“Listen, Carlito, I’m surprised you got as far as you did. Bobby Higgins didn’t have a helicopter on top of him. It was in all the papers.”
“Guess I’m only the second-best wheel man around.”
“Cut the bullshit, Charles, I know you stuck your neck out for me—I won’t forget it.”
“Don’t get sloppy on me, Rocco.”
“Your ass!”
So I took it easy for a few days—sacked out a lot, watched television—like I say, I do good time, don’t go around cryin’ and wailin’. But real quick-like, the party was over. Rocco had the word, they brought Amadeo into West Street together with four of his crew. Holy shit, this fuckin’ guy in here!
Maldita sea la madre
.
“Yeah, Carlito, Mr. A himself, and Mickey Connors, Joe Cass, Petey Pumps, and Larry Bennet.”
“I don’t know any of them guys, Rocco—sounds like an Irish basketball team to me.”
“Nah, they’re all wops, spitters. Petey A’s main guys except for Joe Bats.”
“Joe who?”
“Battaglia—he’s not here and not expected. I’m more worried about his not being here than I am about Amadeo being here.”
“I thought Battaglia was some kind of lieutenant.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing, Carlito, this is a new mob.”
Next day, all seven of us were brought down to the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square. We were all bunched together downstairs in the detention pens waiting to be brought up to the courtroom. Petey A sat by himself in a corner of the tank. His four thugs stood between him and the rest of the guys in the tank, including me and Rocco. Amadeo had that hit-in-the-face-with-abag-of-nickels look on his puss. Nobody was talking, not even to Rocco. I felt a bad chill and it wasn’t the thermostat. Problems, Carlito, problems.
They took us upstairs to a courtroom on the third floor and arraigned us before a federal judge. The clerk called out the names on the indictment: Peter Amadeo, Michael Coniglia, Peter Pompano, Joseph Castaldi, Ilario Benetti, Rocco Fabrizi, Charles Brigante. What am I doing here with these criminals? They look right out of Elliot Ness. I gotta get a severance right away. That’s what I get for not keeping to my own kind. Between the mau mau uptown
and the mafia downtown I’m in a sandwich. You try to do the right thing and you get screwed, blued, and tattooed. No way,
salvese él que pueda
.
We all got bail reset at half a million apiece. Mother-hoppers. And it turned out I had the worst record of all seven of us. Ain’t this a blip, a clean-cut-looking guy like me with a worse record than all these
bandidos
. Shows the kind of lawyers I’ve had. Then this faggoty D.A., or U.S. Attorney they call him, kept calling me a murderer. I said, “I demand to be heard—this is an outcry being committed here against me, Your Honor. This D.A. don’t know me or what he’s talking about. I ain’t been found guilty of no murder—I pleaded in that case because my lawyer pulled the wool over my eyes, and I’ve already reported him to the bar association. This attack is not founded and I protest, as a matter of fact I refuse to proceed no further in these proceedings.” The Legal Aid said, “Please, Mr. Brigante, keep quiet.” I told him, “What are they gonna do, give me thirty days?”
I always rap good in the courtroom—the other guys in my case were struck dumb. Not me. The judge got hot and started yelling. Then he told me and Rocco we had to get our own lawyers. Then they read the indictment. Must have been twenty counts—conspiracies with people I never heard of and possession of junk I never heard of. A frame-up. They claimed they salvaged ten kilos from my wreck. No good. That shit was all cooked—this must be from their private stock. Another frame-up. The Legal Aid kid said that I was the manager-bartender of the Bonnie ’n Clyde discotheque in midtown—so what did
this
cabron
of a government D.A. say? “The Bonnie ’n Clyde is a notorious gathering place for narcotics peddlers, organized crime figures, and assorted undesirable and criminal elements, Your Honor. The government has had the place under surveillance and we know Mr. Brigante, who is the owner, to use it as a shield for his real sordid business.”
Yer mudder’s cunt, I thought, but I said, “Gawd, Your Honor, this is a slander—if I am the owner, why don’t I appear on the license? As a matter of fact, I am there to help the owner keep out the bad element. Mr. Caraballo, the owner, don’t cater to no riffraff, and he gimme a break on account I can’t get a job nowhere else on account of my record—and I ain’t gonna sit still for his place being put down.”
The judge got hot again—“Mr. Brigante, your impetuosity is getting to be a problem here. I do not want any more outbursts from you. You will refrain from such conduct. You have an attorney by your side—consult him.”
