Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (9 page)

When Nacho was a prisoner in Isla de Pinos, the Castro militia would take him to
paredón
each dawn, and the firing squad would shoot blanks at him. Bad for your nerves. He killed two Castro cops, stole a jeep, and sneaked into the Mexican embassy dressed like a Western Union guy. In Mexico, he was working for the C.I.A. shooting Castro agents. Yeah, baby, we play rough, too. Nacho’s boys was no slouches, either. They all been trained with the Rangers in the U.S. Army, in Florida and Guatemala, had jumped off at the Bay of Pigs and the Belgian Congo.

Nacho himself was not a hustler—he didn’t racketeer. His business was his balls. In other words, if he heard that Rolando from Union City had made a score, he would drop in on him and hit him for five hundred or so. Or if maybe Mario from Miami was in town with a big bundle, Nacho would get next to him. No gorilla or stickup shit, more like, “
Mi hermano
, I am short on funds to continue my fight against Castro and Communism; I know you want to give your share.” Guys like Rolando and Mario were bad-asses and they really weren’t afraid of Nacho, it’s just that Nacho was like supported by all the Cuban wise-guys; so even though they weren’t scared of him, they weren’t ready to die any day of the week the way he was, and besides, if they had a problem of violence they could count on Nacho any time of the day or night no matter who or what was involved. It could be a beat—
tumbe—
for twenty thou or a piece of ass, all the same to Nacho.

Right away, he was trouble for me. That first night, we hit an after-hours place in the East Sixties. Connected people own the joint. Hoodlums and whores all crowded together carrying on even though straight people are already getting up to go to work. Nacho says to his boys, “Manolito Matanzas!” Oops!
Qué pasa
with Manolito Matanzas? I see this tall skinny guy all dressed in white, in winter. “He is making his
santo
, I see; then this is a good time to blow him to hell.”

“Wait a minute, Nacho, what’s wrong with this guy?”

“He is an
hijo de puta
from Matanzas who was one of the jailers at Isla de Pinos. I told him that whenever I saw him, he would be mine. Tonight I keep my promise.”

“Nacho, the people here are friends of mine,
Italianos;
we got to show respect.”

“Fuck the
Italianos
, Manolito’s time has come. But we will give him a fair chance. Camaguey, give me your pistol; take the bullets out of the clip.”

Camaguey took the bullets out of the clip, then slid the empty magazine back into the automatic and handed the gun to Nacho.

Nacho yelled from the bar to Manolito’s table, “Manolito Mantanzas, you are a
maricon
and a
hijo de puta-echa pa’lante si eres hombre
.”

The joint wasn’t jumping anymore. Stand back. Matanzas was glue—he kept his hands on top of the table, but he wouldn’t look up.

“Nacho Reyes, I do not have a gun on me, I am making my
santo
and I do not want any trouble.”

“You made plenty trouble in Isla de Pinos when you had your gun and stick. You were an
abusador
but I told you then your time would come. Look at my face,
cabron!
”

“I do not have a gun.”

“Then I will give you a gun,
maricon!
” And Nacho pulled out Camaguey’s automatic and placed it out on Matanzas’ table, all the time holding his own revolver in his right hand.

“
Agarra
, Manolito,
agarra!
”

“No, Nacho, I will not fight you with this gun. Give me the one in your hand; that’s the one I want, you take this one.”

Manolito was no fool.

With that, Nacho busted Matanzas across the face and head with the pistol butt until the blood ran all over the white suit. All hell broke loose now, chairs flying, women screaming. We quit the joint in a hurry. We drove down to another after-hours in the East Twenties. We weren’t there long when I got to feeling sick from all the shit I’d put in my nose—out of training, I guess. Nacho walked me outside to the street. All of a sudden, I see Manolito Matanzas running behind the parked cars across the street; he’s got a carbine with a banana clip.

“Duck, Nacho!”

Pow, pow, pow—we’re running but the carbine is plowing up the asphalt all around us—Nacho hits the ground, spins around, and empties his piece at Matanzas. By this time, Nacho’s boys are down and shooting. Matanzas is down. “Look what you’ve done to me!” Last words. Later for Matanzas. Dump all the guns and let’s get out of here.

