Carlito's Way: Rise to Power (14 page)

“Don’t be nervous, Carlito, they’re not going to shoot anyone at a roundtable—this is neutral ground, like a court-martial in the army.”

“I ain’t in the army, Rocco.”

“Neither am I, and that’s part of our trouble.”

“Wadda you mean, Rock?”

“I mean I’ve not been made. I never went for this protocol shit. My only interest was making money; I don’t want to be a tough guy talking about this hit and that hit. And I’ve made more money for the outfit than all of them put together, so I’ve been independent and walked away from this made-guy business—and now I’m in trouble.”

“Wadda you mean, Rock?” Jesus Christ!

“I mean Uncle Dom is dying, cancer. Amadeo is acting boss—this guy Mario Battaglia is like an underboss; my rabbi is fading, Charles, and for the first time I need rank—everybody is getting promoted except me.”

“Wadda you give a shit about this captain-and-general shit, Rocco? Make the money.”

“They’ll whack me out, Carlito. Mr. A cannot stand my guts; he knows I’ve been going around him to Uncle Dom for years. When my uncle goes, I’m in trouble.”

“These people got to be crazy, with the money you’ve made for them!”

“That’s the only thing I got going for me.”

“Well, you got me and my guns going for you.”

“I know that, Carlito, but it’s not that simple.”

I’d never seen Rocco so down. Then that fucking “Mala Femina” playing—that’s got to be the background music on all the F.B.I. tapes. I was shook up. Then to improve things around this time in stashes Mr. Petey A and his traveling kangaroo court of the ugliest spitters I ever did see. Two gorillas in front, two flanking Amadeo, and two bringing up the rear. They marched straight through the bar into a back room. Everybody in the joint was examining their glass all of a sudden like a freeze— the little wop scared the shit out of everybody, including me.
Madonna!

Then Cocozza came in with Valerio Mitri, Buccia, and this guy Battaglia. Yea, team!—’til I got a look at Uncle Dom—a dead man—his skull was coming out through
his skin, he couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. His voice was a croak, “Hello, Rocco—I see you got your Spanish friend here.
Como está
, Carlo?”

“Okay, Mr. Cocozza, okay—glad to see you.”

The back room had a long table with a short table crossing it at the end like a
T
. There were three chairs at the short table; they were empty when we came into the room, everybody was sitting at the long table. I said, “What about bugs, Rocco?”

“Don’t worry, we got a guy checked it out this afternoon.”

“If I had m’druthers, we’d be out in the bay talking underwater—these guys look like conspiracies all by themselves. Jeez!”

Then these three old guys walked in. Everybody got up—me too. What is this jive? The pope, the three kings—what am I doing here? Dom Cocozza and Amadeo was kissing and embracing with the King Cole trio; they were rapping in Sicilian—“
Pietro
,” “
Domenico
,” “
Don Cesare
.”
Don Fangula
, sez me. The three wise men sat down at the small table facing us. Reminded me of my first bust down in the old special sessions. The guy in the middle was an active boss—old, gray on top, but dap in the dark suit with a shoulder fit that had to go for three yard. It took him five minutes to take off his hat, gloves, and topcoat—with everybody standing up. Everything he had on seemed cut from the same material. This guy had to be a general, for low.

Cesare Mazzone, also known as Chick Mason. All these Italians was Irish prizefighters in the thirties. The
two old guys flanking Mazzone—Mustache Petes—had the shirt buttoned to the top but no tie—rumpled black suits and puffing on guinea stinkers. They was old dons, but their faces said Don’t fuck with me.

I ain’t ever felt good inside a courtroom. Mazzone opened up sounding like Wallace Beery with a sore throat.

“A wright, wad is the beef here, wad’s the problem here? Lemme hear from Pete first.”

Pete Amadeo. Short, squat, dark with like nappy hair. Maybe some club members swam across from Africa to Sicily way back when. He had a bad-news face, the kind you ain’t gonna stop and ask Where’s the Woolworth Building? Stays mad. Maybe he’s right—he stayed alive through a whole lot of wars.

“The beef is that I’m out one hundred large. Three niggers put the snatch on my boy Paulie, and I had to buy him back. One of them was Earl Bassey’s brother, Reggie, and he got the line on Paulie from the time he came to Rocco’s house with Earl and with this mutt Carlito, here.”

Rocco grabbed my arm—steam was coming out my ears.

Cocozza stepped up. You could hardly hear him but everybody listened. Ol’ Dom was very respected. He made his bones in Sicily as a kid—when he came here in the twenties he was already a man of respect. He’d whacked out his share but he was known to have a cool head and a good rap. Dom said,

“Good evening, Don Cesare, Don Peppino, Don Nicola. Before we get into what happened with the money, I think I ought to say that this kid Carlito is here
on his own hook—nobody brought him here. He came because Rocco asked him to, because he’s doing the right thing. I admit he’s a Spanish kid, but he can’t help that— he’s trying to do the right thing. I don’t think we should kick off this meet by insulting him, Pete.”

