Read Carlito's Way: Rise to Power for Free Online Page A

just right on the suit. Rimless glasses in them days, warm smile—the guy could get to you.
    “Did you marry her?”
    “Yes, Charles, I am now a Puerto Rican by proxy.”
    We were bullshitting awhile about upstate when Earl sent his broad upstairs.
    “Let’s hear the deal.”
    “Charles, there’s a West Indian guy named Etienne uptown who’s got a nice little policy bank going for many years. This guy is right next to Earl here. But lately we feel he’s loosening up, getting old. Now there are some boys up there eyeballing old Etienne and they are ready to bite. What we need is somebody to prop old Etienne up for a while, keep the wolves at bay and then when things are ripe ease him out to pasture. Earl says you’re the man.”
    “That’s great and I can handle it, but why not take the old fart out right now?”
    “No good; Etienne has run a good bank since the thirties. People trust him; you can’t remove him overnight— this will be done our way.”
    “Whatever you guys say.”
    So now me and my boys were riding shotgun for old Etienne. We’d wake him up and put him to bed. He took a liking to me, and we’d rap in Spanish; he was a Haitian but he spoke Spanish, English, and French. That smart old geezer owned buildings, dry cleaning stores, groceries, you name it. But policy was his game—he was a genius at that. He knew all the dream books by heart, the Chinaman in the Daily News; he knew just when to lay off on certain numbers—it’s like he would sense a heavy hit coming—like the plate numbers on a car in the newspaper or in a plane crash. He would start his own rumors about a special number being fixed for the controllers to hit—all his own bullshit—but he was always cooking; he’d stake people who needed money, helpeda whole lot of people and he always paid his hits, no hedging. I learned a lot from him, old Etienne.
    Right away I started earning my keep. The old man had the hots for some barmaid in the Heights in a joint called Carl’s Corner. He dug that young poontang—even though at his age I knew he was shooting blanks. So like I was downtown in a bar when I get a call from this guy Snipe—“Carlito, they got Mr. Etienne in the back of a short in front of Carl’s.”
    “Cops?”
    “Club members, with a sawed-off shotgun in his face; they want twenty large right away.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    Maso the bartender loaned me this army .45, plus I had my own .32 Beretta automatic. I cocked both pieces and jumped in a cab. I got off at 149th and Broadway—they was double-parked in front of the joint, first in line facing uptown. I come from behind on the outside; I shove both automatics through the rear window, right in this guy’s face—two spades, one shotgun, the old man between them.
    “Make your move, motherfucker, make it—”
    “Whoa, bro—”
    “I’ll splash your face all over this motherfuckin’ car—”
    “You right, man, you right.”
    The old man got out okay. But his nerves were bad after that. He said I was crazy, but it wasn’t like that. I just didn’t give a fuck; got a beef, jump out in front; you be first, you be best.
    We checked Snipe out; he was wrong—set Etienne up. Somebody burnt some holes in his clothes. Later for Snipe.
    A BOUT THAT TIME THE OLD MAN STARTED STAYING AT home in St. Albans. That was all right with me. Good bread coming in. Everything copasetic. Too good to last. I started moving around more. Had me over twenty suits, three hundred a pop, from Leighton’s, Cye Martin, and Kronfeld’s. All my boys stayed clean; we’d run down to Atlantic City—Club Harlem, 500 Club—even Miami and Puerto Rico—we’d have parties with five or six broads snorting coke and doing tricks. I started going to the Copa regular; if I caught the show always a yard for the maitre d’—“Mr. Brigante, right this way.” I was palling around with a lot of wops from downtown and the west Bronx, younger guys like me, not the prejudiced old hoods.