My Crime Beat Column: Looking Beyond 9/11, Security Insights from ASIS Convention In Philadelphia

A Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent once told me that we face a triple threat from crime, espionage and terrorism.

That statement is still true today, but of course the threat of terrorism has gone to the forefront since the horrific 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Despite the looming threat of terrorist attacks, we still face threats from spies (both traditional and industrial) and from what the British call the "ODC," the Ordinary Decent Criminal. The ODC, so named to contrast them from the politically motivated terrorists, will always be with us.

"Crime," Lawrence M. Friedman wrote in his book, Crime and Punishment in American History, "is perhaps the price we pay for a brash, self-loving, relatively free and open society."

In Philadelphia, a few city blocks from where our liberties were born, 17,650 security professionals gathered during the week of the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to discuss protecting those liberties from criminals, spies and terrorists.

I covered the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) 48^th Annual Seminar & Exhibits, which was held September 10-13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

ASIS claims the gathering was the largest U.S. exhibition of innovative technologies, products and services in the security industry. There were 725 exhibiting companies with 1,960 exhibit booths that spread across the 450,000 gross square feet of the convention center’s exhibit area.

ASIS also offered 150 timely educational sessions on a variety of security related issues ranging from terrorism to cyber crime. Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, the former drug czar under President Clinton, was the keynote speaker.

"I’ve never seen such a gathering of the best and brightest of security professionals," McCaffrey remarked.

ASIS is a leading international organization for security professionals, with more than 32,000 members around the world. Founded in 1955, ASIS works to increase the effectiveness and productivity of security professionals by developing educational programs and materials. ASIS also advocates the role and value of the security management profession to business, the media, government and the public. I’ve written book reviews for ASIS’ fine magazine, Security Management.

In addition to numerous government and military officials in attendance, the ASIS convention was also something of a gathering of X-Men - as in ex-military, ex-government and ex-law enforcement. Being ex-Navy, I felt at home.

During the course of the week, I spoke to two former members of the Israeli security services, a former Israeli commando and two former U.S. Special Forces officers, a former U.S. Marine general, several retired police officers and many corporate security people. 

(You can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the Israeli perspective of counterterrorism via the below link: 
http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2016/02/an-israeli-perspective-of-homeland.html  

I also discussed security issues with active duty military, state department and CIA intelligence officers, FBI special agents and various members of the alphabet soup of American law enforcement. All were in general agreement that the terrorists would soon strike at the U.S. again. It was not a question of if, they all said, but only a question of when.

On the last day of the gathering, ASIS offered a distinguished panel of security experts to assess the future of security and the war on terrorism. Retired Brigadier General Robert Disney, a former Green Beret and currently the president and CEO of Sigma International Holdings, Inc, a security consulting and business intelligence service, served as the moderator for the two-hour panel.

The speakers included James Dunne, a senior state department intelligence research analyst, and Kenneth Alibek, an expert on biological weapons who defected from the Soviet Union in 1992.

Another speaker was Steven Emerson, a former CNN reporter and the author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us.

Emerson, whose 1995 documentary film, Jihad in America warned Americans about militant Islamic terrorist groups in America, noted that in 1993, in a Philadelphia hotel not far from the convention center, the FBI secretly recorded a meeting of Islamic militant leaders.

His book and film documented a number of meetings and other indicators that pointed to a 9/11 type of attack. But he said law enforcement failed to "connect the dots."

"The war on terrorism, like WWII, is a fight for survival," Emerson warned.

Retired Vice Admiral Michael McConnell also took the stage to address the packed room of security specialists. McConnell, the former director of the National Security Agency, served as General Colin Powell’s intelligence officer during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Operation DESERT STORM.

"History did not end with the fall of the Soviet Union and it did not start with 9/11," McConnell stated.

McConnell, currently a vice president for Booz-Allen, warned that private industry, and not the military, would be the primary terrorist target in the future. He encouraged corporate security professionals to take the lead in a private/public partnership. He called for a greater sharing of government intelligence with corporate security, which brought forth a huge hand of applause.

McConnell warned that CEOs could no longer delegate security and said security had to be built into the organization.

"Security, McConnell said, "is not a sunk cost."

Another one of the speakers, retired General Eugene E. Habiger, the former Department of Energy director of security and emergency operations, seemed to sum up the seminar by stating, "Like the war on crime, the war on terrorism may never end."

The security business is good, a security consultant once told me, when the times are bad.

So the never-ending wars on crime and terrorism will no doubt continue to offer new challenges for security professionals, and remain a major cause of concern for the American public.

