Sean Costello Thriller Box Set

THRILLER BOX SET

Squall

Sandman

Last Call

Finders Keepers

Red Tower Publications

Table of Contents

SQUALL

SANDMAN

LAST CALL

FINDERS KEEPERS

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Books by Sean Costello

Eden's Eyes

The Cartoonist

Captain Quad

Finders Keepers

Sandman

Here After

Squall

Last Call

Horror Box Set

Thriller Box Set

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Squall

Sean Costello

Red Tower Publications

Sudbury, Ontario

1

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Friday, January 18, 1:35AM

FUCKING BROTHER OF yours, Ronnie Saxon said, the coke revving her up, making her aggressive. Treats you like his errand boy.

Dale Knight drove the big Dodge Ram without looking at her, knowing the eye contact would only make her worse. He flicked the wipers on, fat snowflakes melting as they struck the windshield. Outside, Asian district neon reflected off the accumulated snow, drifts of it smothering the city.

Ronnie said, You should be partners by now. Look at him, king shit in that big house in Rosedale. Where are we? Cabbagetown. Half a  duplex with a plugged toilet, those fucking rappers upstairs playing that street shit half the night.

She paused to do another hit off her coke mirror and Dale said, It’ll come, Ronnie. Ed’s just showing me the ropes. He came up this way himself, doing runs for Copeland. It’s how it works.

The ropes, Ronnie said. Listen to yourself. She hefted the gym bag out of the footwell in front of her, 250K worth of Randall Copeland’s heroin. I was you? I’d take this shit and start up on my own. Someplace fresh. Miami, maybe.

Dale took the bag from her and tossed it on the back seat. You’re talking shit now, Ronnie. This is Copeland’s dope. Randall Copeland? Remember him?

A long-established independent in the Toronto Area drug trade, Randall ‘Randy’ Copeland had managed through sheer force of will to maintain a healthy percentage from almost all of the rival factions that had sprung up over the past few decades—the Jamaican posses, the Eastern European bratvas, the Asian triads, even the American biker and youth gangs—mostly by providing safe and reliable distribution, his vast clientele far more terrified of Copeland than they were of his competitors.

Dale said, My brother told me he watched the man split a guy’s tongue with a pair of tin shears for lying about putting a ding in his Beemer. He’s the last son of a bitch we want to fuck with. Why don’t you just mellow out.

Ronnie only stared at him, that hard shine in her eyes that made Dale nervous, giving him no idea what was going on inside her head. It made him realize how little he knew about the girl. He’d met her through his brother—one of Ed’s discards, a hand-me-down, like a sweater—and six months later they’re engaged. True, she was fine: that black leather coat flared open to show a little cleavage above a tight red top; legs that went all the way up; all that thick dark hair. But she never talked about her past, only hinted at its flavor, almost like a threat when she got pissed at him and wanted him to know it: There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Dale, so I suggest you just back off.

He said, Listen, we’re almost there. I’m gonna go inside and do the deal, you’re gonna wait in the truck. Ten minutes tops. We’re late, so I’ll probably have to put up with some shit about that. Late because Ronnie’s ‘quick’ stop for blow wound up costing them an hour.

You saying it’s my fault?

"We could have picked up your blow after the drop, like I suggested."

The day I had, you expect me to wait?

Letting it go, Dale said, When I come out we’re gonna take the money to Ed, collect our two grand and that’s the end of it. Fucking coke, makes you hyper.

Ronnie said, At least I’m awake, but the edge was gone from her tone, something else on her mind now. She slipped the smeared coke mirror into her bag, her trim body moving to the Santana tune on the radio.

Dale slowed the Ram and turned left, then left again into an alley behind a closed Korean take-out joint. He parked beside a black BMW and killed the engine, pocketing the keys. He reached over the seatback for the gym bag and Ronnie leaned into him, manicured fingers squeezing his thigh.

I’m sorry I bitched you out, she said, close, minty breath warm in his ear. I just wanna see us get ahead. We deserve more.

It’ll come, Dale said, suspicious as he always was when she turned on that lovey-dovey shit. But man, she knew how to play him. Couple more years, maybe we’ll move into the top half of the duplex.

Don’t push it, Dale.

Grinning, he got the gym bag and opened the door. Ten minutes.

Let me come in with you, baby.

The mood you’re in? I don’t think so.

I’m fine now, honest. Come on, they won’t mind.

Dale got out of the truck, sinking to his ankles in wet snow. Forget it, Ronnie. These guys are wrapped way too tight. I go in alone.

But—

Lock the doors. It’s a bad neighborhood.

He closed the door on her protest, thinking, Stick with the plan. He’d fucked up more than once already, Ed bringing him into his office to ream him out, like Ed was his father instead of his brother. But Dale never took it personally. He was a fuck-up a lot of the time, the dope getting him into shit he sometimes couldn’t even remember. He’d been clean a few months now, though, even caught a few twelve-step meetings when the itch got nasty enough. Truth was, Ed’s last talk had shaken him. Keep it up, Dale, you’re going to find yourself in a bind I can’t pry you out of. In this world, blood only runs so thick. Jesus, Ed could be spooky sometimes.

But he was right. Brothers or not, Ed had put his own ass on the line to get him this job, and if he screwed it up, it was Ed who’d have to answer for it. The job itself was easy—drop off the shit, pick up the cash, bring it to Ed and get paid on the spot. Two weeks’ pay at minimum wage in a couple hours. All he had to do was follow the rules.

