Below Zero jp-9

by C. J. Box

  Stenko yelling, “Watch where you’re going, Robert! Watch the damned road or you’ll kill us all.”

  Robert, panicked: “I’m watching the road! Stay out of my face. You’re the one who got us into this, not me.”

  “You’re looking more at the mirror than the road. Look at the goddamn road!”

  “I’m looking for the Talich Brothers. I’m sure they’re behind us. You know what they’ll do if they catch us . . .”

  Stenko: “If you drive off the road and kill us all, they don’t need to do anything, do they? Their job will be done. Now calm down, son. Calm down. Calm down.”

  Robert screaming: “Don’t call me son. And HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO CALM DOWN?”

  Stenko: “This is where you need to calm down. This is the kind of situation where you can’t panic. It reminds me of that time we were at the place in Wisconsin and you saw the snake. Remember that? You screamed and cried like a girl until Carmen got a shovel and killed it. It was just a garden snake, not poisonous. But your reaction scared me and this scares me now. Calm down. Think. This is where you need to sit back and try to outthink them.”

  “Easy for you to say, Dad. You’re a gangster.”

  “Ah, that again,” Stenko sighed.

  “I was wondering how long it would be before you brought up that damned snake.”

  She couldn’t believe how much she’d bled, how much blood there had been inside her. How for a few frantic minutes all her blood was so eager to spill out of that hole in her leg.

  IT HAD HAPPENED SO QUICKLY in a sudden eruption back on the ranch she didn’t see coming. She doubted anyone had.

  After Stenko, the Talich Brothers, and the man they called Leo went into the house, she found herself alone on the front lawn. She had no idea how long they’d be inside and she really didn’t want to go in there, but Robert didn’t answer her calls for him. She wished she’d brought the cell phone so she could contact Sheridan and tell her to come get her now, please come get her now . . .

  Inside the house she heard deep voices and sharp skin-to-skin slaps. She hoped Stenko was okay and wasn’t the target of any of the violence, but at the same time she felt sick thinking that he was likely administering the blows. She knew he was capable of anything, but she tried to block that out, tried to pretend he’d left that part of him behind. Because how could a man who was so kind to her be like that?

  She yelled for Robert. Either he couldn’t hear her or he refused to answer.

  The morning was cool, sunny, still. A beautiful high-mountain day that smelled of pine, grass, and clover. But from inside the house came the sounds of blows and shouts. And a maniacal laugh that gave her chills because she recognized the voice as belonging to Nathanial. The crazy one.

  She tried to sit on a lawn chair and wait, but she couldn’t. She was nervous and scared and she didn’t like being alone, separated from Stenko. And who knew where Robert was? Robert and the TracFone, which she hadn’t yet had the chance to use. As she stared at the sky, it dawned on her the blue was marred by the lines across it—lines from power poles that went into the house. Phone lines. She’d forgotten that old-fashioned telephones had to use phone lines.

  She jumped to her feet. She’d go inside, find a phone, and call Sheridan, beg her to come get her.

  So she opened the front screen door and stepped inside, letting the door close behind her on a spring.

  She was repulsed by what she saw. The man named Leo sat behind a table, his back pressed against the wall, his hands on the tabletop. He was next to a large window that overlooked the back pasture. In the distance, Devils Tower shimmered in the cold morning sun. One of Leo’s eyes was swelled shut and his lip was bleeding. Stenko sat across from him with his back to her. Nathanial stood next to Stenko, leaning across the table toward Leo. Chase was off to the side in the room, leaning back against a bookcase. Chase acknowledged her when she came in but turned back to Leo. Corey stood on the other side of Stenko facing Leo, his hands on his hips.

  There was a phone on the wall of the dining room, past Corey Talich. No way she could get around him to use it. But there had to be another one somewhere, right? Maybe down the hall? Upstairs?

  Nathanial saying, “You lied to us, Leo. You said the boss was dying and squealing to the feds. You said come with you and we’d be all right . . .”

