Angelo

The creaking sound came from deep in the ceiling.

He recognised the movements of old Mrs Stuart from upstairs; could hear the meowing of her cat, knew that she would be feeding it, at around this time of the day. He got up out of the bed and walked over to the window and looked down at the city below; admired the buildings and hoped that he was going to be able to make the next month’s rent. With time to spare before his shift, he took his shower and got dressed, decided to walk around the city for a while, like he would always do. He took the elevator down to the mezzanine and walked out into a bright sunny day, walked the street, then stopped in at his favourite café and stepped inside, sat and ordered breakfast and watched the people walk past, through the glass window, overlooking the street.

The waitress smiled at him and came over and took his order and he ordered his usual scrambled eggs on toast and coffee and sat there watching the street move with people. A moment later, she came back with a plate of eggs and toast, and a hot cup of coffee; laid them in front of him and he thanked her and started eating, put sugar in the coffee and sipped it, relished the eggs, and thought again, about his finances. He continued to worry about the rent, then remembered that worry did no good. He finished the meal and paid and made it back out onto the street, made his way to the little restaurant where he worked.

When he came to it, he checked his watch and saw that he was right on time, then pushed on the old door, the little bell above it, tinkling as he stepped inside, then saw fat Tony, the owner, standing at the cash register; hair, characteristically slicked back, pretending to look at his books, checking the workings of the business. The old man looked up and feigned surprise.

‘Cioa, Angelo.’

‘Cioa, Tony.’

He stepped inside and walked to the back of the restaurant and got changed into his uniform, then stepped into the kitchen and checked the orders and started his work, then looked up and saw her: his number one crush: Bella, with her long hair and her big body. He considered her out of his league; everyone she came into contact with was instantly smitten, and he wondered, for a moment, what it would be like, being her…walking around and putting everyone you came into contact with, in a trance.  He walked over to the window where he would take the orders, where she would pin them on the wall, (always leering at him, if he wasn’t keeping up), then picked up the first one, and got the pans out and started cooking, psyching himself to ask her out, before the night was out.

He picked up the order, but the writing was barely legible and too small to read, and so, embarrassingly he had taken to wearing glasses. He pulled the new pair out of his pocket and put them on and turned his back to her as nonchalantly as he possibly could; and there he stood, trying to hide the fact that he now needed them; could feel his heart-rate rising at the fact of her, standing, watching him; then stole himself and took a deep breath, turned around and looked her in the eye, and finally came out with it. She stood, looking at him, growing more and more agitated; long brown hair tied up in a ponytail, a tight t-shirt showing off her curves.

‘Uh, Bella, I was wondering if…uh…if I could, uh, take you out…like, on a date?’

She looked at him and he watched her usual sour expression twist into a smile, and then, all of sudden, she burst out laughing, and he realised why she was laughing: that she was actually laughing, at him.

‘Look, forget it, sorry I asked.’

‘No, no, it’s just that it’s so unexpected…sure, I’ll go out with you, why not? But you’re paying.’

He looked at her, half shocked that she had agreed.

‘Sure, I’ll pay, no worries.’

For the rest of the night, the shift ran like a dream, with neither of them making any mistakes, and he wondered what had transpired between them, as though some sort of magic trick had taken place. It ran so well that they had all the customers out early, and, with a spring in his step, he said farewell and made it out the door at least an hour earlier than usual.

Walking home, that night, he noticed everything. The world took on a benign and pleasant hue: the old buildings in the city, the couples, walking along with each other; some, hand in hand. And yet, he knew that it wasn’t true; or at least, that it was all fleeting.

He arrived back at the building and greeted the doorman and took the lift up to his room and went to the kitchen and poured himself a drink and sat on the tiny balcony, looking down at the city. Thousands of tiny dots of light, glowing in the night, miniature cars beaming headlights, all with a story, and now, he had one, too! And then, he chided himself, reasoning that these things often went wrong, that just because he had a date with her, didn’t mean that he actually had her, and yet, he was so close!

He sipped the scotch and told himself to calm down; after all, there were others; and yet, there was only one Bella…He got up off the chair and walked back to the kitchen and poured himself another and then felt his eyes getting droopy, and, after a while, went off to bed.

He awoke the next morning with a spring in his step, and could barely, control himself, for the anticipation, and yet, he didn’t want to blow it, and so, became nervous, then chastised himself for acting this way, after all, he was a middle-aged man! He got himself ready and made his way out to the elevator and walked out onto the street, had breakfast at the same café, then made his way into work, greeted fat Tony and started getting changed into his uniform, keeping his eye out, as usual, for Bella.

