Charlie Opera (20 page)

When he could spot the head of security finally heading his way, Thomas was still hopeful.

“There’s nobody in suite twenty-four-B, sir,” the head of security said. “But one of my men did say there was blood on the rug.”

Thomas could feel his strength being sapped. “What do you mean, blood?”

“One of my men said that’s what he saw after he went inside the suite. Blood. Some drops leading to the bathroom and to the door.”

Thomas flashed his badge for the third time the same day. “Let me up there,” he said in a defeated monotone.

Donald Gentry looked his wife up and down. The image of her breasts bouncing in the video while her lover took her from behind was suddenly clear to him again.

“You just fuck him again now?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He was picturing things he hadn’t even seen on the video. His thoughts raced out of control with jealousy and rage. “You just run over to his place for a quickie? You fuck him in his kitchen? In the car? Or did you just get on your knees and suck him off?”

“Please, Donald. Don’t do this.”

“I saw the tape, Jen,” Gentry said. He closed his eyes tight and growled from somewhere deep inside. “I already saw you on your knees!” he cried. “I already saw it!”

She put her hands together as she pleaded with him. “Please don’t.”

Gentry drank from the tequila bottle again. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder and said, “Maybe I should sell the tape to a local porn store. Or make copies and lend them out at bachelor parties. What do you think?”

Her face tightened as she flushed red with anger. “I want that tape!” she yelled. There were no more tears behind her voice.

“Is he still married?” Gentry yelled back. “Does Wilkes have a wife, too? Are you ruining her marriage, too?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” she yelled. “I have to have that tape!”

“I know exactly what I’m doing!”

“Give me the fucking tape, you pathetic bastard!”

Gentry suddenly smiled at his wife. All he could hear were the words “you pathetic bastard.”

An emotional weight was suddenly lifted. He no longer saw his wife standing in front of him. There was an image of a blond woman in a white sweatshirt and black leggings. It was as if she were a ghost. It was as if he were watching himself and his wife from another ceiling camera.

He pulled the Glock from his ankle strap and focused on the white sweatshirt. Spots of blood filled the sweatshirt as his wife was hurled backward into the hallway.

He closed his eyes and could see his wife’s breasts being pierced in slow motion by the bullets he had just fired.

Then he saw the barrel of the gun inside his mouth. He felt a burn from the edge of the barrel. He heard himself curse from the burn. He tilted the gun down as he felt himself pull the trigger. He felt a lancing, burning sensation through his throat as he fell off the chair he was sitting on. He gagged and choked as he spit up blood. He felt himself kneeling in the kitchen as he spit up more blood.

He was straining to scream, but there was no sound. He looked down and saw the puddle of blood forming at his knees. The realization that he was still alive filled Donald Gentry with terror. He turned to his left and saw his wife dead in the hallway. He tried to scream again, but there was still no sound.

Freni spotted the flashing lights in the driveway as he drove up to the Bellagio. He saw a pair of ambulances and at least three police cars parked directly in front of the lobby. A group of hotel security guards stood outside and blocked off a set of doors from public access.

He drove through the driveway and pulled into a gas station on the Strip. He parked in front of the air hoses and used a cellular telephone to call the Vive la Body gymnasium. He gave the receptionist at the gym the number for his phone and waited for a return call. Three minutes later, his cell phone rang.

“One down, one to go,” Freni said. “But there’s a lot of activity around number two.”

“I’m busy now, but we can meet for a bite,” Lercasi said.

“No problem,” Freni said.

“How’s Chinese again?”

“Chinese is fine.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back.”

Both men hung up without saying good-bye. Freni lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. He figured he’d stay close in case things changed. Jerry Lercasi would be a lot more generous if both ends of the contract were serviced.

Lercasi had traded favor for favor with a few of the ethnic gangs of Las Vegas in the past. Usually for the strong-arm work he could no longer entrust to his own crew. Usually for the work the mob officially considered against the rules.