He banged on the restaurant’s steel service door, then glanced back at the Ram—shit, Ronnie smoking in his brother’s truck, like he needed more trouble with Ed. He turned to say something to her about it and the service door opened on its chain. An Asian guy the size of an outhouse stuck his face in the gap, shark eyes sizing Dale up, then got the chain off and let him inside.

Dale followed him into a storage area where the boss, Trang, and another guy—all three of these dudes in the same sky blue leisure suits—were shooting darts and drinking beers.

Dale stumbled over something on his way in, making a racket, and Trang missed his shot, looking none-too-pleased about it as he turned to face Dale. You’re late, he said and let his jacket fall open, giving Dale a clear view of the big semi-auto tucked into the front of his trousers.

Yeah, Mister Trang, Dale said, I’m sorry. I was...unavoidably detained. But I got your product right here.

It makes your brother look bad, Trang said, not letting it go, showing up late for a quarter million deal. He touched the black leather briefcase that lay on its side on a service table next to him. A caress. I should tell him.

Sorry, Mister Trang. It won’t happen again.

Trang’s gaze ticked over Dale’s shoulder now, registering mild surprise. He turned to look at his pals and when he faced Dale again he was smiling, showing small yellow teeth. But I see you brought us a peace offering, he said, the smile widening. Blowjobs all around, eh boys?

The other two joined Trang in a good laugh and Dale turned to see Ronnie right behind him, strolling past him now, cool as ice, going straight to Trang as the other two flanked him to wait their turn.

Dale said, Ronnie? but the girl wasn’t listening.

She sidled up to Trang with lidded eyes, giving him her smokiest smile, one hand going to his thin chest, the fingers of the other loosening his belt.

Ronnie said, I’ll blow you...

And Dale saw her hand close around the pistol grip, saw her shoot Trang in the balls and draw the gun from his pants as he fell, tugging once as it snagged, then watched her drop to one knee to gut-shoot the big one, capping the third in the throat as he reached for his piece. The reports slammed Dale’s ears, flat claps of thunder in the cement-walled room. For a moment from the look on her face Dale thought she might turn the gun on him, too.

Then she was moving, sweeping the briefcase off the table, turning to hand it to Dale. He took it and watched her collect the men’s wallets and guns, calling Trang an asshole when his bloodied hand came up to clutch her calf, cursing him again for staining her jeans. She stuffed the swag into a plastic bag she found somewhere and it was all Dale could do not to faint dead away.

Then, with the cool detachment of a farm woman snapping the neck of a hen, Ronnie put a single round into the top of Trang’s head, stifling his frantic screams. She stood over each of the others in turn, but both were already dead.

See? she said, looking at Dale now. That’s how easy it is. Now come on.

She started for the exit but Dale stood frozen, gaping at the scene, gun smoke smarting his eyes.

Ronnie’s voice: Dale.

Jesus, Ron...

Look at me, Dale.

He did.

It’s like I’ve told you before, she said, green eyes wildly alive, "there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Now come on."

Head spinning, Dale broke for the exit, running full out now, briefcase in one hand, gym bag in other.

* * *

Ronnie got right back into the coke, turning the radio up loud, laughing when Dale came out of the alley too hard, fishtailed in the wet snow and sideswiped a parked van.

Fuck, Dale said and Ronnie whooped. He couldn’t look at her, not now, afraid that if he did he’d grab Trang’s gun off the console and shoot her with it.

Now she was stuffing the other two guns under her seat, going through the wallets, griping about cheap chinks who didn’t carry cash, tossing things out the window as she got through with them.

Slowing as he turned north onto Yonge Street, Dale said, You know what you just did?

Made us five hundred K in under a minute? Twice that if we cut the shit and deal it ourselves.

"You killed us, that’s what you did. Picturing Ed when he found out about this, Dale wanted to scream. Copeland’s gonna waste us for this and there’s not a thing Ed’s gonna be able to do about it."

Like we’re going to sit around and let that happen. The airport’s a thirty minute drive from here. If you can’t handle it, pull over and I’ll take the wheel.

The airport. In this weather.

Ronnie considered this a moment, staring out at the worsening storm. Then she dialed 411 on Ed’s satellite phone, asked for the number for flight information and waited while it connected, shushing Dale when a recorded voice came on and told her all flights had either been canceled or delayed until further notice.

She hung up and said, Fuck it then, we’ll wait it out. How’s the Harbor Hilton sound? Room service. Jacuzzi. It’s not like we can’t afford it.

Copeland knows everybody in this town, Ronnie. There’s no place we can hide. Fucking shitstorm. Look, maybe we should call Ed, tell him Trang went crazy or something, tried to rip us off. Gave us no choice.

Forget it, Dale. You lie about as well as you fuck.

Nice.

You know what I mean. He’d see right through you.

Look, Dale said, struggling to catch his breath. His heart was triphammering, the image of Trang clutching his bloody crotch making his stomach sick. I know a place. It’s about five hours north of here. My uncle’s cottage on Kukagami Lake. It’s the last place Ed’d think to look.

Ronnie said, A cottage, like it was a toilet. "If we’re gonna drive, drive south, fuck sake. We take turns at the wheel, we’re in Miami in two days."

Dale sped the wipers up a notch, the wet flakes heavier now, angling straight in at the windshield. He said, They got dogs at Customs, Ronnie, can smell dope on your breath. Forget about it. There’s no way we’re gonna try that. No, if we’re gonna run—and I don’t see as we got any other choice now—we’re gonna have to ditch the dope or sell the fucker before we leave the country. We lay low at the cottage—it’s a real nice place on the lake, Ronnie. Heat, electricity, everything. We stay there a day, maybe two, then drive to Montreal. I know a guy there’ll take the shit off our hands. Then we head for Europe or maybe New Zealand. Someplace Ed never heard of.

