My Crime Fiction: 'John Bland's Scam'

The story below is yet another chapter from my novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish.  

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

John Bland’s Scam

 By Paul Davis   

 As I noted here earlier, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy on February 9, 1970, under a two-year enlistment plan called “Project 100,000,” and nicknamed derisively as “McNamara’s Misfits.

The plan was for high school dropouts, convicted offenders offered the military or prison, low IQ people, and other less than desirable military recruits to join the military. The project was the brainchild of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1966 and was designed to bolster the ranks during the Vietnam War.  

I was scheduled to leave the Navy on February 9, 1972, but sailors stationed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk were separated early in December of 1971 before Christmas. This had less to do with a Holiday spirit than the idea that the Navy wanted the “short timer” sailors off the ship and out of the Navy before the aircraft carrier sailed back to Southeast Asia for the new WESTPAC (Western Pacific) Vietnam combat cruise.

There were six of us in the Communications Radio Division who fell into this category. I was one and John Bland was another. 

On the Friday before our separation date on the following Monday morning, Chief Helm told us that we had weekend liberty, but we had to be back on the ship by 0700 on Monday morning so we could be given our final papers and pay. 

I made plans to visit Los Angeles with Mike Hunt, who was from the City of Angels. Hunt, a 3^rd Class Radioman who signed up for the standard 4-year enlistment, was pissed off as he had joined the Navy before me and now, he saw me leaving before he did. He said he was not pissed at me, but he was not looking forward to a third WESTPAC cruise, with long periods at sea on “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam.

I took a shower in the division's compartment and as I was getting dressed in my civies, John Bland, a stocky seaman two years older than I with light brown hair, a flat face and shifty brown eyes, whom I disliked, approached me. He asked if he could borrow $20 from me.

No, I snapped, before he could launch into his spiel. I disliked Bland. He was a scheming, conniving low rent con artist. Despite my blunt negative answer, Bland went into his act. He said that he had sent all of his last pay to his family due to an emergency, and now he had no money for the weekend.

I was not moved, as I had heard this bullshit before. Bland was always trying to scam people over small things. One division wit stated that Bland mourned four grandmothers in the course of a year.      

“We get our final pay together on Monday morning and I’ll pay you back then,” Bland said.

Perhaps because I was so happy to going home to South Philadelphia, or perhaps there was no way he could duck me, as we were all due to collect our final pay in cash before we left the ship, I pulled out my thin black leather wallet that held my Navy ID card and my cash and I handed him a $20 bill.

Hunt and I had a great weekend in LA, and we returned to the USS Kitty Hawk at 0600 on Monday morning. I showered and changed into my Navy Blue dress uniform and shook hands and said goodbye to Hunt, Dino Ingemi and the other good friends I made during my time on the carrier.

The sailors being separated from the Navy that day met in the division’s supply office where Chief Helm gave us our separation orders and final pay. Bland was not there.

I was not the only one asking about him. Chief Helm explained that Bland had seen the division’s commander and pleaded to be allowed to go home early. He told the commander that his girlfriend had written him a “Dear John” letter, stating that the wedding was off and she was going away with another man.

Chief Helm told us the commander agreed to let him go early, because he believed the sob story and, frankly, the chief said with a smile, because the commander did not like Bland and wanted to be rid of him.

The five of us being separated that day were angry. I discovered that Bland had approached all of us and told the same sob story and each of us had loaned him $20.

“I’m sure that son-of-bitch left on Friday thinking he got over on the Navy and over on all of us,” a sailor named Duggin said.

“Well, he has to live with his miserable own self for the rest of his life,” another sailor named Bucknell said. “I would not trade places with him. It was worth 20 bucks not to see his ugly face and miserable attitude on this very joyful day.”

“I hope his plane crashed on the way home,” Duggin said.

"That’s not right,” I replied. “We should not wish for a plane to crash that would have also killed innocent passengers. But I can wish that Bland had been sucked down into the airliner’s toilet and dropped out of the plane from 35,000 feet.” 

That got a big laugh.     

 

Like Salvatore Lorino, a South Philly corner boy I knew slightly from our neighborhood before we entered the Navy at the same time, Bland was linked coincidently to me for my entire two-year enlistment.

