Charlie Opera

by Charlie Stella

The maid gasped.

  “Easy does it, signora. I no kill you.”

  “Rizzi took off on us,” Francone said. “I was downstairs with him a while ago. He gave me this bullshit story about getting some money and split.”

  Cuccia smiled.

  “I swear it,” Francone said. “I was downstairs with him.”

  “I guess I’m too late then.”

  “Maybe we can still catch him at the airport. At least there’s two of us can look for him now.”

  Cuccia looked from Francone to the maid. “Tie her up,” he said. “Fast. Let’s go.”

  “Tropicana Avenue off I-Fifteen,” Walsh told the agent driving the car. “There’s a Super Eight there.”

  Walsh set down the radio as the car jerked to the left and sped south on Paradise Road. Walsh called a set of backup agents over his radio. “Las Vegas police have a report of shots fired at a Super Eight Hotel on Boulder Highway. Converge at that location.”

  “You want to back off the locals?” the agent driving the car asked.

  “What’s the point? Let’s just hope this isn’t some estranged husband taking out his old lady and her boyfriend. This guy Cuccia gets out of Las Vegas it’ll be all our asses.”

  “Jurisdiction?”

  “That’s the least of it. That DEA agent, Thomas. I never should have let him take Cuccia. This is nothing but a Chinese fire drill right now. That kid dies... I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Hold on,” the agent doing the driving said. He whipped the car around a milk truck making a left turn. A taxi attempting the same left turn from the middle lane blocked them from crossing the intersection. The car screeched to a stop inches from the bumper of the taxi.

  “Let’s go!” Walsh screamed at the taxi. “Let’s go!”

  Chapter 61

  Charlie didn’t recognize the voice that answered the phone.

  “Can I speak to Sam?” he asked.

  “Who’s calling?” a woman asked.

  “Charlie. Charlie Pellechia.”

  “Hold a second.”

  Charlie could hear the woman talking with Samantha. She told Charlie, “One second.”

  “I thought you might’ve lost this number,” Samantha said.

  Charlie was relieved when he heard her voice. “Never,” he said. “How’s your leg?”

  “All right.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I can get around. I have a home attendant for the day. Part of my coverage, thank God.”

  An awkward moment of silence passed. Charlie swallowed hard. “Can I see you?” he asked.

  “Only if you want to.”

  “I want to.”

  “Would this be a quick visit on your way to the airport?” Samantha asked. “If it is, don’t bother.”

  “How about I cook you dinner?”

  “Eat and run?”

  “Why don’t you give me a break here?” Charlie said. Another moment of silence frustrated him. “I’m on my way.”

  He took a deep breath as he hung up the receiver. He was anxious all over again about seeing the woman he knew he was in love with. He looked inside the pet store window for dog cages. When he spotted them along a wall, Charlie went inside.

  When the maid was tied and gagged, Cuccia had Francone help her into the bathtub face down.

  “You have any money?” he asked Francone.

  The look on Francone’s face was pure shock. He saw Cuccia holding a pillow in one hand and the gun in his other.

  “Na-na-no,” he stuttered. “I’m ba-broke. I have a few dollars. Somebody —”

  Francone started to explain why he was broke when Cuccia shot him in the chest twice through the pillow. Francone’s body slammed into the wall behind the bathtub. He was dead before he stopped sliding down the wall. His body listed to one side on top of the maid.

  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.”

  Chapter 62

  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?”

  “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.

  Chapter 63

  “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. H
e 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.

  Chapter 64

  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.”