Charlie Opera

by Charlie Stella

  Iandolli looked to Gold. “What Asian kids?”

  “Forget about it,” Charlie said. “I’m not pressing charges against them either.”

  Gold pushed Iandolli out of his way. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asked Charlie.

  Charlie glared from Gold to Iandolli. “He’s close if he’s trying to get me to take a swing,” he said.

  Gold reached for his handcuffs. Iandolli stopped him.

  “What were you doing at the Bellagio?” Iandolli asked.

  “I took a room at the Bellagio. I checked out of Harrah’s, and I needed a room. I decided to stay in Las Vegas a few extra days. To be with my girlfriend.”

  “You trying to get her killed, too?” Gold asked.

  “Enough,” Iandolli told Gold. “What happened at Harrah’s?” he asked Charlie.

  Charlie was still glaring at Gold.

  “Mr. Pellecchia?” Iandolli said.

  “No way,” Charlie said. “I’m not going there.”

  “Take him in,” Gold said as he made another attempt at Charlie.

  “Hold it!” Iandolli said, pulling Gold back a second time. “Damn it, Abe.”

  “Take me in for what?” Charlie asked Iandolli. “For getting beat up? For trying to protect myself?”

  Gold tugged at Iandolli’s arm. “I’m not in the mood for this bullshit,” he said. “Not with what happened to Gentry. I’m not listening to this now.”

  “Look,” Charlie said, pointing his finger toward the elevators, “my girlfriend is upstairs. They just removed a bullet from her leg. I haven’t seen her yet.”

  “One minute,” Iandolli said. He held on to Gold’s left arm as he walked the senior detective across the hallway. “Let me handle this for now,” he whispered. “You’re too upset. Go get a soda. Talk to the other one, the boyfriend. Let me talk to this one alone.”

  Gold, clearly frustrated, pulled his arm from Iandolli’s grip and walked away.

  Iandolli returned to Charlie. “Go and visit your girlfriend,” he said. “We’ll talk again later.”

  Charlie nodded.

  “Go ahead,” Iandolli said.

  Charlie watched as the detective took the stairs. As he waited for n elevator, Charlie felt uneasy about the pictures Vincent Lano had taken at the Bellagio. If the police already had pictures, the film he was holding on to would no longer serve as a deterrent to mobsters trying to cover their embarrassment.

  He knew he couldn’t beat the mob much longer. Once the men in the picture were on the street again, he knew they would come looking for him. The thought of the mob going after Samantha was even more terrifying.

  He headed for the elevator but stopped a few feet from an open car. He felt himself sweating. He couldn’t move.

  Chapter 47

  The Chinese restaurant was empty when Renato Freni walked inside. Except for the young woman working the counter and the two cooks in the kitchen, Freni was alone. He dropped his right hand inside his right pants pocket to touch the end of the Firestorm 10 Shot .22 Semi Automatic he was carrying.

  The woman behind the counter had large oval eyes and thick lips. She smiled at Freni. “May I herp you, prease?” she asked in a heavy Asian accent.

  Freni gave a quick glance over his shoulder. “I’m supposed to meet a friend,” he said.

  “Mr. Recasi?” she asked.

  “Close enough,” Freni said.

  The woman pointed over her shoulder. “He in back,” she said. “Waiting for dumpring.”

  Freni watched as the woman packaged a container of steamed dumplings and hot mustard. She handed it to Freni and pointed down the hall toward a door at the far end of the restaurant.

  “Take prease,” she said. “Mr. Recasi waiting for dumpring.”

  Freni did a double take at the woman before shrugging and taking the small package from her. He saw two doors in the rear, one leading outside. He was unsure of where to go.

  “In back,” she said, still pointing. “Through door outside. On patio.”

  “Oh,” Freni said. “Sure, no problem.”

  Phuc Hanh was twenty-four years old, a part-time prostitute and killer, and Minh Quan’s wife. Her name in Vietnamese meant blessing from above, as in good family. It also meant happiness.

