Paul Davis On Crime: USS Kitty Hawk

Showing posts with label USS Kitty Hawk. Show all posts

Friday, August 7, 2026

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'

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

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.

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'

Monday, March 30, 2026

My Crime Fiction: 'The Old Huk'

The below story is Chapter Four of a crime thriller that I hope to publish this year.

The character of Salvatore Lorino was introduced in Chapter Two. You can link to Chapter Two and other chapters below.

The below chapter originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

You can read the story below:

The Old Huk

By Paul Davis

When the USS Kitty Hawk returned to Subic Bay for repairs and replenishment, Lorino went aboard. He reported to sick bay, where he handled over his medical records from the Subic Bay base hospital to the ship’s doctor. He was examined by the doctor, and he determined that Lorino was fit enough for a return to duty.

He then walked back to the deck division and handed over the doctor’s report to his chief. The chief, who liked Lorino, said he was glad to have him back aboard.

“The watch bill has already been posted,” the chief said. “So go hit the beach and enjoy liberty in Olongapo.”

“Thanks, chief,” Lorino said.

“Unless you’re tired of Olongapo…” the chief said with a grin.

“Nah, chief. I love Olongapo.”

“We all do, son.”

Before Lorino shoved off, he hunted down Winston. He found Winston lounging in the Deck Department’s berthing compartment. Winston was smoking a cigarette and drinking a Coke. “Hey, welcome back,” Winston said.

Winston laid down his Coke can on the deck and got up from his chair. He took Lorino by the arm and went to his rack in the middle of a three-tier stack of bunks. He lifted the mattress and the lid to the locker underneath his mattress and pulled out the meth in the paper bag.

Lorino made Winston a junior partner in his new shabu venture As Lorino’s immediate supervisor, Winston agreed to assign him to nonexistent tasks, which allowed Lorino to wander freely about the ship and sell the meth.

Lorino laid in his rack beneath Winston’s and pulled the gray curtain shut across the rack for privacy. He filled small plastic bags with the meth. He then got up and traversed about the carrier from the galley to the bridge and sold the bags of meth to a good number of enlisted sailors who wanted to be up and “wired” on meth as they drank, danced, and partied with the bar girls in Olongapo. Lorino quickly sold all of the meth and he turned a good profit. He gave Winston a small percentage of the profits.

Lorino and Winston left the carrier that evening and walked into Olongapo to buy more shabu. They entered the Americano and walked up to the bar.

“Hey, Chief,” Lorino called out to Walker who was at the other end of the bar. “Can we get a couple of San Miguels over here?”

Walker laughed and brought over two bottles of beer. He called over a short, muscular Filipino with a round face. The Filipino was clad in a cowboy hat, a leather vest over a t-shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots.

“This is Cearro Valle, my bouncer,” Walker said as they all shook hands. “We call him “Duke,” like John Wayne the cowboy movie star.”

Valle grinned. “Howdy, pardner,” he said with a high pitch voice and a thick Filipino accent, which made the Americans laugh.

“Duke, Duke, do your John Wayne impression,” Walker said.

“Well, listen and listen good, Pilgrim,” Valle said as he pulled his cowboy hat down just above his eyes.

Everyone laughed. It was the worst John Wayne impression Lorino had ever heard, but it was the funniest. Walker slapped the short bouncer on the back.

“I love this guy.”

As they were laughing at Valle’s John Wayne impression at the bar, a sailor and a Marine began punching and grappling with each other on the dance floor. The other servicemen and bar girls moved back as tables and chairs were knocked over by the two fighters. Lorino thought Valle less a comical figure when he saw the bouncer break up the fight.

Valle easily pulled the two drunk servicemen apart. The two Americans looked down on the much shorter Valle and began throwing punches again. Valle kicked the sailor behind his left knee and the sailor fell to the floor. Valle threw his open right hand at the Marine’s throat, and he too fell to the floor.

Valle reached down and grabbed both Americans in a head lock under each of his muscled arms. Speaking softly to them, he dragged the two kicking and screaming servicemen to the bar’s door and tossed them out into the street.

The sailor and the Marine resumed fighting in the street until petty officers from the Navy shore patrol pulled up to the bar. They hopped out of their jeep and broke the two servicemen apart and placed them in handcuffs. The two inebriated combatants were tossed into a jeep and taken back to the Subic Bay base.

After things settled down in the bar, Lorino pulled Walker aside and asked him if he could buy more shabu.

“I was hoping you’d come back in,” Walker said. “I told “the Old Huk” about you and he wants to meet you.

“Who? The Hook?”

“The Old Huk, pronounced hook, but spelled H-U-K,” Walker explained.

“Camama is the big boss around here. He was impressed with your beat-down of the two cops and the shooting of Reeinald. He wants to meet you.”

