As I
noted in a previous post, a friend and fellow Navy veteran who visited Olongapo
in the Philippines while serving in Southeast Asia on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War asked
to read Olongapo, the crime novel I’ve written and hope to soon
publish.
I told him that
I had posted several chapters on my website, and he asked that I rerepost the
chapters.
Below is chapter
two, Salvatore Lorino.
The below story
originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.
Salvatore Lorino
By Paul Davis
I was standing at the bar in a South
Philadelphia bar & grill drinking a glass of Sambuca and thinking about my
time in Olongapo so long ago. I was waiting for an old Kitty Hawk shipmate to
join me.
I knew Salvatore
Lorino slightly before we served together in the U.S. Navy, as we were both
raised in the same South Philadelphia neighborhood. Our row home neighborhood
was clean and well-maintained back in the 1960s, as it remains today, but back
in the 1960s there were a dozen or so troublesome teenage street corner gangs
that kept the police busy. I ran with one of the teenage street corner gangs
and Lorino ran with another corner gang a few blocks away.
Although the
gangs rarely bothered the neighbors, other than with late night noise, the
gangs were often in conflict – mostly over girls and perceived insults - and
they fought one another in schoolyards, playgrounds and parks. The worst of
these teenage gangs served as breeding grounds for future adult criminals. This
was especially true of the street corner gang at Dalton Street and Oregon
Avenue.
Called the
“D&O,” the South Philly teenage gang spawned drug dealers, burglars, car
thieves, gamblers, armed robbers, and an enterprising hoodlum named Salvatore
Lorino.
As South
Philadelphia was the hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized
crime family, the more criminally ambitious South Philly teenage gang members,
like Lorino, graduated from the street corners to the bars and nightclubs owned
and operated by the local mobsters.
I remember
Lorino as being about six feet tall, lean, with black hair and rugged features.
I recall that he had a long face and a perpetual lopsided grin that served to alternately charm and menace.
Although Lorino
was more than five years older than I, we both coincidentally entered the Navy
in 1970. I enlisted at age 17 in a patriotic fever, coupled with a strong
desire to see the world. Lorino had a strong desire to avoid a term in the
state penitentiary. So when a judge gave him a choice between prison and the
military, he chose the Navy.
In February of
1970, Lorino and I reported to the Naval Recruit Training Center, informally
called “Boot Camp,” in Great Lakes, Illinois. We were assigned to different
recruit companies, but I saw him during our training from time to time and we
exchanged greetings. After graduating from Boot Camp, Lorino and I received
orders to report to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, CVA-63.
In November of
1970, we shoved off from San Diego and sailed to Southeast Asia for the Kitty
Hawk’s fifth WESTPAC (Western Pacific) combat cruise.
Although I was
assigned to the Communications Radio Division and Lorino was assigned to the
Deck Department, he often stopped by our berthing compartment and visited me.
My friends in the division got a kick out of Lorino’s engaging personality and
roguish demeanor.
Lorino gained
quite a reputation aboard the carrier. He was an aggressive predator. He conned
naive and gullible sailors out of their pay. He gambled, cheated and hustled. A
large ship like the Kitty Hawk allowed Lorino to be constantly on the move,
like a shark.
Despite his
criminal proclivities, he was a popular guy throughout the ship. Even the
chiefs who failed to get much work out of him could not help but like him. He
was gregarious and amusing, and most of the sailors on the ship reluctantly
accepted his larcenous bent.
Salvatore
Lorino’s short military career ended in 1971 when he left the USS Kitty Hawk in
handcuffs, escorted by special agents from the Naval Investigative
Service.
So, when after
all these years, I heard his rapid-fire, raspy voice on my voice mail, I was
taken aback. His message said he happened to see my crime column in the local
newspaper and called the telephone number listed. He suggested we meet
somewhere for a drink, and he left his telephone number. I was curious, so I
called him back and agreed to meet him.
I told
Lorino to meet me at the Bomb Bomb bar and grill in South
Philly. The bar was so named because after the corner taproom opened
in 1936, local racketeers were not happy with a competing bar in the
Italian American neighborhood. So they planted a bomb that exploded on a Sunday
morning when the bar was closed. Despite the bombing, the owner was not scared
off. A second bomb was later planted and exploded in the bar. But the bar
remained open, and it is still operating today.
