My Washington Times On Crime Column On The Best Mystery Stories Of The Year: 2021

The Washington Times published my On Crime Column on The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021. 

Mystery and crime short stories are popular with readers and Otto Penzler (seen in the below photo), the president and CEO of MysteriousPress.com and the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, offers another fine anthology of crime and mystery short stories.

 

“The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021,” guest-edited by Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher thriller series, offers short stories from some of our best writers, such as James Lee Burke, Stephen King and Joyce Carrol Oates.

 

“Long ago, I came to agree with the brilliant John Dickson Carr, who wisely averred that the natural form of the traditional mystery is not the novel but the short story,” Otto Penzler noted in the introduction to the book. “It is not uncommon for a detective story to revolve around a single significant clue – which can be discovered, divulged, and its importance explained in a few pages. Everything else is embellishment, and novels have more of this than short stories.”

 

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/14/book-review-the-best-mystery-stories-of-the-year-2/ 

Butterfly

Butterfly is the first chapter of a crime thriller I hope to publish this year.

Butterfly 

By Paul Davis 

I lived in what we considered a tough neighborhood in South Philadelphia when I was a teenager in the 1960s. I ran with a tough crowd on the mean streets of South Philly, but I would later discover that Olongapo in the early 1970s was a truly tough town. 

I recall an old Navy chief telling me and other young sailors on the USS Kitty Hawk about the notorious port city as the aircraft carrier sailed towards the Philippines in November of 1970. The chief, who had been around the world while serving many years in the U.S. Navy, told us that Olongapo was the wildest place he had ever seen.

 “Once you walk across the bridge over Shit River into Olongapo, you’ll be corrupted quickly by sexy bar girls, cheap booze, available drugs, and all sorts of crime,” the old chief said with a mischievous grin.

During the Vietnam War, Olongapo, the city located next to the massive U.S. Navy Base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, was like Dodge City, Las Vegas, and Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled into one. The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet ships that operated off the coast of Vietnam during the war were frequent visitors to Subic Bay, as the naval base provided repairs and replenishment to the warships.

As the pent-up American sailors left the ships and swarmed into Olongapo, the city’s shadier elements were waiting. Sailors walked out of the naval base’s gate and crossed over the small bridge above the Olongapo River, called “Shit River” by the Americans due to its muddy brown color and pungent smell. Despite the filth and pollution, several small children on boats were willing to slip into the river and dive for the coins the sailors tossed from the bridge into the water. 

On the other side of the bridge was Olongapo’s main street, Magsaysay Drive. Known as the “Strip,” there was a seemingly endless line of bars, restaurants and hotels all lit up in colorful neon lights. The street was noisy and crowded with passing American sailors and Marines, street vendors, drug dealers, pickpockets, thieves, con artists, armed robbers and innocent-looking young shoeshine boys who were known to hold a razor against a sailor’s heel until he handed over his wallet.

Also on the crowded street were scores of young, attractive Filipinas enticing sailors to come into their bar with blown kisses, swaying hips, pushed out breasts, and shaking derrieres. Occasionally a girl would use strong-arm tactics, such as grabbing a young sailor by the arm and yanking him into the bar and announcing loudly that she had a “Cherry Boy” virgin. 

Crossing Magsaysay Drive was often a case of bravery or foolhardiness, as one could be hit by one of the ubiquitous “jeepneys,” Olongapo’s colorfully decorated minibuses that were converted from American jeeps abandoned after World War II.

The American dollar was like gold in the early 1970s, and one could spend a wild night in Olongapo drinking, eating, dancing, and staying in a hotel room with a local beauty for only about $20.

I was 18 years old when I first visited Olongapo in 1970. I was a cocky, street-smart South Philly kid, as well as a lean and muscular amateur middleweight boxer, so I was not intimidated by the barrage of sights, sounds and smells of this strange town like so many other young sailors who first experience it. I was also not fazed when a bar girl grabbed my arm outside of a bar and yanked me towards the bar’s entrance.