What if your Uncle’s at this cottage?

He’s in Daytona till the end of March, same drill every year. Trust me, the place is abandoned.

Ronnie was quiet after that, the fading adrenaline rush making her sullen. Dale had seen her like this before, brooding silences that went on sometimes for hours and made him nervous, afraid he’d done something to piss her off and he’d wake up in the morning to find her gone.

But right now he liked her this way just fine. He needed time to think.

He got on the 401 and followed it west to the 400, pointing them north now, into the throat of the storm.

2

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AT 6:00 O'CLOCK on the morning of his thirty-first birthday, Tom Stokes dressed quietly in his winter work clothes then leaned over the bed to kiss his wife Mandy on the forehead.

Mandy opened her eyes to squint up at him in the thin dawn light. She looked annoyed.

Tom said, Did I wake you? I was trying to keep it down.

You’re a bull, Mandy said and flipped back the covers, showing a very pregnant abdomen. Come back to bed.

I’d love to, but I gotta get airborne. Billy Trudeau said he saw a busted window in Outpost Cabin Three. Billy was a Native trapper and guide Tom sometimes hired to look after the hunters and fishermen he rented his outpost cabins to in season. That means either looters, animals or both. Either way, I want to get it secured so I can be back in time for Steve’s party.

Mandy smiled. My birthday boys. Okay, I’m up.

As she grunted her way into a sitting position, shivering in the morning chill, Tom crept along the hallway to his son’s room.

Steve, five years old today, was still sound asleep, tangled in his blankets as he always was, a restless sleeper since birth. Seeing him there, winter pale and so utterly still, Tom felt the same unnerving mix of love and dread he’d felt every morning since they brought the little guy home from the maternity ward: love of a depth he’d never imagined possible...and dread that his son’s stillness meant death had crept in to claim him in the night. An irrational fear, maybe—Steve was a healthy, active kid who, apart from those few routine illnesses of early childhood, rarely even caught a cold—but it was a dread that abated only when Tom rested his hand on that tiny chest, as he did now, feeling the rhythmic passage of air that signaled precious life.

He kissed his son on the cheek then did his best to disentangle him from his blankets without waking him. By the time he got downstairs, Mandy had a pot of coffee brewing and two slices of rye bread in the toaster for him.

As he always did, Tom took his breakfast into the business office on the main floor. He set his toast on the desk but held onto the coffee, sipping it as he checked the weather forecast on the computer then visually through the big picture window that gave onto the lake where his two planes—a blue and white Cessna 180 and a bright red DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver—stood waiting on their skis, looking stiff and frosty in the gathering light.

The morning was cold but clear, the windsock hanging limp on its pole, no sign of the storm the computer said was raging a few hours south of them now, plowing its way north. He should be able to get his repairs done and be back in plenty of time to see Steve getting off the school bus.

The family trophy case caught Tom’s eye and he idly surveyed its many awards with pride, even though most of them belonged to his wife. Mandy was a crack shot with any kind of firearm. She’d been competing at some of the highest levels since high school, and for a while, before deciding to become a pilot, had been grooming herself for the Olympics. The most exciting events she competed at were the IPSC matches, wicked, action-movie scenarios with gangster popup targets and cardboard mothers clutching babies. It was wild watching her do her thing at these events—and because of them Steve thought he had the coolest mom on the planet. Some of the trophies were pretty impressive, too: poised, gold and silver figures aiming handguns and rifles, the plaques beautifully engraved. He had a couple of things in here somewhere himself...ah, there they were: a three-inch tall gold cup with World’s Best Dad inscribed on its base, and a grinning porcelain skull he won at a coin toss at the Azilda Fair. There was a vacant shelf at the top of the unit, reserved for Steve’s future accomplishments; and soon enough, those of his still gestating baby brother as well.

Completing his morning ritual, Tom sat on the love seat in front of the window and finished his breakfast, gazing with pride at the logo on the Cessna 180, the plane he’d be flying this morning: Stokes Aviation.

He wondered what Mandy got him for his birthday.

3

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THE WEATHER BROKE all of a sudden, six in the morning, just south of Parry Sound. An hour earlier they’d been sitting at a dead stop behind a tractor-trailer jackknifed across the highway, flares everywhere, an O.P.P. officer coming right up to Dale’s window and asking him where they were headed. Dale only stared at the man and Ronnie said, Kukagami eventually, but we’d be happy to make Parry Sound tonight, find a hotel and get out of this weather. The cop said that was a good idea, flashed Ronnie a smile and went on to the next vehicle. Dale saw Ronnie tuck her handgun—a nickel-plated Colt .380 she carried with her everywhere—back into her bag and thought, This is a nightmare, somebody wake me up.

The drive in the snow, slow and hypnotic, had settled Dale’s nerves somewhat; but seeing that cop stroll up to the window like that, and then Ronnie, ready to shoot the man in the face, brought it all back hard. He was a fugitive now, running not only from the most ruthless crime boss in the country but from his own brother. The law, too, if the cops got involved. Christ, three dead Asians.

He kept thinking maybe it wasn’t too late. He could call Ed, tell him the truth. This wasn’t his mess, it was Ronnie’s. Maybe—

Ronnie said, I know what you’re thinking.

Trying to get some edge in his tone, Dale said, You’re a mind reader now?

You’re thinking of calling your brother, am I right? Telling him it was me? You had nothing to do with it?

Would I be lying?

Ronnie said, "Fuck those guys, man. This is petty cash to them. Your brother’ll get his wrist slapped and life’ll go on. Meanwhile we’re sipping gin fizzes in the Florida sunshine."

