C Box - Below Zero

She found Alex’s biceps, squeezed it hard and not affectionately.

Stenko said, “With the size of the wedding, the number of guests, how far they’re all traveling here… Wow. It’s quite a big operation.”

She shook her head, puzzled.

Stenko said, “When I got married-the first time, I mean-we did it before Judge Komicek at the courthouse. Marie’s parents and her best friend, Julie, were there, and I had my mom and all three of the Talich Brothers. That’s all-less than ten guests. This was Chicago. The whole thing was over in fifteen minutes. No big deal. Then we moved into a little two-bedroom bungalow off Division Street. And when it was over, we were just as married as you two will be. But it was simple. No impact.”

After a beat, she asked, “So?”

“Marie is the mother of my son, Robert, by the way. I’ve had other wives and other kids, but Marie, Robert, and my daughter Carmen were my first and best family. Marie knew what I did, but she didn’t want to know any details, and now that I think about it, that was the happiest time in my life. We were struggling, Marie was pregnant with Carmen, and I was happy but I just didn’t realize it at the time. I was too damned impatient.”

She cleared her throat. “What does that have to do with us?”

“I’m getting there,” Stenko said. “Alex, does she always talk this much? It doesn’t bode well, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you,” she snapped.

“Here’s the deal,” Stenko said, ignoring her. His voice was soft but flat, midwestern. “Here’s the deal. I was a hard-charger. Ambitious, ruthless, I guess. I had a certain affinity for Chicago politics and business, and all the guys I grew up with went into one or the other. Except for the ones who became cops, but they’re still friends of mine. So what I did those first few years after marrying Marie was I bulldozed anyone in my path. I fuckin’ ran over ’em, is what I’m saying. I was a force of nature: Stenko. No one was safe unless they were on my side helping me get what I wanted. I figured there were two kinds of people-those who supported me and those that needed to be bulldozed.

“But then I got the word from my docs. And I looked up and thought, Where is Marie? Where is Carmen? Where is Robert? Hell, I liked Marie. She’d sing to me and she was pretty good. Robert, he was always a little too melodramatic, but he was my first. So when I got the word from my docs, I thought, What a selfish bastard I am. Like you two. I took and I took and I never gave anything back. I consumed. Now I’ve got this deficit I’m trying to pay down. I’m trying to get below zero, but I’m in a time crunch and my friends and associates all cheated me, kicked me when I was down. So the reason I’m here is to help us both out.”

She said, “Below zero?”

“You can do it, too,” Stenko said. “This is your chance. If only I’d had this opportunity early in life. If only somebody would have shown me how to do it.”

Stenko sighed and got quiet. As the seconds went on, her fear returned.

“Anyway,” Stenko said finally, his voice still hushed, “that’s why I’m here. My son figured it all out. That’s what he does. He cares. Eight grand-that’s how much you owe the planet, and I’m here to collect. Let’s start with the eight grand to offset the carbon produced by all the people attending this wedding.”

She dug her nails into Alex’s arm until he winced and pulled away. She said to Stenko, “What right do you have to say that? This is extortion. You’re insane.”

Stenko said, “I’m only getting started, Patty. The average American produces twenty tons of carbon a year. I spent a lot of time with my pal Alex tonight and he filled me in on both of you. According to your fiancée, between the two of you, you’ll have three homes and an extravagant lifestyle. I got all the particulars from Alex and fed them to my son, Robert. It’s pretty amazing. With the homes, the travel you people do on commercial and private jets, your fleet of vehicles at each place, you two will produce seven thousand tons of carbon a year. Robert says there are entire villages in Africa that won’t produce that much over a decade. To offset that, it would cost over thirty-five K per year helping the environment.

“My God,” Patty said. “This is ridiculous. My family contributes to all kinds of environmental causes. My mother hosts the Think Green fund-raiser in San Diego every year! Have you ever heard of Think Green?”

Stenko said, “No, I haven’t. Robert didn’t say anything about that. But he did figure that with your seven tons a year and a life expectancy of sixty more years for Patty and fifty more for Alex, that you two alone will do $2.1 million in damage in your lifetime. That’s more than some pissant countries,” he said. “I can’t remember which ones. They have goofy names I never heard of. Sierra Leone? Burma? Maybe-hell, I don’t know which countries. Robert’s the expert, not me.”

“What is your point?” she asked. “I mean, if you’re here to make us buy some of those carbon credit things, I’m sure we can. Will you go away and leave us alone if we do?”

She could see his smile in the light of the bathroom. “Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly why I’m here.”

“We’ll do it,” she said. “We’ll pay the eight thousand for the wedding tomorrow. I swear. Now would you please go away?”

“You’ll do it now,” Stenko said, his voice hardening. “And you’ll have to do the entire amount. Alex has the paper with the wire transfer numbers on it. You can use the phone and call it in.”

She shook her auburn hair and rubbed her eyes. “Alex,” she said, “Send the money.”

“From my account?” Alex said, hurt.

“For Christ’s sake,” she said, “you have eight thousand fucking dollars you can part with if it’ll make him go away.”

Alex stared at her. “He wants the whole $2.1 million.”

“My God,” she said, closing her eyes tightly as if it would make it all go away. “He told you already, Alex? And when he told you, you brought him to my room?”

Stenko said, “The place you’re sending the money is a legitimate enterprise. From what Robert tells me, they’ll use the cash to buy up rain forest, plant trees and shit. And take farmland out of production. They invest in windmills and solar panels. Things like that. It’s a wonderful investment in the future of our planet. It’s the best thing you could possibly do for yourselves, for me, for all of us.”

“You’re not kidding, are you?” she said, eyeing him, looking at a ghost in the dark. But one with a gun. And he raised it, straightened his arm, and pointed it at her eyes. The black muzzle was rimmed with silver.

He shook his head. “You owe us,” Stenko said. “You owe the world.”

“You’re crazy,” she said.

“Worse than that,” Stenko said, “I’m desperate.” Was that the glint of tears in his eyes?

“What if we did it in payments?” she asked.

“I don’t have the time.”

“That’s too much,” she said with finality.

“Tell that to all of those Third Worlders who died in that tsunami caused by global warming,” Stenko said, speaking the words as if by rote, “or those poor stupid polar bears clinging to their last piece of melting ice. What are their lives worth?

“I’ll tell you what Robert tells me,” Stenko said. “It isn’t about you. It’s about all of us. We all have to do what we can, not what we want to do.”

“But we do so much,” Patty said, tears in her eyes. “I told you about Think Green. We recycle, don’t we, Alex? And we replaced all of our lightbulbs. You know, with the ones that don’t work very well? And one of my cars is a Prius. It’s not like I don’t care.”