Note: This column originally appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2002.

A Look Back At The Kennedy Assassination

Today is the 50th anniversary of what must be considered the "Crime of the 20th Century," the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

I wrote about the great crime in my Crime Beat column for the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2002.

You can read the column via the link below:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/01/crime-beat-column-assassination-of.html

My Crime Beat Column: Peace, Love And Homicide - The Unicorn Killer Is Convicted

I’ll never let you leave me. If I can’t have you, no one will.

The jilted lover turned murderer is a classic character in crime fiction and in the true annals of crime.

 "To kill what you love when you can’t have it seems so natural that strangling Rita last night seemed so right," Ira Einhorn wrote in his journal in 1962 when their love affair ended. Fortunately, she survived the attack, but a later girlfriend would not be so lucky.

Einhorn, often called Philadelphia’s "Hippie Guru," in the 1960s and 70s, was recently convicted in Philadelphia of the murder of his former girlfriend, Holly Maddux.

The long road to his conviction and life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison began in 1977 when Maddux, a young woman who left Texas to attend Bryn Mawr College, was reported missing after she broke it off with Einhorn. When the police could not find her, the Maddux family hired a private detective to search for her.

When neighbors complained about a horrible smell coming from Einhorn’s apartment in 1979, the police searched and found Maddux’s body in a locked steamer trunk in his closet. 

Arrested and charged with her murder, Einhorn’s attorney, former Philadelphia District Attorney and current U.S. Senator, Arlen Specter, arranged for several prominent business, social and civic leaders to testify to Einhorn’s good character. Despite the obvious fact that Einhorn kept his mummified girlfriend in a closet for 18 months, bail was set at $40,000. He skipped his pretrial hearing and fled the country.

Einhorn, a local media darling, often appeared on TV and in the newspapers during the 1960s as a counterculture hippie spokesman and in the 1970s as a "New Age activist." He was a friend of 60’s radicals Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, as well as the pet radical of some of Philadelphia’s bluest bloods and wealthiest corporate leaders (to get a better understanding of this type of odd social pairing, read Tom Wolfe’s great piece, Radical Chic).

As the name Einhorn translates to "one horn," he began to call himself "the Unicorn." He lived off of the kindness and money of gullible supporters. He was largely a media creation, it seemed to me. He was, both then and now, a sociopath and con artist.

Having been a teenager during the 1960s, I recall the decade’s counterculture vividly. The true believers, called hippies by the media, were a small, though highly visible minority group. They rejected conventional morality and personal hygiene (Einhorn was known to not bathe and smelled horribly) and claimed to believe in peace, love and understanding. Also active during that time and confused with the hippies were the radicals who participated in violent protests against the Vietnam War and other issues.

On college campuses and in urban centers like Philadelphia, most of the young people were enamored with the music, clothes, movies, drugs and other stylistic trappings of the age, but the great majority never truly subscribed to the extreme radical politics of the day or the dreamy hippie philosophy. Reporters looking for good copy and sound bites flocked like groupies to charlatans like Einhorn.

Throughout the 1980s Einhorn was a fugitive from justice. He was spotted in Ireland and Sweden, but no arrests were made. In 1993 the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office tried Einhorn in absentia. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

In 1997, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries told the story of Maddux’s murder and Einhorn’s fugitive flight. The tips rolled in after the show was broadcast and Einhorn was reported to be living in France under the name of Eugene Mallon. The French police arrested him, but then the French court refused to extradite him back to the U.S.

The French are much taken with our murderers – and Jerry Lewis. I suppose it’s a French thing.

Finally, after much public debate and political maneuvering, as well as Einhorn’s pathetic and phony attempt to slash his own throat, the French turned Einhorn over to the American authorities in France in 2001.

He was flown back to Philadelphia and granted a new trial. The trial, which received both national and international news coverage, was a strange one.

Einhorn’s defense was that he was framed. Although that is not a particularly original defense - "The DA framed me not knowing that I was really guilty. Ain’t that a coincidence?" a small-time hood said to Dashiell Hammet’s fictional detective Nick Charles in The Thin Man – Einhorn said the CIA framed him because of his extensive knowledge of secret, mind-control weapons. Some called this the "X-Files" defense.

Einhorn took the stand and told the court that his research into psychotronic mind-control weaponry, and the use of telepathic power and radio waves to control people was the reason Maddux was murdered and her body placed in his apartment. His egomania clearly came through in the court and the jury only took two hours to return a verdict of guilty.

