prostitute who called herself Niko. He had spotted her and another prostitute, a tall blonde in a red-sequin dress, earlier. Both women had propositioned him as a team, but Rizzi told the blonde he could only handle one at a time today and that he was kind of looking forward to an Asian broad because it had always been a fantasy of his to “eat a noodle.”
The prostitutes had both giggled while they huddled a few seconds before breaking up. The blonde left Rizzi to negotiate with his fantasy date.
“Let’s just say I’m a businessman,” he told the prostitute when she asked what he did for a living.
“What kind of business?” Niko asked. She had a slight Asian accent. She was swirling a plastic straw in her white wine spritzer. She licked at the straw just before Rizzi answered h question.
“Little of this and a little of that,” he told her.
“You sound very mysterious to me,” she said. She sipped her spritzer carefully. She set the glass back down on the napkin as she sat back in her chair.
The cleavage showing from her low-cut blouse caught Rizzi’s eye. “You’re a very beautiful woman,” he told her.
“Sank you. Also very espensive.”
“I’ll bet,” he said as he took a sip of Absolut.
He figured Niko was worth five hundred for the night, but he’d go as high as seven-fifty.
“You ever stay here before?” he asked.
“Overnight? Yes, of course.”
“Do you have a change of clothes?”
“No, silly. That would be your present to me.”
“That depends on where you buy them.”
“Gift store,” she said. “Sweatshirt, T-shirt. I have underwear in my purse.”
Rizzi gave a quick glance at the purse on her lap. “In your purse, huh?” he asked. “What else you got in there?”
“Condoms,” Niko said. “Lipstick. Advil. K-Y Jelly. Tums. I have sensitive tummy.”
“Ah, so you swallow.”
The prostitute suppressed a giggle. “If you are generous,” she said. “Yes, I do that.”
Chapter 26
The guy at the hospital told John Denton he could go to the police or to the woman’s husband or he could forget the whole thing. The guy had given him the information. It was up to Denton to decide what to do next. The guy had said his name was Vincent Lano. He was the same man who had held the gun on Denton at the motel. He had told Denton that he was ashamed of what he had participated in. He apologized for what had happened to Lisa.
Denton had frowned at the man. His apology wouldn’t change anything.
Now he was struggling with the information he possessed. Lisa deserved to know what was going on. So did her husband. So did the Las Vegas police.
Denton couldn’t talk to Lisa in the condition she was in. He didn’t want to talk to her husband, and he was afraid to talk to the police. The fact that he was an attorney and was legally bound to report a crime made the problem all the more daunting.
Because the mob was involved, Denton avoided calling the police. He decided to talk with Charlie first.
He called Harrah’s and was disappointed when nobody picked up. He left a message on voice mail:
Charlie, this is John. I’m at Valley Hospital with Lisa. A man came here today with information about what happened to you and Lisa. He gave me the names of the people responsible. I’ll wait for your call. I’m not sure if I should call the police. I don’t know if calling the police will make it more dangerous for Lisa. Please get back to me as soon as possible.
He added the bit about it possibly being more dangerous for Lisa if he called the police to protect himself.
Then he felt guilty for worrying about his own problems while Lisa lay in a hospital bed on painkillers with a mouth full of stitches.
Then John Denton thought better of everything and called the police anyway. He asked to speak to a Detective Abe Gold.
Gina Iandolli suddenly appeared at the far end of the driveway. She stood at the gate of the fence blocking off the yard. She was a short, thin woman with long, dark hair. She wore a light blue housedress and white sneakers.
“You gu want something to eat?” she yelled. “I’m about to turn the grill off.”
Gold waved to Gina from the driveway. “I have to run. Thanks anyway.”
Gina waved back and disappeared behind the house.
Gold pointed toward the yard. “You’re a lucky man,” he told Iandolli.
“I know,” Iandolli said.
Gold folded the report and started to stuff it inside his jacket pocket. “It’s all right I hold on to these?”
“I don’t know how much it’ll help. In the meantime, I stopped by to rouse Jerry Lercasi.”
“You think there’s a chance Lercasi okayed this thing at the Palermo?”
“No way. That was an end run, if it had anything to do with his crew at all.”
“Think you’ll ever know for sure?”
Iandolli nodded. “Sure,” he said. “If another Benny Bensognio turns up the next few weeks, we’ll know. Lercasi has a nasty habit of killing people who fuck with him.”
“You ask around about Gentry? The kid I told you about with the marital problems?”
“Yeah. And it ain’t good.”
Gold’s face tightened. “This gonna hurt?”
“I’ll know more in about half an hour, you want to stick around. Otherwise, I suggest you find your way to this apartment they gave me.” He pulled his wallet from his front pocket and sifted through the papers stuffed inside for an address. He showed Gold. “Park down the street from this address and wait for me.”
“What’s it about?”
“Her boyfriend,” Iandolli said. “The one Mrs. Gentry is playing around with, Officer Wilkes. The kid is dirty.”
Gold slumped where he stood. “I already spoke to him.”
Iandolli put a hand on Gold’s shoulder. “Internal Affairs knows all about the affair,” he said. “Gentry’s wife was picking up envelopes.”
Gold cursed through his clenched teeth.
Joey Francone managed to find a hooker who was cruising the casino. She was a tall blonde he guessed was in her late twenties. She wore a tight-fitting, red-sequin dress.
She was playing the dollar slots, a dollar at a time, when he first met her. She smiled at him when he stopped to look her over. She said hello to Francone, then smirked as soon as he asked her if she was a “whoah.”
Francone negotiated with her outside the hotel entrance. They both faced the giant pond with the high-tech fountains. Beyond the fountains and the pond, the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard was heavy.
“You know what a strap is?” Francone asked.
The hooker held her cigarette out for him to light. He frowned as he fished his front pants pocket for a book of matches. Francone hated smoking. Carrying matches was a prerequisite to hanging around wiseguys. Wannabes waiting to move up had to light their cigarettes.
He held the match to the end of the hooker’s cigarette and waited again for an answer as she took her time inhaling.
“Do you know what a strap is?” he repeated.
“A strap-on. Sure. For a dildo, right?”
“I have no fucking idea. You think this shit is for me?”
The hooker’s eyebrows rose. “Who’s it for, then?”