Dale glanced at the phone and Ronnie said, Okay, you want to call him? She picked up the receiver and held it out to him. "Be my guest. See what he has to say. Better yet, call Copeland. It’s his dope, anyway. And you know how forgiving he can be. When Dale didn’t move, Ronnie set the phone back in its cradle. You’re in this, Dale. Don’t kid yourself. You are it. Fucking slant, thinks I’m gonna suck his yellow dick. What dick? I hate those slippery creeps, think they can have whatever they want. She said, Did you see the look on his face?" and brayed laughter.

Dale tuned her out. Let her rant.

Traffic got moving again after that, the drive to Parry Sound slow but smooth.

Then, almost without noticing, Dale was driving on center-bare blacktop under a white sky, the moon burning through like a dull beacon, guiding them north.

* * *

They stopped for breakfast at an all-night joint along the highway, Ronnie bringing the cash and the drugs inside, bitching about the country music on the radio as she led Dale to a booth by the window. She ordered black coffee, bacon and eggs over hard with white toast and Parisienne home fries and dug in without saying a word.

All Dale could stomach was dry toast and a few sips of apple juice. He’d lost his appetite for food. What he needed right now was inside that gym bag. He kept thinking about that first sweet rush when the tourniquet comes off, the warm calm that washes over you like tropical surf, the only true antidote to fear he’d ever found. And he was shit-scared now, more afraid than he’d ever been. Every minute that passed without dealing with this thing was a minute closer to the grave. Until now he’d always been able to turn to his brother when he got in a jam, Ed always coming through for him. But this...this fucking mess didn’t have a solution. At least not one Dale believed he could survive.

He looked at Ronnie looking at him, then down at her plate as she pushed her fork into a small round potato, spun it in a glob of ketchup then tugged it off with her perfect white teeth, eyes full of dark humor.

Dale thought of Trang screaming and felt his stomach clench, the dry toast congealing into a missile shape inside him, and he stood up fast saying, Goin’ out for a smoke, making it through the door just in time to gulp the cold morning air and keep his meager breakfast where it belonged.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall under the overhang, smoking and watching the dark clouds in the south race to catch up with them.

Ronnie came out a few minutes later with her cargo.

Pay the bitch, she said, and let’s go.

4

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WRAPPED IN A housecoat that refused to close over her enormous belly, Mandy Stokes sat at the radio console with a headset on, her gaze shifting between the Cessna 180—out near the center of the lake now, Tom taxiing it into position for takeoff—and the radio controls.

As she ran through some last minute checks with Tom, Steve appeared beside her like a tiny Ninja, giving her a start. Still logy with sleep, he watched through the window as the aircraft accelerated for takeoff, his blue eyes unblinking now, his warm hand tightening around Mandy’s wrist.

The plane vanished beyond a long peninsula for a moment, it’s engine a rising whine in the distance, then reappeared airborne banking north, Tom giving the wings a little side to side tilt, his version of a wave. When Steve saw that he released his mother’s wrist and yawned.

A moment later Tom’s voice came over the radio: The wild man up yet?

Mandy said, You mean up or awake?

Tom laughed. Can I talk to him?

Mandy said, You can try," and held the handset out to her son.

Still half asleep, Steve gave her a grumpy look. But he took the handset and said, Hi, Dad.

Morning, big guy. Happy Birthday.

Thanks, Dad. You, too.

Excited about tonight?

Uh huh.

Tom chuckled. Can’t hardly contain yourself, huh, pardner? How old are you now?

You know. Five.

"Five. About time you got a job then, don’t you think? Started earning a living?"

Steve just breathed into the handset.

Tom said, You gonna be this much fun all day?

Yawning again, Steve said, Bye, Dad, I gotta get ready for school.

Okay, sport. I love you. See you tonight.

Mandy took the handset from her son and signed off with Tom.

Giving her belly a gentle pat, Steve said, Can I have Frosted Flakes? It’s my birthday.

5

RONNIE AND DALE reached the cottage at 7:30, the new day coming on blue and cold as Dale parked the Ram in the yard and got out to find the key. The road in from the highway had been plowed and sanded, only the winding cottage road, a distance of about three miles, requiring 4-wheel drive and a little care.

The cottage itself stood on the last piece of private property on this stretch of side road, perched on the tip of a narrow peninsula where the road dead-ended, the nearest neighbor six miles back, a summer dwelling Dale could see was vacant as they passed it on the way in.

He found the key where Uncle Frank had hidden it since Dale was a kid, in the flared nostril of a grim figure on a thirty-foot totem pole Frank had picked up at a yard sale someplace.

He got the front door open and Ronnie pushed past him saying, I’m going to bed. She snatched the truck keys out of his hand and took the gym bag and the briefcase upstairs with her. Dale said, Make yourself at home, and listened to her—boot heels stabbing the wood floors up there, the squeak of bed springs and then silence—before getting his coat and boots off, turning up the heat and taking a stroll through the place.

Being here, amidst Uncle Frank’s weird antler furniture and hunting trophies, made him feel like a kid again. After his mother died and his father buckled down for the serious drinking, Dale had come up here as often as he could. Uncle Frank had always treated him like a prince, teaching him to fish, letting him take the power boat out by himself, and telling him stories about how crime didn’t pay and he didn’t have to turn out like his brother if he didn’t want to. What Uncle Frank never understood was that in those days Dale wanted nothing more. Nobody messed with Ed, that was the thing. Ed always got what he wanted, one way or another, and Ed never felt fear, something Dale had lived with since his mother died, a withered stick figure in a prison hospital bed, eaten alive by cancer while still in her thirties.

