Charlie Opera (8 page)

The telephone rang, and Charlie sat on the bed to answer it.

“Hello?” he said. No one answered.

“Hello?” he repeated.

Whoever called wasn’t talking.

“Right,” he finally said, and hung up.

“Wear the one-piece!” Carol Curitan yelled to Samantha.

Carol was in the kitchen of Samantha’s apartment. She was a forty-five-year-old, beautiful, full-figured woman with thick blond hair and green eyes.

Samantha was checking herself out in the mirror behind her bedroom door. She turned sideways for a better view of her waist. She looked at herself up and down in the mirror.

“I feel better in this!” she yelled. She gave herself one more look in the mirror and opened the bedroom door.

Carol was in the hallway. She shook her head at Samantha when she saw her in the flower print bikini. “It’s a first date, baby,” she said.

Certain words or phrases highlighted Carol’s Alabama accent.
Baby
was one such word.
Darlin’
was another.

“All he’s seen you in so far is your work uniform,” Carol continued. “Give him a dose, darlin’. Either the white one-piece or the coral bikini.”

Samantha stopped to look at herself in the small hallway mirror near the kitchen. She liked the flower print of the bikini she was wearing. It was red and pink and aquamarine. She stood up on her toes to try to see her bottom, but the mirror was too high on the wall.

“This covers more of my rump,” she said, slapping herself on one hip. “I don’t want to show him everything day one.”

“That’s the point, baby,” Carol said. “Even I know that, and I haven’t tried to encourage anybody in fifteen years. You want them to want you.”

Samantha was nervous about how she presented herself on a first date, although she kept reminding herself that it wasn’t really a date. Charlie’s wife had just dumped him, according to him. He would only be in Las Vegas a few more days. It’s not like they would be seeing each other every Saturday night.

Which was why she wasn’t so sure Wet ’n’ Wild was the best meeting place for the lunch she had packed. She didn’t want to send the wrong signals. She didn’t want to show too much skin to a guy she might never see again.

She tugged down on her bikini bottom. “Nope,” she said. “Not this fast. This’ll have to do.”

“Well, you’re just scrumptious in that one, too, so there,” Carol said. “My lord, how I wish I had your little body to dress up for myself.”

Samantha chuckled. Carol combed her hair back to tie with a scrunchi. She had recently moved in with Samantha after fleeing from her husband across the country. They had known each other just over six months when Samantha started to regard Carol as family.

“Maybe I should take him back here and we can all go skinny-dipping,” Samantha joked in her best mock-southern accent.

Carol cocked a hip. “Darlin’, it’s been so long for me, right now I’d pay just to watch you and your date skinny-dip.”

Cuccia went down to the pool to catch some sun. He was to meet later in the afternoon with the man who was supposed to kill Charlie Pellecchia. It wasn’t a conversation Cuccia was looking forward to but there was no avoiding it. Not if he wanted Pellecchia dead.

He applied suntan oil to his long, hairy legs. He scanned the pool for a blonde he had spotted through his binoculars earlier. She was a short, muscular woman with an orange one-piece thong. The skimpy bathing suit she was wearing displayed a perfect ass, Cuccia thought. She had golden-tanned skin with long, straight hair and big breasts he was sure were fake. She also wore a waterproof Rolex and earrings with emeralds as big as marbles, he remembered.

Cuccia also looked for the DEA agent as he scanned the pool area. He was sure the agent would show up to break his balls whenever it was most inconvenient. He was trying to stall the government’s move against his uncle. In the event his deal with the government turned sour, Cuccia wanted to be sure that the man who broke his jaw was already dead.

Charlie Pellecchia had become an obsession for Cuccia. Nothing else mattered.

He used a cellular telephone to call the room at Harrah’s. When Pellecchia answered the phone, Cuccia remained silent.

When he finally spotted the blonde he was looking for, Cuccia became unnerved about his recent injury. He was too self-conscious to talk to her through a wired jaw. He quickly turned his head when she looked his way.

Agent Thomas found the organized crime detective eating pizza at his desk. Thomas was there to try to find out why Nicholas Cuccia and two of his crew were in Las Vegas.