Before sentencing Einhorn to life in prison, Judge William Mazzola called him an "intellectual dilettante who prayed on uninitiated, uninformed, unsuspecting, inexperienced people."

The judge quoted one witness who said Einhorn was a gadfly who ingratiated himself into organizations, as when he received a fellowship at Harvard and then passed himself off as a professor.

"He’s the type of person who I would describe as someone who would buy a book and read the first and last chapters of the book and feign a special understanding. I think the criticism we heard during testimony of other witnesses was not unfounded and the sentence is justified," Judge Mazzola said from the bench.

Now, after all these years, the Maddux family finally has justice. Einhorn has gone from sipping fine wine on his French farm to being prisoner ES6859. They don’t serve wine, fine or otherwise, at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale.

Note: The column originally appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2002.

My Crime Beat Column: Arthur H. Lewis, A Look Back At A True Crime Writer

Last month I caught a news item from The York Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania about a promotion company’s plans to turn the site of a sensational 1928 murder into a tourist attraction.

The story mentioned Hex, the 1969 true crime book that covered the trial of a murdered "powwow" doctor – a Pennsylvania Dutch witch – Nelson Remeyer. Remeyer purportedly placed a hex on another powwow doctor, John Blymire. Blymire and two confederates broke into Remeyer’s house looking for a lock of his hair and his book of hexes. They encountered Remeyer and murdered him.

I was privileged to have met the unusual man who wrote Hex and many other unusual crime stories.

Back in the mid-1980s, I attended a series of seminars by Arthur H. Lewis, a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and author of several non-fiction best-sellers. Lewis, who died in 1995 at the age of 89, conducted the seminars at the Philadelphia Free Library in South Philadelphia.

I heard of the offered seminars and having wanted to be a crime writer since I was 12, I quickly signed up. I hoped to learn about journalism and publishing from a true professional.

Lewis, a short man with short-cropped white hair, came across as a lively, unpretentious man who truly loved being a writer. He called himself a reporter rather than a best-selling author. He told our small group of writers and aspiring writers that being a writer can be interesting and fun, but it took hard work and discipline to sit down and write books.

At the time, I was a Defense Department civilian employee and I was writing news and features for in-house Defense Department magazines. I hoped to graduate to working for newspapers and magazines and eventually write short stories and novels.

During the course of the seminars, Lewis was complimentary about my writing and at first I thought he was merely being polite. But then, after a reading, he told a woman in the group that she was not and probably would never be a writer.

"You just don’t have it," he told her in cold, blunt terms. He went on to criticize her submitted work and pointed out in detail why she didn’t have the skills, abilities or talent to be a writer.

After the seminar, I walked Lewis to his Center City home, a half-dozen blocks away from the library, as I had after the two previous seminars. As we walked, I told him I thought he was too harsh with the woman. He replied that she was wasting her time trying to be a writer. She ought to pursue something else.

I enjoyed the walks and private conversations with Lewis. Looking back, I think I learned far more about journalism and publishing from these talks than I did from attending journalism courses at Penn State and Temple University.

Although he is not well-known today, in his time Lewis wrote several best-selling books about true crime and other subjects.

He wrote 15 nonfiction books and two novels. He was nominated for an "Edgar" award by the Mystery Writers of America in 1965 for Lament for the Molly Maguires.

The book covered the true story about the secret society of Pennsylvania Irish coal miners who took the name of a legendary heroine who led insurrections against the British during the Irish famine. The Molly Maguires fought against the truly awful living and working conditions in the mines, yet many would say that the Molly Maguires were terrorists due to their violent actions.

Led by Jack Kehoe, a tough ex-miner turned saloonkeeper, the Molly Maguires initially committed violence only against brutal mine bosses and dynamited the mines and company trains. Later, like any organized crime or terrorist group, they cut off the ears and tongues of suspected informants and took to beating and killing anyone who offended a member of the powerful secret organization.

In response to the violence, the mining companies hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The Pinkertons sent in an Irish undercover detective named James McParland. McParland posed as a murderer hiding out and he quickly infiltrated the secret society. For three years, McParland worked his way up to the leadership of the group.

The detective, an early day-Donnie Brasco, gathered evidence that helped convict and hang the Molly Maguire leaders, including Jack Kehoe, in 1877.

Lewis’ book was later made into a 1970 film starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris.

The film, directed by Martin Ritt and written for the screen by Walter Bernstein, was notably more sympathetic to the Molly Maguires than Lewis’ book. (Ritt and Bernstein, it should be noted, were political leftists and communist sympathizers in the 1950s).

