Charlie Stella - Charlie Opera

Setting up the husband at the Palermo construction site was a perk Fein received cash on the spot for. At the time, the five thousand dollars seemed like an easy score.

Now it looked like he would be forfeiting the remaining five thousand dollars. If Jerry Lercasi ever found out about the deal Fein had put together with the New York crew, the five thousand dollars would represent the cost of the accountant’s life.

Dealing with the idiot bodybuilder from New York wasn’t making the problem any easier. He was never impressed with the average intelligence of Las Vegas wiseguys, which was why he had become so confident getting more involved in the day-to-day operations of mob business. Talking with this musclehead, Fein was even less impressed with the pawns of the underworld.

Except his boss, Jerry Lercasi, wasn’t just another wiseguy. Lercasi was the most powerful mobster in Las Vegas. He also was a ruthless killer.

Fein wanted nothing more than to spend some time with the two young girls he had requested through the escort service the Lercasi crew operated in Laughlin. He was told both girls were still in their teens. He was excited about their age.

Now, however, he was forced to deal with a moron in desperate need to lift weights.

He watched the bodybuilder slam the telephone receiver down one more time before deciding to contact a connection with the Las Vegas police. If the police couldn’t find Vincent Lano, there was a good chance the New York mobster was on the run somewhere. If that was the case, he could deal with losing the five thousand dollars.

If Lano went to the feds, it would become a much bigger issue. There would be no place Fein could hide in Las Vegas.

If Lano went to the Feds, Fein was thinking, he would pack his bags and get the fuck out of the country.

It would be a simple hit. A guy flew out to Las Vegas for a summer vacation. Unless he was an inveterate gambler, he would go for the long walks, visit the theme parks, ride the moving walkway into the Caesar’s Palace shopping mall, watch the Volcano, see the Pirate Show, and maybe have dinner at the top of the Stratosphere.

He might even use one of the escort services one or two times.

Or maybe he’d grab a hooker from one of the casino bars.

Also, sometime during his vacation, the guy would get killed.

Renato Freni watched Charlie Pellecchia drinking at the bar from a roulette table occupied by mostly Asian players. Freni wore a Boston Red Sox baseball cap and a navy blue flower print shirt with black shorts. He was a stocky man of average height. At fifty-nine years of age, his body was still thick from working out with weights. He was well tanned from several years of living in the desert.

He touched the silencer for the Beretta 9mmrcearrying in the waist of his pants. It was deep inside the pouch of the belt he wore around his waist.

He had been watching the man he would kill for little more than an hour. A contact inside the casino had provided Freni with Pellecchia’s location from a casino player’s identification card. He noticed that Pellecchia’s head was bandaged behind one ear and that he wasn’t drinking alcohol at the bar. He also noticed the conversation between his mark and the barmaid. The woman wrote something on a napkin before handing it to Pellecchia. It was after the exchange with the barmaid that Pellecchia finally left the bar.

Freni followed his mark through the casino from a safe distance. He stopped to read a pamphlet advertising a slot machine tournament when Pellecchia turned into the hallway where the elevators were located.

Freni used a phony room key to get past the security guard standing in front of the elevator bank. He waited less than a minute for an elevator door to open. He touched a floor button and smiled at a black couple riding in the car with him. When the elevator stopped two floors below Pellecchia’s, Freni stepped out of the elevator. He nodded at the black couple as he got off.

“Good luck,” they told him.

Charlie was feeling pretty good when he went back up to his room. He had managed to arrange a lunch date with his new friend, Samantha Cole. They were going to a water park where Samantha said she had bought a season pass for the tide pool. Charlie didn’t have a clue what a tide pool was, but he looked forward to learning about it from Samantha the next day.

He had spent a long time at the bar with her. Although she was busy running back and forth serving customers, Samantha had helped Charlie forget why he was going upstairs to his room alone.

He managed to forget what his eyes looked like under the sunglasses until he saw his reflection on a marquee inside the elevator. Charlie flipped up his glasses in the reflection and squinted at what he saw.

“Joe Frazier, Joe Frazier,” he said, imitating Muhammad Ali. “This may shock and amaze ya, but I’m gonna whoop Joe Frazier.”

Freni walked around the elevator bank to the vending room to wait another minute before heading up to Pellecchia’s floor. He wanted to give his mark enough time to get settled inside his room before knocking on the door.

Then he would either show Pellecchia the gun or shoot him from the hallway. He would go inside the room and make sure the man was dead. He would hide the body inside the bathroom in the event Pellecchia had called for room service. He would fish through the room for whatever cash his mark may have brought along. Then Freni would leave Las Vegas for a few days and maybe take in the other Nevada tourist attractions.

When Charlie walked off the elevator, a short, fat man with curly blond hair surprised him. The fat man held one hand up as an identification wallet dropped open.

“Police,” the fat man said.

Charlie looked up as he saw another man appear directly behind the short man.

Freni turned his back to the ceiling camera and screwed the silencer onto the barrel of the 9mm when he was alone in the elevator. He took the elevator up two flights to Pellecchia’s floor and slipped the handgun into his front pants pocket. He kept his right hand on the gun inside his pocket as he stepped off the elevator. When he saw his mark talking with two men, Freni headed straight for the vending room. As he waited there, he overheard some of their conversation.

“Your wife was mugged.”

“Where? When?”

“This afternoon.”

amp;ldt happened? Is she -”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“Where were you this afternoon, sir?”

“Huh? What?”

“This afternoon, sir. Where were you?”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Sir, why don’t we talk inside your room.”

“You think I mugged her?”

“Sir, can we talk someplace private?”

“Fuck, yeah, of course. My room’s down the hall.”

“If you don’t mind.”

Freni had heard enough. He waited until the voices were gone. He fished a few quarters from his pocket, bought himself a Diet Coke, and got out of there.

“What happened to your hand?” the fat detective asked.

They were inside his room. Charlie and the fat detective stood at the end of the bed. A tall, thin detective helped himself to a look at Charlie’s belongings on the table across the room.

“It’s worse than that,” Charlie said. He removed his sunglasses. He turned around to show both detectives the bandage behind his right ear.

“Why didn’t you report it?”

“I wasn’t robbed. I didn’t see the point. Some guys mugged me.” He turned and saw the tall detective looking through his opera CDs on the table. “Excuse me. Can I help you?”

“You have any idea why?”

Charlie was still watching the tall detective. “Huh?”

“You have any idea why you were mugged?”