Sophie’s Last Stand

by Nancy Bartholomew

  Joey stood up and came to join me, pouring fresh coffee into his mug. “Gray left,” he said.

  “I know. He doesn’t get Ma wanting me to go see Nick.”

  Joey sighed. “Me, either. The son of a bitch should lie there alone and contemplate his own eternal damnation. I don’t like it.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter. It’s easier to just go and get it over with. With Ma, you choose your battles. Besides, maybe I can get him to tell me something.”

  I slipped out while the others told stories, walking down the driveway to my rental convertible and wishing like anything that I was on my way anywhere other than the Craven County Medical Center.

  I picked up the black sedan in my rearview mirror about a block away from the house. At first I thought it was Gray’s unmarked car, but one headlight strayed slightly to the right and there were no telltale antennas sticking up over the trunk. I tried turning down several side streets, running a yellow light and varying my speed, but the car kept pace with me.

  I reached into my purse and fumbled for my cell phone and realized that in my haste, I’d left it behind, securely attached to its recharging station.

  “Shit!” I whispered.

  I studied the car in my rearview mirror as we pulled to a stop at a red light. Two men sat in the front seat. I toyed with the idea of jumping out of the car and confronting them, but quickly discarded the idea as foolish. I drove on toward the hospital, figuring they’d leave when they saw me park and go inside. I was wrong.

  At the very next red light they rammed me from behind, throwing me forward and triggering the air bag.

  Before I could regain my senses, they were out of their car and running up to my convertible. I attempted to raise the car’s top but I wasn’t fast enough. When I leaned on the horn, one thick arm reached over and grabbed my hand, pulling it away with a painful wrench. They were on either side of me, one sitting in the passenger seat and one standing by the driver’s side. Couldn’t anyone see us?

  “Get out,” said the man hovering above me.

  “Now,” said the man seated to my right. The small black gun in his hand made arguing pointless.

  I shook my head, still trying to clear the shock of the impact from my stunned body. The tall man standing by my side bent down to open my door. He reached into the car, grabbed my arm and yanked. I cried out as a shiver of pain ran through my elbow and exploded into my shoulder.

  “Quit stalling,” he said, his voice thick and nasal.

  Within seconds we were moving toward their car. In a few moments, I would be stuffed inside the trunk, a prisoner. No one would know where I was. No one would be able to help me then. Where the hell was all the traffic when you needed it?

  I was thinking in overdrive. I couldn’t let them put me into their car. If they managed to get me into the trunk, chances were I’d never escape. With two of them holding guns on me, all the Krav Maga in the world wouldn’t keep me from getting shot.

  “What do you want?” I asked, stalling for time.

  The shorter man nudged my side with his gun. “Where is it? Did Nick get it or do you still have it?”

  Headlights turned onto the street behind us and I had the distraction I needed.

  “Tony, move it!” the tall guy barked. “Get her in the car! We got company!”

  There wasn’t going to be a better opportunity. I moved, breaking free of them as the oncoming car approached. I ducked and ran, zigzagging toward a clump of bushes, expecting to hear the whine and ping of bullets flying around me. If I made it to cover, I could jump out and signal the car as it drew closer. If that failed I could run deeper into the darkness.

  The vehicle in the distance suddenly put on a burst of speed and headed directly for my assailants’ sedan. It was impossible that the driver didn’t see the two cars stopped in the road. They were blocking the street, the black sedan sitting just behind my red sports car. Nonetheless the newcomer drove on, gaining speed.

  I reached the bushes and crouched behind them, watching as my two assailants tried to start their car and move it out of the path of the oncoming vehicle. The other driver had to be drunk.

  As I watched, the speeding car, another black four-door sedan, hit my captors’ car. There was a horrible wrenching sound of metal hitting metal. The impact threw my empty convertible into the intersection of the busy Neuse Boulevard, causing the few cars already in the roadway to swerve violently to avoid it. Surely someone would stop and help now.