He walked out into the kitchen and got some ingredients out of the fridges, started chopping vegetables, casted a glance through the servery, and saw her, standing on the floor, setting up the tables, as she usually would, her big body shifting around, with all the curves of a high-quality sports car, and, as per usual, his heart skipped a beat, and he told himself to calm down. She didn’t bother to greet him, never did, and before long the first customer was walking through the door and she was standing at the servery with her usual scowl, pinning an order on the board. He looked back at her and wondered if she had changed her mind, and just kept cooking. It was a Friday night, and so, the place soon became packed, and he had to work hard to keep up, as did she, and at one point, he got behind and she started to scowl.

Finally, the night was over, and he got changed and went out the back for some air, turned around, and saw her, smiling at him, and he couldn’t believe it, that it was her, standing there in a coat.

‘You ready, buckaroo?’

He looked at her, amazed, and then she took his arm, leaving him shocked and they walked out together. Opening the door for her, he still couldn’t believe it, that he actually had a date with her.

They walked through the city, and came to a Chinese restaurant and the waiter showed them to a table and they sat and ordered stiff drinks, too much food, and enjoyed each other’s company, and he wondered, all of a sudden, if she was just teasing him, like she seemed to, everyone else, but there was no way to be sure, and so, he left it unsaid.

Days spent like this, working and dating Bella, and somehow, he had managed to ration his money, so as to afford the rent and their restaurant dates, until one day, he had made it into work and fat Tony called him aside, asked him to follow him into his office.

The room was a mess of papers, stacked on top of each other. A swivel chair and a desk stood at the centre where Tony sat, and another chair stood facing him. He lit up a cigar and looked up at him, then asked him to sit down, offered him one which he refused.

‘Well, I see you’ve become acquainted with my daughter.’ Said fat Tony.

‘Your, what?!’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know, no-one told you… but there really wasn’t any point, no-one thought it would get that far, least of all, me…I’d tell you to stay away from her, but we both know that it would do no good…Well, we all know that these things have to play themselves out, in any case.’

He looked at the old man and didn’t know what to think.

‘My advice is, don’t think about it too much; if it works out, it works out; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t,’ said, fat Tony.

Fat Tony leaned back in the reclining chair and blew a smoke-ring that wafted up into the ceiling.

‘Just play, nicely, kid…see what happens…’

With that, he butted out the cigar and suddenly turned on a tiny tv on that was sitting on the desk. The sound of a crowd roaring, somewhere, in another part of the world, a compare commentating. Fat Tony picked up a squeeze ball, then looked at him.

‘You still here? Haven’t you got a shift to get to?’

Angelo got up to leave, took one last look at fat Tony, but the old man waved him away with his hand, watching the monitor as if the whole thing had never happened.

Days of working and dating Bella. He couldn’t believe his luck, and yet it was his life, and somehow, he could almost feel fat Tony in the background, pushing the whole thing forward. Some nights, they would finish the shift early, and he would whisk them out the door, giving them priority, letting someone else do the clean-up. Angelo began to feel it, the preferential treatment, but he didn’t mind, and it wasn’t long before he was standing at the altar, wearing a cheap hired suit, with her standing opposite, done up in an amazing dress, showing off her bust and the two of them announcing vows, and getting married, and still he couldn’t believe it, that he had actually pulled her…

With applause, he pulled up her veil and kissed her, and then they were standing in a room, at the reception, at fat Tony’s house, mostly full of strangers, people he had never met before, congratulating him, and someone was tapping him on the soldier and telling him that fat Tony wanted to see him.

He broke away from the group and followed the guy into a room, and there was fat Tony, sitting in a darkened room behind a desk, much like the one at the restaurant, smoking on a cigar. He gestured for him to sit down in the empty chair in front of him. He sat for a long moment, looking at him, and after a while he finally spoke:

‘You happy, kid?’

He looked at Tony, wary of the question.

‘Sure, I’m happy, why wouldn’t I be?’

Tony kept looking at him, then looked over at the guy standing in the room, who looked as though he was guarding him.

‘Look at that, the kid’s all defensive…’

Tony leaned back in his chair and chuckled, blew a smoke ring.

‘Well, kid, you’re in the family now, and I’m happy for the both of you, really I am. Now, get out of here and enjoy the wedding that I’ve put on for the both of you.’

He stood and thanked him and made his way back out into the palatial home that Tony owned and found Bella., sat beside her at the wedding table, and the whole thing went off without a hitch, and before long they had moved into an apartment together. They kept their jobs, and it seemed to him that, for all intents and purposes, apart from being married, nothing had changed, and yet, everything had changed.

One night, they finished early, and Tony called him into his office. He was sitting, as per usual, behind his desk, in the swivel chair, smoking a cigar, watching the Tv.