Arthur Lewis was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania on September 1906. He dropped out of college to become a reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1927. He said he loved being a reporter, which he likened to going to a new show every day. He later worked in radio and did public relations work for several Pennsylvania governors.

He published his first book in 1956 when he was 49. The book was The Aaronsburg Story, the true story of the founding of a Central Pennsylvania town in 1786 by Aaron Levy. Four years later he published The Worlds of Chippy Patterson, a fascinating book about a Philadelphia criminal lawyer who took on the vilest cases and defended gangsters, madams and sexual deviants. Patterson was also a lover of classic literature. Years after reading Lewis’ book, I would watch the British TV series and read John Mortimer’s short stories about his fictional character, British lawyer Horace Rumpole, and think of Patterson.

Patterson was the scion of a wealthy and socially prominent family, yet he identified with criminals and social outcasts. The book covers a wonderful period of time in the Philadelphia court system and all levels of Philadelphia and American society.

Another favorite Lewis true crime book of mine is Murder by Contract: The People v. "Tough Tony" Boyle. Lewis’s book covers the 1969 murder of Jock Yablonski and his wife and daughter and the subsequent trial of Boyle, who was the head of the United Mine Workers.

In 1969 Joseph "Jock" Yablonski challenged Boyle for the union leadership. He lost in what most observers believed was a fraudulent election and Yablonski asked the Department of Labor to investigate the fraud. "Tough Tony" then hired three hit-men to kill and silence Yablonski. Lewis’ story is also about an interesting Philadelphia lawyer named Richard A. Sprague, who acted as the prosecuting attorney.

Lewis also wrote books about carnivals, prostitutes, eccentrics and the Philadelphia Kellys, including one Kelly named Grace who became a movie star and real life princess. The Princess and the Kelly family were not at all happy with the book, as it exposed family secrets.

Lewis loved being a writer. He used a restored 1917 L.C. Smith typewriter and well into his 80s; he continued to type 1,000 words a day.

Lewis died on January 25, 1995. He led a full and fascinating life, it seems to me, and he left behind his loving wife of many years and children and grandchildren.

Arthur H. Lewis was a very good interviewer and researcher long before the Internet and Google. And thanks to his enthusiasm for people and stories, and his down-to-earth and likeable personality, he was able to get his unusual subjects to tell all, or nearly all. And the rest is history, as they say.

Although his books are largely out of print today, thanks to the Internet and Abebooks.com, E-Bay and other Internet-based book traders, you can still purchase Lewis’ books at reasonable prices.

Arthur H. Lewis’ books are part of my library and I suspect his books are also part of the libraries of many a reader who is interested in history, in crime, and in a good story about fascinating people and times.

Note: The column originally appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2007.

My Crime Fiction: "A Christmas Crime Story"

The below short story originally appeared in The Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2003:

A Christmas Crime Story 

By Paul Davis

To get in the true spirit of the Christmas holiday, some people go to church, some people go to the homes of family and friends, and some people go out and shop.

Me? I go to cop bars.

Cops are great storytellers. Perhaps its because they observe a segment of life that’s dramatic, tragic and funny. Perhaps its also because they spend so much time cruising on patrol that they’ve had the time to develop and hone their story-telling skills.

As a writer, I’ve talked to cops in station houses, in patrol cars, on the street and in bars. I’ve listened to their concerns, prideful boasts and sorrowful confessions. I’ve accompanied cops on patrol and witnessed them handle insane, intoxicated and incongruous citizens. I’ve observed how they console crime victims and their families. I’ve seen how they cope with the aftermath of criminal violence and man’s inhumanity to man. And I’ve come to appreciate their black humor, which like military humor, is a necessary safety valve to get them through the bad times.

I especially like to frequent cop bars during the holiday season and listen to cops at their very best. Some cops gather at bars after work to relax, drink and tell their stories. At this time of year, they are in very good spirits, a bit happier, a bit giddier and a bit more talkative.

Cops are generally in good spirits despite the fact that the holiday season is a busy one for them. It’s a sad commentary, but the holiday season is a peak time for crime.

Criminals certainly love the holiday season, but not for spiritual or sentimental reasons. It’s simply a time of grand opportunity. And criminals certainly don’t take a Christmas vacation. As joyous and hopeful people go out to worship, shop, dine and visit family and friends, criminal predators go out and pickpocket, shoplift, mug, steal and burglarize.

