Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (11 page)

“I been moving around a lot, Carlito. I got bored of New York and P.R. Figure I’d check the scene over here.”

Jorge said, “So you know Carlito well, Sixto? Well, Carlito, you are now better recommended. I have much affection for Sixto, a man of
condiciones
and respect— perhaps we can be friends.”

I picked it up. “Don Jorge, Sixto will tell you that I am a man of honor and when I give my word that is my life—
no es así
, Sixto?”

“The man don’t lie, Don Jorge; you can count on Carlito Brigante, anytime—I back him up hundred per cent.”

You stool-pigeon motherfucker.

Don Jorge went to rap with some people there so I leaned over to Sixto—“
Mi hermano
, I won’t forget this— you don’t know what this means to me. I need this connection bad; a guy in the Joint put me on to Don Jorge—he got to give me a break, this may be my last chance to make it after all those years I suffered in the can.”

I put on like my crying face, like uptight. Sixto bit good—“Don’t worry, Carlito, the old dude is in my pocket; he will deal with you—what the hell are friends for? After all the shit we been through together! How long since you been out on the street?”

“Just a few days, ain’t had a chance to see nobody. Wanted to hook up with this man right away. I want
nothing to do with them motherfuckers from before; they all let me down when I was in the Joint—fuck ’em.”

“That’s what I say, Carlito—fuck ’em where they breathe.”

Well all right. So me and Sixto got tight—had to be, he was lonely for New York. So we partied for days, me not acting too flush so Sixto was thinking I was hungry for bread. After a couple of days we sprung the trap.

“Look, Sixto, while the old man is in the john, let me level with you fast. I ain’t got no bread, I’m here to rip off this Jorge faggot. I got a line on some big bucks he got stashed away plus a meet he’s got on the border this weekend for two hundred keys. Sixto, this is the maximum shot we ever gonna have. I need your help, Sixto.”

“
Coño
, Carlito,
coño!
”

“We can’t talk here, this old motherfucker has spies all over Madrid. Tomorrow I’m driving out to Franco’s tomb, El Valle de los Caidos, near Segovia.”

“I know where it is.”

“I’ll meet you there at 3
P.M
. and we can scheme in private. Cool it, here he comes. 3
P.M
.—come alone and make sure you’re not tailed.”

That morning, Vinnie and his man Lucien showed up at my room. Lucien was a demolitions guy from North Africa, knew his stuff.

“Okay, Vinnie, I’ll follow your car out to the tomb. We’ll both park in the lot by 2
P.M
. Make sure we’re there first—he’ll show early to check out the scene, he’s a suspicious and jumpy sombitch. I’ll go out and put my arm around him—I’ll take him up to the top of the cross. Slap
the bomb on his car but give it a half hour. After I’m upstairs fifteen minutes you and Lucien come up—he’ll get suspicious right away, think it’s a setup—he’ll run. Give him five minutes to get down to his car; ten minutes he’s driving down the mountain—boom. Later for Sixto. Got the picture, Vin?”

“Uhuh.”

“Some pair you are; Lucien can’t talk English and you are a goddamn mute.”

“What’s to talk, Carlito? We know the way out there and we got the firecracker—you just point him out. One thing—what makes you so sure he’ll run when he sees me and Lucien?”

“You kidding? One look at your guinea puss and this fuckin’ A-rab of yours and he’ll bolt like a rabbit—I know my man.”

Next day, we drove out on schedule. Not ten minutes after we pulled into the parking area Sixto arrived. A beater is always on time. If a guy is right he don’t rush because he’s sure, but a schemer can’t afford no delay, so he’s always on time. You don’t read these things in no book, you just got to develop the vibes. Trouble is too many guys get wasted before they hip up. Shame on them.

It was a cold fall day, sun was shining. No one around hardly. “Sixto, my man, you’re early, I like that—I can’t stand these cats that ain’t never on time. Let’s go to the top together.” We took the elevator up, just me and Sixto. The elevator shaft cuts right through the heart of the mountain, clear up to the peak. There they built like a
giant platform, and on top of this a stone cross 450 feet high. They’ve cut men riding on animals out of stone at each of the four corners of the platform. But each figure maybe sixty feet high. Cannot be believed what Spanish sweat has worked here. Forget about the Pyramids, the Valley of the Fallen is the maximum. A hell of a monument to Spanish blood. I wonder if it covers the Spanish blood spilling in the hallways and alleys of Harlem, if it got room for the Latins O.D.ing on the rooftops of the South Bronx. Something happened to my people since they come across the water.

