Cuccia used a taxi to take him to a hotel off the Strip. He saw the driver looking at him funny in the rearview mirror, and Cuccia explained how he had been robbed and mugged the day before. He pointed to his jaw. He explained how two black kids had broken his jaw with a baseball bat. His wife, Cuccia told the driver, was still recovering in the hospital.
The driver sympathized. He told Cuccia he should have a gun. “For protection,” the driver said with a Russian accent.
It was an unexpected bonus. Two guns were better than one. Cuccia asked the driver if he knew where a guy could get one. He said, “I’m scared shit, tell you the truth.”
“How much you are to pay?” the driver asked. He tried to examine Cuccia again in the rearview mirror.
Cuccia was contemplating the second weapon and extra ammunition. He would need transportation as well.
“How much?” the driver repeated.
“Huh?” Cuccia said. He leaned forward, an overanxious, desperate, but grateful tourist. “Anything,” he said. “Can you get me one?”
“Not me, no,” the driver said. “But I have friend can get. For two hundred, maybe three hundred dollar, I think.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I think. Where you are staying? Here, this place?”
They were parked off Boulder Highway, alongside a Super 8 Hotel. Cuccia shook his head. “At the MGM. But I thought it was better if I did this from here.”
The driver shrugged. “Is fine here, too. You want to wait, I come back. Anything you are want? Magnum, automatic?”
“A nine,” Cuccia said. “And an extra clip.”
The driver nodded. “I am right back,” he said. “Half an hour.”
“So much for your friend Lercasi,” Charlie told Iandolli.
They were standing in the motel parking lot. Three police cruisers had pulled in behind the van. The Asian was in handcuffs. The right side of his face was swollen.
“I got a call from him before,” Iandolli said. “About Beau Curitan, I think.”
“That’s pretty funny,” Charlie said. He was still catching his breath from the fight. He cradled his left hand in his right hand. He could barely move his fingers.
“The message said the package was delivered,” Iandolli said. “I asked for proof but he hung up.”
Charlie squinted at Iandolli. “Is that supposed to mean anything to me? Jesus Christ, give it a break.”
Charlie opened the door to his rental.
“Where you going?” Iandolli asked.
“Why?”
“Because Nicholas Cuccia is still out there. He almost killed that DEA agent. Gold just went to look for him.”
“And now you’re gonna follow me?”
Iandolli was adamant. “Where are you going?”
“A pet store, if I can find one is still open.”
“A pet store?”
“I owe a woman an apology.”
Minh Quan snorted two lines of cocaine after receiving the phone call from his man following Charlie Pellecchia. When he arrived at the small motel south of the Strip, Minh was just in time to see one of his men handcuffed and shoved into a police van. Another member of his gang arrived on a motorcycle a few minutes later. Minh instructed him to follow Pellecchia.
When a group of police cruisers pulled into the motel parking lot, Minh decided to get out of the area before he was spotted. He drove out toward the desert, where he would wait until he knew where Pellecchia settled for the night.
Then he would kill him.
The Russian was back in fewer than twenty minutes. He handed Cuccia a Glock handgun with a fully loaded nine-bullet magazine. The Russian produced a second fully loaded magazine and dropped it on the bed.
“Was little expensive,” he said.
Of course it was, Cuccia was thinking. “How much?” he asked.
“Four hundred for gun and single clip. Another fifty for extra magazine.”
“Fifty for the clip?”
“Is very fast business. No time to bargain. I take back you don’t want clip.”
Cuccia liked the feel of the Glock in his right hand. He aimed it at the pillows as he turned the gun sideways in his hand.
“Can you take me back to my hotel?” Cuccia asked.
“Sure. No charge, we have deal.”
“You have your car keys?”
The Russian held them up.
“Thanks,” Cuccia said. He turned the gun on the Russian and squeezed off three rounds.