My recent columns in the local newspaper covered the annual Christmas crime spree and over the years I’ve reported on and chronicled a good number of crime stories during the holidays. I recall covering the story of a do-gooder delivering toys to needy families who was viciously assaulted and robbed. Another story concerned two kids playing with their Christmas gift, a paint ball gun, when an irate neighbor came out and shot them with a real gun.

One year while out on patrol with the cops, I came upon a young couple who had started out drinking and getting high for the holidays and ended up with one murdering the other. I once covered a story about a man with a car full of gifts who ran into a store for a pack of cigarettes. He came out to no car, no gifts and no Merry Christmas for him that year.

I’ve covered an assortment of other stories about armed robberies, thefts, purse snatchings and other crimes during the holidays as well.

Despite the crime and tragedies I’ve seen, I still love the Christmas season. I love the lights and decorations, the hustle and bustle and all of the trimmings. I love Christmas music and often sing along, although admittedly off-key.

This particular year, even more than others in the past, I was in very good spirits, having recently recovered from severe spine and nerve damage that crippled me and caused God-awful pain. I spent several months in the hospital and convalescing at home. I’ve suffered with a bad back for many years, dating back to my years as an amateur boxer and playing other sports, and as a young sailor working on a U.S. Navy tugboat and an aircraft carrier. The build-up of damage to my poor back finally took its toll and crippled me.

The doctors at the hospital ruled that I was not a surgical candidate, determining that any operation would be too risky. As I was deathly afraid of surgery, this diagnosis suited me fine. So they loaded me up with wonder drugs and placed me in physical therapy. The physical therapists, trained by Saddam Hussein’s secret police, I suspect, got me to my feet and ran me through a series of painful but ultimately beneficial exercises.

When I initially collapsed during the summer in my bedroom, I thought the searing pain in my groin and back was akin to being shot with a high-powered rifle. My wife called 911 and the Philadelphia Fire Department’s Rescue Paramedics rushed me to the hospital. Despite being in great pain, I managed to joke with the attending doctors and nurses that first night in the hospital.

This is the most painful day of my life, I told them - and I’ve been to Vietnam.

And I’m married.

And I have a teenage daughter.

I got a few laughs, which helped to lighten my pain, as I am a ham to the end. In addition to the fine medical professionals who cared for me, it was my wonderful wife and family - who were often the brunt of my jokes and asides – who helped me get through the worst time of my adult life.

Within the period of five months, I went from being bed-ridden in great pain, to twirling around the hospital halls in a wheelchair, to walking a few painful steps with a walker, to finally walking into a cop’s bar aided by a cane this fine Christmas season.

I’d recovered sufficiently enough to go out and stop by Johnny Drum’s Bar & Grill, a great little cop’s bar in South Philly. I had a lot to be thankful for this year and I visited Johnny’s place expecting to run into some lively characters that felt likewise.

I was somewhat disappointed to first encounter Sgt. John Snyder at the bar. Snyder was known as one mean cop. He was of average height, a bit stocky and had a large, pan-shaped head topped with thinning dark hair. He was an unhappy, gruff and miserable man. A cop once made the comment that Snyder "barked" rather than spoke.

I recall previous Christmas seasons when Snyder would be at the end of the bar by himself, miserly nursing his drink. In addition to being foul-tempered, Snyder was a notorious cheapskate.

"Merry Christmas, Ebenezer," I’d greet him in jest during those holiday visits. "Bah, humbug," he’d respond, playing along begrudgingly with my take on Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story, A Christmas Carol. I joked around, but in truth he was truly as mean-spirited as Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge.

Sgt. Snyder was widely known as "The Cop Who Busted Santa Claus." As the often-told story goes, Snyder pulled over a man dressed as Santa on Christmas Eve a few years back. Observing that the red-suited, false-bearded man was slightly inebriated, Snyder promptly placed him under arrest.

He slapped the handcuffs on the man and then had had his car towed. The tow truck took the car, despite the jolly old soul’s somewhat slurred pleas that his car – a modern-day sleigh - was full of toys destined for children at an orphanage. A crowd had gathered on the street and booed the police officer’s actions. He cursed them and threatened to lock them all up.

"And a Merry, Merry Christmas to you as well," one bystander sarcastically remarked.

More holiday-spirited police officials quickly released the man dressed as Santa. The man, outraged by his treatment, promptly called a TV station and told his story. The mayor, the police commissioner and other police brass were not happy with the lead news story run on Christmas Day. The national press picked up the story and this did not help Philadelphia’s image. "The Cop Who Busted Santa Claus" complemented an earlier story of Philadelphia sport fans pelting Santa with snowballs at a ball field.

