Charlie Opera

by Charlie Stella

  “Fuck you!” Charlie yelled. He hung up the receiver and juked his way through the lobby crowd. When he reached the driveway, he could see the flashing lights of an ambulance.

  When he stood on the line for a taxi, Charlie spotted John Denton heading his way. Charlie clenched his teeth in anticipation of a confrontation.

  “We need to talk,” Denton said. “I know this is weird, but we need to talk.”

  Charlie searched the crowd behind him for the Asian kid he had spotted on the house telephone in the lobby earlier.

  “Charlie?” Denton persisted. “We need to talk.”

  Charlie pushed his wife’s lover to move up in the taxi line.

  “I’m not asking you to come along,” he told Denton.

  “Come along where? I came to you when the police didn’t show up at the hospital. I already called them.”

  “You gave them the names?”

  “No. I just called the detective I spoke with originally. I left a message for him to call me back. He didn’t call, so I came here. I didn’t know if you got my message or not.”

  Charlie shoved his way past Denton as he sat inside a taxi. When Denton followed him, Charlie said, “I’m going there right now. I’m going to see this guy who’s trying to kill me.”

  “That’s crazy,” Denton said. “This is the mob we’re dealing with. I’m a lawyer. I can lose my license if I don’t report this. I can’t hold back information.”

  Charlie told the driver to take them to the Bellagio.

  “It’s insane,” Denton continued. “I already called that detective. I’m just waiting for him to get back to me. I’m not even sure Lisa will want to go along with it, pressing charges. It’s the mob, damn it! You can’t fight them.”

  “You’re right,” Charlie said. “You are a lawyer.”

  “That’s a cheap shot.”

  Charlie glared at Denton.

  “Suppose this guy today is setting you up?” Denton asked.

  “What guy?”

  “The guy who came to the hospital. The one I called you about. Suppose he just wanted to find you. Maybe he already has. Maybe they’re following us right now.”

  “Somebody already followed me. That’s what that ambulance was about back there. I was lucky. I’m not giving them a third chance.”

  “Which is why you should go to the police with this.”

  “I don’t have time to explain it now,” Charlie said. “Nicholas Cuccia, right? That’s one of the names.”

  “And a Joey Francone.”

  “And a Joey Francone. Fine. Nicky and Joey, welcome to my world.”

  “What about Lisa?” Denton asked.

  Charlie glared at his wife’s lover one more time.

  “I feel like a nap,” Francone said. He was down to his royal blue bikini underwear and muscle T-shirt. He sat back against the pillows propped up against the headboard.

  The hooker handed him a refill of his drink, a Stolichnaya screwdriver. “Have another sip,” she said. “It’ll help you relax. Then I can finish relaxing you.”

  “I’ll bet you can,” Francone said before sippin the drink.

  The hooker stroked his thigh near his crotch. He was stuck in a semierect stage but was too drugged to notice. The hooker sipped at her Sprite through a straw. Her lips formed a smile around the straw.

  He had told her as much about his work as he could fit in a twenty-minute conversation. He was waiting to become a made man, he had told her. He was waiting for the mob books to open again back in New York. He was so close he could taste it.

  The hooker wasn’t sure what mob books were. She had heard about made men and wiseguys and other gangsters, but she had also heard or read about how gangsters testified against each other once they were arrested. She had watched that special on Dateline or 20/20, or maybe it was on CNN, about one boss testifying against another boss. Or maybe it was the assistant to the boss testifying against the boss. It didn’t matter. It made her dizzy then and it made her dizzy now to think about it. Who cared about the mob or mob books? She had another sucker about to fall asleep right in front of her.

  “So, are you really a gangster?” she asked as she watched him slide slowly toward unconsciousness.

  “Yesssss,” he said as he started to slur his words. “But you shouldn’t be thcared. I ike you. I rearry rike yourrr.”

  “I like you, too,” she said.

  “You erra been to Rew Rork?”

  “Sure,” the hooker said. “Lots of times.”