  Today she was executing a new contract the Italians had paid her husband thirty-five thousand dollars for. She had backup gang members in the basement and bathroom because she had never used a gun to kill before. A Walther P22 had been hidden under loose menus under the front counter. She had briefly hefted the gun before it was hidden.

  After the man she was to kill took the package and headed down the hallway toward the back of the restaurant, Phuc Hanh reached under the counter for the Walther. The man was about five feet from the counter when Phuc Hanh shot him in the back of the head. His body went into spasm on the floor, and she leaned over to fire a bullet into his right temple. She yelled something in French, and both cooks quickly dragged the body into the basement.

  Phuc Hanh returned to the front counter, wiped sweat from her forehead, and used the telephone. When she hung up, she opened a can of Coke. She was perfectly calm a few minutes later when an Asian couple came in to order take-out.

  After stalling his meeting with Renato Freni, Jerry Lercasi relaxed as he watched the highlights of a Dodgers-Giants game on satellite television. The next few days were going to be busy. He expected several more visits from the local authorities. He expected harassments from federal agents as well.

  Then there would be the request for a meeting by the New York crew he would have to deal with. Without Allen Fein to run nterference, Lercasi was thinking he might have to handle New York by himself.

  He was waiting for a call. He stretched his arms out wide as he yawned. He heard his bones crack as he tightened his arm muscles.

  When the telephone rang, Lercasi picked up the receiver but didn’t speak.

  “Your order is ready,” a woman with an accent said.

  “I think you have a wrong number,” Lercasi said.

  After taking care of all the business he could think of for one day, Lercasi thought about finishing the day off with some more Chinese. He dialed the reception desk and asked if Brenda was still around. When the girl working the desk told Lercasi that his girlfriend was gone for the day, he asked about the Asian woman who was giving Mr. Fein his massages the past few days.

  Was she free? Lercasi wanted to know. And did she want a permanent job working at Vive la Body?

  Joey Francone received five stitches in his rectum at the emergency room. He was given codeine for his pain and gauze bandaging for the bleeding. He was told the stitches would dissolve but that it would be a good idea to come back to the hospital in a few days to have the wound checked.

  Francone was too embarrassed to care what the doctors in the emergency room had told him. He wanted out of there. He needed to find Nicholas Cuccia.

  When he searched for his boss, Francone spotted two men he knew were federal agents outside the recovery room. He didn’t bother to ask why they were there. Cuccia had either made a deal or was about to. Francone wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  Suddenly he saw himself for what he was in the bigger picture of the Vignieri crime family. He was a “nobody” in the mob world. Cuccia was a made man, a “somebody.” Cuccia also was a skipper running his own crew, somebody directly linked to an underboss. Cuccia had clout. Francone had nothing.

  This was one reason why he retraced his steps to the emergency room. He saw a pocketbook hanging from the back of a chair in the waiting area and snatched it. He found an exit and left the hospital. He knew he couldn’t head back to the Bellagio yet, so he limped two blocks in pain to a taxi stand in front of a shopping mall instead. He waited ten minutes before a taxi could take him to a cheap motel off the Strip.

  Francone was grateful for what was inside the small purse: $253. He paid for the taxi with a $10 bill and stashed the rest of the cash inside his pants pocket.r />
  He took a room at a short-stay dump for one night. He left a $20 bill for local telephone calls at the front desk. Francone called Anthony Rizzi at Caesar’s Palace to make sure the wannabe still was in Las Vegas. Rizzi was supposed to meet them with cash reinforcements. Rizzi was one way out of Las Vegas. Francone wasn’t sure if there was another.

  Chapter 48

  Once he was checked out of his motel in Las Vegas, Beau Curitan drove south on Highway 95. Beau had never meant for things to get so carried away. He never intended to shoot the woman hiding his wife. He never intended to touch or to undress her.

