Charlie Opera Read Free

‘that Russian thing’ or ‘that stuff’ or anything else. I need to hear him talk about heroin. You see what I’m saying?”
    Cuccia opened the Playboy magazine he had bought at an airport newsstand. He flipped toward the middle of the magazine to the centerfold. He held the book up to let the picture drop open.
    “Where do you suppose she lives?” he asked Thomas.
    Thomas turned away from the nude picture. He looked up at the male flight attendant serving cocktails.
    “Naked broads make you nervous?” Cuccia asked. He folded the centerfold back inside the magazine and turned it upside down on the folding tray. “There,” he said. “Take deep breaths.”
    Thomas leaned into Cuccia again. “Like I said, I heard you talk about heroin. I didn’t hear your uncle talk about it. I heard him talk about Russians.”
    “The old man is careful. If I pushed it, he would have known something. Relax. The closer he gets to the money, the more he’ll talk.”
    “What about the rest of your conversation? You were on that boat for three hours. You brought back less than two minutes of dialogue.”
    Cuccia touched the edge of his chin. “Six fucking weeks I gotta have this thing in my mouth like this,” he said. “He’s got a guy debugs the boat every so often. I wasn’t taking unnecessary risks. It’s my ass, not yours.”
    Thomas opened the New York Times he had brought with him. He pointed to a headline in the Metro section. It read: MOB INDICTMENTS IN BROOKLYN. “We’re in a race against time,” he said. “You’re in a race against time.”
    Cuccia was still touching around his jaw with his fingertips. “There’s nothing I can do until the man wants to move. So why not relax about it, already. Have yourself a drink.”
    The flight attendant leaned across Thomas to set a miniature bottle of Absolut vodka and a can of Canada Dry tonic water on a napkin.
    “What’s in Vegas?” Thomas asked after the flight attendant returned to the galley.
    “Pussy,” Cuccia said.
    “How you gonna eat it with a broken jaw?”
    “Who said I was gonna eat it?”
    Thomas smirked. “I thought you guys were big on eating pussy. At least that’s what I read in all the books you guys write after you make your deals.”
    “That’s just to make the books sell,” Cuccia said. “Me, I prefer going through the back door any day. Ask your wife, she’ll tell you.”
    Thomas lost the smirk on his face. He leaned across his seat to whisper into Cuccia’s ear. “Just don’t get yourself in too much trouble while we’re in Las Vegas, Nicky. Or your deal will go down the same shitter your mother flushed when you were born.”
    Cuccia forced a chuckle. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “You stay up all night and work that one out? ‘Down the same shitter your mother flushed.’ You guys kill me.”
    Thomas sat back in his chair. He grabbed the headphones in the seat pocket in front of him and placed them on his head.
    Cuccia continued forcing himself to laugh. “What a jerk-off,” he said somewhere in the laugh.

Chapter 2
    Cecilia Bartoli nailed Una voce poca fa as Charlie Pellecchia swayed back and forth. He watched from his hotel room as crowds of people waited for the Pirate Show in front of the Treasure Island Hotel-Casino across Las Vegas Boulevard. Charlie adjusted the volume on his headphones as the Rossini aria boomed into his ears. He felt the pure high of the violins as he closed his eyes.
    A thick plastic hairbrush thrown from across the room smacked Charlie in the middle of his back. The sting of the hairbrush startled him. He dropped the portable CD player from his hands. The headphones remained attached to the unit and were pulled off his head.
    Charlie turned to his wife as he reached behind him to rub at the red mark the hairbrush had left on his back.
    “What the fuck?”
    “I’ve been calling to you for five minutes!” Lisa Pellecchia yelled. “From the shower. In the bathroom. Five minutes!”
    “I