You right?”

“Do you have a minute?” She sounded annoyed. Not good.

“Be a problem?”

“Katie keeps asking when she can go sleep at your house. Why haven’t you told her she can’t?”

Fuck. He didn’t reply. This again, and it all being shoved on him again, too, when it were harder and harder to think of ways to say no. Especially when he ain’t wanted to say no, not really; well, coursen he did, it weren’t right bringing her to Downside, but the thought of getting to spend a whole night with her, putting her to bed and all … like being her dad for real instead of just by blood, and he’d never gotten to do that.

“Terrible? Are you there?”

“Aye.”

“Well? Do you have anything to say about this?”

“What you wanting me to say?” He tried to keep the annoyance from his voice, but didn’t think he succeeded. Tension crept up his back, into his muscles. “Told her I work nights an she gave me the ask take a night off. Told her my neighborhood ain’t safe for a little girl, she say she certain I can keep her safe. Told her I ain’t got a place for her, she ask why don’t I love her enough to let her sleep my bed. You wanting her stay off my place, you give her a fuckin no, aye? Quit makin me lie like I ain’t wanting her here.”

“You want her there?” Felice sounded even more annoyed. “Are you actually saying you want to take my daughter into that part of town?”

“My daughter, too.” The second the words left his mouth he regretted them, knowing what would come next, knowing he’d just turned a disagreement into a fight.

“Not legally. Not according to her birth certificate, she’s not. Don’t forget, you see her because we let you see her. And you just try going to court and proving paternity. You don’t even fucking exist as far as the Church is concerned, do you? And I somehow doubt you want them getting your fingerprints and DNA on file.”

He tried not to think of Felice as a bitch. She weren’t a bitch. She were just tryna do her best, and keep Katie safe, which he could get behind all the way. And sometimes—most of the time—they could still smile and have a chatter and get along fine.

But other times … other times he just wanted to start breaking shit. “Happy taking my money, aye? Ain’t see you complain on what you getting, or on she college account, or—”

“So you help support the child you made and that means I should let you take her into drug dens, or to hang out with thieves and prostitutes or that sleazy pimp you work for?”

“What? You thinking I—” He took a deep breath, tried to stay calm. Which weren’t easy. Felice thought he’d take Katie to the fucking piperooms or some shit? That he’d take Katie there? What the fuck? “Quit with that shit, aye? You know I ain’t do that. Never saying I think she oughta be down here, neither. Only sayin I ain’t should be the only one giving her the no. Quit fuckin leaving it all on me, dig? Makin me the bad guy.”

Silence. He was glad of it, too; gave him a chance to get heself calmed down a minute. Hard enough figuring what to say when he weren’t pissed off.

Finally Felice spoke. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be the only one.”

Felt like she were waiting for him to answer, but he was still too mad, and figured anything he might say could start another fight, too.

She sighed, loud and heavy through the phone. “Look, I didn’t call to argue. I guess we need to figure out something to tell her together. And I know you wouldn’t take her to hang out with prostitutes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Ain’t should have got mad myself,” he said. It still stung; it stung because he knew, deep down, that Felice did think he might take Katie to the piperooms or to hang out at Bump’s place with porn on the walls. That she thought he were so dumb he ain’t knew what was right for a little girl to see.

But then, it weren’t really right for a little girl to be spending time with somebody like him, was it? Even if she was his, the only one he’d ever have, and she were tall like him and smiled when she saw him. Even if she were the only totally clean, totally pure thing in he entire life. Closest other thing he had to it was Chess, how she made him feel, cepting of course most of the thoughts he had about Chess—the things he wanted to do to Chess—weren’t clean or pure at all.

“Okay, well, look,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow you can stop by while she’s at school. And you can go pick her up, if you want. And we’ll figure out a way to explain to her that she is not going to be spending any nights with you. Because you know that’s not going to happen. Not as long as you live where you live, and do for a living what you do.”

“Aye,” he said. “Aye, I know.”

Nobody on the streets, least not anybody with owes. Which fucking sucked, because after he finally got off the phone with Felice—after she got pissed he couldn’t be at hers the next day, after she got pissed he weren’t certain when he could be at hers, after she got pissed in general—he could have done with some collecting. He was tense and annoyed and anxious, felt stuck in place and wanted to move. Wanted to get rid of it, that tension that almost hurt—that did hurt, like a burning in his gut that radiated out to his whole body.

Fighting weren’t the only way to do it, but Amy and Sela weren’t around neither.

And he ain’t could call Chess. Not til he’d finished finding Gav, causen he didn’t want to have to take off fast again. Aye, being with her wouldn’t let him work off all that the way he usually did, but … it still calmed him. He just wanted to see her smile, hear her voice. Chess ain’t thought he were just some thug not good enough to be seen at her place. Chess ain’t thought he were so dumb he’d take a little girl into a piperoom or to hang out with whores—not that Felice would even get that most of em were whores, iffen she met em. They were nice dames, most were. Just tryna make their livings, put food on them tables like anybody else. They had themselves something worth selling and they sold it, just business. Just like Felice’s fucking husband with he bank job. Only difference between he and Bump was his kind of stealing and lying were legal.

Thinking on it made it worse. He lit a smoke, turned up the Lazy Cowgirls on the stereo. It ain’t helped. This was bullshit, driving around. Too cold for the streets to be real busy; he passed flickering candles in windows, shadows moving behind em, small crowds of three or four huddled together on steps for warmth. Firecans lined the road at intervals, flames bright orange lighting up the faces of them standing around with hands out to catch the heat. A few people had blankets and patchworks of cheap furs thrown over em, too. The lucky ones.

He parked a block over from the squat, ducking the Chevelle into an alley where it wouldn’t be so visible, and started walking. Even the little groups he’d been passing were absent up there, the street just a long stretch of empty broken cement with silent buildings looming over it.

But the street-man were on the corner like he should be—he’d talk to him first—and even besides him, Terrible had been spotted, and he knew it. Could feel eyes on him, more with every step he took.

And just like always he felt something … switch inside him. Like he had feelers coming from every inch of skin and could cast them out into all the empty windows and blank spaces, almost like he could feel the air move. Hyperaware, he’d read somewhere. That were what it felt like. And he had to be that way, causen every time he stepped on the street somebody might could be aiming a gun at he head, planning to jump out at him. Aye, chances were they wasn’t—most were smart enough to know it’d be a big fucking mistake—but crazy fucks existed everywhere, and crazy fucks ain’t used common sense. He were always, always careful.

Were a good thing that night, causen something weren’t right on that street, and he guessed he were about to find out what it was.

The street-man were Ronnie Jay. Been with Bump maybe two years, had he a lot of friends. He straightened up when Terrible approached, started reaching into his pocket for what money he’d collected.

Terrible shook his head, but waited to talk til he were real close. “This you regular corner, aye?”

Ronnie nodded. “Almost a year. You wanting what I get so far, see how I do this night? Be busy, it is, ain’t for certain why it slowing down on the sudden twenty minutes or so past but it done. Afore that I selling lots.”

That feeling of something being wrong got stronger, and his anger rose. “What you meaning, got quiet twenty minutes past? Why you ain’t called that shit in?”

Ronnie Jay shrank back. “Sorry, sorry, only—ain’t gave it the thought til just now, you digging? Ain’t hardly gave it the notice, I figuring it just be one a them lulls, see, ain’t—”

“Ain’t doing you fucking job.” Ronnie Jay weren’t a bad dude. Worked hard and were honest. But this were fucking important, it were, and Terrible couldn’t seem to stop the hand that reached out and grabbed Ronnie Jay’s arm hard. So hard he felt the bones creak under the skin. One of the dames could be attacked right then. Somebody could be getting killed right then. “What you been told? Be on the watch, aye? Causen we got shit going down, you supposed to be watching close. Why the fuck you ain’t?”

“Been watching, got the license plates an all, been writing down what them all look like, sorry, I been watching. Just ain’t were thinking, sorry, just ain’t were thinking right up.”

Terrible looked at him close, leaned in even closer. The sharp bitter scent of dollar wine was like a blanket of rancid vapor wrapped around him. Motherfuck. “You fucked up? Been drinkin, aye? How much?”

Even in the darkness he could see the fear in Ronnie Jay’s eyes. “Only a little, I swearing, ain’t drunk, just to keep warm. Be so cold, Terrible, so cold out, an—”

Terrible punched him. Not hard—not as hard as he could, nowhere near as hard as he could—but Ronnie Jay’s head snapped back. “An what happen, dame gets attacked again? S’posed to be keeping em safe, you dumb fuck. S’posed to be payin fuckin attention. Been quiet twenty minutes an you ain’t even think be a problem?”

He let go of Ronnie Jay and turned to scan the street, plucking his phone from his pocket. Needed to get another street-man there, he did, send Ronnie Jay—whimpering behind him like a pussy—home. The street-man number was the fifth autodial button on he phone; he hit it, kept looking up and down the street and ignoring Ronnie Jay.

Malia answered. “Aye?”

“Needs me another street-man Forty-eighth an Grant,” he said. “Now. An send a van. Get a body-van up here, aye? Fast.”

He’d just spotted two kids ducking into an alley on the other side of the squat. The side where he guessed the entry was. Aye, kids could live in there. Could be heading into there for anything. But something in the way they moved, and in the way he suddenly heard what sounded like more than a couple voices over there, made he suspect he had a good idea what they were doing there. What they was looking at.

Being right fucking sucked sometimes. A crowd had formed in the alley, not big but big enough; he pushed through it and saw the corpse. He’d never laid eyes on Gav before, but he ain’t had too much doubt that were Gav lying there with a bullet through he brain and wide, blank eyes staring at the dull winter sky overhead.

Terrible knelt by the body. Shit. “Any see anything?”

Murmurs behind him. He ignored em, kept looking at the body—somebody’d speak up iffen they had knowledge for him. One shot in the head, upper left. Looked like the gun been close up when he shot, causen Terrible had seen enough bullet holes to know what them black speckles around em meant. Somebody Gav knew, then? Somebody right-handed, facing him.

No bruises or aught, so no fight, or iffen there were a fight he died so soon after there ain’t had been time for bruises to form. He skin were cold, but seeing as how it were below freezing outside, that ain’t told much. But he didn’t have a dark line on he eyeballs, so he probably ain’t had been dead more’n a couple hours.

He almost wished he had been. Iffen Gav were only dead a few hours, meant he were killed after Terrible found out who he were. Meant maybe iffen Terrible’d gotten there earlier he coulda talked to him. Meant maybe somebody knew Gav told people he’d been a look-out.

“I seen summat.” Young dude, maybe late teens, stepped forward. “Found he, I done. Seen a shape having a jumping over that there wall, I seen, jumping right over. Be a ghost. All blacked up, clothes and all, see? A ghost like a shadow.”

Fuck. That ghost shit again, and the eyes of every person in that crowd went wide.

But thanks to Chess, Terrible knew more about ghosts. Knew no way could it be a ghost done what the kid just said. “Ain’t a ghost.”

“How you knowing?” Another voice; Terrible hunted, found the one who said it. Watched his face pale and he head duck down.

“Knowing causen ghosts ain’t can jump walls, dig?” He stood up, still staring at the little fuck. “Ain’t can climb like that. This weren’t a ghost.”

“Be a ghost around, though, aye?” Another voice, a dame. Little thing wearing a huge fur coat wrapped around she twice. “I hearing be a ghost around.”

“Naw, no fuckin ghost.” He looked at the rest of the crowd, the crowd getting bigger by the second. “You dig? No fuckin ghosts here. I hear any spreading that shit I comin have a chatter with you, aye? No ghosts. Now any see anything real?”

Movement in the back of the crowd, a dark head ducking and running. Right. Terrible shoved his way after it, not paying attention to where the people he shoved fell. Anybody tried to run away from a scene like that were either real sensitive or real involved, and he bet he knew which it was.

He caught the dame before she made it halfway down the street. Weren’t hard; she were tiny, and on teetery silver heels flashing against her dark skin. And she were crying. Maybe were a lie to put he off, but he ain’t thought so; he grabbed her less hard than he planned to, and talked quieter than he would have otherwise. She looked familiar, too, under the black eye makeup running all down she face, which made him wanna be nicer until he could recall why. “You knowing he, aye? Gav? Be yours?”

She started crying again, so hard he almost ain’t could be certain she were nodding, too. “Just … just were seeing he, just seeing he on the midday. All were right up, ain’t understanding … why this happen? Ain’t getting it, Terrible, ain’t … ”

She voice fell apart then, so he couldn’t understand what she were saying. But now he knew why she looked familiar. Not causen she knew he name—everybody did—but the way she said it, the way she tilted her head and the scent of her hair, made the memory finally click. “Carrie?”

She tried a smile that ain’t made it all the way across she face. “Callie. Ain’t thinking you recalled me.”

“Aye, Callie. Coursen I do.” Sort of. Shit. Remembered he’d never given her a ring-up after, aye, but not much else.

And double shit, causen that made it harder to ask her questions. He ain’t recalled she last name, iffen he’d ever knew it, or what she done for work. Thought she had a brother worked for Bump, in one of the warehouses or aught like that, but ain’t were certain. And he couldn’t ask on any of it without admitting he ain’t thought on her at all since he left her place however the fuck long ago it were.

Best to try and run over all that. She probably weren’t too concerned on it just then anyroad, what with she man shot in the head. “With Gav now, aye? How long?”

“Why somebody killing he?” She ain’t seemed to hear him, hugging herself tighter, hunching she shoulders like she could hide in her red coat. “Why any wanna kill he? Weren’t a bad one, he weren’t. Ain’t done nowt hurting any here, ain’t getting he all involved up.”

Excepting for being lookout while a dame got raped, but Terrible ain’t said that. “How long you been with he? You knowing him friends, who he hang with?”

“Almost nine months now.” She’d started to look calmed down, but when she say that one her face crumpled again. “Were movin he outta here, we was, we finding our own place on Ace. Nicer, dig? Was gonna pay us the deposit first thing on the morrow, just got us the lashers together, just got he share a few days past.”

Fuck. “How much? How much the deposit?”

She blinked. “Why? Gave it me for holding, he done, he ain’t had it on he for robbing—”

“How much it were?” He stopped and took a step back, his breath making steam in the sharp cold air. “Might matter, aye? Needing the knowledge.”

She ain’t argued, or sat thinking, which were cool. “Five hundred.”

“How he getting it? He usually have that much?”

She glanced at the crowd behind them. It had got bigger; it were louder, and he heard scuffling feet, more than before. Somebody had lit up a firecan. The crowd’s bodies cast long spindly shadows on the street and walls, like fingers closing over him. “Thinkin them killed he causen they hearing him have money?”

Fuck, no. He were almost certain that weren’t it. But he ain’t could tell her that. “He usually have that much on he?”

A minute or two while she struggled again. Then, “Nay. Been tight last six months, real tight, ain’t had he much. Made he a score finally, though, he do, made he a score so’s we—so’s we can … ”

He saw it coming and lifted he hands from his sides, so when she fell forward into his chest he were ready. Felt awkward, and he ain’t really wanted to stand there holding her, but what the fuck else was he supposed to do?

Gave him a second to think, leastaways. So Gav’s duff game ain’t been going well—be why he squatting, aye. Then he met Callie, decided they’d set up house together, and all the sudden Gav needed he some money fast. Somebody came along offering he a chunk to be lookout …

“Callie.” He hated asking, and knew what the answer’d be, but had to ask just the same. “He give you the tell how he getting it? The five hundred, meaning. He say on it?”

She shook her head. Just as he figured. “Why? It mattering? You think—he ain’t steal from somebody he oughtn’t, aye? You thinking that were it?”

“Naw,” he said, and leastaways that weren’t a lie. Weren’t who he stole from killed him; were them he’d helped steal done it, and saved Terrible the trouble.

And he’d have had to do it, too, kill Gav, causen Gav knew what he were doing. Had to know. Nobody were so fuckin dumb they thought five hundred were the right price for being a robbery lookout. Gav knew he were watching out for something hardcore; knew whoever paying he were taking a big fucking risk, so he probably knew Bump were involved with the victim. That kinda money told Terrible another thing, too. Whoever behind this all had it, lots of it.

One more thing it maybe gave him, but he had to check that one. “Callie,” he said. “Where Gav keeping he stuff he were gonna move?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“YOU STILL LIVING the same place?” he asked her, once he’d backed the Chevelle outen the alley.

“Aye.”

Fuck. He had no clue where she lived; he’d hoped she’d have moved and give him a new address, or she’d remind him. They’d met at Trickster’s, he thought, and walked to hers … ? Or ain’t that been her?

He glanced at her, tryna think of another way to ask, and found her half-smiling at him. “Ain’t worry you ain’t recalling,” she said. “Ain’t were expecting you to. True thing, Terrible, no problem. Were just fun, aye?”

He tried to smile back, but stopped when she started crying again.

“Ain’t hadda worry on that with Gav,” she said, wiping her nose on the bottom of her skirt. “Nine months we been together … loved me, he did, we was gonna set up a house, gonna maybe have us a baby … why this happened? Why he be the one getting killed?”

Shit, what were he supposed to say? To hide his discomfort he pulled out a couple of smokes and offered her one. She shook her head. He lit his anyway.

“Tryna find out,” he said finally, after the silence had gone on a few beats too long. “Tryna catch who done it, aye? You let me see what stuff he got you place, maybe we finding somethin tell us more.”

“Left on Fifty-third,” she said in reply, and ain’t spoke again except for giving him directions.

Turned out she lived up on Cole, little stone house behind a bigger one. Another memory clicked into place.

Still had them creepy pictures, he saw as soon’s she opened the door. Big-eyed kittens and unsmiling kids holding flowers, all staring right outen the walls at him like accusations or some shit. And from the other single bed up against the wall he guessed she still had that creepy roommate, too, the one asked him if she could have some of he blood for her collection.

She’d said it were a collection, but he’d wondered iffen she were wanting it to do magic with; seeing the place now made him think he’d been right, causen just the briefest look around showed him shit people outside the Church weren’t supposed to have. Another thing he knew from Chess. He could imagine what she’d say about them freaky pictures, about the roommate who wanted blood; for a second he wished she were there with him. He could hear her voice in his head.

“He stuff be here,” Callie said. She’d been crying so much her voice sounded all scratchy. “These boxes. What you thinking you find? Why you looking?”

Only three boxes. Wouldn’t take long, but he already doubted he’d find aught to help him there. He’d been hoping to find something tell he who Gav’s friends were, what places Gav hung around. Them who killed him went to him for a reason, ain’t just picked he out of a crowd. Not for that kinda money, that kinda action. Any wanting a lookout for shit like that ain’t wanting to take a chance being snitched on when them lookout learned what crime they looked out for.

And they ain’t killed Gav right after. Which meant they’d figured on him keeping he mouth shut. They knew him. Had to know him, and trusted him.

Callie took off her coat, revealing a shiny silver dress that showed lots of smooth brown skin, lots of curves, and that she weren’t wearing anything underneath. He felt guilty noticing, seeing as how her tears weren’t even all dry, but she ain’t seemed to care. She headed into the painfully bright pink kitchen, came out a minute later with a chipped mug full of what smelled like gin and a beer. She offered the beer to him; he took it but only pretended to sip. Aye, he were pretty certain she weren’t in on any of it, but he ain’t managed to live to be whatever age he were by not being paranoid.

He started digging through the first box, pulling out a tangle of limp button-down shirts and dressy-looking pants; Gav’s working clothes, guessing. “So who Gav’s friends were? You know any?”

“Said he only wanting be with me.” For a second he thought she were gonna cry again, but she pulled it together. “Mention he … Cartwheel, thinking it were. Were friends with some name of Loop. And were a dude Archie he talked on a lot the last month or so. Archie had a game for he, they was workin together or plannin to work or … ain’t for certain on all them details. Just knowing the name, Archie, an Gav all excited causen he was gonna bring some real lashers in, said—said he support me the way I oughta be, dig me, said I ain’t gonna be having to work no more … ”

“You meet he ever?”

