"Where are you?"
" 's one piece 'a trull I won't get outta."
"Stephen, where are you?"
Another long pause. I heard a match being struck. In the receiver it sounded like a bomb going off. "Where are you?" I repeated.
The cigarette had apparently helped a bit. At least I could understand him on the first sentence now. "I'm at his apartment."
"Whose apartment?"
"Reeves's."
"Reeves's? Stephen, what the hell are you doing there?"
By now Donna was awake, whispering, "Is he all right?" She had a daughterly affection for Wade. At moments such as these it would translate into terror.
"Came over to 'pologize," he said.
"So what happened?"
There was a long sigh and then a silence and then a sigh again. "Fucker's dead."
"Dead?"
Another sigh. When he spoke again, he sounded miserable and lost. He sounded on the verge of tears. "I don't know what happened over here, Dwyer. Please come over right away. Please."
With that, he hung up the phone.