  Stenko saying, “The money, Leo. My money. I know you well enough to know you’ve got cash here. I need that cash and I need all the account numbers and passwords so I can get the rest.”

  Corey saying, “I know where the safe is, Stenko. It’s in his office under the desk. I seen it there.”

  She thought, his office. There would be a phone in the office. How to get there, though, without being noticed?

  Leo saying, “I know I did the wrong thing, Stenko. I know now. I guess I panicked, you know? I shoulda trusted you to do the right thing, but . . . you know. I mean, we all screw up at times, right? Everybody screws up. I’ll come back—it’ll be like it used to be . . .”

  Nathanial reaching over and slapping him again, hard.

  “Jesus, Natty!” Leo complained, his voice cracking with a sob.

  “Tell Stenko the fucking numbers for the safe!” Nathanial hissed, leaning in so close to Leo their foreheads were touching.

  Leo sobbed out the combination.

  Stenko pushed away from the table, saying, “I’ll go get the cash, Leo. But you’ll sit right here and write down the account numbers and the passwords to all the offshore accounts. ALL OF THEM. And you’ll have them all written on that napkin by the time I get back.”

  Leo stared dumbly at the napkin and the pen on the table until Nathanial leaned over and cuffed him on the back of his head.

  She felt sorry for Leo, who looked weak and soft. He didn’t look evil. He just looked like a man being picked on by bullies. The concept of men hitting men distressed her. They were like overgrown children, no better than animals. She knew the world could be like this—and was—but she wanted no part of it. She wanted to grow up. She wanted to get away.

  On the way to the office Stenko saw her standing there and for a brief moment she saw the face and eyes of a monster, a man she’d not seen since that evening in the campground. And although he softened when he saw her, the image lingered, hung in the air like a mask.

  “I told you to stay outside,” he said to her. “I don’t want you to see this.”

  She didn’t respond, but she hoped her being there would make him change his mind, rethink what he was doing.

  It didn’t.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “No,” Stenko said. “I don’t want you around right now. Go outside, April. This will be over soon.”

  The way he said it sent a new chill through her.

  She said, “I don’t know where Robert is. I don’t know where to go . . .”

  “Out,” Stenko said, raising his voice to her for the first time. “Out. Now.” He paused to make sure she obeyed, and she turned for the door. As she crossed the floor toward the door, she looked over her shoulder to make sure he’d entered the office. He had. So instead of going out through the screen door, she pushed it open hard and let the spring bang it back. Stenko would think she was outside rather than down the hallway. She glanced back to see if the Talich Brothers were watching her. They weren’t. She ducked into the dark hallway, looking for a phone.

  While Leo scribbled numbers on a napkin at the table, she could hear him muttering to the Talich Brothers, saying now was their chance to take over the operation, that he’d show them how, that they could become equal partners in everything like they deserved to be, that they didn’t have to answer to Stenko ever again, that it could all be theirs.

  She paused and looked back down the hall into the dining room. She could tell Corey was listening. Chase, too. Both of them glanced toward the office where Stenko was, then exchanged looks.

  Leo stopped writing. He knew he had their attention. His voice was
more urgent. As he talked, blood from his broken mouth flecked the napkin on the table. He said, “Stenko is in his last act, like I told you. He plans to take the money and run. He’ll probably give it all to his useless son. The whole operation—all the businesses, the casinos, the real estate—it’ll all go away. You’ll have to start over somewhere. Me, too. And we’re too damn old to start over now . . .”

  And she heard Chase ask Corey, “What do you think?”

  And Corey say, “He has a point. Stenko doesn’t look right. There’s definitely something wrong with him.”

  They talked as if she weren’t down the hall at all, like she was invisible. She had to find a phone, but she needed to warn Stenko. She couldn’t let him come out of the office into a trap. But how to let him know?

  Nathanial missed the exchange between his brothers, but he’d heard Leo. He slapped him again, said, “How do I know you’re not lying again, Leo?”