The Bomb
Bomb was typical of a South Philly eatery; friendly and
unpretentious, with relatively inexpensive and good Italian food.
As I was
sipping my Sambuca and thinking of my time with my old shipmate, Lorino walked
into the bar with his old swagger and oversize personality. He had not changed
all that much, it seemed to me. His once dark hair was now gray, but he
appeared to be the same old Lorino. Lorino hugged me and we took a table in the
back of the bar. Like all predators, Lorino was keenly observant. He took
noticed of my attire, a light gray sport jacket, an open collar black dress
shirt, black slacks and black leather Italian loafers.
“I see
you’re still a sharp dresser,” Lorino said. “For an old guy.”
Lorino was
clad in what appeared to be an expensive sport shirt, jeans and white sneakers,
and I replied that he looked good as well – for an old guy.
Lorino also
noticed my Rolex Submariner watch held by a black leather band on my left
wrist. He lightly tapped the crystal above the watch’s black dial and white dot
hour markers with his finger.
“Nice
watch.”
“It’s my prized
possession. A beautiful woman bought the watch for me on my 30th birthday,”
I explained. “I married her a month later.”
He
laughed.
We ordered a
bottle of red wine and quickly dispensed with what we’ve done with our lives
since our Navy days. After the Navy, I went to Penn State for a year; he did
two at the state pen. I went to work for the Defense Department, doing security
work as a federal civilian employee; he went to work for Federal Prison
Industries as a federal inmate. I was happily married with grown children; he
was happily divorced without children. I covered crime as a reporter and
columnist for the local newspaper; he committed crime for the local mob.
We drank several
glasses of wine and I ate a generous serving of Chicken Parmigiana with Ziti.
Lorino had a large bowl of mussels with Linguini.
At the table
next to us was a young couple who looked like tourists or newcomers to South
Philadelphia. As our tables were close together, we overheard the young man
say, “That was great Italian sauce.”
Lorino titled
his head towards the couple, frowned, leaned over and poked the young man’s arm
hard with his index finger. “You’re in South Philly, cuz,” Lorino informed him.
“And in South Philly it’s called “gravy,” not sauce.”
“Sal,” I said in
a low voice. “Leave them alone.”
The couple
reared back in fright. They got up quickly, paid the waitress and hurried
out.
“Fucking Medigans.”
Lorino said, using the crude insult that some Italian Americans call
non-Italians.
“You haven’t
changed,” I said. “You’re still a fucking nut.” Lorino shrugged and sipped his
wine.
After our fine
and filling meal, we drank coffee and launched into swapping sea stories and
reminiscing about our time in the Navy with boyish enthusiasm. We spoke mostly
about Olongapo.
While most young
American sailors saw Olongapo as a wide-open city to have fun in, Lorino saw
Olongapo as the land of opportunity.
Lorino spoke
fondly of his adventures in Olongapo. He told me he was introduced to Olongapo
by Douglas Winston, a 2nd class Boatswain Mate that he worked for in the Kitty
Hawk’s Deck Department.
“Winston was a
miserable and annoying prick,” Lorino explained. “But you know me, I get along
with everyone.”
Winston was thin
but sported a pot belly that dropped over his belt. He was about 30 but looked
much older with a craggy face and a bulbous nose. Lorino was one of the few
sailors who would associate with Winston off duty.
As the Kitty
Hawk sailed from Hawaii to Subic Bay, Winston regaled Lorino with tales of
Olongapo. He told Lorino about the great bars where one could meet great girls.
Winston also told Lorino that one could acquire anything that one could
possibly want. Olongapo knew no limitations.
“If you can’t
get your nut in Olongapo, you’re a real fucking pervert,” Winston told Lorino.
On Lorino’s
first night in Olongapo, he and Winston were drinking beers with a couple of
hostesses in the Ritz, which American sailors called the Ritz
Cracker. As Lorino was searching for a connection to buy methamphetamine in
bulk, he leaned over to one of the girls and flat out asked her where he could
score some meth.
