Charlie Opera (12 page)

He had booked himself a room at a motel just outside of Las Vegas. He spent most of his first day in broken sleep and gazing out the window at the mountains. When he finally slept soundly, Lano had dreamed about his death.

He had the five thousand dollars he stole from Cuccia plus the fifteen hundred he had originally brought to Las Vegas. He guessed he had enough money to live in the desert at least another month.

Except now he was no longer sure he wanted to live another month.

When he saw the advertisement for a local gun show, Lano decided it was an omen. He would use some of the money to purchase a few weapons. Then he would spend another night at the motel on the edge of the desert. If his lungs permitted, he thought he might even get drunk.

When he was finished picking out his handguns, the gun dealer said, “Is there anything else I can interest you in?”

Lano looked up and down the rows of tables. The gun show was being held inside the tennis bubble of a local high school. He saw everything from assault weapons to swords on the tables. He saw military camouflage outfits, army boots, parachutes and catalogs for missile launchers. He wondered what the hell anybody would do with a missile launcher.

He pointed at one on the cover of a military catalog. “Who buys those things?”

“Tell you the truth, I don’t know,” the gun dealer said. “Except we’re supposed to report it when somebody asks for one.”

Lano was curious. “Ever sell one?”

The gun dealer shook his head. “Not a missile launcher, no.” He leaned across the table to whisper. “Grenades, yes. A few. A few mines, too. Claymores, I sold two of those. But never a missile launcher.”

Lano smiled at the gun dealer. “Grenades?”

Francone joined Cuccia by the windows looking out over the pool. Both men leaned against the glass to better view the women lounging around the pool. Cuccia used binoculars.

“You believe the protocol?” he asked Francone. “They send me a fuckin’ mouthpiece instead of one of our own.”

“That guy, Fein, right? Yeah, I didn’t like him either. He seemed like a real smart-ass, you know. Like he was better than me.”

Cuccia followed a short woman in a pink thong bikini as she walked behind the far end of the pool with a drink in her hand. “All Fein wanted was his five grand,” Cuccia said. “My uncle said the guy running things out here don’t come out of his hole. Lives like a hermit to stay off the cameras. Pro’bly has guys like Fein to run his business errands.”

“You do what you gotta do,” Francone said.

Cuccia pulled the binoculars away from his face. “Speaking of which,” he said. “This guy, Fein... he ever do what I just give him five grand to do? Except for that single fuckin’ tooth, I don’t have a clue why I paid him.”

“Everything went fine. Except for Lano. The Pellecchia broad was where they told us she went. The guy broke your jaw they served up on a dish. Fein was the one brought the guy over to us at the construction site.”

“So they did the right thing?”

“Vinnie took off with their money,” Francone said. “It was wrong. Besides the other shit he said and did.”

Cuccia rubbed at his crotch as he watched another woman in a tiny bikini giggling in the shallow end of the pool. Three men surrounded her. “Fuckin’ waste, you ask me,” he said, peering through the binoculars again. “Imagine having all this trim around and all you can do is lay low? Forget about it. I’ll take my fuckin’ chances. There’s no way I ignore this, I’m a skipper out here.”

Francone noticed the time. “What do we do about Lano?”

Cuccia was watching the short woman in the pink thong again. She was leaning forward. Her breasts were perfect balls of flesh beneath the thin pink top. He rubbed his crotch a second time.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “The talent parading around this place would make me crazy, I lived here.” He turned to face Francone. “What about Lano?”

“The guy’s a pain in the ass. We should whack him. We shoulda whacked him as soon as you got upped.”

“What happened?” Cuccia asked again, annoyed he had to repeat the question.

“First of all, he wanted me to fugazy a tooth for you. He wanted me to go to a fuckin’ dentist, you can believe it. He thought we were goin’ too far goin’ after the broad. Everything we did was goin’ too far for Lano.”

“He said that?”

“He said a lotta things, boss. A lotta things.”

Cuccia held his best angry stare. He had practiced the stare in mirrors for years before being made.

“Subversive?” he asked.

Francone scratched his chin unconsciously before looking away. “All negative,” he said. “Yeah, like I said back in New York. He ain’t takin’ to the changes.”

“Don’t beep him no more.”