Walker told Winston to stay at the bar and he beckoned a girl to come over to keep the petty officer company. He told Lorino to follow him and the two walked out of the Americano and into the hotel next door to the bar. They walked past the reception desk, and Walker knocked on the door of a back room.

Walker and Lorino entered the back room and Lorino saw two Filipinos sitting on a couch. Walker introduced Lorino to Amado Camama, a small, elderly, and wizened man, who wore a white Barong Tagalog shirt with detailed embroidery and a mandarin collar.

Walker introduced Lorino to Jackie Sicat, a young skinny career criminal with long black hair. Sicat wore flashy “mod” clothing from the 1960s and large sunglasses. Lorino’s first thought was that Sicat was trying too hard to appear as a tough guy gangster. He knew wannabe guys like this who posed as gangsters in South Philly. Lorino instantly respected the Old Huk, but he disliked Sicat on first sight.

Sicat took a long drag on his cigarette and then told Lorino that the boss, who sat there impassively, liked his style. Reeinald Bulan, who was a Camama gang competitor, was confined to a wheelchair due to Lorino shooting him.

“Those two cops you beat up work for us now,” Sicat said. “They no bother you no more, and you no bother them. Understand?”

“Yeah, sure” Lorino replied.

“You deal with the chief, and you only buy shabu with us. No one else,” Sicat said. “Got it?”

“I got it,” Lorino said.

They all shook hands and Walker and Lorino left the room.

Back at the Americano, Walker told Lorino about Camama and Sicat.

Walker explained to Lorino that Amado Camama, known in Olongapo as “the Old Huk,” was the leader of the Camama gang. The gang controlled most of the crime in Olongapo. They were into drug trafficking, extortion, black marketeering, and other crimes. Camama was both feared and respected.

Walker said that Camama grew up in a rural village and joined the Hukbalahap, the Communist guerillas who fought the Japanese after they invaded and occupied the Philippines during World War II. Often armed only with a Bolo knife, Camama was an effective assassin.

“What’s a Bolo knife,” Lorino asked Walker.

Walker explained that the Bolo was a long knife with a curved blade that was similar to a machete and was a common tool, as well as a weapon, in the Philippines.

Walker said that during World War II, Camama was sent out by the Communist guerilla group to murder selected Japanese soldiers, villagers who defied the Communists, and rival guerillas that were led and organized by Americans.

After the war, Camama became a leader with the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan, the Communist People’s Liberation Army, known as the Huks, who fought the Philippine Government.

After the Huks were defeated by the Philippine government, with help from the United States, a fellow Huk guerilla named Oscar Sicat, who grew up in Olongapo, brought Camama back to the city with him. The two former Huks became feared armed robbers, and they later expanded their strongarm criminal activity and became a prominent organized crime group in Olongapo.

The two gang leaders later had a falling out and Sicat’s teenage son Jackie sided with Camama against his own father. He volunteered to set up his father for Camama. When the elder Sicat met his son at a bar, Camama came out from the back of the bar and attacked his former partner in crime with a razor-sharp Bolo knife. The son sat there quietly as his father was hacked to death.

Jackie Sicat rose in the Camama gang and became the Old Huk’s chief lieutenant. Camama, Walker told Lorino, was intelligent, prone to violence, good with a gun and a Bolo knife, and was totally ruthless. This skill set served Camama well as a Huk communist guerilla, and it served him well as he transitioned into a criminal gang boss.

Lorino, Winston and a bar girl named Marie sat at a table, drinking and listening to the Americano’s country & western band. Marie, a perky, cherubic young woman, hugged Winston and giggled. Walker sat down at the table and called his wife over. He spoke into her ear. She smiled and walked away. She returned briefly with a tall, beautiful girl in tow.

“This is Jade,” the mama-san said to Lorino. “She like you big-time.”

“Oh, yeah? You wanna drink?” Lorino said as he pushed out a chair for the bar girl.

Jade, dressed in a tight light blue dress, had long dark hair and an innocent pretty face, although she was a veteran hostess. She sat down next to Lorino as the mama-san called over a waiter. The waiter came over with beers for Walker and Lorino and a glass of whiskey for the girl.

“I love you, no bullshit,” Jade said with a throaty laugh as she snuggled up to Lorino.

Her use of the oft repeated Olongapo bar girl phrase that Americans got a kick out of, made Lorino, Winston and Walker laugh.

“Hey Jade,” Lorino said. “Like the Beatles’ song.”

“That was Hey Jude, Winston said.

Lorino shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

Although most young American sailors went wild over the pretty Filipinas in Olongapo, Lorino was more interested in business. He pursued his business opportunities rather than the company of bar girls. But now that he had secured a meth connection and began his drug dealing enterprise on the Kitty Hawk, he felt he could at last relax and have some fun with a bar girl.