  Francone’s eyes closed before he could register her answer.

  Chapter 31

  Charlie walked straight to the registration desk in the Bellagio Hotel-Casino to reserve a room. He handed a clerk there his credit card and driver’s license. He asked for a smoking room high up, if one was available.

  “You really think this is a good idea?” Denton asked as they waited for the room keys.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “This gets us upstairs.”

  The desk clerk handed Charlie a small folder with keys and a minimap of the Bellagio. Charlie signed a card authorizing payment by room number and waited for his credit card to be returned.

  “This is crazy,” Denton said.

  “I know,” Charlie said. “And sometimes crazy is a good thing.”

  Minh Quan took the call while he was playing a pinball machine in the basement of the restaurant. He listened intently as one of the men he had sent with his brother to kill Charlie Pellecchia explained how Nguyen was beaten unconscious and was on his way to the hospital.

  Quan turned away from the pinball machine as he wiped sweat from his forehead. He checked his watch and spoke in French, the language he sometimes used to confuse surveillance.

  “Suis-le mais ne fais rien,” Quan said. “Moi-même, je tuerai ce Blanc foutant. J’y vais.”

  He told the caller to follow Pellecchia but to leave him alone. Quan would kill the fucking white man himself. He was on his way.

  First he had a sit-down with Jerry Lercasi. A meeting with the Italian big shot meant there was money to be made. Quan would stay in touch with his men and avenge his brother’s injury after doing business.

  She had been drinking Sprite, but the comedian in the silk bikini underwear never noticed.

  The hooker managed to find just less than seven hundred dollars in the room, not nearly as much as she had hoped for. She did have a Rolex, a money clip with diamond-studded initials, a couple of designer leather belts, the strap, and the dildo. She kept the handwritten receipt with the inflted price. She figured she might get fifty bucks for the unused items.

  Francone lay on his back snoring on one of the twin-size beds. The hooker tied his hands with his belt. Then she tied his feet back to his hands with one leg of his pants.

  She left him in the silk royal blue bikini underwear. She had laughed out loud at the sight of the underwear earlier and covered up by saying drinking made her giggly.

  She was just finishing making herself up in the bathroom when she thought she heard him move on the bed. She frowned at the thought. She had given him enough codeine to knock out a horse. She put her lipstick in her bag and hurried out of the bathroom. She stopped with a gasp when she saw an older man across the room pointing a gun at her.

  Lano’s eyebrows rose about as far up into his forehead as was possible once he was inside his room at the Bellagio. There was the young punk snoring in his sissy silk underwear, hands tied to his feet with a belt and a pair of pants. Lano smiled at the sight until he heard somebody in the bathroom across the suite. He stepped to the side and pulled the .380 from his ankle holster. He pointed the gun at the bathroom until a woman dressed like a hooker stepped through the doorway.

  “Huhhhh!” the woman gasped.

  Lano took the scene in again, looking from the punk to the hooker, and then back at Francone again.

  “You rolled him?” he asked as he lowered the gun.

  The hooker put both her hands up for emphasis. “I don’t
know what happened to him, mister. He got all funny on me and then he passed out.”

  “But he tied himself up before he passed out, right?”

  Charlie’s room at the Bellagio was two floors above Nicholas Cuccia’s suite. Before he stepped inside the elevator, Charlie sent Denton to a hotel store for some changes of clothes. He gave him two hundred-dollar bills and a list of items to buy: T-shirts, sweat pants, and two hats. Denton wanted an explanation, but Charlie waved him off as he stepped inside the elevator.

  He was feeling rage he hadn’t felt in a long time. He needed to control his anger before it got the best of him.

  He had boxed in the New York City Golden Gloves when he was seventeen. After six easy victories in the heavyweight novice division, Charlie made it to the semifinals, where a much faster Hispanic kid defeated him on points. Charlie knocked the Hispanic kid down in the third round, but it was the only solid punch he had landed, a vicious left hook. Three one-minute rounds had just not been enough time for Charlie to stalk his prey.