Now he had a conversation with the head of a Vietnamese gang in Las Vegas, a skinny gook with slicked-back hair and a diamond-studded Rolex wrapped around his skinny right bicep.

Minh Quan was born in Tonkin Province in Vietnam. He had entered the United States illegally when he was fifteen, and before he was twenty he had used relatives who were legalized citizens to open a Chinese-Vietnamese take-out restaurant. It served as a front for the extortion and drug dealing of his Black Dragons street gang. Quan was the eldest of the gang. At twenty-eight, he had already killed three men. Two were rival street gang members. The third was a contract hit on a Russian gambler.

The conversation was expensive, but twenty thousand dollars was well worth Lercasi’s peace of mind. Erasing the links between himself and the disappearance of his accountant and business manager, Allen Fein, was textbook damage control.

The botched job the Vietnamese crew had pulled at Harrah’s with Charlie Pellecchia would work for Lercasi now. He had instructed Minh Quan to make the hit on Pellecchia look as close to a mugging as possible.

Lercasi knew the organized crime units would continue to suspect the New York crew. His own reputation as a deliberate and ruthless killer would protect Lercasi from the series of botched jobs over the past week. Whacking a few key people would further distance him.

Allen Fein’s killer had become a key player in the mix of events.

Lercasi warned the Vietnamese gang leader about the man he would be killing. “He’s a professional,” he told Minh. “He’ll know it’s coming if your people are sloppy. He might pick one or two off, so you better work in teams.”

“No worrey,” the skinny gook told Lercasi. “Everything taken care of.”

“I’m just warning you,” Lercasi said. “For your own good. Don’t bother sending kids again. That was a civilian who put one of your guys in the hospital today. This guy is a pro.”

“No worrey,” Minh repeated.

Beau Curitan removed the gag from the woman’s mouth. He used an extension cord to tie her hands. He tied her feet with a belt he found in her bedroom closet.

She was unconscious from the chloroform he had forced her to breathe. She lay motionless on the floor, her hands tied together on her stomach just above her waist.

Beau went through the wallet he found in her purse. He learned her name was Samantha Cole and that she was born on December 3, 1967. Beau counted forward by tens from 1967 to figure out her age.

Samantha Cole was attractive but too skinny, Beau thought. Beau liked full-sized women like his wife, Carol.

He opened Samantha Cole’s blouse to peek at her chest. Her bra blocked his view. He looked around himself before he reached inside the blouse to try to feel her breasts. He leaned in close to her skin as he pushed the top of the bra down off her right breast.

Beau jumped back when she suddenly moaned. He lost his balance as he fell into the couch.

“Shit,” he said when he landed on the gun tucked inside the waist of his pants. He removed the gun and set it on the television.

He went back through her wallet and found sixty-five dollars. He removed the money and set it alongside where he sat on the couch. He also found a credit card.

He went to the refrigerator for a beer when he heard the telephone ring. He went to the kitchen, where it sat in a cradle. It was one of the portable kinds he used to hate to watch his wife parade around their house with.

The phone continued to ring while Beau stared at it. He was afraid to answer. He had broken in, assaulted a woman, tied her, and peeked inside her clothes. If he were caught now, he would never get to his wife.

Beau ignored the telephone. He would have to wait it out, at least until Samantha Cole woke up. She had refused to tell him anything earlier, but that was before he put her to sleep. This time when she woke up, he would show her how easy it would be to take advantage of a sleeping woman.

Beau turned on the television and sat on the couch when he found a wrestling show.

Lano had taken two more sets of pictures for Charlie and Denton. He spilled the two disposable cameras from a plastic bag onto the roof of a parked car. The three men were in the parking garage behind the Bellagio. They had just come from Francone’s room, where they had deposited and posed Cuccia with his younger protégé gangster, Joey Francone.

Lano handed the cameras to Charlie.

“I already got my own set,” he said. “I knew they’d be priceless someday.”

“Why the extra two?” Denton asked.

Charlie tossed one of the cameras to Denton. “One for each of us.”

Lano nodded. “For souvenirs.”