Lorino, Bland and a dozen other young men raised their hand along with me and swore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and the United States at 401 North Broad Street, the old induction center in Philadelphia.

We were then taken by bus to the North Philadelphia train station, and we boarded a train bound for Chicago. I didn’t know Bland, who was from Darby, Pennsylvania, so I didn’t talk to him on the train. I sat with Lorino, who was five years older than I, and we spoke of friends we knew in common.

We boarded a Navy bus at the Chicago train station, and we were taken to the U.S. Navy Recruit Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois, more commonly known as “Boot Camp.” I recall that it was a very cold day.

After a week at a temporary barracks, the company was split up in two and Lorino went to one company and I and Bland went to another.

In that first week, when we were yelled at, cursed and insulted by a half-crazed drill instructor and forced to do physical things we would have thought impossible only a week before. I grew very quickly to dislike Bland. I was not alone in that assessment. Lorino hated him.

“He thinks he’s slick,” Lorino said to me.

Lorino, who was six feet tall, lean with black hair, rugged features and a long face with a perpetual lopsided grin that served to either charm or menace, was a genuine hoodlum who was in fact quite slick.

Lorino was not angered by Bland’s hustling. Lorino was offended that Bland was such a rank criminal amateur. It offended his sense of professionalism.  

Lorino heard Bland tell people that he was from Philadelphia. Lorino did not like the idea that he was in any way associated with such a whiny loser, so he confronted Bland in front of other recruits and upbraided him for falsely claiming to be from Philadelphia.

"I’m from the Philadelphia area,” Bland said in his defense.

“Then say you are from the Philadelphia area,” Lorino replied. “Asshole,” Lorino added for good measure.

We all laughed.  

I didn’t have much to do with Bland during Boot Camp, although I often heard other recruits complain about his borrowing money and not paying anyone back, or his minor swindles, but after graduation, I discovered that he, like me and Lorino, received orders to report to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which was then undergoing an overhaul in Bremerton, Washington.

Recruits who enlisted for a full four years received orders to an “A” occupational training school. McNamara Misfits like Lorino, Bland and me were sent straight to the fleet.

The three of us were taken by bus to the Chicago airport where we all caught a flight to Philadelphia. Lorino and I shared a cab home. Bland later told me he hitchhiked and caught a ride home.

After a week’s leave, the three of us flew from Philadelphia to Seattle, Washington. There we were scheduled to board another plane to Bremerton, Washington. I thought we were to board another large aircraft, but we were directed to a field where there sat a small, four-seated propeller plane.

“I used to own a plane like that when I was a kid,” I told Lorino. “I operated it from remote control.”  

The small plane took off with me in the front seat next to the pilot and Lorino and Bland in the back. The plane seemed to hit every air pocket and would drop down violently while our stomachs appeared to remain at the higher attitude. It was rough flight.

About halfway to Bremerton, Bland threw up into an airsickness bag. The smell in the small plane was overwhelming and nearly made me sick. Lorino threatened to throw Bland out of the plane.

Thankfully, we landed soon afterwards in what looked like a pumpkin patch. From there, we took a cab to the Bremerton naval base next to the Puget Sound.  

My father, a WWII Navy veteran, took me to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for the commissioning ceremony of the USS Kitty Hawk when I was 11 years old.

With fond memories of the new carrier that I saw at the commissioning in my head, I was somewhat disappointed as I looked up at the ship and walked along the port side of the ship tied to the pier.

The aircraft carrier looked like it was hit with a bomb. The carrier, sans aircraft or an air wing group at this point, was in major disarray. The Kitty Hawk was undergoing a major overhaul in Bremerton, Washington and it appeared that the ship was being taken apart and put back together.

Bland, Lorino and I walked up the enlisted brow and reported aboard at the ship’s Quarterdeck. As we waited for an escort to take us to the ship’s personnel office, Bland quipped, “Hey, look at us! We’re the three Musketeers.”

Lorino walked away in disgust.

Our escort, a young seaman, showed up at the quarterdeck and walked us through the maze of hallways (called passageways in the Navy) and upstairs (called ladders in the Navy) to the personnel office.

