Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

The hooker shifted her weight onto one leg. She turned to the side and asked Francone if he liked her lingerie.

Francone swallowed hard a second time. “Ah, yeah,” he said. “Who the fuck wouldn’t?”

She licked her lips as she smiled. Francone hardly noticed. He seemed stunned by her beauty. He wondered for the second time since he had met her if hookers could change into normal broads. He wondered if there were any you could ever change enough to take home and maybe settle down with.

Charlie stopped in his room to grab his suitcase and as much as he could pack in a few minutes after beating the Asian kid unconscious outside the elevators. He figured he had at least a few minutes before someone discovered the unsuccessful assassin. He guessed he had another five to ten minutes after that before somebody might try his room.

He packed quickly. He tossed whatever clothes were hanging in the closet into the suitcase. He grabbed his cigarettes and airline tickets from the table. He packed the baseball bat in with his clothes. He ignored the toiletries except for his bottle of Pavarotti cologne. He stood at the end of the bed to give the room a once-over look when he noticed the message light blinking on the telephone.

There were three more messages on his voice mail. Charlie played them back. The first two were hang-ups. The last message was from his wife’s boyfriend, John Denton.

Denton’s voice was telling Charlie that he had been visited by one of the men who had assaulted Lisa. The man had given Denton the names of the men responsible for the assault. Denton wanted to talk to Charlie. Denton wasn’t sure if he was going to the police.

Charlie remembered that the DEA agent had given him a card. He took it out of his wallet but could only stare at it. The agent was the same clown who had told Charlie that he was safe.

He heard a commotion in the hallway and pressed his ear against the door. He could the sound of a radio. Then he heard someone talking into the radio.

“We need an ambulance,” he heard someone say. “Someone was mugged outside the elevators. I think he’s unconscious. He’s bleeding pretty bad.”

Charlie figured it was safe to leave the hotel again. He went back to the telephone to call Samantha first. As he reached for the phone, it began to ring.

Lano reached Francone at the room they were supposed to be sharing at the Bellagio. He tried to whisper into the telephone, faking an occasional cough when it wasn’t a real one.

“Where the fuck you been?” Francone asked in his best angry voice.

“The hospital,” Lano said through a hoarse whisper. “I was spitting up blood soon as I left you. I couldn’t breathe. I came to the hospital. They kept me here for tests.”

“And you couldn’t return our beeps?”

“No,” Lano said. “They put me through the emergency room. They took all my stuff to give me tests. I was naked, for Christ sakes.”

“I hope you still got that five grand.”

“Yeah, I got it. I put it away in the car before I went in the hospital. They put me to sleep with these fuckin’ drugs. I’m at the hospital now. I’m gettin’ released in a few minutes.”

“It’s those fuckin’ cigarettes. They finally caught up with you.”

“I know. You were right. I think I got cancer. They want to do a biopsy tomorrow. They got a big spot on my lungs on the X-ray thing. Like a softball, the doctor said.”

“You throw away your cigarettes yet?”

“I will now. I have to.”

“Yeah, right,” Francone said with a laugh. “In the meantime, get your ass back over here. Nicky’s fuckin’ crazy we didn’t know where you were.”

“I’ll be there as soon as they release me,” Lano said. He waited for Francone to hang up. Lano held the receiver to his ear until the line was dead. He held down the receiver for a new dial tone, then said, “And then I’ll shoot you right in the fuckin’ face.”

“Sorry for the interruption,” Francone told the hooker.

“I usually don’t spend so much time with a client,” the hooker said. She was stroking Francone’s chest hairs while he talked on the telephone. They lay beside each other on the bed.

Francone pushed the hooker back gently so he could turn toward her. “With that face you could charge me a million,” he said.

“You’re nice,” she said. “Most of my clients aren’t so nice. Most of them I don’t even talk to.”

“Don’t consider me a client,” Francone said. “Take the money, but don’t consider me a client. I sure don’t consider you a whoah.”

Lano had called Francone from a pay phone on the Strip. He had baited the punk for a reaction that might hint at what Cuccia’s plans were, but the muscle-bound wannabe seemed preoccupied. Francone’s only real concern was about the five thousand dollars Lano had run off with.

Now Lano craved another hit of nicotine. He was anxious to get to Cuccia and Francone before they got to him.

Lano headed south on the Strip. He was thinking about Francone. He would take care of the pretty boy first. Maybe shoot him in the chin Francone was always scratching when he made believe he could think.

Then he would find their skipper, Nicholas Cuccia. Lano planned on shooting the young boss in the mouth. Hopefully, when he jammed the gun in Cuccia’s mouth, he would rebreak the bone Charlie Pellecchia had fractured in the New York nightclub.

Lisa Pellecchia awoke in the late afternoon after having undergone a third oral surgery. She felt dehydrated and exhausted.

She was hooked up to several intravenous tubes. She assumed that that was how she would be fed until her mouth healed. Lisa was aware of what had happened to her, but she wasn’t clear about the damage inside her mouth.

She knew she was missing at least one upper front tooth. She could feel the gap with her tongue if she dared press it against her teeth. When she did brave the pain, the gap felt bigger than one tooth.

So far it had been like a nightmare. She wondered if Charlie was safe or in danger or alive or dead. The man who had punched Lisa was one of the men in the nightclub back in New York. She had recognized him just before her brain could process the information in time for her to defend herself at the motel.

She felt the stitches inside her mouth with her tongue again. She could still taste the blood. She wondered if John was with her at the hospital, if he was resting somewhere in the lobby, or if he was with the police. Lisa was too drugged to move anything except her eyes and tongue. She wished she could move her arm to the remote control to call for a nurse. When she turned her head to find the remote, a streak of pain raced through her head.

She closed her eyes and lay motionless.

Agent Thomas couldn’t make his wife understand the demands of his job. She was fed up with him not being home. She was tired of sleeping alone. She was sick from worrying.

Thomas told his wife things would get better as soon as he finished with the case he was working.

“Another few days,” he told her. “No more than a week.”

They had been married a little more than three years. When she hung up on him, Thomas wasn’t sure if they would make it to their fourth year.

So far the indictments back in Brooklyn were falling around Anthony Cuccia. Two captains directly under the sixty-five-year old underboss were charged with federal racketeering violations. Thomas didn’t know the specifics of the indictments except for the leverage that RICO statutes carried.

Ten years was a long time. Mobsters were trading information for a lot less than ten years. It was added pressure for Thomas. If either of the two captains indicted were to cut a deal of their own with the organized crime task force, his potential drug case against Anthony Cuccia could fall apart. The last three weeks of his surveillance would have been for nothing.