“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Detective Albert Iandolli said as he folded a slice of pizza. He was a big man, 6-foot-4 at least, 230 pounds.

“It’s not about Vegas,” Thomas told the detective.

Iandolli stopped short of taking a bite of the pizza. “What’s it about?”

“Two connected guys from New York staying at the Bellagio. Their boss came in last night, early this morning. I’m here about him.”

Iandolli leaned forward to take a bite from the end of the pizza slice. He chewed while he held the pizza over a napkin on his desk. Oil from the end of the slice dripped into a reddish-gold stain on the napkin.

“And?” the detective asked after he swallowed.

“I was wondering if the two guys from New York are up to anything here in Vegas. If maybe they found themselves some trouble. Maybe you heard something here on your end.”

“The other two guys? You just said you were here about their boss.”

Here we go, Thomas thought. “Detective, I’m not here to break your balls. Please don’t break mine.”

Iandolli set the slice of pizza on the napkin. “You’re being vague,” he said. “How am I supposed to help you with the information you just gave me? Two connected guys from New York came out here. Two dozen connected guys from New York pro’bly came out here the last two nights. I can appreciate your need to keep things to yourself, being a federal agent and all, but the bottom line is, there’s nothing much I can do for you, you keep talking in circles.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Names, for starters. Then I need to know what I’m supposed to be looking for in the way of what the other two might be up to. What specific trouble they might be in. For instance, there’s been a rash of johns getting rolled by hookers the last few weeks in Las Vegas. Guys take a broad up to their room, get drugged, wake up later, and find they’re broke without gambling. That’s one kind of trouble they might find for themselves. Then again, you’d need to speak with somebody from vice about that. You see what I’m saying? It’s all very vague the way you described it.”

Thomas gave the organized crime detective two names: Francone and Lano. He didn’t mention Nicholas Cuccia. “I need to know if they met with Jerry Lercasi,” he said.

“Now you’re talking,” Iandolli said. “He’s my turf, Lercasi, but I can tell you right off something might save you a lot of time. Nobody meets with Jerry Lercasi. Nobody.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s his way. Lercasi doesn’t meet with outsiders. Not here in Vegas. That’s his protocol. Lercasi closed down the wiseguy tour business long before Hollywood made that
Casino
movie. Wiseguys come here from other cities, they’re on their own. They may meet with intermediaries, but they never get to meet with Lercasi. Including his cousin, another wiseguy, lives in New York. Even that guy doesn’t get an audience. Jerry Lercasi holes himself up most of the time. Doesn’t peek outside of his gym unless he wants to pick up something to eat.”

Thomas was doing his best not to explode. “What about the intermediaries? Could these two, Francone and Lano, have met with somebody around Lercasi?”

“Sure. I’ll ask around.” Iandolli was about to pick up the slice of pizza again when he looked up at Thomas with a smile. “Anything else?”

Thomas sarcastically smiled back at the detective. “You’re right. I am wasting my time.”

The semiretired hit man showed up wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a flower print shirt. Just like most of the tourists walking the Strip, Cuccia thought. He was a stocky but solid man. He had a thick neck and big shoulders. He seemed to have black hair with gray streaks. A Boston Red Sox baseball cap covered most of his head.

After they introduced themselves to each other, Cuccia walked Renato Freni toward a concession stand without talking. Cuccia decided to take the hit man’s lead. He glanced around the pool as they walked. The bright orange one-piece was easy to spot. She was sitting at the edge of the pool then, dangling her feet in the water.

“I missed a shoot-out with a pair of local cops, two detectives, by a few minutes last night,” Freni said.

“What happened?”

“That’s what I came here to find out. Why the fuck a pair of detectives are talking with a guy I’m supposed to whack out.”

Cuccia shook his head.

“I saw the guy was banged up,” Freni continued. “I saw his head was bandaged, but that’s none of my fuckin’ business. What is my business is I don’t get jerked around. Why didn’t your uncle mention the guy was hot?”

“It’s not like that. The guy isn’t hot. He’s a nobody. It’s got nothing to do with business.”

Freni noticed Cuccia looking toward the blond woman. “Hey, I didn’t come here to look at broads.”

“Sorry.”