Pete said, “Everybody knows I got all the respect in the world for you, Dom, but you got the wrong slant on this thing; your nephew Rocco has sold you on the niggers and the spics and that’s crazy. This thing of ours been doing okay without these people. Why do we have to do business with them? Why do we have to open up for them? You give them a break—what happens? They put the snatch on you. I say freeze them out—anybody gets out of line, whack him out right on his front stoop. And you listen to Rocco, Dom, and yet twice he’s been asked in and twice he’s walked away—is that the right thing? I mean, am I right or wrong?”

I could see Cocozza got hot—his face got white, his eyes got small—but his voice come up strong; you could see old Dom was a man of
cojones
in his day.

“Pietro Amadeo, when you talk about my kid nephew you talk about me. If a man ain’t ready to be made, he ain’t ready—that don’t mean he can’t do a good job. You know Rocco is the best man in your whole fucking crew—maybe he ain’t out there waving his pistol at waiters like some of the young punks you got right in this room—he’s using his brain and making money, that’s what he’s doing. Half of these tough guys you give them a contract and they shit in their pants. I know what Rocco can do because I’ve sent him myself. And
you, Pete, have you forgotten what I am to you that you don’t give me respect? I’ll go out in the fucking alley with you right now and we can kill each other.”

Pete got shook up here.

“No, Dom, I didn’t mean I got no respect—”

Chick butted in here.

“Take it easy, Dom, you know Pete says things, but he don’t mean no harm.”

But Dom was hot. Go get ’im!

“No, I’ve had it up to here with your bad mouth, Pete. I took you off a cattle boat with holes in your pants—I put you behind one of my trucks and bought you your first suit. You forgot that, huh, Pete? And the time of the Castellammarese you went with Joe the Boss. You bet on the wrong horse that time, right, Pete? Who got you out of town when Maranzano said you was to be hit? Who got the okay from Charley Lucky so you could come back?
Cretino—
you owe me your life—and I should live to hear you insult my family—you scumbag!”

I was scared shitless by now. These wops are crazy. What am I doing here?

I could see Pete was stunned. Everybody was very nervous by now. Even the two old dons had stopped sucking on their stogies.

Chick Mason said, “Take it easy, Dom, take it easy— we ain’t gonna get nowhere talking about old beefs. What’s the story about Pete’s money, Dom? That’s what we gotta straighten out.”

“All right, Cesare, the story is, yeah, Reggie Bassey and two black punks snatched Paulie, but they was all
hit right away, and the Spanish kid came up with them. Are we gonna blame Carlito and Earl Bassey for what three crazy punks did? You know how these kids are today, Cesare—you can’t talk to them. Look at some of our kids—good Italian blood being lost right here in Brooklyn in crazy cowboy shit, and even stool pigeons. I mean these kids got no respect nohow.

“Now, we gonna blame Rocco too because he got friends with the Blacks and the Spanish? Cesare, we got to move with the times—the holy Church stays on top, right? Why the Church stay on top? Because the pope and the cardinals they see the handwriting on the wall. Times change, they change—make a cardinal here, one there. Move with the times. We gotta do the same. You do not fight history, you learn from it. We can live with these new groups—we can make money with them. These younger guys can’t, but you and me, Cesare, we remember when we was the niggers here. I mean, am I right or wrong?”

Chick and the two dons went into a huddle. Then Chick said, “I wanna hear from this Spanish kid.”

Oh shit. I almost said Yes, your honor.

“Right here, Mr. Mason,” says me.

“Where’s the money?”

“I don’t know. The first two, Fonso and Shad, said Reggie had it all. Nacho and me had to waste Reggie quick—he went out on us before we could find out where the money was. It couldn’t be helped, he was shooting at us like crazy.”

“Where’s Earl Bassey?”

“I don’t know that either, Mr. Mason. Earl took off long before this happened. I think he was worried about the feds and he wanted to retire and get away from it all— you know, one of them numbers.”

“Don’t give me that nigger talk; you ain’t no nigger— that’s the trouble with you spics, you don’t know what you are. Some of them even look like Chinese, so help me. Now you listen to me, Carlo—I don’t believe a fuckin’ thing you’re sayin’, but we’re gonna let it slide because we can’t prove different right now. But we’ll check it out and if you come up wrong we’ll stick your head in a bucket of acid,
capisce
?”

“I got you, Mr. Mason.”