It’s cold on top of that mountain and the wind blows strong. If you look straight up at the cross with the clouds blowing over it, you get dizzy, like the cross is swaying and gonna fall on top of you. Not to be believed.

“There’s no one around, Carlito.”

“Oh, yeah, Sixto. I wanted to get together with you on this business I told you about last night, but early this morning some people got to me with a bad report about you—now I ain’t saying I believe it, Sixto. You know me, I always like to give a man a chance to explain.”

“Is this from the wops, Carlito?”

“Yeah, like you beat them—”

“That money was coming to me, they was humping me on the deal—you’d have done the same thing.”

“Including me being a rat, Sixto?”

His eyes popped, so I knew he’d seen Vinnie and Lucien. He was gone. We waited awhile. Everything was real quiet, just the wind blowing up there like on the roof of the world. Boom. Later for Sixto.

Before I left, Don Jorge came to me with, “Carlito, I have been much impressed with your
hombría;
perhaps we can work together directly. I mean, we are Latinos, why need you work behind these people?” Right away, I knew Mr. Petey Amadeo was in the junk business. I recognized Amadeo’s handwriting right away. Check. Double-check. Triple-check. Cross. Double-cross. Triple-cross. I knew Don Jorge was in bed with Amadeo. And the
cornuto
is Rocco. Amadeo’s got Rocco taking all the weight what goes with being a dope pusher—meanwhile he’s clean to all including Rocco. All the time Don Jorge got to report to Amadeo.

“No,
mil gracias
, Don Jorge, but I could never go it alone and I am grateful that they should give me this chance.”

“Your loyalty is touching, I commend you for it.
Adiós
.”

So Amadeo is looking for an excuse to have me washed. And first dollar Rocco steals, Don Jorge will rat him out and Amadeo will have him. Amadeo can’t cook up deals to make money like Rocco and he ain’t read no books, but he is a crafty motherfucker. That’s why he been attending other people’s funerals since the thirties. These fuckin’ wops, they ain’t satisfied with loading the dice, they got to stick you up after the game too. I’m over my head. I’m getting out; I’m gonna tell Rocco as soon as I get back.

7

I
GOT BACK TO
N
EW
Y
ORK
. B
UT
I
DIDN
’
T SAY NOTHIN
’
TO
Rocco about Don Jorge and Amadeo. In the life, a man cannot be involved with words, like who said what about who—for sure you’ll be in the middle. In other words, you can rat out a ratter but you can’t rat out a double-crosser. Some fuckin’ business. I started partying like crazy again. Rivas
el Comandante
had run into a crew of teenage boldykes, so we was renting hotel suites, feeding the dykes coke, and watching the show. That Rivas was a stone degenerate but he sure could dig up some freaky broads.

About this time Reggie started hanging out with me. Earl told me, “I want my bro out them goddamn dungarees—I tol’ him, how you gonna command respect? Lookin’ like a reject from the janitor’s union. I tol’ him he got to move around, not just in Harlem, get to deal all around, we’re black and proud of it but that don’t mean we got to beat our chest all the time, it ain’t cool, and it sound like you don’t believe it yo’self. I tol’
him that I am leaving for good and if he want to be the main man he got to clean himself up—and iffen he don’t, then I’m just gonna pass him up for somebody—like Carlito.”

“Thanks a million, Earl, you got some sense of humor.”

“I don’t get out much anymore, Carlito, I been busy getting everythin’ together—you on the street all the time, take Reginald under your wing once in a while, show him the Latin action, like that. If he gonna be a boss he got to get rounded out, y’dig?”

“I dig.”

Reggie. Fuckin’ pain in the ass. He was a good-looking cat so we’d have a good time at my discotheque—a lot of the fay chicks would go for his revolutionary bullshit, and if that was the program I’d come on with “Right on” and “Off the pig” good as Reggie. Shit, any way I get that pussy is all right with me. But then the dude started to lay heavy on me, like
caerme pesao
.

Reggie come on with, “You and my brother Earl are two of a kind—social parasites with no awareness of the revolutionary changes taking place around you. The Third World is on the march and you guys are going around hustling your own people. You and Earl are obsolete—there will be no hustlers in the new world. If you don’t join the ranks of the oppressed then you’ll be put up against the wall with the rest of them. You have no education, but that’s no longer an excuse.”

