Squall

chapter seven

DALE CAME AWAKE WITH a kink in his neck, sitting on the couch with his head slung back, a strand of drool connecting his chin to a wet spot the size of a saucer on his Tragically Hip T-shirt. The sky outside the window was dense with cloud cover now, and a light snow was falling. There was no sign of Ronnie.

He glanced at his watch, mildly surprised to see that it was past four in the afternoon. He gave his head a shake and leaned over his works, spread out in front of him on the raw-pine coffee table. A quick inventory told him he'd already used three of the syringes, though he could only remember the first. The reason he was here rose up in the fog of his mind and Dale decided it was time for a little pick-me-up.

He got it done quickly, nodded off briefly then got up to go to the john. That done, he felt around in his coat pockets for his cigarettes before remembering he'd left them in the truck. He got his boots and coat on and went outside.

He was halfway across the yard when he heard Ed's phone ringing in the Ram. He thought, Fuck, and tramped through the snow to answer it, Ed's voice coming at him before he got the handset to his ear.

"Dale? Answer me, dipshit. Is that you?"

"Yeah, Ed, it's me."

"It was the coke whore, am I right? Your fiancée? Tell me I'm right, Dale."

He thought of lying—for all the good it would do him—then thought, Screw it, I told her to wait in the truck.

He said, "Yeah, Ed. It was Ronnie."

"I fucking knew it. You know what I've got to do now, Dale? I've got to go see Randall Copeland and explain this to him. Tell him how my dipshit brother and his coke whore slaughtered three of his best customers. How you then stole his product and his money and tried to make a run for it. Jesus Christ, Dale, how many times do I have to tell you? When you do a job for me, you represent me. How many times?"

There was a pause, Ed waiting for an answer, but Dale couldn't think of what to say, the dope making him want to giggle.

Ed said, "Are you high?"

"Maybe a little."

Ed gave a dry chuckle. "You're a piece of work, bro, I'll give you that. A real piece of work. All right, listen. This still might be fixable. You get the cash and the product back to me a-sap, all I've got to do then is convince Copeland he doubled his money. Where are you right now?"

Dale said, "We're—" and felt the phone snatched out of his hand. He turned to see Ronnie in her jeans and red tank top pitching the phone as far as she could into the woods. When she faced him again she had the .380 in her hand, the stubby muzzle aimed at his face.

She said, "I ought to shoot you myself, save Copeland the trouble."

The sight of that muzzle, the tension in Ronnie's trigger finger, Ronnie barely dressed out here in the snow, cut through Dale's buzz like a scalpel blade.

He said, "Ronnie, wait. Ed was pissed, sure, but he sounded okay about it, like he could smooth things over with Copeland."

"Did you tell him where we are?"

"No."

"Dale?"

"No. You took the phone before I could."

She glanced at the Ram. "What about the truck? Doesn't it have one of those GPS tracking dealies in it? So they can find it if it's stolen?"

Dale shook his head. "It did when Ed bought it, but he had it removed, in case he needed to flee in it someday. Besides, who'd be stupid enough to steal Ed's truck?"

Ronnie just stared at him, vapor jetting from her flared nostrils. Then she lowered the gun, turning into the wind to go back inside. "I can't sit around here much longer," she said, not looking at him. "We leave together—tonight—or I leave alone and to hell with you."

Breathing hard, Dale followed her inside.