A cop once told me that Snyder had him out walking on South Street on a very cold and windy Christmas Eve night. Snyder sternly ordered the beat cop not to hang out in a store, sucking up heat, coffee and merriment. Of course, the cop quickly escaped the bitter wind and cold and stepped into a shoe store for hot chocolate and conversation with the store owner and customers.

When the cop looked out through the store window and saw Snyder’s car roll down South Street, he stepped out and stood in front of the store, shivering. "Have you been hiding in a store?" Sgt. Snyder barked. "No, of course not" the cop told him. "Although it is really cold out here, Sarge."

Snyder placed his bare hand on the cop’s badge and found the metal to be nearly as warm as the hot chocolate in the beat cop’s stomach.

The chastened police officer told every cop, everybody, the story. "Do you believe it? The SOB chewed me out on Christmas Eve!"

There were also tales of Snyder locking up kids whose only crime was being merry. Sgt. Snyder was a one-man crime-fighting machine during the holiday season, targeting not thieves and crooks, but rather the people whose only crime was to be too joyous.

To his credit, he still talked to me despite the two negative stories I wrote about him in the past. One of my columns covered "The Cop Who Busted Santa Claus" and I wrote another that dealt with Snyder’s arrest of a honeymooning couple who were visiting the Italian Market. Their crime? The happy couple, who were married on Christmas Eve, asked the good sergeant to pose with them for a photo. He didn’t like their attitude and placed them under arrest for disorderly conduct.


But this year, as I approached him at the bar, I saw that Snyder was clearly a changed man. Over a few drinks, he told me why.

A day earlier the gruff sergeant responded to the call of a residential burglary. The victim told the responding officers that among the stolen valuables were his military awards and other mementos of the Iraq War. He told Snyder that he had just returned from Iraq as a medically discharged soldier due to combat wounds.

"Who’d steal this stuff?" he asked Snyder. "Who would steal children’s toys at Christmas?"

The burglars stole the gift-wrapped presents from under the Christmas tree. The young former soldier was saddened by the loss of his gifts to his wife and children. He said he was not insured and he could not afford to buy new gifts. Snyder, the well-known mean, jaded and cynical cop, was truly touched by this young veteran who had just returned from war.

Snyder felt empathy for someone for the first time in many years. He thought back to his own return from Vietnam so many years before. He recalled how he then yearned to become a cop. He also yearned to marry his high school sweetheart and to have kids with her. He accomplished all that he set out to do, and now, in the midst of a crime scene, he wondered why it had all soured for him.

He marriage suffered from his penny-pinching, his chronic petty complaints, and his foul temper. His wife finally drew up the courage to throw him out of the house one night after he came home drunk, mean and violent. He would never hit her or the kids, he assured me, but he often gave the inanimate objects in the house a real good beating.

The kids, grown now and on their own, rarely spoke to him. He thought of them as he watched the veteran’s children. The sight of these kids, sitting close together on the couch, perhaps wondering if the crooks would come back, if Santa were coming now, or whether Jesus still loved them, broke Snyder’s heart.

Snyder made the rounds of the local veteran’s organizations the next day and told the story of the veteran who had been victimized. He collected a good bit of money from the veterans, from his fellow police officers and he personally donated a large sum himself. Having secured the list of stolen items from South Detectives, he ventured to the stores and purchased nearly all of the stolen items.

He also called his wife, sweet-talked her, told her he was a changed man and asked her to accompany him when, like Santa Claus, he would deliver the replacement gifts to the veteran and his family.

He was truly beaming as he told me this Christmas crime story. I had never seen him smile before.

He told me how the veteran’s kids were so happy they cried. The veteran was embarrassed, but thankful. Snyder explained that his fellow veterans and the local cops wanted to help him and his family.

By helping the veteran, Snyder recalled the true meaning of Christmas. He felt the joy of giving and of goodness and loving - even in a cruel and sometimes evil world.

"I have to run," he said, finishing up his story and beer, "I’m celebrating Christmas with my wife, my kids and all of my grand kids."

Before he left, Snyder, to everyone’s astonishment but mine, bought a round for the house.

"Merry Christmas to one and all," he barked.

© 2003 By Paul Davis 

My Crime Fiction: "The Small Timer"

The below short story, my first published short story, originally appeared in The Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2002:

The Small Timer

By Paul Davis

The shooting victims were discovered at 9 o'clock that night in an old warehouse along the Delaware River in South Philadelphia.

