“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.