“Your Honor, Guido versus Wainwright says I got a right to counsel of my own choosing and he ain’t my choosing.”
“That is not what the case stands for. But what are you waiting for? You’ve had ample time to get yourself a lawyer. This case will be moved for trial with the utmost celerity and dispatch. I want that understood by defendants and their attorneys.”
Everybody said Yes, Your Honor—except me. I said, “Your Honor, being dispatched is what I’m worried
about. I’m like a man sick-to-dying looking for the right doctor; it ain’t easy.”
“I agree, without wishing to prejudge the case, that your affliction might be termed terminal in this instance. I am according all defendants thirty days to prepare their motions. Mr. Scott, it is my understanding that this matter is to be referred to Judge Rossi. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Very good. All motions will be directed to Judge Rossi. Remand the defendants.”
Mr. Wesley Scott, the government prosecutor. What a pain in the ass! An anglo with a last name for a first name is automatically a prick. Ugh, did he break cajuns in this case. Mr. Ass-ley Scott wearing bow ties and Coca-Cola bottles for eyeglasses. Look like that guy from TV—Wally Peepers. He was sharp—he had a wheelbarrow full of papers, but he could pull them out when he needed them. He had all the exhibits down pat. If you asked him what time he’s going to lunch he’d hand you a memorandum of law. He was wound up tighter than the pope’s dick. No sense of humor. I knew he was a bad-news cat right away.
The marshals took us back down to the tank to wait for the bus to West Street. I could see I made a big hit with the boys. Fuck ’em. I’m fighting for my life. Am I supposed to stand there and take a third strike? Not me, I’m taking my cut.
Amadeo speaks. “Rocco, your Uncle Dom is dead. You’re off his titty, Rocco, you’re on your own. He had
coglioni
, your uncle did—may he rest in peace. But you,
you’re different, Rocco—you ain’t a Cocozza, you’re a Fabrizi. You ain’t direct—you go around, you scheme, you grease your way into one ear then you connive your way out the other. All the time smiling. I know guys like you all my life—you topple buildings, bring everything down with your goddamned schemes. But I’ve seen it right away, thank God, and as soon as I’ve run into one like you,
finito subito
! I saw it in your pink face and blond hair twenty years ago, like you was better than me—I’m a greaseball. But I stepped back out of respect to your Uncle Dom, God rest his soul, and this is my reward— that I should be sucked into a junk conspiracy when God knows I’d kill every dope peddler in America.
Che infamia!
”
Rocco winced. “Give me a chance, Pete—I don’t know how they mixed you up in this thing; we know you’re clean.”
“Who’s the we?”
“Me and Carlito here.”
“There ain’t nobody next to you, Rocco. I never heard that spic’s name, never seen him, I don’t know who he is. You heard him upstairs? He’s a maniac, you know that.”
That got me. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to, Amadeo? It ain’t my fault you’re in here.”
“Carlito, take it easy.”
Amadeo wouldn’t look at me—he kept staring at Rocco.
“Rocco, I ain’t mobbed up. I don’t have to take this shit, I don’t care how many ginsos he’s got in here.”
Amadeo said, “Rocco, how’s your wife and kids?” Rocco got white.
“And give my regards to Vinnie.”
So they hit Vinnie. That figures. That means me and Rocco are overdue already.
Hijo de puta
.
We went back to West Street. Then conferences up the ass. Must have been twenty lawyers in the case at one time or another. I myself went through four lawyers. I wanted Steinhardt, but he was still mad at me from the time I ratted him out to the bar association. Grudgeholder. Then I settled on this young kid, David Kleinfeld—he was a good appeal man, very sharp on the case law— when we was on the motions. We moved for discovery, inspection of the grand jury minutes, bills of particulars, severance, suppression of the evidence—shit, we even moved to get the junk back. I moved to get me moved out of West Street. I coulda told them in front how far we was getting with all these papers flying around. As if Uncle Sam was gonna let us plead guilty with an explanation and mail in the fine.
Judge Gaetano Rossi: a high Italian—Milanese, they told me. A former U.S. prosecutor himself. He was always in a hurry. “What’s your point?” “Go on to the next question.” “You already asked that, next question.” “Motion denied” was his favorite expression. If you had to move your bowels, he’d say, “Motion denied.” We were in great shape. These ethnic guys are worse than the wasps; they say, “I made it, why can’t you?” They don’t want to hear about life in the ghetto—they been there and back. Don’t get mad at me, Judge, I ain’t no Italian.