“Now tell me the truth, if you knew where Bassey was would you tell us?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Well, at least you ain’t no stool pigeon. Dom, here’s how it’s gonna be: Rocco stays in business but he owes Pete the money. Pete, you’ll apologize to Dom for hurting his feelings. Dom, you’ll go along with Pete—what the hell, you guys go back too far to fall out over a couple of shines. Rocco, you listen to Pete—don’t go running to your Uncle Dom over every little shit. And you, you fuckin’ Puerto Rican—you watch your ass, don’t try to be a smart guy. Awright, enough of this bullshit. Bring me the cook over here, I wanna put in a special order of calamari for everybody.”

They put on a feed that was out of sight. They may be crazy but they sure eat good. Then they started telling war stories about who had to shoot his brother, his
mother—how the mob wasn’t the same, the new kids were a bunch of faggots, like that. The party broke up late; me and Rocco were leaving together when over comes Mario Battaglia, big smile—“Rocco, I wuz wid you all the way—put it there, Carlito, I heard you was a stand-up guy and now I believe it.”

Me and Rocco shook hands with Battaglia. He was a made-guy with a lot of balls—Pete liked him and he was moving up fast in the outfit. Then he said, “Listen, Rocco, I want in on that next order of yours coming in but you don’t have to say nothin’ to Pete about it.” Me and Rocco were surprised but Rocco said, “Okay, Mario, you’re in.” Me, I didn’t say nothin’, I know I didn’t say nothin’.

Rocco drove me to midtown where my car was. “Talk about a kangaroo court, Rocco—that’s a hell of a legal system you guys got.”

Rocco laughed—“You got a fair trial, didn’t you?”

“Listen, Rocco, they didn’t give me my rights and that fuckin’ judge, Chick Mason, he’ll shoot you first then find you guilty later. Unbelievable.”

We drove awhile, then Rocco said, “The whole thing’s falling apart, Carlito.”

“Wadda you mean, Rock?”

“I mean the mob is falling apart. These guys like Chick, my uncle, they’re dinosaurs. When they go, there won’t be anyone to replace them.”

“But there’s always someone who’ll take a shot, Rock.”

“It’s not the same; the new kids aren’t as hungry, for obvious reasons—they’re in school, they got jobs—a
wise-guy is made on the streets catching hell. He can’t learn his trade in suburbia. Then there’s the government with the bugs. The electronics have knocked the jock off us. You can’t talk anywhere, we’re all paranoid—there’s guys don’t want to be bosses, imagine, for fear of the heat. Then the feds are on our ass twenty-four hours a day— they put a team on you, put you to bed, get up with you, follow you into the restaurants, the fights, the bars, checking your tabs, checking your kids in school. They got a bug into Sonny’s house while they were laying the foundation, they got a bug into Patriarca’s office. Then you got stool pigeons inside the mob—Vinnie Teresa in New England, Joe Cago right here in New York.”

“How could that be, Rock?”

“A lot of reasons—some of the bosses have been too greedy, sitting on top of millions—meanwhile the soldiers are starving. New attitudes—every man for himself, no loyalty. This country will corrupt anything, even the mafia.”

“Wadda you gonna do?”

“What am I going to do, Charles? What can I do? I’ve got both feet over the edge of the roof now, there’s no turning back. I’m going straight down—maybe I’ll grab a clothesline here and there but that won’t hold me. Can’t run, can’t hide, so just keep going till I break my neck. Maybe you should have let those guys throw me off the roof on 107th Street.”

“Your ass! If I know you, you probably would have landed on a pile of twenties and walked away with the bread.”

Rocco snorting and getting high. I didn’t like it but like fuck it. That’s my main trouble. I don’t worry enough. I always get the right vibes, the knot in the gut, the chill in the back of the neck, just like anybody else, but the trouble with me is I don’t stop, I wanna come out the other side anyway. I see the stop sign and I wanna press on the pedal. Like when I was a kid I’d race a bike through the tunnel on Park Avenue against the light or I’d hang from the roof with one hand. And didn’t need no audience. I been my own spectator like there was two of us—watcha gonna do next, Carlito? That kind of scene. But I ain’t crazy and I ain’t got no death wish. That kind of bullshit pisses me off. The shrinks always give you that, you wanna be punished, you wanna be caught— garbage. Who the hell wants to go to jail? You really gotta be crazy. They don’t understand that the hustler’s got confidence. That’s the key, confidence. The hustler’s got the confidence he can pull it off, he’s coming out the other side okay. When he’s up on a roof looking at apartments he’s confident no cop is gonna put a bullet up his ass when he’s on the fire escape. And he’s confident no cop or the owner is gonna stop him when he’s carrying a twenty-one-inch Motorola down the street in broad daylight. And he’s confident he can walk through Kennedy Airport with a kilo strapped to his back.