Chapter Nine
The phone rang at Slick’s house…
The phone rang at Slick Wilson’s house, but he was still in bed and didn’t feel like getting up. It rang a half dozen times and the machine got it. He lay there for a moment, glancing at the clock to see that it was ten-thirty. It was kind of early for him.
“Aw, shit.”
The boys had curtailed their highly-illegal hunting activities the night before, as the heavy snowfall made it all but impossible to pick up any scent, or even to see more than ten feet in the headlights. He swung his feet to the floor and tossed the blanket off. The chill in the room meant he didn’t waste much time heading for the bathroom. Since being laid off five months before at the lumber company, Slick was cutting back on all his spending. Slick pissed, and then headed to the kitchen, first pausing by the thermostat in the hall to turn it up from sixteen degrees to twenty degrees Celsius. Noises came from the crawl space under the house as the furnace fan wound itself up and finally the pilot-light sparked, and some heat began to come out of the vents. Slick opened up the fridge, cracked a beer and swigged some down.
“Ah.”
Half an hour or so and his habitual hangover would begin to dissipate.
Slick opened up the cupboard beside the sink and took out the pill bottle, giving it a shake. The Oxycontin was running out and it would soon be time to go to Doctor Thrall and get a couple hundred more. Slick didn’t actually have anything wrong with him, but had bitterly complained of back and knee pain in order to get the prescription. If you told them that you needed them in order to work, the doctors were pretty loose with these things. He could admit that to himself when no one was listening. He made his way to the living room and snapped on the TV to watch CFN (Canadian Fucking News, for anyone that cared) for a while. Only then did he glance at the screen on his phone to see who had called.
It was an all too familiar number. Ted must have shit the bed this morning. Lazily scratching his belly, he decided to get it over with before his shower. But it could wait a few minutes. He wanted to finish this beer and have another one first.
“Apathy, what a concept.” More muttering.
It would be a while yet, before he could smile again.
Hiltz wanted to talk to him. He wondered what it was about. Lately the whole poaching thing was sort of getting to him. Slick was perfectly aware that it was more a matter of amusement, and in some ineffable fashion, a way of striking back at society, rather than any serious attempt to make a living. Simply put, you couldn’t run any kind of household on the proceeds of petty crime. He took the empty and put it in the hallway where the box was kept and popped open his second beer of the day. Curiosity soon got the better of him.
He reached for the phone. Slick’s head and inner ears were going, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and he had wondered if that was one of the side effects of the pain-killers. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different.
“Slick.” Ted’s excited voice.
“Yeah, fuck, simmer down.” Slick was searching for a smart remark and finding none.
“Do you know who that Frenchie guy was?”
“No. Who was that Frenchie guy?”
Was this important?
His ears perked up at what Ted told him. Slick remembered Ted’s brother-in-law was a city cop. His information was usually pretty good. He heard roaring in the background.
“What’s that fuckin’ noise?” Poor old Slick.
“Jeff’s washing the truck.” Apparently Ted was sitting inside. “We got a deer about dawn.”
Slick nodded in comprehension.
It wouldn’t do to leave the blood in the back of the truck and get pulled over for a speeding ticket.
END
Image. Louis.
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