Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

Then John Denton thought better of everything and called the police anyway. He asked to speak to a Detective Abe Gold.

Gina Iandolli suddenly appeared at the far end of the driveway. She stood at the gate of the fence blocking off the yard. She was a short, thin woman with long, dark hair. She wore a light blue housedress and white sneakers.

“You gu want something to eat?” she yelled. “I’m about to turn the grill off.”

Gold waved to Gina from the driveway. “I have to run. Thanks anyway.”

Gina waved back and disappeared behind the house.

Gold pointed toward the yard. “You’re a lucky man,” he told Iandolli.

“I know,” Iandolli said.

Gold folded the report and started to stuff it inside his jacket pocket. “It’s all right I hold on to these?”

“I don’t know how much it’ll help. In the meantime, I stopped by to rouse Jerry Lercasi.”

“You think there’s a chance Lercasi okayed this thing at the Palermo?”

“No way. That was an end run, if it had anything to do with his crew at all.”

“Think you’ll ever know for sure?”

Iandolli nodded. “Sure,” he said. “If another Benny Bensognio turns up the next few weeks, we’ll know. Lercasi has a nasty habit of killing people who fuck with him.”

“You ask around about Gentry? The kid I told you about with the marital problems?”

“Yeah. And it ain’t good.”

Gold’s face tightened. “This gonna hurt?”

“I’ll know more in about half an hour, you want to stick around. Otherwise, I suggest you find your way to this apartment they gave me.” He pulled his wallet from his front pocket and sifted through the papers stuffed inside for an address. He showed Gold. “Park down the street from this address and wait for me.”

“What’s it about?”

“Her boyfriend,” Iandolli said. “The one Mrs. Gentry is playing around with, Officer Wilkes. The kid is dirty.”

Gold slumped where he stood. “I already spoke to him.”

Iandolli put a hand on Gold’s shoulder. “Internal Affairs knows all about the affair,” he said. “Gentry’s wife was picking up envelopes.”

Gold cursed through his clenched teeth.

Joey Francone managed to find a hooker who was cruising the casino. She was a tall blonde he guessed was in her late twenties. She wore a tight-fitting, red-sequin dress.

She was playing the dollar slots, a dollar at a time, when he first met her. She smiled at him when he stopped to look her over. She said hello to Francone, then smirked as soon as he asked her if she was a “whoah.”

Francone negotiated with her outside the hotel entrance. They both faced the giant pond with the high-tech fountains. Beyond the fountains and the pond, the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard was heavy.

“You know what a strap is?” Francone asked.

The hooker held her cigarette out for him to light. He frowned as he fished his front pants pocket for a book of matches. Francone hated smoking. Carrying matches was a prerequisite to hanging around wiseguys. Wannabes waiting to move up had to light their cigarettes.

He held the match to the end of the hooker’s cigarette and waited again for an answer as she took her time inhaling.

“Do you know what a strap is?” he repeated.

“A strap-on. Sure. For a dildo, right?”

“I have no fucking idea. You think this shit is for me?”

The hooker’s eyebrows rose. “Who’s it for, then?”

“A friend.”

“A friend?”

“A friend, yeah. A friend.”

The hooker wet her lips before taking a long dra on her cigarette. “Well, tell your friend it’ll cost him five hundred an hour without the strap-on act. The dildo-up-the-ass routine will cost him more.”

Francone laughed as he held both hands up. “Oh, oh, oh,” he said. “I just need you to buy the fucking thing, not jam it up his ass. Besides, I think he’s the type would wanna do the jammin’, honey, not the other way around.”

The hooker smirked at Francone before looking him off. “You really think that, huh?”

“Forget about it,” Francone said, somewhat less sure of himself then. “What do you want to buy the thing? Just to buy it.”

The hooker sucked hard on her cigarette. “Two hundred,” she said. “Plus the cost, about another fifty. At least another fifty. Maybe more. You don’t want something that might break. Not on your friend.”

Francone waved his hands. “Are you fuckin’ nuts? You want two hundred bucks to walk into a store and buy something with my fuckin’ money?”

“Two hundred,” she said. “Or your friend can try sitting on his own dick.”

“It ain’t for him to sit on!” Francone nearly yelled.

The hooker took another drag on her cigarette. “Then what’s it for, hon?”

Francone scratched at his chin. “Just give me a price,” he said after a while.

“Two hundred,” she repeated. “The time it will take me to go get it, I could make a lot more than two hundred bucks, honey. We’re talking about at least an hour of my time, and I already told you what that’ll cost. I’m not cheap.”

Francone counted ten twenty-dollar bills from his money clip. “Fuckin’ robbery,” he said. “You’re a thief is what you are.”

The hooker took the money and pointed to the cab stand line. “We’ll need one of those, sport. Unless you trust me to meet you back here.”

“Let’s go,” Francone said as he placed a hand on her back to guide her. “I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”

The hooker winked at him. “You’re a smart one, all right.”

Cuccia spotted the blonde with the perfect ass and the nasty attitude through his binoculars. She was lying on her stomach on a lounge near the Jacuzzis. The tall black man sat up beside her. Cuccia could see the black man pouring lotion into one of his hands.

Cuccia had just taken a long, hot shower. He was wearing a complimentary terry-cloth hotel robe. He leaned against the windows and focused on the crack of the blonde’s ass through the binoculars. The thin white strap of her thong disappeared in the crevice. It excited Cuccia. He reached inside his robe to masturbate.

When he finished, Cuccia washed himself off again in the shower. He had some time before Francone would return with a hooker. Cuccia was anxious to see what Francone would bring him. He was hoping for a blonde.

There were two women Charlie guessed were prostitutes sitting in a car in the lot behind a strip joint on Hacienda Boulevard. The one behind the wheel was a tall redhead. The one in the passenger seat was short and wearing a dark wig. He approached the car with his hands held up above his shoulders.

“I’m not a cop,” he said.

“Who asked?” the woman in the passenger seat said.

Charlie stopped a few feet from the car and let his hands down. “Can I ask you ladies a question?”

“Fifty for half an hourdquo; the short woman said.

“Thirty for straight head but you have fifteen minutes,” the redhead added.

“Unless you want us both,” the short one said. “One-twenty for half an hour.”

“I’m looking for a gun,” Charlie said. “Like I said, I’m not a cop.”

The driver leaned across her friend and winked at Charlie. “Looks like you been beat up by a few,” she said.

“They weren’t cops.”

“How do you know we aren’t?” the short one asked.

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know that. How can you prove you’re not?”

The short one opened the door and turned to face Charlie. She spread her legs and raised the short skirt she was wearing. Charlie saw her bare crotch and turned his head.

“You’re not cops,” he said.