I had been on a "ride-along" with a Philadelphia police sergeant when his car radio alerted us to the triple homicide. The sergeant, Bill Francini, was the subject of a column that I was writing for the local paper. Not wearing a seat belt, I braced myself as Francini raced for the river.

Arriving at the crime scene some ten minutes later, Francini pulled into a vacant space among a dozen hastily parked police vehicles. Francini ushered me around to the side of the warehouse bay, where I would not be violating the official crime scene, yet I could observe Philly’s finest do their work.

Francini called out to his lieutenant and introduced me. The lieutenant looked at me sharply, perhaps placing me from the photo that ran with my column, and then simply nodded. He took his sergeant by the arm and they entered the warehouse. From my vantage point I was able to see the three dead men in the center of the warehouse bay. All were dressed casually. A short, elderly man lay crumpled with his squat legs twisted under his torso. A snarl appeared to be etched across his face and a gunshot wound was visible just above his right ear.

The second victim had been a big and heavy man. I’m no little guy, but this guy was truly big. He lay face up and stretched out across the ground. He died with a dumbfounded expression on his face, just below the large wound on his forehead. The third victim sat in an upright position against a wooden crate. Like the other two, he had a gunshot wound to the head. His face retained a goofy grin that looked familiar to me.

I heard one of the crime scene investigators from South Detectives tell the newly arrived homicide detective that an anonymous caller had dialed 911 and reported the shooting. The scene looked like a professional execution, organized crime style, so the detectives called the city's organized crime intelligence squad and asked for someone to come and help ID the bodies.

When a detective named McCollum from the squad arrived some 15 minutes later, he quickly walked among the three bodies, sidestepping the spent shell casings and blood puddles. He immediately identified the short, older man - the one the detectives with their usual black humor had nicknamed "Grouchy" - as James "Jimmy First Nickel" Martin. Martin was a known associate of the local mob in his capacity as a receiver of stolen goods.

McCollum identified the second victim, nicknamed "Dopey," as Joey Aurelio, a strong-arm enforcer for Martin. The third victim, nicknamed "Happy," was dismissed as some small timer, as McCollum, the organized crime expert, had never seen him before.

"Hey, McCollum," one of the detectives shouted, "This guy should be happy – he’s still alive!"

A month later I entered the Federal Building in Center City Philadelphia and rode the elevator up to the 8th floor. I stood before the FBI’s receptionist, who was securely housed behind a sheet of protective glass. I told her that I had an appointment with Special Agent Frank Kaplan. I had come to interview Kaplan’s protected witness, Harry Sullivan - a.k.a. "Happy."

I had been granted an exclusive interview with the sole survivor of the warehouse murders, who was now a star witness for the prosecution in the upcoming federal trial of Francis "Frankie Raven" Ravelli, a particularly vicious mob captain of a particularly vicious crew of thieves, extortionists and hit men.

Sullivan had granted me an interview, as he liked my column on the warehouse murders and we knew each other from the old neighborhood.

I had joined the Navy on my 17th birthday and traveled to Southeast Asia about the same time the 20-year-old Sullivan was heading to state prison for the first of his many periods of incarceration. Years later, I would see him at neighborhood bars and clubs and he would play the criminal insider, feeding me tips for my column. He liked to show me off to his cronies.

He was quite impressed with the notion that I had become a writer. Of course, the only other writers he knew were number writers.

Kaplan came out to the reception area and directed me to a vacant office where I saw Sullivan sitting at a conference table. Sullivan’s head was adorned with a turban bandage and he used a cane to navigate his way back to his chair after he stood and came forward to shake my hand. I sat on the other side of the table, laid my tape recorder down and took out my notebook and pen. I threw out some obligatory questions about his health and his family before I launched into asking him a series of questions about the events that led up to the warehouse murders.

Harry Sullivan was a small time thief. He was in his early 50s, slightly built with a drawn, pock-mocked face that was framed with longish, unruly and scruffy blond hair. Despite his looks and his profession, he was not a drug addict. Sullivan barely managed to make a proper living from his small time stealing and he often had to supplement his illicit income with a straight job. Despite his failure, he yearned to be an arch-criminal, like Willie Sutton the old bank robber.

Sullivan wanted to be respected.

Sullivan’s graduation to the big time came on the day he happened to witness a head-on collision between a Volvo and a city trash truck. The driver of the Volvo was killed instantly and the city workers were unhurt but badly shaken. Sullivan was one of the first to come to the aid of the Volvo driver, but seeing that he was beyond it all, Sullivan's criminal instincts kicked in and he lifted the man’s brown leather satchel from the front passenger seat.

