Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (5 page)

“Make your move, motherfucker, make it—”

“Whoa, bro—”

“I’ll splash your face all over this motherfuckin’ car—”

“You right, man, you right.”

The old man got out okay. But his nerves were bad after that. He said I was crazy, but it wasn’t like that. I just didn’t give a fuck; got a beef, jump out in front; you be first, you be best.

We checked Snipe out; he was wrong—set Etienne up. Somebody burnt some holes in his clothes. Later for Snipe.

A
BOUT THAT TIME THE OLD MAN STARTED STAYING AT
home in St. Albans. That was all right with me. Good bread coming in. Everything copasetic. Too good to last. I started moving around more. Had me over twenty suits, three hundred a pop, from Leighton’s, Cye Martin, and Kronfeld’s. All my boys stayed clean; we’d run down to Atlantic City—Club Harlem, 500 Club—even Miami and Puerto Rico—we’d have parties with five or six broads snorting coke and doing tricks. I started going to the Copa regular; if I caught the show always a yard for the maitre d’—“Mr. Brigante, right this way.” I was palling around with a lot of wops from downtown and the west Bronx, younger guys like me, not the prejudiced old hoods. These kids would say I was half a wop with my name, which is Corsican—of which there’s a lot in P.R. I’d think, maybe I’m gonna be the first made-guy P.R., and I’d say,
“Fangul”
and “Yer mudder’s cunt” with the best of them. I shoulda known better.

Earl would come down when he had something to say to Rocco. Neither one of them would party as much as me. And they’d be down on me for fuckin’ around so much. I’d listen,’cause I knew these cats was in my corner, but I couldn’t see it. When you’re highrollin’ in the bread you’re bound to be out there jumpin’ come midnight every night. Rocco and Earl was businessmen,
while-as I was a jive-ass party man. But I’d complain anyway.

“Rocco, gimme a break. Earl, here, be a doctor of numerology, like Etienne. But numbers ain’t my game, Rocco. I ain’t got the patience. Gimme a break.”

“He wants to be the main skag man uptown, Rocco. He think he can fuck with the feds.”

“Charles, you’ve been handed a ready-made, going concern. Etienne has the best runners in Harlem.”

“Yeah, but I gotta work every day. Somebody’s always trying to sneak in a late hit or change a number on us. Then you gotta be an administrator; then you got labor problems—what controller is humpin’ what runner’s wife. Rocco, I’m breakin’ my ass.”

“The money’s good, right?”

“Slow comin’.”

“What do you think, Earl?”

“Carlito’s okay, Rocco. The bank’s holdin’ up.”

“Okay, Mister Carlito. Next time I have an auction you may be invited.”

“I’m ready, Rocco, I’m ready.”

“Paint is very expensive, maybe ten thou for a bucket.”

“Money is only an object, I’ll get it. Got it, been there. Wadda you kiddin’, I been waiting since we left the El, Rocco. Right, Earl?”

“I got no beef with the policy game, Carlito. Since Rocco got me on the pad, I been straight. Numbers is hard work, but it’s clean. That don’t mean I won’t take a shot if I get a chance. Meantime I’m cool.”

“Junk shakes you up, eh, Earl?”

“Earl is smart, Charles; he leaves well enough alone. He gets up early, he works hard, he sleeps nights. This other business is like Grand Prix racing. You have to keep your hands on the wheel at all times. You get the best engineers, the best mechanics, the best car, and they’ll still run you into a wall. I don’t recommend it to anybody. You’re on a different level in that game—the air is very thin. You can choke on it.”

“When did you ever know me to take a step back, Rocco?”

“It’s not that, I don’t want later on—”

“Rocco, I’m ready, gimme a break.”

“Take care of things uptown, with Earl here; later on, we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, uptown some dudes is getting jealous— spics is like that. I’m tooling around in a big car with a fine kitty. Instead of saying one of the boys made it, no, they got to get mad; that jive Carlito, he ain’t shit, when’s the last time he took to the street with a cat— they wuz gonna try me out again. Mistake! It came down this way. I had me a fabulous Jewish chick name of Honey, a stone freak. A blonde, educated too—but she dug wise-guys. I’d play the Little Caesar shit for her and she loved it. She’d even come up to Harlem to meet me. One night she was waiting for me in this joint near 111th Street and Fifth Avenue. These three kiddie hoodlums came in, grabbed her fur coat right off her back.

“Tell Carlito that Chucho wants to see him; we’ll hold your coat.”

They were gone when I got there—lucky for me, since I didn’t have no piece on me. The broad was all shook up. I told Guiso, the owner of the joint, “Tell Chucho I’ll see him tomorrow night right here. I’m very embarrassed about my fiancée’s coat—make sure he brings the coat; we’ll work something out.” Well all right. Step right up.