“You so young and handsome,” the pretty Filipina said as she tugged my arm.  “You Cherry Boy?” I pulled my arm loose from her grip and replied, “Not hardly.”

Thankfully, I had good friends on the aircraft carrier who had visited Olongapo during the Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise, and they warned me about the dangers and pitfalls, as well as the delights, of the notorious city. As an aspiring crime writer, Olongapo sounded like just the place for me.

All American servicemen were duly warned of the dangers when visiting Olongapo’s bars and other establishments. One rule pounded into the sailors by the older sailors was not to “Butterfly” in individual bars. To butterfly was to associate with two bar girls, called “Hostesses,” in any one bar. The bar girls were protective of their claimed sailors and the money they earned from the sailors buying them whisky (actually Coke) and champagne (actually 7-Up). The price of a drink for the girls was only about a buck, so the sailors didn’t mind paying this apparent scam. But the bar girls resented another bar girl poaching on their moneymakers.

When a sailor would butterfly, whether on his own initiative or by the encouragement of another bar girl, the aggrieved bar girl would often fly into a rage and attack the other bar girl, and sometimes the offending sailor. 

Even before I set foot in Olongapo, I heard the much-repeated cautionary tale about an American sailor who committed the offense and paid a dear price. The bar girl he had been seeing was so mad when he flirted with another bar girl that she attacked the girl on the dance floor. To the consternation of the bar’s manager and the utter delight of the American sailors, the two girls pulled hair, and kicked and punched each other. 

 The Filipino manager and his waiters pulled the two girls apart. The offended girl then went to her purse and pulled out her Batangas knife, a weapon more commonly known as a “Butterfly” knife. The knife had two handles with the sharp blade concealed in the groves of the handles. When flashed, flipped and fanned by someone who knew what they are doing, the butterfly knife was a most scary and deadly thing. 

 This bar girl knew how to use the butterfly knife and she charged the butterflying sailor and slit his throat as he sat in a chair. He died on the way to the base hospital.

 

On my first visit to Olongapo in early December of 1970, I went into one of the bars with some shipmates and met a pretty girl who sat with me as I bought her drinks. I had fun drinking and dancing with her, and we ended up in a hotel room for the night. I returned to the ship the following morning and we soon shoved off for our first “Yankee Station” line period in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.   

We spent Christmas on Yankee Station, but we pulled back into Subic Bay on December 31st, New Year's Eve. Not everyone was glad to see us. The American sailors stationed on the base and on smaller ships hated when an aircraft carrier pulled into port. With the carrier’s 4, 700 men going ashore with money in their pockets and eager for action, the city’s inhabitants went all out to receive them. 

In a case of reverse butterflying, two sailors stationed on the base at Subic Bay resented the Kitty Hawk’s sailors taking over the city on that first night in port. One base sailor was truly angry, as his regular girl at the bar ignored him and cuddled up to a young Kitty Hawk sailor. The base sailor got drunk along with his pal and when the girl went to the restroom, the two base sailors pounced on the Kitty Hawk sailor. They beat him to the floor and one of the two assailants broke a bottle of beer over his head. 

The Kitty Hawk sailor was beaten unconscious before other sailors and the Filipino waiters could break it up. The Philippine police and the U.S. Navy Shore Patrol rushed into the bar and took hold of the two base sailors. The Kitty Hawk sailor was gravely injured, and he was taken by two Shore Patrol petty officers to the base hospital. The two base sailors were released by the Philippine police into the custody of two other Shore Patrol petty officers and a junior officer. The Shore Patrol petty officers handcuffed the pair and escorted them to the base, where they were charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder by civilian Naval Investigative Service (NIS) special agents.

 

The story of the assault on the Kitty Hawk sailor spread quickly all over Olongapo. I heard the story from another sailor as I sat in the Starlight bar with two of my shipmates from the Kitty Hawk’s Communications Radio (CR) Division, Dino Ingemi, a solid six-footer with thinning dark hair, who was an outgoing and funny guy from the Bronx, and Mike Hunt, a brawny, laid-back Californian whose light brown hair, ski nose and easygoing manner belied his background as an outlaw biker prior to enlisting in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army. Both Ingemi and Hunt were Olongapo veterans, having visited the wild city the year before during Kitty Hawk’s previous combat cruise. 