  Except Samantha Cole had seemed to respond to his teasing as she awoke from her chloroform sleep. It was just like the abducted women in the paperback books Beau had read. Samantha seemed to enjoy what he was doing to her. He swore she had responded verbally to his advances. He was positive he had heard her say “Yes.”

  Now Beau was fleeing the scene of what he guessed would be breaking and entering, assault, attempted rape, and attempted murder charges. He pulled off the highway when he spotted a cheap motel. He took a room for a short stay while he tried to retrace what had gone so wrongor him. Beau realized he had stolen money and credit cards from the wallet in Samantha’s purse. Taking the money and credit cards would add robbery to the list of charges he was fleeing.

  Then he realized he had left his gun behind, a Beretta .380 his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday.

  He needed to get out of Nevada. He was sure the state police had a description of his car. They might even have his license plate numbers. Beau needed to either change cars or license plate numbers or have the car painted. He checked outside his window and saw he could steal license plates from another car parked in the lot.

  He used the telephone book to locate used-car dealers and mechanics. The nearest city Beau recognized on a map was Laughlin, less than an hour’s drive. He unfolded his map of Nevada on the bed and plotted a route to the resort town in the mountains.

  A drop of blood dripping from his nose landed on the map. Beau touched the tip of his nose and winced.

  Charlie couldn’t bring himself to see Samantha yet. He had started and stopped twice. He decided to see his wife first.

  “It was kind of rushed,” he said when he was standing alongside her bed. “I thought you were out shopping.”

  Lisa was trying to smile through her stitched mouth. “I felt horrible,” she said. “I still do.”

  Charlie didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say. It was the first time he had spoken to his wife since she left him for another man. Each of them had since been assaulted. Each of them had suffered. Each of them had unknowingly dragged innocent victims into danger. Each of them was sorry for dragging out their own misery together.

  “Are you all right?” Lisa asked.

  Charlie managed a half smile. His wife didn’t know about the new woman in his life.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “What happens next?”

  “Whatever you want. We sit down and file for divorce. I don’t expect either of us will contest anything.”

  It was a half question. Lisa shook her head.

  “It should go pretty fast,” Charlie said.

  Lisa pointed to her face. “What about this other mess?”

  “I think it’s over,” Charlie said. “Your friend John was a big help.” He wasn’t sure if it was his place to go any farther. He had no idea of what his wife was aware of. “I think he cares for you very much,” he added.

  Lisa was silent. She began to cry as Charlie shifted from foot to foot alongside her bed.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked.

  It was an awkward question. He had felt anger and frustration but never hatred. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “The way it happened. I didn’t plan it that way. I panicked, I think. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Charlie said. “It’s over.”

  Lisa wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  “And think of the good stuff,” he joked. “You don’t have to listen to any more opera.”

  Lisa laughed through her tears. She reached for his hand. He accepted it but somehow felt funny holding his wife’s hand. Somehow, he felt as if he were betraying Samantha. He let Lisa’s hand go.

  A few minutes later, Charlie stopped outside Samantha’s room. He could hear her talking to another woman—a nurse, he assumed.

  “This should teach me not to inite strange men into my house,” he heard Samantha say.

  “From the looks of it, you’re a lucky lady,” the woman said.

  “He ruined a perfectly good gam there,” Samantha said.

  “Nothing a garter belt couldn’t cover,” the woman said.

  Samantha laughed and said, “A garter belt? I have a friend thinks along the same lines as you.”

  Charlie leaned against the wall in the hallway. He couldn’t bring himself any closer to Samantha. The detective’s words haunted him.

  “You trying to get her killed, too?” Gold had asked.

  He pushed himself off the wall and turned away from the room. Detective Iandolli was waiting for him.

  “She might be better off, you keep your distance,” Iandolli said.

  “I’m in love with her,” Charlie said.

  “Then at least until this is settled,” Iandolli said.

  “And when’s that?”

  Iandolli couldn’t answer. “In the meantime, you’re doing the right thing.”

