Tom Papania 1997

It wasn't long before that I was called to use the gun. They called me in. And they said, "Tom, you've been doing very good. You're making a lot of money for yourself. You're making a lot of money for us." And I was always big and strong and knew how to take care of myself. I was a fighter. And they used to send me out to collect money. I was seventeen and eighteen years old, and they would send me out to grown men to collect money they owed. And I always came back with every penny. I was very proud of it. If I had to beat them up with a baseball bat or stab them with an ice pick, whatever I had to do, short of killing them, I would do to bring the money back. And I was very proud of this. I was growing in the Mafia. I was getting a reputation.

And they said, "Now, is the next step. Some men have hijacked a truck in the Garment District. It was an inside job. We killed the man on the inside. That's already taken care of. But, the two men that hijacked the truck, they're hiding out in Kansas. We want you to go there. We want you to shoot both of these men. We don't want you to kill them. We just want you to set an example for everybody to see what happens if they should steal from us." And they said, "We don't want you using your right name. So, we have some identification for you. Here's the plane ticket. Just go there. Soon as you get off the plane, somebody knows who you are. They'll come to you. They'll give you keys to the car, and they'll give you a gun. And they'll give you pictures of the two men that we want to shoot. And they'll tell you exactly where they are. Just go there. Shoot the two men and come right back."

Everything that they told me was exactly the way they told me. When I got there, a man met me. He gave me the keys. He gave me the gun. He gave me pictures. He gave me directions. I went there. I shot the two men. I came back to the airport. Kept looking in the rear view mirrors. Nobody was following me. I made a few extra turns. Felt very safe. Got back to the airport. Waited until they were boarding the plane. And I got on the plane. And all that was on the plane was policemen. And as soon I boarded the plane, they said my name. They put handcuffs on me. Telling me I was under arrest for shooting two men. And they even knew the names of the two men. I didn't even know their names. I only had their picture. Brought me before a judge. And the judge said, "You know, you're Italian. You're from New York. And you're down here shooting people. Are you in the Mafia? Is this a contract?" And I had taken a vow of silence at seventeen years old, and I didn't even answer the judge. And he said, "If you're going to be quiet like this when you come before me for the trial," he said, "I'll send you away for the maximum time that I can." When it came time for me to go before the judge, I still kept that vow of silence. I didn't say a word. He sentenced me to two 5 to 10 year sentences in the Kansas State Penitentiary.

I went there, and at that time, it was probably the worst and toughest prison in the United States. As big as I was, and as tough as I was handling myself, I had to fight almost every other day for survival in that place. My mother and father had found out that I was arrested and put in jail for shooting somebody. And my father disowned me. He said, "I didn't have a mother, I didn't have a father." And not to write any letters, not to make any phone calls, that they didn't exist any more. And that I had chosen a new family. And my father wrote to tell me that I had broken my mother's heart, and he never wanted me to speak to my mother again. Five and a half years went by. I finished the first sentence. I was paroled to my second sentence and sent back to New York.

When I got back to New York, I didn't want to go see those men right away. I thought I had failed them. They told me to go shoot two men and come back right away. I shot the two men. But, it took me five and a half years to get back. And I really believed that I had failed them. But, they knew I was out, and very shortly they sent for me to that same storefront where everything started. When I went there I had a gun. I always walked around with a gun. The day I got of jail, I got a gun.

As soon as I walked in, a man came up to me and said, "Tom, do you have a gun on you?" I said, "Of course, I do." He said, "Well, can we have it?" And I said, "No". And there was a table close by. I said, "But, I'll put the gun on the table." And they said it was all right. I wanted that gun as close to me as possible, so if these men were going to kill me, then I can get the gun and kill as many of them as I could before they killed me. And I sat down and the first question I was asked was, "How was prison?" And I was cocky and arrogant, and I said, "Look, I don't have any scars, no broken bones or anything." I said, "I handled myself. I survived." And then he leaned back, and he said, "Is there any one thing that you had thought about all the time that you were in prison?" And that was very easy for me to answer. Because the day that I was arrested until the day I was released, five and a half years later, I wondered what I did wrong. How I messed up that I was caught. And this is what I told him. And he looked at me and he said, "Now, you are going to understand why we wanted your gun." And he said, "You may not understand this right away." He said, "In time, you will.

We gave the police your name. And we told them everything."

He said, "Everything that we asked you to do so far, you've been very loyal, you've done it. But, we didn't know what would happen under pressure. We didn't know if you had to go to jail, how you would hold up. So, we had to give you a test." And he said, "You passed our test." And got up and opened up his arms, and said, "Welcome to our family, son."