  Knocking the Asian kid unconscious had been instinct. Charlie saw the knife. He saw the kid swing. He reacted.

  Breaking the wiseguy’s jaw in the nightclub was a similar reflexive action. He saw the gangster grab his wife. He saw the smack, and he reacted.

  Going after the gangster now was no longer instinct. Charlie had decided to take the offensive. He knew who and where his enemy was. He would stalk Nicholas Cuccia, but he wouldn’t take his time about it.

  Samantha was desperate to find out where Charlie had gone. She watched the story on the local news about a mugging at Harrah’s Hotel. She knew Charlie had gone there to check out. He told her he would call if anything were wrong.

  She picked up the phone receiver at least three times before slamming it back down from fear of making things worse than they already were. When she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, Samantha called his room at Harrah’s and was told that Mr. Pellecchia had already checked out.

  She was full of anxiety when the doorbell rang. She ran to the door, expecting to see him. Somehow, as she opened the door, Samantha knew it was careless not looking through the peephole first.

  Before she could finish asking who the man standing there was, a fist caved in her solar plexus.

  Instead of getting everything Charlie told him to buy, Denton bought whichever items he could find in one store and headed back to the elevators as fast as possible. When he didn’t find Charlie inside the room, Denton had a good idea where he had gone.

  He could call Detective Gold one more time, or he could call hotel security and ask for help. He also could get the hell out of there before he regretted it for the rest of his life.

  Except then he would have to face Lisa again. He would look and feel as helpless as he had felt back in the hotel room the night she was assaulted.

  Denton wondered what the hell prison would be like as he stepped inside another elevator.

  Chapter 32

  Agent Thomas called Cuccia immediately after Charlie Pellecchia called. He let the phone ring a long time before giving up. Thomas wanted to pound on the door across the hall, but it was too dangerous. No matter how frustrating the situation had become, he couldn’t compromise Cuccia.

  Pellecchia had sounded as if he might go to the police after all. Thomas couldn’t blame him, except local criminal charges against Cuccia could create a boondoggle of paperwork between the DEA and the Las Vegas police department. It would take time Thomas didn’t have.

  He had assured Pellecchia of his safety. He had insisted that Cuccia’s vendetta was over. Now he knew how foolish his claim had been. As long as the mobster had something the government needed, it was Cuccia who called the shots. As long as the heroin sat in a New Jersey warehouse, Cuccia could pretty much do whatever he wanted.

  Thomas had to find out what the hell was going on before it was too late. He had come to Las Vegas to make sure nothing went wrong. So far, nothing was going right.

  He knew Pellecchia was staying at Harrah’s. He could be there in fifteen minutes if he ran. He might make it in less time if he grabbed a car.

  Nicholas Cuccia sipped at a vanilla milk shake through a straw as he watched the end of a pay-per-view action movie. He was forced to drink most of his meals since his jaw had been fractured. He was lucky he liked milk shakes.

  The phone rang again, and Cuccia had to adjust the volume on the television to hear what was going on in the movie. He turned the ringer on the phone off and propped a few pillows against the headboard to rest against.

  He was anxious to catch a nap before Francone returned with a hooker. He watched as a black woman in a tight black skirt danced on the television screen. It reminded him that he would need to call the black broad from the escort service if he wanted to score more cocaine for later.

  He was just finishing the milk shake when there was a knock at the door. He set the large glass down on a tray as he pushed himself off the bed. He glanced back at the television as he headed for the door. Another knock startled him.

  “Fuckin’ hold it!” he yelled.

  He wiped his hands on a towel as he reached for the door.

  “Maintenance,” a deep voice said as Cuccia started to open the door.

  “Who?” Cuccia asked as the door slammed into him.

  Cuccia was knocked to the floor. The back of his head slammed against the legs of a marble cocktail table as the pain ricocheted through his jaw.

