Wrong Ways Down (22 page)

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.

H
E 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.

I
'VE NEVER DONE
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