“Nay.” She upended the mug over her mouth and swallowed the contents in one gulp. He guessed he’d do the same iffen he were in her shoes. “Went by he place on one time, waited in the car. Lived … Sixty-second, thinking? Were Tate Street, twixt Sixty-first an Sixty-second. Red building.”

“When this were?”

“Last week? Maybe a few days more. Ain’t long past. Gav saying—Gav saying Archie real smart, got work for he, a real living.”

“Archie working the duff, too?”

“Gav saying some on legit work, dig. Real work, like a straight job. Ain’t knowing iffen that were Archie or no.”

The next box looked to be Gav’s work shit; a smaller box full of fake diamond rings and bracelets, some coins in little plastic bags like the kind for speed, coils of what looked like gold but weren’t. That kinda shit. A stack of fake papers, too, certificates of authenticity and insurance papers and like that, to back up the scam. Why Gav ain’t had any lashers, iffen he had all this? Looked like good quality, too, like he spent some getting it.

Maybe that were why he were broke. He turned to Callie, who sat on she crazy roommate’s bed watching him. “Gav ain’t been making much on he games, aye?”

“Been lean times.” She took a deep shuddery breath. “Saying he figured all be right up in place on the next month. So I covering until then, covering we meals and all.”

He couldn’t help it; first thing he wondered was iffen Gav working he another long game on Callie. She paying all nine months gone? Fuck. He ain’t never heard of a plain duff game running that long. And what Gav had in he box ain’t looked near sophisticated enough for the kinda game that did. That kinda game were about lines of credit and leases and vacation homes and shit; had to be able to talk smart and look rich, and Gav’s collection of khakis and fake engagement rings were nowhere near that kinda thing.

So the idea that Gav had been planning something for nine months … he ain’t could help thinking it sounded more like maybe Gav found heself a free ride. He hoped he were wrong. Callie ain’t deserved some shitbag made a dame pay his way. “Why he ain’t moving in here with you?”

She gestured at the bed she sat on. “Viola ain’t liking me having dudes here all night. Got real mad, she done, when he tried stayin more’n one in a row. So … we was waiting till we could afford we own place. Stayed with he most nights, I done, only with it bein so cold now … ”

He felt like there oughta be some more he could say or something, the way she kept crying. But what else was she supposed to do, and what was he supposed to do? Couldn’t stand there all night holding she hand. He had to work. And he ain’t knew her, not really. One night a year or so past, and he ain’t seen or talked to her again. He ain’t had the faintest idea how to help her feelings, and ain’t had the time neither. Made him feel bad, but were true all the same.

“He give you any else? Gave you aught might explain on this, might give me someplace to look?”

She sighed, a real long heavy sigh. “Say the new thing were real solid, say would pull in lots and make em rich. Bigger … bigger something, he done said. Something selling itself, he ain’t hardly having to work it, he say. But that all he say, aye? Ain’t gave me any else. Saying wanting surprise me.”

He sorted through the last box fast as he could. Some pictures of what looked like Gav’s family. Couple notebooks; he grabbed them, too. More clothes … nothing else he might could use.

He waved the notebooks at Callie. “Taking these, aye? Can bring em back if you’re wanting, on the later.”

She nodded. He got the feeling she were ready for him to go. Ain’t could blame her there. Iffen he were her he wouldn’t want to watch him digging through she boyfriend’s shit neither. He’d want to be alone. Felt like she sadness were so big it filled the room, and ain’t left much space for him.

He headed for the door, paused in front of her. What was he supposed to say there? “Gonna find who done this, aye? I find em. You recall any else you thinking be good knowledge for me, even any you thinking maybe ain’t important, you let me know, aye?”

“Ain’t got you number,” she said.

Shit. He ain’t gave out he actual number much. Wouldn’t have thought twice on giving her the street-man number usually, but given that he’d seen her naked … he’d feel like an asshole giving her a number answered by somebody else.

So he scrawled down his, opened he wallet. He ain’t had much on him; only fifty, but he handed it over. “Here. For the knowledge, aye? An gimme a ring-up iffen you recall aught, or any else happens. Maybe you hearing from somebody knew he, or like that. Lemme know.”

He wondered if she would.

Archie had the look Terrible had seen before, like he figured he were the smartest, coolest dude ever walked on the ground. Like he jerked off into a mirror.

And the way Archie looked back at him made him want to punch the fucker in the mouth. Smug, he guessed were the word for it. And Terrible knew exactly what Archie were thinking as he looked at him: Big dumb ugly goon, I can lie to him easy and he ain’t know the difference.

Fine with him, Archie wanted to think that way. Causen one of two things was going to happen. Either Archie was going to learn Terrible weren’t so dumb by paying attention, or Archie was going to learn Terrible weren’t so dumb by getting his nose broken. And Terrible kinda hoped it was the second one.

Past Archie Terrible could see his apartment. Nicer than most. Looked like Archie even put money into the place. His suspicions rose. Archie coulda made that money on cons, easy, but why live in Downside if he making that kinda cash? Anybody had the money to have stuff like that furniture, that stereo and big-ass TV … anybody had that kind of money, they didn’t live in Downside.

Except him, aye, but he had a reason for living there.

Archie had lived in Downside long enough to know what to say when he opened the door, too. “I don’t want trouble with Bump.”

They all said that. Even when they’d gone and gotten themselves in trouble on purpose, they said it. “You answer me, you ain’t have trouble, dig?”

Archie nodded. He didn’t step back to let Terrible in. That didn’t matter. Terrible shoved him out of the way and walked in, scanning the place fast to make sure nobody were hiding in there.

He didn’t look back at Archie, though. Let Archie know he weren’t scared. He’d see Archie out the corner of his eye, iffen he tried to make a move.

The place was way too fucking nice for Downside. He had one a them big-ass wall units that held his TV and all, had glass doors on it. Couch and chair looked brand new.

Could have all been stolen. But still. “Nice place.”

He felt Archie hesitate behind him. Felt his surprise. Hadn’t expected him to talk first, had he? No, causen he was one of them assholes read books about business strategy or whatever, like dealing with people was nothing more than a set of ten rules. And none of those rules applied there anyway. Terrible had the “tactical advantage,” and he knew it, causen if Archie tried playing games with him he’d just beat him down. Made things real easy.

Especially since Archie looked like a dude afraid to get hurt. Being afraid to get hurt meant he lost. Always. The key to winning was knowing that kind of pain ain’t last, and knowing how to take it. Knowing how to make it work, how to get used to it. Learning to accept it. Welcome it. Get so you wanted it.

Terrible was good at all of that. Feeling it outside beat feeling it inside.

Archie still hadn’t said anything. Terrible glanced back at him, still standing there by the door. “Goin out?”

Archie blinked. “No. Um, why are you here? It’s awfully late, isn’t it?”

“You knowing a dude name of Gav?”

“Why?” The word came out real curious, like Archie couldn’t think of any reason in the whole fucking world why he might get asked on Gav. But he obviously could. Tension sat in every line of his body, even though he was trying hard not to let it show. Like that weren’t suspicious.

Terrible shrugged. “You name come up somebody knows he.”

He’d came there to see iffen Archie might have more knowledge on Gav. But he were real fast starting to wonder iffen Archie had some serious knowledge on Gav, like the kinda knowledge came from being involved. Something about him was off. Something wrong. Terrible’s instincts told him so, and instincts were what he had instead of smarts.

So he wandered around the room, checking things out. Couple of books. Only a couple, computer guides and business books—aye, he knew it. Guessing Archie weren’t as smart as he liked to think he was, he ain’t even read real books.

“Who said that?”

Terrible picked up one of the books, pretended to flip through it. “Been here long?”

“Two months or so. Who said I know Gav?”

“Where you lived before?”

“Fifty-sixth and Mercer. Why are you asking?”

“Just tryna be friendly, aye?” Terrible gave him a look he knew wasn’t friendly at all. “Gettin to know you.”

“I knew Gav.” Archie folded his arms. “Don’t really have any information for you. Didn’t know him well. Don’t know what he might have been doing that got him killed.”

Terrible looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to make Archie fidget. “Killed? Ain’t said aught on he bein killed, or on wondering what he been doin. What you talking on?”

An eyelid flicker. “Just heard he got killed. I figured that’s why you’re here, because something he was doing made him get killed.”

“Then why you ain’t asked me on it when I get here, you think it’s why I came?”

Archie opened his mouth, but Terrible didn’t let him answer. “Thinkin you wanna gimme the tell now, what you know on it. You friends with Gav, you say.”

“I wouldn’t say friends.” Archie’d been standing by the door the whole time. Now he moved, walking real slow like he was some kinda badass and sitting down on the leather couch. “We knew each other. He was going to work with me. We met, he mentioned wanting a job, my work was hiring. That’s all.”

“He say any to you on other ways he getting lashers?”

“Money? Um, no, I don’t think so. We didn’t talk a lot. We were just acquaintances.”

“Where you work?”

“Why?”

This was bullshit. Terrible folded his arms and stared, letting I-could-just-kill-you show all over his face.

“I work in Cross Town. Right on the border. The Peace Factory.”

The Peace Factory. “What the fuck kind of place is that?”

“We make yoga supplies, meditation supplies. Some magic supplies.”

“And you got Gav work there.”

Archie shrugged, but his eyes and voice were defensive. And nervous. “Gav had some sales ability. We’re always launching new products and need salespeople to get them into stores. That’s all.”

“What you launching now?”

“Some new meditation discs, some new spells. Why do you care?”

Terrible stared at him for another minute without speaking, making sure Archie saw the threat, saw Terrible wasn’t done with him. But his mood lifted, even though it shouldn’t have. A company made magic supplies. Chess would know about that one. Might have some thoughts for him. He bet she would. And now he had an excuse to go see her and ask her on it—well, he’d had an excuse anyway, or he ain’t needed an excuse, but now he really did. And it’d be easy to ask her if she’d heard of the place without having to bring up anything might upset her. “The fuck you care why I care? Just askin. Gav gets he involved with you, now turning up dead. Awful suspicious, aye?”

“Look, I don’t know what he might have been doing in his own time. And this isn’t exactly the safest area in the world, is it? I’m sorry he’s dead but all I know is he was going to come work at the Peace Factory. I don’t know anything else.”

Bullshit. Bullshit he ain’t knew anything else.

Problem were, Terrible couldn’t do too much on it. His suspicions weren’t solid enough yet to start hitting; would be fun to beat on Archie, but it’d be pointless iffen Archie were just an asshole who got Gav a job. Specially since Callie’d made it sound like Gav were going legit with that job. Might not have shit to do with being a lookout.

More’n that, though, beating on Archie now would tip Archie off that he knew Gav had been the lookout. Would make Archie tip off whoever he worked for, if he were working for somebody. Would let Archie know exactly what Terrible was looking for.

Better to let him keep thinking they ain’t knew shit. Better to let him keep thinking Terrible were too dumb to know anything—or, better again, that Terrible were all threat and no action, that he were scared to just beat on anybody for any reason.

Better to let him feel safe.

“Gav ever mentioning other names to you? Friends he got, like that?”

“Not really.”

“Hearing he were here on the last week. Why come?”

Archie looked surprised, for about as long as it took him to blink the expression away. “I gave him some forms to fill out, for work. He wasn’t starting for another few weeks, but he wanted to get everything going. He was real excited about it. I guess he had some chick he was going to live with.”

It all fit. It all made sense. But something in Terrible’s head kept telling him Archie weren’t what he seemed, that maybe there were more to it. “Why you living here, you work in Cross Town?”

Archie shrugged. “Why not? Cheaper here. Nobody bugs me—usually.”

He said that last with a pointed narrow-eye look at Terrible. Aye, Terrible were imposing on Archie’s precious time or whatany the fuck. Causen Archie were so busy and important.

And maybe he were, at least maybe he were as far as what was happening. Maybe Terrible oughta give him he alone time back and go see what else he could find out on Archie, too.

He gave Archie one last glare to let him know he weren’t done with him, and headed for the Chevelle.

Next morning he sat outside Chess’s building, waiting for her. Early, causen it were Holy Day so she’d be heading to her Church soon. He wanted to catch her before she left; needed to ask her on something, and ain’t wanted to ask on the phone.

Ain’t wanted to stop by the night before, neither, cause by the time he woke up Archie’s landlord to get what knowledge he had on Archie, and put out the word that he wanted everything any else could give him on Archie, and finished telling Bump’s brain men to get him what they could on the Peace Factory, it were after three and he ain’t wanted to bother her, even though her lights were on. She had to be up early on Saturdays; he weren’t real clear on why it were so important she be there for they services or whatany it was they did, but it seemed like it were. So he tried not to give her the ring-up or stop by later on Fridays. She ain’t slept enough as it was.

Meant he’d only got himself about four hours of sleep, but that ain’t mattered. He could go back home to bed iffen he wanted to. She probably couldn’t.

He leaned against the Chevelle and felt the cold air around him, watched how it made everything look sharp at the edges. He kinda liked mornings, leastaways when he woke up early to see em instead of being up all night. When morning came after being up all night it were like being shooed home when the bar closed. But waking up early, felt like the day could be anything. Fresh. No shit left over from the night before.

That feeling wouldn’t last more’n an hour or two, but it were still nice when he had it.

The big front doors of Chess’s building opened and she appeared, glancing around to make certain nobody were there before she stepped all the way out. She saw him. Even at a distance—her building had steps out front, and a patch of dirt between them and the street—he saw her smile, felt himself smiling back. For a second it were like they were the only people in the world. At least it were until a dog started barking in the distance, and somebody yelled at it, and the street sounds that were always there even early in the morning came back. They’d been there the whole time. He just ain’t heard em.

“Hey,” she said when she got close to him. Still smiling, but confusion touched her eyes. Confusion or concern, maybe. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

He nodded. “You heading you Church now, aye?”

“Yeah, it’s Holy Day, and it’s the New Year service, so … ”

“Aye.” He offered her a smoke, which she took, and lit one for himself too. “Got an ask for you. Ever hear on a place called the Peace Factory?”

She thought for a second. The sun hit the back of her head and made her hair glow. Fuck, she was so pretty. “They make magic supplies, right?”

“Aye, guessing so.”

“Yeah, I think I know who they are. Why?”

“Heared something on em, wondered iffen you had any knowledge. You buy from they, or any at you Church do?”

She smiled a little, rolled her eyes. He wanted to kiss her when she did that. Course he always wanted to kiss her, so …  “Ha, no. They make stuff for amateurs. Generic shit.”

“Shit that ain’t work.”

Her smile widened. “Right. The stuff you see at convenience stores, you know? Ready-made sleep spells, that kind of thing, for people who aren’t witches.”

“You got any knowledge on em?”

“The name is really familiar.” She bit her lip. Aye, he’d do the same iffen she’d let him. “It sounds like I should know it, if you know what I mean. You want me to check it out? I can’t get any business records or anything, I’d need an Elder to get that stuff, but I can look at their basic file, if you want.”

“Be a help, aye, iffen you ain’t minding.”

“Sure. I’ll call you if I find anything, okay?”

“Aye, thanks.” He stepped aside so she could unlock her car door. “Oughta get you gone now, aye? Ain’t wanting make you late or aught.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

He grabbed the door as she opened it, letting her know he’d close it for her. Got him another smile. Pretty cool way to start his day; maybe that were why he was thinking this were a good morning. Causen he were seeing her first thing, and he ain’t usually done that.

“Okay, well, I’ll give you a call,” she said. “I know you have plans tonight, though, so … Happy New Year, in case I don’t see you.”

“Aye. You, too.” He closed the door then, fast so he wouldn’t try to lean in and touch her or anything. Fast so he wouldn’t say it ain’t mattered what plans he had, iffen she wanted to see him she’d see him. Then he stood on the curb and watched her drive away.

CHAPTER NINE

AYE, WERE FUCKING dumb of him to think a new day could mean anything good. He stood inside a squat on Foster and looked at the bags in his hand, trying to calm down enough to listen to what Bumberjack were telling him.

“Told me them could handle what ghosts be out there, them did,” Bumberjack said. His voice were more slurred than usual; Terrible guessed them bags had been fuller when he bought em. When he bought em off Slobag’s men. “Told me I start buyin offen them, you get me, buyin them product, they help me out an be keeping me safe from that spook out there.”

“Ain’t a fuckin ghost.” It came out harder then he meant it to; Bumberjack shrank away. Shit. Terrible took a deep breath. “Ain’t a ghost, dig? Slobag lyin, tryin get people moving over to he.”

“But be a spook killed Slick, I’m hearing—”

“Weren’t a ghost killed Slick. True thing, aye? Were seen. Were a living one, not dead.”

Bumberjack ain’t looked convinced. “Why Bump ain’t got the Churchwitch in? Slobag men sayin can keep me safe from the spooks.”

Bumberjack weren’t usually so dumb. That bag Slobag’s men gave him musta been stronger than usual. Well, aye, them was tryna steal customers, wasn’t they? Coursen what they offered now were better than normal. Then after people made the switch Slobag’d start cutting their shit deep again.

“Bump ain’t got the Churchwitch in,” he said, real slow, “causen we ain’t needing her in. No ghost, dig? No ghost, no need for the Churchwitch. Iffen a ghost were around, she’d be in it. Aye?”

“But—”

“Naw, no but.” Terrible glared at him. “An no ghost. Ain’t wanna even be hearing that shit again, dig? I hear you saying that shit, I come back. You keep you fuckin mouth shut.”

“Aye, aye, okay, I ain’t saying on it. Swearing I ain’t.”

“He say any else to you? What you saying to he?”

“Ain’t said much.”

“Who else he chattering with?”

Bumberjack shrugged. “Ain’t seen. Ain’t were watchin, aye?”

Terrible pulled out his phone without responding and sent a text to the street-man number; a minute or two later a shadow covered the doorway of the squat, a shadow which became Soft Mike. “Aye?”

“Change these out.” Terrible held up the two bags he took offen Bumberjack. “Give he fresh. I taking these, aye? Ain’t worry on the paying.”

The day ain’t had gotten any warmer out, neither. Last day of the year. And the good mood he’d had that morning were totally gone, replaced by a feeling of … foreboding, he guessed. Foreboding. Had the feeling something weren’t right, like before the day ended he were gonna wish it had never started.

Ain’t helped that when he got outside with Mike, Mike said, “Why come Bump ain’t doin anything on this ghost we got out there?”

Terrible yanked a cigarette out of his pocket to give him something to do with his hands. Something besides punching Mike. “No fucking ghost. Ain’t knowing where you getting that shit. No ghost.”

“Heared be the Cryin Man, I heared.”

“Aw, fuck. Ain’t a ghost, for certain ain’t the fuckin Cryin Man. Cut that shit out, aye? No more.”

Mike shrugged. “Only sayin what I hearing.”

“You hearing it, you tell em be bullshit.”

But he could see in Mike’s eyes that Mike weren’t convinced.

Why the fuck did Slobag think people would believe he could do anything about ghosts? He ain’t had a Churchwitch on he side of town working for him or aught like that. Were possible he’d hired heself some other witch—were some around—but still. As far as Terrible knew Slobag ain’t had any to do with any witches; he ain’t had heard even the slightest rumor that there were anybody magic working for him. And he heard all kindsa rumors, all the time.

But then, nobody ever said Slobag made sense with what he did. And it ain’t mattered much anyroad. He were either killing and attacking so’s he could make Bump look weak, or he were taking advantage of killings and attacks so’s he could make Bump look weak. What mattered was that he stopped tryna make Bump look weak, and to get him to stop Terrible had to make the attacks stop.

“Hearing Slobag tryin hire some dudes away,” Pete said. “Hearing one a his men pull up on Roley on the yesterday, lean out he car onna street and start giving him chatter on how iffen any wanted to come working for he, he make em all be safe.”

What the fuck? Roley hadn’t said a word to him or Bump on that, least not yet. “Any others?”

“Ain’t knowing. Ain’t heared other names but ain’t can think Roley be the only one. Why Roley, dig?”

Aye, Terrible wondered that, too. Roley’d been working a warehouse up Seventy-first, far from the borders. Seemed awful funny, Slobag sending men all that way but not having em closer. Seemed awful funny them head straight for Roley.

