Charlie Opera

Chapter 40

Beau Curitan removed the gag from the woman’s mouth. He used an extension cord to tie her hands. He tied her feet with a belt he found in her bedroom closet.

She was unconscious from the chloroform he had forced her to breathe. She lay motionless on the floor, her hands tied together on her stomach just above her waist.

Beau went through the wallet he found in her purse. He learned her name was Samantha Cole and that she was born on December 3, 1967. Beau counted forward by tens from 1967 to figure out her age.

Samantha Cole was attractive but too skinny, Beau thought. Beau liked full-sized women like his wife, Carol.

He opened Samantha Cole’s blouse to peek at her chest. Her bra blocked his view. He looked around himself before he reached inside the blouse to try to feel her breasts. He leaned in close to her skin as he pushed the top of the bra down off her right breast.

Beau jumped back when she suddenly moaned. He lost his balance as he fell into the couch.

“Shit,” he said when he landed on the gun tucked inside the waist of his pants. He removed the gun and set it on the television.

He went back through her wallet and found sixty-five dollars. He removed the money and set it alongside where he sat on the couch. He also found a credit card.

He went tothe refrigerator for a beer when he heard the telephone ring. He went to the kitchen, where it sat in a cradle. It was one of the portable kinds he used to hate to watch his wife parade around their house with.

The phone continued to ring while Beau stared at it. He was afraid to answer. He had broken in, assaulted a woman, tied her, and peeked inside her clothes. If he were caught now, he would never get to his wife.

Beau ignored the telephone. He would have to wait it out, at least until Samantha Cole woke up. She had refused to tell him anything earlier, but that was before he put her to sleep. This time when she woke up, he would show her how easy it would be to take advantage of a sleeping woman.

Beau turned on the television and sat on the couch when he found a wrestling show.

Lano had taken two more sets of pictures for Charlie and Denton. He spilled the two disposable cameras from a plastic bag onto the roof of a parked car. The three men were in the parking garage behind the Bellagio. They had just come from Francone’s room, where they had deposited and posed Cuccia with his younger protégé gangster, Joey Francone.

Lano handed the cameras to Charlie.

“I already got my own set,” he said. “I knew they’d be priceless someday.”

“Why the extra two?” Denton asked.

Charlie tossed one of the cameras to Denton. “One for each of us.”

Lano nodded. “For souvenirs.”

When Samantha was twelve, she had played spin the bottle with her best friend and two boys from one of their classes. Samantha and her best friend had liked the taller of the two boys. Each had wanted the bottle to point at him rather than at the shorter boy.

They played the kissing game in her friend’s basement a while before it graduated from a simple public kiss to going into the walk-in closet for two minutes. Samantha was the first to win at the more private game. She and the boy of her preference stepped inside the closet. When the door closed behind them, the boy immediately stood behind Samantha and groped at her flat chest. It was an awkward feeling for her. She stopped it by turning to face the boy. When she went to kiss him, he backed away.

“Turn around,” he had told her. “I want to feel your tits.”

Samantha had called him a jerk and stepped out of the closet a full minute and a half short of their allotted time. She remembered walking past her best friend to head up the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” her friend had asked.

“I’m going home,” Samantha had told her.

She never played a kissing game again. When she reflected on her experience later in life, Samantha knew it was just a dumb kid game she had been engaged in, but the idea of being groped like a piece of meat had angered her ever since.

Now she could feel fingers under her blouse. Beau Curitan thought she was still unconscious, and he was groping her. She didn’t dare open her eyes. She knew he was dangerous. She also knew her only chance was to surprise him somehow.

The stale smell of beer off his wet breath was sickening. Samantha wanted to scream. She forced herself to remain still and hoped Beau would climb on top of her just enough so she could nail him with a knee. It was no good where he was then, leaning over her from one side. She needed for him to be directly in front of her. She needed for him to be on top of her.