Sullivan slipped away and sprinted the two city blocks to his apartment. Once there, alone in his kitchen, Sullivan broke the lock on the satchel and dropped the contents on the kitchen table. He cried gleefully at the sight of the assortment of diamonds spread across his table. The accident victim must have been a diamond salesman or courier.

Later, after he calmed down, he placed his haul into a large paper shopping bag and walked three blocks to Jimmy First Nickel’s appliance store. Even though Martin had a reputation of being somewhat tight with his money – hence the nickname that indicated he retained the first nickel he ever earned – Sullivan knew that he was mobbed-up and he was the man to see.

Martin was sitting behind the counter, talking to his much younger and pretty girlfriend Gloria when Sullivan walked in. He handed Martin the bag and told him how he came to be in possession of the diamonds. Martin, a short, heavy man in his 70s, breathed hard as he rose from his chair and came around the counter to lock the door and hang the closed sign.

Martin ran his hand through the sparse gray strands of hair that were slicked back across his head as he looked into the bag. Sullivan stood there feeling awkward, smiling a goofy smile at the strikingly beautiful, dark-haired girl. She returned his smile with a cold look of boredom.

"I’m impressed Harry," Martin said. "This is some piece of work here. Lemme make a call and see if I can unload it tonight."

Martin mumbled into the phone for a few minutes and then announced that he had arranged a meeting with "the Man." Sullivan felt a surge of the perverse pride of a professional thief, but he was also felt fearful of entering the world of big-time crime.

"I don’t know, Jimmy," Sullivan whined. "I think its better wit you as the go-between."

"Harry, this is the big time! There must be $100,000 in this bag," Martin exclaimed. "The Man wants to meet you personally."

A few hours, a few beers later, Martin and Sullivan drove in silence to a riverside warehouse. Inside, Martin introduced Sullivan to a large man named Joey, who lumbered towards them, his hand placed on a gun in the waistband of his slacks. Sullivan knew instantly that this was no major league buyer. He knew that Martin had gotten a bone crusher to help steal his diamonds.

In desperation, assuming Joey had planned to kill him, Sullivan scooped a handful of the diamonds from the bag and flung them towards Joey’s face. Sullivan then dove for some stacked crates half-heartily, fully expecting to be shot and killed.

The blast sounded like heavy artillery in the open warehouse bay. Sullivan, surprised not to be dead, scampered up and saw that Joey was stretched out. He also saw two young dark guys, neat dressers, who looked like a hundred guys Sullivan knew from the bars and clubs of South Philly.

One held a large semi-automatic handgun, a Beretta, Sullivan guessed. The other held a shotgun, which was now trained on Martin. Getting a better look, he realized that the one with the Beretta was Frankie Raven.

Ignoring Sullivan on the ground, Ravelli smiled cruelly as he held his Beretta to Martin’s head.

"We’re your life-long partners, Jimmy. Didja think ya could cut us out of this deal?"

"No, no, please," Martin cried. "I was jes introducing a couple of guys, its small time."

"That’s not what Gloria told me, ya fuckin’ weasel," Ravelli said as he fired into Martin’s head.

Martin dropped like a hangman’s weight bag. Ravelli then walked slowly with a South Philly strut to where Sullivan rested against a crate.

"I know you. You’re a small timer from Donny’s bar," Ravelli said.

"I’m no small timer," Sullivan scoffed. "This was my job."

"When you’re right, you’re right," Ravelli said coolly. He shrugged, lifted the Beretta and then pulled the trigger.

Kaplan brought us another refill of coffee just as we were finishing up the interview. Sullivan sat in his chair puffing on one of a long string of cigarettes that he had smoked while telling his story to me.

"You know why I really want to testify against Ravelli?" Sullivan asked.

"Well, for starters, I would think his shooting you," I said in response. "And I know Frankie, he will certainly finish the job if given the opportunity."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. But I really want to get up in court and put that bastard away," Sullivan said. "I want him and everybody else to know that I’m no small timer."

Frankie Raven received a life sentence. Quote the judge, Frankie Raven, nevermore. Sullivan was booked into the federal witness protection program and was moved out west somewhere.

As he wished, Sullivan received his moment of glory, his 15 minutes of fame. But I had to laugh when I spied what my editor placed over my column about the trial.

"Small Timer Testifies Against Mob Boss."

© 2002 By Paul Davis