But again, who knew why the fuck Slobag did what he did? Maybe he were tryna take the far streets and close in around Bump, like flanking, instead of moving straight up. Either way he had to be stopped.

Terrible nodded at Pete, who seemed to be waiting for a reply, and headed back to the car. Maybe stopping in Roley’s place would be worth doing.

What a shithole.

Smelled like old socks and mold; probably causen there were old socks everywhere, and dirty plates covered with mold littered the kitchen. Even on the grimy tile floor. No wonder Roley couldn’t get laid, iffen he were tryna bring dames back to this place.

“Were sleepin.” Roley sounded peevish and annoyed. Katie got that tone sometimes when Felice made her clean her room before she could go out to get some eats with him. But Katie were eight years old. And she was a fuck of a lot cuter than Roley, and she weren’t a smug prick neither.

So Terrible didn’t reply, just watched Roley move stacks of stroke mags and papers and empty potato chip bags off his couch to clear a space. He ain’t really wanted to sit there, but he were trying not to let Roley know how much he hated him, so he sat. “Hearing Slobag sent some men have a chatter with you on the yesterday.”

Roley nodded. “Gave me all this shit on how workin for them be safer than stayin here, dig? Causen of the ghosts an all.”

Terrible lit a smoke, as much to try and hide the smell of the place as because he wanted one. He ain’t bothered offering one to Roley. “Why come you ain’t say to me?”

“Said to Bump, on the morn.” Roley smirked. “Went by he place, gave him what happen. He ain’t happy on it, he weren’t at all, noways. Wonderin why he ain’t given you it? Seemin kinda funny, ain’t it, that he keeping that from you.”

Terrible could stub out he smoke in Roley’s arm before Roley’d even know what he were doing. Change that smug fucking expression on he face real fucking fast. The fuck did he think he were gonna gain with that shit?

“Tell me again,” he said, letting Roley’s attempt at a dig, or whatany it were supposed to be, lie there on the floor among the filth. Where it belonged. “What happened. What them said.”

Roley yawned. “Awful tired, I am, an I gotta work again tonight, seein as how you ain’t letting me off. Maybe we chatter on this later, aye?”

The wall opposite the couch were covered by one of the biggest TVs Terrible ever seen. One a them brand new huge ones with the thin screen. He headed for it, tugging his knife from his pocket as he went and flicking out the blade. Fuck this. He’d pay for a new one outen he own pocket. Be worth it.

He’d just pulled back his arm to thrust the blade into that screen when Roley’s yelp stopped him. “Okay! Fuck, okay, shit, what the fuck problem you got? Work together, we do, ain’t see why you gotta fuckin be that way. Why you treat me so shitty alla time like I’m some loser.”

“Why’nt you just fuckin say me what they tell you, an you can get back to you fuckin beauty sleep.”

“You pissed causen what I say on the Churchwitch?”

“What?” Was he gonna have to hit Roley to get a damn answer?

“Askin you, you pissed up at me causen that. Only sayin, you around she a lot. She ain’t my type, but guessing she cute enough.”

Terrible opened his mouth, then stopped himself. Roley seemed awful interested in getting knowledge on Chess. On how Terrible felt about Chess. Why?

Not that he cared. Only made him more certain, though, he ain’t could beat on Roley for it, prove he right. “Just give me what Slobag’s man said.”

Roley sighed, but the smile ain’t quite left he face. Sick little shit. “Pulled up onna street, leaned out them car, ask me how I feel working for a dude lets ghosts kill he men an ain’t done shit on it. Telling me how iffen I come working for them, start handing my money over to them, dig, they keep me safe.”

Terrible took a last drag off his cigarette and stubbed it out against the wall. Fuck Roley. “What’d you say?”

Roley watched the cigarette hit his floor. “Told em to fuck off.”

“You alone then?”

“With Nick, only he weren’t there. Went to get he a Coke, he done, were in the Stop Shop.”

If only that were suspicious. Well, it were suspicious, but not as much as he wanted it to be. Iffen he were the one wandering around Slobag’s territory tryna poach men, he’d talk to em on their alones, too. Better odds, and less danger. One dude weren’t gonna attack a couple guys in a car. Two dudes together just might.

“Any else?

“Nay. Were it. I say fuck off, them drive away.” Roley showed he teeth. “Woulda said right away, but were workin. Ain’t wanted to be abandoning my work, aye?”

If Roley thought that were some kinda clever sarcasm or whatany, he were dumber’n Terrible thought he was. Not that Terrible was gonna tell him that. “Good. Make certain you don’t.”

He almost wished Roley would, though. That’d be something he could beat on Roley for, and Lacey’d just have to fucking deal with it. As it were … he were the one fucking dealing with it, and that sucked.

He’d almost given up on hearing from Chess when she called him around six-thirty. Late for her to be finishing up there, specially on Holy Day when she usually got home around four, so maybe she’d spent some extra time there at Church; maybe meant she had something for him on the Peace Factory. He hoped so, anyway.

He answered. “Hey, Chess. You right?”

“Yeah,” she said, and she did sound cheerful. Not the artificial kind of cheerful, neither; he were getting good at telling the difference, at knowing when she was really feeling good and when she was feeling good just causen of what pills she swallowed. Her voice were more … solid, when it was real. “Right up. You?”

“Aye.” He paused. He were supposed to pick Amy up around eight. That ain’t left much time.

But he could be a little late, couldn’t he? Seeing as it was work. It weren’t him deciding to be late just so he could hang out with Chess. It was time he needed to spend. It was keeping the whores safe, doing his job. Amy’d understand.

He hoped she would. And he hoped he’d be able to think of a way to explain it to her so she knew it was work, and not just wanting to spend time with Chess.

So he asked, “You busy?”

“Nope. I just got home.”

Why they seemed like they always danced around this he didn’t know, but they did. Like neither wanted to commit to it; like neither wanted to stick out their necks in case somebody brought down a blade on it.

But he figured her company was worth more to him than the other way around, and he figured it was his place to do the asking anyway, so it ain’t bothered him. “Buy you some eats?”

“Yeah, sure. Come over.”

He wouldn’t ask if she had anything for him on the phone. She wouldn’t expect him to. Instead he turned the wheel—he’d been driving aimlessly, keeping an eye on the busier-by-the-minute streets—and headed for her place.

She came outside as he turned off the car to go get her, and hopped into the passenger seat in a swirl of cold air and the scent of herbs and flowers, whatever that was that she always smelled like. Real light, like an afterthought, so he knew it weren’t some perfume or whatany that she put on. It were just her skin, her hair. Just her.

And she did look happy. Relaxed. He’d been right on that one. He wouldn’t ask why—she’d tell him iffen she wanted him to know—but it was good to know he’d been right. Seemed like he got smarter and smarter on her every day, knew more and more.

Maybe he weren’t the only one getting more knowledge. Chess looked at him close, with narrowed eyes pale behind black make-up. “You okay?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t slept much on the last night.”

That weren’t all bothering him, or, it were a side effect of what bothered him. Hearing all them ghost rumors bothered him. Hearing on Slobag’s men wandering around in Bump’s territory bothered him. The frustration—the sick feeling of being too stupid to figure out what was happening, of knowing if he were just a little smarter he’d be able to get it—ate at him like street-dogs on garbage. He bet he weren’t looking too good.

Not that he ever did. He knew what he looked like.

But just like always, having her in the car made him feel better. No matter who he was or how he looked, Chess was willing to ride around with him, be seen with him. Spend her time with him. That was pretty fucking cool.

“Well,” she said after a second, “maybe what I found out today will help. I hope so, anyway.”

“Aye? What you got?”

She bobbed her head back and forth, an “eh” kind of movement. “I don’t know. Not a lot, but it’s interesting. I think it’s interesting.”

He didn’t bother to say that if she thought it was interesting, he probably would, too. Instead he stayed silent while she pulled some sheets of paper from that big bag she carried. Printouts, looked like. “Thought you ain’t could get any reports on them from you Church.”

Printouts, turned out to be. She angled them so he could glance over. “I looked at their website. What places like that put out in public can be as useful as the private stuff, you know?”

“Aye,” he said, not really thinking, as he parked outside Dunk’s. Part of their protection deal was they gave him decent food, like real quality; well, lots of places made that same deal, but Dunk’s were his favorite, and close to Chess’s place. Besides, she seemed to like it, so even if he didn’t he’d take her there. “Everybody gots shit them hiding.”

“Yeah. Well, what they’re hiding is a little Church trouble they had last year. See here, where it talks about a ‘revamped product line?’ And acts like it’s just part of their big quest to help people? That’s because they were using illegal power methods to charge their stuff, and some of their customers got hurt.”

“Illegal power? Like with dead bodies or ghosts or whatany?”

“This was illegal spells and sources, but yeah. Stuff they shouldn’t have done, that only Church employees are allowed to do.”

“What you meaning, sources?” The whores ain’t said any got stolen from their purses, but maybe something—no. Whores never lost track of their shit. Had minds like bankers, them did.

“Illegal energy raisings, or using forbidden materials.”

Energy raisings. “Like what you say me before, on death curses, needs a killing to start it up?”

She smiled at him, and ain’t even looked surprised that he remembered. “They weren’t killing people, but yeah, basically. You commit a crime, and feed that energy into the spell to start it. Illegal or immoral acts can raise a lot of energy.”

Acts like rape. He examined the pages she’d handed him. A list of “products,” with pictures. A history of the company; he’d read that later. And a few pictures of the owners or bosses or whatany of the place, with them bullshit paragraphs next to each to tell people how smart they were and how they’d achieved everything they’d ever planned to do or whatever the fuck those things said.

“Why come this one ain’t got a picture?” he asked, showing her the name he meant. Brian Tyler, Head of Product Development.

Chess shrugged. “There wasn’t one on the site.”

“You get any—”

She was already shaking her head. “That’s stuff I’d have to ask an Elder for. Sorry. I did a regular internet search for him, too, to try to get a picture, but nothing came up, really. No images or any real information, except that he graduated from the University of Truth in Springfield six years ago. His name was listed as part of the graduating class.”

He nodded, folded the papers, and got out of the car. New Year’s Eve weren’t much different from any other night in Downside; drunks stumbling around, people screeching and playing music, but it started earlier than usual. The noises were like an assault.

When he opened her door for Chess she started talking again. “There’s nothing about any other employment, so I don’t know what he might have done between graduation and now.”

“See what else I can find,” he said, as they started walking toward the diner. “Address and all that shit, dig.”

“Where? I mean, I can’t—”

He smiled at her. “Thinkin you the only Church worker we get knowledge from?”

Her head tilted back, letting him know she got it. “Right.”

“Only you the best one,” he said, ushering her into the diner ahead of him so she didn’t have a chance to react.

After they’d sat and ordered he unfolded the pages; they sat at his usual booth, the last one on the right, so nobody were behind him or could see what he was doing. Not really much use, any of what she had. Well, no, it were useful—it gave him something, and since he ain’t had shit before that mattered—and he was grateful for it, but he’d hoped for more.

“People buy this shit?” he asked, scanning the list of products. “Spells to make kids obey? Spells to make worries better?”

“Pretty sleazy, huh?” Her smile, the way her dark red lips curved, made him feel like he was in on some secret with her. Like they were the smart ones. “Those places will sell anything.”

“It ain’t work, aye?”

“Nope.” She lifted her right arm and curled it behind her head, curled her fingers, to gather up her hair and pull it off her neck. Her head tilted to the right as she did it, so her throat was a long pale line rising from the collar of the blue shirt she wore over a black long-sleeve t-shirt. He knew he shouldn’t stare, he should look away fast before she noticed. But he couldn’t help it. It was so … she weren’t even aware of it, how pretty the movement was, how graceful it was, how it made his breath stop.

Then he saw the mark. The bite mark, down low, more on her shoulder than her neck. But definitely a bite mark. No mistaking that one.

Seeing it felt like being punched. Now he knew why she were in such a good mood. That hadn’t been there that morning, neither, and she didn’t seem to realize it were there, like it were brand new. So now he knew—probably—why she’d got home later than usual.

He wondered who the guy was. If she even knew his name. He hated himself for wondering. Weren’t his business. Hated, too, the way before he could stop it he imagined his own teeth sinking into that soft pale skin, remembered the taste of it and her hands in his hair, imagined her gasping under him—

Fuck. He looked away, fast, feeling heat creep up his neck and below his belt. The papers in his hand shook; with effort he stilled them, stared at em like they held the secrets of the fucking world, cleared his throat. He couldn’t look at her.

Not even when she spoke. “What’s up? Something on there I missed?”

It took him a second to come up with an answer. “Naw, naw, just … wonderin about this place, is all.”

The food arrived. How much would Chess eat? Not his place to say on it, but he still watched, carefully avoiding looking at her throat again. She was too thin—well, no, she was perfect, but he worried maybe she ain’t ate enough for health.

Not a subject he could really talk on with her, though. Best he could do was keep asking her to come eat, and hope iffen he put food in front of her she would. Usually she did. Not as much as he’d like, but she did.

She grabbed a few fries. He relaxed a little.

“Yeah, well.” She swallowed, glanced around to see was anybody listening. “I wonder about it, too. Some of the stuff they’re selling isn’t technically unethical, but it’s right on the border.”

“Wonder if Slobag gots people there.” He’d meant it only to change the subject—to get back into the subject, actually, stead of sitting there sweating causen his imagination were revving so hard—but as he said it he really did wonder. The rape thing were still a sticking point for him, but the way Slobag were taking advantage of the whole thing …

“Slobag have a witch?” Chess asked. Real casual, but he wondered if there weren’t some tension in her voice, on her face as she sipped her Coke. Made sense, though. She weren’t dumb. She had to know that next time Bump needed magic she’d be up top on he go-to list.

“Not what I got,” he said. “Ain’t hearing any like that.”

“Well, that’s good, anyway. I’m sure you’d hear about it if it was happening.” She took a bite of her burger. Even better; fries weren’t enough, he ain’t thought. Needed she something more substantial. “So I was thinking, we could go take a look at that place. The Peace Factory. It’s in Cross Town.”

“Aye, thought on that,” he said. “Went over once afore, only ain’t can really do it more’n that myself, dig, causen—”

“They’ll recognize your car,” she finished. “You might as well hang up a big blinking sign over it that says ‘Terrible’s watching you.’”

Felt good to laugh. Felt good hearing that tone in her voice, that teasing one. Most dames didn’t joke with him, like they figured he ain’t had a sense of humor.

“Is that the idea? I mean, so people know you’re around?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t want em forgetting, aye?”

Again that look in her eyes, like she thought he was smart. He braced himself for her to say something on it again, for he neck to get warm again when she did. One day maybe he’d be better when she said that stuff, like able to handle it more. As it was he knew she could see it, just as clear as he could see them teeth-marks on her. Who was he? Had to be somebody she knew, causen it ain’t seemed like she’d have had time to pick up somebody new.

But she didn’t see em again, them she took home. He’d never seen her even talking to em again. Hell, he’d seen her deliberately move to the other end of the room to avoid em. So who?

What fucking difference it made? It weren’t him, and that were all that mattered.

He ain’t even knew for sure she’d left work at three-thirty like usual on Holy Day. She maybe just printed them pages for he right after the service ended, then left. It were New Year’s Eve, weren’t like a regular day. She coulda spent the whole afternoon finding somebody to celebrate with.

“We could take my car,” she said. “Drive by there tonight, maybe. I bet nobody will be there, we could look around. We could go after that fight ends.”

He hadn’t expected that one at all, and shoved some food into his mouth to give him a second to think. He wanted to say aye. Not just cause it was Chess, but—well, aye, cause it was Chess, but the thing was, working with her was fun. It was fun, having her there and talking to her on it, causen she had good ideas and she seemed to think his ideas were good, too. Talking to her made him feel smarter. He were pretty sure talking to her made him actually be smarter.

But …  Fuck. He couldn’t. Well, he guessed he could, but seeing as how he was probably gonna be late picking Amy up, he weren’t certain leaving her early so he could go see Chess were such a great plan.

She musta seen it on his face. “What? Tonight’s no good?”

“Maybe … maybe day after be better, aye? Time to plan an all.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Not watching the fight alone?”

He shrugged. The shrug might as well have been him saying aye. He hated having to tell her about the other dames he spent time with. He weren’t sure why; they all knew about each other, Amy and Sela and Evie, and sometimes Vannie when she ain’t had a boyfriend. Ain’t bothered them. They even talked to each other—which he hated, but weren’t like he could do any about it.

But it felt different with Chess.

“So you’ll be busy all night, huh,” she said. Her slim fingers fiddled with the straw in her Coke, her eyes focused on it. She never looked at him when the dames he saw came up in chatter. He didn’t let himself wonder on why.

Then she gave a short cough, sounded kinda forced. “Well,” she said. “Cool. Have fun, you know?”

He nodded. Shit. He ain’t knew what to say, and he felt like an asshole. “Hey. This night’s right up for me, dig, I can—”

But she weren’t gonna let him finish that. He knew it as soon as he opened he mouth and she turned to check the clock on the wall. Twenty past seven. “What time are you picking her up? Amy, right? What time are you supposed to get her?”

Lie. He should lie. Say ten, or eleven. Anything to stop her saying what he knew she’d say after he answered.

But he also knew she could find out easy what time the fight started, and she’d know he weren’t gonna leave his place in the middle of it to get Amy. If he told her ten and she seen the fight started at nine, how would that look? “Eight.” Then, real fast, “Only I can be late, she already got that I—”

“No, no.” She were already slipping her coat back on, the cute one with them big buttons in the front. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t, I mean … ”

“Naw, naw, Chess, ain’t worry on—”

She grinned at him, a grin that ain’t quite reached her eyes. “Shame on you, letting her wait like that. Come on. I’m done eating, anyway.”

She ain’t even ate half her food. “Whyn’t you have a little more, aye, or take it—”

“I’ll get something later.” She’d finished fastening the buttons and started putting on she gloves. “Besides, you should be worrying about what Amy’s going to say, not about me.”

Her tone were teasing and light, but he saw shadows in her eyes and her smile ain’t looked strong like it had before. Fuck. She was upset now—she looked hurt now—and he saw it despite the way she were tryna smile and joke, despite the fact that he weren’t even certain she knew it herself. Was fairly certain she ain’t knew at all, actually, and that if he asked she’d be confused. And it was his fault.

“She already got that I might be late,” he said. Probably sounded a little desperate but shit, he didn’t feel right getting up and taking her home when she seemed unhappy. Seemed like he oughta stick with her for a while, try getting her cheered up again.

Or she’d just cheer herself up. Fuck. She were already digging in her bag; he heard the clasp on that heavy silver pillbox she carried snap open. “It’s fine,” she said. He caught a glimpse of her palm—two, or three? He couldn’t tell for certain—before she flipped the pills into her mouth and washed them down. “Come on. You don’t want to keep Amy waiting.”

CHAPTER TEN

HE SHOULDA CANCELLED after all.

He sat on the couch with Amy’s hand on he leg, tryna get into the fight, tryna have a couple beers and relax, but it ain’t felt right. He kept seeing the look on Chess’s face when she looked at the clock. Kept seeing that bite mark on her neck and wondering where it came from; it ate at him. Which was bullshit. Chess didn’t belong to him. She could fuck whoever she wanted to. And she did, and so what? Who the fuck didn’t?

Weren’t like he didn’t know she did, neither. Never usually bothered him so much—well, it did, but he ain’t usually thought on it so much. Just … something about it wouldn’t leave him alone.

The fight weren’t distracting him, neither, the way they usually did. Aye, there were always a moment where he saw himself in that ring, holding up a belt at the end. Always a moment when he thought how different his life might be, iffen he’d ever had a real chance.

But true thing, like he’d said to Chess, when it came down to it he figured what he did suited him better. No rules to follow. No stopping when they went down, when they bled, when they screamed. No bells ringing or handshaking. No padded gloves. Boxing in a ring was a game for gentlemen, and he weren’t one and never had been.

