Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

“Look, mister, I know how this looks,” the hooker said. “But he was into some strange shit.” She pointed at the plastic bag on the bed. “Look in there. He made me get one of those.”

Lano moved closer to the bed. He opened the bag with the barrel of the.380. His eyes squinted at the strap he saw inside the bag.

“The hell is it?” he asked. “A belt?”

“Look more,” she said.

Lano turned the bag upside down. Both the strap and the dildo spilled onto the bed. He looked from the items on the bed to Francone to the hooker and back. He laughed until he turned red from coughing.

“You all right?” the hooker asked.

“This is fuckin’ priceless,” he said through the rough coughing spell.

“You sure you’re all right? That’s some bad cough.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You should have it checked.”

Lano nodded. “I did.”

The hooker took a small step forward. “Can I go now?”

“You take anything of mine?”

“Just what was on him, I swear it.”

“You get his watch? It’s okay if you do. I want you to have it. That and that stupid fuckin’ money clip he carries.”

The hooker smiled. “I have them both.”

He remembered the envelope he was carrying inside his jacket pocket. He fished it out and tossed it to the hooker. “There’s a couple grand in there,” he said. “It’s yours now. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

The hooker felt the envelope with both hands and dropped it inside her bag. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

Lano motioned toward the door with his gun. “And be careful,” he said. “They’re not all as stupid as this one.”

Gold’s lower back was sore from sitting in the car. He was waiting for Iandolli and thinking about Donald Gentry. Knowing the young detective’s wife was embroiled in an Internal Affairs investigation was frightening. Gentry’s marital problems had gone from bad to worse.

Gold was exhausted. He cracked the front window to light a cigarette. He jumped when the front passenger door suddenly opened.

“Get some sleep?” Iandolli asked. He was holding two containers of coffee. He handed one to Gold.

“Catnaps,” Gold said. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Technically, I’m off the next two days.”

Iandolli set his coffee on the dashboard. “Internal Affairs has them on tape,” he said. “Gentry’s wife picked up a few envelopes for Wilkes. Then she took it a step farther and deposited them in a safe-deposit box. Both their names on it.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Exactly. So they’ll definitely drag her in when the pick up Wilkes. I don’t know they’ll charge her with anything, but they’ll definitely use her to lean on Wilkes.”

Gold was staring out the windshield. “When’s this happen?”

“Nobody’s saying.”

“Of course not.”

Iandolli touched Gold’s right arm. “There’s something else,” he said. “Wilkes is on tape with Allen Fein. Fein is Lercasi’s front man in and about town. His legit man.”

Gold was confused. “You said Wilkes is dirty. So?”

Iandolli frowned. “Guess who else is on the same tape?”

“Al, I’m not in the mood for Jeopardy right now.”

“You,” Iandolli said. “Twice. My guys taped it. Organized crime. You approached Wilkes yesterday, right?”

Gold was nodding defiantly. “To warn him about Donald Gentry, yeah.”

“Then you approached Jennifer Gentry. Internal Affairs didn’t know what it was about. Neither did my guys. You understand what I’m saying? It looked dirty, Abe. Like maybe you and Wilkes and Fein -”

“Don’t tell me this,” Gold said. “Please don’t tell me this.”

Iandolli waited.

“What, there’s more?” Gold asked. “Of course the fuck there is. What else?”

Iandolli took an extra moment. “You can’t warn Gentry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Abe.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“Abe?”

“Why the fuck not?”

Iandolli needed a distraction. He reached for his coffee cooling off on the dashboard. “Because Internal Affairs and my guys know that you know about Wilkes.”

Gold shook his head. “Come again? How the fuck do they know that?”

“Because I had to tell them,” Iandolli said. “I had no choice. It’s why I mentioned it in the first place, about you being on tape with Wilkes and Jennifer Gentry. Internal Affairs and my guys wanted to know why. I had no choice, Abe. I had to tell them.”

“About me, yeah. I can understand that. But why tell them about Gentry’s old lady? You told them that?”

“They already knew about the affair. From surveillance on Wilkes. They knew she was seeing Wilkes. They knew about the safe-deposit box.”

“Fuck me,” Gold said.

“I had no choice,” Iandolli continued. “Or they wanted to know what you were doing with Wilkes.”

“And you,” Gold said. “And what I was doing with you?”

“Right,” Iandolli said without looking at Gold. “So I covered both our asses.”

Gold opened his window all the way and tossed his coffee into the street in disgust.

“You’re here watching for Jennifer Gentry,” Iandolli said. “You’re doing another cop a favor. I’m here watching for Allen Fein. I’m doing my job. It’s how I’m selling this thing right now.”

Gold closed his eyes.

“You okay?” Iandolli asked.

“No,” Gold said. “I’m not. Not at all.”

It was a while before Joey Francone awoke from his drug-induced sleep. When he did, Vincent Lano was the first person he saw. Francone’s pupils dilated from the light. His mind was groggy. His speech was slurred.

“Ah-ohhh,” he said, still not aware he was tied. “What the faaaa?”

“Smile,” Lano said.

“What?” Francone said as he struggled to move his arms. He looked around himself a few more times before he realized he was tied. The flash from the camera blinded him.

“What the fuck?” he said as his eyes struggled to refocus.

Lano laid the dildo across the wannabe’s neck for the next picture. Francone struggled to see what it was. Another flash from the camera blinded him a second time.

“What the fuck arrrr ou doin’?”

“Takin’ pictures,” Lano said. He had gone down to the lobby to buy a disposable camera a few minutes after the hooker had left. As soon as Lano saw the strap and dildo, his plans changed. Instead of killing Francone, he decided to take pictures.

He grabbed the dildo by its base and moved it to Francone’s mouth. “Open up,” he said.

The wannabe moved his head to one side. Lano grabbed him by the hair and yanked back until Francone’s mouth opened. Lano jammed the dildo into his mouth. The thick rubber shaft split a corner of the wannabe’s lip. Francone immediately gagged. Lano held the dildo in place with one hand as he took a picture of it with the other. Then he pulled the dildo out as Francone coughed his way out of choking.

“Now,” Lano said, “you wanna position yourself for the next shot, or should I?”

Agent Thomas commandeered a taxi with his badge outside the hotel lobby. He had ordered the driver to run red lights and get him to Harrah’s as fast as possible. They made the drive in just under ten minutes.

Thomas went straight to the security desk inside the casino and flashed his badge a second time. Hotel security was summoned by radio. Ten minutes later, Thomas was inside the room the Pellecchia couple had reserved for their six-night vacation.

The head of hotel security filled Thomas in on the assault that had occurred outside the elevator banks on the same floor earlier. A hotel guest found an Asian teenager sprawled unconscious on the rug. The rug was still stained with blood. Nobody knew what had happened. Security assumed the Asian kid had tried to rob somebody off the elevator. When the kid was finally conscious, the security guard told Thomas, he wasn’t talking.