Chaos produces calm…
in the midst of unbalance and confusion, outside and fringe elements seize on the distractions of the masses, and go about life uninterrupted.
At least, that’s how the lieutenants, the foot soldiers and higher ups in Marcello’s team felt. Even during the worst storms, these men carried on and prospered. A tropical depression or hurricane kept law enforcement busy for several days and the trafficking of drugs and illegal contraband moved more easily to and from secret locations.
All seemed to be going well until Carlos found out that the latest storm brought more than rain, wind and damage to its shores—it also washed in competition. This came in the form of, according to Marcello, “those damn Yankee crooks”, who came hoping to prey on hapless victims and make a buck or two before quickly heading back across the Mason-Dixon line.
Downed power lines crisscrossed roads and streets. Uprooted trees blocked driveways and scattered branches and limbs covered the carpeted lawns of St. Augustine grass that just days earlier had been manicured carpets of green.
Local city officials and parish sheriff officers across South Louisiana had closed roads and asked residents to remain home unless there was a specific emergency or their job warranted trying to navigate the minefield of debris caused by the slow-moving tropical depression. Although the storm never grew intense enough to be named and recorded in weather history, it had stayed long enough to be an unwelcomed guest to the parishes of southern Louisiana.
Lafayette, Iberia, St. Martin, St. Mary and parts of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes were under a state of emergency that had been called by Governor Jimmie Davis. As the civil authorities tried to bring things back to order, the criminals continued working. Distributing and sorting, packing and loading had basically not stopped, even during the worst of the storm. With Big Brother occupied and spending money on cleanup, Marcello’s boys were more than happy to stimulate the economy.
One neighbor cracked to another, “Good news about Carlos Marcello living down the street is no one will be stupid enough to try and steal anything out of our houses.”
For three days since returning from Patterson, Thomas Messina had been listening to Marcello’s rants and tried to stay clear from his irritable mood. Messina had already heard the kingpin weave a tapestry of profanity and ill-will over toward the fly-by-night construction crews, roofers and day laborers who seemed to appear out of nowhere once the tropical depression had made landfall and did its damage.
Carlos Marcello didn’t care about Messina’s approval but sought to explain the difference in his legitimate business and the real crooks who didn’t actually work for a living but were merely con men. Luckily, Messina didn’t have to reply to the man’s rant because the phone that sat on the glass coffee table next to a ceramic ashtray with the words “Welcome to Las Vegas” came alive, ringing twice before Carlos answered.
In his usual fashion, Carlos simply said ‘yeah’ to the caller, exhaling the cigarette smoke he had captured in his lungs. Smashing the lit cigarette into the ashtray with the other dozen or so butts that already died a smoldering death, the man cradled the phone’s receiver between his neck and shoulder while he picked up the pack of smokes from the table and fished out a fresh siga.
When he had grown tired of listening to the caller, his remarks were curt and short, “I know what I know. Do what I told you to do last night.”
Messina studied the man from the kitchen that connected to the open den in the rear of the house. Stopping briefly from his job of taking inventory of the beer and hard liquor on hand, the young man’s attention had been drawn away from his work when he heard Marcello’s sharp reply into the phone.
“Make an example of them boys so the rest of the low life’s will know better than to try and steal from my family. Make sure their truck can be seen from the highway. The girls haven’t been fed in a while. They’re hungry.”
With that, Carlos ended the call, muttered ‘bastards’ softly and returned the phone to its place on the coffee table next to the ashtray.
“You running out of things to do boy?” Marcello asked Messina after catching the young man deep in thought and staring at the antique white rotary dial telephone.
“No sir, Mr. Marcello. Sorry sir. I was just thinking is all.”
“I pay you to drive and be my errand boy, not think. Capeesh?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Marcello,” the young driver said as he hastily retreated into the large walk-in pantry to finish taking inventory.
Messina couldn’t help but be nervous as he thought about the phone call and what it meant. Earlier in the day, Marcello’s brother, Joseph, had stopped by the house and told Carlos about an incident that had taken place across the river in Westwego the previous day. Joseph’s sister in law had been beaten and robbed of nearly a thousand bucks by a group of men who had been canvassing the neighborhoods looking for houses that had been damaged by the storm. The woman, Dottie, who lived alone and maintained a low-key life, far away from the family business that Joseph and Carlos were a part of, had tried to be nice to the wrong people.
After Dottie listened to the men make their pitch about being certified roofers who were doing sales calls in her neighborhood, she politely told them no thank you as her insurance agent would be coming by soon with someone who had already been lined up to do the repair work. As she was about to shut her front door, one of the men asked if he could use her telephone to call his office to update his boss on their progress. The woman was hesitant about letting a stranger into her home but being someone who believed in the good of people, agreed and led the man to her telephone in the kitchen.
The next thing Dottie remembered was waking up on the linoleum floor of her kitchen, her head bleeding from a nasty gash above her left ear and the sound of the stereo needle scraping across the record, caught between the label and the last song. After she had pulled herself off the kitchen floor and attended to the gash, Dottie discovered that her purse had been stolen, with no sign of the man who wanted to use her telephone and his 2 supposed coworkers.
Dottie felt lucky to be alive but was worried about the money she had in her purse that was going to be a loan to a friend from church who recently lost her job and needed money to make repairs to her own house. Out of necessity, she called her brother in law Joseph and explained what had happened and despite her injury, gave a thorough description of the men and the truck they were driving. Joseph, in turn, visited his brother Carlos to ask for a favor.
Pinball & Preachers 