Charlie Opera (24 page)

Charlie explained everything that had happened as they walked through a staff parking lot. He told the detective about the fight in the New York nightclub and the subsequent turn of events since he had come to Las Vegas on vacation. Iandolli listened carefully. He excused himself when his cell phone rang.

Charlie looked back at the hospital while the detective spoke on the cell phone. Charlie stared at the rooms on the third floor. One of them was Samantha’s room.

Iandolli folded his cell phone and frowned at Charlie. “That was Gold,” he said.

“My pal.”

Iandolli waved a finger at Charlie. “He’s having a rough couple days,” he said. “A kid on the force he was close to killed his wife and tried to commit suicide in the middle of all this yesterday. Gold’s under a lot of stress.”

Charlie remained silent.

“He just reviewed the videotapes at Harrah’s,” Iandolli said. “The kid who tried to cut you is with a local Vietnamese gang here in Las Vegas.”

“Great,” Charlie said. “Everybody wants a piece of me.”

“You mentioned the Asian kids with the cars stopping you and your girlfriend, right?”

Charlie nodded.

“That had to come from here,” Iandolli explained. “From one of our wiseguys here in Las Vegas. Jerry Lercasi, specifically.”

“This mean I’m moving to the Philippines?”

“I’m afraid they can probably get you there, too. But I’m pretty sure I can deal with Lercasi. Especially since yesterday.”

Charlie looked confused as he opened the door. Iandolli waved at him to get in the car. “I’ll explain later,” he said. “Let’s take a ride.”

Bouncing bedsprings in the room next door woke Francone. He called Caesar’s Palace to make sure Anthony Rizzi was still checked in. After he left a phone message for Rizzi, Francone washed himself and left the dump of a motel.

He was still feeling pain from the stitches in his rectum as he sat in a taxi. He popped the last two painkillers while on his way to Caesar’s Palace. As soon as he could find a water fountain inside the casino, Francone drank until his stomach hurt.

He used a house telephone to call Rizzi’s room. The wannabe from Jersey City answered on the second ring.

“Anthony, it’s Joey,” Francone said.

“Ah-oh, hey, what’s up?” Rizzi asked, sounding nervous. “I-ah, I’ve been trying to get you guys for two days already.”

“I’m here now,” Francone said. “I’m downstairs by the sports book, but I can’t come up without a hotel card. Come down and bring me back up.”

“The sports book?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m watching the track screens and having a drink. Hurry up.”

When he hung up with Rizzi, Francone wasn’t sure if the stitches in his rectum would hold if he kept moving around. He found a chair with a desktop to sit at. He asked a cocktail waitress for an orange juice and a glass of water. There was no point drinking booze, he was thinking. Between the medication he was taking and the fact that it had been more than two full days since his last decent workout, how could he poison his body with booze?

Anthony Rizzi told the valet that he had changed his mind about checking out but would he please take the bags downstairs anyway. The valet looked confused until Rizzi palmed him a twenty-dollar bill.

“I got a friend’s gonna stay in my place until the end of the week,” Rizzi said.

“That’s fine with me, sir,” the valet said. “You want I should prepare these here bags for a taxi? I’ll keep ’em close to the bell desk.”

“That’ll be fine, buddy,” Rizzi said.

He waited until the valet left before stopping to examine himself in a mirror. Rizzi was minutes from leaving Las Vegas and his New York mobster friends for good. He had talked it over with his brother back in New Jersey and decided that a mob life wasn’t for him after all. He would return to New Jersey and talk to somebody in law enforcement about the truck Nicholas Cuccia had asked him to keep in one of his warehouses. Rizzi wasn’t exactly sure what was inside the truck, but he knew it was hot.

He stood up straight and nodded at himself in the mirror. Francone was waiting for him downstairs. It was time to get out of there.

He took the elevator down to the lobby, crossed the huge casino floor, and found the sports book. He spotted Francone sitting at one of the desks, but the young bodybuilder wasn’t watching the screens. Francone seemed to be leaning forward as he touched himself in the crack of his ass.

“Joey?” Rizzi asked from behind.

Francone shifted fast on his chair. His face expressed pain when he looked up at Rizzi. “Hemorrhoids,” he said. “Most painful fuckin’ thing in the world.”

Rizzi watched as Francone struggled out from the desk he was sitting at. “Everything all right?” Rizzi asked when he noticed his friend was limping.