Later that evening, Lorino saw Sicat enter the bar with an entourage of four other Filipino gangsters. He’s acting like royalty, or a Cosa Nostra capo, Lorino thought to himself. The chief rushed up to Sicat and guided him and his cronies to a table at the rear of the bar. Walker hailed a waiter, and motioned to his wife, the mama-san, who was already rounding up girls to sit with Sicat and his associates.

Lorino’s dislike for Sicat grew as he watched the little crime prince act like a big shot, a pezzonovante. He smiled to himself as he thought about smacking Sicat and knocking his sunglasses clear off his face.

An hour or so later, a short and wiry Filipino police officer in uniform entered the bar, followed by the biggest Filipino Lorino had ever seen. The Filipino cops headed for Sicat’s table.

“Who are they?” Lorino asked Walker.

“That’s an Olongapo cop, Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rosa and his sergeant,” Walker told Lorino. “Rosa’s the worst kind of cop – fucking honest.”

“Yeah. We got some of those pricks in South Philly too.”

Lorino initially thought the cops were there to collect bribes, but he chuckled to himself as he saw Sicat visibly upset as Rosa pointed his finger in the gang leader’s face. Rosa spoke harshly to him in Tagalog.

“Some big shot gangster,” Lorino scoffed. “Afraid of a cop, even if the cop is a pint-sized Frank Rizzo.”

Lorino saw the puzzled look on Walker’s face.

“Rizzo. He’s a big, tough son of a bitch South Philly cop who’s now the police commissoner of Philadelphia,” Lorino explained.

As the bar was closing, Walker gave Lorino a key to a room in the Old Huk’s hotel next door to the Americano. Arm-in-arm, Lorino and Jade staggered to the hotel. He waved to the desk clerks in the hotel lobby, and they waved back. Lorino and Jade took the stairs to the second floor and to the room that the chief arranged for him. Once in the room, Lorino took Jade in his arms and pulled off her dress. They kissed and laid across the bed.

In the morning, Lorino was famished. He wanted an American breakfast of bacon and eggs. Jade took him to a small cafe, and she ordered for the two them in Tagalog. Lorino sipped his hot coffee as the waiter laid down two plates.

"What the fuck is this?"

“It’s Sinangag. It’s good. Eat it.”

Lorino obeyed and dug in. Jade was right. Lorino loved the fried rice, scrambled eggs and garlic.

After their fine meal, Lorino and Jade returned to the hotel room and laid about, smoking, drinking and having sex. Later that evening, Lorino and Jade left the hotel and went to the Americano, where they joined Winston and Belinda at a table.

While Lorino, Jade, Winston and Belinda were drinking at the table, a Filipino walked into the bar and strode up to Walker, who was behind the bar. He spoke briefly to Walker and then turned around and walked out of the bar. Walker called Lorino over to the bar.

“Let’s take a ride.”

Walker and Lorino left the bar and saw a jeepney with Camama, Sicat and a short muscular bodyguard sitting in it. Walker and Lorino piled in the jeepney.

The jeepney drove from the Americano to a series of shacks located against the Olongapo River. They all climbed out of the jeepney and walked to the back of a shack where three Filipinos were waiting. The back was lit dimly from the lights from the shack. Two of the Filipinos held handguns and the third Filipino, a small and slim young man, stood there shaking and crying.

Sicat brought out an old metal folding chair that had “Property of U.S. Navy” stenciled in black on the back. He opened the chair and Camama down and faced the crying man. Walker pulled Lorino back a bit and advised him to say and do nothing.

The visibly upset Filipino began speaking in rapid Tagalog as Camama sat there with a grim face. The frightened Filipino then let out a forced laugh.

“Remy is a dope,” Walker said in a whisper to Lorino. “His ass is on the line, and he just told a stupid joke.”

Lorino noticed that no one laughed.

Camama nodded and one of the Filipinos with a handgun stepped up behind Remy and shot him in the back of the head. He fell to his knees and then fell forward, his face splashing into the mud. Camama turned his head and looked directly at Lorino.

“Now that is funny,” the Old Huk said in English.

One of the Filipinos gunmen carried out an ice cooler from the shack and set it on the ground, not far from the dead body. The cooler, like the folding chair, had “Property of U.S. Navy” stenciled in black on it. The Filipino opened the cooler and handed out bottles of San Miguel. Lorino took one and Walker grabbed two for himself.

“Remy tried to go over to Bulan’s gang,” Walker explained. “The Old Huk didn’t like that. This is how he shows his displeasure.”

“Yeah, I got the point,” Lorino replied.

Back at the Americano, Walker put his arm around Lorino as they stood at the bar.

“You done good,” Walker said. “You didn’t react at all. The old Huk liked that.”

“I seen guys whacked before in South Philly,” Lorino replied and shrugged. “No biggy.”

“You got a future with us, boy,” Walker said beaming with delight.