The boss seemed to be in decent shape and not too weary considering what he had endured that spring.
On April 4, 1961, the underworld boss was arrested while making what he thought was a routine visit to the immigration authorities in New Orleans, and forcibly transported to Guatemala. Two months later he was back in Louisiana.
For Thomas Messina, only a few months had passed since he had enjoyed his senior prom and graduated high school. Messina allowed his mind to drift back to innocent days often while driving the kingpin of the New Orleans mafia around the small town of Patterson, taking him to New Orleans or Houston, or sometimes just a short drive up La. 182 to the Patterson Airport. Of course, his Dad knew what he was doing…after all, it was Pops who received the first phone call from New Orleans asking if his son would like to earn a little pocket change over the summer doing a little driving. Of course, Pops said yes.
A few days after his secret, middle of the night pick up outside of the Patterson Shrimp Company, Messina began learning more than he probably wanted to know about the world of organized crime. “Trust is earned Messina,” Marcello said out of the blue one morning while the two were sitting in the black Impala outside of Hangar 2 at the Patterson airport.
“Yes sir, Mr. Marcello,” Messina replied.
“So far, you earning my trust. I know you gonna keep yous mouth shut, just like your old man,” the mob man said in his broken English layered with a Sicilian accent. “Don’t believe everything you read in da’ Picayune. I’m just a tomato salesman. A family man.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Marcello,” Messina replied, careful to not point out to Marcello that he sure was a wealthy man to simply be a tomato salesman.
The conversation ended as a Piper Comanche descended upon the concrete runway, making a smooth landing and turning around at the end of the runway before heading toward the hangar. Although the 4-seat Comanche was often seen at the airport, usually when Carlos was in town, there was never more than the pilot and one passenger on board. The lone passenger would disembark and meet Marcello in a small pilot’s lounge at the rear of the hangar. While the plane was refueled, Messina would try to strike up a conversation with the pilot. Most days, the most Messina got out of the pilot was grunts and nods. Today was no different.
The young man turned around and started walking across the sizzling concrete toward his car. No sense in standing in the sun talking to myself, Messina thought to himself.
As he was about to open his car door, a low key, bird-like whistle caught Thomas’ attention. Turning around, Messina locked eyes with the pilot and in a hush-like voice the man told Thomas, “you have a long life ahead of you kid, get out of the life before it swallows you up and spits you out like an alligator gar toying with a shrimp on a hook.”
Messina hesitated, started to turn around but instead nodded his head and kept his casual pace as he continued to his shiny automobile. He turned his head slightly to see if the old man was watching but all he saw was an empty hangar, the Comanche, and a beat-up Schlitz can tumble across the pavement.
The calls to drive the old man around town had slowed to nearly a crawl, which didn’t bother Messina one bit. The summer was quickly zipping by and Tommy, as he was called by his friends, had settled into a routine of swimming, fishing, and hanging out at a new burger joint that had recently opened in town. This wasn’t California where hot rods ruled Main Street on a Saturday night, but Tommy and the boys pretended they were going places even if the cars parked outside the Kool King Drive Inn were their dad’s Packard, Studebaker, or Desoto.
He couldn’t sit on the hood of his car outside of a drive inn every night with his buddies for the rest of his life. Although he could say he hadn’t witnessed anything out of the ordinary, nor had he done anything dangerously close to being illegal, Tommy’s mind couldn’t shake the words of the pilot who told him to get out while he could. Get out of what? Tommy wondered.
Like a rolling mass of Cumulus clouds steamrolling across miles of sugarcane fields just before a thunderstorm shattered a peaceful summer evening, Tommy had an uneasy feeling about where his life was heading.
“Get out of the life before it swallows you up,” echoed in Tommy’s mind.
Pinball & Preachers 