“What’s the use? I stopped since last night. He’s either gone or dead from those cigarettes he smokes all day and night.”

“If he ain’t dead, he will be. That’s yours. Soon as we locate him, get our money back, you can take him out.”

Francone grinned.

“I may have something else for you,” Cuccia continued. He watched as a tall blonde man joined the woman in the pink thong. “Tony Rizzi is coming out to join us. He thinks he’s ready to make his bones. I think he’s starting to pull back on his money. If I don’t read where this cocksucker Pellecchia is found dead by tomorrow morning, maybe you take Rizzi and take care of everything before we leave.”

Francone looked puzzled. “Rizzi?”

Cuccia frowned through the pain in his jaw. A large man blocked his view of the woman he was watching. “You set Rizzi up. You make him feel good about himself. Like he’s in, you know. Bring him along, pump him up. Then you can whack Rizzi when we get back to New York. He’s starting to hold back his cash anyway. What good is he without that? We’re better off we get rid of him instead of squeeze him. We squeeze him, he might talk. He was a score. The score’s over. We’ll see what he brings out here with him. You bring him with you to get Pellecchia. Let him do it, you think he’s got the balls, except I wouldn’t count on it.”

Cuccia wiped drool from the corners of his mouth. “Hey, you pull it off, this Pellecchia prick and Rizzi when we get back home, I’ll bring it to my uncle. I’ll see I can’t get you made without waiting around the rest of your life.”

A smile crossed Francone’s face. Cuccia shot him a wink before he looked down at the pool again. The big man had moved. Cuccia could see the woman in the pink thong again.

“The things I could do with that,” he said.

Francone scouted the men at the pool for muscle competition. He focused on one guy who was huge. “Steroid freak,” he said.

“Huh?”

“The guy down there. He’s juiced.”

Cuccia furrowed his eyebrows. “Oh, Joey, you got nothin’ better to look at down there?”

Jerry Lercasi fixed his grip on an Olympic bar as he lay on the bench under the weight. He sucked in air as he tightened his grip. He gasped loudly and pushed the bar off the rack. He steadied the weight before lowering it and blew out air as he pushed the bar from his chest. He did it again and again, in slow, measured repetitions, before reracking the bar.

“Morning, Hercules,” Detective Albert Iandolli said.

Lercasi was wiping sweat from his forehead with a Vive la Body hand towel. He looked up from the bench to frown at the organized crime detective.

“The steroids do anything for your dick?” Iandolli asked.

Lercasi stood up from the bench. He was a few inches shorter than the detective. His body was well defined with muscle. He made a point of flexing his biceps as he wiped sweat from his neck with the hand towel.

Iandolli pointed at the Olympic bar. “How much is on there?”

“Three-fifteen,” Lercasi said. His voice was rough. “You wanna give it a try?”

Iandolli shrugged. “What’s the point, Jerr? You get all beefed up like that and somebody puts two behind your ear someday, like Benny Bensognio. You’re as dead as a ninety-pound weakling would be, no?”

“You got a point,” Lercasi said. “This a social call, or you want to join? We’re running a special for city employees this month. A third off on a year.”

Iandolli sat on the bench as Lercasi added weight to the bar. “Cute, Jerr. You’re a funny guy. Except I have a situation came up the past few days I’m concerned about.”

“My attorney already spoke to the police about Mr. Bensognio,” Lercasi said. “I knew the man casually. I had no idea he was a bookmaker. I never placed a bet in my life. In fact, I was at a private dinner last night with two City Council members. If I’m not mistaken, some snoopy reporter was there and took pictures. I live in Las Vegas because of a respiratory condition. I have no idea why anyone would want to kill Mr. Bensognio. I sent flowers to his funeral out of respect for his wife and children. I’m sure this is a terrible time for them.”

“He was probably skimming off your book operation,” Iandolli said. “But Benny isn’t why I’m here. Some guy and his wife were assaulted. They’re from New York. Know anything about it?”

“Why would I know something about that?”

“I don’t know. Except the guy was assaulted at the Palermo construction site. One of the workers there found him behind the model.”

Lercasi stopped adding weight. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack. That’s your turf, Jerr, the Palermo. And that’s a big no-no, assaulting tourists on their vacation. Even if it is mob-related.”