But this night for whatany reason, it were depressing him. Making him think. Making him wonder if he were a ring fighter would he have got an education, would he be more than a thug … would he have been the kinda man a dame like Chess would want. The kind she deserved.

Amy touched his cheek. “What troubles you got? Ain’t seem like you having much fun, you ain’t.”

“Sorry.” He tried smiling at her, but he didn’t think it worked. “Just got shit in my head, dig. All this happening.”

“Any I can do?” Her hand on his leg moved higher. “Make you feel better.”

He raised his eyebrows; his smile started feeling more natural. “Betting I can think of something.”

He glanced back at the TV in time to see the contender land one hard punch straight in the champ’s face, so fast and clean Terrible bet neither dude even felt it.  The champ crumpled. Amy gave a little squeal. “It over?”

“Aye, thinking so.” Almost definitely. The champ were out cold; he ain’t would be stumbling back to he feet at the six-count or whatany. “Were a good hit.”

“You oughta try doin it. Be all rich an famous an all. Fun, aye?”

He shrugged, tried to make it casual. “Ain’t for me.”

“Aw, c’mon. Ain’t gotta work no more, be on TV and all. Be taking me on vacations. Ain’t you like that?”

How was he supposed to answer that? Iffen he said no she’d think he meant he ain’t wanted to go on vacation with her, but iffen he said aye she’d keep talking on it. And he ain’t wanted to keep talking on it. “Ain’t for me,” he repeated.

“You just ain’t thinking on it. No more fighting inna street, aye, no more having to hunt em down an all. Be like a real clean job, you digging me?”

“Too old.”

“Ain’t seeing why you ain’t just give it the try. Why you gotta say no to everything? An you ain’t even knowing how old you is.”

“Knowing I older’n twenty.” He wanted to shift away from her. He wanted to stop chattering on this. Were clear from Amy’s smile and the way her fingers tangled in his hair that she were tryna be sweet to him. Wasn’t her fault this weren’t a subject he wanted to talk on, that all she were doing was reminding him how he’d wanted something and failed, reminding him of all the things he ain’t done and never would, and that he job were a dirty one and he were dirty enough to be cool with that fact.

Weren’t her fault, neither, that two or three months past he woulda smiled and joked back because it ain’t mattered. Amy weren’t the one who’d changed. Amy weren’t the one who felt like something were missing now, who’d suddenly started minding that something were missing. “Too old,” he said again.

“Still can kick all them asses easy,” she said. “Bein all big an strong an all.”

She looked like she wanted to be kissed, so he kissed her, even though he ain’t really felt like it. At least it ended the discussion.

Amy’s hands slid over his back; she kissed him harder and slipped her leg over his so she were halfway in his lap. Made her dress ride up almost all the way, too. He ran his hand over the exposed skin, soft and warm, as her mouth moved to his neck. The TV commentators kept talking in the background, excited voices, the cheers of the crowd still loud and eager; he wanted to turn the volume down but couldn’t recall where the remote was. And he sure as fuck weren’t gonna hunt for it, not when he fingers discovered she weren’t wearing anything under that dress.

She bit his neck. “Oops. Looking like I forget me some clothes.”

“Looking so.”

“You like?”

As if he wouldn’t. “Aye.” His free hand tugged at her dress, a cute polka-dot thing with a round collar and red buttons down the front. He started opening them.  “Chess got a coat like this, got big buttons—”

Fuck.

He ain’t even could cover it up or try ignoring it; she’d heard him, aye, and she pulled away from him so fast she woulda fallen if he ain’t had good reflexes to catch her. “What?”

“Nothin, just, were sayin dig you dress—”

“Nay, you wasn’t. Were sayin how you like it causen the Churchwitch got she a coat with buttons on it.” Her voice started getting louder. “Were thinkin on the Churchwitch while you was opening my buttons.”

“Naw, just, you dress … ” He stopped. What was the fucking point? “Ain’t meant any by it, aye? Weren’t thinkin on she afore, just you buttons gave me a reminder.”

But she was already up, grabbing her shoes and slipping em back on. Her voice were shrill and unhappy. “Wanting go home. You take me on home now, aye? An … thinking we done here. Ain’t can do this no more, dig. Long as you fuckin the Churchwitch you ain’t oughta call me no more.”

“I ain’t—”

“In you head you is.” Her eyes were so intense he had to look away, but he could still feel her watching him. “Isn’t you?”

He didn’t reply. Causen he couldn’t. Behind him he heard the voices from the TV, the commentators talking about the champ still ain’t were awake and they was bringing the doctors up in the ring, how this were serious news. A big dramatic title fight, and somebody lost it hard. Somebody always had to lose.

“Fine on keeping it all casual,” Amy said. “True thing, I were. Never thinking we had us more than that, aye? But always felt afore like you was with me when you was with me, an I ain’t been feeling that way the last months, and that ain’t fair.”

She slipped on her coat. “You got aught to say? You gimme the tell, Terrible, if I wrong. You look me in the fuckin eyes and say I got it wrong.”

He cleared his throat. Not much point, since he couldn’t think of shit to say.

But he tried anyway, after a painful minute. Tried saying the only thing he could. “Sorry. True thing, Amy. Ain’t meant to … sorry.”

“Aye. Me, too.” Her heels clicked on the cement as she headed for the door. “Thinkin you oughta take me home now. Aye? Thinkin time for me to go.”

He couldn’t argue. He drove her home in silence—drove back past Chuck’s, aye, but it felt like it’d be one more way of disrespecting Amy to go looking for Chess so he kept driving—and came home to watch the new year start, alone in he empty apartment.

He ain’t stayed home alone all night, though. Four in the morning he phone rang, and he knew before he even picked it up and saw Berta’s number that it were bad news. Real bad news.

So he was back at Berta’s, walking up the stairs again to see another one of Bump’s girls. Another one. A second one. He could practically feel the blood boiling in his veins, his muscles itching with the desire to pound somebody. Or something. He ain’t really gave a fuck what.

One time were an accident; well, no, one time were something that shouldn’t ever happen, and one time infuriated him, but one time could be an accident, some fucker getting lucky. Twice was somebody targeting them, for real. Twice was somebody out there having heself some fucking fun at everybody’s expense. Twice was somebody planning this shit, taking advantage of the fact that the streets was crazy from people celebrating.

He walked into the room—same room, same bed, same heap of covers pulled up to a different bruised face—not even knowing what to say, tryna keep his face calm and not certain he were succeeding. “Hey, Essie. Got any you can give me?”

Essie bit her lip. She looked so small under them covers. One of the younger girls, she was, and she looked real fucking scared. Sounded scared, too, her voice barely a whisper. “I getting in trouble?”

“What?” Should he touch her? He wanted to, like to reassure her, but … maybe touching her weren’t the best idea, with what happened. He left his hands on his knees. “Naw, naw, little one, no worryin on that. You ain’t in trouble, aye? Just give me what happened.”

“I weren’t s’posed to be there,” Essie mumbled. “My fault, see, I got—got told stay onna street, go back after my last one, only car pulled up and he ask me was I workin,  had he some money so I get in.”

“What he look like, what car he in?”

“Be a black car. Big, old one. Long car, you digging me? Big long seats in it. An looked clean. Shined up, it were.”

A BT sedan, he guessed she meant. “Old like had big tailfins? Or not so old?”

“Not so old. Brown inside, leather. Only, only when I get me inside—causen he waved me some real lashers, see, a lot of em, saying he wanted the whole night. He were celebrating, see? What he saying. So I getting me in, telling he gotta drive me up around so’s he can give Marky Bill the look-in.” Her voice started getting higher, faster, like panic. “Just like you saying we gotta now, aye? Were tryna do right, I were, I were tryna do—”

“No worryin, aye?” He glanced at Berta; when she nodded he did reach out, touched the blanket-lump he thought were Essie’s leg. Only for a second, but he felt better having done it, and she calmed down a little. “Nobody mad at you, Essie. You ain’t in trouble. Swearing you ain’t.”

She looked at him, at Berta. Double-checking. In the second of silence he became aware of sounds from the hall, low sing-songy chanting. They were doing magic, he guessed, whatany magic it were they did. Sex magic, usually, to make them jobs easier. Almost all of em carried some in their purses; well, he’d never met one who ain’t.

But their whole world was a mystery to him, for all that he worked with em. All women-only; whores had secrets they never told men. Made sense to him. Only it made him uncomfortable there, feeling that tickling feeling, knowing what happened to Essie. Were the last thing he wanted to be feeling just then.

Essie gave a big sigh, calming herself. “Only when I getting in him car I seeing it stolen. No keys, aye? Broken open the, the part where the keys s’posed to go. All broken. So I knowing he steals the car an I thinking why he do that, and guess maybe why, an—an … I ain’t recalling any else. Ain’t recalling till I’m onna ground and Sandbag be standing over me.”

He nodded. She’d been knocked out, then. Fucker must have seen she knew what was gonna happen to her, and knocked her out fast afore she could open the door.

It was getting hard to think, the kind of hard always happened when he started getting mad. Like he barely had control over he body, like something swelling in his chest threatening to choke him. He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath like Essie’d done. Later. He had a list, a few people had some owes, and when he left here he’d go find one of em. At least one of em. Lee Poke had some heavy owes, and had for a long time; he’d lied and hidden and ain’t kept promises so was due a couple of broken bones, and Terrible couldn’t think of much he’d rather do at that moment than give him them.

But he couldn’t do it yet. He had to listen Essie out, and get what he could. “What he looking like? Sound like, he got an accent or whatany like that?”

She shrugged, a little shift of the blanket over her shoulders. Her face still seemed like it floated there above it, a pale spot against the dark wall. “Light hair. Real thick, an kinda longish, dig, like big. Big hair.”

“Curly?”

“Naw, no curls, just … ain’t slicked down. Fluffy like a dog, you digging? An big-ass glasses he have on.”

Fuck. Were a wig, he bet. A wig and big glasses, keep Essie from seeing his face real. Terrible looked down and saw he were clenching he fist so tight his fingers were white. “What he sounding like, when he talkin?”

“Like any else.”

“From here, aye?”

She nodded.

What he’d expected. And really, were a good thing, too, causen in Downside he had a good chance on catching the fucker. Iffen it were just somebody came from another part of town thinking be fun to rape hookers, he’d have more a problem. “Got any else? Any at all, Essie, all being a help.”

“Ain’t … ain’t can think on any. Oh! Smelled, he done. He smell.”

Terrible glanced at Berta. That were no help at all. Plenty in Downside ain’t spent too much time showering. “Like him weren’t clean, meaning?”

“Naw. Like him were too clean. Like soap way too strong. Too clean. Making my nose itch, thinking, but ain’t really had me time to give it much notice, dig, causen I weren’t in the car much long … ”

She started crying then, really crying hard, and Terrible stood up. Time to go, he figured. Leave the dames handle it with themselves; he were an intrusion. “Ain’t yon fault,” he said again. “True thing, Essie.”

And it weren’t her fault. It was his. His causen he ain’t caught the dude already, his causen obviously the plan he set up to keep the whores safe ain’t worked. Well, he guessed that one weren’t all on him, since it were Bump and Berta’s plan, too, but still. It had failed, and he ain’t found the dude yet, so this was his fault.

He checked his watch. Just past four. Streets was still busy, too. Time to go hunt some people down, clear his head a little so maybe, maybe, he could actually think instead of just wanting to kill somebody. He weren’t certain it’d work, but it was worth a try.

Bump ain’t got up til after three, on the usual, which were fine with Terrible causen he were tired heself. After breaking Lee Poke’s arm and giving a couple cutpurses a hard lesson on how the Market weren’t the place for them to be working, he’d gone home and slept. Not a lot; he’d calmed down some, but not enough, especially when Amy’s face came into he head again and he remembered how that were over, and over causen he’d treated her wrong.

But he’d slept, anyroad. And he’d heard from a couple of he snitches, and he’d gotten a call from one of Bump’s brain-men, so when he hit Bump’s place around five he had some knowledge to share.

Good thing, too, causen Bump were furious. His gold toe-ring flashed like a distress signal, he were pacing so fast, and he eyes and lips were narrow as Terrible had ever seen.

He’d been cleaning his guns. They sat in a deadly row on the table, cold and ready. Every once in a while Bump stretched a hand toward em, a reflex action. Like how little kids reached out to make sure them blankies were still there.

Terrible flipped open he notebook, once Bump finished cussing at him. He ain’t paid much attention to the cussing. Weren’t him Bump were so mad at, he were just letting off steam. “Got some knowledge on that dude Archie, the one I tell you on. Works for a place makes bullshit magic. Place got busted last year for illegal power an shit. Got—”

“Where you getting that from?”

He weren’t gonna give an apology on that one. He weren’t owing an apology on that one. “Chess. Gave she the ask on—”

Bump sighed. “Just ain’t could fuckin stay off, yay? Be like—”

Terrible straightened his back and gave Bump that look, the one meant he better quit on it. “She ain’t knowing why. Just gave she the ask, causen be shit she got knowledge on.”

A second or two, then Bump looked down, sniffled hard, and nodded. “Yay. Yay, dig it, I do, be right asking.”

Aye, he better fucking say that. “So he working someplace does some dirty magic, dig, an got me a call today from Sleepy Dan, sayin he knows him a dame went home with Archie a couple weeks back. Said him weren’t right in him head. Said were real violent. In bed, dig.”

Bump looked doubtful, and Terrible knew why. He’d had the same thinking at first, til Sleepy Dan explained better. He added, fast, “Like hitting she an all, dig? Punching. Ain’t could get it up lessin she were cryin, Sleepy Dan say.”

“Yay, seein you fuckin meaning now.” Bump lit a smoke, kept pacing. “Thinkin be he, then? He the fuckin piece of shit gonna die?”

“Thinkin he got knowledge on it, aye. Only had Rat an Blue Bill watch the place since yesterday morning, he ain’t come in or out. Ain’t there, thinkin. Guessing him fuckin took off after I left, dig.” He hated saying that, hated admitting it. He knew he shoulda fucking given Archie the beat-down when he were there.

He pulled the papers the brain-men gave him and handed em over. “Got more here on them run that place, addresses and all. No pictures, though, still. Archie name ain’t on there. Wonderin he using a fake name, dig, only he landlord say he seen papers on Archie, be him for real.”

Bump scanned the papers. “What on Slobag? What he gave the fuckin try-on with Roley, yay, tryin poach he or whatany the fuck. An still them ghost rumors, yay, still fuckin hearing on that shit, got a few giving it me.”

Terrible shrugged. “Othersides Roley ain’t hearing on he tryin poach any. An putting out word ain’t a ghost, but ain’t can fuckin make em stop chattering theyselves, aye? Ain’t can give all of em the tell.”

“Maybe give Roley the fuckin asking for more knowledge, yay. See iffen them fuckin come to he again.”

Bump weren’t gonna like what he said next. “Were thinkin … seem awful fuckin odd to me, dig, Roley be the only one them go to. Got the wonder iffen he telling stories.”

“Wanting be fuckin important, he do, yay.” Bump sat down, looking at he hands. “Got he the fuckin thinking he a big fuckin snowflake, him do, like him oughten be getting fuckin medals or whatany like that. But him still Lacey fuckin cousin, you dig?”

Aye. He dug. Meant Bump wanted to let Roley be an asshole so’s he could keep Lacey happy. Fuck. “Ain’t fuckin trusting he. Ain’t like he, neither.”

“Vole all fuckin stand-up, yay? An Vole fuckin gives the say Roley right. Sides, got the fuckin hearing on elseways gotta worry on, yay, hearing some shit all worth thinkin on. Dig this.” Bump leaned forward. “Got knowledge Slobag got he a fuckin new man, yay, one digging fuckin knives, be all good on with em. Be what hearing I fuckin got. Thinkin maybe what fuckin happened Slick, you fuckin dig, be why he more sliced up.”

Shit. “A strong-arm man?”

“Nay, nay, ain’t like that. Just some new fuckin weasel gets all on the fuckin excited side, he getting to kill.”

“Iffen he done Slick … ” Terrible lit another smoke. “Iffen he done Slick, means Slobag had knowledge no street man there for watching Clapper Sue, aye?”

“Yay, sure fuckin be the meaning I fuckin see.”

It still bugged him. “Marky ain’t killed on the last night.”

“Last night were fuckin busy on them fuckin streets, yay? No fuckin needing to kill he, too many fuckin people all around. Ain’t none fuckin see the dude got Essie.” Bump shook his head. “Poor little dame. What you fuckin doing for she?”

Aye, he’d already been on that one. “Finding some else she can do, iffen she’s wanting. Makin the offer for Sue, too, aye?”

“Yay, all fuckin cool then.” Bump stood up, clearly ready to move on with he day. “You keep fuckin lookin in, yay? Get we more fuckin knowledge. Wanting this one fuckin solved up soon, yay? Be a new fuckin year, wanting start it up fuckin right.”

That night he were at Trickster’s, grabbing a beer and standing in the back. Ain’t especially wanted to be there; he wanted to be out finding Archie, but he’d fucking disappeared. Meant he were for certain involved, leastaways so Terrible figured, and he had people watching for Archie everywhere.

And he wanted to figure out who on the inside were helping Archie. He ain’t been able to find any connection between him and any of Bump’s men, but there had to fucking be one, because somebody had to have given Archie the tell that Slick were away the night Sue got attacked—iffen them ain’t killed Slick. Somebody had to give Archie the knowledge on the new security steps, too, so the dude got Essie knew to steal a car, wear a disguise, find a whore not on the corner so’s nobody’d see. Aye, he guessed that could all be shit them would just do, but it still seemed to him like somebody were playing pass-on.

Could it be one of the whores? Probably not. They were so tight up with each other, them own superstitions and rituals and all. He just ain’t could see them selling each other out like that. Ain’t could even see why they would.

But if he were right, and this were all being done to make some kinda magic for the Peace Factory … he guessed the money might be a reason, aye. And much as he hated thinking it, he knew a lot of dames did a lot of shitty things to please a man. Coursen, a lot of men would do a lot of shitty things to please a dame, too. Point was, he could see it.

He’d ask Berta on it in the morning; she was busy that night, working on something with the whores, some new protection or whatany like that. He’d ask Berta real fucking carefully, causen she wouldn’t like that question. Not one bit.

He sipped his beer, lit a smoke, scanned the crowd under the red lights. It were so hot in there the room was practically foggy, made him feel like he shirts were clinging to his skin. Made him want another shower; going home sounded good, actually. He weren’t much in the mood to be out.

But he weren’t much in the mood to be alone, neither, and Sela were busy with some friends she had and he ain’t seen any in the bar interested him so no forgetting that way neither. He was failing, and his voice in his own head kept reminding him of it. Leastaways the music and noise, the crowd around him, drowned it out a little. At home it’d be just him, and he’d be loud, and trapped with himself.

Besides, he were half-hoping some else, some other cocky dumbass, would give him the try. Half-hoping he’d see somebody who had owes, or who might know something. Wouldn’t mind throwing some punches. Wouldn’t mind doing anything that might cut off the thoughts echoing and echoing in his head, reminding him how he was fucking up and not catching the dudes responsible. Iffen he were smarter he woulda got em by then, he knew it.

Chess walked in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVEN FROM THE opposite side of the room he could see something were troubling her. Something in the way she walked, the way her head tilted down a little … he weren’t certain just what it was, he only knew it was there. He could see clouds in her eyes, he guessed were the best way of describing it. She looked tired, and down. Like she was there causen she wanted the same thing he did: people around her, noise to drown shit out.

She headed for the bar and got sheself a beer, then stood looking around. The red lights shone off her black-dyed hair, made her skin glow and the red shirt she wore look even darker. It weren’t the shirt he liked best—that one had a wide neckline, where he could see how delicate her collarbones were and remember touching em—but she always looked good in red. Well, she looked good in everything. Standing there at the bar it was like she absorbed all the lights and shone em back, like they was all aimed right on her. Made him feel like a punched eye, vibrating and sore and with he skin too thin. He looked at her under the lights and for a minute he were just lost.

Felt like everybody in the room was watching him stare at her, too, but he couldn’t look away. Even though he wanted to. Even though it hurt, a dull ache in his chest because she was in the same room but far away. Because he couldn’t just walk up to her and touch her.