She got up from
the table and walked away from Lorino without a word. Winston laughed. After a
few minutes, a portly Filipino with shaggy black hair came over, sat down and
said his name was Reeinald Bulan.
“Hey, Joe, you
want to buy shabu?”
“Shabu? Ain’t
that a killer whale in a zoo? I want to buy meth,” Lorino replied.
Bulan and Wilson
laughed. “The famous whale is Shamu,” Winston said, chuckling.
Lorino shrugged.
“Shabu is
crystal meth,” Bulan informed Lorino. "How much you want?”
Lorino pulled
out his wad of U.S. dollars. “This much.”
Bulan counted
the cash in Lorino’s hand. “That’s a lot of shabu. You wait here.”
Ten minutes
later, Bulan came back to the table and beckoned Lorino to follow him to the
men’s room. As Lorino walked behind Bulan, he slipped his knife out of his back
pocket and held it by his side. In the men’s room, Bulan handed Lorino a small
U.S. Navy Exchange paper bag. Lorino dipped his finger in, placed a bit of the
meth on his finger and snorted the meth. It was very good. Lorino handed over
the money.
Bulan smiled and
told Lorino to have a beer on him. “You want girl for the night?”
“No thanks, but
I’ll take a beer.”
Lorino felt the
stimulating effects of the meth, even though he had snorted only a small
portion. Lorino drank the beer down, thanked Bulan, and said he’ll be back to
do more business. Bulan shook his shaggy hair and grinned like a mad fool.
Lorino left
Winston at the bar and walked happily down Magsaysay Drive. A Filipino in a
short-sleeved shirt and jeans suddenly appeared before Lorino, blocking his
path. The Filipino held up a badge in his left hand and a revolver in his
right. Lorino stopped and looked the Filipino cop in the eye. A second officer
came up behind Lorino and placed his firearm in the small of Lorino’s back.
“Hand over the
shabu, sailor boy.”
Lorino frowned
and then handed the Navy Exchange paper bag to the police officer in front of
him.
“You cops are
the same all over the world,” Lorino said disdainfully. “Bigger crooks than
us.”
“You want to go
to prison, sailor boy?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then go back to
ship and don’t come back here.”
The two police
officers laughed, pocketed the paper bag, and walked into the Ritz. Fuck,
Lorino muttered to himself. Bulan and these crooked cops didn’t even try to
hide the rip-off. Lorino walked across Magsaysay Drive, dodging jeepneys, and
went into another bar. He brushed off the girls who approached him and went
directly to the bar. He beckoned the bartender to come over.
“Where can I buy
a baseball bat?”
Lorino had a
beer as the bartender produced a baseball bat from under the bar. Lorino paid
him. He weighed the bat in his hands and smiled. Lorino planned to go all
“South Philly” on the two crooked cops and Reeinald Bulan.
After he downed
his drink, Lorino walked back across the street to the Ritz with
the baseball bat in his hand. He didn’t see Winston or Bulan anywhere when he
walked in, but he saw the two cops drinking at the bar with their backs to him.
Lorino walked up
to them and struck the two officers repeatedly across their heads and shoulders
with the baseball bat. The Filipino police officers dropped to the floor in
blood puddles. They never had the chance to draw their weapons.
As the bar girls
screamed and the American sailors backed away, Lorino leaned over and dug into
the cops’ pockets, looking for his meth. He did not hear Bulan come up behind
him, but he felt the sharp pain in his back from a knife.
The pain was
sheering, but Lorino was able to turn around quickly, and he swung the bat at
Bulan’s knees. The Filipino drug dealer fell to the floor. Lorino struck
Bulan’s knees again and again as the drug dealer wiggled and screamed in pain
on the floor. Lorino reached down and pulled the Navy Exchange bag from the
Filipino’s pants pocket.
Lorino got up,
dropped the baseball bat, and despite his knife wound, he walked calmly out of
the bar and walked two blocks down to the Starlight, another
bar that Winston told him about. He found Winston there and Lorino
sat down, leaned over and told Winston that he would cut him in on his new drug
trafficking enterprise on the carrier if the petty officer would store the
shabu on the ship until he returned. Winston agreed happily.
