Moretti The Money Man

 Moretti the Money Man

 By Paul Davis

I recall when some years ago I was having dinner at a South Philadelphia restaurant with my wife and a man about my age yelled out my name and thrust out his hand to shake mine.

“It’s me, Billy Moretti,” the man said. “Do you remember me?”

I replied that I did in fact remember him, and I asked how he was doing.

Moretti told the buxom blonde he was with to go to the Ladies room, and he would join her at the restaurant’s door in a few minutes. She smiled at us and walked off. Moretti grabbed a chair from another table and placed it at our table and sat down.

I remembered Billy Moretti as a shy, skinny kid with thick coke bottle glasses who was from our South Philly neighborhood. He was what we called in the late 1960s a “square” kid - what would probably be called a nerd today. He didn’t drink beer or whiskey or smoke pot on the corner with us, but we all knew him, and we liked him. 

Moretti was from a poor family, so he worked two and often three jobs at the same time. He was a hustling kid back then, but despite his tough life, he was a happy-go-lucky kid.   

The man who now sat at our table was still skinny and still wore thick glasses, but I suspected the frames were expensive, as he wore an expensive suit and tie, and sported a diamond pinky ring and a Breitling watch.

He told me that he read my weekly crime column in the local newspaper, and he often told his friends that he grew up with me.

I mentioned that he looked good, and he appeared to be doing well. He grinned and complimented me on my beautiful wife and my Rolex Submariner diver’s watch.

“Looks like you’re doing good too. I’m into finance now and I work with Sal Sabatella,” Moretti said. “Do you remember him?”

I did indeed Salvatore Sabatella. Sabatella was a capo, a captain, in the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family.

“Slippin’ Sal,” I said. "How is he?”

 “Well, he doesn’t like being called that no more, but he’s good. I work with Sal at Reeder’s Real Estate in Center City. You heard of them? I’m the money man.”

We then spoke of some of the other guys from the neighborhood, many of whom had passed on. Moretti rose from his chair, shook my hand again and said it was good to see me again.

“You too.” I replied.

After Moretti left, I explained to my wife why Salvatore Sabatella, a beefy six-foot bruiser, was called “Slippin’ Sal.” He earned that nickname back in South Philly in the 1970s when he slipped on the wet sidewalk in the rain and fell and shot an innocent bystander rather than the actual target of a mob hit. The bystander survived, but Sabatella was sentenced to prison for some years. After he was released, he moved up in the mob.

“But he’ll always be “Slippin’ Sal” to me and a lot of other guys.”

I thought of this encounter with Moretti when I was called by an FBI special agent who told me of a forthcoming indictment of Sal Sabatella and a half-dozen others in a RICO racketeering case. He emailed the indictment to me the next day. I looked at the charges and the names, and I was saddened when I saw William Moretti was one of the indicted suspects.

I met with the FBI special agent at a local bar, and we talked about the indictment. He told me that Sal Sabatella was charged with extortion and other racketeering crimes, as he threatened Michael Reeder, the real estate tycoon, and demanded to be made a silent partner in Reeder’s firm. Sabatella also used the real estate firm to launder his ill-gotten money from his loan sharking, illegal gambling and other criminal activities.

Reeder, who was suitably frightened of Sabatella, gave in and made the mobster a partner. At first, he welcomed the infusion of Sabatella’s cash into the firm, which he invested in acquiring more property. And he welcomed Moretti into the firm. Although Moretti did not have an accounting degree, he was good with money, and he advised Reeder on how to launder Sabatella’s money and how to invest in profitable ventures.

But as time went on, Reeder regretted doing business with the mobster. Sabatella was more and more demanding of money and perks, including a luxurious private office at the firm’s headquarters. Sabatella did not exactly fit in. Sabatella was loud and obnoxious, and he made crude advances towards the female staffers, and he insulted Reeder and other senior members of the firm.

Reeder asked Moretti to speak with Sabatella about his bad behavior. Moretti warned Reeder that speaking to Sabatella would not be a wise or safe thing to do as the mobster had a vicious temper.

Things came to a head when Sabatella crashed a meeting Reeder was having with a property owner named Wallace Newly. Reeder was making the man an offer on his valuable property, but Newly was not interested in selling the property.

Sabatella stood over Newly and told Reeder the man needed a good incentive. With that, Sabatella punched Newly in his face. Newly fell out of his chair and Sabatella then delivered a couple of well-placed kicks to Newly as he lay on the carpeted floor.

Reeder tried to stop Sabatella and he received a severe smack across the face from Sabatella.

Sabatella walked out of the conference room, stating, “Now that’s how you do business.”

Moretti rushed in after Sabatella left and helped Reeder pick Newly up. Reeder apologized profusely for the attack. Newly pushed him away and walked out of the conference room.

Newly called for an Uber and asked the driver to take him to the federal building. He rode an elevator up to the FBI’s office and reported his attack by the notorious gangster.

The FBI special agents fanned out and arrested Sabatella, several members of his Cosa Nostra crew and Moretti.

I wrote about the indictment and the arrests in my column in the local paper.

The day after my column ran, I received a call from the FBI special agent who had informed me about the indictment. He told me that Billy Moretti had been found dead. His body was discovered in his parked car outside of a South Philly dinner.

Apparently, Sabatella didn’t think his soft money manager would be able to do a prison stretch, and fearing that he would cooperate against him, Sabatella ordered a hit on Moretti. He was found with three shots to his head. 

I felt bad for Billy Moretti. He made money with Slippin' Sal and lived a good life, but he took a chance with his life when he decided to work with the viscous and heartless mobster.  

The FBI special agent said to me, “I hope Moretti the Money Man has enough money to pay for his own funeral.”

© 2024 By Paul Davis 

The Hit

 The below story is chapter 23 of Olongapo, my crime thriller that I hope to publish this year.  