I let this kid Dave Kleinfeld handle the preliminary garbage. I was saving myself for the jury. With my rap, I’m a natural. Then I get a caller. It ain’t bad enough I gotta worry about the case and Amadeo having me whacked out, I gotta worry about a visitor. I was sacked out when the hack says to me, “Brigante, you got a visitor.” Who the hell would want to visit me now? I don’t want no visitors, you feel worse when they leave. They took me down to the visiting room, you talk from behind a glass partition into a phone. Phone has got to be tapped. It was Gail. Unbelievable.
“What are you doing here, Gail? You crazy?”
“It was all over the newspapers and TV, Charley.”
“Yeah, I had a lot of offers.”
“I had to visit some people in New York and I—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Gail.”
“You never wrote or called me. I guess I’m making a fool of myself, Charley.”
What could I say? She was a beautiful girl—I reached out for her hand and had to settle for the glass partition. That brought me around real quick-like.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, baby. These people are crazy. They’ll put you in a conspiracy. Aiding and abetting, anything. Just knowing me can hurt you— they’ll check you out, embarrass you. I can’t allow that.”
“I love you, Charley. I can’t help it.”
“Cut out that kind of talk, Gail, you trying to drive me up the wall? I’m in a pine box already, all they got left to do is pour the dirt on me. And you want to talk about moonlight and roses.”
She was crying already.
“You been crying since you met me, Gail.”
“Charley, all those horrible things they said about you in the newspapers—”
“Every word was true and they don’t know the half of it—I’m a stone degenerate.”
“But Charley, narcotics are destroying people.”
“I can’t worry about people, Gail, I never could. That’s what makes me different—I can’t feel that far. I care about you or someone I know, but when you talk about people—faces—it don’t mean nothin’ to me; they’re not real. I don’t even think about them, much less worry. Don’t try to understand that—you can’t.”
“What can I do, Charley? Can I help in any way?”
I ran a murder game on her.
“Yeah, get on a plane and go home. You’re screwing me up worse—I got to concentrate in preparing my defense, I can’t be having no distractions. That hearts-and-flowers jive was all right on the islands but it’s over —don’t try to rehash it over here. Look around you, look where we are. You playing some kind of caseworker bit with me, Gail, that’s all it is—you’re doing missionary work but the devil got to me long ago. You know what I did with that address you gave me? I threw it away, that’s what I did. Okay?”
I wanted to crash my skull through the partition. I got up and walked out of the room.
When I think back at that scene now it reads like Warner Brothers with Gail as Ida Lupino and me as Herman Brix (a/k/a Bruce Bennett). The bad guy is really
a good guy, so he has to play the bad guy to let the chick off the hook when she can’t let go. And maybe the bulls got us trapped up in the high Sierras and yeah, we got a little dog too. I seen it twenty times in the flicks.
But I wasn’t laughing that night. Me, who always sleep like a champ, looking at the ceiling and swallowing lumps in my throat. Then the fantasy shit—me and Gail living on a boat on a marina off Fajardo, P.R., or Saint Thomas. Sailing down the chain of islands to Venezuela—all the trimmings, golden sun, blue skies, clear air, and me and my
rubia
goddess screwing on the forward deck. I jumped right out of my fuckin’ rack. Get a hold on yo’self, motherfucker, ten minutes with this fox and I’m halfway to being a stool pigeon. Maybe they let her in for that reason. They’re slick, nothing like a pussy to soften you up. Then your own skull starts to chip away—she needs me, I need her, we got a right to be happy, we’ll get away together and start a clean life, get a job, do the right thing—they deserve it, they let me down, they double-crossed me, they ain’t bailed me out, they ain’t taking care of business, they ratted me out, they’re criminals anyway. And you’re in the government bag. Gail, you cunt, you gonna destroy me. I made it through the night, I was okay in the morning.
B
UT THAT WAS JUST A LEFT JAB
. T
HE GOVERNMENT CAUGHT
me with a flush right-hand right after that. “Brigante, you’re wanted in the office, right away.” They were waiting for me in the cubicle where the lawyers rap. Narco bulls. Two white, one black—but they all look
alike. The old guy, gray hair, “Mr. Brigante, we’re from the B.N.D.D., as you probably know, and we—”