  Horns blew. Voices yelled. The driver of the second black car threw his vehicle into reverse and started slowly backing up. Then the driver did the unthinkable. He revved his engine and prepared to ram the car once again.

  As I watched him line his sedan up directly behind his intended target a lone arm appeared from the passenger-side window of his car, gun in hand.

  I ducked down and heard the initial salvo. Bullets hit metal and I risked a quick glimpse at the roadway. I could see the second car’s driver well enough to note the startled expression on his face as he threw his vehicle into reverse again. I’d never seen him before.

  Sirens wailed. Another round of gunshots erupted and the second sedan took off, flying backward down the street, squealing tires as it turned suddenly and fled the scene. Tony and his companion sat up in their seats, cranked their battered car and rocketed out of the intersection and onto a side street.

  I was forgotten.

  Blue lights and sirens exploded into the intersection, surrounding my car and blocking traffic in all directions.

  “Hertz isn’t going to be happy about this,” I said, crawling out of my hiding place. I stood on wobbly legs and attempted to brush dust from my clothing. I looked at my poor car, camped forlornly in the middle of the road, and said a prayer of thanks. “There but for the grace of God,” I murmured, and started walking slowly toward the waiting police officers.

  Chapter 13

  It was after midnight when I reached the hospital. The attempted abduction and subsequent accident investigation had taken over two hours, and I was becoming known in New Bern as a one-woman disaster, responsible for keeping much of the city’s police force on its toes.

  Several of the officers who responded arrived with traces of Ma’s handiwork on their uniform shirtfronts. Once they’d been assured that I wasn’t hurt, and had ascertained that the men who’d attempted to kidnap me were long gone, they relaxed. They soon had the traffic officers acquainted with my talent for attracting danger and my mother’s talent for preparing homemade Italian food. The scene was taking on the air of a street party when Gray Evans arrived.

  He stepped out of his car looking like a thundercloud. “What happened?” he demanded. Then, almost as an afterthought, it seemed, he said, “Are you hurt?”

  Once he’d been reassured, the cop in him reemerged. He listened. He wrote notes. He shook his head and walked over to the skid marks in the street.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, when he rejoined me. “I swear there were two black sedans and it looked like the second one intentionally rammed the first one.”

  “Huh,” Gray snorted. “And they wanted to know if you had ‘it’ or Nick had ‘it,’ right?”

  “Yep. And one of the guys called the other one Tony—you know, like from the other night?”

  He nodded. “Well, let’s get you home,” he said.

  “Just drop me off at the medical center,” I said. “Joey can come back for me later.”

  The temperature in the air around us seemed to drop by twenty degrees.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  We didn’t speak on the short ride to the hospital. He pulled up in front of the emergency room door and said, “He’s in Neuro-ICU and still unconscious. I doubt they’ll even let you see him. This is pointless, Sophie. He’s in a coma.”

  I shrugged and reached for the door handle. Part of me wanted to turn and beg him to understand. But I held back, thinking that if he were the right guy, he’d kn
ow. He’d understand completely. Darlene and her big ideas! Whatever in the world made me think there was such a thing as destiny?

  I opened the car door, thanked him politely for the ride and closed it softly behind me. I didn’t look back as I walked toward the E.R. entrance, but it wouldn’t have mattered. As the E.R. doors began to shut behind me, I heard the roar of his engine as he drove off.

  The only thing that distinguished Nick’s bed in the ICU unit from that of any other patient’s was the cop parked outside the cubicle. The guy was young and sleepy, and sat slouched down in his uncomfortable blue plastic chair, a bored expression on his face.

  “You’re Mr. Komassi’s wife?” the nurse asked.

  “Yes,” I lied. A half truth told for Nick’s eternal salvation. After all, I meant well.

