Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

Now he realized that he might need one to stay alive. He pocketed the handgun until he was inside the rental. He pulled the handgun out and shoved it under the front seat. When he spotted an Asian kid standing near a pay phone alongside the motel office, Charlie slid off the front seat without thinking about the gun.

Walsh directed his men from the suite of Nicholas Cuccia in the Bellagio Hotel. He watched as a team of emergency medical staff tried to stabilize the DEA agent on a stretcher. Thomas was bleeding from an open wound in the side of his head. Walsh recognized bone chips around the wound.

“Have hotel security block every exit in the hotel and casino,” Walsh told one of his men. “Get through to the office for every available man in the area. I want an all-points on Nicholas Cuccia right now. I want an all-points on Joseph Francone as well. I want both of those men taken pronto. Contact the locals. Have them take over security downstairs as soon as they arrive.”

Walsh handed his cellular telephone to another one of his men. “Get DEA on the line right now and explain the situation. We have one of their men down with a possible skull fracture. Give it back to me when you have a supervisor.”

Walsh knew his chances of finding Cuccia were small. His team had waited outside the Bellagio for more than half an hour before he and one of his men decided to check up on the DEA agent. Thomas and Cuccia were scheduled to leave Las Vegas on a nine-o’clock flight. He had tried to page Thomas twice before he suspected something was wrong.

Now the New York wiseguy was missing. Walsh guessed Cuccia had a fifteen-minute head start on them. He wasn’t sure where Cuccia would try to run, but the New York mobster had the cash, a credit card, and the agent’s handgun.

Walsh figured both the airport and the train station would be a waste of time. Cuccia had to know he couldn’t show his face at either place, although most times desperate men did desperate things.

“Get Iandolli on the phone!” Walsh yelled. “Have him call me back pronto. Get a fax of Cuccia to the airport and train station security. Get one to every hotel registration desk in Las Vegas. Get one to the car rental agencies, the tour buses, and the tour helicopters.”

Walsh ordered one of his men to stay behind. He watched one of the medical team insert an intravenous needle in Thomas’s arm. He looked at Thomas’s eyes, but the agent was unconscious. Walsh tapped his Smith & Wesson 9mm strapped in a shoulder holster. He glanced back at Thomas one last time and heador the door.

“What the fuck?” Gold said.

They were watching the fistfight from the street alongside the motel parking lot. Charlie Pellecchia had approached a man using a pay telephone. When the man turned, Iandolli saw he was Asian.

“Let’s go,” Iandolli instructed his driver.

As the van turned into the motel parking lot, the Asian gave Pellecchia the finger. Pellecchia smacked his hand away, and the fight started.

Iandolli scanned the surrounding area for members of the Black Dragons. When he didn’t see any, he glanced at Gold. Gold was watching the fight.

The Asian kicked at Pellecchia karate-style. The kick missed, and Pellecchia threw a left hook from a crouch and slammed the Asian man across a nearby bench.

“He’s pretty good,” Iandolli said.

The two squared off again, the Asian using martial arts and Pellecchia in a classic boxer’s crouch.

“I fucking kill you, white boy,” the Asian said.

Charlie remembered the same taunt from the day before. He glared at the Asian and realized it was the same kid from the car.

Charlie motioned him in closer. “Go for it,” he said.

The Asian was rotating his open hands in a slow, even motion. Charlie didn’t know if the guy knew what he was doing, but the Asian had exposed a weak spot earlier. Charlie intended to go for it again.

The Asian raised his right hand and quickly kicked Charlie in the left shin.

“Fuck,” Charlie said as he winced from the sharp pain.

“What you do now, white boy?” the Asian said just before he rushed Charlie with a feigned kick and a straight punch that missed.

Charlie’s left hand was still stinging from his first punch. His bruised fingers were throbbing. He stepped to his right and noticed a white van pulling into the lot as he feigned a punch of his own. The Asian glanced at the van and landed a few knuckles on Charlie’s forehead.

Charlie went down low and came up with a hard left to the ribs. The Asian grunted as both his hands dropped. Charlie threw another short, hard hook and this time nailed the Asian in the right temple. The Asian was staggered from the blow. He backpedaled until he went down.

Iandolli returned an emergency page. When someone answered the call, Gold could see Iandolli’s expression change.

“Right away,” Iandolli said into the cell phone.

“What’s that about?” Gold asked.

“That DEA agent, Thomas. Nicholas Cuccia just cracked his head open. Cuccia is on the run. He has a gun. Nobody knows where he is.”

“Give me two guesses,” Gold said.

“He doesn’t know where Pellecchia is,” Iandolli said.

“That was my second guess. We never checked on the one flew in the other day. The one you mentioned with the trucking business. The rich one.”

“Rizzi. Shit.”

“We never checked up on him. At least you didn’t mention it.”

“You’re right,” Iandolli said.

“The Feds know about him?”

“Not from me.”

“I can go,” Gold said.

“You sure?”

“I’m not supposed to be here with you anyway. I might as well sit in traffic.”

“Be careful,” Iandolli said.

Gold motioned toward the scene in the parking lot. He said, “Lucky punch.”

Cuccia used a taxi to take him to a hotel off the Strip. He saw the driver looking at him funny in the rearview mirror, and Cuccia explained how he had been robbed and mugged the day before. He pointed to his jaw. He explained how two black kids had broken his jaw with a baseball bat. His wife, Cuccia told the driver, was still recovering in the hospital.

The driver sympathized. He told Cuccia he should have a gun. “For protection,” the driver said with a Russian accent.

It was an unexpected bonus. Two guns were better than one. Cuccia asked the driver if he knew where a guy could get one. He said, “I’m scared shit, tell you the truth.”

“How much you are to pay?” the driver asked. He tried to examine Cuccia again in the rearview mirror.

Cuccia was contemplating the second weapon and extra ammunition. He would need transportation as well.

“How much?” the driver repeated.

“Huh?” Cuccia said. He leaned forward, an overanxious, desperate, but grateful tourist. “Anything,” he said. “Can you get me one?”

“Not me, no,” the driver said. “But I have friend can get. For two hundred, maybe three hundred dollar, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I think. Where you are staying? Here, this place?”

They were parked off Boulder Highway, alongside a Super 8 Hotel. Cuccia shook his head. “At the MGM. But I thought it was better if I did this from here.”

The driver shrugged. “Is fine here, too. You want to wait, I come back. Anything you are want? Magnum, automatic?”

“A nine,” Cuccia said. “And an extra clip.”

The driver nodded. “I am right back,” he said. “Half an hour.”

“So much for your friend Lercasi,” Charlie told Iandolli.

They were standing in the motel parking lot. Three police cruisers had pulled in behind the van. The Asian was in handcuffs. The right side of his face was swollen.