 As I was half-Italian on my mother’s side and I grew up in a predominantly Italian American South Philadelphia neighborhood, I called Dino Ingemi my paisan. “Just another fun night in Olongapo, Paul,” my paisan said. “That kind of shit won’t happen here at the Starlight.”

The Filipino band at the Starlight had everyone jumping and dancing to their renditions of popular American songs of the time. The Filipino musicians were incredible mimics, sounding like Sly and the Family Stone with one song, the Four Tops with another, and then went on to sound eerily like the Beatles in yet another number. 

We were all dressed in “civies,” as sailors called civilian clothes, and I was wearing a short-sleeved tan and black Italian knit shirt and black slacks. I was something of a clotheshorse, and I differed from most of the other sailors, who were usually clad simply in tie-dyed t-shirts and jeans. Thankfully, the then-chief of naval operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the enlisted man’s hero, allowed sailors to go ashore in civies rather than in uniform.

We sat at a table drinking bottles of San Miguel, the local beer, when I was approached by Linda Divita, a slim, pretty girl who swayed around me to the music and then pulled me up from my chair to dance with her.  Linda had long dark hair and long lovely legs beneath her short black dress. The low cut of her dress afforded one the view of her mostly exposed small breasts.

 Dino Ingemi approved.  

“She’s got a great ass and cute little tits,” Ingemi said to me when we finally sat back down. I nodded in agreement as Ingemi was smacked on the arm by Marlena Abadiano, the pretty girl he had been seeing since he first visited Olongapo the year before. 

Dino Ingemi was very social and made friends easily. He had become close with the Starlight manager, Samuel Rosalita, during the previous cruise. Rosalita joined us at our table and laughed and drank with us. He gave me his business card and another card that read “Welcome to the Starlight: Charming A-Go-Go dancers, Beautiful Ladies and Outstanding Combos.”

I mentioned to Ingemi that Rosalita looked like the entertainer Sammy Davis Jr, and Ingemi began to call him “Sammy,” much to the manager’s delight. Rosalita chuckled and shook his head at everything Ingemi said.  

I had a fun night drinking and dancing with Linda that New Year's Eve at the Starlight, and when the bar closed, I took her to a nearby hotel. I was drunk and worried that the girl would steal my money when I fell asleep, so when she was in the bathroom, I looked for a place to hide my slim black leather wallet that held my Navy ID and my cash. I looked up at the light fixture mounted on the ceiling six feet above me. Thinking I was clever, I tossed my wallet up onto the glass fixture underneath the light bulb.

Linda came out of the bathroom and threw her arms around me and laughed crazily. She was loopy drunk, but she was wild, sexy and fun in bed with me right up until the moment she passed out in my arms. In the morning, I could not wake her. I knew she was alive, as she moaned and muttered, but she would not move from her face down position on the bed. I found a handful of “Red Devils,” a barbiturate, on the bedside table next to her purse. I didn’t know how many of the pills she took, but I was concerned.

I dressed her and left the room. Rosalita’s business card did not have a telephone number on it, so I went to the front desk and I slipped five dollars to one of the clerks and asked him to go and get the Starlight manager.  

I went back to the room and saw that Linda was still out. About a half hour later, there was a knock on the door. Rosalita came in, accompanied by one of his waiters and an older woman who was the Mama-San for the bar. Rosalita thanked me for contacting him and then looked at Linda on the bed. He cursed her in Tagalog. The two men lifted Linda and took her out of the room. After they left, I looked up at the ceiling light and tried to retrieve my wallet, but it was beyond my reach. I went down to the front desk and asked the clerks for a ladder. They looked puzzled. I returned to my room with two Filipinos and a ladder in tow. They stood in the doorway in amazement as I climbed the ladder and retrieved my wallet.

