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?”
The tall detective stopped looking at the stuff on the table. “And not robbed?” he added.
Charlie shook his head. “No clue.”
“Do you know who your wife is with?” the tall detective asked.
“She left me. You already know who she’s with.”
“She left you here?”
Charlie was getting annoyed. They were going through a routine. He wasn’t in the mood. He had his own questions about his wife they hadn’t really answered yet. “I’m here,” he said. “She’s gone. Yes, she left me here.”
The fat detective became abrupt with his questions. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“One more time. Last night.”
“What time?”
“About seven-thirty, eight o’clock.”
“Did she leave you then or later?”
Charlie’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice angry. “Later, I guess. I went down to the bar.”
“Did you argue?”
“We had a fight. I was drunk. I didn’t hit my -”
The fat detective interrupted him. “Were you anywhere in the casino you could verify from the time you argued until the time you were mugged?”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Same place as tonight, in case you were watching. One of the bars downstairs. I played a poker machine there. I hit it. I’m sure I’m on the cameras they use.”
“Your wife was mugged at a motel on the edge of the strip. She was there with a Mr. Denton. Mr. Denton said one of the men held a gun on him.”
Charlie knew they had mentioned John Denton to get a reaction. He was too concerned about Lisa to give a shit.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“They knocked out some of her teeth,” the fat detective said. “Worse than what you got.”
“The fuck could somebody hit a woman like that?” Charlie asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” the tall detective said. “Got any ideas?”
Charlie had had enough already. “No,” he said. “Or I wouldn’t be standing here wasting my time with you two clowns.”
The detectives almost brought him in for calling them clowns. Charlie was eventually able to talk himself out of the situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t respect the police investigating Lisa’s mugging, but they had asked him questions in an attempt to trap him. They seemed to have made up their minds about his role in his wife’s mugging.
After he finished giving them a story without the details of what had happened in New York, Charlie called the hospital where his wife was admitted. He was told she was in surgery and wouldn’t be able to speak without pain for a few days.
He felt a conflicting rage when he hung up with the hospital. He was furious at the thought of someone assaulting his wife. He was furious at himself for giving a shit. She had dumped him the day before. She had left him for a lover she was cheating with, a lover she had cheated with in the past. Why the fuck should he care what happened to her anymore?
He sat at the window in his hotel room and looked toward the construction site where he himself was mugged. He wondered what had actually happened to Lisa and whether her lover had tried to defend her. He wondered if both muggings had anything to do with what happened in the nightclub back in New York the week before.
Charlie wondered about a lot of things before he could finally fall asleep.
Chapter 9