The Hit

 By Paul Davis

Chief Boatswain’s Mate Mark Mackie was not a popular chief in the USS Kitty Hawk’s Deck Department. The veteran sailor from Nevada served 22 years in the U.S. Navy and worked on a variety of ships in his career. Prior to reporting to the USS Kitty Hawk in 1970, Mackie served on a 50-foot swift boat in Da Nang Harbor in South Vietnam. 

Six feet tall and built like a football lineman, Mackie was a tough, no nonsense senior enlisted leader who inspired respect, if not popularity. He was a stern taskmaster, and he rode his subordinates hard.  

He was especially hard on a 3^rd Class Boatswain’s Mate named Harold Smith, a thin and weak-chinned 25-year-old sailor from New Jersey. Mackie felt that petty officers should work harder than seamen, a notion that BM3 Smith did not agree with at all. Smith thought that once he became a petty officer, he would just tell seamen what to do. Mackie thought Smith was a piss-poor excuse for a petty officer and sailor, and the chief called him a “fuck-up” and a “non-hacker.” 

Also on Chief Mackie’s personal “shit list” was a seaman from Nebraska named Harry Stillman. Chief Mackie called Stillman a disgrace to the United States Navy and a disgrace to the human race. A slovenly, overweight, and somewhat dim 23-year-old, Stillman was a chronic marijuana user. In the days before mandatory drug tests, many young sailors smoked marijuana recreationally, but Stillman took it to an extreme. 

“Do you know why Harry is named Stillman?” a Navy wit asked the sailors in the Deck Department’s berthing compartment. “It’s because he is so fucking wasted on pot he can’t move.” 

Stillman was always buzzed from smoking pot, and the pot gave him the “munchies,” so he snacked continually on large amounts of Coke, Ritz crackers and small cans of Vienna Sausage. He purchased the soda and food from the “Gedunk,” which is what sailors call the ship’s store. 

Stillman was also always first in line at the galley for his three hearty meals a day, and he was a regular nightly visitor to the galley for Midnight Rations, called “MIDRATS.” MIDRATS offered hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and French fries to the sailors going on late watch, as well as to other sailors who liked a late-night fast-food meal.         

Having taken enough abuse from Chief Mackie, Smith suggested to Stillman that they pool their money and hire a Filipino hitman to murder Chief Mackie on the following day when the Kitty Hawk once again visited Subic Bay. Stillman was all for the conspiracy, as long as Smith did all of the planning and work. 

Smith was one of Lorino’s customers, and the meth dealer was asked to join the murder conspiracy and chip in to pay the killer. Lorino passed. Although Lorino was not much of a worker, he got along with Chief Mackie. And what did murdering a tough chief have to do with business? 

Upon the recommendation of Winston, Smith and Stillman went to the Americano in Olongapo and spoke to Walker. Walker introduced the petty officer and the seaman to Banoy Abad. Sitting across from Abad, Smith and Stillman were frightened, but Smith managed to propose that Abad “hit’ Mackie.  

“For one hundred dollar American, I kill the man, sure” Abad told Smith and Stillman. 

Smith, who had $800 dollars on him, was surprised that the scary Filipino criminal would murder Chief Mackie for so little. It was said that life was cheap in Olongapo. Apparently so was death. 

Banoy Abad was a needle-thin and pinched-faced psychopath even before he began to use shabu, but once he became a regular user of crystal meth, he was off the chart crazy and extremely violent. 

Abad, who never knew his father and whose mother was a street prostitute, grew up wild and crazy on the streets of Olongapo. He began his criminal career as a shoeshine boy. While giving a sailor a shoeshine, he would whip out a straight razor and hold it against the unsuspecting sailor’s Achilles Heel. 

The sailors were at first surprised that a little Filipino kid had a razor against their heel. But most sailors knew a laceration of the Achilles tendon was painful and would cripple them, so they pulled out their wallet and gave their cash over to the small street urchin.   

Abad grew up to be a frighting armed robber who preyed on drunk sailors, street vendors and bar girls. He and his partner in crime, Rizalino Cruz, another uber-thin and half-crazed meth-head, were notorious street bandits and murderers.    

Smith told Abad what bar the chief frequented while in Olongapo and he showed the Filipino hitman a photo of the chief. The photo of Chief Mackie had been posted on a bulletin board after he was named “Sailor of the Month.” Smith had ripped the photo off of the bulletin board.

 

Later that evening, as Mackie and a bar girl left the bar, the two Filipino hitmen attacked Mackie with Butterfly knives. Although Mackie was drunk on San Miguel beer, he saw the Filipinos rushing towards him out the corner of his eye. He pushed the girl aside and threw up a sharp elbow which Abad ran straight into, causing the assassin to fall backwards. Cruz stabbed Mackie in the chest, and the chief grabbed the shorter man’s head in a vice and threw him up against a jeepney in the street. 

Abad recovered quickly from Mackie’s blow and was up and charging the chief again. Mackie hit Abad in the throat with his open palm. The blow instantly killed Abad and he dropped to the street. Cruz started to run, but Mackie caught him by his wrist and elbow and broke the hitman’s arm. Cruz dropped his knife and screamed out in pain. Holding on to Cruz’s broken arm, Mackie used his right leg to sweep the Filipino’s legs out from under him, and Cruz landed on his behind. Still holding onto Cruz’s injured arm, Mackie kicked him several times in the side.

Officers from the Olongapo City Police Office, followed almost immediately by the U.S. Navy Shore Patrol, arrived on the scene of the attempted murder. The Philippine police officers took Cruz into custody. Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rosa examined Abad as he lay in the street. Rosa looked up and announced to the other officers that the notorious criminal was dead. 

Rosa smiled. 

The Shore patrol took Mackie to the Subic Bay hospital and the Olongapo police took Cruz to a local hospital. Abad was taken to the morgue. Cruz was interrogated harshly by Rosa as a doctor treated him, and he gave up Smith and Stillman without hesitation. He did not mention Walker’s involvement, as he feared the Old Huk. 

Rosa passed the information from Cruz to the American NIS, and the special agents sought out and arrested Smith and Stillman. 