A 2^nd Class petty officer looked at our orders and said that he too was from Philadelphia. He looked at his co-worker and said, “No Philly “home boy” is going to be "mess cooking" while I’m in charge.”

He explained that all seamen and seamen apprentices spent their first 90 days on the carrier working as mess cooks before they were assigned to a permanent division. Mess cooking was a dirty job with long hours, cleaning up after the ship’s cooks after every meal.

Instead, we were assigned to the Special Services Office, where they needed manpower to run TV/Radio cable through the ship. We were the first warship to have cable TV and radio.

It was not a bad job, and we only worked eight hours a day while mess cooks worked about 16 hours a day.

As the overhaul was coming to an end, we were told that the Kitty Hawk would be sailing from Bremerton to San Deigo, where the carrier would go to sea five days a week with the aircraft doing flight operations, and the crew performing fire, damage control and other drills in preparation of our upcoming Vietnam combat cruise.

I was looking forward to sailing to San Deigo. One day during our afternoon chow hour, I walked off the carrier and took a walk around the navy base.

About an hour later, I walked back to the pier. To my shock, the Kitty Hawk was no longer at the pier.

Shit, I thought. I wondered if the Carrier had set sail for San Deigo and no one had told me.  

I sat down on a shipping crate, looked at the vacant pier and pondered my fate. I heard much talk about the carrier sailing to San Deigo once the overhaul was completed, but I didn’t recall anyone saying that this day was the day.

I thought of what the penalty was for missing ship’s movement, which I knew was a serious offense. I was worried. I was a seaman apprentice, “lower than whale shit,” as the saying goes. Could I be busted in rank? Tossed in the brig? Kicked out the Navy?

But mostly I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to be ridiculed and thought of as a stupid “Boot.”

I was only 17, but I thought of myself as a street-smart South Philly kid, and although I had only been in the Navy a few months, I thought I knew a lot about the Navy. I learned a good bit about the Navy from my Navy veteran father, my many conversations with former and active-duty sailors, and from my voracious reading about the Navy.

Yet here I was sitting on the dock of the bay like the Otis Reading song, wondering where my ship had gone. At that time John Bland showed up.

“Where’s the ship?”

“I don’t know. I wonder if it took off for San Deigo.”

“And left us here? Fuck, we’re fucked!”

Bland began to pace and whimper and cry softly.  

I was about to turn myself in to the first Navy chief I saw, when I saw the Kitty Hawk coming back.

 I was elated.     

The tugboats helped the carrier return to the pier and backed the aircraft carrier in, stern first. Apparently, the carrier had pulled out to go to wider water so the ship could maneuver and then return to the pier and be tied up on the starboard side.   

As my terror subsided, a joke ran though my head - the ship's captain realized I was not aboard, and he turned the carrier around to come back and get his missing seaman apprentice. I also then thought of the expression, “missing the boat.”

For a brief awful time, I thought I did in fact miss the boat.

For the next year and a half, I had a great adventure. In between long periods on Yankee Station off the coast of North Vietnam, we made port of calls to Honolulu, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Sasebo, Japan and Subic Bay/Olongapo in the Philippines.

In December of 1971, I said goodbye to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and flew home.

And I never saw John Bland again.

Note: You can read the first chapter of Olongapo, called Butterfly, via the link below, and at the end of Butterfly are links to other posted chapters from the as yet unpublished crime novel:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'

My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'

The story below is a chapter from my crime novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish. 

An earlier version of the story appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine. 

Cat Street

By Paul Davis

They say that anything stolen during the night in Hong Kong will be on sale on Cat Street the next morning. 

I heard that saying many years ago when I visited Hong Kong as a young sailor, and it recently came back to me while speaking to Salvatore Lorino at the Bomb-Bomb bar & grill in South Philly. 

After much discussion about Olongapo, Lorino and I spoke of our time in Hong Kong.

Lorino looked about the bar and then leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. Lorino asked me if I remembered Nichols and Johnson from the USS Kitty Hawk and I replied that I remembered Johnson very well. An amiable Northern Californian who grew up on a ranch, he was the only person I ever met, over the age of ten, who wanted to be a cowboy. He was murdered in a robbery in Hong Kong. Nichols, I recalled, was a sad sack who deserted the ship in Hong Kong with his new bar girl bride. 