Always throwing that education shit in my face. “You’re full of shit, Reggie. O-pressed, my ass, you been
sucking Earl’s titty all your life. He’s the one that put you through school. Had you driving cars since you sixteen, dressed you sharp as a pimp, took care of business. Now you puttin’ him down. I know what’s got your head bad—I ain’t so stupid, I know about Fanon and the Battle of Algiers and all that shit; I got the word from a brother in the Joint. You gonna kick over the man by shooting a few cops in the head? You crazy, that’s what—they gonna bury you so fuckin’ quick and nobody gonna even know you was a hero. What the fuck you care about the o-pressed? Take care of business; look out for number one—one way or the other there’ll always be hustlers.”

Earl, Earl, shoulda told you about your crazy brother, but I kept my mouth shut like usual and carried this cross around. One night, me and Reggie closed up my joint and then went over to this after-hours joint downtown Manhattan. Nearly all greaseballs that night. I was stoned, otherwise I’d never have gone there with this fuckin’ Reggie. We was sitting at a table when we get a round of drinks from a table with around eight wise-guys. Valerio Mitri—a made-guy, underboss to Rocco’s uncle, Dominick Cocozza—and company. Reggie says real loud, “We don’t want no fucking drinks, take them back.” Before I could say anything, Val Mitri came over. “I know you don’t know me but I know your brother Earl.”

“I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about my brother Earl—as far as I’m concerned he’s a fuckin’ Uncle Tom.”

Val looked at me. I was stoned, what could I say, I smiled. This Reggie motherfucker is going to get me killed. Val went back and sat down at his table. Right
away the joint is cleared out—my head was fogged—but I knew I had to do something. I stumbled over to Val’s table. “Val, the kid don’t mean no harm, he’s high.” Val’s main gorilla, Buck, said, “We ain’t mad, Carlito, these things happen.” He stuck his hand out. Like a chump, I put my hand out. I was in a vise, couldn’t move. Another gorilla grabbed me around the neck; I couldn’t budge. But behind me I could hear feet like thrashing on the floor and I heard Reggie in a croak—“Carlito, Carlito”—I screamed, “Val, Val Mitri—Earl Bassey was breaking bread with Cocozza a few days ago—you know how much Rocco thinks of Earl—you know you have to kill me too—what are you going to say at the sitdown—that you killed his brother because he refused a drink? Think, Val, you ain’t crazy, think!”

I got to him. He said, “
Basta
.” I heard puking; I knew it was Reggie. Jesus, his tongue must be strung out like a necktie.

“Get the shine out of here, Carlito—Buck ain’t put hands on him yet.” Buck. Buccia was a psycho, killed people with his bare hands, bit off noses; he weighed three hundred pounds but could jump over a bar like a fuckin’ Doberman. I’d seen him in the east Harlem days. I was sobering up fast. “Val, you’re doing the right thing, I’ll get him out.” Reggie was out—he had puke all over him. I dragged and carried him down the stairs. When I got him to the street, he come to, and what does he say? “Get your fucking hands off me, I can walk.”

“You do just that, Reggie, take a fuckin’ walk; you and me is parting ways.”

He took off. I stood by the doorway of the joint trying to clear my head in the night air. Val came down with his crew. All of a sudden, Reggie came tearing around the corner in his car; he braked in front of the joint and started yelling, “Fuck all you guinea motherfuckers and fuck you, too, Carlito, you spic cock-sucker.” Then he was gone.

I couldn’t talk. Val said, “You see, Carlito, we give him a break, now we got trouble, on account of you sticking up for him. You see, you see!”

Yeah, I saw all right.

I didn’t see Earl for a while after that. I didn’t want to hassle with him over Reggie, I didn’t want to tell him that Reggie had a watcha-call-it, complex, about him. I had Reggie figured—Earl is a man, a boss, uptown or downtown, where Reggie is a shitass and he knows it. Reggie don’t want to be Earl’s bro, he wants to be a big shot—dig me standing on my own two feet. Yeah, but you got athlete’s feet, bro. He’s going to do somethin’ crazy, then jump into his grave—but let’s not be in the hole with him, Earl, when he pulls the zipper up over hisself.

Earl called me. We met at Frank’s Restaurant on 125th Street. He looked great, we rapped about old times. Then he told me, “Rocco gave me the word what Reggie did downtown—I know you went all the way for him, Carlito, even though he don’t deserve it.”