After he was arrested, Smith thought briefly about giving up Walker and Lorino the meth dealer as a means of getting a lighter sentence, but he thought better of it.   As Smith was not a particularly brave man, he feared making these two violent criminals his enemies. 

An Olongapo police officer on the Old Huk’s payroll called Camama and reported the attempted assassination to the gang leader. The officer gave all of the details to Camama. The Old Huk, who already knew that Walker had introduced the American sailors to Abad, was displeased at Walker’s reckless, and profitless, actions. 

The Old Huk ordered Jackie Sicat to reproach Walker for mixing up with that crazy man Abad and the even more crazy Americans. Sicat entered the Americano and beckoned Walker to come to him. Walker edged over to Sicat and stood silently as Sicat proceeded to call him an idiot and fool for mixing up with Abad and stupid Americans. 

“I just introduced them as a favor to a regular customer,” Walker explained. “I didn’t know what was going down.” 

“Old Huk say if police come here and involve us, you be face up dead in Shit River,” Sicat said. 

Lorino, who was standing nearby, was glad he passed on getting involved in the attempted murder. 

© 2024 By Paul Davis 

'The Cherry Boy'

 The below story is chapter 17 of Olongapo, a crime novel I hope to soon publish. 

The Cherry Boy

By Paul Davis

Wilbur Grady grew up poor on a farm in Arkansas. 

His family was deeply religious, and Grady was advised by his father not to let the sins of the flesh and other temptations make him stray from the flock while he served in the U.S. Navy. 

But Wilbur Grady’s father did not foresee the temptations of Olongapo, nor did he see the greed and treachery of John Bland. 

Grady, a shy, soft-spoken young man with blonde hair, did not curse, did not drink, did not take drugs, did not gamble, and did not consort with fast women.   

On the Kitty Hawk’s initial visits to Subic Bay, Grady did not leave the base and go into Olongapo. He enjoyed Grande Island and other base entertainment, but he stayed clear of Olongapo’s bars and bar girls. 

Grady was not a good sailor. He did not adjust well from his sheltered life on the farm to Navy life on an aircraft carrier. He was in a perpetual state of nervousness and that nervousness made him error prone. He fouled up often and he was often chewed out by the chiefs and petty officers, which of course increased his nervousness. Gray failed in nearly every task he was assigned to. Grady even failed to make coffee properly for the message center. 

Coffee was important to us in the Communications Radio Division, as we worked hard on our eight-on and eight off watches, and we were so wound up that many of us had trouble sleeping during our eight hours off watch. Strong Navy coffee helped keep us alert and able when we went back on watch.  

I had the top rack above two other racks in the berthing compartment, which was good as the top rack was open at the top, so I didn’t feel like I was in a coffin. But just above me were pipes for the steam catapult system that launched our aircraft off the carrier’s flight deck. 

During flight operations, the gush of steam that ran through the pipes and the thump of the aircraft launching above me often prevented me from sleeping or woke me if I were already asleep. So when I had to report for my watch, a good cup of strong Navy coffee was essential.  

We had a three-foot high coffee urn in a cubbyhole room in the message center. The low-ranking seamen had to refill the urn with water and make fresh coffee for the officers, chiefs, petty officers, and other seamen on watch in the message center. Once filled with water, the urn was quite heavy and awkward to carry from the head to the message processing center. 

I recall one watch when Grady was assigned to make the coffee. We had a deep sink in the head and several new seamen, including Grady on this day, spotted it and laid the urn in the deep sink and filled it with water. Grady then lifted the heavy urn up and carried it into the message center and made the coffee. 

It did not take long before one of the chiefs gagged on the fresh coffee and demanded to know what numbskull made the coffee. Grady was severely chastised and informed that the deep sink in the head produced salt water rather than fresh water.  

I had been warned not to use the deep sink for coffee by my older shipmates. I was told that the proper but difficult way to fill the large coffee urn with water was to stand in a shower stall and direct the stream of cold water into the urn. 

Grady’s nervousness was further fueled by his witnessing a prank in the message center’s coffee cubbyhole. Chief Hank Newly was a demanding and unpopular chief who often ordered seamen to refill his coffee mug, which we resented. We usually muttered, “Why don’t you get your own fucking coffee” under our breath. 

None of the other chiefs, or even the officers, ever asked the seamen to get them coffee. In fact, Lieutenant James Horn, a cool officer we all liked, said to Newly, “I get up and get my own coffee, so why can’t you, chief?”

Newly just looked at the officer without comment. 

Seaman Matt Svenson was a weightlifter and jokester from Kansas who truly resented getting the chief coffee. The muscle-bound sailor smiled at me, Grady, Greenberg, and a seaman named Mick Stills as we crowded into the cubbyhole as Svenson was filling Chief Newly's coffee mug. 

“Watch this,” Svenson said to us. He then placed the tip of his penis into the coffee in the chief’s mug. 

His jokester’s grin disappeared as he screamed out in pain. Greenberg took hold of the mug before it crashed to the floor. He laid the chief’s mug on a counter and held on to Svenson’s arm. 

“The coffee’s hot, you fucking idiot,” I said as Svenson collapsed against a bulkhead. Stills laughed and Grady appeared to go into shock. Greenberg took Svenson’s arm and told him that he would take him to sick bay.

“Tell the corpsman in sick bay that you burned your dick getting into a hot shower with a hard-on,” Greenberg told Svenson.

Greenberg and Svenson left for sick bay, leaving me to tell the grumpy chief that Svenson burned himself and was taken to sick bay. I didn’t tell him how or where Svenson had burned himself. The chief grumbled and cursed Svenson. He did not inquire about the cause or extent of Svenson’s injury.

Seaman Alfred Oswald came up behind me and I moved to the side. Oswald was an awkward and odd 25-year-old sailor from Michigan. He had sandy hair, wore thick glasses and had a prominent Adams Apple that rose and fell in his neck like a bobbing apple. We called him “Lee Harvey” after President Kennedy’s odd-ball assassin. 