“What’s mob-related? What the hell does that mean?”

“Right. Anyway, just so happens, a couple of the boys are in from New York the same day the unlucky couple were assaulted.”

“Couple of the boys? I don’t know any boys.”

“You know, Jerr. That dumb-ass fraternity you’re involved in that don’t exist? The one where they rat on each other every time one of them gets busted? The one they made all those movies about?”

Lercasi continued adding weight to the Olympic bar.

“How much you got on there now?” Iandolli asked.

“Three-thirty.”

“I wanna watch. You mind?”

Lercasi lay on the bench, took his grip, took a few deep breaths, and grunted as he lifted the bar from the rack. He brought the bar down to his chest slowly. He set the bar on his chest, held it a split second, then grunted as he pushed the bar up. He lifted the weight two more times before reracking the weights. When he sat back up on the bench, he was breathing hard.

“That really give you a woody?”

“You made your point,” Lercasi said through gasps of breath.

“Good. Because if this Palermo thing comes back to you, my friend, you’ll be lifting your weights inside the joint.”

Lercasi wiped himself with the towel. “I don’t know nothin’ about it.”

Iandolli mocked gasping for breath, as if he were about to lift the bar himself. “But I bet you’ll ask around now, won’t you,” he said, squeezing the words from his lungs.

Lercasi picked up a ten-pound plate to add to one end of the bar.

Iandolli let out a long mock exhale of breath.

Charlie decided to tell Samantha what was going on. He told her about the fight in the New York nightclub and about his wife being mugged. Samantha flinched when Charlie described what had happened to Lisa.

“My God,” she said.

“She’s been in and out of surgery.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table. Samantha was wearing white shorts and a navy blue blouse. Charlie wore gray Dockers and a maroon polo shirt. He had brought a navy sports jacket for dinner later. The roommate, Carol, was taking a shower.

“What does the DEA want?” Samantha asked.

“Who knows? Except I don’t trust them. Not their motives. The guy I met was making a deal for the creep who assaulted Lisa.” He lit a cigarette. “I wasn’t sure if I should come here. I’m still not sure I should stay.”

“Are you feeling guilty about your wife? Be honest.”

He took one of Samantha’s hands. “It’s not about Lisa.”

She tried to smile. “I like you, Charlie. But I don’t want to get involved where I don’t belong.”

“It’s not about Lisa.”

Samantha nodded. “He said you were safe, the agent, right?”

“It seemed more important to him that I didn’t go to the police,” Charlie said. “He was much more concerned about his gangster than me.”

Samantha took one of his cigarettes. “I haven’t done this in five years,” she said. She examined the cigarette a moment before sliding it back inside the pack. “Not even a filter?”

“And I didn’t start smoking until I was thirty. How’s that for stupid?”

“Pretty stupid. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll stay away if that’s what you want. It’s why I’m telling you all this. You need to know. Obviously I don’t want anything to come back here, to you.”

“That’s so unfair. No, I don’t want you to do that. Why would they come after me? No, that’s ridiculous.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

They held each other’s hands. Samantha took a deep breath. She asked, “Did you get to see her?”

“She was in recovery.”

“Are you going back to the hospital later?”

He could sense she was still concerned about how he felt about his wife. He shook his head.

“It was a little uncomfortable,” he said. He told her about John Denton and the history of his wife’s affair. Samantha seemed somewhat relieved.

“I’m not going back,” he said.

Samantha took another deep breath. “I feel like the walls are closing in.”

“I’m not pressuring you, Sam. I understand how you feel.”

She reached for the cigarettes again. This time she lit one. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and coughed. “It’s like breathing fire.”

“You’re cute when you cough.”

She continued to cough. “I’ll bet.” She put the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Aren’t you afraid to go home?” she asked. “To New York.”

“I haven’t thought about that. I guess I want to believe it’s over. They wanted me, they got me. What the DEA agent said. Not that I trust him any farther than I can throw him. But I’m not going to the police.”

An uncomfortable pause followed. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her.

He asked her if he could have an ice water. He watched her move around the kitchen. Her leg muscles flexed as she stood up on her toes to reach for a glass. Charlie looked up her legs to the hem of her shorts.