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When I came to,Jim Croaker’s ugly face was hovering over me. He stabbed me with something and I wanted to yell but then I could breathe again, gasping air through my nose like I was drowning. I could hear the sound of sobs and when I looked over, it was Allegra, crumpled up on the couch. “Wh-what happened?” I stuttered, my mouth dry.
“Your lung collapsed,” Croaker said matter-of-factly, like it was a normal Tuesday evening event.
“Shit,” I cursed, and looked over at Allegra, who was wiping at her eyes, leaning forward to see me. “I’m okay,stellina,” I said to her softly.
“Fuck you,” she cursed, glaring at me. “You scared me to death.”
I chuckled but it made pain stab into my chest. I looked back at Croaker. “So did you fix me up?”
He snorted. “For now. It’s gonna take at least a week to heal that up. I put in a chest tube and that’s the only way you’re breathing.”
“Fuck,” I cursed.
“And since you’ve got a dead guy over there, I think it’s a good idea to move.” I was wondering how I was going to get Allegra to the next safehouse when Jimmy sighed. “Give me another grand and I’ll take you,” he said. “You’ve got to ditch the car, anyway. We’ll call this a follow-up appointment.”
It was the best I could have hoped for. It was wiseguy culture to ask for payment or favors for everything, and even though my money was dwindling, I didn’t begrudge giving it to him. Allegra pointedly wouldn’t look at me and that was fair enough; even when I looked down myself, I didn’t like what I saw. I had a tube protruding from my ribcage, leaking blood into a bowl. I wrinkled my nose. “When you take this out I might hit you,” I admitted,
Jimmy nodded. “That’s fair enough.” He shoved the bottle of painkillers at me. “You’re going to need this now more than ever.”
I took one and threw the bottle to Allegra. It bounced off her knee and she listlessly picked it up and then stood, gathering our things. She shook all over. I looked at her curiously, thinking I needed to talk to her, needed to get her to let it out, but right now I couldn’t do much at all. The meds were kicking in, making me feel woozy, but that ended the second Croaker stood me up. Pain was everywhere, in all things, and my vision faded in and out as we made our way to the car. I set myself up in the backseat of his van while Allegra got in the front seat. My vision cleared and my breathing got a little better once I was lying back down, but it still hurt like a sonofabitch.
“You good?” Croaker asked, and Allegra stared straight ahead. I nodded weakly and he took off. I finally was able to drift off as we made the hour drive upstate to a safehouse that Croaker knew about. When I woke up, pain shot through my chest and abdomen and Croaker came to help. Allegra helped too, but she still didn’t say anything. The safehouse was nice, nicer than any I’d seen before. There was a pool and three bedrooms. And thank God it was a one-story, because I didn’t think I could make it up any stairs.
Once I was back down on the bed, I could finally think through the pain, and I quietly asked Allegra to hand Croaker the money. She gave him a stack of bills. Croaker didn’t count it, just shoving it in his bag. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “I’ll come back and check on you in a week. Don’t fuck with the chest tube.”
“Scout’s honor,” I said weakly.
He snorted out a laugh. “Bullshit. You were never a Boy Scout.”
“Still,” I said with a forced smile.
Croaker left without another word and Allegra began to take out some of our clothes, putting them up in the dresser in the bedroom. I watched her silently for a few moments. “Allegra?” She didn’t look over at me. “Stellina?” Allegra froze and then I saw her shoulders shaking. “Stellina, come here,” I said softly, but she didn’t move. “Please,” I added.
She dropped the clothes in her hands, coming toward me and crawling up on the bed. She was sobbing hard, her chest heaving, tears streaming from her brown eyes. “You weren’t breathing,” she gasped. “You stopped breathing, Rocco.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, not knowing what else to say, and I lifted my arm, trying not to wince when it pulled at the chest tube.
Allegra looked at me for a moment and then crawled under my arm, putting her head on my chest, listening to my heart beat as if she was afraid it would stop at any moment. “I called the guy called ‘Doc’ in your phone. I didn’t know what else to do,” she sobbed.
“You did the right thing, baby,” I tell her, kissing the crown of her head. “You did well.”
“You almostdied, Rocco,” she said again, pressing her face up against my neck.
I wished I could hold her tighter, that I could comfort her more, but since I couldn’t I just whispered comforts into her ear, keeping my arm around her tightly. “I’m all right,” I told her. “You saved me,stellina.”
Suddenly, Allegra pulled away from me, looking down at me with wide, wet brown eyes. “Why did you leave me?” she asked.
I licked my lips. “What do you mean?” I hedged.
“You know what I mean,” she shot back. “Why didn’t you meet me? That night, all those years ago?”
“Stellina,” I started, but she cut me off.
“Don’t call me that. Don’t call me that when youleftme, Rocco.”
“I couldn’t give you what you needed,” I said, and it sounded weak to my own ears. “And I knew I had to go away.”
“Go away? To prison?” she asked incredulously.