Fucking fear.

In the kitchen Dale checked the fridge: a half-used jar of raspberry jam in there, six cans of beer and not much else. He helped himself to one of the beers and sat on the couch facing the big picture window that overlooked the lake. Nothing moving out there in the cold, not even a breeze. The sun was out now, but muted by a white sky that shaded to near black in the south.

The beer tasted flat and Dale set it aside, little comfort there. His demons were awake now, capering and hungry as hell.

He listened into the remote silence of the place, the starkness of it serving only to amplify his need. He glanced up at the ceiling, knowing that Ronnie was in the room directly above him, probably already sound asleep. Bitter, he wondered what it said about her feelings for him that she took that bag of dope upstairs with her. The money, too, for that matter. What was he going to do, take off with it and leave her stranded here?

She doesn’t want you getting high, the demon said. Bitch probably filled her own snoot with it before passing out on your uncle’s Posture-Pedic.

He said, Slippery bitch, and headed for the stairwell in his socks. He knew every creak in the floorboards and risers and made the trip to the master bedroom without a sound. She’d pulled the door shut but hadn’t latched it, and it opened quietly on well-oiled hinges. In the dim, Dale saw her lying on her side with her back to the curtained window, her breathing slow and raspy with sleep.

The gym bag was on the foot of the bed next to the briefcase. He was almost out the door with it when Ronnie said, Put it back, without moving and Dale said, Just a taste, Ronnie. That’s all. To quiet the voices.

He heard her say, Asshole, as he pulled the door shut and set the latch.

Back on the couch, he rested the gym bag on his lap and unzipped it, removing one of the kilo bags of heroin. It occurred to him as he hefted it that a few good snorts would get him there, but not like blasting it would—and remembered Uncle Frank was diabetic.

He found the insulin syringes in a kitchen drawer, thirteen of them left in a box of fifty, as seductive a sight as anything he’d seen in their crisp, sterile wrappers. He scooped them up, got a teaspoon from the cutlery drawer, a wad of cotton from an aspirin bottle and found a book of matches by the fireplace.

There was a moment of hesitation, a distant voice telling him not to blow his clean time...then he punched a hole in the kilo bag with his pocket knife and measured out a hit with the tip of the blade.

A prickly sweat broke out in his armpits as he cooked the hit then drew it up through the cotton into the slender syringe. His mouth was bone dry now and his breath came hot and fast.

He held the syringe up to the light, teasing out the last few bubbles from the amber fluid, warm and amniotic. That same distant voice bade him reconsider, but he was committed now.

The prick of the needle was glassy, inordinately painful, but the feeling passed quickly and he watched with detached fascination as a tiny eruption of blood rose to meet the falling plunger.

6

MANDY SAID, BETTER get a move on, young man, or you’re gonna miss your bus.

Cocooned in his pillowy red snowsuit, Steve came whisking down the hallway, his overstuffed school bag flopping between his shoulder blades. Though he wasn’t a big fan of school, the little guy was excited about it today. His JK teacher always made a fuss about the kids’ birthdays, and Steve had been chattering about it all morning.

Miss Sutcliffe always makes a cake, he told her. I asked for chocolate. And she puts money inside it in wax paper. It’s not a surprise. She has to tell us so we don’t crack our teeth. Timmy MacNamara got a Toonie last week and it wasn’t even his birthday.

Mandy held the front door open for him and Steve barreled past her, stopping on the porch to watch his mom pull on a parka and trade her fuzzy slippers for galoshes. Then he was down the steps and running, skidding to a stop at the verge of the rural road just in time to meet the bus.

Earning a disgruntled Mu-um! for her efforts, Mandy lifted him onto that first high step and Steve tramped the rest of the way up, grinning shyly when the driver and some of the other kids shouted, Happy Birthday, Steeeeeve!

As the door hissed shut, Mandy felt a bright jab of pain in her side and thought Oh, shit; but it passed quickly and she turned to go back inside, watching the big yellow bus chuff its way along the ice-patched road.

She was in the foyer stepping out of her boots when she heard Tom’s voice on the radio.

* * *

Tom spoke into the boom mike on his headset, his voice raised against the drone of the aircraft as he taxied toward the outpost cabin on Biscatosi Lake. This is Quebec-Victor-Bravo on the ice at Outpost Three, he said. I can see the damage from here.

Mandy’s voice in the headset: Acknowledge, Quebec-Victor-Bravo. Birthday boy. What do you see?

Branch through the front window. A bunch of shingles blown off. Gonna be here a while.

Roger that, QVB. Storm’s still headed your way, though, so maybe you should tackle the window first so you can be ready to bolt if the weather starts bearing down on you. You know what you’re like once you get started on something.

Say again, Home Base? There’s no one here fits that description.

"You heard me, wise guy. Don’t make me come out there. I want you home in one piece and on time for Steve’s party. Get that right and who knows, maybe we’ll have a private party later on."

Mission understood, but may induce labor.

Let me worry about that. Home base out.

Smiling, Tom guided the Cessna to a stop twenty feet from shore and powered down. This past week had been unseasonably cold, even for the Sudbury Basin, temperatures plummeting to a frosty thirty-five below, some days even colder with the wind-chill, and many of the remaining birch trees in the area had been losing their branches, the heftier ones popping off the trunks with sharp pistol cracks. That appeared to be what had happened here, the ejected branch plowing through the front window, letting the weather in.