‘Want you to do something for me…want you to take my car, and go meet Vinnie.’

He looked at the old man and had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Vinnie?’

‘Yeah, Vinnie, he’ll tell you what to do.’

‘Who’s Vinnie?’

But he waved him away with his hand, went back to watching the Tv, and squeezed a stress ball.

Angelo walked back into the kitchen and got changed and met Bella out the front. She looked every bit as beautiful as when he had first seen her: long blonde hair, and that good figure. He told her about the meeting that he had with her father, and her face went blank, suddenly losing its colour.

‘You be careful, Angelo, you here.’

He looked at her, perplexed, then watched her get in the car and drive off, then turned around and walked back to Tony’s car, and got in, reached up and checked under the sun visor, and sure enough, the keys dropped out in his lap and he started the car.

A text message came through on his phone from Tony, with an address, and said nothing else, and so, he looked it up on his phone, made his way out to an obscure, out of town suburb, got there, some half an hour later.

It was a regular looking drive-way, with a regular looking fence; a regular looking house, and somehow, for no apparent reason, that fact, in itself, put him on edge. He got out of the car, then remembered Bella’s face changing colour, that and the quiet of the whole area put him further on edge. All the lights were out in the house and there wasn’t a sound, and he suddenly wondered what in the hell he was doing there. Since when did anyone take instructions from another person, without the slightest inkling of what was actually going on? Realising his error, he walked forward, deciding in his mind, to have words with Tony about this; didn’t like the eery crunching sound of his shoes on the driveway, then came to the door, and knocked. The sound of it echoed off into the neighbourhood, and he saw coming on in the surrounding houses and he saw a light came on immediately inside the house, and wondered, again, what the hell he had gotten himself into. In the next second, the door flung open, and a man he had never seen before, was ordering him to come inside and get the hell off the street. A thin hand was pulling hard at his shirt, and he stepped inside, and got a shock at what lay in front of him.

A man was sitting on a chair, strapped to it, by what looked like gaffer tape, his mouth included. Another man was standing over him with a gun pointed at the man, and when he came into the room, they all looked at him, and under the light he could the sweat droplets on the taped man’s head. The man holding the gun looked at the other man, and barked at him to turn the lights off, which he did, and suddenly everything went black, and Angelo thought, all of a sudden, that if he was fast enough, he may be able to get to the door and just get the hell out of there. In the next instant, a lamp was snapped on, and the thin man was looking at him and pointing a gun at him.

‘So, this is the famous, Angelo.’

The other man, an overweight man, pointing the gun at the man in the chair, looked over, the fat rolls in his neck, wrinkling, like a lump of dyed rubber.

‘We’ve heard all about you, kid.’

Angelo looked at the two men, and at the poor man strapped to the chair, who was making moaning noises, and suddenly had never wanted to leave a place so badly.

‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything, kid…this is your big moment, all set up, laid on a platter.’

Angelo had no idea what they were talking about, and nor did he want to. And, suddenly, the skinny man was holding out a handgun.

‘Go on, kid, take it.’

The two men looked at each other and laughed, and the man stood there, casually, holding the gun, and it suddenly went off, with a huge cacophony, and there was the sound of glass breaking, and the other man, looked at the skinny man, and suddenly became serious.

‘Now, you’ve done it, you f*****g moron.’

They both cast a serious look at each other, and he could see that, for whatever reason, the stakes had just been raised. The skinny man was looking at him, now, with a serious look in his eye.

‘Ok, jokes aside, we got about five minutes now, until the cops get here…Time to step up, Mr Big time…’

He was looking at Angelo, and handing him the gun, then put an arm around him, and led him towards the balding man strapped to the chair. The man leaned in close, close enough for him to smell his aftershave, and whispered in his ear.

‘Play-time’s over, Angelo…’

Angelo felt the hard metal of a gun pressed against his head, and new, all of a sudden, that he no longer had a choice, that, in fact, he never did. A deep voice told him that he had thirty seconds to make up his mind, and without thinking, some animalistic urge took over, and he could feel himself squeezing the trigger of the hard metal pistol that lay in his hand. The gun shot rang out, and he could see, under the dim light, the bald cranium of the man. The head spasmed with the gun shot and then part of it, splattered, looking, all of a sudden like a bruised melon, then fell forward. He looked down at the head, and the crumpled body, and couldn’t believe it, then saw the two men look at each other, and without a word said, they opened the front door and walked out into the night, leaving him, standing there, with the dead body of the man that he had just killed. Suddenly, the sound of police sirens came from the outside, and then a number of car engines, and then a voice, yelling over a grammar phone: ‘come out, with your hands up!’

