A Bag Lady

Another woman strode out from the hall to the booths. Her gait was purposeful, as if she was hurrying to be some place. Or perhaps just to be away from Gagootz now that she had had her fun.

Vinnie opened his mouth to say something, but his uncle stopped him by touching his arm with one hand, while pointing towards the front parking lot with his other. Most of each window was completely covered by advertising posters. However, there was a small section in the center window, near the top, that afforded a view of the lot and the highway.

An elderly woman with garishly peroxided hair and black horn-rim glasses was getting out of a ten, perhaps fifteen, year-old Toyota. It had several dents and scratches, no hub-caps, and the lens of one headlight was cracked. Yet the woman was wearing a mink coat. Incongruously, she had on lace-up white nurse’s shoes. Plodding around to the passenger side, she took out a large brown shopping bag with cord handles.

“Mama Leona!” Carmine cried out in a loud voice while lifting his hands high, as if giving praise. “How are you?”

She waddled up to the counter, breathing heavily and waving her free hand dismissively in the air. “Don’t ask. Everything hurts.”

Plopping the bag down on the counter, she added, “What doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work… Nineteen-fifty today.”

Carmine nodded and picked up the bag and knelt down behind the counter. In front of the safe with a slot in the door. Each time he took a stack of twenties or tens wrapped with a rubber-band, he shoved the stack into the slot. Standing back up, he handed the now empty bag to the woman.

Once he had not returned the bag. Once. He would never make that mistake again.

“Mama, this is my nephew Vincenzo Gambini,” Carmine gestured towards the young man standing beside him.

“Oh, sure, I know Vinny,” Mama Leona reached across the counter to cup his face with both of her hands. “I was at his high school graduation party.”

As she shuffled towards the door, she waved over her shoulder and without looking back, called out, “Tell your mother Marisa that I said Ciao.”

“I didn’t know you knew her,” Carmine said while scrutinizing his nephew’s profile. Vinny was staring out the window at Mama Leona who got under the wheel of her car and drove off.

“I don’t,” Vinny shrugged. “Ma invited so many people, the house was filled and over-flowing out into the yard. Both yards; front and back.”

Turning his attention back to his uncle, he asked, “Isn’t she afraid? Driving around with all that money in a bag?”

“Aw, she’s got plenty of bags of cash with her,” Carmine brushed off the question. “We are not her only drop.”

“But… But it would be so easy for somebody to rob her,” Vinny protested.

His uncle had to laugh. “Listen. Everyone knows who that money belongs to. They wouldn’t dare mess with the whole family… That money is safer in that old car of hers than it would be in a Brinks truck.”

“Where… Where does this money come from?” Vinny asked. “And what do we do with it?”