Nacho was hit in the sole of his foot, blowing out the bones in his instep. Don’t ask me how, but right there in his dingy hotel room, a Cuban doctor put wires in Nacho’s foot, sewed him up, put a cast on the leg. Nacho stayed in the room a week, snorting coke. After a week he was getting around on crutches, no infection, no nothing. That cocaine will cure anything. Anybody else they would have had to cut the leg off at the thigh. Sombitch
is indestructible. There was a roundtable about the brawl inside the East Sixties spot but Rocco straightened it out.

The Cubans were all
santeros
. They believe in the saints. Saint Lazarus, Santa Barbara, like that. I been to Cuban homes where they’ll have a special room for the saint. A plaster saint maybe five feet tall with a golden sword with real jewels in it and a velvet cape and a golden crown. Then they put food around the saint. They are sold on this stuff, can’t tell them different. Then they got all kinds of hexes and voodoo. With big money being paid to the
santera
or
santero
. Like if a Cuban wants something real bad he promises to do his
santo
if he gets it. His
santo
might be giving up several thousand dollars, shaving his head bald, dressing only in white.

The Ricans got their hocus-pocus too
—espiritistas
, we call them. If they done a
trabajo
(a job) on you, you’re in trouble, you’re hexed—everything gets fucked up. The Latin hoodlums believe all that shit, so if they got a big deal cooking they get a job done, or if they been getting busted too often they get a job done to get the hex off them. I seen stone racketeers and killers going in for this shit. Me, I don’t believe in nothin’ but that dollar bill in my pocket—stay with the money, you be all right. You can be broke in China or Cuba where everybody is in the ditch, but how you gonna be broke and in the ditch here when you got them guys driving by you with Cadillacs splashing mud in your face? No way. Throw it all up in the air and see who comes up with what—I’ll take my chances.

The Cubans were roaming around, looking for a soft spot. The cops were expecting an all-out war, but it never
come off because there was more than enough to go around. Except for a few cowboys like Rocco, the wops were afraid of the junk, and the Ricans and the Blacks never got connected overseas. But junk was king. So the Cubans filled the gap—with no money, no connections, no language, they set up on the East Coast, West Coast, Europe, South America. Unbelievable. They got heavy in no time. They had respect for the old pros like me, but once in a while they’d show their teeth.

Like there was this guy Rivas-Barcelo. He’d been a big shot in Cuba, minister of transportation under Prio; he sold the whole transportation stock in Havana and pocketed the money. Then when Batista came in, he was a boss in the secret police under Ventura. He’d walk into a precinct where they had some Castro suspects—“How come these men are still alive?” They wouldn’t stay alive long. Stone killer but he always wore dark suits with vests and a homburg hat—with his gray hair, he looked like a judge. I liked to rap with him. He always spoke with a Castilian accent, and even if they was raunchy whores, he’d be bowing and pulling out chairs, “
señorita
” this and “
señorita
” that. He wore shades day and night but it didn’t do any good, you could still see his eyes; you knew he would never hesitate. He brought his boys out of Cuba with him on one of the last boats to get out. Rivas paid the skipper in counterfeit money, but the skipper had the last laugh because he didn’t know where he was going and they got lost all over the Gulf of Mexico. A couple of Rivas’ boys couldn’t cut it and had to be dumped to the sharks. The rest made it on account of Rivas kept
them going when they about had it. They called him
Comandante
.

Rivas had some tough boys but one in particular, Roberto Palacios, was a very nasty kid, psycho-like. Palacios was around twenty-one years old but had been shooting people in Havana, Miami, and New York. He’d come into the joints and walk from one end of the bar to the other bad-eyeing everybody; then he’d go outside and come back to find out if somebody was saying something about him. He kept all the thugs on edge because you knew somebody had to kill him and you wondered if you was gonna be the lucky guy to lock with him. Rivas used to say he was a
buen muchacho
from a wealthy family who had lost everything. Then Rivas decided to aim the kid at us. One night I was at a joint near Amsterdam Avenue with my group and Rivas and his
bravos
had a table nearby. All of a sudden Palacios says to my man Victor Lopez, “You’re sitting in my chair.”

Victor don’t take no shit nohow—“Fuck, you mean I got your chair?”

“You are lacking in respect for me, Victor.”

“Wadda you crazy, man? Get out of here before I knock you on your ass.”