Angelo looked around, could see his life finished in that moment, then ran through a door, and found another door, in the back of the house, opened a fly-wire door, and was standing in a yard. He could hear the front door of the house being smashed in, then turned around and ran through the yard, climbed over a wooden fence, then found himself in another yard, then ran through the side of a house, and came to out to an open road, then just ran. He crossed it, and hid on the side of it, in bushes, and just lay there, listening.

An hour went by. And then another. And, then, he stood and looked around, and tried to understand what had happened, and suddenly, the world and everything in it, had changed. He walked the open road, realising that no-one had actually sighted him, and that he was therefore anonymous, then wondered if he had actually gotten away with it, and it didn’t seem possible…

He came to a bus shelter and waited and a bus came, two lights radiating out into the night, then pulled up, and he looked up and saw the figure of the driver in the seat in the night. He paid and got on, and sat by a window and looked out at the night, watched the houses go by, tried to wipe the night’s events from his mind, but it was impossible; the whole thing, like a horrible dream, but it had happened.

The bus stopped in at the city and he went up to their apartment and let himself in.

The place was silent. He walked through to the lounge room, expecting anything �" some goon sitting on the chair, waiting for him; or a number of them; or fat Tony himself, but there was no-one.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a drink, and sat on the lazy-boy, and thought again, about what the hell had just happened; then realised the obvious truth of the matter: he had married into a crime family, and without even realising it; there would be no getting out of it; this was his life now.

He looked around at the tiny apartment where they lived; then saw himself murdering people for a living, until one day he would inherit Tony’s home; then realised he was in way over his head.

But how in the hell could he get out? He bowed his head as he realised that it was impossible. If anything, the night’s events had showed him just how methodical, and in control of people, Tony actually was, and it sent a shudder through his spine.

Maybe, they could run away, the two of them, him and Bella; start again in another town somewhere else. The question was, would she go for it? He had no idea.

He poured himself another glass of scotch and walked to the bedroom and looked at his wife, lying there, sound asleep in the bed, then realised that that in itself was a statement, of the sort of trust that she had, in her father, and his dealings; hell, even in him, that he would be able to cope with the night’s events; and again, it rang out, in his mind, what he had married himself into.

Looking at her body’s breath rise and fall, at how deeply she was asleep, he realised how little she thought of what had happened, that the chances were that she had known about it, long before he was asked to kill whoever the hell it was, then realised that there would be no asking her to leave with him, that the thought would never have crossed her mind, that he had no chance in convincing her.

But there was nothing left for it but to get undressed and climb into bed, and so, that is what he did. He held her body closed to his, then, exhausted, fell asleep to the sound of his wife’s soft breathing.

When he woke, she was already up and dressed and he could smell her cooking breakfast. He got up and put a dressing gown on and walked out into the kitchen, and got a shock to see Tony sitting there, at the table, Bella serving him eggs. He looked at Tony, and nothing in his face showed any sort of strain or bother at all, as though it was perfectly normal that he should be there, which, in a way, it was.

‘Angelo, my boy; how’s my number one son in law?’

He looked at the two of them, and there was nothing to say, the way they were, so natural, as though the previous night’s events hadn’t happened at all.

‘Am fine, Tony…You?’

‘Never better, my boy, never better…Deloris and I were saying, that we thought it was time to meet a new grandchild…so, how about it?’

He looked around at the apartment all of a sudden.

‘Actually, you know, I don’t like this place, no, not at all. It’s time we moved you into a bigger place. This is no place for a young married couple starting off a family. In fact, I can’t understand why the hell I didn’t get onto it sooner, I must be getting senile in my old age. We need to get you into a house, subito.’

Angelo looked at the two of them, saw the rehearsal in their speech.

‘Why don’t you sit down, my boy, have some eggs.’

Angelo sat down at the table, and so did Bella, and he thought frankly, for the millionth time, that he had never seen a woman more beautiful in his life. Tony ate with relish, slurped his coffee, and spoke out of the side of his mouth.

‘Gonna get my guys onto it, this week, have you moved out by the weekend. Moved into a nice place; three-bedroom, with a yard. Got room for a nursery.’

Angelo, looked at his wife and father-in-law, sitting at the table, then realised that he was being assessed. It was an impossible conundrum, and one, well beyond him, and there was nothing for it but to surrender to the whole process, whatever it was.

One thing he was going to have to do, was harden up, and fast. He ate the eggs and swallowed them down, sipped on the coffee, and wondered with a shudder what the next assignment the pair of them had for him, and whether or not, he could handle it. He finished his breakfast and realised, all of a sudden, that this was what the married life was: compromises. But never, in his wildest dreams, had he pictured himself as a hired assassin. What men did for love, it was barely worth thinking about.