Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

After stalling his meeting with Renato Freni, Jerry Lercasi relaxed as he watched the highlights of a Dodgers-Giants game on satellite television. The next few days were going to be busy. He expected several more visits from the local authorities. He expected harassments from federal agents as well.

Then there would be the request for a meeting by the New York crew he would have to deal with. Without Allen Fein to run nterference, Lercasi was thinking he might have to handle New York by himself.

He was waiting for a call. He stretched his arms out wide as he yawned. He heard his bones crack as he tightened his arm muscles.

When the telephone rang, Lercasi picked up the receiver but didn’t speak.

“Your order is ready,” a woman with an accent said.

“I think you have a wrong number,” Lercasi said.

After taking care of all the business he could think of for one day, Lercasi thought about finishing the day off with some more Chinese. He dialed the reception desk and asked if Brenda was still around. When the girl working the desk told Lercasi that his girlfriend was gone for the day, he asked about the Asian woman who was giving Mr. Fein his massages the past few days.

Was she free? Lercasi wanted to know. And did she want a permanent job working at Vive la Body?

Joey Francone received five stitches in his rectum at the emergency room. He was given codeine for his pain and gauze bandaging for the bleeding. He was told the stitches would dissolve but that it would be a good idea to come back to the hospital in a few days to have the wound checked.

Francone was too embarrassed to care what the doctors in the emergency room had told him. He wanted out of there. He needed to find Nicholas Cuccia.

When he searched for his boss, Francone spotted two men he knew were federal agents outside the recovery room. He didn’t bother to ask why they were there. Cuccia had either made a deal or was about to. Francone wasn’t sticking around to find out.

Suddenly he saw himself for what he was in the bigger picture of the Vignieri crime family. He was a “nobody” in the mob world. Cuccia was a made man, a “somebody.” Cuccia also was a skipper running his own crew, somebody directly linked to an underboss. Cuccia had clout. Francone had nothing.

This was one reason why he retraced his steps to the emergency room. He saw a pocketbook hanging from the back of a chair in the waiting area and snatched it. He found an exit and left the hospital. He knew he couldn’t head back to the Bellagio yet, so he limped two blocks in pain to a taxi stand in front of a shopping mall instead. He waited ten minutes before a taxi could take him to a cheap motel off the Strip.

Francone was grateful for what was inside the small purse: $253. He paid for the taxi with a $10 bill and stashed the rest of the cash inside his pants pocket.

He took a room at a short-stay dump for one night. He left a $20 bill for local telephone calls at the front desk. Francone called Anthony Rizzi at Caesar’s Palace to make sure the wannabe still was in Las Vegas. Rizzi was supposed to meet them with cash reinforcements. Rizzi was one way out of Las Vegas. Francone wasn’t sure if there was another.

Once he was checked out of his motel in Las Vegas, Beau Curitan drove south on Highway 95. Beau had never meant for things to get so carried away. He never intended to shoot the woman hiding his wife. He never intended to touch or to undress her.

Except Samantha Cole had seemed to respond to his teasing as she awoke from her chloroform sleep. It was just like the abducted women in the paperback books Beau had read. Samantha seemed to enjoy what he was doing to her. He swore she had responded verbally to his advances. He was positive he had heard her say “Yes.”

Now Beau was fleeing the scene of what he guessed would be breaking and entering, assault, attempted rape, and attempted murder charges. He pulled off the highway when he spotted a cheap motel. He took a room for a short stay while he tried to retrace what had gone so wrongor him. Beau realized he had stolen money and credit cards from the wallet in Samantha’s purse. Taking the money and credit cards would add robbery to the list of charges he was fleeing.

Then he realized he had left his gun behind, a Beretta.380 his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday.

He needed to get out of Nevada. He was sure the state police had a description of his car. They might even have his license plate numbers. Beau needed to either change cars or license plate numbers or have the car painted. He checked outside his window and saw he could steal license plates from another car parked in the lot.

He used the telephone book to locate used-car dealers and mechanics. The nearest city Beau recognized on a map was Laughlin, less than an hour’s drive. He unfolded his map of Nevada on the bed and plotted a route to the resort town in the mountains.

A drop of blood dripping from his nose landed on the map. Beau touched the tip of his nose and winced.

Charlie couldn’t bring himself to see Samantha yet. He had started and stopped twice. He decided to see his wife first.

“It was kind of rushed,” he said when he was standing alongside her bed. “I thought you were out shopping.”

Lisa was trying to smile through her stitched mouth. “I felt horrible,” she said. “I still do.”

Charlie didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say. It was the first time he had spoken to his wife since she left him for another man. Each of them had since been assaulted. Each of them had suffered. Each of them had unknowingly dragged innocent victims into danger. Each of them was sorry for dragging out their own misery together.

“Are you all right?” Lisa asked.

Charlie managed a half smile. His wife didn’t know about the new woman in his life.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“What happens next?”

“Whatever you want. We sit down and file for divorce. I don’t expect either of us will contest anything.”

It was a half question. Lisa shook her head.

“It should go pretty fast,” Charlie said.

Lisa pointed to her face. “What about this other mess?”

“I think it’s over,” Charlie said. “Your friend John was a big help.” He wasn’t sure if it was his place to go any farther. He had no idea of what his wife was aware of. “I think he cares for you very much,” he added.

Lisa was silent. She began to cry as Charlie shifted from foot to foot alongside her bed.

“Do you hate me?” she asked.

It was an awkward question. He had felt anger and frustration but never hatred. “What makes you ask that?”

“Do you?”

“Of course not.”

“The way it happened. I didn’t plan it that way. I panicked, I think. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Charlie said. “It’s over.”

Lisa wiped her eyes with a tissue.

“And think of the good stuff,” he joked. “You don’t have to listen to any more opera.”

Lisa laughed through her tears. She reached for his hand. He accepted it but somehow felt funny holding his wife’s hand. Somehow, he felt as if he were betraying Samantha. He let Lisa’s hand go.

A few minutes later, Charlie stopped outside Samantha’s room. He could hear her talking to another woman-a nurse, he assumed.

“This should teach me not to inite strange men into my house,” he heard Samantha say.

“From the looks of it, you’re a lucky lady,” the woman said.

“He ruined a perfectly good gam there,” Samantha said.

“Nothing a garter belt couldn’t cover,” the woman said.

Samantha laughed and said, “A garter belt? I have a friend thinks along the same lines as you.”