I gave each of the hotel clerks a five-dollar bill for their trouble as I was leaving the hotel room. The two Filipinos took the money as they laughed uncontrollably.

“Fuck you,” I said to them, although I had to laugh along with them.

Back at the carrier, I took a shower, ate lunch in the galley and then I took a nap in my rack. When I awoke, I took another shower and changed into a black dress shirt and light gray slacks. I met up with Hunt and Ingemi and we all headed out to Olongapo and the Starlight. We took a table and Marlena came over with Hunt’s girl Carmelina and sat with us. I was thankful that I didn’t see Linda. Rosalita came over to the table with a waiter armed with a tray of San Miguel beers. 

Marlena whispered into Ingemi’s ear, and he nodded. Marlena got up and left the table. She returned to our table with a beautiful girl that she introduced to us as her sister, Zeny Abadiano.

Zeny had long, raven hair with bangs cut just above her dark, sultry eyes. She had a pretty face and an alluring figure. At 5’ 11,’ I towered over her five-foot stature when we danced. In addition to her being an exotic beauty, Zeny was sexy, smart and funny. I was drawn to her immediately.

And I forgot all about Linda. 

 

After the bar closed, Ingemi, Hunt and I took the girls to a nearby hotel. In my hotel room, I took Zeny in my arms, unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. I told her she was beautiful as I kissed her madly, and we fell across the bed. 

A couple of hours later, I heard a pounding on the door. I jumped up and retrieved my pocketknife from under the pillow. I heard Linda on the other side of the door. 

“Paul! Paul! Open up!” I heard her holler. “I want to talk to you!” 

Zeny pulled the sheet over her head and giggled. “Oh, you think this is funny?”  I told Linda to go away.

“Paul, open up. I want to talk to you!” Linda said in a screeching and blood-curdling voice. Of course, I didn’t open the door. I then heard what I presumed were hotel employees arguing with Linda in Tagalog, and thankfully the voices outside the door finally ceased. 

“So, you think a crazy, drugged girl coming to the room was funny,” I said to Zeny as I took her once again in my arms.  

 

I was awakened in the morning by a pounding on the door. Not again, I thought. But then I heard Ingemi’s voice. I hollered out to Ingemi that I would be ready in a half hour. I took a shower with Zeny and afterwards I sat in a chair, and she stood in front of me nude and dried my hair with a towel. She took my pocket comb and    combed my short, dark brown hair, carefully parting it on the left side. I pulled her wonderfully luscious body towards me and hugged her.

I met Ingemi and Hunt outside of the hotel and we grabbed a jeepney and headed back to the ship.

Later that evening, Ingemi and I returned to the Starlight.

Zeny and Marlena were waiting for us and the four of us took a table. Rosalita waved to us and motioned to a waiter, who quickly came over with San Miguel beers. While we were drinking at the table, Linda suddenly appeared by my side. Zeny grabbed my arm and snuggled up close to me. Linda was clearly angry and deranged. 

“You butterfly, you motherfucker!” 

“Get the fuck out of here,” I replied calmly, tilting my head slightly to the right while trying to sound like a South Philly half-a-hoodlum.

“I get you good, motherfucker,” Linda said with a snarl.  

Rosalita rushed over to the table and spoke harshly in Tagalog to Linda. She spat on the table and walked away. Rosalita apologized and left us. Zeny and Marlena were unfazed, and Ingemi was laughing uncontrollably. Linda sat at a nearby table with some poor sailor and began cursing me loudly in English and Tagalog.  

“She crazy,” Zeny said, kissing me to further anger Linda. 

Linda then began to fling lit cigarettes at us. Then she threw a beer bottle that hit our table. Ingemi, who was no longer laughing, got up and walked over to Rosalita. Rosalita listened briefly to Ingemi and then marched over to Linda, and he must have told her in no uncertain terms to cut it out. 

We resumed drinking, dancing, and having fun and I tried to ignore Linda. A while later I got up to go to the men’s room, which was on the other side of a wall that separated the bar from the rest rooms, the kitchen, and storerooms. When I came out of the men’s room, I encountered Linda in my path. 