“Not since I got these. But there are a few problems. You talk to Nicky yet?”

“Nicky? Ah, no, not yet. I’ve been trying to get you guys.”

Francone grabbed onto one of Rizzi’s arms for support. “Why don’t we go upstairs and talk about it. It ain’t good. Lano, that rat, did a flip on us while he’s out here. He turned on Nicky.”

Rizzi felt his stomach drop.

“Why don’t you go up and I’ll be right there,” he said. “I was just going to get some money out of the deposit box.”

Francone had looked upset that Rizzi was excusing himself. Then, at the mention of getting money, Francone seemed at ease again. “Money? Yeah, that’s always a good idea. Gimme the room key and I’ll use the bathroom while you’re down here.”

“Sure,” Rizzi said. He handed Francone the flat electronic room key. “I’ll be right up.”

Francone stopped Rizzi. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You didn’t even kiss me hello.”

Rizzi leaned forward to exchange the traditional cheek kisses. The two men exchanged phony smiles.

“Don’t lose anything on the way back up,” Francone joked.

Rizzi continued to smile until Francone wasn’t looking. Then he walked away as fast as he could.

“This unofficial harassment or the official kind?” Jerry Lercasi asked Detective Iandolli. The gangster ignored Charlie.

The three men stood behind the building model on the Palermo construction site. Charlie noticed that they were standing fewer than ten yards from where he had been assaulted. He looked back to the ditch where he had been left unconscious. The ditch was half-filled with gravel now.

“I wanted you to meet somebody,” Iandolli told the Las Vegas gangster.

Lercasi nodded without looking at Charlie.

“His name is Charlie Pellecchia,” Iandolli continued. “He’s the poor bastard some wiseguy from New York is trying to kill.”

Lercasi glanced at Charlie and turned back to the detective. “He looks alive to me,” he said.

“He looks better than your accountant.”

“My accountant? What happened to him now?”

Iandolli held both his hands up. “Let’s not blow smoke at each other.”

Lercasi looked in the direction of a bulldozer pushing dirt about a hundred yards from where the three men were standing. “I’m listening,” he said.

“I want a trade-off,” Iandolli said. “This guy gets a pass for information you can use when the shit hits the fan back East.”

Lercasi shrugged. “What makes you think I can do anything for this guy?”

“Some Vietnamese kid in a hospital downtown,” Iandolli said. “He got his head cracked trying to stab Mr. Pellecchia here. That one had to go through you, whether Nicholas Cuccia approached you or not.”

“You give me way too much credit, pal.”

“So let’s make believe it went through you. For argument sake. The bottom line is you can get him a pass.”

“Really? You think I’m that powerful, huh?”

“I know it. Which is why I don’t want to go back and forth with you right now, just to waste time. I have something you can give to New York in exchange for that pass for Mr. Pellecchia here. So when he goes home, he doesn’t have to hide under a couch.”

“I’ll ask you again,” Lercasi said. “What makes you think I can do anything in New York?”

“Because Allen Fein arranged the assault at the Palermo,” Iandolli said. “And he arranged the assault of a woman at a motel in town. Which you have to know by now or else Allen Fein wouldn’t have a tag on his foot in the city morgue.”

“That’s very dramatic,” Lercasi said.

“And true,” Iandolli said. “Hey, nobody is complaining. The world is definitely a better place. Maybe the Feds care. Maybe not.”

Lercasi checked his watch. “I’m running a little late,” he said. “You want to tell me what I get out of all this?”

“Information. Except first I want your word that you’ll help Mr. Pellecchia here. You call off the Viet Cong and talk to New York.”

“What’s the information?”

“Say the magic word.”

Lercasi thought about it a few seconds, then said, “I’ll do what I can.”

“Nicholas Cuccia and the DEA,” Iandolli said.

Lercasi was impressed. “The DEA?”

“The one and only. Which means you’ll have clout dealing with New York.”

“What about proof? I won’t have anything but a headache without proof.”

“Trust me,” Iandolli said. “I have pictures.”

Lercasi seemed impressed again. “They say those are worth a thousand words,” he said. “Still, I can’t make promises.”

“I know how that is,” Iandolli said. “It’s the same way for me sometimes. I say I can do things, then find out later I can’t deliver. You’re going to get some federal flak from what’s been going on here this week. If things don’t happen the way we agreed, for Mr. Pellecchia here, there might be a few new things you can’t avoid.”