Oswald had retrieved the chief’s coffee mug from the counter in the cubbyhole after we left, and he handed the mug to Newly. “Here’s your coffee, chief.”

“You’re a real kiss ass, Lee Harvey,” I said as I walked away.

I saw Stills walking about the message center, telling the young sailors that Svenson placed his penis in the chief’s coffee mug. Every time the chief raised the mug to his lips, the young sailors burst out laughing.

“What’s wrong with you morons?” the chief asked. “Turn fucking to!”

Svenson recovered and he happily told all the enlisted sailors his “dick in the chief’s coffee mug” story. I’m not sure if the story reached Chief Newly or not. If so, he didn’t take disciplinary action against Svenson, or ever mention the incident to anyone. But the chief never again asked Svenson to get him coffee.

 

Grady was never quite able to get the image of Svenson’s burnt penis in the chief’s coffee mug out of his mind, which increased his anxiety. John Bland saw an opportunity shortly after the dick in the chief’s coffee mug incident and latched onto Grady. Grady was a trusting and naive young man, so when Bland offered to help him overcome his nervousness and become a better sailor, Grady was thankful. Bland manipulated Grady easily and had him running errands for him and doing some of his work while we were at sea.

I thought Bland was a creep. I recall when the Kitty Hawk dropped anchor in Da Nang Harbor just off the huge American base in South Vietnam. The Kitty Hawk pulled into Da Nang Harbor to hold a change of command ceremony aboard the carrier for the Task Force 77 outgoing and incoming admirals. 

I was leaning over the catwalk watching the activity ashore at Da Nang as well as on the ships and boats that sailed by us in the busy harbor. The sailors on the boats were curious to see the giant aircraft carrier in their midst, and many American sailors on 50-foot Swift Boats and other craft looked up and waved, as did many of the Vietnamese fishermen. I waved back. 

Bland came up and stood beside me on the catwalk. As a Vietnamese fishing boat sailed by, Bland hit the deck and put his arms over his head. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked. 

“I think that gook on the boat had a rifle,” Bland replied as he laid shakily on the catwalk’s deck. 

“You think a Viet Cong guerrilla is going to take on an 80,000-ton aircraft carrier with a rifle? Or maybe you think a Viet Cong sapper is out to assassinate you in particular? You’re a smacked ass, Bland.”

Later, while in Olongapo, I saw Grady and Bland in the Starlight and I just knew that Bland had Grady buying all of the drinks for himself, Bland, and the two bar girls at the table. I’m certain that Bland told Grady one of his sob stories about a family crisis at home that caused Bland to send his entire pay back home to his family, leaving him broke. I’m equally sure that Grady believed Bland’s fairy tale.

The two bar girls appeared to be overjoyed with the ‘Cherry Boy,” as he was buying. Svenson saw the group as he was walking by the table, and he sat down in an empty chair.

“Hey, Cherry Boy Grady. I see you finally come to town,” Svenson said. “And I see you got yourself a Cherry girl too. You know, she’s only had two lovers before you – the 6^th and 7^th Fleet.”

Grady just smiled nervously as the others laughed.

“I hear that some sailor caught VD from your girl,” Svenson said to Grady. “Well, here today, gonorrhea.”

Grady didn’t know how to react to Svenson’s taunting and old jokes, so he continued to smile nervously as the other sailors laughed. The bar girl next to Grady took offense and she flicked a lit cigarette at Svenson and said, “Fuck you, sail-lor.”

Svenson chuckled at the irate bar girl, and he got up from the table and went to the bar. He returned to the table and offered Grady a hard-boiled egg. I suspected that the egg was a balut, a fertilized developing duck egg that Filipinos considered a delicacy but nauseated most Americans. I tried to stop Grady from cracking open the shell, but I was too late. Seeing and smelling the duck embryo made Grady physically sick and he threw up on the floor.

Svenson, Bland and the bar girls laughed. Grady didn’t laugh, nor did the Filipino who came out with a mop and bucket to clean up the mess.

“You might say that Grady’s had a premature ejaculation,” Svenson said.

“You’re an asshole, Svenson,” I said.

At some point in the evening, Bland and Grady slipped out of the Starlight and left the two bar girls behind. I suspect that Bland didn’t want to pay the mama-san for taking the girls out of the bar early, as he was notoriously cheap, even when it was Grady’s money they were spending. Bland later solicited a street prostitute for Grady’s first tryst.

The following day back on the carrier, Bland told the other sailors that Grady had his first piece of “poontang,” and how much the young virgin farmer loved it. What Bland did not say was that he took some of Grady’s money and bought heroin, which he had convinced Grady to take to overcome his nervousness by being with a woman for the first time.

According to Lorino, Olongapo had nearly pure “smack,” and the strong heroin caused a user to become addicted to it very quickly. 

After another long line period on Yankee Station, we pulled back into Olongapo.

I saw Bland and Grady hurrying to get off the ship and into Olongapo. Some of the sailors laughed after Svenson said, “Grady got him a taste of that good Olongapo pussy, and now he can’t wait to get more.”

What I didn’t know at the time was that for the entire line period Grady had been injecting heroin. Bland convinced Grady that “shooting up” heroin would help him with his chronic nervousness.

Bland and Grady were anxious to get into Olongapo so they could score more heroin to satisfy Grady’s growing addiction. Bland did not do heroin, but he graciously offered to buy the drug for Grady. Knowing Bland, he inflated the price for the heroin and overcharged Grady, keeping the additional money for himself.

The heroin Grady took did help to calm him down, but it didn’t help with his poor job performance. In fact, being on heroin made him an even worst sailor.

I saw Grady in the head stumbling around and I asked him, “Are you on drugs?”

Grady admitted to me that he was shooting up heroin and he explained Bland’s encouragement, believing that Bland was helping him. I warned Grady that Bland was a cheap con artist, and he was using him, but I don’t think Grady believed me.

