Bump in the Evening, by Abe Margel

  Photo by Wren Meinberg on Unsplash

Allegra wasn’t going to miss Rafael. He was family but he’d also been a lecher and a lout and now he was dead. Still she was expected to look appropriately mournful at his funeral. This required some preparation.

Getting her haircut was a chore she disliked. She made an appointment with her favourite hairdresser, a stout forty year old.

Confined to her stylist’s chair Allegra impatiently flipped through the pages of a women’s magazine filled with gossip about movies stars. At the end of the session she took a moment to survey the results in the salon mirror. For a moment her cold blue eyes softened and a smile danced across her cruel lips. The dark brown tint was good, she decided. She stood by the cash and searched in her purse for her credit card holder. Her fingers moved gingerly so as not to touch the trigger of the handgun she always carried. The safety was on but one had to be cautious.

“I was sorry to hear about your Uncle Rafael,” the stylist said. “My condolences.” She made the sign of the cross and exhaled a little sigh.

“Heart attack,” Allegra said flatly. “He’d just left the restaurant, Ottava Via, with my brother Gino. Poor Rafael grasped his chest and collapsed.” The salon owner looked skeptical but said nothing. “The funeral is this afternoon.”

Allegra gave up looking for her credit card and handed the woman cash.

“Keep it,” she said referring to the large tip she’d grudgingly handed over.

Sitting in her Accord she looked in the sun visor mirror. Despite her annoyance at the process she was pleased with the long hairstyle that now framed her pretty face. At forty-three she looked ten years younger.

On the way home she stopped at a post office and mailed birthday cards to her twin daughters. They were in Paris for the summer studying French. She was proud of the girls. They were good students and obedient children. The twins meant everything to her.

At the house she changed out of the pants and top she had recently bought at an upscale shop in Yorkville and slipped into a funeral black dress. The bulky purse was replaced by a small shoulder bag.

Luca, Allegra’s husband, was a burly man with a wide friendly face. After they finished lunch he got behind the wheel of their white Lexus and the couple headed to the church for Rafael’s funeral mass. At Saint Francis’ they parked on the street under a red maple tree. Luca wore a dark blue suit and walked with the aid of a cane. “Work injury,” he told people if they asked. And in a way it was true. Most people were wise enough not to expect details.

Cars lined both sides of the road by the church. Police and reporters milled about, watching a long row of men and women dressed in expensive dark attire enter the sanctuary.

After the service the mourners made their way to the burial ground. Rafael’s interment was at Queen of Heaven Cemetery. At the graveside Luca took a minute to talk with Dr. Bianco, a short man in a fine black bespoke suit. Allegra chatted quietly with her mother and brother as shovels full of soil landed on the coffin now lying in a cold pit. The two women stopped whispering from time to time to wipe away deceitful tears.

The somber proceedings over Allegra and Luca drove home in silence.

In the living room she lit a cigarette and poured brandy for Luca and herself. “So what did the doctor say?” Her voice sounded tough, icy.

“It was definitely a hypodermic needle, Bianco told me. Rafael was dead before he hit the ground.”

Luca’s cell rang. “Yeah, I know something will have to be done about Gino but it won’t be me. I can’t move like I used to.” He stood up and began to pace, grimaced with pain, gave up and returned to the sofa. A minute later he got up again.

“Let’s go into the backyard.” He motioned to his wife and the couple stepped through French doors and walked down the stone pathway to the back fence. The yard bordered a ravine. Birds sang to one another. A blue jay looked down at them from the top branches of their plum tree. Luca held on to his cane as he leaned against the tree’s trunk.

“I needed to stretch my back, stand up for a bit. That idiot shouldn’t have called me on my personal cell, not about that anyway. Someone might be listening.”

“What did he want?” Allegra said impatiently.

“You have to talk to Gino soon or things will get ugly. He doesn’t understand the meaning of self-control. So Rafael ripped him off. It’s not nice but these things happen and you work it out. If you can’t work it out on your own, you consult with family before doing anything rash.” He shifted his weight and grunted. “God damn it. If only my legs still worked.”

Three years earlier someone broke Luca’s right leg due to a business misunderstanding. Not long afterward the other guy disappeared permanently.

“It’s not up to us,” Allegra said. “Gino refuses to behave properly. I doubt my talking to him would make any difference. Let someone else deal with him.” She frowned and after a long pause said, “it’s sure to be a waste of time but I might talk to him anyway.”

“All you can do is try and make him understand.” Leaning on his cane Luca limped back to the sofa in the living room.

“Hand me one of those Demerols.”

She brought him a glass of water and one of the painkillers. He swallowed the white pill, stretched out on the couch and was soon asleep. Allegra pitied the now disabled man she was married to.

