07 Jul 08

The Whacking of Charlie (by Two Tonys Part 1)

Two Tonys - A whacker of men and Mafia associate serving multiple life sentences for murders and violent crimes. Claims all his victims "had it coming."

This whack is on the record and I’m doing time for it as I write. When it went to court, I was my own barrister, as you Englishmen of the Old Bailey put it. If a motherfucker ever asked for it, this asshole did. I even told the jury in my closing argument this guy should have made a sign and pasted it to his forehead reading: KILL ME. I wish we had the transcripts of that trial. It was not only fun, it was funny. I didn’t give a flying fuck if they voted guilty or not guilty, I was already serving too much time to outlive, so I just played and had fun and ran up the bill for the taxpayers.

I come down from Alaska back in the day. Me and my Tucson partner Louie had lost our coke connection, a Mexican guy named Carlos, who got busted by the Feds and had to go to the joint. So I had a lot of heat on me up in Alaska at the time. Not so much from the cops as from a rival clique up there from Nevada who had lost one of their heavy hitters – but that’s another chapter for the book.

So I get to Tucson. Louie’s Mom and Dad are as senile as hell. They own a couple of big hotels in Tucson. Louie runs one. They run the other. So the one Louie runs is a mix of Hotel California and the Bates Motel. It’s got dope cliques out of the ass, living in it and doing deals out of it. Not the actual transfers, but the business end of it. So I’m staying there. I’m carte blanche – no bill. This Louie only rents out the first three floors. The fourth floor is for just a few of the regulars. There’s about twenty rooms on the fourth floor. Louie’s got his aunt who works in the dining room and coffee shop on the other end of the floor. He’s got a lush named Bobby who runs a car leasing company in a room.

Charlie’s staying on the fourth floor. He’s a dope dealer and a half-ass pilot for a drug operation in and out of Mexico. He worked for a Mexican national from Culiacan named Berego, who was staying at the hotel on the ground floor. Berego didn’t rate fourth floor with his buddy Charlie.

Anyway, I’m lying out by the pool one morning taking the sun, when Louie pages me to the lobby, so I go up. He meets me and we go up to the poker room where we run a few games a week. There sits this asshole Charlie with Berego who he says doesn’t speak any English (which I still think was bullshit).
So Louie opens up with, “Hey, Two Tonys, this is Charlie’s guy, Berego. He claims he can go south and be back in three days with as much high quality coke as we want, but we got to pay up-front.”
Now, I’m the bull with the horns (short for I got the cash). In fact, I had just lent Louie $10,000 to make his payroll. But I ain’t no lame. My rule was: no front – dollars and dope on the table.

So Charlie starts this sales pitch about how big Berego is in Sinaloa. How he’s connected to the big cartel. Then Louie jumps in trying to put the close on me because he wants coke. So I decide I’ll test this asshole out. We come to an agreement with Charlie as interpreter. I give Berego $5000. He leaves tonight, which was Thursday, and Sunday he’s back with ½ LB of blow. If it’s good and all goes well, we’ll place a bigger order next time. It’s a test run to see how everybody acts.
Now, I look at Charlie and say in the most serious tone I can, “Charlie, let me understand you are standing good for this guy if I do de bizznezz.”
He replied, “I have no doubts. He’s good. I’ve known him for years.”
I say, “OK. Let’s roll on it.” I give the asshole $5000 from my stash in Louie’s safe, expecting to see him back Sunday night with ½ LB of coke. Not a lot of dollars for me in those days, plus we needed a good connect to restart our Alaska thing. Of course I had a little heat in Alaska, as I said. I had just put a tough guy to sleep up there.
So Berego leaves for Mexico. 60 miles to the border, then around a 1000 to Culiacan.

Now Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the hotel is jumping. Broads galore. Weed deals being worked out by the pool. It was wild. Tucson was wild. It’s 1977. Coke and weed are kings.
So I’m staying in Room 417. Charlie is in 415, but we don’t chum together. I was way too slick to hang with him. Anyway, him and his little clique have a watermelon and vodka party by the pool on Sunday. I stop by.
He says to me, “Hey, I got a little blow. Let’s go up to my room and have a toot.”
So me and him and a couple of his pals go up to Room 415.
Well, when we go in, I notice a shotgun in the corner and a pistol on the nightstand.
I say, “What you got there?” So he shows me his arsenal. He’s got a machete along with a sleeping bag, a canteen of water, a .44 Bulldog pistol next to his bed and an AR-15 fully auto.

He’s doing blow and his tongue is wagging trying to impress me in front of his weedhead crew. So I give him a few ooh’s and ahh’s and no-shits as he explains that if they have to land and run from the D.E.A. they can survive in the desert. Real fucking cowboy shit. I keep waiting for John Wayne to come in wearing leather chaps for a line of blow.
So I ask this Charlie to step out in the hall with me, away from his lames. We do.
I whisper to him, “Hey, your guy will be in tonight. Have you heard from him yet?”

Now I know we have all been in a situation, whether buying a car or even a washing machine, where the seller was saying things like “Oh this is great. Don’t worry. Just call me,” but immediately after the sale, you pick up a tone in the guy’s voice or his actions, and a little voice inside you tells you that you fucked up. Well that’s what I picked up from Charlie. But I tried my best to shake it off.

So Sunday night comes. I stay at the hotel bar hanging out with Louie. No Berego. No Charlie, he’s out somewhere.
So on Monday morning I get up and find no Charlie in his room. I go down to Berego’s room (he paid by the month). No Berego. About noon, Charlie shows up. I’m by the pool as he walks by. I stop him.
“Where’s our guy?”
He says, “No sweat. He’ll show. No problem”
So I hang out all day. But I still got that gut feeling. On Monday night I call my buddy, Sal, and we arrange to meet at a club. I tell Louie I’ll be checking in to see when Berego shows up. And as I proceed to have a few drinks with Sal and a few grams of bullshit coke I’m getting fucked up – especially when I keep calling Louie and he tells me no show on Berego.

Click here for Part 2

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