I was pissed at Bland, and I told Hunt about it. Hunt and I were in the head talking about Bland when he walked in. Hunt punched him square in the face and Bland fell against a bulkhead, his nose bloody.

“You’re a piece of shit, Bland.” Hunt said and he and I walked out of the head.    

 

Later, while on watch in the message center, Grady nodded from the heroin and fell out of a chair. He could not be revived, so he was carried to sick bay. The doctor diagnosed that Grady was a heroin addict. The doctor also discovered that Grady had Gonorrhea. Grady was put on report. Grady was to be issued a general discharge and plans were made to fly him off the carrier and to Subic Bay for his processing out of the Navy once he was cured of his venereal disease.

Grady, like me, was 18.

Over the course of only three months, Grady went from a teetotaler to a full-blown heroin addict. And he went from an innocent virgin to getting the clap from having sex with a Olongapo street prostitute.

Grady came to me to say goodbye prior to his flight off the carrier.

“I don’t know what to do,” Grady said to me. “My family disowned me. I got me no money and I know I’m gonna need some more smack when I get to San Diego.”

“You need a smack in the mouth,” I said. Grady smiled sheepishly.

“When you get to San Diego, check in with the Veterans Administration and get placed in a rehab center. Get clean and sober and start your life over.”

“Good advice, Davis. Thank you.”

“And don’t ever, ever come back to Olongapo.”

© 2024 Paul Davis  

'Officer Mack'

 Officer Mack

By Paul Davis

Back when I was a teenager in South Philly in the late 1960s, some of the boys on our corner at 13^th and Oregon Avenue hated cops. 

South Philadelphia is the hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized crime family, and these teenagers were the sons and nephews of the mob guys. 

I recall that “Crazy Joe” Villotti, the nephew of a Cosa Nostra capo, or captain, refused to go with us and see the film Goldfinger. 

Villotti asked me, “Isn’t James Bond a cop?”   

“No,” I replied. “He’s a British secret agent, a cool spy of sorts.” 

“Yeah, he’s a fucking government guy, so I don’t want to watch the fuck.” 

But for most of the boys on the corner, like me, we saw that there were two types of cops. There were “cool” cops and “prick” cops. 

The cool cops were generally tough guys who could afford to be lenient and understanding at times, while the prick cops were weaker men who we believed made up for their feelings of inferiority by acting stern and officious at all times. 

Police Officer Thomas T. Mack was a prick cop. 

Mack, a short and muscular 30-year-old, began dating Marie Saccone, the attractive elder sister of Chick and Stevie Saccone, two of my friends on the corner. 

Their father was a mob associate and a big-time bookmaker and loan shark. But despite their father being an illegal gambler, Chick and Stevie didn’t hate cops the way Villotti and some others did. 

Mack asked to be transferred to the 3^rd Police District to be closer to Marie. He patrolled Oregon Avenue, a four-lane wide street and major thoroughfare in the predominantly Italian American neighborhood in South Philadelphia. 

He often stopped at JP’s Luncheonette at 13^th and Oregon Avenue for cigarettes and coffee. He would then come out and gab with Stevie, whom he treated like a younger brother. 

Chick would walk away, as he hated Mack. He hated Mack, not because he was a cop, but rather because he thought Mack was a phony and an asshole. 

Mack’s friendliness with Stevie and the other teenagers on the corner ended the day Marie dumped him. 

That very night he arrested Stevie and two other teenagers for drinking beer on the corner. And from that night on, Mack declared war on us. He harassed us nearly every night. We all hated Mack.

On a Mischief Night before Halloween, Mack pulled up on the corner and shouted through his open passenger window for us to get off the corner. 

“Yes, Sir,” we replied in unison. And in unison, a half dozen of us tossed a half dozen eggs at him through his passenger window. We then took off running but not before I saw the furious look on his face and his cap knocked sideways with egg yolk dripping down his face from the cap’s brim. 

I was laughing madly as I ran away from the corner. 

Mack went crazy and zoomed around the streets hunting us. I ran home after throwing my egg at him. My mother asked why I was home so early, and I told her I was tried and wanted to go to bed. 

Officer Frank Grant was a cool cop. We never would have thrown eggs at him. 

Grant stopped into JP’s nearly every night for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Grant, a tall, gangly man in his late 20s, told funny stories to the owners of JPs and us. 

I recall him telling a story about a drug raid on an abandoned house in the 3^rd District. 

The district captain saw white powder that lay on a sheet of brown paper on the floor in the corner. He wet his index finger and dipped his finger in the powder and tasted it on the tip of his tongue. 

“Is this heroin,” he asked.

He again dipped his finger in the powder and tasted it.

“Is this heroin,” he again asked.     

One of the officers told the commanding officer, “Captain, I think it’s rat poison.”

The captain froze for a moment and then told the officer to drive him to the hospital.

Like many cops I’ve known over the years, Grant was a fine storyteller. When years later I read and enjoyed Joseph Wambaugh, the LAPD detective sergeant who became the best-selling author of The New Centurions, The Choir Boys, and other classic cop novels and nonfiction books about cops, I often thought of Grant. 

Another thing that endeared us to Grant was that he hated Officer Mack and often mocked him. 

One night as I sat alone with Grant at JP’s counter, I told the officer that although my Uncle Bill was a police captain, and my father, a WWII Navy chief and Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) frogman, was a strict law & order man, I hated Officer Mack. 

Grant laughed and said most of the 3^rd District cops also hated Mack.       

Although we had some tough guys on 13th and Oregon, like my older brother Eddie, Joe Villotti and the Saccone brothers, we were more of a party corner, as we hosted various crews of pretty girls that hung out with us 

But the street gang blocks away at the corner of Dalton Street and Oregon Avenue, called the “D&O,” was a crazy crew of violent, drug dealing teenage hoodlums. 

The D&O street gang hated Officer Mack even more than we did. Like us, Mack rousted the D&O teenagers for no reason other than hating them. True, they were hoodlums, but Mack often went overboard, roughing them up after handcuffing them. He then threw them out of his patrol car without even bothering to arrest them.

