Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

Brenda stopped at the door to turn around and give Lercasi the finger. He broke out laughing.

Twenty minutes later, Allen Fein sat on the couch in the private apartment above the gym while Lercasi combed his hair in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the bar. The accountant was fidgety on the couch. He examined a pair of crystal dice on a glass coffee table. He seemed nervous waiting for Lercasi’s attention.

“How was Laughlin?” Lercasi asked.

“Huh?” Fein said. He dropped one of the crystal dice into his lap. “Oh, all right. I’m thinking of buying a condo there.”

Lercasi stopped to look at his accountant in the mirror. “You pay those kids you fucked last night?”

"Of course.”

Lercasi finished combing his hair. He turned to Fein as he struck a match to light a cigarette.

“I need a party tonight,” he said, with the unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and held the smoke inside his lungs a few seconds before letting it escape. “See what the mayor’s doing,” he added. “Or somebody on the City Council. Make it my party. Something public, where it’ll be picked up on the news.”

“Are you bringing your wife?” Fein asked. He set the two crystal dice back on the coffee table.

Lercasi opened his hands. “Am I bringing my wife? What kind of question is that? No, make it public, and I’ll bring Brenda. Of course I’m bringing my wife.”

“Should I know what it’s about?”

“Somebody skimmed thirty-two six last month from one of Gilly’s books. The somebody had a private line installed in one of his places a few months back for dime players. The tap come in last week. Thirty-two six in one month. Who knows how much the first five months before somebody figured it out.”

The accountant swallowed hard. “I see.”

“That’s already taken care of,” Lercasi said. He sat in a black leather recliner across from Fein. “Is it true you’re getting head in my massage rooms downstairs?”

“No,” Fein said defensively. “I don’t need to get my head in the massage rooms.”

“Brenda says you got some private noodle comes in to do you.”

“Not true. Besides, Brenda hates my guts.”

“Because I don’t need that kind of shit blowing up in my face over here. Some broad using my place to give head. You should know better than that.”

“You know what I like, Jerry. I don’t need to get my joint copped in a gymnasium. I like to look, if anything. The worst she does is remove her top. And I don’t know how Brenda would know unless she installed a camera.”

Lercasi smirked. He liked humiliating his accountant. “Just so long as you know what you’re doing,” he said. “After all, you’re my business manager, no?”

“Maybe you should tell Brenda about that,” Fein said, acting offended then.

Lercasi thought about the tuft of tissue between his girlfriend’s legs. “Brenda’s got other things to worry about,” he said. “Go make a party.”

When Fein left Vive la Body, he ignored the contemptuous stare of Lercasi’s girlfriend at the front desk. He was feeling lucky about having a built-in excuse for being in Laughlin the night before. He had avoided a potentially dangerous question-and-answer period with his boss. Had he not made arrangements to screw a couple of teenagers in the whorehouse in Laughlin, his boss might have looked into Fein’s sudden trip to the mountains.

Now his boss had other business for Fein to take care of. One of the bookmakers operating under Lercasi’s gambling business had skimmed money. Fein didn’t know whether the cash amount his boss mentioned was real, nor did he care to know. The bottom line was he was expected to arrange an alibi dinner for his boss tonight.

Which meant the bookmaker who had skimmed the money was going to die. Probably at the same time the party was going on.

Fein knew some of the names of bookmakers and pornographers in Las Vegas, but he didn’t study them. He figured he’d know within the next couple of days which one had robbed money from his boss. It would be all over the local news.

Nicholas Cuccia opened the package that was delivered to his room and held the tooth that was inside up to the light for examination. It was bloodstained above where the root of the tooth was broken. He winced at the thought of the pain a woman might feel from a broken tooth. He touched his jaw with his free hand. There was no way losing her tooth was as painful as his broken jaw.

He had spent most of his morning annoyed. The six-hour flight from Kennedy with the DEA agent the night before was bad enough. When Cuccia first checked into his hotel, he noticed the woman doing his check-in staring at his mouth. Then when he looked at himself in the wall mirror behind the registration desk, he noticed he was drooling.

After watching the local Las Vegas news and glancing through the newspapers, Cuccia knew that Charlie Pellecchia was still alive. If the professional his uncle had contracted to kill Pellecchia did his job, the hit man was keeping it a big secret.

All he had so far was the souvenir from Lisa Pellecchia’s mouth. Cuccia set the tooth on a night table and attempted to smile. He felt a sharp pain in his jaw. He slapped the tiny trophy off the night table and cursed under his breath.

He spent the rest of his morning observing the action around the pool with binoculars. When he was bored watching women take the sun, Cuccia used his cellular telephone to call his uncle back in Brooklyn.

“You call that guy?” he asked.

“Of course, sure,” the old man said.

“Because there’s nothing so far.”

“Oh, one fuckin’ day it’s been.”

“I’m just sayin’. Checkin’, you know.”

“Yeah, well, why don’t you stay off the phone. Go get some trim or somethin’. Call one a them joints out there. It’s legal in Nevada.”

“Right,” Cuccia said. “Maybe I will.”

Which was exactly what he did. He called Pleasure Times escort service and spoke to a man with an effeminate voice. He told the man he wanted two women, one black, one white, for a possible threesome. He expected the women to do a lesbian routine with a double-headed dildo. He expected them to follow his directions.

Then he asked if Pleasure Times knew of anyone he might score some cocaine from. The man with the effeminate voice explained that Pleasure Times was a legitimate escort service, which could not procure drugs of any kind for its clients.

The disclaimer annoyed Cuccia. He told the dispatcher to “just mention the cocaine to one of the girls.” Then he hung up and called the dispatcher a stupid fucking faggot cocksucker.

Later, he played the radio loud as he took a long, hot shower. He wondered how closely the DEA agent would watch him while he was in Las Vegas. He wondered if he would be able to set up his uncle with heroin charges before the mob indictments back in Brooklyn could affect the deal he had made with the government. He wondered if what the DEA had promised him was even possible anymore.

When he finished his shower, Cuccia thought he heard his telephone ringing. He stepped out of the shower and turned off the radio. He saw the message light blinking on the telephone and stepped out of the bathroom. Cuccia wiped his head with a towel as he listened to the messages.

On the first message, Joey Francone reported that Vincent Lano had disappeared the night before. Cuccia scowled as he waited for the second message.

It was Francone again, his voice somewhat more urgent this time. Lano had taken some money with him.

“Shit,” Cuccia said. “What the fuck else can go wrong?o;

He listened to the third message and learned what else could go wrong.