Below Zero

15

Rawlins, Wyoming

STENKO WAS SICK, ROBERT WAS ANGRY, AND SHE WAS SCARED. They were in a parking lot outside Buy-Rite Pharmacy someplace in Wyoming in the car they’d stolen. There was only one other car in the lot, a muddy and dented Ford Taurus in a handicapped space. Through the afternoon the sky had darkened and now the wind gusted and rocked the car from side to side on its springs. A herd of tumbleweeds—perfectly yellow, round and hollow, like exoskeletons of large beach balls—swept from somewhere out on the high plains and rolled across the blacktop of the lot and piled up against a high chain-link fence that separated the Buy-Rite from a bank that was closed for the night.

That’s me, she thought. A tumbleweed caught in a fence.

Stenko to Robert: “Morphine. You’ve heard of morphine. I need you to go in there and get me some.”

Robert took his hands off the wheel and waved his hands in the air: “How? We need a damned prescription. And if I take those empty bottles from Chicago in there, the pharmacist might do some checking and find out they’re looking for you. That would really screw up my life if we got caught in a hellhole like this.” When he said it he gestured toward the Buy-Rite, toward the town in general. Robert was startled and gave a little cry when a tumbleweed smacked and flattened against the driver’s side window before rolling up and over the hood toward the fence.

Stenko writhed in the front seat. She empathized and was an inch away from crying. She could smell his pain. It had a distinct odor as it oozed out through the sweat on his forehead and through his scalp. The poor man.

Stenko dug the gun out from under his seat and handed it to Robert butt-first. Robert didn’t take it. Robert said, “I can’t do that.”

After a moment, the act of holding the gun seemed to exhaust Stenko, and he let it drop to the front seat. Stenko looked away from his son, out the window on the passenger side. “Then take me somewhere and leave me so I can die. I can’t take this pain any longer. It’s hell, son. I’m in hell already.” His voice was pinched, and he hissed his words through clenched teeth. He wasn’t angry. He was hurting.

Robert crossed his arms in front of him and shook his head like a four-year-old who didn’t want to eat, she thought.

Stenko writhed again, twisted himself so he could rest his chin on the top of the front seat and look at her directly. His eyes were rheumy. Thick liquid gathered in the corners of his eyes near his nose. He tried to smile. “I’m so sorry, April, but this may be the end of the road. I feel terrible it turned out this way—I thought I’d have longer. But it is what it is. Don’t worry . . . I’ll give you enough money to buy a plane ticket as soon as we can get somewhere with an airport. And I’ll give you plenty extra because you’ll need it.”

For a moment, she was excited. This had turned out to be different than she thought it would be in every way. Now he was giving her a way out.

She said, “I’m not sure where I would go.”

He winced, and she couldn’t tell if it was from his stomach or what she said. He closed his eyes and the thick gel in his eyes squeezed out and pooled on the tops of his cheeks like wet glue. “You think about it, April,” he said. “You think about where you would want to go.”

She thought, No one should die like this, as if there were a brood of small fevered animals inside him trying to eat and claw their way out.

Robert missed the exchange. As usual he was deep inside his own head, with his own problems. When he spoke his voice was high. “You do it,” he said to Stenko. “This isn’t what I do. This is what you do. This is what you’ve done your whole life. I’m along just to keep score and try to help you redeem yourself in the eyes of Mother Earth.”

Stenko didn’t respond. He seemed too spent to argue. Instead he turned around again and slunk down in his seat and talked softly to the windshield. “Do you know how to get to the ranch, Robert? On your own without my help?”

Robert nodded. “I can read a goddamned map.”

Stenko raised one pale hand and wriggled his fingers in the air, a way of saying, I don’t want to battle with you.

“What ranch?” she said.

Robert ignored her as he always did.

Stenko said, “You’ll figure it out, son. Now, when you get there, you need to take that son-of-a-bitch Leo aside and make him give you all the account numbers. You may have to apply pressure because Leo can be real stubborn. There should be twenty-eight million in stocks, bonds, cash, and property. You won’t get access to it all before the feds realize what you’re doing, but if you pick the low-hanging fruit . . .”

Robert went bug-eyed, shouted: “TWENTY-EIGHT MILLION! Jesus Christ, Dad!”

“Yeah, give or take,” Stenko said, waving Robert away. “Now get that money and use it to pay down my debt. It’s the only way because I’m running out of time. How much did you say was left on my balance sheet?”

Robert was frozen for a moment, frozen by $28 million. His mouth was hanging open.

“Robert?” Stenko prompted.

Robert shook his head and dug for his laptop. Tap-tap-tap. “Twenty-two million to go on your balance,” he said. “So far, you’ve hardly put a dent in it because you really haven’t done so well.”

“I thought you said eighteen,” Stenko wheezed. “I distinctly remember you saying eighteen after Aspen.”

“I did some recalculating,” Robert said, with a speed-glance toward her. It was what he did when he was lying, she thought.

“I bet you did,” Stenko said without malice, “as soon as you heard what I have.”

“Dad! Those Indian casinos use up a ton of energy! The lights, the air-conditioning, all the gambling machines . . . think about it!”

“Sorry, son,” Stenko said, reaching over and putting his hand on Robert’s shoulder. Robert shoved it away.