I suspect that because he was rejected by a beautiful Italian woman, Mack hated Italians. He called the D&O boys and the 13^th & Oregon Avenue teenagers “dagos” and “wops.”

But the D&O teenagers fought back.

I heard Mack went batshit crazy when he drove down Oregon Avenue and saw that the D&O boys had spray painted on the side of a building in very large letters, “OFFICER MACK BLOWS.”

The painted message was the talk of the 3^rd District cops. Mack was widely mocked by his fellow officers.  

One night Officer Mack pulled up to 13^th & Oregon, jumped out of his car, leaving the driver’s car door open and the patrol car running. He dashed into JP’s and shouted to the dozen or guys and girls on the corner, “Be off this fucking corner by the time I come out, or I’ll lock up all you up.”

I saw his patrol car door open and the car running, so I seized the day and jumped into the driver’s seat and took off. I drove across Oregon Avenue and jumped the curb of Marconi’s Park. 

I looked for, but could not find, the siren. As I drove through the park wildly, I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw Mack running and shouting like a crazy man across Oregon Avenue, his service revolver held up into the air.  

I put on the brakes halfway into the park and jumped out running. I ran right into the beefy arms of a Fairmount Park Police Officer, who twisted me around and handcuffed me. He held me for Mack. 

Mack came up huffing and placed his service revolver back in the holster. He took out his “sap,” a short steel rod covered in black leather, and he slapped the sap across my knees. 

The pain was awful, but the worst thing was that I could not clutch my aching knees, as my hands were handcuffed behind my back. I leaned down as the Park cop held me.  

The Park cop asked Mack if he wanted to arrest me, and Mack said no. 

“Do me a favor and drive the kid down to the river and let the punk walk back home.”  

I had to walk from the river on Delaware Avenue and Front Street back up to 13^th and Oregon with swollen and throbbing knees. 

But it was worth it, as I was the talk of the corner that night and Thomas Junior High School the next day. Everyone thought I was a cool guy. The wild hoodlums from the D&O slapped me on the back and called me a “crazy motherfucker,” which was a high compliment from them.

Grant came to JP's the following night and told me that I was lucky that Mack didn’t arrest me or shoot me. He said that Mack was probably hoping no other cops would hear that a teenager stole his car.

But the Park cop hated Mack and he called a friend at the 3^rd District and told him the story. The cop in turn told all of his fellow 3^rd District officers. Mack was ridiculed once again.         

Some months later, Officer Grant came into JP's and told me that Mack was fired for beating the son of a South Philly councilman. According to Grant, Mack cuffed the Italian American politician’s teenage son and beat him as he held him against the side of the patrol car. 

The son was a what we called a “square” kid, and what the adults called a “nice Italian boy.” He was a good student who didn’t drink beer or smoke pot on the corner with us. 

We didn’t know why Mack singled him out. Mack handcuffed him and threw him against the side of the patrol car. He slapped the teenager in the face repeatedly and delivered a severe punch to the teenager’s stomach. 

The noise and flashing lights on the patrol car drew the attention of several neighbors who called 911 and reported the brutal treatment of the teenager. 

The councilman called the captain, who then ordered an investigation. Mack was subsequently fired. He also faced assault charges from the District Attorney’s office.

“Good riddance,” Grant said.

I laughed and said, “So even in South Philly, there’s some justice. 

The 30-Day Detail

 The below story, which is about drug dealing and other crimes aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War, is a chapter in my crime novel Olongapo, which I hope to soon publish.

In my day, we thought the Navy was the coolest military service. After all, bell-bottoms dungarees were fashionable in the civilian world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and dark blue bell-bottom dungarees were part of our working uniform aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

In addition to the dungarees, we wore a white t-shirt under a short-sleeve light blue chambray shirt, with our name stenciled in black just above the left breast pocket.

We also wore ankle-high black leather boots called “BoonDockers,” and when outside, a dark blue ball cap topped the working uniform. My dungarees and chambray shirt were always cleaned and pressed and my BoonDockers were always polished.

My older brother Eddie, who served in the U.S. Army at Chu Lai in South Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, often mocked me for wearing a clean uniform and fighting the war on a safe, clean and air-conditioned ship off the coast of Vietnam.

His life as a soldier at Chu Lai was not so clean, with heat, humidity, mud, dirt, bugs, rats, and Viet Cong attacks. Compared to his time at Chu Lai, my brother thought I served on a luxury cruise ship. In rebuttal, I told him that if it were not for naval air power from aircraft carriers, he and many other soldiers “in-country” would have died in combat. He agreed, albeit reluctantly.

The Kitty Hawk’s aircraft and battle group ships protected the aircraft carrier and kept it safe from attacks from the North Vietnamese while on "Yankee Station" in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam, but life could be dangerous on an aircraft carrier as air combat operations were fast-paced and precarious as the carrier launched and recovered aircraft around the clock. With vast amounts of jet fuel, bombs, missiles and rockets on board, an accident or a fire on a carrier can be a truly deadly affair, as it had been earlier on the Kitty Hawk and on other aircraft carriers, most notably the deadly fire on the USS Forrestal. The carrier was later nicknamed the “USS Forest Fire.”

And there were other safety concerns on a carrier, such as crime.

An aircraft carrier has been described as a floating small city due to her size and large crew. As even small cites have crime, it should not be a surprise that one would encounter crime aboard an aircraft carrier. There were assaults, thefts, gambling and drug trafficking taking place on the ship as the carrier sailed the South China Sea.

While operating off the coast of Vietnam. I worked in the Communications Radio Division’s Message Processing Center. The center was a hectic place, as we handled fast-flowing and fast-action highly classified war traffic. We received and distributed traffic concerning combat missions, tactical reports, naval intelligence reports, and intelligence reports from the CIA, DIA, NSA and the other alphabet soup intelligence agencies. We also maintained radio communications between the aircraft carrier and our pilots as they flew combat sorties against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong supply routes and strategic positions.

