Kennedy
the correct term is "quirky"
...1
Working the Night Away
Working the Night Away
She still walked with a sway in her hips and a smirk across her crimson-coloured lips. The evening of work was still young so she was still in decent spirits; not even the light rain could bring her down. She wore a black, belted trench coat with the collar up to defend the rain drops. Her long blonde hair was tied in a low ponytail to the left, her hair falling in front of her shoulder. Black stiletto heels clicked on the sidewalk, her hand absently fixing the black fedora that she always wore when working—it was fun to imitate what the history books seemed to perceive as “proper mafia attire”.
The neighbourhood was not one of her favourite ones to walk in this time of night. The shadows were a little too long, the buildings looking a little too abandoned. She tried not to let the atmosphere phase her, though; the job was a simple money pick up, nothing more.
“You sure pick a helluva place to meet these people,” she heard her right hand man, Sly, mumble under his breath. He was a thin, naturally tan-skinned man, who still managed to stand three inches taller than her when she wore her three inch heels (which would top her at about 5’11” tall). He wore a leather jacket over his dress shirt and dark wash jeans, his black hair slicked back from the rain.
Angela let out a small, faint laugh, glancing at her friend from the corner of her eyes. “Hey, I would have picked a fine dining restaurant. Unfortunately, my father decides to associate himself with the scum of the city.”
“I would too,” Sly agreed. “Easy money. I still think you should’ve picked the muscle over me. These guys think they can intimidate a pretty thing like you.”
She stopped walking abruptly, trying to hide her smile from the compliment. “I’m sure you’ll be enough muscle. This guy is just a little late on his account payment. Not like he’s a bookie.”
Sly merely shrugged, letting out a quiet sigh when she turned and continued to walk down the block. They walked the remaining few blocks in silence before the two stopped in front of a closed down arcade. Angela absently shot a glance at Sly, her brown eyes almost daring him to say something about the meeting place. “The people down on their luck will take what they can,” she said before he could come up with a witty comment.
She didn’t even knock, opening the unlocked door and stepping inside. The windows had been boarded up five years ago, and the odor in the dank building confirmed it. She kept a solid, serious mask on though, despite her desire to cringe at the smell of… what was it? A mixture of mold and rats? Disgusting.
“Oh Benny,” she called out while Sly propped the door wide open to let as much light into the dark room as possible. She found a light switch as she heard a scuffling of old shoes on the laminate flooring; light filled the cramped space once the switch was flipped. “What, didn’t want to clean up even though you were expecting company?”
A small man who resembled the rats that still crawled in these walls poked his head out from behind a broken down Pac-Man arcade machine. Angela had to make a second effort not to cringe; the man probably hadn’t slept, let alone showered, in days. His greying brown hair was falling out in clumps—probably from the stress of having gotten into trouble with the wrong people—his blue eyes bugged with fear as he looked right at Angela.
“Oh, M-Miz Di Rizzo,” he stuttered apologetically, quickly pressing a winter hat over his head in order to hide the embarrassing bald spots. “You’re early.”
“Actually, I’m fashionably late,” she replied nonchalantly. She kept her hands in the pockets of her trench coat; she didn’t want to touch anything in this dirt-and-mold infested store. “You remember you owe a little money from your latest gambling escapade, right?”
“Uh, y-yes ma’am.”
Her brown eyes darkened as she glared at the small man. She hated being referred to as “ma’am”. She wasn’t old enough to be a “ma’am”; she was only 25 years young. “And you remember that we agreed on a very reasonable payment plan for you, right?” she asked, her voice beginning to turn to ice. He was wasting her time.
“Uh, a-about that…”
“Ah, ah, Benny,” she interrupted, tilting her head to the side almost mockingly. “We planned a very reasonable payment schedule for you, but you still decide to disrespect us by not handing in your payments on time.”
“I-I have it! I swear!”
Angela glanced at Sly, who had decided to lean against the open door. She nodded and he silently, almost boredly, stood up straight and approached the small man. Benny stood at attention before scurrying to the back of the store, where Angela could only assume stood his living quarters. Sly followed him. She walked slowly around the main area while she waited, looking at the unplugged stand-up arcade games, her heels clicking.
She stopped walking when she suddenly heard a shuffle of feet then a crash, followed by a weak groan in pain. She walked towards the back, finding Sly holding the poor man over his small kitchen table, Benny’s arm twisted behind his back.
“He’s got nothing, Ange,” Sly confirmed. “Though he does have a frying pan he thought would make a good weapon.”
Angela tisked softly under her breath as she slowly approached Benny, Sly not letting go. Benny’s free hand still held a rusted and warped frying pan. “Benny, you’re only making your hole much deeper,” she said quietly as she easily took the frying pan from the man’s hand. “You don’t want my father to send the others here with a shovel to finish the hole, do you?”
“I’ll have it tomorrow!” Benny pleaded weakly as Angela examined the frying pan. “I promise! I swear on my childrens’ graves!”
“You don’t have any children, Benny,” she replied boredly. “Lying to me and swearing on non-existent childrens’ graves is not helping your case.”
Angela placed the frying pan on the counter of the small makeshift kitchen. She absently opened cupboards and drawers until she found what she was looking for. She took the jagged but dulled steak knife from its safe hiding place in the back of the utensil drawer and turned around to face Benny, who was currently trying to cry. No tears were coming—yet.
“We want our money by tomorrow, Benny,” she cooed almost reassuringly as her index finger ran softly over the blade. “If you don’t have it, at least have the decency to steal a shovel from a hardware store and start the digging yourself.”
The grip Sly had on the man suddenly tightened, his free hand clamping the man’s wrist still on the table. With a swift stab, the steak knife was driven into the flesh between the knuckles of Benny’s index and middle fingers. He screamed in pain, tears easily flowing from his eyes now.
Angela left the knife to stand in the man’s hand, nodding to Sly again. Sly let go of Benny, wiping his hands against his jacket in hopes to get the touch of low-life off his hands. The two walked out of the abandoned arcade, the only other sound aside from Benny’s cries being the clicks of Angela’s heels before she turned out the lights, Sly closing the door behind them.