Because she wasn’t his.

But then she saw him. Were he the kinda dude thought that “she wants me but won’t admit it” bullshit, then the way her face lit up, the way she smiled, woulda made him convinced she’d come there looking for him. As it was … it still made him feel awful fucking good. He ain’t could even be embarrassed she’d caught him watching her, she looked so happy to see him.

She started walking toward him right away, too, twisting that slim body in tight jeans through the crowd until she stood in front of him.

Up close he could see it even better, them shadows in her eyes despite her smile. “Hey, Chess,” he said, the way he always did, tasting her name. “You right?”

“Right up,” she said, but he knew it were a lie. “You?”

He shrugged. If they weren’t where they were he’d ask some questions, maybe kind of let her know he guessed something were bothering her. But they were out in public, where it was loud. And he ain’t wanted to chance what happened last time they’d gone where it was quieter inside Trickster’s, last time they’d tried to talk for real in there.

That night he tried to forget. The night she’d put her hand on his chest and looked into his eyes and he hadn’t been able to stop himself, hadn’t been able to keep from grabbing her and kissing her. It’d been like … like his body did it without him realizing it or meaning it to. Like when he lost his temper, cepting the only one who’d ended up hurt that night was him.

Cause he’d had it all fucking wrong. Aye, he’d seen the look in her eyes and been right on what it meant. Aye, she’d kissed him back, twisted those little fingers in his hair, clutched at him tight. She’d invited him into her bed—when a dame put her hand on his cock and asked if he knew how to use it, that was a fucking invitation and no mistaking it.

She’d made him think, for those few minutes, that he hadn’t been the only one feeling since that night at Chester Airport that something was there, that some fucking connection was there between them. She’d made him think he wasn’t the only one feeling like he’d found something, the only one wanting the other, and for those few minutes he’d felt … he’d felt good, like he was really worth something.

But he’d been wrong. Way, way wrong. That night ain’t had been about him at all. It’d been about her being fucked up. She hadn’t been looking at him that way; she’d been looking at some imaginary dude, some dude who apparently looked a hell of a lot better than he did—weren’t hard, just about every dude looked a hell of a lot better than him—and that’s who she’d wanted. She’d been so fucked up she were seeing things. She’d been so fucked up she couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of going home with him, and she’d been so fucked up she couldn’t possibly know what she was doing. Couldn’t have made that so-sexy-it-killed-him invitation for real—not in any way he could accept it and not be a fucking scumbag taking advantage.

And the worst part, the part that told him there was no chance on it ever happening again, was that she’d lied the next day. Told him she ain’t remembered it, that she were too out of it. She’d told him that causen she were tryna spare he feelings, he knew, causen she ain’t wanted to tell him flat out that she hadn’t wanted it to happen. That she were embarrassed that it had. That lie of hers told him the truth, for real.

She were a little fucked up now, he saw, but not bad. Not enough that he worried. She looked around to make sure nobody were watching them. “How’s your thing going?”

“Ain’t good.”

Her head tilted. “Is that why you don’t look very happy?”

One of the reasons, but of course he ain’t said that. Instead he said, trying to smile, “Thinkin people still be scared on me, I standing back here lookin all happy?”

It worked. She smiled back, but a real smile, the kind made him want to grab her again. What the fuck was wrong with every other man in the room, that they weren’t all killing each other just to stand next to her? “Wait, people are scared of you?”

“Aye, well, I ain’t can figure on why, but seems like it.”

“Maybe you should take up knitting.” She sipped her beer. “It’s hard to be scared of somebody while they’re knitting.”

“Aw, naw, don’t tell nobody on that, aye? Got people sellin blankets I’m making in the Market.”

It amazed him that he could think of stuff to say that made her laugh, that when he was talking to her it weren’t as hard to find the words. When he talked to her he had plenty to say. And she always got what he meant, too; none of the dames he saw got what he said the way she did. Iffen he’d tried that with Amy—iffen he’d tried it with Amy before, he thought, and that were another twinge in he chest—or Sela or Evie they’da asked what he was talking on, woulda looked confused and told him to quit it.

But Chess laughed and looked at him like she weren’t so unhappy anymore. Made him feel like a hero, and he’d never been a hero. He was the villain. He was the dude who beat people for money cause he liked it and killed em if he had to, and it ain’t bothered him a bit doing it. And that made him the bad guy. He could live with that. He were right up with that; just the way it was, the way he was.

But when he was with Chess he wasn’t the bad guy no more. He was the one keeping her safe, making her smile. He still wasn’t good enough for her, but he were better than he’d ever been. That mattered.

“I bet you could make a good living that way,” she said. “It’s cold enough.”

“Ain’t warm, aye.” He let his gaze wander over her shoulders and down, a quick look at the way her shirt hugged her body. He wanted to take that shirt off her. “You bring yon car?”

She shook her head. Meant whatever she took were probably too heavy for her to want to drive. Meant she probably weren’t looking for somebody to take home, neither, causen she ain’t usually took chances like that. But why else was she there? Almost enough to make him wonder if she’d come there looking for him, but if she wanted him why wouldn’t she just text him?

Probably she just wanted to get outen her place. No point thinking on it.

He held a cigarette out to her and watched her take it, watched her lips close over it as he fired up his lighter for her. “Drive you back, if you’re wanting.”

He’d meant later, but she said, “Yeah, sure. Thanks. Kind of lame tonight, anyway.”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to take her home now. And … did she mean for him to hang at hers with her, or just drop her off? “How bout heading back mine? Lessin you tired or whatany.”

She nodded. “Sure, okay.”

They didn’t talk much in the car. Another thing that made being with her so comfortable; she ain’t expected him to talk all the time, ain’t seemed to mind iffen he didn’t. And he were too busy thinking on his place to say much, wondering were it cleaned up.

Aye, he tried to keep it clean anyway, but he ain’t wanted her seeing empty bottles or dirty clothes or whatany lying around. Ayla came by twice a week and left some eats in he fridge, but she ain’t done any cleaning and he didn’t want her doing any. She weren’t a maid, just a dame worked for Bump.

Chess had only been to his once, and that hadn’t been for long; now she was coming to spend time, real time—leastaways he hoped she was—and she’d see all of it, and he didn’t want her thinking he were some kinda pig. Was his tub clean? His sink? Chess ain’t seemed to mind things being messy but she sometimes looked a little freaked on germs and dirt; was his place clean, or just tidy?

He tried seeing it through her eyes as he opened the door and watched her walk in. Cement floors—he’d bought a plain rug to cover it in the section he used for a living room, but still—and bare walls. He ain’t hung anything on em or any like that; what would he put up? Pictures of cars or dames in bikinis or some shit? Sunsets? Maybe scary-looking kids and cats like Callie’d had on her walls.

Besides, Chess ain’t put shit on her walls neither. But she had stuff. Magic shit on her bookshelves—he only had one of those, and the rest of his books were just stacked against the wall—and little things she’d collected, and more than two towels, and … just stuff. Her place looked like a real apartment. His was a warehouse floor with a couple walls stuck up to divide off the kitchen and bathroom.

And he ain’t had made his bed.

Chess barely even looked over at it, though. He couldn’t decide if he was glad on that or not. She just walked in, headed for the couch and sat down. “How long have you been here?”

He had beer. He had water, too. She weren’t drinking the beer she had—it were still almost full—so she’d probably rather have water, but if he gave her one it might look like he were tryna say what she oughta have and he ain’t wanted to do that. So he grabbed both along with another beer for himself and brought them back with him to the couch. “Ten years, thereabouts. Since leavin Bump’s. His building, dig, were just empty.”

Except it was his now, or sort of his. It—along with a couple others—belonged to the fake name he had just for Katie’s bank account and the will he had, too, meant everything would be Katie’s when he were gone.

Chess took water. Up close he could see her eyes under all that black make-up—shit she was sexy—looked glassier than they had, less focused. What the fuck had happened that day? Or was it just memories crowding out the happiness. He wished he could fix it some way, or make her feel better. Take care of her like she deserved.

“So you don’t have any neighbors here,” she said.

“Got a couple, work for Bump.” Dirty-work men, muscle men. Like him. Timmy Vee lived downstairs, and Bailey below him. Technically Terrible guessed they worked for him, since he gave em orders usually, either shit he wanted em doing or orders passed on from Bump, but he couldn’t really say they worked for him.

He drank his beer, a little faster than he had the other ones. Because he was home, so he could.

What he couldn’t do was ask what was bothering her, not really. Not direct, like asking flat out. Be invading her privacy. But he could ask general questions, see what she said. “What you do this day? Any happening? You had work today?”

“No. I mean, I went in—there was a mandatory ritual this afternoon—but it wasn’t work, really. There’s no cases or anything.”

“Gets boring, aye? Nothin to do, feels like it ain’t got a point.”

Her eyes lit up a little. “Yeah. Nothing to do but sit around. One of the other Debunkers is having a post-new-year thing tonight, like a hangover party, but … ”

That were it, he guessed. Or part of it, anyway. They hadn’t talked much about what kinda reaction she’d got at work after that Dreamthief thing, but he’d picked up on at least part of it. And that he could ask on. “They all still talking on that Randy dude?”

She shrugged. But she ain’t looked at him. Aye, that were it. He’d hit it.

He cleared his throat, tryna waste time to think of aught to say. “Ain’t got shit in them own lives, aye, gotta talk on some else’s. All pissed up causen they know you better’n them.”

Her eyes flashed toward him then, just a quick glance while color rose on her cheeks, and he could see how she wanted to believe it.

But he could also see that she already felt exposed just saying what she had, letting him know what was troubling her. He could see her wanting to trust him with it and not have to explain it more or chatter on it. She wanted to forget it. And he knew how that felt. So he changed the subject, fast. “You cold? Know it ain’t so warm in here, aye, ain’t got much heating.”

“I’m okay.”

His phone beeped. A text.

From Sela. “Home alone. Bored and lonely.”

He knew what that meant. She probably already had her clothes off; she usually did, when she sent texts like that. Specially when she’d been drinking some, which he guessed she had been with them shrieky dames she hung around.

“Something wrong?” Chess asked.

He glanced at her, glanced at the phone, and set it back down. He could tell Sela he was busy when he got it, be why he ain’t answered. “Naw, naw, just sayin no problems this night.”

“So what’s happening with that?”

He hesitated. He had to be careful what he told her, causen of what Bump might say, and causen he ain’t wanted to give her anything might upset her, when she already weren’t in a great mood.

She mistook his hesitation, and said real fast, “I mean, if you can talk about it. I know—”

“Naw, naw, ain’t that. Just ain’t got more to say on, dig. Almost done up. More worried on Slobag, him sneakin over here make trouble, dig.”

“He’s getting past the border streets? I thought you guys had people watching for that.”

A second’s calculation, before he made the decision. Ain’t like it mattered. Chess kept she mouth shut. And she weren’t gonna try going down there sheself; witches ain’t liked the downs. Ghosts were more powerful underground, she said. “Using them tunnels. Run all under everywhere.”

She hesitated with the water bottle right in front of her lips. The way she held it made her shirt gap at the neck; he ain’t could see the bite-mark anymore. Make-up, maybe, or maybe she did some spell or something to hide it. She could do shit like that. She could do anything. “I thought those were a myth.”

“Naw. Them real. Only no point starting fighting over em, aye? Just keepin eyes out. Figure one day we use em. Til then letting Slobag an they think them got one over, dig.”

She smiled. Aye, whatever she took were hitting her. “Are you ever not having to think about every little thing you do, and have strategies in place and shit like that?”

He cocked his eyebrow. “Like you ain’t do the same.”

“Yeah, but only when I’m working.” She looked at him, caught the raised brow, smiled bigger. “Or, well, okay, maybe not only then. But at least sometimes I’m not working. You always are.”

“Not here.” He glanced around, wished again his place were nicer. It suited him fine, and part of the reason he’d picked it was the lack of walls, the lack of places people could hide, but still. And it was cold, he thought; the back of his neck felt cold, and he reached up to cover it. “Only place I ain’t gotta do shit, aye? An ain’t gotta look over my shoulder, see who’s comin up behind, who’s giving me the try. Only place I’m relaxing, dig.”

“Yeah,” she said. Softly. All of the sudden they ain’t were teasing anymore. “I guess you have to be really careful, huh. The second you let your guard down …  You never know what people are planning to do.”

He nodded. His turn to feel all awkward, he guessed. Never could decide if it made him feel good or embarrassed when she knew what he meant so fast on shit like that. When she understood what he meant. Like she knew him. She knew him better than anybody else, he figured, cepting Bump. Maybe even better than Bump.

And she were still there. Still happy to talk to him, to come over his place, to sit next to him and spend time. Made him so fucking lucky.

“Hey,” he said, “you hungry? Or wanting see a movie or whatany? Could put on some music, if you’re wanting. Ain’t gotta sit here in silence.”

They ended up watching an old detective movie he had, and chattering on it while they watched. She took off her shoes and curled up there on the couch, and when the movie ended he realized she were asleep.

Shit. Should he—should he wake her up, take her home? He probably ought, aye. She wouldn’t wanna spend the night there. Probably had work to get sheself to in the morning, too.

He reached out to touch her shoulder. Just touching her … they never did that. He made sure not to. Her skin was warm through her shirt; the edges of her bones were sharp through her skin. Touching her made him heat up inside. “Chess. Hey, Chess.”

She didn’t move.

He tried again. “Chessie. Oughta get you home, aye? C’mon, oughta—”

Her eyelids fluttered. She sorta looked at him, through dazed, sleepy eyes. Then she leaned over and flopped onto the couch, curled up with her head on his thigh.

Her head was on his thigh. Her head rested on it, and her hand wrapped around it so her fingers were on the inside of his leg.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think, neither, causen all the blood he had left his head and rushed down. Thought he were gonna burst right through the buttons on his jeans. Chess’s head was in his lap, on his thigh, her breath soft and even.

And it weren’t just where it was. It were … she’d fell asleep, and she’d fell asleep on him. Like she trusted him that much she could just sleep, she were that comfortable. She weren’t freaking out touching him or blushing or looking all embarrassed or rushing to get away, though he knew she might when she woke up. But for that moment she were just sleeping there, next to him. Like she was his.

He still oughta take her home. Oughta at least carry her to his bed; she ain’t weighed shit, and she’d be more comfortable there.

But it seemed like … like presuming something, putting her in his bed. And he ain’t changed his sheets yet since the last night Amy slept over. If he put her in his bed, too, she might wake up on the morn thinking something happened, and he ain’t wanted that.

Most of all, iffen he put her in his bed she wouldn’t be there next to him no more, wouldn’t be touching him. Because no fucking way could he put her in his bed and get in beside her, no way. Even if she ain’t minded, he couldn’t do it. Hard enough being this close to her upright, on the couch.

He managed to keep himself under control when she was with him. He managed to keep from grabbing her, from just … just fucking taking her, possessing her, making her his the only way he knew how. He managed to stop himself doing it by keeping, always, right up front in his head the memory of her walking away from him that night at Trickster’s, the memory of her face the next morning as she lied to him. He managed to stop himself doing it by not getting real close to her, not touching her, trying not to meet her eyes for too long when he looked at her. By not letting his body take over, fighting with it.

He just … shit, he just wanted her so fucking bad. Wanted her naked under him. Wanted to bury his head between her legs until she begged him for mercy, wanted to fuck her until she screamed and then do it again, and again. It was all he could think about sometimes; seemed like every time he were alone his thoughts went back there, to picturing what she’d look like without clothes on, to imagining her body arched under him, throbbing around him.

The way his was throbbing now, fuck.

This was bullshit. No matter how much he wanted to pretend it weren’t so, no matter how he half-wished it ain’t happened, he oughta quit fucking lying to himself and admit he was in love with Chess. That’s what it was. He’d never felt it real before but he sure as fuck did now. Weren’t just that he liked her, weren’t just that he wanted her in his bed. Shit, he’d gotten a text a few hours past asking if he wanted to head over and have some fun with Sela, and he ain’t even thought for a second on leaving Chess, because he was in love with her so hard he couldn’t even breathe.

A lock of her hair—her lighter blondish roots had started showing, and he wondered, like he had before, if all her hair was that color—had fallen over her jaw; he thought about brushing it back but decided not to. It might wake her. He wanted to rest his hand on her, but that might wake her. He wanted to touch her but couldn’t, and he couldn’t move, and there they were.

He let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. Shit, he was in trouble.

CHAPTER TWELVE

HIS PHONE WOKE him up. Took him a second to catch where he were and what happened, why he neck were so stiff. Then he remembered. Were causen he’d finally fell asleep on the couch himself.

Chess was gone. Where—oh. Water running in the bathroom. So she’d got up afore he did. Would she find—shit. Phone. Right.

Berta calling. His blood froze. Oh, fuck, no. Not another.

Aye, another. And he needed to get over to hers fast, and that were it. Nobody’d called saying Archie were back, but he were finished fucking playing. He’d head to Berta’s, then break into Archie’s, and he wasn’t going to bed that night until this shit were done.

He stood up—his muscles ached from sleeping on a sit like that, but it were totally worth it—and headed back toward the bathroom door, but before he got there it opened.

Her hair were pulled back in a ponytail, her face all clean and fresh. She carried a travel toothbrush and a little tube of toothpaste, a plastic bag with soap and lotions and whatany other shit dames used in it. Aye, made sense; she ain’t always slept at home, and he could just see her packing a little bag like that to keep on her, being prepared like that. So fucking cute.

“Hey,” she said. Her cheeks flushed; embarrassed, he guessed, seeing as how she wouldn’t quite look at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—I’m sure you didn’t invite me here so I could pass out and flop all over you.”

Funny, having her flop all over him were pretty much his idea of a perfect night. Especially if she weren’t wearing anything.

Of course he ain’t said that. In fact, given how nervous she looked, he thought of something else to say, something might make her feel better. “Ain’t so certain you were sleeping afore me, aye? Oughta be me giving you the sorry.”

She ain’t looked like she believed it. But she looked like she thought maybe he believed it, and that were what mattered. She relaxed. “Well, thanks, anyway, for letting me crash here. I appreciate it.”

He nodded. Now the hard part. He had to go. He had to get over to Berta’s, and he ain’t could think of a way to say it without making her feel like he didn’t want her there, like he wanted her to leave.

He’d fallen asleep with her. She’d spent the night at his place; they’d slept together. Not the way he wanted, no, but still. She’d spent the whole night there, with him.

And he was so fucking gone on her that he were trying to make that mean something. “Guessing my couch ain’t so comfortable for sleeping, though.”

“Actually, I slept really well.” Her gaze cut to the couch, back to him. That color on her cheeks deepened.

He didn’t know how to reply to that. Didn’t know what to say, but he had to say something. “Hey … I gotta get moving. Been—”

“Oh. Oh, of course.” She almost jumped past him, sat down to start putting her shoes on. “I’m sorry, you’ve probably got—I can just walk home—”

“Naw, naw.” Shit. “Been another robbery, dig, I gotta head over. But you can stay here, aye? Ain’t needing to leave iffen you ain’t wanting, no worryin on it.”

“I’ve got to get to Church anyway. Thanks, though.”

Damn. He guessed it were dumb of him to think she might be wanting to hang out at his when he weren’t even there; what was she supposed to do? But a tiny spark of disappointment still lit in his chest. Knowing she were waiting for him at his place … that woulda been pretty fucking cool.

Nothing more to say. “Gimme a few, aye? Berta’s wanting me fast, only got a minute for getting ready. Can take you on home, though.”

She blinked. “Oh, yeah, duh, you probably … um, should I wait outside?”

While he got dressed, he figured she meant. Shit, he hadn’t even thought of that. “Naw, just gimme the wait here.”

He grabbed some clothes and took them into the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and shaved and all that shit. Wished he had time to shower up, but he didn’t, not with Berta waiting. Another five minutes and she’d start calling him again, he knew, asking why weren’t he there yet. He gave himself a quick soap-up anyway, and hoped that made a difference.