Lorino did not contradict my recollection, but his grin widened above the rim of the glass as he drank his wine. 

“The statue of limitations is up, so I can finally talk about what went down,” Lorino told me. 

“Statute of limitations, not statue, like the Statue of Liberty,” I said, correcting him. 

Lorino shrugged. “What’s the difference?” 

“A second letter t.” 

Lorino ignored me and asked if I wanted to hear his story about a decades-old case of kidnapping, espionage and murder.

 

The USS Kitty Hawk sailed into Hong Kong Harbor in February of 1971. The aircraft carrier had just completed 70 days on "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea, performing combat operations off the coast of Vietnam. During that time the ship’s 80 aircraft dropped a record tonnage of ordnance on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong supply routes, which were collectively called the "Ho Chi Minh Trail." 

During that line period on Yankee Station a Communist Chinese minesweeper came dangerously close to the carrier. The Chinese warship was adorned with oversized white propaganda banners in Chinese, so most of the American sailors couldn’t read them, but our captain had an intelligence officer translate the banners.  

The captain announced over the ship’s public address system, known as the 1MC, that the banners read, “Down with U.S. Imperialism,” “Down with Nixon” and “Down with U.S. Navy war criminals.” 

The captain informed us that he had sent the Chinese a message in response to the banners. “Since you are so down with everything, up yours!” 

All of Kitty Hawk’s nearly 5,000 sailors laughed loudly. I’ve always wondered what the Communist Chinese sailors thought of that. 

The carrier's crew worked long, hard hours during flight operations and the radiomen stood eight hours on watch and eight hours off watch continuously. We lost track of all time until the upcoming visit to Hong Kong was announced.

When the carrier dropped anchor in Hong Kong Harbor, a loud cheer rose from the crew and carried across the water. Heads must have turned towards the roar for at least ten nautical miles. 

Sharing the harbor with the Kitty Hawk that day were freighters, ocean liners, British destroyers, Soviet cruisers, commercial speed hydrofoils, sampans and junks. The contrast between the splendid modern ships and the ancient and decrepit fishing boats was striking. 

Visible from the carrier’s flight deck was Victoria City, the capital and business center of the then-British Crown Colony. Dark clouds circled Hong Kong’s famous peak mountain. Looking down from the flight deck we saw the approaching Chinese motor launches, which were called Walla Wallas. The water taxis lined up along the starboard side of the ship and waited to take the eager American sailors ashore. 

Those of us who were fortunate enough to have liberty that first day in port were ordered to assemble in the berthing compartment prior to our departure. A third of the division would remain aboard the ship in the event of an emergency and the watch bill would change two days later. 

Chief Radioman Lionel Shaw stood across from our three-tier racks. As security officer for the division, he was tasked with presenting a briefing to the first batch of sailors preparing to leave the ship for the exotic streets of Hong Kong. 

The chief truly loved the Navy. He left a poor family and a bad neighborhood in Chicago when he enlisted in the Navy and there was no going back for him. When he entered the Navy, black sailors like him were restricted to orderly duties and he was enormously proud of the trust the Navy now bestowed upon him. He held, as did all of the men assembled before him, a top-secret security clearance. 

Shaw was only 5’6" but he appeared to be much larger due to his muscular torso, his ever-ready fighter’s stance and a great, booming voice. A model sailor, his khaki uniform and black boots were immaculate. 

Most of us were in civilian clothes, but he advised those of us who wearing uniforms to tear off the radioman patch adorned on the left arm of our uniforms. The distinctive patch showed lightning bolts, which was the occupational batch that identified us as radiomen who handled highly classified war information. Wearing the patch was bad OPSEC, or operations security. 

"Listen up," Shaw bellowed. "Hong Kong is the Goddamned spy capitol of the world, so don’t be yakkin’ about your job or what the ship does, or what we’re goin’ to be doin’ next month. 

"Remember that we’re only a few miles from Red China, the ally of our enemy, and ain’t nothing better them Communists motherfuckers would like, then to haul your drunken, silly asses over the border." 

