Squall

by Sean Costello

  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

  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

  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 ta
ke 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 r
eady 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.