Chess was waiting when he came out, flipping through the copy of Cannery Row she’d loaned him. He’d never read it before; shit, he’d figured he wouldn’t be able to understand it, until Chess told him one day she thought he’d dig it so he figured it were worth giving the try. She waved it at him. “What do you think?”

“Pretty cool, aye.” He did dig it, a lot, though it were taking him longer to read it than he wanted to admit. It weren’t that it was hard to read; actually, that was the problem. It wasn’t hard to read, which made him figure he must be missing something, not understanding something, because the writing on the back cover mentioned how the dude who wrote it won all kinds of prizes and shit, which should have made it way beyond him.

So he was going slow, and really thinking on it, to try and work on what he were missing. He figured she’d ask, and she’d be wanting to talk on it with him, and he ain’t wanted to look stupid. First time a dame ever gave him a book to read. Definitely the first time a dame ever cared what he thought on a book. He wanted to get it right, especially since it was Chess asking.

She smiled. “I thought you’d like it. Where are you in it?”

He told her in the car, and they talked about it as he drove her home. He’d been right there; she wanted to know what he thought, about the characters and the setting and all, and if he’d thought the female characters were kinda stereotypes the way she had but it were still a good book. And she ain’t acted like she thought his answers were dumb or any like that, neither, and by the time he pulled up outside hers he’d forgot to be worried on it. He was just talking on it with her, like any other conversation.

“Well,” she said, grabbing the strap of her bag. “Thanks again. I hope you get everything worked out today.”

He nodded. And there probably weren’t much point asking, since he didn’t know how late he’d be busy, but he couldn’t stop the words from slipping out anyway. “You around later? Got plans?”

“Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’ll be around, no, I don’t have plans. Give me call, if you want.”

“Aye. Ain’t sure how late, dig.”

“I’ll be up.” Another smile from her, like the sun just rose right inside his car, and she was gone, slipping out onto the street in a swirl of freezing air. He watched her climb the steps outside her building, waited until she got inside.

Then he headed off to Berta’s.

Blue Bill and Rat were still outside Archie’s place when Terrible got there an hour and a half later. The good mood he’d been in while talking to Chess in the car had evaporated; it had evaporated almost as soon’s he drove away and the real world came back, but now it was replaced with fury. Drina, this time. Weren’t even supposed to be working that night, but was causen she had a son with a birthday coming up.

That was it. That was fucking it. He was done.

Rat took a step back when he got close, raised his hands in one a them “Don’t hurt me” type gestures Terrible saw a lot of and usually ignored. “He ain’t been back here, he ain’t, aye? We been watching, ain’t even left yon door unwatched even for a second, swearing it, we ain’t.”

“Place got another entry?”

Blue Bill pointed. “Side door there. Only one I were seeing. Been watching it, too.”

“How many coming in an out since you here?”

Blue Bill thought for a second. “Only a few. Maybe five.”

“Were four,” Rat said. “Counted, I done, see? Kept me a count.”

“Any you knowing?”

“No.”

“What they were? Dames? What?”

“Three men. One female.”

Shit. That gave him nothing at all. He kept thinking there must be some other ask he could give em, something that’d tell him whatany it were he needed, but he weren’t certain what he were looking for and so didn’t know what asks he should have.

Instead he nodded. “Stay here, aye? Any going in, give me a ring-up. And Rat, you walk you around that building again, have you another check-out, dig? See iffen there’s any windows or whatany he maybe could broke out through.”

He headed across the street, mentally checking over what he had, making sure he had what all he might need. Had he knife, and the thick chain he sometimes used, along with he brass knuckles. In his bag were the usual shit: ropes, duct tape, pliers. He ain’t usually had the need for lotsa tools or whatany, though. Hands were enough, leastaways enough for anybody not afraid to use em. Like him.

The hallways were quiet. Dirty, and stinking of rotting food and sweat and like people used em for bathrooms, but quiet. Terrible weren’t fooled. Anybody could be—likely was—watching him through peepholes. They’d seen him outside, he knew it. So anybody could jump out at him, could be waiting til he passed by to jump out.

Ain’t scared him. But he was ready, in case.

Up the stairs to Archie’s place. The back of his neck tingled. Shit. Please don’t let that smell, that almost … invisible, though he knew that weren’t the right word, smell be what he thought it was, don’t let it mean what he thought it meant.

He knew it was, and it did, though. Knew he’d found the reason why nobody’d seen Archie in a few days. Fuck.

He pushed at the door, finding the spot where it gave the most, then stepped back and gave it a good hard kick. The cheap wood shattered under his foot.

Archie’s place looked just like it had when he was there before. All shiny, all tidied up like somebody was gonna take fucking pictures or some shit. But that smell was stronger, and no way now could he pretend it weren’t there or that it were anything else.

Past the kitchen, all the expensive machines shining on the countertop. Too quiet in there, in that apartment. He followed the hall down to the half-open door at the end. Not a lot of light came from it; heavy curtains blocked the window, gave everything a sort of blue-ish cast.

But the body on the floor ain’t looked blue. It looked red. Dried blood all over it, soaked into the carpet around it, spattered on the bed and the walls. Dried blood everywhere. A man, naked, shot to shit. Heavy-guage shotgun, from the looks of it; whatever it were, it’d been loaded with fucking buckshot or them shells had chains and whatany inside em, so his face were just a crater. Like he head were a volcano, exploded and sprayed blood all over the place.

Terrible knelt beside the body. Archie’s body? Seemed like it ought should be Archie’s body; his place, nobody’d seen him in days. Seemed like the right height, the right build, the right stupid hair.

But … was it the right build, the right height? Hard to tell on a body lying down like that, specially with most of the head gone, but somehow it ain’t looked quite right. Close, but not quite right. Terrible was real good at sizing people up; he’d spent his whole life doing it, and he had a good fucking memory for that shit, too. Were the corpse’s shoulders too broad, or the chest too narrow?

Whatany it were, the more he looked the less certain he were that he was looking at Archie’s body. Just … like a hunch he had, a feeling, and that feeling told him this weren’t Archie lying there. Told him this was a fake-out, tryna throw him off so he’d quit looking.

Not even to mention, Gav been shot in the head, too, but he’d still could be recognized. They hadn’t used a shotgun for that one, hadn’t turned his head into a stump. So why do that with Archie, lessin they was tryna make the body unidentifiable?

This told him one thing, though, for certain. Archie wouldn’t be back.

So where was he? If that weren’t him on the floor.

The dresser looked like the place to start searching, and the first drawer he opened told him he was right. That weren’t Archie on the floor. Hardly any clothes were in there at all, a couple of t-shirts and some socks, a pair of jeans soft with wear. Any dude with that much pricey shit in his place wouldn’t have no clothes at all.

He guessed it were possible they’d robbed Archie when they killed him, but—no. Why leave all the electronics, then? No fucking robbery, no way.

He kept searching. The closet were almost empty, too. The bedside drawer had a couple condoms, some earplugs, some porn. The usual shit.

Nothing else of interest in there. Nothing in the bathroom. Nothing in the kitchen, or the living room. So where the fuck did he go next?

Nobody’d seen Archie coming in or out. Nobody’d seen him heading in or out the Peace Factory, neither, and the whores he had calling there asking for him and for Brian Tyler kept being told them weren’t in.

Ain’t mattered. They had to be fucking somewheres, and Terrible needed to find em. He needed to find somebody who knew something, because he were practically shaking from being so mad and he could feel it boiling up inside him, that rage that clouded his vision. Just thinking on it made it worse, sitting there on that leather couch. He wanted to shred it. Wanted to shred the whole fucking place, punch holes in the walls and tear the furniture apart with his bare hands.

Where the fuck he was supposed to find the dudes, though, in the whole city with nothing to go on? Bump’s people ain’t found shit on Brian yet; no address, no phone, no nothing. Like he ain’t even existed. Maybe he ain’t. Maybe he were just a fake name on a computer.

But Chess’d found his name listed as graduating college. So he were a real person. Could be that were a name Archie borrowed? Maybe—shit. Maybe that were true. Still ain’t helped him much. All he knew was that body there made it for certain that them Peace Factory fucks was involved—too much coincidence otherwise—and that Brian dude whose picture ain’t could be found had to be on top of it. Terrible needed to find him. Someway. He had to get out of there and get moving.

Right, then. Somebody needed to wait in the apartment, see if any came by. But there was a dead body in there, and he ain’t wanted to call a van to come get it, causen he ain’t wanted to alert anybody they found the body. Meant he’d have to ask somebody to sit in there with the corpse, which he ain’t liked doing.

Not because it weren’t fun hanging out with a body. It weren’t, of course, but he ain’t gave a shit on that. Be what they were paid for. The problem was ghosts was more likely to come back iffen them bodies were still around and intact. He really ought should get that body to the burn-house, but getting it outta there unnoticed … fuck. He ain’t could even play the “My friend passed out drunk” kinda game, seeing as how the body were practically headless.

And now that he thought on it … he knew just who to call. It slipped into he head so easy that at first he thought it must be wrong, but a few minutes of considering it ain’t showed him any ways it could be. And iffen it were, Blue Bill and Rat was still right outside and could come up instead.

Roley answered his phone on the second ring. Terrible ain’t let him finish saying “Hello” before he started talking. “Needing you over here. Now, dig? Get here now.”

“Aye, what be—”

“Just get here.” He gave Roley the address and hung up on his questions.

The body still lay there on the floor—well, of course it fucking did. Took only a minute to shove it into the closet and close the door on it, another minute to make certain he ain’t got blood on him, wash his hands, and settle back on the couch with a smoke.

Why would Roley be involved, though? Were true what Bump said before: Vole and Lacey were right up with Bump. All Roley had to do was keep heself clean and he’d be set; he’d walked into a job, one that paid good. One lotsa people would have killed for, and some tried.

So why would he get heself involved in a plan to rape Bump’s whores, kill Bump’s men?

Only reason Terrible could see was that he were just a piece of shit, which weren’t at all hard to believe. Lacey and Vole both vouched for him, which now made them suspect. In fucking Bump over—if he were, which there weren’t proof of, Terrible reminded himself—he were really fucking he family over.

Terrible’d never had any family. Not that he could recall, leastaways. He must have had a mother and father; he were there, alive, so some woman had given birth to him after some man got her pregnant, but he had no recall of anyone. Even the earliest memories he could muster—the men with bells, a street full of people in the sunshine, a flight of dirty stairs, and a few of Haunted Week, of hiding in a metal cabinet he figured musta been made of iron—didn’t have any adults in em he knew, or who felt like they’d matter to him. Hell, nobody even ever gave him a real name, not what he could recall. He couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have a family, for real. Bump were the closest thing he had.

Which weren’t bad, true thing. Aye, Bump weren’t perfect, but so fucking what? Bump saved him. He wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Bump. Bump taught him everything he knew. Bump made him able to sleep at night.

And he never forgot that. Could never forget it. He worked as hard as he could to forget everything around it, the years of fighting for scraps of food and getting used and being cold. He tried real fucking hard to forget Darren and running and knowing they was coming and he ain’t could hide from men that powerful and rich.

He tried to forget his whole life before he woke up at Bump’s place to find a couple of women smiling at him and a dude in the corner with a gun trained on him just in case, but he never forgot what came after. Being fed. Being smiled at, talked to, given showers and clean clothes and shoes that fit and matched. Being taught how to read and write and figure numbers. Having a warm place to sleep, a room all his own.

And not being asked to pay for any of it with his body—leastaways not asked to pay how Darren got killed for asking. The only things he were asked to do was what he woulda done anyway, wanted to do anyway, and they approved of him for it. Liked him for it. The thought of doing to Bump what Roley were—maybe—doing to his family? The thought of doing something that could get Bump injured, killed? Even that would cost him money or cause him problems?

Never. Not iffen he could help it. He’d kill anybody else who tried it.

He lit another cigarette and got ready to do just that.

Roley got there just as he finished the beer he’d grabbed from Archie’s fridge. Ain’t made him feel good, drinking beer that fuckhead bought, but even not-remembering the shit he’d been not-remembering made him itchy and tight, and he needed to keep his temper when Roley got there. Had to be careful when Roley got there, causen if he were right Roley’d be real nervous, nervous enough to be on the alert.

And again, iffen he were wrong, no harm done.

Roley pushed the broken, half-open door aside so he could walk into the room. Terrible watched him. He looked nervous, aye, but could be any reason for that. Looked curious, too, but the kinda curious made Terrible’s skin prickle. Too curious. Too innocent. Before Roley’d got there Terrible had taken out his knife, set it half-under his right thigh where it couldn’t be seen. Just in case. He was aware of it now, easy to grab. He could rest his hand on it iffen he wanted to, the way he hadn’t been able to touch Chess when her head lay on that same thigh.

“What’s this place?” Roley asked. Damn. The right question, or leastaways not the wrong one.

Terrible shrugged. “Got me a call the dude living here maybe involved, dig. Check out in there.” He tipped his head toward the hall.

Roley headed for it. Terrible followed close, tucking his knife into the back of his belt where he could grab it fast. Something was bothering him. Something in the way Roley was acting, the way he was handling heself, just … what the fuck was it?

Roley opened the bedroom door, real cautious, and stepped through. Terrible ain’t could tell whether he got paler. He did know he looked confused. Kept looking at the spot where the body’d been—were obvious where, causen of the big blood stain—and back at Terrible.

That was it. That was it, the problem. He kept looking at Terrible. He weren’t looking around the room, weren’t checking the place out. Ain’t even hardly glanced at all the pricey shit in the living room. He kept looking at Terrible, and he ain’t should have been. Only reason he’d keep looking at Terrible were iffen he were scared what Terrible might do, or iffen he expected Terrible to do aught to him. And no fucking reason at all he should be expecting that unless he knew he’d done something that would piss Terrible off.

Tingles ran up and down his spine, but he still ain’t moved. It were enough for him. Iffen Roley weren’t who he were he’d be on the floor immediately. But he were, so Terrible needed to be real fucking certain. Needed just a little more.

“So where the body at?” Roley asked.

“Ain’t certain there was a body. No body, I getting here. Only this.”

Roley looked confused. He waved his hand toward the mess. But he barely looked at it. Kept looking at Terrible, kept sneaking peeks at him from the corners of he eyes, kept tilting his head toward him. “But all that blood … guessing somebody dead, aye? Dude living here be dead, what I’m guessing on? Who the dude be?”

“Naw, naw, dude lives here ain’t the dead one.” Terrible watched Roley real tight himself. “Name of Brian Tyler, only he alive. Got he waiting in the warehouse, if you dig.”

Roley’s eyelids fluttered. All the sudden seemed like he grew a couple extra hands, they moved around so much while he tried finding something to do with em; he tucked em in he pockets, pulled em out, folded he arms, all that shit. And that was enough. Roley knew that name, and it made him nervous, and that was enough. “We heading over there next? Give him some askings?”

Terrible put his own right hand on the back of Roley’s neck. Real gentle. His left hand he fisted at his side, ready. “Aye, we heading over there next, Roley. You an me.”

Roley looked at him then, right at him. Terrible waited for his eyes to widen, waited for the fear and knowledge to show up real, before he knocked him out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BUMP STARED AT Terrible, his eyes narrow. “Where Roley fuckin bein at now?”

“Tied up.” Terrible shrugged. The movement hurt, his body were so tight. Leaving Roley unbloody were one of the hardest things he’d done in months. “Let he sit there waiting, dig. Figured on you wanting the ask, what action you want, seeing as it Roley.”

“You got yourself fucking certain?” Bump clasped his hands together and rested his chin on em. “Certain be fuckin Roley, an on this dude Archie or fuckin Brian whatever-the-fuck.”

Terrible nodded and handed Bump Roley’s phone. “Stopped over Lee’s place, asked he break in it. Dumbshit got he numbers listed by name, dig. Brian in there.”

Bump examined the phone like it were a dead bug Terrible gave him to eat, the way he looked at just about everything cepting money, drugs, or dames. “Vole gave me Roley were fuckin smart, yay, thinkin he were all fuckin wrongways there, all wrong. Kinda fuckin moron leaving this shit on he fuckin phone?”

Terrible shrugged. Arrogance made people stupid. Being convinced they were smart made people stupid. Being secure, the way Roley was with he cousins so trusted by Bump, made people stupid.

Bump sighed, shook his head. “Ain’t had the thinking Roley fuckin be scum like that, yay, never had that fuckin thought. He the only one?”

“Tryin finding out.” Another good question, one Terrible planned on asking. “Roley ain’t could have killed Slick heself, aye? Got witnesses on him, all night that night. Ain’t knowing iffen whoever done Slick one of ours, though, if you dig. Coulda been anybody.”

Bump nodded. “You fuckin finish up with he and that fuckin factory, you fuckin get youself on the phone with me, yay, you giving me the call you fuckin done, heading you back over here. Bump gives Lacey and Vole the ring-ups, we giving them the fuckin asks then, with whatany you fuckin getting, dig? Get this fuckin shit done now, yay, had enough, all fuckin done on it.”

He looked up and his eyes hardened the way Terrible knew real well. “Bring me he fuckin head, Terrible.”

Terrible nodded, and left.

He drove around a little before heading to the warehouse. Let Roley sweat some more. Let Terrible think on what all needed asking, on how to handle all and what to get done. Gave he time, too, give Timmy Vee the ring-up and give him the tell what all he’d need to put together.

Then he were ready.

The heavy padlock on the warehouse door gleamed dull and sullen in the moonlight. Terrible opened it without letting it touch the metal door, slid the shank out of the hasp without scraping. The one problem he had with being wrong-handed was doors opening the other way, but he could move fast enough for it not to matter.

Roley started looking up when Terrible shoved the door open. Meant he were staring right at Terrible when the padlock hit he in the face. Terrible hadn’t thrown it real hard; he ain’t wanted to knock Roley out again, just to get his attention.

Not necessary. Roley were paying attention. Roley were scared shitless, looked like. Good. The pleasure burning in Terrible’s chest probably should have shamed him, but it didn’t. Instead he went ahead and let Roley see it, let him see how much Terrible planned to enjoy this and how pissed he was.

“So where Brian at?” He kept his voice casual, real conversational. “You give me him, be easier for you, dig?”

“What you talking on? This ain’t funny no more, Terrible, hurt my eye you done. This some kinda—”

Terrible interrupted him with his fist, right in the mouth. Damn, Roley really was stupid after all. “Where Brian at?”

“Ain’t knowing any—”

Iffen Roley liked getting punched, Terrible were happy to help. He went for the exact same spot, on the right side of Roley’s mouth; he felt teeth shift under his knuckles. “Oughta just give me the tell, aye, ain’t helping youself out.”

“But I ain’t knowing any—”

A third punch, and time to try something different. He hadn’t been hitting with all his strength; nowhere near, since he ain’t wanted to make Roley unconscious or aught just yet. This time he reached down and grabbed the index and middle fingers on Roley’s left hand, bent em back far enough for Roley to know what were coming next. “Where Brian at? Seeing as him faked he death an all, guessing he ain’t planned on coming back here. So where he at now?”

“Where Bump be? What he saying, he hear—”

His scream echoed off the bare cement walls of the warehouse. It were an ugly room, water stains and blood stains and grime in the harsh light from the lone bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Fitted the place, though, since what happened in there were never pretty neither.

Terrible let go of the two broken fingers and held the next two. Ready. “Got all night, aye? I got noplace else I needing to be. Ain’t bother me none, you wanting keep goin on. Kinda hoping you do, if you dig me.”

“Bump ain’t gonna be on the happy side—”

“He already ain’t,” Terrible said, but he didn’t think Roley heard him, since he broke Roley’s fingers as he said it.

Usually he weren’t real emotionally involved in this shit. He could turn himself off, was the way he thought of it: just do his job, whatany it was needed doing. But now … he kept seeing Clapper Sue’s face, Essie’s face, Drina’s face. Kept seeing them huddled under that pink blanket in that stuffy room, and how broken they looked. It made him feel like a redlining engine, and he wanted to take his foot off the fucking brake pedal. He were sweating from wanting it so bad.

He waited for Roley’s screaming to die before he talked again. “You really wanna do this? We both got you gonna give me the tells, aye. Oughta just give it now.”

