Carpooling with Carlos, Ch. 14

The Newport Motel in Morgan City, La., held many secrets. Secrets shared over drinks in the hotel bar. Secrets sprawled on cocktail napkins and then burned in glass ashtrays, tiny flames illuminating the hotel logo glued to the bottom of the and covered with green felt backing. Most of the secrets were shared person to person, sometimes between two people sitting across from each other at a small Formica top table placed in the corner of each room; in groups and often by men in dark suits and fedora hats, chewing on cigars and smoking unfiltered cigarettes creating layers of nicotine on walls and ceilings.

It was not a secret that many confidences were shared between men and prostitutes. The hope by every John was that that no one would reveal the secret that flesh was being sold between mafia dons, married men, and the occasional man of the cloth passing through and miles away from his congregation in Texas or Mississippi. 

However, one room held more secrets than any other. A room that was often vacant but understood to be occupied 24/7. A special room with sound proofing on the walls and ceiling to prevent words and the occasional gunshot from being heard by snooping ears. The room was sparsely furnished with a 6-foot folding table and metal folding chairs, a refrigerator and a gunmetal desk and chair picked up for $10 bucks at a Navy auction in Harvey, La.

Typical motel furnishings like a bed, a television set, a telephone, end tables, and pictures would never be found in this room. This room was not for sleeping or sex, this room was a meeting place. A place where Carlos Marcello conducted business with his associates, his employees, and from time to time, with someone who made the mistake of trying to hustle in on his business in one of the coastal parishes.

Typical of most non-chain motels in the early 1960’s, The Newport held the necessities for the traveler seeking a night or two refuge from the weariness of traveling the Old Spanish Trail Highway that connected South Louisiana with Texas and Mississippi before spreading out farther east and west. 

In the motel lobby, travelers found a comfortable sofa and chairs with a glass coffee table that held ashtrays and Newport Motel embossed matchbooks, a metal stand with postcards highlighting nearby tourist attractions, a coffee pot and paper cups, and finally a red and white Coca-Cola vending machine that said ‘Iced Cold Coca-Cola on the sides and front. For a dime, an 8 oz. green bottle of Coca-Cola was available by opening a narrow glass door and pulling out a caramel-colored bottle of refreshment.

A chest-high counter separated the lobby from the motel office. Simple furnishings sat atop the counter; a phone for visitors to call one of the motel rooms, a call usually made by an inpatient Dad telling his wife and kids that the car was loaded, gassed up and ready to roll and it was time to leave. Next to the phone was a guest registry that held legitimate and fictional names of guests and the rooms they occupied. Next to the worn registry was a ball-point pen, attached to a lightweight beaded chain and held firmly in place by a screw that dug deeply into the wooden counter.

On the wall behind the counter hung a sheet of stained cypress with a thick coating of shellac resin. Seven rows of hooks with six hooks in each row covered the ancient timber, most likely a remnant left behind when the Williams Cypress Mill operated in Patterson at the turn of the century. Neatly painted under each hook were the numbers to each room, and if unoccupied, each hook held a key attached to an oblong piece of plastic with the matching room number and the words, Newport Motel.

Depending on the time of year, at least half of the keys hung from hooks. However, always missing was the key to room 31. Only two keys existed. Only two people really knew the secrets that the room held.  One key was held by the motel owner, Pete Guarisco, which he kept locked in his office safe, and the other by Carlos Marcello, whereabouts only known by him. Two men, two keys, and one hotel room with enough secrets to bury both men in the deepest bayou. Most likely next to the bodies of men who had secrets they shared to the wrong person.

A year earlier in 1962, an unsavory element tried to set up shop at the Newport. Awash with a new way to make a living, laborers flooded St. Mary, Iberia, and Lafourche parishes looking for work in the burgeoning offshore oil business, or as deckhands on work boats and shrimp boats. Lots of money was being made and places to spend a pocket full of cash mainly took place in the bars and taverns close to the Atchafalaya River in Morgan City and Berwick or along Main Street in Patterson. New Orleans was the place to go for real fun, but oftentimes, travel beyond St. Mary Parish was limited. Oilfield roustabouts needed to be ready to go offshore at a moment’s notice. Deckhands had to be ready just in case a shrimp boat captain decided to head to the Gulf based on rumors of a big catch from other captains showing up at the docks with their holds full of seafood. 

The Bayou Banditos, one well-known gang, was a hardscrabble group of lowlife bikers who originally sprung up from the bars and jails on the West Bank of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish. What started as a small group of petty law breakers grew quickly when a couple of bikers who had been kicked out of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club in Texas, landed in the Crescent City running from police in Fort Worth for a jewelry store robbery where the shop owner was critically wounded by one of the bikers and later died. Looking for a cause and trouble, the Banditos quickly grew as they dabbled in drugs, prostitution, and daring daylight robberies of small liquor stores and mom and pop shops.

Hearing about the money being made in and around Morgan City and the limited ways to spend cash, the motorcycle club decided they should bring spending opportunities to the men, mostly in the form of prostitution with a mix of marijuana and heroin thrown in for fun. After scouting out the Newport Motel for a few days, they learned the single-story motel was being run by a young man of 21 who was way over his head in operating an operation with illegal gambling. One very slow Wednesday afternoon, one of the bikers, dressed in clean jeans and a western shirt, walked into the lobby of the hotel inquiring about renting 10 rooms for the next week. 

The young manager, green and still learning the ropes, was basically babysitting the place while his Uncle Pete was in Las Vegas on a gambling trip. Typically, the slowest time of the year for travelers, Guarisco assumed his wife’s younger brother could hold things together for a week or so while he took an all-expense trip to the Nevada desert, courtesy of a friend of a friend of a friend. A bit leery of the man in clean jeans and a new western shirt, the manager asked why he needed 10 rooms. Knowing he would be asked this question, the biker simply said he had family coming in from Mississippi and Alabama for his grandmother’s funeral. Since it was a large family, they decided they might as well hang out a few days and have an impromptu family reunion of sorts. Eager to impress his uncle, the boy rented 10 rooms for a week but insisted the bill be paid in cash, in advance. The biker said, not a problem and pulled out a wad of cash from a large leather wallet that was attached to his belt by a heavy silver chain. The biker counted out the required amount, smiling as he placed the money on the counter.

By Thursday, the rumble of Harleys could be heard a mile from the hotel as a couple dozen bikers flooded the parking lot of the Newport. Rough-looking men with long hair, tattoos, and lots of attitude, accompanied by young, equally rough-looking women, eased off their bikes, stretched, looked around, assessed the area, and began looking for the closest watering hole. Across the highway from the Newport was the 5^th Quarter Lounge, a dark drinking hole with pool tables, pinball machines and cheap beer. Off they went to quench their thirst after a long ride from Jefferson Parish.