Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Refrigerator Thieves'

Below is another chapter from my crime novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish.

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

The Refrigerator Thieves

By Paul Davis

After operating on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1971, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk sailed into the huge U.S. Naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs and replenishments.

While in Port at Subic Bay, someone stole a brand-new compact refrigerator filled with soda cans. The small refrigerator had recently been purchased at the Navy Exchange on the Subic Bay naval base after the Kitty Hawk’s sailors in the Communications Radio Division took up a collection. The sailors wanted to buy the refrigerator so their sodas would be kept ice cold while they were at sea on Yankee Station. The refrigerator was stored in the supply office in the Communications Radio Division’s spaces aboard the Kitty Hawk.

The message processing center was a restricted area that held highly classified material, and one had to punch four digits into the security panel to gain entry. But the supply office, located next to the division’s berthing compartment, did not hold classified material and was only secured with a lock on the door.

With the compact refrigerator full of soda cans, it must have been quite heavy, awkward to carry, and noisy with the soda cans clanking together as it was moved, so none of us had any idea how it could have been lifted and taken out of the supply office without anyone noticing it. Nor did we have any idea of how the thieves could get the refrigerator off the carrier while in port at Subic Bay.

NIS Special Agent Boone Cantrell came aboard to conduct the investigation. While the theft of the refrigerator itself was a minor crime, the fact that it was stolen within the Communications Radio Division’s spaces made the theft a major security issue. Cantrell interviewed me after the theft was reported, along with other division sailors. We all told him that we didn’t see or hear anything.

Earlier, while at sea on Yankee Station, Salvatore Lorino visited the Communications Radio Division to pay a call on one of his good meth customers. Anthony Brant, a curly-haired seaman from Brooklyn, exchanged his cash for a bag of shabu - crystal meth - and then he asked Lorino if he wanted a Coke. Brant waved for Lorino to follow him out of the compartment and to the door that read “CR Supply Office.”

Brant took out his keys and opened the door and the two walked in. Lorino looked around, his criminally bent mind looking for something of value to steal. He saw only general office supplies, and he didn’t notice anything of value until Brant opened the refrigerator’s door and extracted two Coke cans. Brant handed one can to Lorino and opened one for himself. The two left the office and Brant locked the door.

As Lorino walked back to the Deck Department, he wondered what the small refrigerator, as well as the case of soda cans in it, would go for on the black market in Olongapo.

After the Kitty Hawk pulled into Subic Bay, Lorino left the carrier and went ashore. He walked down Magsaysay Drive and stepped into the Americano. Walker saw Lorino enter the bar, and he beckoned him over. He introduced Lorino to Bagwis Seno.

Born and raised in Olongapo, Seno had been stealing since he was a small child. When he turned 18, he befriended a local priest and convinced him that he was a good Catholic boy. Crying, he told the priest that he wanted to get far away from the temptations of Olongapo. He begged the priest to help him join the American Navy. He told the priest that he wanted to serve in the U.S, Navy so he could qualify for United States citizenship. He didn’t tell the priest that he wanted to become an American citizen as he believed there were greater opportunities to steal in America.

The priest believed Seno, and he used his friendship with a U.S. Navy Catholic Chaplin to get Seno into the U.S. Navy. Seno thanked the priest in his usual fashion by stealing cash and valuables from the church before he left Olongapo to enter the American Navy.

At the bar, Walker told Lorino that Seno was serving on the Kitty Hawk as a cook. Walker said that Seno was looking for more opportunities to steal on the aircraft carrier.

“I call this guy “Sticky Fingers” Seno,” Walker said laughing. “He’s a natural fucking thief. Nothing is safe around this thievin’ bastard.”

Walker, Seno and Lorino walked over to a table and sat down. A waiter brought over beer for the larcenous trio. Seno told Lorino that he had a partner on the Kitty Hawk, a fellow Filipino cook, and they worked with two of his old Filipino friends, both of whom worked as civilian painters on the Subic Bay naval base. The four thieves pulled off several scores on the aircraft carrier, but they were always looking for new things to steal.

“Do you know of anything on the ship you guys can boost?” Walker asked Lorino.

Lorino immediately thought of the refrigerator. He hesitated for a moment, as he had good friends among the radiomen, including his pal from South Philly, and he didn’t want to steal from them. But, hey, business was business. He told Walker and Seno about the compact refrigerator.

On the evening before the Kitty Hawk pulled out from Subic Bay and returned to Yankee Station, Seno and Romy Fernandez, Seno’s partner in crime, walked through the darkened radio berthing compartment. The sailors not on watch or on liberty in Olongapo were sleeping in their racks. With Lorino acting as a look-out, the two thieves snuck through the compartment like modern-day ninjas. Seno picked the supply office’s door lock, and they entered the office. The two thieves lifted the heavy refrigerator and carried it out of the office and through the compartment as quietly as they could and then out into the passageway.

Lorino led them through a hatch and out onto the catwalk. The two Filipinos followed, carrying the heavy refrigerator as the soda cans banged against each other inside the refrigerator.

Lorino had previously made an effort to learn about line-handling and knots while working in the Deck Department, as he figured that one day he’d find a practical use - for Lorino, that meant criminal - and today was that day.

Lorino secured a line around the refrigerator, and the three men lifted the refrigerator over the top of the catwalk rail and lowered it to the small boat the Filipino painters used to paint the hull on the seaboard side of the carrier when the warship was moored to the dock.

The two painters took the refrigerator in hand and lowered it to the boat’s deck. The sailors topside dropped the line. The painters motored off away from the carrier.

The following evening, the refrigerator was in Walker’s office in the Americano. He opened it and pulled out cold beer bottles for Lorino and Seno.

“Good work, fellas. I should get a good price for this refrigerator, and when I do, I’ll give you your cut,” Walker said to Lorino and Seno.

“Now drink up, you fucking pirates.”