“You butterfly me, you son a bitch,” Linda hissed. “I kill you.” 

From behind her back, Linda produced a Butterfly knife and began to twirl it in front of me. As she flashed and fanned the knife in a menacing fashion, I threw a short right punch that hit her square in the face. She went down, her nose and teeth bloody, and she lay motionless on the floor. Rosalita and two waiters rushed in, and my immediate thought was that I would have to fight them all. But Rosalita cursed Linda, who lay unconscious, and he kicked her twice. The two waiters picked up Linda and took her away. 

Rosalita apologized profusely to me, and I walked back to the table and told everyone what happened. 

 

From then on, whenever the carrier visited Subic Bay, I went to the Starlight and stayed with Zeny. 

I never again saw Linda, and no one ever said what had become of her.

And I never asked.  

© 2022 By Paul Davis 

A Christmas Crime Story

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

A Christmas Crime Story

By Paul Davis

 

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

Me? I go to cop bars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I’m married.

And I have a teenage daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Big Move

 The below short story originally appeared in The Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2009:

The Big Move

By Paul Davis

Dominic Fortino was forced to serve out many after school detentions in the school’s small library.

Fortino was ordered to detention again on this particular day due to his attempt to push Mr. Pidot’s desk out of a second story classroom window.

Jonathan Pidot was a pompous, dumpy young man of 28 with an oversized head, wispy light hair, and huge ears that turned bright red when he became angry or frustrated. His cartoon character looks and high-pitch squeak of a voice made him the perfect foil for teenage class clowns.

He was the most hated teacher in Thomas Junior High School in South Philadelphia during the mid-1960s.

Pidot spent much of the day complaining about the excessive heat coming off the radiators in his classroom. Although it was 30 degrees outside, it was close to 90 degrees in the classroom. Pidot threw open the classroom’s oversize windows to let in the cold air, but it didn’t help much. The students were hot, but many of them were glad that the math test scheduled for that day was postponed due to the heat and Pidot’s fit over the heat.

At one point Pidot told the class that he was going to confront the custodian and walked out of the classroom. Fortino and a few other students jumped out of their seats, picked up Pidot’s desk and attempted to push it out the window.

Although the open window was wide, the old, wooden desk jammed in the widow frame, with half of the desk and two legs dangling over the Johnson Street pavement. The more they tried to push the desk through the window, the more it wedged firmly into the frame.

Someone called out that Pidot was coming and the students rushed back to their seats. Fortino ignored the warning as he was determined to push the desk out of the window with his brute force.

“What are you doing? Are you insane?” Pidot screamed in disbelief as he entered the classroom.

Pidot was not amused by the prank, but the students’ laughter was heard throughout the school. Pidot’s large ears were flaming red as he shrieked insults at Fortino.

Fortino sat down in his seat calmly. He was impassive throughout Pidot’s verbal assault, as he was twice Pidot’s size, and he feared no one. “Big Dom,” as Fortino was known, was a teenager, but he looked like a forty-year-old man. Make that a large, tough, and rugged 40-year-old.

Winded from screaming at Fortino, Pidot threw up his hands in disgust and stormed out the classroom. He charged down the hall and bounced down the stairs to the vice principal’s office on the first floor of the school.

Later in the vice principal’s office Fortino told her that he never intended to push Pidot’s desk out of the window. It was just a joke. The vice principal was not amused. She placed Fortino on suspension and ordered him to return to school in a week’s time with his parents.

Pidot was not satisfied with the punishment and he insisted that Fortino also serve detention. Pidot was big on detention. The vice principal agreed and instructed Fortino to report to detention after classes.

At detention that afternoon in the library Pidot ordered Fortino to read something — anything. A book was out of the question, so Fortino picked up a magazine and glanced at the photos simply to placate Pidot, who sat nearby grading papers and muttering.

The “desk in the window” stunt became a huge joke throughout the school. Even the custodian, who had to dislodge the desk from the window frame, laughed about it. Like the students, the custodian hated Pidot.