  The elevator doors opened, and Gold was standing there. Iandolli and Charlie stepped onto the elevator to join him. They rode the car down to the lobby in silence. When they got off, Charlie spotted Denton and walked his way. The detectives headed for the vending machines.

  Iandolli inserted a dollar bill into a soda machine and pushed a Diet Sprite button. The can of soda bounced its way down the chute to the open bin. Iandolli grabbed the soda and held the cold can against his forehead a few seconds before pulling the tab to open it.

  “He’s up against it,” Iandolli said.

  Gold made a face. “Pellecchia?”

  “Big time,” Iandolli said. “He won’t tell us anything about anything. He’s afraid for the girlfriend.”

  “Did you press him?”

  “What’s the point? How’d you make out with the other one?”

  “The lawyer?” Gold asked. “Forget about it. I threatened to involve the Effa-Bee-Eye, but he’s too well in tune with the law to bite.”

  “Lano left behind those pictures for his own reasons,” Iandolli said. “I think we can assume they each have a set. They probably think the film is protection of some kind.”

  “These two clowns can’t have delusions about getting away with this after another week or so,” Gold said.

  “That’s the other kicker,” Iandolli said. “I think Pellecchia intends to stay in Las Vegas. He’s in love.”

  Gold’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who does he think he is, this Pellecchia? Suppose we don’t want him here? Who the fuck does he think he is?”

  Iandolli laughed as he counted on his fingers. “A guy came to Vegas for a vacation with his wife, got dumped, got assaulted, found out his wife was assaulted, met some other broad who got shot by some nut chasing another broad all over the country. That’s the point, I guess. Pellecchia thinks we look stupid for even asking.”

  “Yeah, well, I got one of ours over at another hospital who’s staring at life for killing his wife. The doctors tell him he’ll never be able to speak again for the bullet he tried to kill himself with. So excuse me for not feeling any sympathy for Mr. Pellecchia right now.”

  “Well, our two out-of-town mobsters aren’t about to press charges,” Iandolli said. “Right about now, I’d say they’d both like to leave the country.”

  “Hey, it’s none of my fucking business anyway,” Gold said. “What happens to wiseguys or this other wiseass from N
ew York with his marital problems. Give him the key to the city, you want.”

  “I have another idea.”

  “I don’t know that I want to hear it.”

  Iandolli nodded. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  Chapter 49

  Minh Quan had heard from his wife immediately after the Italian was dead and cut up in the restaurant basement. She had told Minh they were waiting for a private sanitation truck to take his body parts away with the rest of the perishable garbage. One of Jerry Lercasi’s men had already delivered the balance on the contract. It was good news.

  When he called the hospital and learned that his brother had slipped into a coma, Minh’s good mood instantly turned sour. He hung up on the nurse explaining the situation as he stared at the man responsible. Charlie Pellecchia was standing with a detective Minh recognized from the local newspapers, somebody with an Italian name.

  Minh reached down under his seat and grabbed the 9mm Beretta he had brought with him. He racked the slide and set the gun on the passenger seat. He covered the gun with a plastic bag. He lit a cigarette and noted the time.

  If Minh had the opportunity, he would kill Pellecchia in a drive-by. He would wait until the detective was gone and pull up alongside the man who had clubbed his brother. Then he would beep his horn to get Pellecchia’s attention. Then he would shoot until the Beretta’s magazine was empty.

  Agent Thomas looked at pictures of Cuccia and Francone tied together on a bed at the Bellagio Hotel. He dropped the pictures on a folding table in a small office in the Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas. Federal agent Dale Walsh, the Special Agent In Charge with the FBI organized crime task force in Las Vegas, combed his reddish-gray hair back with both hands as Thomas rubbed his eyes.

  “You get any sleep?” Walsh asked.

  “No. Not a minute. Not for two days, I don’t think. Maybe three.”

  “I’ve been apprised of your situation,” Walsh said. “I spoke with your field supervisor back in New York. I spoke with our own people in New York as well. And I just spoke with a regional director in Washington.”