When he was finished picking out his handguns, the gun dealer said, “Is there anything else I can interest you in?”
Lano looked up and down the rows of tables. The gun show was being held inside the tennis bubble of a local high school. He saw everything from assault weapons to swords on the tables. He saw military camouflage outfits, army boots, parachutes and catalogs for missile launchers. He wondered what the hell anybody would do with a missile launcher.
He pointed at one on the cover of a military catalog. “Who buys those things?”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know,” the gun dealer said. “Except we’re supposed to report it when somebody asks for one.”
Lano was curious. “Ever sell one?”
The gun dealer shook his head. “Not a missile launcher, no.” He leaned across the table to whisper. “Grenades, yes. A few. A few mines, too. Claymores, I sold two of those. But never a missile launcher.”
Lano smiled at the gun dealer. “Grenades?”
Francone joined Cuccia by the windows looking out over the pool. Both men leaned against the glass to better view the women lounging around the pool. Cuccia used binoculars.
“You believe the protocol?” he asked Francone. “They send me a fuckin’ mouthpiece instead of one of our own.”
“That guy, Fein, right? Yeah, I didn’t like him either. He seemed like a real smart-ass, you know. Like he was better than me.”
Cuccia followed a short woman in a pink thong bikini as she walked behind the far end of the pool with a drink in her hand. “All Fein wanted was his five grand,” Cuccia said. “My uncle said the guy running things out here don’t come out of his hole. Lives like a hermit to stay off the cameras. Pro’bly has guys like Fein to run his business errands.”
“You do what you gotta do,” Francone said.
Cuccia pulled the binoculars away from his face. “Speaking of which,” he said. “This guy, Fein… he ever do what I just give him five grand to do? Except for that single fuckin’ tooth, I don’t have a clue why I paid him.”
“Everything went fine. Except for Lano. The Pellecchia broad was where they told us she went. The guy broke your jaw they served up on a dish. Fein was the one brought the guy over to us at the construction site.”
“So they did the right thing?”
“Vinnie took off with their money,” Francone said. “It was wrong. Besides the other shit he said and did.”
Cuccia rubbed at his crotch as he watched another woman in a tinbikini giggling in the shallow end of the pool. Three men surrounded her. “Fuckin’ waste, you ask me,” he said, peering through the binoculars again. “Imagine having all this trim around and all you can do is lay low? Forget about it. I’ll take my fuckin’ chances. There’s no way I ignore this, I’m a skipper out here.”
Francone noticed the time. “What do we do about Lano?”
Cuccia was watching the short woman in the pink thong again. She was leaning forward. Her breasts were perfect balls of flesh beneath the thin pink top. He rubbed his crotch a second time.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “The talent parading around this place would make me crazy, I lived here.” He turned to face Francone. “What about Lano?”
“The guy’s a pain in the ass. We should whack him. We shoulda whacked him as soon as you got upped.”
“What happened?” Cuccia asked again, annoyed he had to repeat the question.
“First of all, he wanted me to fugazy a tooth for you. He wanted me to go to a fuckin’ dentist, you can believe it. He thought we were goin’ too far goin’ after the broad. Everything we did was goin’ too far for Lano.”
“He said that?”
“He said a lotta things, boss. A lotta things.”
Cuccia held his best angry stare. He had practiced the stare in mirrors for years before being made.
“Subversive?” he asked.
Francone scratched his chin unconsciously before looking away. “All negative,” he said. “Yeah, like I said back in New York. He ain’t takin’ to the changes.”
“Don’t beep him no more.”
“What’s the use? I stopped since last night. He’s either gone or dead from those cigarettes he smokes all day and night.”
“If he ain’t dead, he will be. That’s yours. Soon as we locate him, get our money back, you can take him out.”
Francone grinned.
“I may have something else for you,” Cuccia continued. He watched as a tall blonde man joined the woman in the pink thong. “Tony Rizzi is coming out to join us. He thinks he’s ready to make his bones. I think he’s starting to pull back on his money. If I don’t read where this cocksucker Pellecchia is found dead by tomorrow morning, maybe you take Rizzi and take care of everything before we leave.”
Francone looked puzzled. “Rizzi?”
Cuccia frowned through the pain in his jaw. A large man blocked his view of the woman he was watching. “You set Rizzi up. You make him feel good about himself. Like he’s in, you know. Bring him along, pump him up. Then you can whack Rizzi when we get back to New York. He’s starting to hold back his cash anyway. What good is he without that? We’re better off we get rid of him instead of squeeze him. We squeeze him, he might talk. He was a score. The score’s over. We’ll see what he brings out here with him. You bring him with you to get Pellecchia. Let him do it, you think he’s got the balls, except I wouldn’t count on it.”
Cuccia wiped drool from the corners of his mouth. “Hey, you pull it off, this Pellecchia prick and Rizzi when we get back home, I’ll bring it to my uncle. I’ll see I can’t get you made without waiting around the rest of your life.”
A smile crossed Francone’s face. Cuccia shot him a wink before he looked down at the pool again. The big man had moved. Cuccia could see the woman in the pink thong again.
“The things I could do with that,”he said.
Francone scouted the men at the pool for muscle competition. He focused on one guy who was huge. “Steroid freak,” he said.
“Huh?”
“The guy down there. He’s juiced.”
Cuccia furrowed his eyebrows. “Oh, Joey, you got nothin’ better to look at down there?”
Chapter 20
Jerry Lercasi fixed his grip on an Olympic bar as he lay on the bench under the weight. He sucked in air as he tightened his grip. He gasped loudly and pushed the bar off the rack. He steadied the weight before lowering it and blew out air as he pushed the bar from his chest. He did it again and again, in slow, measured repetitions, before reracking the bar.
“Morning, Hercules,” Detective Albert Iandolli said.
Lercasi was wiping sweat from his forehead with a Vive la Body hand towel. He looked up from the bench to frown at the organized crime detective.
“The steroids do anything for your dick?” Iandolli asked.
Lercasi stood up from the bench. He was a few inches shorter than the detective. His body was well defined with muscle. He made a point of flexing his biceps as he wiped sweat from his neck with the hand towel.
Iandolli pointed at the Olympic bar. “How much is on there?”
“Three-fifteen,” Lercasi said. His voice was rough. “You wanna give it a try?”
Iandolli shrugged. “What’s the point, Jerr? You get all beefed up like that and somebody puts two behind your ear someday, like Benny Bensognio. You’re as dead as a ninety-pound weakling would be, no?”
“You got a point,” Lercasi said. “This a social call, or you want to join? We’re running a special for city employees this month. A third off on a year.”
Iandolli sat on the bench as Lercasi added weight to the bar. “Cute, Jerr. You’re a funny guy. Except I have a situation came up the past few days I’m concerned about.”
“My attorney already spoke to the police about Mr. Bensognio,” Lercasi said. “I knew the man casually. I had no idea he was a bookmaker. I never placed a bet in my life. In fact, I was at a private dinner last night with two City Council members. If I’m not mistaken, some snoopy reporter was there and took pictures. I live in Las Vegas because of a respiratory condition. I have no idea why anyone would want to kill Mr. Bensognio. I sent flowers to his funeral out of respect for his wife and children. I’m sure this is a terrible time for them.”