C Box - Below Zero

In the distance she heard the thwack of a tennis racket hitting a ball. Instead of another thwack she heard a man curse, “Shit!” and she imagined him missing it.

“There are three of them,” Stenko said, lowering his voice. “Corey’s the oldest. He has blond hair and he’s the best looking of the bunch. He’s smooth and does all the talking, usually. Chase is the middle brother, the one with black hair. Chase never smiles. Hardly talks, either. Chase is the one we send out to collect overdue loans because all he has to do is look at you with those black eyes and you start sweating bullets and reaching for your wallet. It’s a gift he’s got. On the rare occasion that he says something it’s best to listen. The youngest is Nathanial. He’s the redhead. He’s the one who worries me the most because he’s a hothead, and without his brothers’ calming influence, he’s known to explode. Don’t stare at him, whatever you do. He doesn’t like it. Plus, I don’t think he likes females very much, based on the stories I’ve heard about what he’s done to some of them. Frankly, he’s found his calling as a killer.”

She said, “They sound dangerous.”

“I won’t kid you-they are. That’s why Robert hung back. He’s heard of them. But I’ve got no animosity toward them, and as far as I know they’ve got none toward me. But anything can happen, April.”

She stumbled on a root but didn’t fall. She said, “When this is over…”

“You want to leave?” Stenko said, barely hiding the hurt in his voice.

She nodded.

“Well, I can’t say I blame you,” he said. “This isn’t what you bargained for, I’m sure. If everything goes well here, I can go out the way I want to go out. I’ll get my debt paid down below zero, Robert will get his funding, and you’ll get to be with your sister.”

She didn’t ask what would happen if everything didn’t go well. As they approached the tennis court, her legs got heavier and harder to move. It was difficult to get her breath and her stomach ached from more than hunger. She was getting tired of being terrified.

There was another sharp thwack and another curse and a man laughed, “You suck at tennis, Natty.”

COREY, THE BLOND BROTHER, was in the process of serving to Nathanial when they cleared the trees. He had just tossed the ball into the air and reared back when he saw them and froze in place. The ball dropped to the court and bounced between his feet. Then bounced again. Corey made no move to reach for it. Which made Chase, who stood at the side of the court and watched the match with dead black eyes, follow his brother’s lead and turn his head to see Stenko and her. And slowly reach behind his back, for something in his belt.

Nathanial was still poised to receive the serve. To Corey, he said, “What was that about, just dropping the ball like that? Don’t try to mind-fuck me, Corey. Just serve. Come on…”

Corey ignored Nathanial, said to Stenko, “I can’t believe what I see.”

“Me either,” Stenko said, much more jolly than she thought possible. The sound of his voice made Nathanial snap his head around toward the voice. Stenko said, “I never in my life thought I’d see the Talich Brothers playing tennis of all things. Target practice, maybe. Seeing who can hang the most men from a meat hook in a day, sure. But tennis? Come on, you guys.”

Corey laughed, repeated, “Hang the most men from a meat hook. You still got it, Stenko. You can always crack me up.”

“I never lost it,” Stenko said.

Corey pointed at her with his tennis racket. “And who is this?” To her: “You look familiar. Where have I seen you before?”

She shrugged. She was pretty sure she’d never seen Corey or any of the Talich Brothers.

“She looks like someone,” Corey said. “Who am I thinking of?”

Stenko said, “You’re thinking of Carmen. That was a long time ago. This is April. You don’t need to know any more about who she is.”

“I’ll bet,” Nathanial said, spinning his racket and leering.

Stenko went cold the way he had back in that building in Chicago. Before he pulled his pistol and rescued her. He said, “I’m sure, Little Natty. And I think you should keep your mouth shut when it comes to her.”

She was grateful Stenko had defended her that way, but she thought, Isn’t Natty the one Stenko described as a killer?

Nathanial, surprisingly, broke off and looked away first. But his face and neck were red. For the first time, she saw the bundle of leather and metal on a bench on the other side of the court. She recognized the bundle as a pistol or two in holsters that he’d taken off in order to play tennis. He could get to the bundle in three steps. He was staring at it and fuming, but he didn’t make a move. She found herself stepping closer to Stenko, reaching for his hand.

“Anyway,” Corey said, “I’m very surprised to see you.” To Nathanial, Corey said, “Calm down, little brother.”

Nathanial took a deep breath, but his face was still red. He faced them squared up, taking deep breaths that made his nostrils flare out.

Stenko said to Corey, “I know. You figured I’d be in jail.”

“No,” Chase, the dark-haired one, said. “We figured you were fucking dead.” The hand that had been around his back swung to the front again, empty.

“Is that what Leo told you?”

The three brothers exchanged looks, which confirmed that yes, that’s what Leo had told them. She was surprised at their reaction. Despite the fact that the three brothers were bigger and younger than Stenko and at least two of them had guns, it seemed understood Stenko was their superior.

Stenko said, “Guys, Leo screwed you and he really screwed me. I suppose he told you the gig was up, that I was all but gone and I was singing to the feds. So the only thing you could all do was pack up what you could and move our base of operations out here away from Chicago and the feds. Does that sound about right?”

Chase nodded yes. Nathanial looked to his brothers for direction. Corey said, “Mr. Stenson, Leo has never steered us wrong before. He was, you know, your second-in-command. He said you were going down and everything you’d built together was going down with you. He said you were all remorseful and feeling guilty, and that you were out of your head with pain and drugs.”

Stenko raised his arms and his eyebrows, said, “Is that how I look to you?

“Look,” Stenko said, reading their faces one by one, “Leo saw this as his chance to cut and run. He’d been planning this for years behind my back and using my money to finance it. Since he thought I might be sending someone after him, he convinced you boys to come along with him for protection. He played you for suckers. Can you believe the disloyalty? The betrayal?”

“So you ain’t even sick?” Nathanial asked.

“Oh, I’m sick,” Stenko said, “but as you can see, I’m battling it. And I think I’m doing pretty well, considering. But Leo screwed me. He diverted all my holdings and closed the accounts I had access to. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Can you believe Leo tried to do this to me?”

Corey said the obvious, “So you came here to get your money back. To get back in business.”

Stenko said, “Yes. And you boys can either help me or you can stand in my way. But if you help me, it’ll be just like the old days. We can go home and go back to work. You can’t tell me you like it here, can you?”

After he finished Stenko gave her a quick glance, signaling her he was lying to them. She was reassured.

Nathanial paused and appeared to be thinking over what Stenko said, then snorted and threw down his tennis racket as if it had suddenly become electric. It was a gesture that seemed to say he was throwing away the whole ranch as well.