Carlito's Way: Rise to Power by Edwin Torres Page B

he didn’t want for nothin’. Lino had looked out for me when I was a kid. Anyway, he asks me for a favor. Seem his son, Felino Jr., known as Junior (no fuckin’ good), was doin’ a lot of scratchin’ and eatin’ a lot of jelly rolls. Lino was suspectin’ he was on junk. Now I follow the golden rule about mindin’ m’own business, but what the hell—I owed Lino. So me and this guy Chángui go lookin’ for Junior. We find out that he was scorin’ out of a Bickford’s on 145th Street and Broadway. He didn’t wanna come out the joint, so we dragged him outside, put him against a building, and give him a few smacks. Then we tried to reason with him. I told him if his father was a barber without no schoolin’ he could be a doctor if he had some schoolin’; he said he was in a trade school, Machine and Metal Trades on 96th Street. Wise cock-sucker. Then be a fuckin’ dentist, and I gave him another rap. I read him the riot law—if I find out you’re using hard shit I’m gonna pull your tongue out yo’ass, etc.
    About this time, four detectives come out of an unmarked car with their cannons out. Puñeta . Me and Chángui get tossed up against the wall. They chased Junior. They got our pistols and they got eight yard I had inmy pocket. This is after 4 A.M ., ’cause the crowd from the Caborojeño Club upstairs had already let out. The bulls take me and Chángui down to Riverside Park. Ain’t no precinct in there, so I know we gonna settle out of court. Moldy-puss was the main bull of the four, he said,
    “Watcha names, punks?”
    “I’m Inspector Moran, this is Lieutenant Chángui.”
    “I’ll bust your ass, Brigante. I know you—what the hell are you doin’ this far up in a cheap shakedown?”
    “We were just tryin’ to straighten the kid out for his father.”
    “Oh, I see, juvenile aid work, eh? Your ass. We gotcha for assault and possession of loaded guns. How do you like them onions?”
    “The kid won’t sign no complaint, and this was an illegal search—we weren’t committin’ no crime. Bust won’t stick.”
    “You fuckin’ hump—we went to question you, you stumbled, fell against me. I felt the bulge on your hip. Gotcha. Right, guys?”
    I know when I’m in an over-the-weight match.
    “Officer, that eight hundred ain’t mine. S’pose we split down the middle. That’ll give you guys a hundred a piece, right? Everybody wins.”
    “Wrong. You are a cheap cock-sucker, Brigante; you’re lucky you’re dealin’ with me. Beat it.”
    They kept the guns too. Mother-hoppers. I got back to Lino next day and told him what he wanted to hear, that the kid was only sniffin’, not skin-poppin’, and that he was straightened out. The kid was straight like afishhook. Can’t do nothin’ with a tecato . Lalin’s kid brother, Narciso—forty-dollar-a-day habit—jab himself in the cock and in the neck. Once, Lalin knocked his teeth out—didn’t do no good. From the whole army of junkies marchin’ around Harlem I ain’t seen but two guys walk away from the spike.
    It didn’t matter Lino none—them doctors finally terminaled him. Adiós, buena gente, descanse en paz .
    I would have gone for the funeral, but he had insurance. I put some bread on Lino’s widow, Doña Mercedes. It didn’t take Junior long to put Doña Mercedes in the box next to Lino. I cried at that funeral; she was a lady.
    Don’t look at me. I never put no needle in nobody’s arm. How many Juniors have I tried to straighten out? Shit, I’m just gettin’ by myself. Plenty bites been taken outa my ass—lucky I got a rhino hide and a concrete skull. Else my ass would be grass now too.

6
    V IVA ESPAÑA ! M ADRID, A CLASS TOWN . R IGHT AWAY I liked it. Clean, big boulevards. Everybody’s a square, no angling. Almost everybody; Don Jorge Betancourt, Rocco’s man, came by my hotel the first night I was in town. An older guy, European-type cat—like a head-waiter, very dignified, with a heavy theta sound I had to get