Business had been good before Luca was injured. Allegra now looked after the warehouse. For the past three years under her management business was even better than when Luca had been in charge. Importing furniture and other items from Italy and Mexico turned a nice profit.

When she first took over running the depot the employees called her Allegra, then after a while, Mrs. Carbone, and now Ms Carbone. She knew that behind her back they also called her bitch. She didn’t care. Call me whatever you want, just do what I say.

The workers weren’t the only ones that now referred to her as a bitch. Family would also whisper the term with trepidation. She smiled sardonically whenever she thought of how others now trembled at the sight of her.

The day after Rafael’s funeral she was the first person at work. In the warehouse parking lot she moved one of the 16-foot cube trucks to a far corner of the yard. It had to make way for a transport truck expected to arrive soon. In the cavernous depot she climbed into the seat of a forklift and used the machine to relocate a wooden pallet. On the pallet lay boxes filled with side tables from Italy.

When the first workers made their way into the warehouse locker room, she entered her office. Her name and title were stenciled on the door’s frosted window, Allegra Carbone, Vice President. She sat down at her desk and booted up the computer. The room was comfortable but plain. Behind her, two dirty windows obscured by blinds, looked out on the paved yard. A faint scent of tobacco smoke and diesel lingered in the office. Three wing-chairs, looking out of place, were shoved against one wall. Against the other gray wall a plush couch stood under a framed photo of the Vatican. The office, like the rest of the warehouse, was lit by harsh white LED bulbs. The unkind light reminded Allegra of the prisons she’d visited to meet relatives and business associates who were inmates.

For a fleeting moment Allegra thought about the previous day’s funeral then leaned back in her chair, lit a cigarette and took a long drag. The shipment to arrive this morning from Mexico was larger than usual. Handmade colonial style accent tables, glass mosaic folding tables and wooden cabinets.

When the tractor-trailer showed up the crew worked quickly to unload it. They were instructed not to open the boxes. After Allegra briefly inspected the contents, she contacted the manufacturer in Mexico from her office phone.

“Yes, Miguel it arrived. Everything appears okay. It’s busy around here but I’ll have a closer look later and let you know if there’s a problem.”

She took a quick puff on her cigarette then walked outside. The strap of her bag hung across her chest. She liked to keep it close. A dozen similar cross-body bags in different colors were stored in her walk-in closet at home.

She fished around in her purse for her cell phone then dialed her brother. “Gino, I want you to come by the warehouse after six tonight, okay?”

The sooner they met the sooner she could explain to him how he might be able to appease the people who were now out to eliminate him.

“What’s up?”

“I need some help with a shipment.”

“I’m busy tonight. Find someone else.”

“Find someone else?” Her voice dropped to a low growl. “No, you drag your ass over here at six. Got it?”

Long pause. “Yeah, fine,” he said sounding deflated.

What had happened to the sweet boy she’d grown up with? He’d been a good student and popular. After he went off to university in Kingston he changed. At first he had plans. He was going to study Latin and Italian then go for his PhD in Italy. But at Queens he became lazy and started looking for ways to make easy money. Still somehow he graduated, found a nice girl in Woodbridge from a good family. There was talk of marriage but he stole from her and she dumped him.

Now he lived with a waitress, a bird-like woman desperate to be loved even if was by a deceiving bastard like Gino. He betrayed her time and again. Allegra pitied her. He’d taken big chances for small, miserable prizes. His girlfriend refused to recognize how risky his stunts were.

Standing in the parking lot Allegra reminded herself that he was also a treacherous man, just look at what happened to Rafael. Even members of the family were careful to watch their backs when Gino was around.

She didn’t like having to call him. Normally she would have asked her foreman to assist her. They were close and occasionally they made love on her office sofa. But he was far off in Palermo at his dying grandmother’s side. Anyway this would give her a chance to have a frank chat with her brother.

At a little after five the last employee drove out of the company yard. In the warehouse Allegra climbed onto a forklift truck and retrieved a pallet stacked with cardboard boxes. She moved it close to the office door. With a box opener she cut through the tape of the first carton. Wearing latex gloves she gently removed a lovely accent table. Her heart raced with anticipation. Using a rubber mallet she tapped on one of the legs until it became dislodged from the rest of the table. She examined the hollowed-out leg with a flashlight. From her office she brought out long stainless steel food tongs. Her hands trembled slightly as she retrieved one of the clear plastic bags filled with white powder and carried it to her office desk.

Her cell phone rang. It was her husband calling. “Hi Luca, are you okay?”

“Yeah just wondering where you put the remote.”

She took a deep breath and felt her shoulders relax. “Oh, look by the banana plant in the den.”