He paused for breath, and perhaps for dramatic effect, and then added, "And if one of them Chinese bar hogs ask you what you do on the great, big ship, tell ‘em you’re a Goddamn cook!" 

The people of Hong Kong were given the impression that American sailors lived really well. On a ship with nearly 5,000 men, 2,000 of them were cooks.

 

Not known to Shaw or any of us at the time, another Navy radioman, Warrant Officer John Walker, was feeding the Soviets a steady diet of vital information on Navy communications. Communist Chinese intelligence was also in the market for a source of information. They wanted a U.S. Navy radioman to call their own. 

Radioman 3^rd Class John Nichols was one of the men assembled before Shaw. He had been in the Navy for more than three years and this was his second combat deployment aboard the carrier. Returning to the combat zone was common for carrier sailors during the 12 years of the Vietnam War. Many of them made two or three 11-month-long Western Pacific (WESTPAC) combat cruises during their four-year enlistments. 

There was an unwritten but steadfast rule that there were only two ways to get off a carrier during the Vietnam War. One way was to be discharged from the Navy, and the other way was to die. Unlike other men who resented not being reassigned to shore duty or a non-combat ship after their initial combat cruise, Nichols was thrilled. It meant that he would be seeing Hong Kong again. 

Originally from a small town in Ohio, Nichols joined the Navy after graduating from high school. An only child, Nichol’s father had deserted the family when he was an infant. He was raised by an alcoholic and inattentive mother. 

He had been a below average student; a poor athlete and he had few friends. Looking forward to the great Navy adventures that lay ahead, he was soon disappointed to discover that he was as unsuccessful with girls in San Diego as he had been in Ohio. 

Nichols was of average height, but his poor posture made him appear to be much shorter. With stooped shoulders, a slight paunch, balding brown hair and nondescript facial features, Nichols was certainly not a matinee idol. No clotheshorse either; Nichol’s uniform and civilian attire were always unkempt and unflattering. While looks aren’t everything, Nichols also lacked what one would call a personality. 

Nichols’ disappointing young life changed one night in 1969 while he was on his initial cruise. On leave for two days in Hong Kong, he met a girl named Nancy Chen in the Wanchai District. The notorious red-light district was made world famous by Richard Mason's fictional character Suzy Wong. 

Like Suzy Wong, Nancy Chen was alluring in her black silk Cheongsam, a long slit rising invitingly up her left leg. Her long straight black hair, sleepy black eyes and doll-like figure were intoxicating to Nichols. She was the first, and only, woman that he had sex with. 

In her limited English, she told him that her family had escaped from China and came to Hong Kong when she was a young girl. As the family had no money, she was forced to work the bars. Touched by her story and madly in love for the first time, Nichols spent three months pay romancing her in two days of liberty. As he prepared to return to the ship, he grew bold and asked her to marry him. 

"You crazy!" was her curt response to his heart-felt proposal. Undeterred, he said he would come back for her when the ship again visited Hong Kong during the next WESTPAC cruise.

 

A little more than one year later, the Walla Wallas pitched and rolled across the choppy, blue-gray water as the boats carried the Kitty Hawk sailors ashore. Nichols’ wedding guests were aboard one of the boats. His wedding guests sat on his immediate right and left. Nichols had invited the entire radio division to his wedding, but only Seamen Dennis Johnson and Lorino accepted. 

Nichols was not popular with the crew. It was well known that his request to marry a foreign national was denied by the Navy. She still had family behind the "Bamboo Curtain" in Communist China and that presented a security risk. Nichols didn’t care what the Navy ordered; he was getting married. He talked of nothing else since the beginning of the cruise. His shipmates constantly ridiculed him, as sailors in close quarters aboard a ship can be crueler than school children. 

Johnson was Nichols only friend and that was due primarily to Johnson being everyone’s friend. A cheerful 22-year-old, Johnson was a real cowboy who amused everyone with his tales of growing up on the range in California. He enlisted in the Navy to avoid being drafted in the Army. 

Lorino, who often visited me in our berthing area, accepted Nichols' invitation as he had no other plans other than developing a local connection to buy some shabu. He figured that he might meet someone at the wedding who could steer him towards a shabu connection. 