We also handled highly classified traffic for the Task Force 77 admiral, who commanded the entire fleet off Vietnam. The Task Force 77 admiral and his staff were stationed aboard the Kitty Hawk as the carrier was the designated Task Force 77 Flag Ship. 

The message center additionally received and distributed the famous “Z-Grams” from the then-Chief of Naval of Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Those Z-Grams changed Navy policy, such as letting sailors grow beards and go ashore in civilian clothes. Senior Navy people hated the Z-Grams, but young enlisted sailors like me loved them.

While on Yankee Station, we worked in eight hours on/eight hours off shifts, with about 20 to 25 men working in the message processing center during each “watch.” The center job was grueling and never-ending, sending and processing traffic, but we knew this was a good job. There were far more dirty and dangerous jobs on the aircraft carrier.

Compared to the engineers, called “snipes,” who worked in the hot bowels of the ship, and the flight crews, called “air dales,” who worked in the blistering heat on the flight deck dodging launched and recovered aircraft, we had it pretty good in the message center. And we certainly had it easier than the carrier’s pilots, who braved being shot down and killed or captured as they flew combat sorties over Vietnam. 

During this time on Yankee Station, I was under the dubious supervision of Gerald Hobbs, a newly promoted 3^rd Class Radioman, which was the Navy equivalent to an Army buck sergeant. Hobbs, who hailed from Baltimore, was a big guy, around 6’3,” and on the heavy side. He was crude and obnoxious, and not very bright. He was disliked by most of the enlisted sailors in the division.

His sour personality did not improve after he was promoted. With his new “crow” stitched on the left sleeve of his blue chambray uniform shirt, Hobbs became even more obnoxious. 

On one watch in the message center, I told an old joke in the guise of a true story, as I usually did.

“I met a girl in Olongapo,” I told a couple of sailors working alongside me. “She said her name was Angelina. I told her that was a pretty name. I asked her if people called her “Angel” for short, and she replied, “Yes, but not for long.””

The two sailors laughed. Even Lieutenant Junior Grade Albert Moony, who overheard the old joke as he walked by, laughed. I was a bit surprised, as Moony was not known for his sense of humor. The serious young officer once told us that his post-Navy plans were to become a State Department official or a Buddhist Monk.

But humor is not universal. Although I had some good friends in the division and I made them laugh on occasion, I must admit that there were those who did not find me particularly amusing. These sailors disliked me, disliked my telling old jokes that I heard or read somewhere, and disliked my sarcastic asides. My detractors thought I had far too much to say for so young a sailor.

Hobbs was squarely in that group. He overheard my joke and didn’t think it was funny. He screamed at me to stop telling jokes and “turn to,” Navy-speak for get to work. Hobbs puffed up his chest and acted tough as he was older, taller and had about fifty pounds on me. I was not intimidated, and I suppose I gave him a dirty look.  

“I’m a petty officer now and don’t you ever forget it,” Hobbs declared. 

 “I looked up petty in the dictionary and it’s defined as small and unimportant,” I told him. “And your photo was next to the definition.”

The sailors near me laughed. This angered Hobbs and he shoved me. 

Bad move on his part. 

As I had been training and competing as a boxer since I was 12 years old at the South Philly Boys’ Club, my instincts kicked in and I threw a stiff left jab to his nose, followed immediately by a “Sunday punch” to his mouth. The left jab and short right knockout punch dropped Hobbs heavily to the deck. He laid there next to his two front teeth, which I had knocked out of his head. 

Bad move on my part. 

I had punched out a petty officer in the message center in front of officers, chiefs and a number of assorted petty officers. Chief John Helm rushed over and ordered me to go the division’s supply office and wait there for him.   

As I waited for the chief, I knew I fucked up. I was worried that I would be sent to the carrier’s brig. As I was pondering my fate, Chief Helm came in. I could see that the chief was upset, as his large ears were bright red. He took off his glasses and taking a hankie out of his pants pocket, he furiously rubbed them clean.     

“What’s the matter with you? You think I don’t want to punch one of these kid officers in the mouth every day? Especially that tall glass of fresh water, Lieutenant Harrison. You just can’t do it!”   

Chief Helm told me that he went to see Commander Olson, the division’s commanding officer. He explained to Olson that Hobbs had shoved me first, although that was no excuse for me to punch him. We were both in the wrong. But Chief Helm said he put in a good word for me.  

“Is Davis the kid who tells all those dumb jokes?” the chief told me Olson had asked him.

“Yes, Sir” the chief replied. 

“No charges or the brig for Davis,’ the commander ordered. “Get him a 30-day detail out of the division and chew Hobbs’ ass. Tell him from me that he’s lucky that I don’t bust him back to a seaman.”  

I found it curious that it was my telling a joke that caused the confrontation in the message center, and yet it was my telling old jokes that also got me a light punishment.

 

Although I was happy that I avoided a 30-day stint in the carrier’s brig, I was not happy about being kicked out of the division. Although I was only a seaman, lower than whale shit, as the saying goes, I felt that I was doing important war-related work in the vital communications center. 

Chief Helms told me he arranged for me to be detailed for 30 days to the ship’s vent shop, as he knew the petty officer in charge. The following morning, I packed my sea bag and reported to the vent shop’s boss. Roscoe Davis was a hulking and jovial black 1^st class petty officer with a huge gut protruding over his belt.

 “I’m Roscoe,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”

He gathered around the other guys in the shop and as we had the same last name, Roscoe introduced me as his “illegitimate white boy son.”

I laughed along with the others. One of the sailors in the shop asked me the question that sailors always ask when first meeting another sailor, “What state you from?”

 “South Philly,” I replied.

 “Is South Philly a state?” another sailor asked sarcastically.

 “We think so,” I replied. 

 James Green, a tall and lean black sailor from North Philly, laughed.  

“Shit,” he said to the other sailors. “I know these I-Talian South Philly boys. They are bad-ass, motherfucking mafia gangsters.”  