The stunt so irritated Pidot that with the vice principal’s permission he formed a teacher’s committee with the goal of identifying and removing the school’s 12 most disruptive students.

Of course, Fortino was one of the designed “12 Most Wanted.” 

I was another.

I was a class clown and I used to crack jokes and offer sarcastic asides during class. I always received a good laugh when I would mimic Pidot’s catch phrase, “Is this a joke?” Pidot would often utter this phrase when students did not meet his so-called high standards of learning.

Other students picked up on my impression and when Pidot walked through the halls one would always hear several students in falsetto voices say “Is this a joke?” This infuriated Pidot and he knew I was the originator.

I was an idea man as well. I pulled my own stupid stunts, but I also conceived of pranks and mischief that Fortino and others went on to commit on my suggestion. In fact, I must now admit that it was I who suggested we push Pidot’s desk out the window. I hated Pidot and the feeling was mutual.

Pidot and his committee came up with the "Pidot Plan," which called for teachers to watch the designated 12 Most Wanted, catch us, one-by-one, in the act, and then transfer us to Daniel Boone, which was a special disciplinary school for young hoodlums.

Pidot told his fellow teachers that Fortino, for example, was not only disruptive; he was incapable of learning. One teacher on the committee, Mr. Rockland, disagreed.

Ronald Rockland was a short fireplug of a man with short-cropped gray hair. He was a tough, no-nonsense English teacher. We all thought he was a cool guy, and no one would have dared to push his desk out of a window.

Rockland, who encouraged my dream of becoming a writer, must have felt there was some hope for me, as he took me aside and warned me about the Pidot Plan. He advised me to stay out of trouble.

I continued to pull stunts, of course, but I was careful not to get caught. Although I had in turn warned my fellow 12 Most Wanted about the Pidot Plan, Fortino and nine other guys would eventually be kicked out of school and shipped off to Daniel Boone. 

Of the 12 Most Wanted, only Mike Rossini, who, amazingly, was a straight-A-student, and me, a class clown, minor hoodlum and marginal student, went on to graduate Thomas Junior High School.

I loved my three years at Thomas, even if I didn’t learn much there. I had a lot of fun goofing off throughout school, which is probably why I’m not a millionaire doctor living in Gladwyne today.

And Pidot, I recently discovered, was wrong about Fortino. He was capable of learning.

That afternoon in the school’s library Fortino sat and looked at magazine photos of a luxury high-rise apartment in Center City Philadelphia. He stared at the photos of a wealthy couple’s splendid furniture, electronic equipment and art. He was impressed.

Fortino was so impressed that he vowed to one day steal it all.

Along with Fortino and most of our South Philly street corner gang, I dropped out of high school in the late 1960s. I enlisted in the Navy when I was 17 in 1970 and I sailed off to Southeast Asia on an aircraft carrier. Fortino was sent up the river the same year. 

Fortino spent most of his late teens and early twenties incarcerated, and he later became a member of the local mob.


I had not seen “Big Dom” Fortino in many years so I was somewhat taken aback when I was contacted by his lawyer. Fortino was sitting in a federal cell waiting to testify against his fellow criminals. He told his lawyer that he wanted to offer me an exclusive interview before he entered the Witness Protection Program and left Philadelphia.

According to the lawyer, Fortino read my column in the local paper. Well, I suppose he may have glanced at my column photo, but knowing that he was not big on reading, I doubted that he actually read my column.

I met with Fortino in the Federal Detention Center, located across the street from the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia. Big Dom had grown even bigger since our last meeting. He was now a massive, muscular guy, wide as a truck, and he had a face that only a hatchet could love. Fortino stood up and welcomed me with a rib-breaking hug and a couple of hard slapping thuds on the back.

We sat down on chairs facing each other across a table. I set out my notebook, pen and tape recorder on the table, and Fortino launched straight away into his story.


