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.”