Rather than reproach this seaman on stereotyping Italians, as I was half-Italian, I said nothing, allowing the sailors in the shop to believe that I was a hoodlum. The fact that I was detailed to the vent shop because I had punched out a petty officer added to that somewhat exaggerated image. 

Roscoe teamed me with Green and called us “the Philly boys.” Each day we went around the ship and pulled out the 4x4 air filters from the ventilation system and replaced them with clean ones. We took the dirty filters back to the shop and soaped them up and blasted them with a high-power water hose. The removal and cleaning of the air filters was on a rotational system that Roscoe controlled. 

Pulling out filters, replacing them, and cleaning the old ones was a dirty job, but we worked an eight-hour day, unlike my eight on/eight off watches in the Communications Radio Division. I grew to like the job, although I felt like I was missing out on what was happening in the war. I also liked Roscoe, Green, and the other misfits in the vent shop. 

I soon discovered that Roscoe ran illegal card games aboard the carrier. He also smuggled aboard cases of vodka, scotch and other alcohol from Subic Bay and then sold the bottles at sea for a good profit. He reminded me of the colorful rascal military characters portrayed in movies and on TV series like Sergeant Bilko and McHale’s Navy. In fact, McHale’s Navy was one of the reasons I joined the Navy.   

I was a fair poker player and I sat in on Roscoe’s games. Many of the people I played against were poor poker players, so I made a few bucks on my down time. I always gave Roscoe a cut of my winnings, as he ran the games, just as I would have given a cut to the mob guys who ran the card games back in South Philly.  

Roscoe took the money, shoved it into his dungaree pants pocket and said, “My man.”  

On most days, Roscoe locked the shop’s door after working hours and we broke out the booze and partied.   

Another seaman in the vent shop was Leman Knox, a skinny guy from some small town in Florida. He had a serious case of face acne, which he always picked at, and he constantly scratched himself all over. Having known drug addicts from my old neighborhood, I knew he was a heroin addict. He confirmed this later by offering to sell me heroin. I declined his offer.    

Knox was one of those stupid and silly white guys who spoke and acted like a black street tough. Knox thought this made him cool. He called the black sailors “Bros.” Most of the black sailors did not consider his act an homage. They thought he was an ass and they mostly ignored him.  

Green, who possessed a great sense of humor, thought Knox was funny. He did a fine burlesque of Knox acting like a “brother.” He often performed his impression of Knox for the white and black sailors in the shop, and it always brought on great laughter. One day, Green did his impression in front of Knox himself. While everyone was laughing, Knox was clueless and asked what was so funny.     

 

As we were pulling out a dirty filter one day, Green told me that Knox went to the “Jungle” in Olongapo during the carrier’s previous visit to Subic Bay in the Philippines. The Jungle was the section of the wide-open sin city that black sailors frequented. The black sailors preferred to be segregated and did not take kindly to white sailors intruding on their territory.  

Knox, who must have thought he was an honorary black guy, visited a bar in the Jungle and was promptly beaten severely by several black sailors. Thankfully for Knox, the heavily armed shore patrol happened to enter the bar and disrupted the beating. Knox was bloodied and stunned as the shore patrol took him to the base hospital. 

Green also told me that Knox sold heroin aboard the ship. He said Knox was supplied by a Filipino drug dealer in Olongapo. Knox supported his own habit by selling the drug to other sailors while we were at sea off the coast of Vietnam. Green said that if Roscoe found out, he would boot Knox out of the shop. Booze was one thing, but Roscoe hated drugs.

When two drug users overdosed and nearly died on the heroin Knox sold them, a civilian Naval Investigative Service (NIS) special agent was flown aboard the carrier from Subic Bay to investigate. He interrogated the two sailors who survived the drug overdoses, and both sailors gave up Knox as their drug dealer.  

After Knox was arrested by the NIS special agent, he wasted little time giving up his Filipino dealer in Olongapo, as well as his many customers aboard the ship. He implicated several sailors. I was one of the sailors.  

I was summoned to the legal office where a tall, lean, and lanky civilian was standing behind a desk. I sat down in the chair across from him. He introduced himself as NIS Special Agent Cantrell and he passed a sheet of paper across the desk to me. The “Lincolnesque” special agent from West Virginia spoke slowly and softly with a smooth Southern accent.

“Sign this,” he said.

“Do you mind if I read it first?” 

The document was a confession that I was a heroin user. 

“Sign it and you’ll get a general discharge.” 

I pushed the paper back across the agent’s desk.  

“I’m not a heroin user,” I told the NIS special agent. “And I’m not going to sign that.”

“Suit yourself,” the NIS special agent said softly with a smile. “But if “Ole Boone” discovers that you are using heroin, you will go to prison.”

“Boone?”

“That’s me, Ole Boone Cantrell.”

I got up and left the office. 

Thankfully, there was no blow-back on Roscoe Davis due to Knox being his subordinate. Like me, Knox had been a disciplinarian problem who was assigned to the vent shop. For some reason, Knox did not tell the NIS special agent about Roscoe’s extracurricular criminal activities. Perhaps he thought Roscoe would kill him. 

 

My 30-day detail was coming to an end. Returning to the vent shop one day with dirty filters, Roscoe handed me the phone. Chief Helm was on the line, and he asked me if I was ready to come back to the division. I hesitated, but then said yes.

Roscoe shook my hand.

“If you ever fuck up again, you’ll be welcome back here,” Roscoe said with a wide grin.                       

Upon my return to the Communications Radio Division, I was greeted with handshakes and back slaps. Hobbs, I was told, was assigned to the other duty section, so we would no longer work together. 

Hobbs was so disliked by most of the guys that some of them told me that they wished that they had been there when I punched him out.  

The event was summed up nicely by Willie Henry, who hated Hobbs.   

“Someone now has 30 teeth and a different attitude.” 

© 2024 By Paul Davis 

Note: You can read other Olongapo stories 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: Chapter Two: Salvatore Lorino