Charlie Opera by Charlie Stella, Peter Skutches Page A

stripe of neatly trimmed pubic hair. He frowned at the sight of the tissue he could see through her pubic hair.
    “You gotta put that thing in there like that?”
    “Unless I want it to leak,” Brenda said, then mocked him. “Yes, I have to put that thing in there like that.”
    “What is it, like a plug?”
    Brenda stood at the end of the bed. “Exactly. That’s what it does. It stops it from running out.”
    Lercasi made a face. “You gotta describe it like that? It’s disgusting.”
    Brenda rolled her eyes. “Then use a condom, Jerry.”
    Lercasi pointed at her crotch. “Cover yourself,” he said.
    Brenda grabbed the pair of navy leggings she wore to work at the gym. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the leggings on. When she arched her back to pull them up over her hips, Lercasi said, “You have such a beautiful fuckin’ body.”
    “Except I disgust you.”
    He waited for her to roll off the bed. When she reached for a white athletic bra, he shook his head. “Not that,” he said. “There’s no plugs there.”
    Brenda half smiled. “Why don’t you use a condom? If it bothers you so much.”
    “I hate them things.”
    “I hate it when your goo starts running out while I’m working downstairs.”
    Lercasi made another face. “You gotta talk like that?” he said.
    Brenda put her hands on her hips. “You’re the one with the problem.”
    Lercasi thought about it. It was true, he did have a problem with his women appearing anything but perfect. Except he didn’t think it was too much to ask. He put them up, paid all their expenses, gave them phony jobs for play money, and provided them with the best connections in Las Vegas.
    Right now, though, he knew he wasn’t going to win this argument with Brenda this morning. He was fifty-six years old. The young women he kept around him had minds of their own, no matter how much he provided for them.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “My first wife used to do that. It bothers me.”
    Brenda frowned as she put the athletic bra on. “I have to get downstairs. You want me to send that pervert up?”
    “My accountant?” he asked. He knew the girls working in his gym hated Allen Fein. He liked to push their buttons about it.
    “Why do you call him that, a pervert?” he asked.
    “Because he is. He likes little girls. Everybody knows it. He doesn’t even try to keep it secret. We also know he brings in private massage girls. That chink, for one. And we all know what he does with them in the massage rooms.”
    “What chink?”
    “Chink or Vietnamese or Korean or whatever she is. She’s giving him head in the massage rooms. My girls gag at the sight of him downstairs. He makes our skin crawl.”
    Lercasi feigned concern. “He ever make a move on you?”
    “I don’t wear a training bra. I’m not his type.”
    Lercasi tried to picture Allen Fein humping his girlfriend. The image was worse than the tissue plug she had used. “Send him up,” he said.
    “And if Nancy calls again?”
    Nancy was Lercasi’s second wife, a woman he saw as little as possible. “Tell her I’m busy.”
    “Sure,” Brenda said as she stood up. “What do you care? I have to hear it.”
    Lercasi leaned over to crush out his cigarette in an ashtray on the night table. “Hey, Brenda,” he said. “Don’t break my balls this morning, all right?”
    Brenda stopped at the door to turn around and give Lercasi the finger. He broke out laughing.
    Twenty minutes later, Allen Fein sat on the couch in the private apartment above the gym while Lercasi combed his hair in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror behind the bar. The accountant was fidgety on the couch. He examined a pair of crystal dice on a glass coffee table. He seemed nervous waiting for Lercasi’s attention.
    “How was Laughlin?” Lercasi asked.
    “Huh?” Fein said. He dropped one of the crystal dice into his lap. “Oh, all right. I’m thinking of buying a condo there.”
    Lercasi stopped to look at his