Carlito's Way: Rise to Power by Edwin Torres Read Free Book Online

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, thisdude 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-fiaboys, eh? Wal,