Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

Cuccia fishrancone’s pockets for money. He stashed it inside his own front pants pocket. He pushed Francone onto his side and turned the hot water in the bathtub on. He could hear the maid trying to scream through her gag.

“Quit moanin’,” he told her. “I ain’t had a bath in three days.”

It had taken Gold more than twenty minutes to free himself from the traffic snarl on Las Vegas Boulevard. When he drove into the long driveway in front of Caesar’s Palace, Gold spotted Iandolli pulling in behind him.

“There was a shooting at a Super Eight Hotel,” Gold told him. “The one on Boulder Highway. The Feds are already there. Some Russian taxi driver except there’s no taxi in the lot.”

“Cuccia?” Iandolli asked.

“On his way here?” Gold said.

“Unless he’s already been,” Iandolli said.

Both detectives pushed their way through the revolving doors into the Caesar’s Palace lobby.

Nicholas Cuccia made his way through the casino to the Caesar’s Palace shopping mall. He followed the flow of the crowd heading out of the mall and rode the moving walkway to the street, where he turned left and headed into the Mirage. Cuccia used two twenty-dollar bills to move up to the front of the taxi line at the Mirage. He jumped into the next car and told the driver to take him to the MGM Grand. As the taxi headed south on Las Vegas Boulevard, Cuccia could see the flashing lights of police cars headed in the opposite direction.

He walked through the main casino of the MGM to one of the novelty stores off the front lobby. He bought himself a “Classic Films” MGM T-shirt and a baseball cap, then exited the MGM on Tropicana Boulevard. He crossed the footbridge over the busy road and entered the Tropicana Casino. He found his way to a bathroom to change into the T-shirt and wash up.

When he felt safe enough, Cuccia sat at a bar with several television screens above it. He ordered vodka rocks. His jaw was hurting, and he didn’t have painkillers. He used a straw to sip the booze. It wasn’t as strong as a painkiller, but it was better than nothing.

As both detectives ran through the casino lobby, Iandolli looked for the federal agents he thought might already be there. When he didn’t spot any, he told Gold.

“I think we’re alone, amigo .”

Iandolli drew his weapon from an ankle holster as they entered a tower elevator. A young couple gasped at the sight of the gun. Gold flashed his badge to relieve them.

“Go call security,” he told the couple. “Tell them to block this elevator bank off.”

When the elevator doors closed, Iandolli winked at Gold. “Nice try. But I don’t think the Feds will listen to six-dollar-an-hour security guards.”

“Six?” Gold joked. “Remind me to apply on our way out.”

When they reached Anthony Rizzi’s floor, Iandolli tapped Gold on the shoulder. “I got lead,” he said.

Gold pulled Iandolli back to step in front of him. “Bullshit,” he said. “You have a family.”

Charlie managed to find a three-month-old male bichon frise at the pet store. After paying for a leash, a bowl, a bed, a carrying case, a bag of puppy food, grooming tools, a few teething toys, and vitamins, he asked the heavy-set black woman if she had a bow or a ribbon of some kind.

“This puppy a present?” the woman asked. She had a deep throaty voice. It surprised Charlie.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, is,” he said. “For my wife.” Charlie didn’t know why he said “wife,” but he had.

The woman handed him a folder with the dog’s papers. She asked him to fill in the information. The pedigree was listed on one of the papers in the folder.

“What you gonna call him?” the woman asked just before Charlie filled the dog’s name in.

“Rigoletto,” he said.

“That’s a funny name. Where’d you get it?”

“An opera,” Charlie said. “It’s an opera.”

“Who?”

“It’s an Italian name. From an opera I like.”

“I hope your wife likes the same opera.”

“My wife hates opera.”

“Maybe you want to give her a call and run it by her once.”

Telling the woman that his wife hated opera was a reflex response from being married to Lisa. Charlie thought about correcting himself, but the dog was crying inside the carrying case on the floor.

“She’ll get used to it,” Charlie said.

“The dog or its name?”

From his seat at the bar, Cuccia quickly learned that an all-points-bulletin had been issued for him throughout the state of Nevada. He tugged down on the cap he was wearing and crouched low on his stool.

His swollen facial wounds somewhat disguised the picture on the television. The bar wasn’t crowded yet, but the few people who were seated there glanced up at the television every so often. Cuccia hoped the television was nothing more than a distraction. Since they couldn’t really hear the audio over the sounds of the casino behind them, Cuccia figured the real danger had passed once his face was off the screen.

When he looked up at the television again, he recognized Charlie Pellecchia turning his head away from a microphone. The camera followed Pellecchia a few steps before it turned toward a Las Vegas detective. Cuccia tried to hear what the reporter was saying, but the noise inside the casino was too loud. He asked the bartender to turn up the volume. When the bartender said he really wasn’t supposed to, Cuccia pushed a twenty-dollar bill across the bar and pleaded.

“For two minutes,” he said. “I think that’s my cousin on the news there.”

The bartender turned up the volume as he stuffed the twenty into his tip cup. Cuccia listened attentively as the news aired a previously recorded clip from earlier in the day describing a shooting that had occurred “in the quiet valley neighborhood the day before.”

When the recorded clip finished, the newscaster said, “According to police, Mr. Pellecchia is not a suspect. He was dating Ms. Samantha Cole, a local bartender. Mr. Pellecchia brought Ms. Cole to the hospital. She’s expected to recover fully and was released earlier in the day. The police had no further comment but said…”

Cuccia didn’t bother to wait for the rest of the story. He headed straight for a side exit to Tropicana Boulevard. He made his way across the footbridge to the Excalibur, where he found a bank of pay telephones. He used the phone books to try to find the name he heard on the local news program.

Cole. Samantha Cole.

As they entered the hotel room, Gold and Iandolli both heard the sound of running water. When Iandolli pushed the door open for Gold to enter with his weapon drawn, both men saw the steam coming from the bathroom.

Gold was first inside the bathroom. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled as he pulled Joey Francone’s dead body off the woman lying face down in the hot water.a pushwidth="2em"›Iandolli helped Gold pull the maid from the tub. Her face was scalded from the steaming water, but they couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. Gold removed the gag to administer mouth-to-mouth. He pinched the woman’s burned nose, opened her mouth, and pressed his own against hers. He blew air into her lungs in strong, steady breaths.

The Russian taxi driver they found dead in the hotel had been robbed of all his cash and his taxi. Agent Walsh called the Las Vegas organized crime unit to locate Iandolli. When Walsh finally reached him, the detective filled him in.

“He was just here,” Iandolli said. “At Caesar’s Palace. He came for Rizzi. Another one of his crew that flew up here the other day. He killed Francone. Maybe a housemaid, too.”

“Who the hell is Rizzi?” Walsh asked. “And why didn’t you come to the hotel when we called earlier?”