  The slap must have stung, because there were tears in Leo’s eyes. He glared at Nathanial and said, “Stop hitting me,” in a little-boy voice.

  Nathanial hit him again, this time with his fist. Leo’s head snapped back and thumped the wall with enough force that a picture in a frame came loose and crashed to the ground.

  “Natty!” Corey said sharply.

  Nathanial ignored him and hit Leo again. “He’s a lying little shit. He’ll never turn anything over to us. He’ll keep it all because everything’s in his head. He’s been planning this for years, Corey. He’s not going to just hand it over to us now.”

  And he hit Leo again, knocking him to the floor.

  Tears filled her eyes and she wanted to turn away, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know what to do.

  Then Nathanial said, “Hey . . .” and she saw that he was distracted by something he saw in the pasture outside the window. “Who is this asshole?”

  “What asshole?” Corey asked.

  “Some pretty-boy asshole,” Nathanial said. “Creeping around out there in the bushes.”

  Leo managed to pull himself back up by grabbing the edge of the table. When he stood, he wobbled.

  Nathanial said, “Who is that?”

  Leo sighed, “It’s Robert. Stenko’s loser son. The one he’s gonna give his money to. Robert thinks he wants to save the planet or some damned thing.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Nathanial asked.

  From the corner near the bookcase, Chase said: “Ambush.”

  The way he said it made a chill creep through her scalp.

  Nathanial barked a laugh and tapped on the glass with the muzzle of a .45. “Hey, you! Trust fund boy? What the fuck you doing in the bushes? You here to ambush us?”

  There was a loud sharp pop from outside, and a pane of the window glass shattered. Nathanial grunted, “Ung,” and stepped back.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. The window imploded.

  Nathanial doubled over like someone had punched him in the stomach. Corey and Chase dived out of the way.

  She didn’t see Leo reach up under the table and pull a pistol loose that had been taped there all along, point it at the window, and start shooting. The pistol still had strips of tape on it. The shots were so loud inside the house that her ears rang from them.

  Stenko materialized at the entrance to the hallway holding a large cardboard box that appeared heavy. He’d ducked and snatched the napkin from the table and it was crumpled in one of his fists. He saw her, yelled, “Run, April!” and started toward her. He spun and ran. There was a door at the end of the hallway with a window that streamed light, and she ran toward it. Stenko was behind her.

  One of the Talich Brothers yelled, “Stenko! Stop!” but she felt him close in on her and she was relieved to find the outside door unlocked.

  They ran across the lawn toward the trees. Behind them, in the house, she heard several more pops from Leo’s gun, followed by a series of heavy booms. As they ran, Stenko pulled ahead and a few untethered bills fluttered out of the box he was carrying and settled into the grass behind him. Fifty yards ahead, Robert was running as well, his arms flapping wildly. He never looked back.

  It didn’t occur to her at the time that the reason Stenko was outrunning her was because something was wrong with her. She’d been hurt. She stopped and looked down, saw the bright red blood coursing down her right leg into her shoe, and when she saw the wound pulsing blood, she suddenly felt the pain and pitched forward into the grass.

  She couldn’t remember him carrying her through the trees all the way to the car, or Robert screaming at him because he didn’t get the account numbers.

  THEY’D DRIVEN A FEW MILES like maniacs, Stenko yelling for Robert to pull over. When he finally did, Stenko said to Robert, “Take off your shirt.”

  “No! It’s my favorite—”

  Stenko bellowed, “TAKE OFF YOUR GODDAMNED SHIRT!” and Robert did, as fast as he could, and he watched in horror as Stenko cut it into strips.

  Her head was slumped back against the seat, and she wasn’t sure she could raise it. Her blood had soaked into the back seat fabric until the fabric was black. The sharp hot pain of the gunshot had faded some into a place that was empty, numb, and cold. It didn’t make sense she was cold.

  Stenko winced as if it hurt him to move her, to swing her legs toward him so he could work on the wound. He used the strips of Robert’s shirt to tightly bind the wound. Robert watched from the front seat, making a face.

