Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane Page B

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;