I passed on the wedding invitation, as I didn’t much care for Nichols, and Mike Hunt invited me to join him at the Hong Kong Hilton, where he stayed on his previous visit to Hong Kong. Hunt and I went ashore and checked in at the Hong Kong Hilton. As we had just come off a long line period on Yankee Station, Hunt and I were flush with cash from our saved pay. 

I also had my considerable winnings from playing poker. As I had been playing poker since I was a kid in South Philly, I was a fair poker player. I played poker on the carrier against a good number of sailors new to the game of chance and skill, so I usually came away from the card games a winner. 

Once we settled in our luxurious room, I called room service and ordered caviar and a bottle of Dom Perigon champagne, the favorite drink of my teenage hero, Ian Fleming’s iconic fictional secret agent James Bond. After I hung up, Hunt picked up the phone and called a number he had from his last visit to Hong Kong. A half hour later, two young and pretty Chinese girls showed up at the door. 

“If I die tomorrow,” I announced to everyone in the hotel room as I held up my champagne glass. “I’ll at least have known what it’s like to be a millionaire.” 

The next morning, we visited a tailor Hunt knew and I had a black suit made, plus two shirts and two pairs of slacks. I could not believe how inexpensive the fine tailor-made clothes were. Mike also had a suit and a shirt made. After our fittings, the tailor said our clothes would be ready the following day. 

We returned to the hotel, took showers, dressed, and headed out to Aberdeen Harbor where we boarded the floating Tai Pak restaurant. The famous floating restaurant was featured in the 1950 films Love is a Many Splendored Thing and The World of Suzie Wong. 

We were served wonderful dishes of crabmeat with sweet-corn soup, fried prawns, crabmeat Fu-Young, sweet and sour pork, and fried garoupa. I also eat fried Sole, which was a favorite dish of James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels. To my regret, the Sole was not bone-less. I had to use my knife and fork to separate the small bones from the fish, but it was delicious. 

After eating this splendid authentic Chinese meal at the Tai Pak, we headed to the Wanchai bars.  

 

Nichols’ wedding was set to take place above a store in Hong Kong’s commercial section. The happy couple would spend the night in a hotel. Nichols had been informed of these arrangements by his bride-to-be in a letter. 

Nichols, Johnson and Lorino piled into a taxi at the pier and were driven to Ladder Street. Ladder Street was not really a street in a traditional sense, but rather a series of wide steps spread out between rows and rows of shops. At the bottom of Ladder Street lay Morlo-Gai, or Cat Street. The area was locally known as the "Thieves Market." 

A "Cat," in Hong Kong parlance, was someone who bought stolen goods from thieves and then sold them at market.  

Cat Street was a bustling market where tourists and locals alike were herded through the ubiquitous shops and wooden street stands. Under colorful Chinese banners and signs, the merchants screamed out the praises of their wares and haggled over prices with their customers. Trinkets and inexpensive products, mostly manufactured in the People’s Republic of China, were laid across counters and tables. Pickpockets, beggars, prostitutes and lunatics fought openly over territory. 

Passing through the crowd, store touts and street urchins frequently accosted the three sailors, but they brushed them off in good humor. Nichols paid a small boy to take them to the address written in his letter. They were led up a set of back stairs and into a room where the Americans faced the waiting bride and her Chinese "family." 

Music from the American band Chicago blasted from an elaborate stereo system. A ten-foot wooden bar, amply stocked with bottles of liquor, stretched across the room. Three round tables were set up to create a small dance floor. On the tables were various dishes of Chinese food. Two young women huddled with Nancy Chen and giggled. Three Chinese men stood in the center in the room. 

The sailors stood in the doorway, momentarily overcome by the sights, sounds and smells of the scene. Nancy Chen walked towards Nichols and embraced him. He began to cry, and she laughed at him, making a comment in Chinese to her girlfriends that made them laugh. One of the men announced in English that he was Jimmy Lung and that he was the bride’s brother. He introduced the women as Lucy and Wendy. 