  The nurse studied me intently, probably wondering if I was a criminal like Nick, or what made me foolishly stand by a wanted felon. She was middle-aged, a washed-out blonde carrying an extra fifty pounds. The fluorescent lighting gave her skin a sallow, dimpled cast. The pale lipstick she wore didn’t help, either. But her eyes held that spark of compassion I associated with good nurses, the ones who still cared despite the era of managed care and insurance cutbacks.

  “Mrs. Komassi,” she began, “I didn’t know you were coming or I would have asked the doctor to wait.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, attempting to soothe her. “It’s late. I didn’t expect to see him.”

  The nurse went on, almost as if she didn’t hear me. “I would’ve asked him to stay, given the gravity of Mr. Komassi’s condition.”

  Now she had me. “Was his skull fractured?” I asked.

  The nurse—Lomax, her name tag read—shook her head. “There was some swelling of the brain,” she said. “But the main issue seems to be his liver.”

  “His liver?”

  She nodded. “I suppose you’re aware that with hepatitis C, the liver can sometimes be critically compromised.”

  “Hepatitis C?”

  Nurse Lomax frowned. “You didn’t know?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think he did, either,” I answered.

  The nurse stared at me. “Maybe that’s why it’s gotten to this point,” she said. “Mrs. Komassi, we won’t know until the test results are returned, but…” Here she looked at me with a practiced, grave expression. “The doctor doesn’t think your husband is going to pull out of this. The head injury compounded by what was already a life-threatening liver complication may just be too much for him.”

  I felt the breath whoosh out of my chest, felt the sledgehammer punch of unexpected grief tighten my heart, and futilely tried to control my shocked reaction.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “No.”

  Nurse Lomax rounded the corner of her nurse’s station and led me quickly to a vacant, blue plastic chair. She knelt by my side and laid a reassuring hand on my knee.

  “I’m so very sorry to have to tell you like this,” she said. “It must be a horrible shock.”

  I nodded numbly, staring at the squares of linoleum on the floor in front of me.

  Nick was dying. The thought echoed through my consciousness, resonating against the wall of denial my heart put up as protection. Nick was dying.

  “May I see him?” I asked after a minute.

  “Sure.” Nurse Lomax stood up, waited for me to stand and then walked toward the cubicle where the police officer slept.

  Nick lay hooked to tubes and machines. His face was drawn and his complexion pale and, as I now noted, yellowed.

  “Hello, Nick,” I whispered, leaning down close to his ear. “It’s Sophie.”

  There was no response.

  “He can hear you on some level,” Nurse Lomax said. “Go ahead and talk to him. He might regain consciousness, but only for a little while.”

  Before he died? I wondered.

  “If he does come out of it,” she continued, “the police have asked that we let the officer outside know, so he can write down anything Mr. Komassi says.” The nurse frowned, as if irritated by this imposition on her patient. “I’m leaving it up to you,” she said. “Let him know or not.”

  I turned away from her and focused my attention back onto Nick. I stroked his arm lightly, swallowed a painful lump in my throat and began to talk, just like old times, only not.

  “Oh, Nick,” I whispered. “How has it all come down to this, huh?” I looked at the monitors, listened to the quiet beeps for a moment and then went on. “Ma made me come,” I said. “Well, she didn’t make me, I suppose. I guess I would’ve come anyway, especially with you so…sick. But you know Ma, always taking care of the world.”

  I looked down at the pale little man on the bed and wondered how I’d ever seen him as a powerful figure in my life.

  “I don’t know you anymore, Nick,” I said. “And I guess I never really knew you, but you know what? You don’t know me, either. Not now. Not like I am now.”

  I raised my head defiantly. “You’re an asshole, Nick Komassi, a bully and an asshole.”

  The heart monitor went crazy, beeping suddenly as Nick’s heart rate spiked and his eyes fluttered. He heard me.

  “Okay,” I said, “just calm down. I didn’t mean it.” Then I stopped myself. “Wait, I did, too, mean it! I meant every word I said. You made my life a living hell. You cost me my home in Philly. I moved because of what you did, Nick.”