As Tom approached the cabin, bent against a freshening wind, he could see that it wasn’t only the weather the shattered glass had allowed inside. A fair-sized animal, a lynx, maybe, or a restless raccoon, had gotten in there, too. God damn. Supplies torn up. Curls of frozen animal shit all over the place.

Oh, well, Tom thought. Cost of doing business.

He set about wrestling the heavy branch out of the window frame, deciding to cut down the parent tree in the spring and chainsaw it into stove lengths.

As the branch pulled free and Tom dragged it clear, trying not to topple himself in the knee-deep snow, he saw the amber eyes of a lynx, almost certainly the culprit, tracking him from the edge of the bush. He said, I don’t suppose you’re going to help, and the skittish animal turned tail and bolted into the woods.

Tom thought, Beautiful.

After a quick look at the sauna shed, still mercifully intact, he unlocked the cabin door and let himself inside. He thought of getting a fire going in the wood stove, but with that frosty wind picking up now, setting off a low howl as it gusted through the open window frame, he could see little point in wasting the wood. He got the plastic garbage bin from the kitchen and started picking up the glass.

As he worked Tom realized that in spite of the occasional nuisance like this, his life was exactly as he’d always imagined it. He’d married his college sweetheart, fathered a beautiful boy—with another one ready to pop out and say howdy any day now; Mandy had refused the ultrasonographer’s offer to tell her the baby’s sex, but Tom had wanted to know—and the once flagging business that was originally his dad’s had finally started to thrive. Tom had always loved the outdoors, so his transition into the family business had seemed a natural one. They owned a half dozen cabins on some of the most remote and well-stocked lakes in the North, hauled cargo to otherwise inaccessible mining sites, and ran a small, year-round flight school, which Mandy managed when she wasn’t busy being pregnant. Life was good.

There were some scraps of plywood under the stilted cabin, left over from building the sauna shed, and Tom reckoned he could use those to board up the window until he could get a new piece of glass cut. He’d have to shovel a bit of snow to get at them, but that wouldn’t take too long.

He got a shovel out of the storage bin on the deck and paused to study the sky in the direction of home: stormy all right, low and threatening, but still a long ways off. If he played his cards right, he could get the window boarded up, scrape the lynx shit off the floor, tack those shingles back on and maybe even split a cord or two of wood for the spring.

Shivering in the wind, Tom set himself to the tasks at hand.

7

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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 picture 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.

8

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ED BARKED HIS brother’s name into the handset a couple more times—"Dale? Dale!"—but it was clear the dummy was gone.

He cradled the receiver and looked across his desk at the two men Randall Copeland had given him as enforcers, Sanj and Sumit Sengupta, thirty-something East Indian brothers with meticulously coiffed hair and a peculiar skill set that made them ideally suited for the job. And although they always did exactly as they were told, without hesitation or complaint, Ed had never quite gotten used to them. Two Bollywood-handsome dudes in expensive suits and Armani overcoats who had no qualms about torturing a man for hours after they’d gotten what they wanted out of him, and then carving him up into tidy Glad Bag-sized filets for disposal. And while from a businessman’s perspective Ed understood the necessity of the process, the fact that these guys clearly relished doing it gave him the willies, pure and simple.

Of the two, though, Sumit, the youngest, creeped Ed out the most. He was the instigator, the one who always took things too far. The man had a genuine taste for the wet work. Ed suspected that Copeland gave his lieutenants crazy fuckers like these to remind them of what lay in store should they ever decide to step out of line. And it was working like a charm today.

Ed got up and stood behind the brothers, knowing it made them nervous. He said, I know where he is.

One of Trang’s men had called him in a panic about an hour ago, describing in broken, rapid-fire English the bloody mess at the take-out joint. Fortunately for the caller, he’d been out doing another buy during the exchange and had come back hours later to find the three men dead, Trang with his balls blown off. And now Ed had to deal with it.

Dale had left him no choice.

He said, One night when we were kids he decided to take the old man’s Caddy out for a joyride, but the dummy ran over the dog backing out of the garage. The old man loved that little mutt. Dale panicked and decided to run away. Drove all the way to our uncle’s cottage on Kukagami Lake. Dimes to donuts, that’s where he is.

Turning in his chair, Sanj said, So what now?

Now I gotta go see Copeland.

Sumit stood. I’ll get the car.

Ed said, No, I’ll do it. You two take Sumit’s Mercedes, it’s got four-wheel drive. He took a key out of his vest pocket and handed it to Sanj saying, Spare key to the Ram; try to bring it back in one piece. Then he returned to his desk and started drawing a map. It’s a long drive, but easy enough to find.

When he was done, he handed the map to Sanj and said, He’s an asshole, no escaping that. So far over the line right now Jesus Christ Himself couldn’t save the kid. But he’s still my brother. He dug a single .45 caliber round out of his vest pocket, kissed its the blunted tip then handed it to Sanj. Quick and painless, understood?

Sanj said, Yeah, Ed. It’s my specialty.

Good. Call me when it’s done.

9

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ADJUSTING HIS BOOM mike, Tom said, This is QVB airborne over Biscatosi Lake. ETA Home Base in approximately one hour.

Mandy’s voice in his headset: Acknowledge, Quebec-Victor-Bravo. That storm front reach you yet?

Leveling off at two thousand feet, Tom said, Still creeping this way, but I think I can get around it. What’s it like there?

Flurries right now, but it’s pretty dark out your way. Birthday or not, Tom Stokes, you put down and wait it out if you have to. Steve’ll understand.

Tom said he would, but he hated the idea of missing his son’s birthday; and what made it even more special was the fact that they shared a birth date. How often did that happen? Tom saw it as the most important occasion of his life now. And he was already running late, dusk less than an hour away. He’d hoped to meet his son as he got off the school bus.

