Wrong Ways Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

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,