  The monitor soared again and Nick moaned softly, but I couldn’t stop now. “And you know what, you son of a bitch? I’ll still pray for your fucking salvation. You know why?”

  “Beep, beep, beep!” Nick’s monitor answered.

  “Because I’m a better human being than you, Nick.”

  My own words stopped me, because if I’d just made that statement, how could I be a better human being? Better human beings didn’t believe they were better human beings, they just were. You didn’t hear the Virgin Mary spouting off how good she was for having Jesus, did you?

  “Okay,” I said. “That was wrong. I’m not better. In fact, I’m actually stupid.”

  Nick moaned, scaring me. I looked out at the nurse’s station, saw Nurse Lomax watching the readouts at her terminal, and figured she was on top of the situation.

  “I’m stupid because here I am, with you maybe dying, wanting to make peace with you, you son of a bitch. I don’t want you burning in hell and me not having had my say with you. If you’re going to die, I don’t want you going to hell on my account alone.” I felt tears running down my cheeks, saw them drip onto the sheet that covered Nick and saw the wide splotches spread into large circles.

  “I couldn’t save you, Nick,” I whispered. “Why wasn’t I enough for you?”

  I felt strong hands slip over my shoulders gripping me and pulling me gently back against a solid wall of muscle.

  “Aw, Soph,” Joey said softly, “come here.”

  I turned and buried my head against my brother’s strong chest, sobbing as if my heart were breaking, which in a way, it was.

  “He’s dying. I couldn’t stop him from doing those awful things and I can’t stop thinking that if I’d been the right kind of woman, he wouldn’t have acted like that. Joey, what did I do wrong?”

  “Soph, you listen to me,” Joey said, his voice strong and tough. “This hasn’t got anything to do with you. Nick chose his life. Nick had his shot with you and he blew it. The son of a bitch walked away from everything that was good and decent in his life. He chose to stay sick.”

  “No,” I sobbed. “If I’d seen…if I’d known the signs, I could’ve gotten him help. I let him destroy himself, Joey.”

  “No!”

  The weak voice coming from the bed startled us both. Nick’s eyes were open, focused uncertainly on my brother and me. He frowned, seeming not to know where he was, but aware only of the conversation happening in front of him.

  “Sophie,” Nick croaked, “I didn’t want bad things to happen to you.”

  I was aware of Nurse Lomax moving aroun
d her station, reaching out to adjust something on a screen. I looked up at her and nodded, but didn’t try to alert the police officer. Lomax stayed where she was, signaling me with an imperceptible nod. She knew and she wasn’t telling, either.

  Nick shook his head slightly. “What happened?”

  I stepped closer to the bedside and leaned down close to him. “I don’t know,” I answered. “We found you in my basement. Either you fell or someone hit you.”

  Nick’s eyes widened, as if seeing something behind me that frightened him. I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing, then turned back to him.

  “Are you hurting?” I asked. “I can get you something for pain if you are.”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t want anything for pain. I need to talk to you. I don’t have much time.” His voice had a hysterical quality to it, rising sharply as he spoke, and frightening me even more.

  “What is it, Nick?” I asked.

  His gaze returned to me, relaxing as he saw me standing there beside his bed. “I did something really stupid. I thought I was being smart, but it didn’t work out too well.”

  “Who are the people in the black cars, Nick?”

  “What black cars?” he asked.

  Behind me I heard Joey’s sigh of frustration. We both recognized the trace of the old Nick returning, the elusive, evasive con artist.

  “What do they want, Nick? What are they looking for?”

  Nick’s eyes closed and for a moment I thought he was unconscious again.

  “Nick!” I said sharply. “They think I have it. They ran me off the road on my way here. Now what do you have that they want?”

  Nick’s eyes popped open again. His face twisted as a spasm of pain shot through his body, and he groaned.

  “It was an accident. I was making one of my movies, only nobody knew I was there,” he said softly. “That’s when it happened. A guy comes outta nowhere and wastes this other guy and I got it all on tape.”