  Stenko said to her, “There, I think I’ve got the bleeding stopped.” He looked into her eyes and cupped his warm hand on the side of her face. “You’ll make it now, I think. The bullet hit an artery but no bones or organs. As long as we stop the bleeding you should be okay. But we’ve got to get you to a hospital. You aren’t hit anywhere else, are you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “The way Robert was blasting away, I’m surprised we all aren’t dead.”

  Robert said, “It wasn’t me who hit her. I never even saw her.”

  Stenko said, “Shut the hell up, Robert. Of course it was you. Bullets were flying everywhere. Did you ever think about maybe, you know, aiming?”

  “Hey, I’m not the gangster in the family.” Then, “Well, it wasn’t on purpose.” Petulant.

  Stenko ignored his son and looked up at her, tears in his eyes. Said, “I’m so sorry, April. I’m so sorry you’re hurt. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I never saw it coming. I’d never seen Leo with a gun in his life. Leo is scared of guns, just like Robert used to be.”

  “YOU KNOW THEY’LL BE AFTER US,” Stenko said to Robert after climbing back into the front seat and slamming the door shut. “They’ll want their share of the money. And who knows how they’ll be if their brother’s dead? He was a loose cannon, but he was their brother. They’ll want revenge.”

  Robert hit the gas and the car fishtailed gravel and a plume of dust. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t want to stop.”

  “We had to. She was gonna bleed out.”

  A long pause. She pretended to sleep.

  “What are we going to do with her, Dad?”

  “We’re gonna get her some help.”

  “How? For Christ’s sake, look around you. There’s nothing but trees and rocks for miles. And don’t you think they’ll be looking for us at all the local hospitals, or clinics, or whatever?”

  “April needs a real doctor,” Stenko said. “There might be infection in that leg—or hemorrhaging.”

  “We can’t run the risk—”

  “The hell we can’t.”

  “Dad—”

  “Shut up, Robert. I’d do the same for you.”

  “Look,” Robert said, lowering his voice, “we could drop her off at a ranch or something. With some nice old couple. They’d call an ambulance and get her into the emergency ward.”

  “I’m not leaving her like that,” Stenko said. “She’d been left places all her life. I told her I’d take care of her.”

  “This is insane!” Robert y
elled. “You’re insane! What is she to you? This is your son talking. Your real son!”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  SHE STARED at her bandaged leg as they screamed down the old highway. He was right: the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Maybe, she thought, because she didn’t have any more blood to lose. She was cold.

  Robert yelling, “Why did he threaten me at the window like that? It was like he was begging me to shoot him. And Jesus, I was pulling the trigger before I knew what was happening. I mean, it wasn’t my plan. I didn’t have a plan . . .”

  Stenko saying, “He’s crazy, that Natty. Like you, he doesn’t think things through. He just reacts. When he saw you outside the window, he probably thought we were trying to ambush them.”

  “Like we’d do that,” Robert scoffed.

  “Hard to tell you aren’t when you just start shooting everything up.”

  “I was protecting you!”

  “You were protecting yourself. You didn’t even know where I was. The problem with you, Robert, is you don’t hold yourself accountable for anything you do. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

  Robert screamed, “You made me what I am. You made me what I am, Dad.”

  “Calm down.”

  ROBERT HAD BOTH of his hands on the steering wheel, squeezing it so tightly that his knuckles were white. She noticed that every time he shouted, he jerked the car one way or other.

  “I wish I had more time with Leo,” Stenko said, uncrumpling the napkin and looking at the series of numbers. The black ink had soaked into the paper and obscured the accounts. “I don’t know where all these accounts are located or what Leo might have done to make sure only he could get to them. We still need Leo’s help if we’re going to get all the money for your cause.”

  “I think he might have been hit, too,” Robert said.

  Stenko groaned.

  Said Robert, “How much cash did you get?”

  “I don’t know. A few hundred thousand, maybe more. I didn’t take time to count it, Robert.” Stenko sounded weary, beaten.