“No. He’s out, though. But I don’t know for how long.”
“What else do you intend to do?”
“Knock one of his teeth out,” Charlie said. “At least one.”
Chapter 35
Detective Donald Gentry stared at the green-and-white tiles he had installed in his kitchen the year before. They were expensive tiles. His wife had picked them out shortly after they moved into the house.
Gentry had thought he was building a future with his wife the day he started work on the kitchen. It had been their first project in the new home. They were planning on many more home improvements before they would have children.
Sometime during the past year, however, things had started to change. Gentry had put in longer hours since his promotion to detective. Jennifer also had started to work longer hours. When she began working weekends, their time together became sparse. The couple drifted apart.
Sometime during their unspoken problems, Jennifer fell in love with another man.
At first, Gentry had thought that if he ignored his wife’s betrayal, she might come to her senses or grow bored with whomever she was seeing. He loved his wife enough to forgive her. At least he was willing to try.
When her affair didn’t stop, Gentry found he could no longer live with it in his face. When he suspected his wife of using their own home, he decided to end their marriage.
Except it wasn’t as easy to follow through with what he knew was the right thing to do. He became caught up in the sordid details of his wife’s affair. He wanted to know who her lover was. He wanted to know what they were doing.
He had bought a minicamera from a spy shop. So far, he was unable to watch what the hidden camera had already recorded. It was a denial he was terrified to confront.
When she was late returning home, Gentry decided to finally view the tape. Thirty seconds into the recording, he gagged at the sight of his wife kissing another man he immediately recognized. He ran into the bathroom and was sick. His stomach muscles wrenched as he heaved until he was dry. He moaned from crying, but there were no tears.
When he returned, a few minutes later, his wife was naked on the screen. So was the cop between her knees.
Allen Fein had made two stops on his way home. After eating a Big Mac, fries, and hot apple pie at McDonald’s, he stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken and ordered a small bucket of spicy chicken and French fries. He ate the food in his BMW in the parking lot and later stopped at a Dairy Queen for a chocolate milk shake. He ordered a super- size Coke for the drive home and was sure to stop for a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
Now he was sitting in pain on his toilet. The super-size Coke cup rested on the marble edge of the bathroom sink. The cup was half empty.
Fein rocked back and forth on the toilet seat as he proposed deals with God to alleviate the stomach pains he was suffering.
“I swear it,” Fein said between gasps of breath. “I’ll never eat this crap again. Please, God. Please. I swear it.”
He broke into a cold sweat. The pains in his stomach were relentless. He wiped at his forehead with the back of a hand as he groaned on the toilet seat.
He thought he heard a noise outside the bathroom. He had been in a rush to use the toilet and had left the door open. He leaned forward on the toilet seat, but a stomach pain set him to rocking again.
“Oh, God,” Feinchanted, “please let me go. Please.”
He heard a second noise outside the bathroom. He guessed it was his cat jumping from the landing above the stairway down the hall.
As his bowels finally started to move, Fein heard yet another noise outside the bathroom. He called to his cat as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his right wrist. He let out a long sigh of relief and started to smile when he looked in the direction of a shadow crossing the doorway. Fein was startled when he saw a stocky man standing there holding a gun.
“Jesus Christ,” Renato Freni said after shooting Allen Fein off the toilet seat.
He held his breath as he stepped closer and fired another round into the accountant’s head.
When he was sure Fein was dead, Freni stepped around the body and made his way back out of the condo. He had completed half of a new contract with Jerry Lercasi. Freni wasn’t thrilled about killing Fein for free, but it was the price he had to pay for taking on the Pellecchia contract without going through Lercasi first.
The thing about doing a hit for a guy like Lercasi was you didn’t get a chance to make mistakes. It was more like the old days. You had one chance. You didn’t fuck it up.
This was a serious consideration for Freni as he headed back toward the Strip. Killing an accountant was one thing. Killing a wiseguy was an entire other matter.
Chapter 36
The flash from the camera caused Francone to blink. He felt a searing pain in his lower back as his eyes refocused. When he could see clearly again, Lano was standing there.
Francone realized the pain was from his rectum. He tugged against the restraints on his arms and legs, but it hurt to move. He looked down at himself as Lano started to laugh. Francone’s mouth was cotton dry. He couldn’t speak.
“There’s about eight inches of a twelve-inch dildo up your ass,” Lano said. “You better be careful you don’t turn over and jam it into your stomach.”
Francone was trying to wet his lips. “The fuck are you doing?” he asked.
“Ruining your life,” Lano said.
“We’ll kill you for this. You know that, right?”
Lano winked at Francone as he spoke though a coughing fit. “In case you don’t get it yet, pally, I’m not too concerned.”
Francone tried to move his right leg, but the pain in his rectum sent a spasm up his back. “Fuck!” he yelled.
A knock at the door stopped Lano from laughing again. He did his best to suppress another coughing fit as he stepped back to block the door. A second, louder knock followed.
“Who is it?” Lano asked through a cough.
“The guy from the hospital,” a voice said.
Lano checked the peephole in the door for police. If they were out there, they had moved out of his view.
“Who else is there?”
“The husband,” the voice said.
“Shit,” Lano whispered to himself. He knew there was a chance the husband would get involved. He wasn’t sure about the boyfriend, but the husband was the one who had broken Cuccia’s jaw in the first place.
He opened the door a crack and stepped away fast. He held his gun up for whoever else might be there. “Go easy,” he said. “I’ve got something in my hand.”
Charlie touched his gun and immediately thought better of it. His life wasn’t in imminent danger yet. He could turn around and leave right now.
He had nded on using the same move he used upstairs with Cuccia. As soon as the door opened a crack, he would force his way into the room, shoulder first. But now the guy on the other side of the door was telling Charlie he had a gun, too.
Charlie pushed the door open instead of rushing through it. An older man dressed in black stood with a gun at the foot of one of two beds. The man’s shape looked somewhat familiar.