Roley hesitated. Aye, Terrible knew that look. He were sorry to see it, too; well, not sorry, causen he needed the knowledge and faster were always better, but sorry he wouldn’t be able to hurt Roley more.

Leastaways not much more.

He reached up and took Roley’s right hand in his own right, braced Roley’s arm with his left. “Wanting see how it feels, you wrist breaks? Or you wanting chatter instead?”

He didn’t give Roley time to think on it. He tightened his grip, started to twist Roley’s hand and pull it back, figuring Roley’d speak up before he finished the movement but perfectly happy to go ahead iffen he kept quiet.

“Waitwaitwaitwait!” The words—the one word repeated—ended in a sick, panicked little scream. “Wait, aye, look. Weren’t my fault, dig? Ain’t meant to—never fuckin meant for it to go down like so, swearing it. Ain’t ever meant that shit happening.”

Terrible raised his eyebrows, let boredom sit all over his face. “Where Brian?”

“Lied to me, he done, he lied. Gave me him only wanting hair offen em, dig? Say were all him fuckin wanting.”

What the fuck did he care on this? He ain’t gave a shit why Roley done it or what Brian said or whatany else. He just wanted to finish it up.

He increased the pressure on Roley’s wrist. “Where Brian?”

“Please, please lemme give the explains, weren’t my fault—”

Terrible finished the movement. He felt Roley’s bones crack and snap, felt the muscles around them spasm under his hands.

Roley shrieked like a dame. Terrible guessed he ain’t could blame him too much. Broken wrists hurt. But he hadn’t screamed like that when it happened to him, so he went ahead and rolled his eyes as he lit a cigarette. Roley probably would need a few minutes before he could talk again.

He did. Were about five before he finally stopped crying and got he breath back. “Ain’t knowing certain where he live. Moves around, him do. Got him a place up Northside, but I ain’t got where exact.”

“How you stay touched up with he? On the phone, or you meet him up?”

“Both.”

Terrible waited.

Roley sighed; red drool ran out the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin to his shirt. His face was a mess of tears and blood and snot, his skin shiny pink. “Use the phone, dig, set up meets. Only he lied to me, Terrible, he lied, he ain’t told me what he for true wanted.”

“You keep sayin that,” Terrible said, shaking his head a little. “Like it fuckin matter. Only it don’t.”

“Can pay up.” Roley’s eyes were wide. “Can pay up, them can, pay back for fuckin em. Just counting as an owe, aye? Them ain’t shoulda taken it, but they whores, be what they do anyway just—”

Terrible slammed his bent elbow into the side of Roley’s neck, where it met his shoulder. Roley’s whole body jerked hard. He made a sort of half-scream half-grunt; every breath he took whined in his nose and throat. Good. Was he fucking serious? Like it were about the money. Like that were the problem with what he did.

Terrible held up Roley’s phone. “Where you meeting him, on the usual? How often? How you set up, you call or text?”

Roley looked at the phone. Looked at Terrible. Looked at Terrible’s fist for a long moment. “Either. Meet whenever we gots shit needs chattering. Ain’t my fault, Terrible, needed the lashers, aye? Fuckin broke, I were, ain’t could pay no bills, and … what you doing?”

Terrible didn’t look up from the phone, where he were writing a text to Brian. He was barely listening anyway; Roley could make any justification he wanted, but none of it mattered for shit. Betrayal was betrayal. Not much in life were black-and-white. This was. “The fuck you think I’m doing?”

The text he sent said, “Meet me 5358 Foster space 12. Now.”

It looked like the other texts he’d read on the phone, and now he were more certain they was real and not planted. He didn’t think there’d be any reason for Brian to suspect it, leastaways.

If Roley were telling the truth and Brian lived in Northside, it’d take him maybe half an hour to get there. More than enough time.

He got up without another word and left Roley there while he moved the Chevelle into the garage space they had a few doors down, and closed the door so it were hidden. Took a couple minutes to give Timmy Vee a ring-up, too, tell him time to start moving out.

Roley looked more scared when Terrible got back. Aye, he ought. Should know what were coming.

Terrible punched him again, to get he attention. The chair rocked back, righted itself with a thud. “Got any else you wanting give me, while you still got the chance?”

A flash of defiance on Roley’s face, of anger. Even now the asshole thought he hadn’t done aught so bad. Amazing. “All I done was make some extra lashers on the side, is all. Aye, maybe them whores got roughed up some. So what? Happens alla fuckin time, and you knowing it.”

“Aye? What about Slick?”

Confusion. Confusion that looked genuine, though it were kinda hard to tell with Roley’s mouth swollen and eye puffing up too. Made his voice slurred and thick, specially with that whiny tone that felt like somebody running pins up Terrible’s spine to hear. “What on Slick? I ain’t killed he.”

“Who done it, then?”

“Ain’t knowing that.” Panic replaced the confusion. “Hey, I ain’t had shit doing with that one. Ain’t killed he, ain’t knew he were dead. Thought he were just taken off, I done.”

His head snapped back under Terrible’s fist. He spit out a tooth; it took him a minute to get himself together and start talking again. “True thing, I swearing, saw him leaving he corner. Got into a car, he done. Figured he were off with some dame or aught, so gave Brian the ring-up, he sent he a man over. I ain’t fucked the whores meself, an I ain’t killed Slick.”

Fury rose so hard and hot in Terrible’s chest it were hard to breathe. “An you knew Slick went off an ain’t said shit on it. You had you some knowledge you ain’t handed over.”

“Weren’t important—”

“How long you planned this?”

“Not—not long, aye, only—”

His pinky finger broke with a satisfying little crack.

“How long?” Terrible asked again.

“Were—a month. A month before Clapper Sue. Brian knowing a friend of mine, dig, met he a while back. Said would get me a job the Peace Factory, get me outen Downside.” His voice went sullen. “So I ain’t gotta suck you an Bump’s dicks no more to get work, bend over let you treat me any way you wanting.”

Hatred burned in his eyes. Aye, Terrible felt the same way. What the fuck Roley thought, he’d get to just walk in and get whatany job he wanted, making whatany money he wanted? He started at the bottom like every else. Ain’t even started at the bottom; causen of Lacey and Vole he ain’t had to be a runner or spend hours in a steel-room cutting Dream.

“Were getting me a real job,” Roley went on. His voice got stronger as he talked. “Getting outta here. Were my chance, it were, an I fuckin took it, an you’d do the same iffen you had a brain in that ugly head you got.”

“Aye?” Terrible hit him again, more causen he wanted to than causen he needed to. “Iffen you had a brain, you ain’t would have fucked with Bump.”

He slipped his knife from his pocket and flicked out the blade. Roley’s eyes widened; his mouth opened, ready—Terrible guessed—to start arguing or begging or whatany the fuck else he were wanting to do, but Terrible didn’t give him the chance. He slid the knife across Roley’s throat, and watched as the defiant look on Roley’s face was replaced with the cold blankness of death.

Ten minutes or so later he heard the car pull up outside. Brian’s car, so he guessed. He got up from the chair in the corner—he’d been having a smoke, tryna think on what all Roley had said and what it might mean iffen Slick’s death had nothing to do with the rapes—and crossed the room to stand next to the door. Right where he could grab Brian soon’s Brian walked in.

He didn’t bother moving Roley’s body. What difference it made? None. Bump said on the phone that Lacey and Vole didn’t want to see it or any like that, that he thought they ain’t knew what Roley was doing. Terrible guessed he’d be talking to them later just the same.

The door opened. Terrible was already moving, driving his left fist into the face of—

Some dude he’d never seen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WASN'T UNTIL he’d finished tying the dude up—he’d dumped Roley in the corner to clear the chair—that he really noticed that smell Essie’d mentioned, sickly-sweet like cheap soap. Noticed how itchy he felt, too. Not bad; well, obviously not bad or he’d have noticed it faster. But still there, an irritation just under his skin, getting worse every second.

Uncomfortable. The way he’d felt out at Chester Airport. The way he felt sometimes when Chess opened that box she had with all the dark magic in it to show him something.

Made sense, he guessed, if the dude were a witch or worked at that Peace Factory. Even if their magic were shitty, he still might have enough power for Terrible to feel it. Chess told him he had some “ability,” was the way she said; not a lot but more than some. Which was kinda cool, he guessed, but it ain’t felt so good then, touching this dude who had magic himself.

But touching Chess ain’t made him feel that way—well, no, touching Chess made him feel like somebody shoved a live wire down his throat and electricity was sizzling through his whole body, but not causen of magic. Or not causen of that kind of magic. Were some other kind of magic did that. The kind a lot more dangerous, a lot fucking scarier. The kind nobody could just do a spell to get rid of, because she carried it around with her everywhere she went and it made her glow from the inside when he looked at her.

Was this Brian, he’d tied up? And he’d been wrong on Archie and Brian being the same—well, aye, he were definitely wrong on that.

And aye, were Brian, causen he had a driver’s license in the wallet Terrible dug out of he pocket just before he stirred. Terrible reached out and gave him a light smack on the cheek, then another, to speed the process. Or maybe just causen it were fun.

Brian’s eyes opened. He looked at Terrible all dazed and heavy-lidded.

Fast, before he could recall where he was, what was happening, Terrible said, “Where the magic at?”

Brian blinked.

Terrible cocked his fist. “The magic you doing. Where you keeping it.”

Brian caught sight of Roley’s body; his eyes got real wide as he stared at it. So wide Terrible could see the whites all around. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Felt real fucking good when his nose crunched under Terrible’s fist. “Where you keeping the magic you made. Oughta just gimme the tell now, dig, be easier for you.”

Tears ran down Brian’s cheeks; blood ran over his mouth and chin from his nose. He looked at Roley’s body again. “Please don’t kill me.”

Another one who ain’t could just die like a man. Terrible sighed. “Won’t kill you, iffen you give me what I’m asking for. Where you keeping the magic? At the Factory?”

“Yeah,” Brian said, after a pause. “It’s there.”

“Who you got working it with you? Wanting names, dig.”

Brian hesitated, but only for a second before listing eight people. Terrible found them names in Brian’s phone, and sent em all a text to meet Brian at the Factory in half an hour.

Then he picked up the roll of duct tape he’d bound Brian to the chair with. He could just knock Brian out again to take him to the Peace Factory, but he still had some questions to ask and he wanted to get moving. Timmy Vee oughta be close to ready now, and a chance always existed somebody might see what were happening so best to move fast.

Besides, now he was in it he just wanted to get it done. He ain’t had to think or plan anymore; this were the good part, the best part, where he just got to do he job however he wanted.

“Hey,” Brian said, as Terrible cut the tape on his ankle and squeezed it hard enough to send the message that Brian shouldn’t try kicking, “you know, this isn’t necessary. We’re going to make a lot of money off this. I mean a lot. Maybe millions. Why don’t you take a cut? Just look the other way, and we give you, say, ten percent.”

Terrible ignored him and kept wrapping the tape around his ankles and then connecting them, leaving enough tape between that Brian’d still be able to hobble but not enough that he could run.

“Fifteen. Fifteen percent, how about that? You have no idea how successful this is going to be. This sex spell has to be felt to be believed, and we have the marketing—why don’t you try it out? I’ll give you a sample. Women will throw themselves at you. You’ll see. They’ll be begging you for sex, and then begging for more. And you’ll be just as satisfied. Guaranteed.”

Terrible didn’t respond cepting cutting the tape over Brian’s left wrist and yanking his arm behind his back. Not only was he not interested, he wouldn’t be interested even if he was interested. What was the point of having a woman beg for more if it were all a lie? Iffen all he wanted was getting inside some random dame, he could do it himself. He had, for years. But he wanted more than that now. He did. He wanted it to matter, to … to mean something.

And what was the point of an easy answer like that. Where did it lead. Nowhere good, in his experience. Easy answers got to be an addiction; Terrible had spent his whole life seeing people reach for easy but find they really grabbed hard without realizing it.

The day he couldn’t satisfy a woman on his own was the day he gave up, anyway.

“Seriously.” Brian’s voice got faster, his words more jerky, as Terrible’s silence started registering and the tape binding his wrists together got tighter. Brian’s skin were all dry and flaked, like he washed he hands dozens of times a day or some shit. Why he used cheap soap, probably, went through so much of it. “I—I know the way we started the spell isn’t the best, okay? Nobody likes what that required. But we couldn’t get the power we needed any other way. Believe me, we tried.”

Terrible grabbed Brian under the arm and jerked him to his feet. That awful itchy-sweet smell got worse. Fuck, the Chevelle were gonna smell like that when he were done.  “’sgo.”

He started shoving Brian toward the door, tuning out Brian’s babble as they went. More shit on how amazing his spell was, how rich Terrible could be. As Chess would say, blah blah blah.

He waited til they was in the car and out of the parking lot, away from the storage spaces, before he started asking more questions. Waited til he got a text from Timmy Vee saying he were all set up at the Factory. Best to hold the silence as long as he could. Dudes like Brian were used to fighting with words, using them to fuck with people and cheat em; it scared em when they found somebody who wouldn’t talk.

Besides, talking weren’t Terrible’s strong suit anyroad.

But he finally had to. “How you meet up with Roley? How’d this start up?”

Brian hesitated. Terrible pulled his knife, spun it in his hand. Didn’t say anything. Just waited.

“We’d been working on it for a while.” Brian shifted in his seat. “Trying different formulations, different energies to get things started. We posted a call for volunteers to test it, ten bucks a shot. He was one of them. We got to know him. He’s—he was—a smart kid, had some good ideas. When we realized what kind of energy we needed, he was the one who suggested we use prostitutes instead of regular women. It worked. We gave him a few grand as a bonus and promised him a job, a real one. That was it.”

Spending time with Roley musta been how he’d learned to talk like Downside enough to fool Essie, iffen he’d needed to learn it. But no mention of Slobag, or Lex. Shit. Meant he’d have to ask. “How’d Slobag get involved?”

“Who?” Brian looked puzzled, true thing. But puzzled could be faked.

“Slobag. Lex. Roley set up that one? You ever meeting them? How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I honestly don’t.” Panic filled the car, riding Brian’s voice higher and higher. “Roley was the only one I ever talked to. He seemed to have the connections. He told us to wait for his call, and then one night he called and said if we could be there fast he had a girl we could try. We’d had one of our men rent an apartment in the area so we could be ready, so … he headed over. And it worked.”

Archie, just like he’d thought. “What he name?”

Pause. Terrible spun the knife again.

“Tom. Tom Grant.”

“But calling heself Archie, aye?”

Brian shrugged. “Archie was another employee. He agreed to let Tom use his name and information to rent an apartment, but he … he became a problem.”

And Terrible knew just what kinda problem he’d become. The kind who felt guilty and wanted to report what was happening to the Church. Or maybe the kind wanted more lashers to keep he mouth shut. Either way, he’d become the kind of problem best solved by death. Terrible ain’t had to wonder no more whose body he’d found earlier. “Gav were a problem, too?”

“Of the same type, yes.” Brian looked out the window, ducked his head a little. “We had to take care of it. With this much money involved …  Look, I can’t offer you more than twenty percent, but I don’t think you realize the numbers we’re talking about here. Enough that you never have to work again, ever. This spell is—come on. You’re a businessman, right? So am I. Let’s make a deal. Let’s—”

The words ended in a scream as Terrible’s knife sank into his thigh. Deep in. Were a loud scream, too, high-pitched, ending in choked sobs. Pussy.

Brian didn’t talk again until they got to the Peace Factory, a big red brick square with an empty parking lot in front and a chain-link fence around the back. That were the employee lot, and a patio with some picnic tables; Terrible had seen those when he checked the place out before. The gates to that opened with one a them codeboxes. Most of those had an override for ambulances and cops and like that, the same for all of them. Terrible rolled down his window and punched those numbers. The gate opened, and he drove through, nice and slow, switching off the headlights.

The back door were even easier, seeing as it were made of glass. Terrible pulled the gun from his bag with his left hand. No real need to aim. It were a big door, and all glass. Aye, it’d probably set off an alarm, but he’d have at least three or four minutes before he had to worry on that. More, even, causen the Peace Factory weren’t too far outta Downside, and cops and ambulances and shit never responded to calls from there. Besides, Timmy Vee would start everything up as soon as Terrible were inside.

The gunshot echoed loud over the empty lot, the crash of glass like applause coming right after. Brian fell over. The urge to kick him while he lay there cringing was real strong, but … no. He needed to get moving, and he needed Brian to believe he still might live to see the sun come up.

He yanked Brian offen the ground and pushed him through the doors. No alarm sounded, but that ain’t meant there wasn’t one. “Where? Where the magic at, an all the paperwork on it and shit?”

“Upstairs.”

The Peace Factory were an actual factory, looked like, set up a lot like the slaughterhouse except instead of chutes and death-machines this place were full of conveyer belts and big rotating drums, long boxes of steel with knobs and switches on the side and plain iron tables ringed with stools.

Being in there made him uncomfortable, like he were wearing clothes that ain’t quite fit right or had an itch he ain’t could find. Woulda been way worse for Chess, and she had to deal with shit like that all the time. He was real fucking glad he ain’t had to, that he ain’t had to figure out how they made their magic or think on it too hard. Made him feel sick just considering it.

“Lead the way,” he said to Brian, keeping his grip on Brian’s arm.

They walked past the silent machines to a rattly metal staircase, then up the stairs and down a hall with a bunch of other halls leading off. The itchy feeling increased. Not magic this time. Nerves. Anticipation.

Brian headed straight down to the end. Terrible followed, all the way to a door with “DEVELOPMENT” on it in black letters.

Brian turned to him. “The key’s in my pocket.”

Terrible reached out and rested his right hand on Brian’s shoulder to keep him from tryna run or knock Terrible over or whatany other things he might have in mind, fished out the keys, and unlocked the door.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SEX.

It crawled over him, raced through him, so strong he thought for a second he were gonna fall down. Brian hadn’t been lying about how powerful that spell was; he’d felt sex magic more’n a few times—coursen he had, at Berta’s place, or when he touched the whores or hung around with them—but this was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Like his first time multiplied by a hundred, like finally having someone he wanted worse than breathing—like Chess.

Suddenly he could see her in front of him, feel her pressed against him, and he couldn’t move. That spell reached into his fucking head and dragged out every memory of her, every fantasy of her, and played them in vivid detail. And he was sweating from it. He was choking on it, dying from it. Her face in front of him was like a bowl of steak in front of a starving dog.

“Told you it was good.” The words came from behind him. Brian’s voice, real soft. “You sure you don’t want to change your mind on making a deal? I’ll give you a boxful of these to take home with you. All you have to do is carry one in your pocket and you’ll have more pussy than you’ll know what to do with. Roley said there’s some witch you’re crazy about. You want her? You could have her.”

That hurt. It actually hurt. He could. He could have her. It could be real, her in front of him. Under him.

Was he actually thinking of making a deal?

No. No, he weren’t, and he wouldn’t, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth to open and say no. Not when it was like feeling Chess pressed tight against him again, like feeling her hand sliding down his arm, then down below his belt. He gritted his teeth so hard he heard them grind against each other. His legs were weak. He could have her. No maybes, but an aye. Not him trying, but her inviting. He could hear her saying his name.

“Think about it. Think about her,” Brian said. “She’d come back again and again. She’d never let you leave her bed. You could do anything you want to her, and she’d beg you to keep doing it. Anything. Roley was right, wasn’t he? You want her. You’re picturing her right now.”

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He would not.

Fuck … her body against his, her voice in his ear, the taste of her skin, her legs wrapped around him …

“This is your chance. You can have her. Any way you want, as many times as you want. She’ll love you for—”

It weren’t even a thought. Not a conscious impulse. But his hand closed around Brian’s throat, squeezing hard.

Because no. No, she wouldn’t. That were the problem. She wouldn’t love him, not the right way. Not the way he wanted. Even iffen she said it, it would be a lie.