Lorino passed
the paper bag to Winston. He then asked Winston to hail a jeepney and take him
to the base hospital.
Lorino missed
the Kitty Hawk’s next Yankee Station line period, as he was recuperating from
his knife wound in the Subic Bay base hospital. He told the investigating NIS
special agent who visited him that he was drunk and no idea who stabbed him.
Raised in South Philly’s Cosa Nostra organized crime culture,
Lorino would never speak to cop, so he didn’t tell the special agent about
Bulan.
After Lorino’s
release from the hospital, he was temporarily assigned to the base until the
Kitty Hawk returned to Subic Bay. In time, Lorino felt fit enough to go back
into Olongapo. He ventured to the Americano bar and sat down
with a hostess.
The waiter
brought over a beer for Lorino and a whiskey for the girl. The Americano had
an American Wild West motif and a band that played country & western music.
Lorino didn’t care for country & western music – he was a Motown R&B
fan – but he was in the Americano looking for a connection,
not entertainment.
He asked the
girl about the “Chief,” and she pointed to a nearly bald, hefty American in his
50s who stood behind the bar. Winston had assured Lorino that the Chief, an
American expatriate and retired Navy chief petty officer, was a good guy to
know in Olongapo.
Maxwell Walker,
originally from Arizona, told everyone to call him “Chief” as he said he was a
retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer. He also told people that he was the
owner of the Americano. Neither was true.
Although he did
in fact retired from the U.S. Navy after 20 years of service, he never achieved
the rank of chief petty officer. He retired at the next lower grade, a 1st Class
Boatswain Mate, but he liked being called chief, so he promoted himself in
retirement. And he was not the owner of the Americano. He was
an employee, hired to lure in American sailors. His Filipina wife, a former
hostess, was the Americano’s mama-san.
Lorino went up
to the bar and introduced himself to Walker. He told the chief that Winston
told him that the chief could hook him up.
“So, you’re
friend of Winston’s?”
“Yeah, we work
in the Kitty Hawk’s Deck Department. He told me I could get a gun here.”
“Why do you want
a gun?”
“My business.”
“If I sell you a
gun, it becomes my business.”
Lorino told
Walker the story of the rip-off and how he was stabbed by Bulan. He told Walker
how he beat the cops and Bulan with a bat, but he now wanted payback for the
stabbing.
“Yeah, I heard
about that,” Walker said laughing. “Reeinald is a piece of shit. If you want
good shabu, I can fix you up with some people here. Look, ya still looking to
score good shabu?”
“Yeah. I got
plans to go into business on the Kitty Hawk.”
“Tell ya what,
I’ll give you a gun. Do what you have to do with it and then toss it in Shit
River. Come back here and we can do shabu business.”
Lorino took the
gun, a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver with a two-inch barrel. He hefted the
firearm in his hand. Lorino thanked Walker and left the Americano. He
walked down Magsaysay Drive to the Ritz. He brushed aside the
girls who rushed up to him and looked around for Bulan.
He spotted Bulan
sitting at a table with a pair of crutches leaning against his chair. Without a
word, Lorino walked up to Bulan briskly, pulled out the .38 revolver from his
waistband and shot the Filipino drug dealer once in the left foot and once in the
right knee. As Bulan lay screaming in pain on the floor. the bar patrons and
employees all backed away from the shots.
Lorino walked
calmly out of the bar and onto Magsaysay Drive.
“Gotta love
Olongapo,” Lorino said loudly and happily to two passing sailors.
© 2022 By
Paul Davis
Note: You can read the other posted chapters via the below links:
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And
See Olongapo
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Boots On The
Ground'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day
Detail"
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'
Paul Davis On Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan,
Davis-San
Paul Davis On Crime: A Look Back At Life Aboard An
Aircraft Carrier During The Vietnam War: 'The Compartment Cleaner'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By Fire'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Admiral McCain'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Hit The Head'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'A Night At The
Americano'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Missing Muster'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Barracks
Thief'
Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The City of
Bizarre Happenings'