The two lean and gaunt men in white shirts and dark slacks were introduced as the Woo brothers, cousins to the bride. They were also serving as the bartender and waiter for the affair. Lung was as thin as a child’s crayoned stickman. His hair was a dark mop and sunglasses hung precariously on his skeletal face. He wore an open collared silk shirt under his expensive suit and his silver snakeskin cowboy boots drew Johnson’s envy. 

When Nichols stopped crying, they all took seats at the tables and began to eat and drink. The women danced seductively with Johnson and Lorino. During the festivity, Nichols put his arm around his future brother-in-law and asked him why he and Nancy had different last names. "Chinese custom," Lung replied bluntly. Nichols did not question the dubious explanation. 

The party ended abruptly when Lung leaped up and screamed "No one move!"

Swiftly extracting a foot-long knife from his left sleeve, Lung placed it roughly under Nichols’ chin. The waiter also drew a long knife and the bartender vaulted over the bar holding a long-barreled revolver. The three women huddled into a corner. 

"We are moving this party across the Sham Chum," Lung announced. The Americans sailors didn’t know that this was the name of the river that separated Hong Kong from Red China, but they got the idea when Lung added, "My friends on the other side want to talk to you about your little American Navy secrets." 

Johnson sat still and cursed to himself softly. Lorino casually crossed his legs and took a long draw from his cigarette, trying to look as cool as a South Philly gangster ought to under these extreme and unusual circumstances. Nichols was frozen and bug-eyed in Lung’s grip. 

To Lorino, who had personal experience in the field of armed robbery, Lung made two critical mistakes. The first mistake was that he took time to brag to his captive audience. Lung told them proudly that he was a member of a local Triad, one of the secret criminal societies in Hong Kong. He explained that in addition to routine criminal pursuits, he also gathered information that his girls extracted from American servicemen and passed it on to the Red Chinese. The pay for the information was generous, considering that he was dealing with communists. 

In Lorino’s mind, Lung's second mistake was that he took his eyes off Lorino for just a second when he turned his head towards a crash. Johnson caused the noise when he jumped up from his chair and tackled the Woo brothers. All three men slammed into the bar, causing it to split down the middle as if hit by a giant karate chop. 

At that moment, Lorino leaped up from his chair, hit Lung with a solid overhand right, and without losing momentum, bolted through the door. Lung collapsed from the blow and dropped to the floor with Nichols still in his grip. 

Like the thief that he was, Lorino jumped down the stairs, ran out into the street and quickly waded through the crowd for several blocks. He later stopped at a bar, had a drink, and bought shabu from a waiter. He hooked up with a bar girl and spent the night with her. He didn’t give the fate of Nichols and Johnson a moments’ thought. Lorino returned to the ship the following day and kept his mouth shut.

 

I recall that next day on the Kitty Hawk vividly. Nichols was reported to be UA, unauthorized absence, which surprised no one. The news that Johnson was murdered in a robbery was a surprise and the story quickly spread throughout the ship. There was much talk of "dungaree liberty," a time-honored naval tradition in which sailors donned working uniforms, armed themselves with knives, pipes and clubs and went ashore to wreak havoc on an offending liberty town. 

The captain wisely canceled all water taxis. A British police inspector came aboard and addressed the crew over the ship’s 1MC. 

"I wish to inform you that your Seaman Dennis Johnson was found murdered last night on Cat Street," the inspector said in an accent most of the sailors found familiar from old British movies. 

"A known criminal, one Jimmy Lung, was apprehended and I assure you he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." 

After hearing the British police officer, the crew’s anger was quelled. Johnson was given a memorial service and the carrier returned to Yankee Station and the war. 

After 30 days, Nichols was later declared to be AWOL, absent without leave, and he was officially proclaimed to be a deserter. The paperwork was processed, and Nichols was forgotten. 

I don’t recall the British police officer mentioning Nichols when he addressed the Kitty Hawk sailors, but after listening to Lorino's story, my guess was Nichols was abducted and taken to Red China, where the Chinese drained him of his classified information and then shot him. 

© 2024 By Paul Davis 

My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'

Below is Salvatore Lorino, Chapter Two of a crime novel I hope to soon publish.

The 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 30^th 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 1^st 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' 

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

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Go Forth, Goforth'