“Things like what? I’m just curious.”

“Whatever our surveillance picked up,” Iandolli said. “Where you ate yesterday. Who you ate with. A few back-and-forth telephone calls to the same restaurant. A surveillance tape with Mr. Fein and Nicholas Cuccia and another one of the New York crew. The Feds are much more meticulous than us local yokels, should they get the tape. They’d probably look into every detail, an indictment at a time. I don’t have to turn that information over to the Feds. It could slip my mind.”

Lercasi looked from Charlie to Iandolli. “Suppose they already have it, the Feds?”

“You’d be in cuffs by now,” Iandolli said. “This place would be crawling with Feds. Your gym, your house, all your other fronts in this town. They’d be upside down from search warrants. This is a tourist town, Jerr. Nobody wants violence like this. Much less in the hotels themselves.”

Lercasi nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m not done yet,” Iandolli said. “There’s something else.”

Lercasi looked to Charlie. “You his brother or something?”

Charlie didn’t flinch.

“Beau Curitan,” Iandolli said.

“Beau who?” Lercasi said.

Iandolli unfolded his notepad. He wrote the name out on a blank sheet of paper and handed it to Lercasi. He pointed at the name as he pronounced each letter. “C-U-R-I-T-A-N,” he said. “Curitan. Pronounced just like it’s spelled. He was last seen speeding toward the Strip after he tried to rape a woman. He did manage to shoot her in the leg.”

Lercasi stared at the paper.

“You have friends across the good state of Nevada,” Iandolli continued. “Some in the auto repair and used-car businesses. Maybe they’d like to help catch an abusive husband who tried to rape some poor woman, then shot her when he couldn’t. In the event the guy tried to switch or sell a car, I mean.”

“And this would be an unofficial request or an unofficial favor?” Lercasi asked.

Iandolli turned to Charlie. “Does it make a difference to you?”

Charlie glared at both men. He didn’t think any of it was funny.

When Agent Thomas saw Cuccia, the mobster was still groggy from painkillers. Cuccia’s mouth was sore from a fresh fracture to his jawbone. Two of his teeth were missing. Both lips on the left side of his face were swollen.

Thomas was anxious to get Cuccia out of the hospital. He was working with a thin grace period the FBI had provided him because Allen Fein was dead. He hustled Cuccia to get dressed.

“I don’t care your jaw hurts,” he said. “We have a flight out of here in three hours. We’re going to make it.”

Cuccia was sitting on the bed. He wiped drool and blood from his mouth with a napkin.

“You can’t say you didn’t deserve it,” Thomas continued. “This Pellecchia rebroke your jaw because you asked for it. Good for him. It’ll give you something to think about on the flight back.”

Thomas stood alongside Cuccia’s bed. He set an envelope with copies of the embarrassing pictures on a table.

“Where’s Francone?” Cuccia asked. He had to push the words from his mouth.

“Let’s go,” Thomas said. “Up and in the bathroom. Wash yourself and put your clothes on. We’re out of here in ten minutes.”

“Where’s Francone?”

“I have no clue. Probably in Singapore somewhere.”

Cuccia wasn’t moving yet. “Where —”

“Get dressed,” Thomas said. “I’m serious, we don’t have time to play around here. Not if you don’t want the FBI to take over.”

Cuccia slid off the edge of his bed. He winced from the pain in his jaw when his feet touched the floor. He pointed to the envelope on the table. “What’s that?”

“If you don’t already know, you don’t wanna know.”

Cuccia took slow, deliberate steps to the bathroom. Thomas handed him his pants and shirt. “You have maybe a one-in-ten-million shot of keeping half your deal with us,” Thomas said. “Maybe, if you can get your uncle to move that heroin from here, over the phone. If not, you’re looking at life plus twenty or thirty years.”

“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“Just get dressed.”

On the drive to the Bellagio, Charlie wanted to know why the hell Detective Iandolli had introduced him to Jerry Lercasi and why the hell he had brought up Beau Curitan.

“What was the point?” Charlie asked. “I don’t understand what you two were talking about back there. Except for Beau Curitan. And I didn’t appreciate the game going on with that. The woman he tried to rape was my girlfriend.”

“I took a shot,” Iandolli said.