“Let’s walk around the pool once or twice and see whether or not we can still do business. First, I think I need an orange juice. This heat is giving me a headache.”

Cuccia bought an orange juice for Freni and a Coke for himself. Freni immediately drank his juice. Cuccia sipped at his Coke through a straw as they continued to walk around the pool.

“You were that close, huh?” Cuccia asked.

“Two minutes. Maybe less. I come off the elevator and there he is with two detectives. They went down the hall into his room. I took off.”

“Shit, I have no idea what that was about,” Cuccia lied. “Maybe the guy got into it with somebody. Or he got mugged or something. Maybe his wife did it.”

“That’s the other thing,” Freni said. “His wife took off. Then she was mugged.”

“Huh?” Cuccia said. He acted surprised. “How do you know that?”

“That’s my business. Except nobody bothered to mention the guy would have a wife with him when he came to Vegas. I was given a name and a hotel. I found out about the wife after my near-miss with the law. Which is the second fuck-up with this job. I don’t intend to walk into a third.”

“What are you saying? You think my uncle is fucking with you?”

Freni tossed the empty juice bottle into a trash pail. “I’m saying somebody is jerking off the wrong guy, my friend.”

“I think maybe it’s miscommunication,” Cuccia said. “Trust me, nobody is out to jerk you off.”

“Good. Then nobody will mind showing some good faith with this mess.”

Cuccia let out a deep breath. “What is this, a fuckin’ shakedown now?”

“Call it a miscommunication,” Freni said. “You still want this guy dead, for whatever the fuck reason, give me a new number. Something I can live with.”

Cuccia stopped walking again. He looked around the pool until he spotted the blonde. She was with a tall black man. He watched with disgust as the blonde applied sun tan oil to the black man’s legs and arms.

“Thirty,” he said.

“Forty,” Freni said.

The blonde was bending over to kiss the black man. Cuccia nearly choked on his Coke when he saw the black man slip the blonde some tongue.

“Thirty-five,” he managed to say.

Freni stepped in front of Cuccia. “Forty.”

Cuccia frowned through his wired jaw. “All right.”

“Say it. The number.”

Cuccia hesitated a moment, then said, “Forty.”

“Just so there’s no more miscommunications,” Freni said.

“Can you do it today? Now that I’ve been robbed, I should have some satisfaction here.”

Freni made Cuccia wait for a reply. “Maybe,” he finally said.

Cuccia wiped drool he could feel on his chin. He looked for the blonde, but she was gone. He searched the pool until he saw her head come up from under the water. Her wet hair hung straight down. It glistened in the sun. He wanted her.

“You don’t have to say,” Freni said. “I’m just curious.”

Cuccia touched the corners of his mouth with his fingers. “What?”

“What it’s about. Why you wanna kill this guy so bad.”

Cuccia was caught off guard by the direct question. He pointed at his own chin. “Because he did this. He broke my fuckin’ jaw.”

Freni turned his head from side to side as he examined Cuccia’s jaw. He squinted as he said, “You want me to whack a guy for that?”

Cuccia shook his head. “No,” he said. “I want you to whack a guy for forty grand.”

Charlie was too self-conscious for a day at the water park. The lines at the entrance gates were long and crawling with families and young children. He slipped the taxi driver a twenty-dollar bill to go ask the pretty lady with the picnic basket and cut-off jeans to come back to the taxi for a minute.

When Samantha leaned into the window of the taxi, Charlie said, “Would you hate me if I told you I was too uncomfortable to be around all these kids looking like this?” He pulled his sunglasses off for emphasis.

She smiled for him. “Can you take me to my car in the parking lot?” she asked. “We’ll figure something out there.”

She decided to take him back to her apartment instead of guessing where to have lunch together. She set a round white table on the small patio behind her apartment. She opened the table umbrella for shade while they ate.

They exchanged stories about themselves while they picked at a pasta salad. Samantha learned some more about his marital problems. She, in turn, confessed her own marital failure. When Samantha learned how Charlie’s wife had left him, she was much more sympathetic to his situation.

“How could she do that?” she asked, then quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Charlie seemed to take it in stride. “It’s a legitimate question. How could she do that in the middle of a vacation? I don’t know. To be fair, though, her note said it wasn’t planned.”