I dug the whole scene, that’s my trouble. I coulda had these punks taken out—no, I wanna do it myself; my blood was hot, got to be my hands.

It was after midnight, the three of them was in the joint facing the door, the fur coat thrown over a chair, I had a long leather coat on with a pistol in each pocket— automatics can jam, but they’re faster. Only one way in or out to Guiso’s diner, no back door. I come in the door smilin’—“
Ola
, Chucho”—then I started smoking with both pieces; Chucho said, “
Espera
, Carlito …,” that’s as far as he got. We were going to talk all right. I killed him standing up. His partner, Nelson, took two in the chest—he had something on him, but he never got off. The third guy split out the door, taking tables with him; I chased him past the Park Palace into the park but he was movin’, Jim!—he got away. I come back for the coat—some motherfucker had copped it. I come out and see Nelson crawling under a parked car—I bent down and put another cap in him—he screamed like a pussy. I quit the scene in a hurry.

Now I was in a real jackpot. Everything was fucked up. Why I got to be such a hothead? I blow town, get upstate around Newburgh. Earl, my man, come up to see me.

“Rocco be hot as a motherfucker about you, bro. He say you done blown the whole duke. He’s right. That macho shit of yours shows you ain’t no boss. Three street punks. You coulda skinned them cats twenty different ways without—”

“Had to be, Earl, it was coming—I just got off first. What’s to be?”

“Cuba, Carlito.”

“Cuba, what the hell I’m gonna do in Cuba?”

“Lay cool—you’re driving down to Miami, then take the ferry to Havana. Rocco’s sending a guy named Vinnie to pick you up; he’ll have the other half of this dollar bill on him. Watch the speed limits driving down. When you get to Havana he’ll connect you—you be there awhile; when things calm down here, Rocco will send for you.”

“Wait a minute, Earl, I got a self-defense case here. I can beat this in court—tell Rocco to get me Murray or Kleinman—”

“How you sound? That Nelson punk is alive, a material witness with $100,000 bail. Now how we know if he’s gonna stand up? Gotta get that bail down, then we know what he’s told the D.A. If push come to shove, we can wash him—but right now you need time, get it, time!”

“What about the other kids?”

“Chucho’s underground; the third guy is still runnin’ through the park—don’t worry about them.”

“Well then, we go to Cuba.”

This guy Vinnie shows up next day, the dollar halves match, and we’re off in a Caddie, and I mean off, this
dude wouldn’t sleep or talk—a driving sphinx. In twenty hours we’re in north Florida. We’re humming on an empty stretch of highway when there they were in the rearview mirror. Bulls. They pull us over.

Storm troops. Six-foot-two and twice as wide and as mean as they was wide. Wide-brimmed hats, pearl-handled revolvers—they must still be killing Indians around here.

“License and registration.”

“Yes, sir,” says Vinnie, showing his license. We’re both out of the Caddie.

“Dagos, eh, drivin’ a big Cadillac from the big city— where yo’all barrel-assing to?”

Oh shit.

“We’re going to Miami, sir,” says Vinnie—but the more you give the more they push.

“All you ginsos is comin’ to Miami and Tampa—”

“I’m Spanish”—I’m hot.

“You ain’t nothin’ but a Cuban nigger—”

I threw a short right hand just below the breastbone— he went down on his ass, cowboy shit and all. He’d have shot me for sure but his partner stopped him. They handcuffed and slapped us around. Then they took us to a diner on the road; the cook took his apron off and come out as the fucking magistrate. The bulls told him what happened.

“Good Godalmighty damn, cain’t decent folks be on our roads without gittin’ run over with these heah big cars? Ah swear, it’s a goddamn shame—an’ now they wanna be assaulting peace officers. Couple of may-fia
boys, eh? Wal, that don’ cut no ice ’round heah; we’ll put yo’ ass on the chain gang, yo’all heah, the chain gang.”

If he was trying to scare me, he sure as hell was succeeding—I was scared shitless.

“Yeah, you lil’ ol’ boys are in trouble—serious trouble. Now, whut kind of car was that? A Cadillac, eh? Lemme talk to the driver. Take this heah other boy out.”

They took me to a back room. My ass was low—I’ll be breaking rocks in a chain gang and if I’m lucky the warrant will come down on the N.Y. homicide.

After a while, Vinnie came to get me with the bulls; they drove us to a bus depot. Not a word was said. Then they put Vinnie and me on a bus headed for Miami.

“The man wanted the car?”

“Yeah.”