And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want just her body, some fucking blow-up doll with her face. Iffen he ever had Chess in his bed—not that he ever would, he knew that, but if—he wanted it to be real. True. He wanted to look in her eyes and see her there, Chess, looking at him. Wanting him, not some fake bullshit magic version of him, not some dull-eyed manipulated version of her. He wanted her to choose him, and iffen she ever said she loved him, were he ever to hear those words in her voice, he wanted it to be Chess saying em. The real Chess. His Chess.

Having it any other way—having her any other way … that was the wrong way. And he were not fucking doing it the wrong way. Not with her.

Through the haze of anger and determination and sex he saw Brian sink to the floor, felt Brian’s Adam’s apple hard against his palm, Brian’s pulse pounding as his blood struggled to get past Terrible’s fist. Fucker. Motherfucker. Bad enough what he’d done to the whores. That were enough for Terrible to want to slice open he stomach and yank out his guts. But now he were using Chess to sell his shitty magic? Trying to use Chess to get Terrible to make a deal. Trying to use the way Terrible felt about Chess. She weren’t even there, Brian had never even met her, and he was using her. Trying to turn Terrible into someone just as bad as him, causen what he were suggesting Terrible do to Chess were no different from what they’d done to the whores. They was trying to take him down with them.

And fuck Roley, too. Terrible shoulda killed him harder.

But what else would shitbags like them do? He ain’t could forget what that magic came from, what they’d done to create it. He held on to that anger and used it to remember: to remember Slick’s body—aye, both Roley and Brian said they hadn’t done Slick, but still—and Essie and Clapper Sue and Drina, and suddenly he didn’t feel turned on any more. He felt sick. Manipulated.

And furious. Furious at Brian and Roley and all them in this building who’d made that magic. Furious at himself for forgetting even for a second, and for actually … for enjoying it for a second, for letting it work on him. Maybe he couldn’t help it—he had the feeling he probably couldn’t have, that iffen he were to ask Chess on it she’d say there were no way to keep from feeling anything with magic like that—but he shoulda remembered sooner, shoulda thought on it before he opened that door.

That magic came from someplace wrong, from something wrong, and disgust rolled his stomach and spread through the rest of him. And he encouraged that disgust, kept thinking on how that magic came to be, because being turned on by it made him sick.

He’d learned from Chess that the best way to kill a spell was to throw it in a river, or wash it down a sink. Anything to cover it with running water. But the room—his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he were still sweating but he’d managed to make the images in his head fade some—was loaded with magic, boxes piled up the walls, row after row and layer after layer. Looked like they reached the whole length of the building. No wonder he felt it so strong.

Burning spells weren’t always right to do, so Chess said. Could spread the ashes or some shit. But he had the thought that sex spells weren’t the kind he had to be that careful with. People kept em in their houses and all.

No choice, anyroad. He had to destroy the spells. And he ain’t at all minded the idea that destroying the spells would destroy the whole fucking building, neither. What they deserved.

He dragged Brian by the throat over toward one of the boxes against the wall, a half-open one, and peered in. The spells were just little cloth bags, like most he’d seen. Good, then. They’d burn easy.

Pain erupted in his side. What the—oh. He’d loosened his grip on Brian, and the fucker had taken the chance and jumped at him, knocked him into one of the file cabinets.

Woulda been a mistake iffen Brian weren’t gonna die anyway, but he was. And it weren’t like fighting Brian was hard. Wouldn’t have been hard even if Brian ain’t still had his wrists taped together behind him.

Terrible grabbed Brian’s shirt—Brian was tryna get off him to run away—and threw him back down to the floor. Brian opened his mouth to yell, but Terrible was faster; he crouched down and dug his knee into Brian’s chest, tugging the roll of duct tape out of his bag at the same time. Only took a second to tear off a piece and stick it over Brian’s mouth.

He ain’t had a lot of time, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself. He leaned down real close, so he could look Brian right in the eye. So Brian could see what was coming. “Still wanting make a deal?”

Brian nodded, the jerky, too-fast nod Terrible saw a lot in people scared shitless. Hope lit his eyes up. Terrible couldn’t wait to see it die.

“How about this one. How about you make it so them dames never got raped, and I forget the whole thing. You do that? Make it so it never happened? Give em back what you fuckin took?”

Watching Brian’s face fall ain’t should have felt as good as it did, but it did anyway. Watching the fear come back into his eyes stronger than before felt even better.

Terrible shook his head. “Guessing there ain’t a deal to make then. Too bad for you, aye?”

He taped Brian’s ankles tight together—Brian weren’t ever gonna walk anywhere again—and dragged him over to sit opposite the door. He could watch what happened next.

Lighter fluid oughta do it. He had a new bottle in his bag. The smell of it, sharp and somehow cold, filled the air as he squirted it over the spells, opened the file cabinets and rifled through their contents till he found what he wanted. That file he put in his bag. The rest he threw all over the floor. One way or another they was losing all the knowledge they had written down, on all of their magic.

Just like they were gonna lose their building and their business, and as many of their lives as he could swing.

He emptied the bottle, making sure he left trails of lighter fluid down the entire length of the room and across the width, making sure each box of sick magic had at least some on it, especially the boxes at the bottom of the stacks. The windows along that outside wall was covered in iron bars, but he could still get at em; he wrapped a rag from his pack around his fist and punched through a couple of the panes to make sure there’d be enough air to feed the fire.

Voices from downstairs. They’d arrived. Terrible glanced at Brian to make certain he were visible through the open doorway. The handle of his knife practically vibrated in his hand, ready to get used. And over it all that magic still throbbed, his skin still felt all stretched out, his heart still beat too fast. Like hundreds of soft little hands all over him, stroking the back of his neck, his chest, reaching into his jeans. He couldn’t stop being turned on, and he couldn’t stop hating that, and feeling sick from it. All that shit in his head, those memories he never, ever let himself think on, and they were all there again, and he saw Brian on the floor and heard those voices coming closer and it was their fault he was seeing that shit again. Their fault. They’d done this to him.

Before he knew what he was doing he were in front of Brian again. The part of him that still had control over itself tried to stop him, but it was too late. He knew it was too late causen he drowned that part, that little voice, out without any effort at all.

It’d felt good punching Brian before. Now it felt even better. All that fucking energy all over him, that thick sex magic, his anger, the memories … it all gathered itself up behind his punch, and he knew he was smiling as Brian’s bones crunched beneath his fist.

The voices behind him, louder. Almost there. Terrible turned—it were all so easy, like everything around him ran slow, like he weren’t even thinking at all just moving by instinct, like being peaceful—and watched em come at him.

The first one had a knife, some little pocketknife wouldn’t hurt even if he managed to stab Terrible with it. But he wouldn’t. Instead he got his wrist grabbed and twisted; Terrible felt it snap, and kept twisting until the elbow snapped, too, until the dude whose arm it was crumpled to the ground and another one was coming that Terrible could hurt.

That were all he wanted to do, now. Hurt them. And they were lining up to give him the chance. Dumb fucks.

One of em jumped at him; he ducked to the side, grabbing the dude’s neck as he did and throwing him back so he slammed into the one behind him.

Terrible didn’t let go. He drove his knife into the dude’s chest with his left hand, yanked it out and stabbed the other one just the same, shoved the second one to the floor and stomped on him while reaching out to grab another.

Hands clutching his arms, trying to hold him back. Like that were gonna happen. He spun, already throwing a punch. It connected with that sharp, hard little pain, that jolt up his arm that made him feel alive. That felt right.

Somebody else’s fist hit him in the jaw, and that felt the same way. Good. Right. It fed the rage inside him, made the flames in his head run higher and his focus stronger. Made the memories play faster. More and more of em, like white noise in the back of his head, pictures going faster and faster til they was just a blur. And they hurt, too. A different kind of pain. One inside him.

One that wouldn’t go away, and even knowing how fucking dumb it was he sometimes thought—not consciously, not really knowing he was thinking it, but it were there in his head like an instinct just the same—that maybe, maybe it might this time. Like maybe this time he could beat em all and get rid of the memories too, make it all go away for good. Like maybe if he hit hard enough, drew enough blood, killed em dead enough, got hurt enough, he could end it.

But just then he weren’t thinking. He was moving. He weren’t feeling anything but pain and how good it felt to cause it, making them hurt like he hurt, and every time his fist slammed into something, every time he felt blood on his skin, he felt lighter inside.

Sharp pain on his arm where somebody slashed at him. Sharp pain in his leg where one of em kicked him. All of it only made him think sharper, made his vision so bright and clear it was like a spotlight shone on each of em and he saw everything. Droplets of blood and spit flying through the air, their wide eyes, their open mouths. His left hand kept moving, guiding his blade into doing its own damage. He cut somebody’s throat with it, shoved it into somebody’s stomach.

And they fell around him, which pissed him off more. They weren’t really hurting him. They couldn’t beat him. Sometimes he wished somebody would, or at least that somebody could come closer than these fucks did, than anyone he’d taken on did. Sometimes he wished somebody could or would actually do some damage to him, for real. Damage outside, stead of what them had done to him inside years ago.

But they didn’t. They never could, it seemed. And he wasn’t willing to just let them beat him, neither; what was the fucking point in that? He ain’t wanted to give up. Far from it. He just wanted a real match.

One that would take more from him than this, because while he was still getting worked up, they were done. He ducked a punch—a slow, clumsy one, easy—and threw one of his own. He grabbed a leg while its owner tried to kick him and twisted it, dropped to the floor to deliver another punch, and it was over. Not one of them knew how to fight for shit, and his blood still rushed in his ears, his breath still came hard and fast, his head still buzzed, and there was nothing else to do.

Except hear the sirens. They was coming after all.

It was an effort to pull himself back; his body ain’t wanted to stop, his mind ain’t wanted to return from wherever it went. Brian still sat there, whimpering behind the tape, and it was hard not to kill him. Specially since he were gonna die anyway.

But no. Much as he wanted to—his chest heaved and his knife was still ready in his hand, it’d be so fucking easy to cut Brian’s throat and watch the life disappear from his eyes—he couldn’t. He sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second he couldn’t afford, and clenched his fists, clenched his arms, tightened very muscle he could until his mind calmed up again.

Then he bent down and scooped Brian off the floor, flung him over his shoulder. Brian made some noises under the tape, but who gave a fuck what he were tryna say.

Terrible stopped in the doorway, pulled his lighter out of his pocket, and flicked it open. The sirens outside were louder; flashing red lights showed in the distance through the iron-barred windows. Soon they’d be there. Time to get gone. He thumbed the flame into life and touched it to one of the fluid-covered files near the door. Fire leapt from it; fire ran in hot orange streams across the room, in thin rivulets like scribbled pencil lines as the lighter fluid went up, across the floor, around the bodies, over and into the boxes of spells.

His phone beeped. Timmy Vee telling him he had one minute. Aye, then. He closed the door on the growing fire, twisted the handle to make certain it were locked, and jammed one of the other keys on Brian’s ring into it. Just in case.

Then he ran. Down the hall, down the stairs, past all them machines, lugging Brian over his shoulder. The countdown he’d started in his head when he got Timmy Vee’s text told him he had maybe twenty seconds when he hit the door; he burst through it just as the flashing ambulance lights washed bright over the parking lot. Fuck.

He threw Brian into the Chevelle and gunned it for the fence. Not enough time to try and get past the ambulances. Not even enough time to get out that front gate if the ambulances weren’t coming, because his countdown hit single digits, and as the Chevelle burst through the chain-link and left rubber on the street the Peace Factory exploded behind him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HE PULLED UP outside the apartment complex in Cross Town five minutes later. The complex where Archie lived, for real—well, not Archie, but Tom Grant. According to the text Terrible got, Tom Grant lived in Building C, in apartment 2022. And Terrible was real fucking happy to be seeing Tom again. The magic he’d felt from that spell at the Peace Factory had faded, but the memory hadn’t, and he’d calmed down some but not all the way.

It had ended too soon. His muscles still burned. He weren’t done yet, he wanted to … to finish it. To beat on something or someone else, because those shitbags at the Peace Factory hadn’t been enough.

Tom wouldn’t be enough, neither, and he couldn’t kill Tom, but it were still gonna be fun.

He left Brian on the floor in the backseat of the Chevelle and covered him with a blanket he kept in the trunk. It was old and grimy, but Brian weren’t in a position to complain and Terrible didn’t give a shit even if he were.

As he walked up the steps he sent a text from Brian’s phone: “Come outside. Emergency.”

Then he sidled up to Tom’s door and waited. Only took a minute or two before Tom came out, pulling a jacket over his t-shirt, dumb-looking slippers on he feet. Terrible punched him fast, grabbed him before he could fall, slammed the door shut behind him.

Before Tom could open his mouth Terrible rested his knife at Tom’s throat. “Be good seein you again,” he said. “Whyn’t you come riding with me. Got some people wanting to have a chatter with you.”

Tom’s swallow was audible. He glanced around, those fast looks that meant he were tryna find himself an escape route.

“I ain’t would even think on that one.” He said it real quiet and calm. “Ain’t going nowhere, dig? Ain’t gettin out of this one. Best to just get on with that.”

Not that he expected Tom to listen. And he didn’t; halfway down the steps he made a break for it, jerking away and tryna run. Terrible let him get a few steps down, waited til he heard the deep intake of air that meant Tom were gonna yell, before he jumped. They tumbled down to the bottom of the stairs with Terrible on top. The cement edge of the steps scraped at his forearms and elbows, banged hard into his knees. No matter; they barely stung as he taped Tom’s mouth and wrists, then stood up and hauled Tom off the ground.

The hallway—one a them open-air things supposed to make the place look modern—was empty, but that ain’t meant nobody were watching. Fuck. He’d hoped just the threat of the knife would be enough, and they could keep it all innocent-looking. Now alls he could do was hope nobody caught a good look at him. He’d already need to get a new set of plates for the Chevelle from Low-lie, causen the ambulances mighta caught sight on his at the Peace Factory.

Nothing else he could do. He shove-pulled Tom to the car, threw him in on top of Brian, and got into the driver’s seat.

Berta was waiting on the front porch when he got there, waiting with a few of the whores standing around smoking and staring. The kind of stares he never wanted dames aiming at him.

Brian and Tom ain’t had tried to say a word during the drive over; well, woulda been kinda dumb of em to try, seeing as how they had tape over them mouths, but they ain’t made any sounds at all. When Terrible opened the door and they saw the dames standing on the porch, though, Tom started screaming behind the tape, screaming and wiggling around, tryna shove heself up against the opposite door. Terrible dragged him back by the ankles, let him fall with a thud to the ground. Watching him tryna get his feet under him woulda been funny iffen Terrible were able to laugh at anything just then. As it was he just felt a sort of grim satisfaction. Aye, Tom knew why he were there, what was gonna happen to him.

So did Brian. Both of em had tears running down their cheeks, glistening in the moonlight. Well, so had Sue, Essie, and Drina. Brian and Tom did this to themselves; Terrible had no fucking sympathy at all. He dragged em both up toward the front porch.

Berta stepped forward. “Which one?”

“Both of em.” Terrible nodded toward Brian. “He the one in charge.”

“Him be the one got me,” Clapper Sue said, nodding toward Archie. Looked like she were tryna shoot lasers out her eyes. “Be him.”

Drina nodded. “Same’s me.”

Essie sniffed the air. “Ain’t certain looks like he, but knowing that smell, I do.”

Brian were tryna get up; Terrible planted his foot in Brian’s back. “Want me takin em inside?”

“To the shed.”

Terrible did, pulling them behind him, around the back of the house. Berta followed, and behind her the whores, all silent. Whatany they planned doing to Brian and Tom weren’t gonna be pretty; and weren’t aught they’d let Terrible stick around to watch, neither, much as he kinda wished he could. Were up to them. Were their business. Another a them situations where they had their own laws.

Besides, he had to get over to Bump’s, let him know what happened and hand over the file, ask on Lacey and Vole and find out what Bump wanted done about the dude owned the Peace Factory: maybe he’d want him dead, maybe he’d just want him threatened. Could come in handy for Bump, somebody owned a business like that one—once he got it rebuilt, if he was gonna get it rebuilt. All that lighter fluid and explosives might mean insurance ain’t would pay out. Which, too fucking bad for him. No sympathy there, neither.

He gave Berta a nod and headed back to his car. The screams started before he got halfway down the street.

Were only midnight when he left Bump’s place a few hours later with a new list of shit needed doing. He’d be paying a visit to the owner of the Peace Factory the next night, paying a visit with a bag of pills and a gun to help the dude swallow them pills. Bump ain’t had a use for he after all.

Which were what Terrible had expected. Anybody gave the aye to a plan like that—and he had, he’d known all of what were happening, the file proved that—weren’t to be trusted noways. Were fine by Terrible, too; he ain’t exactly liked the thought of having to deal with that dude. And this way it’d be over. Really over.

Except for who killed Slick. That one still bothered him. Bump kept blowing it off, like it ain’t mattered. And aye, he could be right. Just like they’d said back when all it started, Slick had a reputation, and Terrible could think on more’n one reason why some dude might want him dead.

But still it bugged him. Not knowing bugged him.

Just like how things got left with Amy bugged him. Nothing he could do on that one, at all. “Sorry” couldn’t fix that problem. He ain’t thought anything could fix that problem, least not anything he were prepared to do, or anything were possible for him to do. Even not seeing Chess no more wouldn’t change how he felt about her, or that Amy knew it. Not seeing Chess no more wouldn’t change what Amy’d said to him or that it were true, neither. No, best thing to do was leave Amy be. He’d done enough to her.

And he ain’t wanted to think on it just then, neither. He’d done something that night. He’d solved the—well, not the case, it weren’t a case like what Chess had at she work, but he’d caught those Peace Factory shitheads, and now they were in the City of Eternity with the rest of the dead and the whores were safe again. Felt good, despite the nagging worry, despite how he wanted to have a chatter with Bump on maybe keeping up the extra security.

But all that he could worry on later. For now he just wanted to be satisfied. And more’n that, he were kinda proud of heself. He’d figured it out, on his own. Been his idea getting Roley over to that apartment, been him who ain’t trusted Roley from the first. Him who’d thought of them maybe doing magic and him who’d checked on the Peace Factory. Aye, he’d done shit like that before, too, but this time it were all him. Maybe he ain’t done as good a job as Chess might, seeing as how she done that shit for her job and she were so much smarter than him and all, but he’d done it just the same. That were pretty cool.

Coursen, he wished he ain’t had to do any of it, but still.

He got into the Chevelle and started it up, rolled down the windows to clear that cheap-soap smell. Oughta head home, he ought. The next day’d be a full one. Aside from all the shit Bump gave him to do, he had fifty bucks to hand over to Edsel—Ed hadn’t been real helpful, but he ain’t needed to know that, and Chess’d be glad to hear he’d gotten a lashback—and a long list of them with owes. Plus it were Tuesday, always the busiest for him causen that’s when he went around to collect protection money.

But he were still keyed up. Awake. And Chess’d said she’d be around and he could give her a ring-up, and he wanted to. He couldn’t tell her on everything—last thing he wanted to do was say how he’d left eleven people dead that night—but he could tell her he’d ended it, and see her smile at him over it. He could head over to hers and sit next to her and talk to her.

He ain’t thought there were anything in the world he’d rather do.

So he picked up he phone and sent her a text. Her reply came just a minute later, almost like she’d been waiting for him; he shoved the Chevelle into gear and headed for her place, feeling better than he had in days.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'VE NEVER DONE a project like this before; it's a little scary, to be honest. It would be even scarier if I didn't have the support and encouragement of the world's best readers, so of course I have to start with a big huge "Thank you!" to all of you. The way you have embraced these books and these characters is a constant source of amazement to me.

Big thanks also to copyeditor Alice Loweecy, who let me know when the Downspeech was too thick, when my grammar was accidentally instead of deliberately wrong, and caught my continuity errors; to Alessandra Kelley, who painted the fantastic cover art; and to Fran Walker, Chelsea Mueller, and Lauren Dane, who offered valuable feedback.

And of course to my agent Chris Lotts and his assistant Jolie Hale, and to my family who still put up with me. Thank you all so much.

Content

WRONG WAYS DOWN
A Downside Story (1.5)
by Stacia Kane

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS