He still had a few hours before he would have to check out of the hotel. His flight was scheduled to leave today, but Charlie already knew he was staying an extra few days. He recognized the signs for what they were. He was falling for Samantha.
He decided to take a room at another hotel for the sake of security. If the mob was still after him, he didn’t want to lead them to Samantha. They had already gone after one woman in his life.
He took a long walk with Samantha through her neighborhood. He let her lead as he whistled a few overtures and arias from different operas to impress her. She joked about how they would soon be surrounded by all the dogs in Las Vegas.
They were walking for about twenty minutes when a black sports car raced up alongside them. The brakes squealed as it came to a stop. An Asian teenager leaned out of the window, made a gun out of his right hand, and pointed at Charlie.
“Bang-bang,” he said. “You dead, white boy.”
Chapter 24
Allen Fein was craving fast food as he convinced himself that everything was copacetic. It had become his routine whenever he engineered a small score behind Jerry Lercasi’s back. The rush of victory was quickly followed by a few days of nervousness, during which he would live on fast food and stomach medication. It would take a week or two before he would dare look for the next freelance project.
He thought about making a present of his masseuse to Lercasi. Fein was sure that one or two sessions with his Asian masseuse were all his boss would need before she was hired. The idea of irritating Lercasi’s girlfriend at the gym brought a smile to his face.
“Poor fucking Brenda,” he said as he pulled into a McDonald’s.
Renato Freni sat in a booth across from Jerry Lercasi in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Las Vegas. He told the mob boss about his situation with a bad contract from out of town. A tall, thin Asian woman in blue dungarees and a red T-shirt set a place mat. Freni nodded at her.
“Thanks, hon,” he said. “Just get me a Diet Coke.”
Lercasi was stirring noodles into his wonton soup. He blew at a spoonful of the hot soup before sucking it off the spoon. He waited until the Asian woman brought the Diet Coke for Freni before speaking.
“You’re a lucky motherfucker,” Lercasi said. He dipped at the hot mustard with a few dry noodles before popping them into his mouth.
Freni nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“You hungry?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Thanks, really, no.” Freni raised his Diet Coe to salute Lercasi. “I was to write a script, nobody’d ever believe it.”
Lercasi shook his head. “I wouldn’t. Two times in two days?”
“I’m either lucky or stupid.”
“The real issue is your contract,” Lercasi said. “And why it didn’t come to my attention before today.”
Freni took another swig of his Diet Coke. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “No offense intended. But I won’t deal with buffers. Not in my business.”
Lercasi nodded as he sprinkled a few more fried noodles on his soup. “I can respect that,” he said. “Still, you could’ve asked for a sit with me. You should’ve asked for a sit with me.”
“This one came from pretty high up,” Freni said. “I had to assume it was approved.”
“Anthony Cuccia in New York,” Lercasi said. “Except nobody in New York has juice out here. Not without me. And I have a cousin back there to remind them they forget the fact. I don’t like it, New York or anybody else comes to my town and pulls shit without I know about it.” He scooped up some of the soup-soaked noodles with his spoon.
“Still. I had to assume -”
Lercasi held up one hand as he rolled the hot noodles around his mouth before swallowing. “Please. Don’t insult me. The old man went directly to you to avoid coming to me.”
“We go back a long way, me and Anthony Cuccia,” Freni said. “We came up together.”
“I can respect that, too.”
“Nothing happened. If that’s any consolation.”
“What the fuck is this, a game show? I could make noise if I want. I know my options.”
Freni remained silent. Lercasi said, “You know what they did to the woman, right?”
“Hard to believe. Somebody knocked out a tooth?”
“Harder to explain,” Lercasi said. He refocused his attention on a dish of shrimp toast. He cut one in half with his fork. “And much harder to ignore. Between the media and the law. I already had one visit from a local O.C. detective. You’re talkin’ about Feds around this Pellecchia. I expect I’ll hear from them, too.”
He forked a chunk of the shrimp toast and dipped it in hot mustard. “I was thinking if this Pellecchia guy was to get whacked by one of our city’s many ethnic gangs, something real sloppy like a drive-by, maybe it would divert some of the attention away from us.” He slid the shrimp toast off the fork into his mouth.
“Or maybe the guy don’t get whacked at all,” Freni said. “That’s even less attention.”
Lercasi sipped Diet 7UP from a can. “Not necessarily,” he said. “If Pellecchia does turn up dead, it proves the New York crew went ahead without following protocol. I can tax that, too, I want. It’d be clout on my end. We remind the rest of the country that Vegas ain’t the place to air your dirty laundry. Maybe the old man in New York loses his nephew in the process.”
“Mingada,” Freni muttered. “That sounds like a war.”
Lercasi cut another shrimp toast in half. “You sure you’re not hungry? The gooks in this joint can cook.”
“I’m not hungry, thanks.”
Lercasi spoke while he chewed on another chunk of shrimp toast. “I don’t intend to invade New York,” he said. “So unless they want to bring it out here, I’m not too concerned about a war.”
“You th me to turn the contract around?”
“Something like that,” Lercasi said. “Things have been getting sloppy out here lately. You read about that guy skimming the books, right? People are too comfortable. Like whoever the fuck arranged this bullshit thing with the New York crew in the first place. People get comfortable, they think they know what they’re doing. They get lucky, they get more stupid, they cause more problems.”
“Benny Bensognio?”
Lercasi slurped soup from his spoon. “Nickel-and-dimer,” he said. “A guy loyal for a long time, got comfortable, decided he could steal. It’s human nature.”
“Pellecchia is scheduled to check out today,” Freni said. “If you’re serious about a drive-by. You’d have to do it in the fuckin’ airport unless he spends another day playin’ drums.”
Lercasi shook his head. “Playin’ drums. People got nothin’ better to do.”
“I’ll pick it up if you want. I already got paid.”
“Some of these gangs, they’d do it in a church. Drive-by, walk-by, what’s the difference? I already got some people on it. From what I understand, they already made a pass but there was some broad in the way.”
“Anything else?” Freni asked.
Lercasi shook his head as he cut off the tail of a fried shrimp. He forked the shrimp into his mouth and used a napkin to wipe his lips. He used a pen to write two names on the napkin. “I got another Benny,” he said. “And somebody else.”
Freni nodded.
Lercasi pushed the napkin across the table. His thumb covered one of the names. Freni read the other name to himself.
“The other one?” Freni asked.
“This mameluke from New York,” Lercasi said as he removed his thumb. “The one causing all these problems