“Man got the car?”

“Yeah.” End of conversation.

3

H
AVANA WAS REALLY JUMPING IN THOSE DAYS—BEST
town I was ever in. Tropicana, Montmartre, with chorus lines of
mulatas
that put anything in N.Y. to shame. You could party twenty-four hours a day—Olga Guillot, Benny More, Rolando La Serie, they were all there. La Aragon, Casino la Playa, Cascarita—gambling, pussy, coke—wide open. Fidel sure fucked up a good thing.

The mob was into all the casinos and I was hanging around the tables a lot. Pretty soon I teamed up with this Cuban named Nacho Reyes. He was the bodyguard for a senator and had connections all the way to the president. The setup was different there; every politico had his own crew working for him—like private little armies. Everybody was robbing, but you had to be in the government, so at election time things would get rough; murders were all right as long as you had your rabbi— cops and robbers were all mixed up. If your man was in
you were a cop, uniform and all—if not, you’d be a robber trying to get him in. Wild.

Nacho was a stone killer, he iced a guy when he was sixteen years old and kept right on going. He had bullet holes all over his body. I never saw him eat anything, but he would snort coke day and night. With a piece in his hand he was like a cat, a bad-ass. He said he had heard about me in New York—that I had
cojones
. I learned a lot from Nacho. One night we walked into this joint and right away I could see it was a setup. The door was closed behind us, the jukebox was loud—the bartender looked like he was going to start crying. The hairs on the back of my neck said, “These motherfuckers are going to kill us.”

Nacho saved our ass. He threw his arms around the bossman there—“
Mi hermano
, I have come to your house to have a drink with you as your guest; Carlito from New York, I have spoken to him about our Cuban hospitality …”

Nacho ate crow but he saved our lives. After we left, he said, “Only a fool throws himself head first—when you are outgunned and your only exit is death, you compromise;
le comes el cerebro
, when the time is right, you strike—but you never hesitate. That is why I am alive and have buried a dozen men. The coke is in my nose but not my brain—”

I
WAS IN
C
UBA FOR OVER A YEAR HAVING A HIGH OLD TIME.
I was in a beach club, had a Cuban old lady—Earl would
send me money when I needed it. My
Cubana
was a hooker, but she was a classy broad and moved in good circles. She spoke very refined Spanish and had elegant hands—I’d forget she was turnin’ tricks. She’d tell me how great I was, how I wasn’t cut out to be a knock-around guy. She was going to con a con man. Ha!

Then I got the word from Earl. Everything is set, come on home.
Adiós, Cubita la bella
.

I
SURRENDERED TO THE
D.A.’
S OFFICE ACCOMPANIED BY
my lawyer, Morris Steinhardt. They took me to the sixth floor, Homicide Bureau, for interrogation before arraignment. They got to be kidding. They questioned me in teams, the first team was threatening me, hooping and hollering; the second team was going to save me from the first, only I got to tell them the truth about the murder. Name and address, that’s all they get.

I’m arraigned in Central Sessions that afternoon. Murder in the first degree; I could get the electric chair, Jesus! No bail, they hold me in the Tombs. Tombs is right—couldn’t take a shower, place smells bad, food worse.

The word is that I am in good shape—all they got is a bus driver who says he saw me chasing a guy into the park with something in my hand but he’s not sure what. Guiso’s going to say he saw me around his joint that night but didn’t see me at the time of the shooting and that he dove to the floor without looking as soon as he heard the first bang. The guns were never found and to add to the
confusion, ballistics is going to show Chucho and Nelson were shot with different guns, like there was more than one guy shooting. They got no statement out of me since I come in with my lawyer. Earl tells me that Nelson is all right—he don’t know who did what, all he knows he was shot. I don’t go for this, I say wash Nelson, but Rocco says it will look bad, so I go along with them.

Meanwhile, I got troubles with my fuckin’ lawyer. He’s getting big bucks and he ain’t doing shit. I got to lead him by the hand all the way. They are like these doctors who ask you what’s wrong with you; if you know, what the hell you need them for? Shit. I break it all down for the lawyer—all the motions I want made— I want all the statements from all the witnesses, I want the ballistics reports, I want the autopsy report. I want the yellow sheets on all the prosecution witnesses, I want the case dismissed for lack of prosecution—the lawyer says that ain’t got no merit ’cause I ran away. Ran away, shit, who ran away? I wasn’t there, I just went to Cuba for a vacation—and if I was there I ran away from the same gang of guys that shot Chucho and Nelson, I ran for my life. This old con Walter, down from Dannemora on his own writ, told me what I had to do. He should know, he’s been drawing writs for twenty years.