Mandy had been right, of course. If there was work to be done, he couldn’t resist doing it. Just like his dad. He could have split those stove lengths another day and been home with plenty of time to spare. And that sky was looking much worse now than he was letting on.

Mandy said, I know what you’re thinking.

Tom reduced power to seventy-five percent, settling in at a cruising speed of 125 knots. He said, Oh? And what might that be?

Promise me you’ll sit it out if the weather gets bad.

Roger that. Any rug rats show up yet?

"Nice try, Stokes. I need you to promise you’ll sit it out if it gets bad out there."

Trust me.

Mandy said, That’s how I got pregnant the first time, and Tom laughed.

He said, Mandy, I promise, okay?

You’d better.

"How is the bump?"

I think of it more as a Buick, she said, and Tom pictured her wedged into the rolling chair in front of the desk at home, leaning over the huge mass of her belly to reach the Comlink handset. She was already three days overdue.

He said, Wouldn’t it be wild if you delivered today?

Chuckling, Mandy said, I don’t even wanna think about it. She said, Oh, Steve just got off the bus, and Tom could almost see the little guy hopping down off that high step with only his face showing in his red snowsuit, waving to his mom in the window. Wanna say hi?

You know I do.

While he waited Tom reduced power again and began a gradual descent, a squall coming up on him all of a sudden. The sky ahead was sheer gunmetal now, forward visibility less than a mile, and it occurred to Tom that he might actually have to take his wife’s advice and sit this one out.

He glanced out the side window at the terrain below: blunt stone hills dotted with scrub; lakes of all sizes, flat, blue-white patches amidst the humps of pre-Cambrian rock. In a few minutes he’d be over the Kukagami tourist area; if he did have to put down, chances were good he could find a cozy ice-fishing shack and some company to pass the time with.

At a thousand feet he banked left, thinking if he got lucky he could flank the worst of it, lose only twenty minutes or so.

Then that sweet little voice was in his head, subdued as it always was when his son talked to him over the radio.

* * *

Red-faced from the cold, Steve took the handset from his mom and said, Hi, Dad.

Hey, big guy, Tom said, his voice scratchy with static now. Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dad. Will you be home soon?

Tom said, Before you know it, and the doorbell rang.

Steve said, Someone’s here, and took off running, almost dropping the handset passing it back to his mom.

I bet that’s Fran and her daughter April, Mandy said into the mike. I think our boy’s a little sweet on her.

Tom replied, but his words were garbled by static now. With fresh concern Mandy said, Tom, are you reading me? and Steve came bombing into the room with April, a tiny five year old cutie in a frilly pink party dress. Fran, the girl’s mom, came in as Steve pressed his ear to his mother’s belly and invited April to do the same.

Ignoring them, Mandy said, "Tom? Tom!" and everyone took a tentative step back, forming a silent tableau around her.

* * *

Tom heard his son say, Someone’s here, through a burst of static, then lost contact. There was some turbulence now, a couple of solid bumps, then a real good one, the Cessna dropping like a stone for about thirty feet, giving Tom that weightless feeling in his gut.

He heard his wife’s voice only in fragments now—...sky...dark out there...set down...—then nothing but static. White noise.

He banked the aircraft away from a towering storm cloud and started looking for a place to land.

10

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EVEN THROUGH HER anger Ronnie noticed the sound—the distant buzz of a small aircraft—and thought it odd, someone out flying in weather like this. But the thought was gone as quick as it came and she bent over her coke mirror for the last two lines, cool crystals bracing her nerves through a cocktail straw.

Fucking Dale. Like talking to a wall.

It boggled her mind how she wound up with wimps like him. It was her only weakness, falling for puppy dogs like Dale, little boys who needed their mommies. When she thought about it, which was as little as possible, she guessed it was because stronger men always ended up treating her like property. Dale, at least, showed her respect. Still, she wished he’d show some balls right now. She’d told him a half hour ago to get his shit together, they were leaving, and what does he do? Another hit of smack, then runs himself a bath. Fucking moron.

You’re a waste of skin, Ronnie said, straightening now, her husky voice raised. You hear me, Dale?

She looked down the hall at the closed bathroom door, then out through the picture window at the storm that had come up all of a sudden, hard flakes riding in off the lake on a bitter wind. Unbelievable. What in the name of Christ was she doing in a shit hole like this?

I’m getting out of this deep freeze, she said, shouting now. You want to sit here and wait for a bullet, be my guest, but I am gone.

She went back to gathering her things—coke mirror, cigarettes, pink Bic lighter, the Colt .380—stuffing it all into her floppy leather bag. It was pointless talking to Dale when he was wasted, but she wanted to sting him, stick it in and break it off. If they’d headed south like she said, not looked back until they hit Miami...

Ziggy said I could come crib with him, Ronnie said, aiming her words at the bathroom door. "Anytime. Can you picture it, Dale? Ziggy’s condo in Palm Beach? Unlimited coke? Ziggy’s big black dick—and me. You getting all that in Panavision, you junkie fuckweed?"

She paused, listening, then picked up the gym bag and the briefcase, liking it’s heft. She strode down the hall to the front entrance, side-kicking the bathroom door on her way by.

Asshole.

In the foyer she set her cargo on the mat and pulled on her coat, not bothering to do it up. She said, Last chance, Dale. You coming or not? When she got no reply, she walked back to the bathroom door and shoved it open. She stood in the doorway, looking at the back of Dale’s head, all that was visible over the rim of the old claw foot tub. There was a collapsible dinner tray Dale had set up next to the tub with his smokes and lighter on it, his works and a couple of beers from his uncle’s fridge. Trang’s 9mm Beretta was on there, too.

