The hooker was holding her hand out for another hundred dollars for a blow job. Joey Francone wanted to slap her in the face, but he wasn’t in New York. She could make problems for him in Las Vegas.
Besides, he still had to deliver her to his boss. The blow job was just a bonus Francone figured he might pick up cheap, except she wasn’t cheap at all.
“What the hell,” he told hr. He peeled off another five twenties from his money clip. “You might as well while you’re here.”
The hooker set her bag on the night table beside the bed. “Can I get a drink first?” she asked.
“Can I take it off the top?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said.
“I didn’t think so. What’ll you have?”
“Vodka tonic. Sprite on the side, please.”
“Right,” Francone said. He picked up the phone to order the drinks from room service as the hooker excused herself into the bathroom.
He was doing the math in his head, wondering where the cost for the strap-on dildo he was no longer sure his boss was going to use on some broad was going to end. The hooker had told him stories about men who had asked for sex toys like strap-on dildos and how they almost always wanted the girls to use the paraphernalia on the men themselves. It made Francone a bit sick to think that of his boss, but the hooker seemed to know what she was talking about.
Actually, she wasn’t so bad once you got past her sarcasm. She had told him she was originally from Kansas, but Francone didn’t believe her. At least he was skeptical. After a while, once she seemed to settle down with him, the hooker did reveal an innocent side of herself. She could have been raised on a farm somewhere. Her father or brother or uncle could have raped her. She could have turned to prostitution for any number of reasons.
She opened the bathroom door as Francone rubbed his chin from thinking. She had removed her sequin dress. She wore white garter belts with a matching white lace bra.
Francone swallowed hard from how sexy she looked. “Holy shit,” escaped from his mouth.
The hooker shifted her weight onto one leg. She turned to the side and asked Francone if he liked her lingerie.
Francone swallowed hard a second time. “Ah, yeah,” he said. “Who the fuck wouldn’t?”
She licked her lips as she smiled. Francone hardly noticed. He seemed stunned by her beauty. He wondered for the second time since he had met her if hookers could change into normal broads. He wondered if there were any you could ever change enough to take home and maybe settle down with.
Charlie stopped in his room to grab his suitcase and as much as he could pack in a few minutes after beating the Asian kid unconscious outside the elevators. He figured he had at least a few minutes before someone discovered the unsuccessful assassin. He guessed he had another five to ten minutes after that before somebody might try his room.
He packed quickly. He tossed whatever clothes were hanging in the closet into the suitcase. He grabbed his cigarettes and airline tickets from the table. He packed the baseball bat in with his clothes. He ignored the toiletries except for his bottle of Pavarotti cologne. He stood at the end of the bed to give the room a once-over look when he noticed the message light blinking on the telephone.
There were three more messages on his voice mail. Charlie played them back. The first two were hang-ups. The last message was from his wife’s boyfriend, John Denton.
Denton’s voice was telling Charlie that he had been visited by one of the men who had assaulted Lisa. The man had given Denton the names of the men responsible for the assault. Denton wanted to talk to Charlie. Denton wasn’t sure if he was going to the police.
Charlie remembered that the DEA agent had given him a card. He took it out of his wallet but could only stare at it. The agent was the same clown who had told Charlie that he was safe.
He heard a commotion in the hallway and pressed his ear against the door. He could the sound of a radio. Then he heard someone talking into the radio.
“We need an ambulance,” he heard someone say. “Someone was mugged outside the elevators. I think he’s unconscious. He’s bleeding pretty bad.”
Charlie figured it was safe to leave the hotel again. He went back to the telephone to call Samantha first. As he reached for the phone, it began to ring.
Lano reached Francone at the room they were supposed to be sharing at the Bellagio. He tried to whisper into the telephone, faking an occasional cough when it wasn’t a real one.
“Where the fuck you been?” Francone asked in his best angry voice.
“The hospital,” Lano said through a hoarse whisper. “I was spitting up blood soon as I left you. I couldn’t breathe. I came to the hospital. They kept me here for tests.”
“And you couldn’t return our beeps?”
“No,” Lano said. “They put me through the emergency room. They took all my stuff to give me tests. I was naked, for Christ sakes.”
“I hope you still got that five grand.”
“Yeah, I got it. I put it away in the car before I went in the hospital. They put me to sleep with these fuckin’ drugs. I’m at the hospital now. I’m gettin’ released in a few minutes.”
“It’s those fuckin’ cigarettes. They finally caught up with you.”
“I know. You were right. I think I got cancer. They want to do a biopsy tomorrow. They got a big spot on my lungs on the X-ray thing. Like a softball, the doctor said.”
“You throw away your cigarettes yet?”
“I will now. I have to.”
“Yeah, right,” Francone said with a laugh. “In the meantime, get your ass back over here. Nicky’s fuckin’ crazy we didn’t know where you were.”
“I’ll be there as soon as they release me,” Lano said. He waited for Francone to hang up. Lano held the receiver to his ear until the line was dead. He held down the receiver for a new dial tone, then said, “And then I’ll shoot you right in the fuckin’ face.”
“Sorry for the interruption,” Francone told the hooker.
“I usually don’t spend so much time with a client,” the hooker said. She was stroking Francone’s chest hairs while he talked on the telephone. They lay beside each other on the bed.
Francone pushed the hooker back gently so he could turn toward her. “With that face you could charge me a million,” he said.
“You’re nice,” she said. “Most of my clients aren’t so nice. Most of them I don’t even talk to.”
“Don’t consider me a client,” Francone said. “Take the money, but don’t consider me a client. I sure don’t consider you a whoah.”