“Why the hell did you put it there?” Pause. “I got it now, thanks.”

From her office window she noticed a shiny new Lamborghini Urus drive into the warehouse parking lot. It stopped on the side facing the railroad tracks. Two men got out of the SUV. She was expecting only Gino.

“What a surprise,” she said as she met the men at back door of the depot. “Raul, nice to see you.”

But it was not nice to see him. Raul was the son of her eldest sister, an awful man, one of the family members she’d had to visit when he was in prison. He had spent four years locked up at a Kingston correctional facility for beating two men to a pulp. Raul reminded her of a comic book ogre, hairy and hulking with a face to match.

“So things must be going well if you can afford to be driving a Lamborghini,” Allegra said.

“Yeah, things are going real well,” Raul said icily.

The pair, she was convinced, had come to steal from her. Uncle Rafael’s sudden death meant Gino needed money to disappear, probably to some tropical island backwater.

“Hi Alley Cat,” Gino said. It was a nickname he dredged up periodically from their childhood, a name she loathed. And he knew it.

Allegra acted as if none of this was unwelcome. They got to work and gingerly removed bags of heroin from hollowed-out furniture legs. It took time but the end was eventually in sight. Allegra knew she had to act before that, before the end. She considered running for her car. But that would be suicidal. Instead she went to the washroom. From the bottom of her handbag she removed a Beretta Nano 9mm loosely wrapped in a silk scarf. She had no legal right to own a gun. It had been a gift from Luca smuggled in from the US. The weapon was small, light and lethal. Perfect for a woman’s hand. She made sure the safety was off, wrapped the pistol back in the scarf then rested her index finger on the trigger. She had never shot anyone and hoped she wouldn’t have to.

When she stepped out of the washroom the two men were waiting for her. While Gino looked at her with a sunny smile on his face Raul appeared grim. He waved a Glock in his right hand. Not the prettiest gun but reliable and deadly.

“I’m afraid we’re taking the crack and you’re going to have to hand over the cash in the safe,” the ogre said. “We’ll also need your credit cards.”

“Credit cards...?” To Allegra this indicated they were going to kill her. “I need a cigarette,” she said.

The split second the men’s brains were trying to digest the idea of her smoking a cigarette was all she needed. She didn’t wait but fired three bullets into Raul then two into Gino. They fell to the floor. Dead silence followed. She walked over to the bodies, gave each one a hard kick. Neither moved. Raul’s eyes and mouth were open in astonishment. Mercifully Gino’s eyes were shut. For a second she thought she might vomit. She turned away from the gruesome sight and puffed on a cigarette before putting on latex gloves.

Tears streamed down her face as she took the cash from their wallets then placed the wallets back in their pockets. She was hoping that if the bodies were found, the cops might think it was a robbery gone wrong. She turned off Gino and Raul’s cell phones and returned them to their jackets. She chain-smoked, waiting until after sunset. Then she raised the bodies with a forklift and carried them to the dumpster outside. She also tossed Raul’s gun into the same bin. It was three more hours before the garbage truck arrived and emptied the dumpster into its rear loader where the garbage was compacted.

In a few hours the bodies would be deposited in a vast dump outside Detroit along with the rest of Toronto’s garbage. No one would ever find them. The corpses now gone, she carefully hosed down the concrete floor in the warehouse. It was time to get rid of Raul’s vehicle. The stars were out and the air felt cool against her skin. Wearing fresh latex gloves she drove the SUV to a suburban strip mall a mile west and parked between a pickup truck and a Jeep. As she got out and prepared to walk back to the warehouse, a police cruiser stopped in front of her.

Two cops jumped out. They looked agitated.

“You lady, don’t move!” said the female officer. Her right hand hovered above her holstered pistol. “I need you to turn around slowly and keep your hands away from your sides where I can see them. Now gently lower your purse to the ground and take one step forward.” The cop picked up the purse.

The policeman returned to the cruiser for a couple of minutes then rejoined his partner and Allegra.

“Yes, it’s definitely the stolen Lamborghini,” he said to the other cop.

The police woman put on gloves and rummaged around Allegra’s purse.

“And look what I found in here.” She gave the handbag to her partner. With her right hand she held up the Beretta to the moonlight.

A tear formed in the corner of Allegra’s eye but she willed it not to fall.

---

Abe Margel worked in rehabilitation and mental health for thirty years. He is the father of two adult children and lives in Thornhill, Ontario with his wife. His fiction has appeared in UPPAGUS, Ariel Chart, Fiction on the Web, Scarlet Leaf Review, Academy of the Heart and Mind, 2020 and 2021 BOULD Awards Anthology and the Spadina Literary Review.