The Three Wise Men of Dope - This Ain't no Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel 1980-1995 - page 82

Louis Cartwright, R.I.P.
JAMES RASIN
I was phoned right away. We were pretty hung over—we'd been out the night be-
forewithabunchofpeople.Thephonerangandrangandrang,anoldphonewith
a rotary dial. It would not stop ringing, and there was no answering machine. Fin-
ally, Laki got up off the sofa. I was in the bedroom.
He answered the phone and it was Roger Richards' wife, Ervine, saying,
“Louie was killed.” I guess Ervine's phone number had been in Louie's wallet. So
the police called Ervine, and she called us, and we called Dimitri.
LakiVazakisandJeremiahNewton 56 andIwentdowntotheprecincthouse.It
was odd because when we were walking over to the precinct, we happened to see
a shoe in the gutter. When we were walking by it, Jeremiah said, “That's Louie's
shoe.”Later,wefoundoutthatLouie had beenstabbedright there, inthedoorway
of the church across from the Kiev restaurant, and that Louie had lost one of his
shoes.
We were the first ones to arrive at the precinct house. The police were being
reallysuspiciousofeverybody,kindofbeingdicks.Jeremiahwasinhislateforties
then, but to me he seemed a lot older. He gave the cops a hard time right back,
saying, “Look, quit dicking us around and tell us what happened. Or why else are
we here?” He wasn't going to take any shit from these cops.
So then we had to go back and tell Herbert. At the time, Herbert was living
with Dimitri on Avenue A and around Ninth Street. Herbert slept late every day,
andthiswasallgoingonfairlyearlyinthemorning,relativelyspeaking.AndLaki
was making his film Huncke and Louie 57 at the time—he had been shooting Hun-
ckeconstantly.SowewerewalkingfromtheprecincthouseovertoAvenueAand
9th Street, thinking about who was going to tell Herbert and how we were going
to break it to him. And I asked Laki, “Are you going to have the camera on him
when we wake him up and tell this news to him?” It was kind of a big decision.
He chose not to shoot it. We were all there and decided to have Dimitri break it to
him. He and Herbert were really tight.
It was pretty straightforward. We woke Herbert up and said, “We've got really
bad news. Louie was murdered last night.”
Herbert was just crushed. He really loved Louie a lot. Like everybody, he had
a lot of ups and downs with Louie, who would drive him crazy, and Louie had