“I am going to my car, meet me outside in ten minutes, bring something with you.”

Palacios left. Rivas did not say a word to Palacios, instead he ordered a round of drinks for my table. “This is not our affair, Carlito, let these impetuous youngsters settle their differences; if we all go outside there might be a tragedy—Victor’s blood is hot, let him go out.”

So that’s how it went down—one on one. When we got outside, Palacios was dead and Victor had three bullets in him. We got rid of both pistols before the Man came. I got to Victor first—“Not a word to the bulls, name and address, that’s all—don’t talk about no self-defense, don’t say nothin’, on advice of counsel!” They kept Victor at the Bellevue Prison Ward. I told his old lady, “You tell Victor that I am conducting his defense, he don’t need no goddamn lawyers; the grand jury got to know that Victor acted in self-defense, and where is the piece for the possession charge? No case, the man got to walk.”

The grand jury dismissed the case. Everybody uptown was saying how Carlito knew the law better than the lawyers. Goddamn right. After that I was giving out all kinds of legal decisions in all the joints. I missed my calling, shoulda been a judge. Will the party of the first part sit down so I can talk to that fine party of the second part in my chambers? Or like I charge this jury that that cop is a lying sombitch and you better come in with a verdict of acquittal ’cause I’m going to dismiss the case anyhow. Or I hereby order the D.A. committed for ninety days for contempt of court for presenting such a shit-ass case. And I hereby order the stool pigeon to the Elmira Reception Center for an indeterminate sentence and suspend sentence on the defendant. History-making decisions.

The Cubans livened things up and we had a lot of fun with them. Nobody can party like them.

5

I
HAD PLENTY OF BUCKS BUT ONLY FROM THE JUNK
— everything else I did lost money. And I was always angling for schemes—like this middleweight who’s knocking ’em dead in the gym. When I’m promoting, every time he steps in the ring he gets knocked on his ass. Then there was this chanteuse who was gonna be another Olga Guillot, cost me a bundle—had to get her an apartment and everything. She couldn’t sing worth a damn; we’d spring her on the Cubans in Union City and Hoboken with a big promotion—no dice. Seem like dealing is all I’m good at, so be it.

Earl Bassey was married by now and he’d tell me, “You got to get yo’self a good old lady and settle down. Look at me, I got me a home on the Island, a wife and a kid. Come Sunday I lay up like a respectable citizen. I’m putting it all together and in a little while my lil’ brother Reginald is gonna have the whole thing and I’m retiring to St. Croix. I got me the bread, what for I’m gonna wait ’til the Man puts me back in striped pajamas? No good.
You know I ain’t ever jived you, Carlos, I’m telling you in front—the party’s over. The Man be cooking up the conspiracies again, but the sentences are gonna be a motherfucker—I ain’t jiving you, I got this from some big people. Get yo’ ass out now, bro, ’cause in a little while it gonna belong to the government. That’s the sermon for today.”

“You right, Earl, I been thinking the same thing.” Bullshit. I always agree with what people tell me and it sounds good at the time, but then I go my way anyway. But I didn’t go for the bit about his kid brother Reggie. Now that was a bad nigger. Earl brought him up out of Philly where he was going to college. Earl had a blind spot for the kid. Reggie would strut around uptown with these two flunkies of his, dressed in some Fidel Castro overalls. Everything was “black” this and “black” that. When he first come up to New York, I was at the Baby Grand with some tan chick and he wanted to know what my white face was doing in the joint. Meanwhile, I knew he had a white bitch in the Village. The shit was straightened out but I knew he was trouble.

About this time I got hung on a broad bad. Her name was Leticia but I called her Tuta, like a nickname I give her. She reminded me of India in looks but she wasn’t no
bollo-loco
like India, she was a clean girl. As a fact she was the first “good” girl I ever had. She was a very educated girl, been to high school and everything. I met her downtown in a joint I was eating at with my buddy. We noticed these two dolls at this table next to ours. So right away I sent them over a drink—no good, not interested.
Then, like to made to order, some guy stoned comes over to their table and starts breaking chops. Right away, I jump up and grab the guy by the arm and pull him away.

I say, “Can I talk to you a minute, sir? I’m Detective Russo of the vice squad and I couldn’t help but notice you were disturbing these young ladies. Now run along before you get yourself in trouble.”