When Samantha was twelve, she had played spin the bottle with her best friend and two boys from one of their classes. Samantha and her best friend had liked the taller of the two boys. Each had wanted the bottle to point at him rather than at the shorter boy.

They played the kissing game in her friend’s basement a while before it graduated from a simple public kiss to going into the walk-in closet for two minutes. Samantha was the first to win at the more private game. She and the boy of her preference stepped inside the closet. When the door closed behind them, the boy immediately stood behind Samantha and groped at her flat chest. It was an awkward feeling for her. She stopped it by turning to face the boy. When she went to kiss him, he backed away.

“Turn around,” he had told her. “I want to feel your tits.”

Samantha had called him a jerk and stepped out of the closet a full minute and a half short of their allotted time. She remembered walking past her best friend to head up the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” her friend had asked.

“I’m going home,” Samantha had told her.

She never played a kissing game again. When she reflected on her experience later in life, Samantha knew it was just a dumb kid game she had been engaged in, but the idea of being groped like a piece of meat had angered her ever since.

Now she could feel fingers under her blouse. Beau Curitan thought she was still unconscious, and he was groping her. She didn’t dare open her eyes. She knew he was dangerous. She also knew her only chance was to surprise him somehow.

The stale smell of beer off his wet breath was sickening. Samantha wanted to scream. She forced herself to remain still and hoped Beau would climb on top of her just enough so she could nail him with a knee. It was no good where he was then, leaning over her from one side. She needed for him to be directly in front of her. She needed for him to be on top of her.

Half a mile from the Bellagio, Anthony Rizzi sipped an Absolut on the rocks laden with Valium and codeine. It was his second drink since coming back up to his room. It was his fifth drink since they had met in the bar downstairs, played a little craps, and grabbed dinner at the famous Bacchanal.

Niko was down to a black mesh thong and matching bra. Her nipples were hard from the air conditioning. She was anxious for Rizzi to fall asleep. She could feel goose bumps up and down her arms.

She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward just enough for Rizzi to touch her breasts with his fingertips. She cooed for him softly.

“You make Niko feel nice,” she said.

Rizzi sipped at his drink again. “You have beautiful tits,” he said.

Niko pulled away as Rizzi leaned toward her. He extended his right arm and lost his balance. He fell forward on the bed.

“Shit,” Niko said.

Rizzi had spilled his drink.

“Watch what you do,” she said, scolding him. “Spill your drink like that.”

She went to the table to pour another. This time she added twice the amount of codeine.

Rizzi was wiping sweat off his head. “How come it’s so hot in here?”

Niko sat on the bed again. She took Rizzi’s face with one hand, guiding his lips to hers. She darted her tongue inside his mouth for him to suck. She held the kiss a long time before slowly pulling back. Then she guided the drink up to his lips and held it for him while he sipped. She tipped the glass up, forcing Rizzi to drink until he gagged on what he couldn’t swallow.

He coughed loud and hard. She waited until he composed himself. She looked into his sleepy eyes and kissed Rizzi again. Then she held the glass up to his lips one more time.

Detectives Gold and Iandolli were close to the Bellagio when they received the emergency call from headquarters. An officer was down. He had been brought to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. Gold turned on the siren and maneuvered through traffic as he raced to the hospital.

When they met with the emergency room surgeon who had worked on Donald Gentry, they were told that the patient was stable.

Gold sweated profusely.

“He’s either the luckiest man alive or the unluckiest,” the surgeon said.

The detectives looked to each other.

“He shot a bullet clear through his throat,” the surgeon continued. “He’ll never talk again, but he’ll live. He missed bone and artery by fractions of an inch. It’s amazing there isn’t more damage. His vocal cords were torn to shreds, though. There’s nothing we can do for him there. He’s also got a burn wound on both his lips that appears to be from the barrel of the gun. That might explain why he survived. He probably burned himself and altered the position of the gun just enough to miss killing himself.”

The surgeon showed the two detectives the path of the bullet on his own throat. “The bullet went down and out just above his Adam’s apple.”