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Dodd kept driving north until he was almost out of gas, and then he stopped at the first gas station he came to. He watched the road while he filled up, but there was no sign of anybody coming after him. He rubbed at his no-longer-bleeding nose, took one last look around, and then left the shelter of the truck, paid cash for the gas, and found a payphone. He had just enough change left in his pocket to give Charlie a call.
As soon as the phone picked up, Dodd said, "I have just had the most fucked up day in the history of the world, so you just tell Jimmy that I am getting out of town for a while, and tell him to tell his bitch girlfriend that I am never doing her another favor." It had sounded simple enough--go find this crazy guy who'd been hassling her at work, give him a scare--but getting stuck in a closet, tied up and gagged with nothing to do but wonder who was gonna find his body when it washed ashore, that was above and beyond the call. She wasn't even his fucking girlfriend.
There was silence on the line, just long enough for Dodd to wonder if he'd misdialed, if there was a cop on the other end, if his unimaginably bad day was about to somehow get worse. Then Charlie's voice said, "Jimmy's dead, man. Natalie said you were too."
Dodd stared out at the road and rubbed his nose. Some kind of bad day, when being dead might just make it better, but here he was. "I am," he said. "Natalie knows best, right? If she says I'm dead, I guess I must be dead."
He didn't wait for Charlie to answer that, just hung up the phone and headed for his truck. So it had been a setup, then--and the crazy guy had screwed Natalie over just as hard as she'd screwed Dodd, letting him go instead of killing him like she must have wanted. That was just fine with Dodd. Sure, he was somewhere in northern California with no gun--without even a toothbrush or a clean pair of socks--but he could work around that. He'd been thinking of getting out of the business anyway, while he still had a nice clean record--a handful of arrests, a few misdemeanors in his younger years, but no felonies to his name, that was the main thing--to say nothing of having his arms and legs all still attached.
Now was as good a time as any to get the hell out. Jimmy wouldn't give him shit for leaving, and Natalie thought he was dead, and that tattooed psychopath had just told him to leave town and not come back. Dodd had a certain amount of respect for any guy who could kick his ass naked, and a healthy fear of anybody who would do that, take a picture, and then ask him who'd beaten him up.
He started up the truck and pulled out onto the road, headed north again, checking his mirrors just in case. Maybe Canada would be far enough. He'd heard you could get along without a gun there, most of the time.