  When Cuccia was able to focus again, a big man stood over him. As the man removed his sunglasses, Cuccia’s eyes opened wide as he recognized the intruder. It was the guy from the nightclub in New York. The guy who should’ve been dead already. It was Charlie Pellecchia.

  Cuccia clenched his teeth and immediately winced from the pain.

  “Stand up, tough guy,” Pellecchia said. “Unless you want to take this beating laying on the floor.”

  Cuccia was in agony from his jaw. He held both his hands up from where he lay. He pointed to his jaw with his right hand as he shook his head.

  Pellecchia looked around himself before stepping toward Cuccia. “What’s that?” he asked. “You have a toothache? Which one is it?”

  Cuccia’s eyes opened wide with terror as he realized what Pellecchia was about to do. He tried to block the kick with both hands, but he wasn’t going to make it.

  He heard his jaw crack for the second time in less than two weeks. He felt a sharp pain as he experienced immediate dizziness. He felt his eyes rolling as the numbness took over.

  “Look, mister, I know how this looks,” the hooker said. “But he was into some strange shit.” She pointed at the plastic bag on the bed. “Look in there. He made me get one of those.”

  Lano moved closer to the bed. He opened the bag with the barrel of the .380. His eyes squinted at the strap he saw inside the bag.

  “The hell is it?” he asked. “A belt?”

  “Look more,” she said.

  Lano turned the bag upside down. Both the strap and the dildo spilled onto the bed. He looked from the items on the bed to Francone to the hooker and back. He laughed until he turned red from coughing.

  “You all right?” the hooker asked.

  “This is fuckin’ priceless,” he said through the rough coughing spell.

  “You sure you’re all right? That’s some bad cough.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You should have it checked.”

  Lano nodded. “I did.”

  The hooker took a small step forward. “Can I go now?”

  “You take anything of mine?”

  “Just what was on him, I swear it.”

  “You get his watch? It’s okay if you do. I want you to have it. That and that stupid fuckin’ money clip he carries.”

  The hooker smiled. “I have them both.”

  He remembered the envelope he was carrying inside his jacket pocket. He fished it out and tossed it to the hooker. “There’s a couple grand in there,” he said. “It�
�s yours now. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  The hooker felt the envelope with both hands and dropped it inside her bag. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Lano motioned toward the door with his gun. “And be careful,” he said. “They’re not all as stupid as this one.”

  Chapter 33

  Gold’s lower back was sore from sitting in the car. He was waiting for Iandolli and thinking about Donald Gentry. Knowing the young detective’s wife was embroiled in an Internal Affairs investigation was frightening. Gentry’s marital problems had gone from bad to worse.

  Gold was exhausted. He cracked the front window to light a cigarette. He jumped when the front passenger door suddenly opened.

  “Get some sleep?” Iandolli asked. He was holding two containers of coffee. He handed one to Gold.

  “Catnaps,” Gold said. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Technically, I’m off the next two days.”

  Iandolli set his coffee on the dashboard. “Internal Affairs has them on tape,” he said. “Gentry’s wife picked up a few envelopes for Wilkes. Then she took it a step farther and deposited them in a safe-deposit box. Both their names on it.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Exactly. So they’ll definitely drag her in when the pick up Wilkes. I don’t know they’ll charge her with anything, but they’ll definitely use her to lean on Wilkes.”

  Gold was staring out the windshield. “When’s this happen?”

  “Nobody’s saying.”

  “Of course not.”

  Iandolli touched Gold’s right arm. “There’s something else,” he said. “Wilkes is on tape with Allen Fein. Fein is Lercasi’s front man in and about town. His legit man.”

  Gold was confused. “You said Wilkes is dirty. So?”

  Iandolli frowned. “Guess who else is on the same tape?”

  “Al, I’m not in the mood for Jeopardy right now.”

  “You,” Iandolli said. “Twice. My guys taped it. Organized crime. You approached Wilkes yesterday, right?”

  Gold was nodding defiantly. “To warn him about Donald Gentry, yeah.”