In chapter ten, Ponyboy feels sick and confused as he staggers home after visiting the hospital and witnessing Johnny's death. Eventually, Pony gets picked up and dropped off at his home, where the gang is waiting for him and nursing their bruises. Pony proceeds to inform the gang that Johnny is dead and Dally disappeared. Suddenly, the phone rings and Darry answers it. After he hangs up the phone, Darry says that Dally was on the other line and told him that he robbed a grocery store, the cops are after him, and the gang needs to hide him. Dally also mentions that he would be in the vacant lot in a short time. The Greasers rush to the vacant lot, where they witness Dally pull out his unloaded gun in front of the police. Pony and the Greasers watch as the police officers shoot and kill Dally in a hail of gunfire underneath the solitary street lamp in the vacant lot.

When Dally calls the Curtis boys' house, his message is quick and frantic.  He has robbed a liquor store, and the police are after him.  He begs Darry to help him out, and Darry agrees to meet Dally at the old vacant lot. 

Dally's phone call to his friends is a sad cry for help; he has realized that his actions have set events in motion which will probably lead to his death.  As Ponyboy reflects later in the novel, Dally must have wanted the cops to kill him that night, but even so, Dallas Winston reached out to his fellow gang members for support in his final moments.