You’re going to die, Dale, Ronnie said. If Copeland doesn’t do you for ripping him off, you’re going to O.D. Either way, you can count me out.

She tugged Dale’s engagement ring off her finger and tossed it into the tub. It landed with a soft plip between Dale’s splayed legs and sank in lazy arcs to the bottom.

’Till death do us part, Ronnie said. Look at you, man. You’re already dead.

She watched him a moment longer, still as a statue in the tub, too stoned to see what was happening. Then she picked up the dope and the money and went out the front door into the storm, in her anger barely aware of the small aircraft, closer now, and it’s faltering engine.

The truck started on the first try and Ronnie drove out of the yard without looking back.

11

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THIS IS HOME Base calling Quebec Victor Bravo, Mandy said, fighting a wave of nausea. She’d had terrible ‘morning’ sickness with this pregnancy, the kind that lasted all day, and stress only made it worse. Come in, please. QVB, are you reading me? Tom?

Earlier, after doing her best to reassure Steve that everything was going to be fine, she’d asked Fran to take the kids out to the family room and get them started on a video game or something. As if on cue, the doorbell rang again and Steve got right back into the birthday spirit, racing out to see who it was. That had been ten minutes ago, minutes that dragged like hours, and now her throat was parched with the strain of her repeated, fruitless calls over the radio.

Fran came into the room now saying, Any luck?

Mandy put on her game face and shook her head.

I’m sure he’s fine, Fran said, patting Mandy’s shoulder. And don’t worry, I’ll stay as long as you need me.

Thanks, Fran. I’m going to give him another five minutes, then I’m going to call Search and Rescue in Trenton and put them on alert.

Mandy returned to the radio then, resuming her efforts to reach her husband. Fran lingered a moment, then returned to the family room, the place alive now with chattering kids, squalling kazoos and the manic rev of video game engines.

12

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ED KNIGHT ARRIVED at Randall Copeland’s Hamilton mansion as the sun was going down. Copeland kept an armed guard at the wrought-iron gate, and Ed gave the poor jackass a sympathetic wave. Twenty-five below and the mook was standing out here in a fall jacket and driving gloves, his pocked face the color of brick.

Use the side entrance, the mook said, teeth chattering, and Ed drove past him shaking his head.

Another hard-on met him at the side door, this one in a strappy T-shirt showing slabs of muscle, staring at him while he stepped out of his overshoes. The guy frisked him thoroughly, then led him downstairs to a thirty-seat home theater where Copeland sat alone, sipping a cocktail and watching a Jackie Chan movie.

He saw Ed come in and waved him over, muting the volume as Ed took a seat next to him. Copeland was a big man in his late fifties with the imposing thickness of one who still possessed great physical strength but, through a life of continual excess, had managed to insulate himself in a layer of fat that seemed dense enough to deflect bullets. In Copeland’s case this was almost literally true. A couple of years back, in the can at one of his favorite restaurants, a rival crime boss had pumped three .38 caliber rounds into his belly and Copeland had still managed to break the man’s neck before walking back to the bar to call an ambulance.

Ed, Copeland said now, his tone, like his expression, unreadable. Thanks for coming in on such short notice. It’s about your brother.

Ed said, Yeah, Mister Copeland, I know.

Copeland leaned closer, touching Ed’s knee, the rings on his beefy fingers worth more than Ed’s house.

I hate to have to say this to you. If anybody understands about family, it’s me. But Ed, he fucked me, and I can’t let that slide. Number one, it’s bad for business. And number two, it hurts. Copeland sighed, a sound of immeasurable weariness. I got a tattoo on my ass, know what it says?

No.

Exit only.

Copeland looked up at the screen now, turning the volume back on, saying, This is my favorite bit. On the screen Jackie Chan laid out a couple of bad guys with the splintered halves of a pool cue. What an athlete.

Ed tensed as Copeland muted the volume again and shifted his dull gaze back to him. The way it was going, Ed figured he had about a fifty-fifty chance of walking out of here alive.

Copeland said, "Now here’s the situation the way I see it. That little cocksucker’s got my money and he’s got my smack. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to drop them both right back here in my lap. That’ll get your brother’s dick partway out of my ass."

I understand, Mister Copeland.

The rest, handle it any way you like. Neat. Humane. I don’t give a shit. Because if I’ve got to do it, it’s going to be slow, it’s going to be messy, and I’m going to handle it personally.

I’m glad you see it that way, sir, Ed said, relaxing a little. Because Sanj and Sumit are on their way to him right now.

Really? Copeland said, grimly amused. "You bastard. Those two Punjabs give me the creeps."

I apologize for acting on my own here, Mister Copeland, but like you said, it’s family.

Copeland smiled. Ed, as always, it’s a pleasure doing business with you. You anticipate my every need. I can’t believe you came out of the same nutsack as that piece of shit brother of yours.

Then the smile was gone, the volume was back on and Copeland had returned his attention to the film.

On his way out, Ed glanced back startled as Copeland barked laughter at something on the screen. Muscle-shirt met him at the door and followed him to the exit to retrieve his overshoes. Ed didn’t breathe again until he was in his car.

13

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THE STORM FRONT rolled over the laboring Cessna like an avalanche, sheering winds broadsiding the small aircraft, forward visibility dropping to almost zero in the whiteout. Tom angled that last gut wrenching drop into a steep descent, leveling out at five hundred feet, trying to maintain visual contact with the ground. Under normal circumstances his best