Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

“Because I was busy. Are you coming here or not? Because I’m not staying. Cuccia is out there somewhere.”

Until today, Agent Walsh had maintained a fairly good relationship with the local police. Detective Iandolli sometimes liked to do things a little off the beaten track, but Walsh always had managed to work with the local organized crime unit.

Now the Nicholas Cuccia dilemma was a sideshow. Walsh had had enough of Detective Iandolli for one day. He instructed the organized crime detective to stay where he was. “I’m ordering you to wait there for me,” he said. “I’m ordering you to stay right there at the crime scene. Don’t move. Don’t dare move.”

When the connection was broken, Agent Walsh punched the roof of the sedan he was standing alongside. It was bad enough that the detective had cut him off and was disobeying orders. It was another, more important, issue that Walsh had no idea where Iandolli was going.

Iandolli left Gold in the hotel room with the maid as he searched the pool area just outside the tower elevator bank. He tried the shopping arcade and some of the stores along the Appian Way. When he spotted the entrance to the big shopping mall, Iandolli knew it was where Nicholas Cuccia had escaped. Still, he had no idea how long ago or in which direction the New York mobster-killer had gone.

Iandolli returned to Anthony Rizzi’s room to see how the maid was doing. When he got there, Iandolli saw Gold sobbing on the edge of the bed. The maid lay at Gold’s feet. Her eyes were opened wide in an all-too-familiar death stare.

“If you let me, when he shows, I’ll shoot the son of a bitch right in the face,” Gold told Iandolli.

They were watching Charlie Pellecchia from the surveillance van parked across the street from Samantha Cole’s residence. Pellecchia was walking up the block from the corner. A taxi had dropped him off. He walked a small white dog on a leash. He carried a small cage with his free hand. They could see a large plastic bag inside the cage.

“It’s not your way,” Iandolli said, “whacking somebody in cold blood. It’s not my way, either.”

Gold was holding his weapon on his lap. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his free hand.

“I just hope he shows,” he said. “I hope he didn’t make it out of Vegas.”

Iandolli was checking his rearview and sideview mirrors. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Cuccia isn’t leaving Las Vegas without taking a last shot at this poor slob walking that dog. Not after what Pellecchia did to his life.”

Gold watched as Pellecchia stopped to let the dog urinate on a small patch of grass. “He thinks he’s back in New York,” he said.

Iandolli said, “You want to write him up?”

Samantha decided to wait on the porch for Charlie. It was early evening. She sat on the top step and nodded at the officer sitting behind the wheel of the cruiser parked in front of her apartment. She noticed the white van parked across the street and wondered if Charlie had sent flowers ahead of his arrival.

When she heard a snippy bark to her left, Samantha craned her neck to look over the bushes. She spotted Charlie’s head and used her crutches to stand up. When she saw the small white dog on the leash, Samantha waved.

“What’s her name?” she asked from the top of the porch. Samantha held her hands out for the dog to come to her.

Charlie scooped up the bichon frise and brought it to her. He talked at the dog as he carried it. “Okay,” he said. “Now you really have to perform or she’ll kick us both out.”

“Did you name her?” Samantha asked again. She held the dog up to her face to kiss. The puppy was in the middle of a licking frenzy. Samantha had to turn her head away.

“Rigoletto,” Charlie said. “And she’s a he.”

Samantha checked the dog’s sex. “Oh,” she said. “That’s a weird name, Rigo-what?”

“Rigoletto.”

Samantha set her crutches to the side and sat again. “That’s a real name?” she asked. “Rigo-something?”

“Rigoletto,” Charlie repeated. “ Rigoletto is an opera.”

“Opera?” Samantha said, as she rolled her eyes. “You poor baby,” she told the dog in a high-pitched voice. “Yes, yes, yes. You poor baby.”

“Oh, boy,” Charlie said.

The tiny bulb above the mirror in the bathroom provided just enough light to read the local street map. Cuccia had been sitting quietly in the women’s bathroom of a Texaco station for the past forty minutes. His legs were numb. He stood up and down over and over to pump blood through his legs.

He knew he had to stay off the streets. His face was too bruised not to attract attention. Every cop and federal agent in the area was looking for him.

His jaw hurt. He could taste blood around the stitches inside his mouth. The tiny mirror above the small sink in the bathroom reflected Cuccia’s badly bruised face. He parted his lips as much as he could to see the gap where two teeth were missing. He saw gauze and blood instead. He wiped at blood that trickled out of his mouth.

According to the street map, Samantha Cole lived less than half a mile from the gas station. Cuccia opened the bathroom door a crack to peek outside. It was dark and time to move.

They had moved the van after Charlie Pellecchia and the woman went inside the apartment. Iandolli drove the van around the corner, out of sight of the apartment. He took a pair of night vision binoculars from the equipment box in the console, and the two detectives headed around the back of the complex.

“What do you think?” he asked Gold.

“I think he’ll come this way, but we’re too far from the door.”

“Me, too.”

“We may be here all night,” Gold said. “We don’t communicate with anybody, we won’t know if he’s been found or not. Cuccia could be dead for all we know.”

“I can have Gina monitor the radio at home,” Iandolli said. “Just in case.”

“Don’t involve your› &ldquo,” Gold said. “Trust me.”

Iandolli smiled. “Where do you think we should post?”

“Close as possible. But you’re the surveillance expert.”

“I agree. He’ll be looking for an address, but he’ll come this way when he spots the cruiser.”

“You really think Cuccia will find his way here?”

“It was our first thought, both of us,” Iandolli said.

“Great minds,” Gold said.

Special Agent Walsh flashed his badge to stop John Denton and Lisa Pellecchia. The couple was leaving the hospital for the airport. “Sorry, sir. Ma’am. You can’t leave Las Vegas just yet.”

Lisa looked up at Denton from her wheelchair. “Why not?” Denton asked.

“Because Nicholas Cuccia has escaped custody, for one thing. And I say so is the other reason.”

“You say so?” Denton asked.

“This is serious, Mr. Denton. A federal drug enforcement agent is in a coma right now because of Nicholas Cuccia. We have reason to believe Cuccia may be looking for Mr. Pellecchia. Until we can locate the suspect, we don’t think you or Mrs. Pellecchia should be left unprotected.”

“Then take us to the airport,” Lisa said.

“She has a point,” Denton said. “If this is really about protection.”

“We don’t have the manpower,” Walsh said. “Sorry.”

“So we’re detained until this guy is caught?” Denton asked. “Are you serious?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“For what? Unless you’re going to arrest us. Are we being arrested?”

Walsh wasn’t in the mood for a lawyer. “I can do that. If you’d like. I can arrest you.”

“For what?” Denton repeated.

“For what?” Lisa added.