Free Charlie Opera by Charlie Stella, Peter Skutches

“Nope,” she said. “Not this fast. This’ll have to do.”
    “Well, you’re just scrumptious in that one, too, so there,” Carol said. “My lord, how I wish I had your little body to dress up for myself.”
    Samantha chuckled. Carol combed her hair back to tie with a scrunchi. She had recently moved in with Samantha after fleeing from her husband across the country. They had known each other just over six months when Samantha started to regard Carol as family.
    “Maybe I should take him back here and we can all go skinny-dipping,” Samantha joked in her best mock-southern accent.
    Carol cocked a hip. “Darlin’, it’s been so long for me, right now I’d pay just to watch you and your date skinny-dip.”

Chapter 12
    Cuccia went down to the pool to catch some sun. He was to meet later in the afternoon with the man who was supposed to kill Charlie Pellecchia. It wasn’t a conversation Cuccia was looking forward to but there was no avoiding it. Not if he wanted Pellecchia dead.
    He applied suntan oil to his long, hairy legs. He scanned the pool for a blonde he had spotted through his binoculars earlier. She was a short, muscular woman with an orange one-piece thong. The skimpy bathing suit she was wearing displayed a perfect ass, Cuccia thought. She had golden-tanned skin with long, straight hair and big breasts he was sure were fake. She also wore a waterproof Rolex and earrings with emeralds as big as marbles, he remembered.
    Cuccia also looked for the DEA agent as he scanned the pool area. He was sure the agent would show up to break his balls whenever it was most inconvenient. He was trying to stall the government’s move against his uncle. In the event his deal with the government turned sour, Cuccia wanted to be sure that the man who broke his jaw was already dead.
    Charlie Pellecchia had become an obsession for Cuccia. Nothing else mattered.
    He used a cellular telephone to call the room at Harrah’s. When Pellecchia answered the phone, Cuccia remained silent.
    When he finally spotted the blonde he was looking for, Cuccia became unnerved about his recent injury. He was too self-conscious to talk to her through a wired jaw. He quickly turned his head when she looked his way.
    Agent Thomas found the organized crime detective eating pizza at his desk. Thomas was there to try to find out why Nicholas Cuccia and two of his crew were in Las Vegas.
    “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Detective Albert Iandolli said as he folded a slice of pizza. He was a big man, 6-foot-4 at least, 230 pounds.
    “It’s not about Vegas,” Thomas told the detective.
    Iandolli stopped short of taking a bite of the pizza. “What’s it about?”
    “Two connected guys from New York staying at the Bellagio. Their boss came in last night, early this morning. I’m here about him.”
    Iandolli leaned forward to take a bite from the end of the pizza slice. He chewed while he held the pizza over a napkin on his desk. Oil from the end of the slice dripped into a reddish-gold stain on the napkin.
    “And?” the detective asked after he swallowed.
    “I was wondering if the two guys from New York are up to anything here in Vegas. If maybe they found themselves some trouble. Maybe you heard something here on your end.”
    “The other two guys? You just said you were here about their boss.”
    Here we go, Thomas thought. “Detective, I’m not here to break your balls. Please don’t break mine.”
    Iandolli set the slice of pizza on the napkin. “You’re being vague,” he said. “How am I supposed to help you with the information you just gave me? Two connected guys from New York came out here. Two dozen connected guys from New York pro’bly came out here the last two nights. I can appreciate your need to keep things to yourself, being a federal agent and all, but the bottom line is, there’s nothing much I can do for you, you keep talking in circles.”
    “What do you need from me?”
    “Names, for starters.