Cuccia considered running. Agent Thomas was busy arguing with two other agents in the hospital parking lot. He would have about an eighty-yard head start before Thomas and the other agents would give chase. Two busy intersections at the corner might provide him with enough cover to escape, but there wasn’t much he could do from the hospital without a car and some money.
He waited for Thomas while he searched for escape routes. The sun was setting. He guessed it would be another half hour before dark.
“I’m out of here in two hours,” Marshall Thomas told FBI Special Agent In Charge Dale Walsh.
Walsh combed a wave of hair from his forehead. “And what if we need to see him?”
“Uh-uh, no way. You’re not pulling this bullshit now. No fucking way. What possible reason could you have to detain Cuccia? This is a DEA case from New York. You already said the guy you needed to lean on Lercasi is dead.”
“For questioning,” a tall man said. He was standing alongside Walsh. He adjusted his sunglasses with both hands.
“Bullshit,” Thomas told the tall man. He turned to Walsh again. “No way. This is horseshit. Nickel-and-dime horseshit.”
Walsh held up his cellular telephone. “I can call Washington if you really need to hear this from somebody higher than myself.”
“I’m wasting time I don’t have to waste,” Thomas said. “I’m taking him back to the Bellagio to try and salvage an operation. Then I’m taking him back to New York, in or out of handcuffs. Unless you intend to shoot me in the back, I’m going to wish you two guys good luck.”
“Thomas!” Walsh yelled. “Goddamn it!”
Thomas flipped Walsh the finger as he crossed the parking lot.
“He’s never going to do this over a telephone,” Cuccia told Thomas.
They were pulling into the Bellagio driveway. Thomas drove the white Ford Taurus around the valet parking line to the front entrance. He checked in his rearview mirror for Walsh and the other FBI agents. He spotted the light blue sedan as it pulled to the side of the driveway.
“Let’s go,” Thomas told Cuccia. He grabbed the mobster by an arm and half-dragged him through the lobby. Cuccia tried to pull back, but his jaw hurt from the jostling.
“You’re fuckin’ killin’ me over here,” he moaned through his rewired jaw.
“Don’t give me any ideas,” Thomas said.
“I’m tellin’ you my uncle will never go for it over the phone.”
“That’s not what you said when we left New York.”
“Because I didn’t want to hear you then.”
“Right,” Thomas said. He pulled Cuccia’s arm as he stepped onto an elevator.
“Ouch, motherfucker!”
A woman holding a plastic bucket full of coins gasped at the language.
“Fuck you, too,” Cuccia told the woman.
Thomas smacked the back of Cuccia’s head. The mobster froze from the pain he felt in his jaw.
When they were inside the hotel room, Thomas walked straight to the windows and handeCuccia his cell phone.
“Make the call,” he said. “Now.”
Cuccia had picked up the binoculars he had used to watch the women around the pool. He set them on a chair and dialed a number in Brooklyn.
“Anthony, it’s Nicky,” he said into the phone.
“Nicky who?” the voice on the other end said. “This is Frank’s Pizza.”
“I know, I know. That thing is ready to go.”
“What thing?” the voice said. “This is Frank’s Pizza. Who do you want? What number?”
“Jersey City. Right. Tonight. Yes.”
“Ba-fongool,” the voice said.
Cuccia turned the phone off and handed it back to Thomas. He picked up the binoculars and feigned scanning the pool area. Thomas turned the phone back on and punched in a few numbers. He held the receiver against his ear and shook his head at Cuccia.
“Nice try,” he said. “Frank’s Pizza. They any good?”
Cuccia was desperate. He swung the binoculars as hard as he could at the side of Thomas’s head. He was shocked when he cracked the DEA agent’s skull. He was stunned to see tiny pieces of bone on the edge of the binocular lens.