Wrong Ways Down

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.