Fortino was a member of a rough crew that worked out of John Doe’s Bar & Grill in South Philadelphia. He had a reputation as a capable burglar and a vicious and effective strong-arm guy. He and his crew hit stores and warehouses at night. Fortino’s mob captain, Joseph “Joe Darts,” Argentieri, ran a major bookmaking and load sharking operation out of John Doe’s. Fortino, with his killer-reputation and killer-looks, collected gambling and loan shark debts for Argentieri.

When a doorman for a Center City high-rise apartment building fell behind in his gambling debts, Fortino recalled his school days and saw an opportunity to fulfill his dream of looting a high-rise, luxury apartment. 

The doorman, Bill Canfield, was a lean, hawk-faced, 50-year-old. He was a fast-talking, ingratiating, compulsive, degenerate gambler. To clear some of his dept and remain healthy, Canfield agreed to assist Fortino.

Canfield identified the richest tenant in the building as John Joyce, a 62-year-old real estate developer. Joyce was a balding, tall, thin, almost frail man, who wore large glasses on his pinched face. He lived alone in his vast apartment, and Canfield told Fortino that Joyce entered the lobby early every Sunday morning after spending Saturday night at a girlfriend’s home.

When Joyce walked into the lobby that one Sunday morning Fortino walked up to him and rammed the four-inch barrel of a .357 Smith & Weston revolver in his side. He forced Joyce into the elevator and they rode up to his apartment. With the gun barrel laid up against Joyce’s temple, Fortino had Joyce unlock the door and disable the alarm system once they were inside. Fortino called down and had his crew come up to the apartment. The four-man crew, dressed as moving men, carried dollies, hand trucks and other moving equipment.

With swift and quiet efficiency, the four experienced men moved every stick of furniture and household item out of the apartment. They moved the load into the freight elevator and then out into a large moving truck that was parked in the back of the building. If anyone happened to see the crew at work, they would assume that a tenant was moving out of the building.

Joyce sat still in a dinning room chair, too frightened to speak or move, as the crew moved all of his belongings out the door.

“A rich guy like you should eat more,” Fortino said as he lifted Joyce from the chair with ease. The chair was the last stick of furniture in the apartment, and Fortino handed it to one of his crew. The large apartment was now empty save for Joyce and Fortino.

Joyce was forced to take the elevator down to the garage with Fortino at his side, and they drove off in Joyce’s Lincoln Town Car, one of three cars that he had parked in the garage. They drove off towards North Philadelphia, while the moving truck drove off in the opposite direction towards a wholesale candy warehouse in South Philly.

Fortino swung the car to the curb near a subway stop on Broad Street. Fortino was stealing the car as well, so he told Joyce to get out and take the subway home.

“Call the cops when you get home and say you was robbed,” Fortino said as he pushed Joyce out of the car. “Say you found the place cleaned out when you got there. Got me?”

Joyce nodded in agreement.

“Hey, you’ll collect big-time on the insurance,” Fortino said with a grin. “Go rob those guys.”

Then Fortino abruptly turned cold and menacing and yanked Joyce back into the car. “But if you ever tell the cops about me or my guys, you’ll end up fuckin’ dead. Ya got me?”

Joyce again nodded in agreement and Fortino shoved him out into the street and drove off.

Joyce initially followed Fortino’s instructions, but as this was a bold crime, the detectives were persistent in their questioning. Joyce finally broke down and told the detectives the true story. But Joyce, still fearing retribution from the mad, giant criminal, claimed he could not identify any of the crooks, even though Fortino’s photo was one of the mug shots laid before him.

A University of Penn graduate student who believed his superior intellect would ensure that he made a killing on sports betting — but didn’t — was coerced into working for Fortino. Alec Pines, called “Smart Alec” by the crooks, was a grubby-looking nerd who appeared out of place among the rough-hewn, but better dressed hoodlums. Fortino wanted Pines to report to the candy warehouse so he could identify and place a value on the art, antique furniture and any other items of special value.

This was a big score for Fortino. “Joe Darts” Argentieri, a slim, dapper, silver-haired man of 60, was proud and happy as Pines added up the estimated value of the score.

Argentieri and Fortino discussed “moving” – the criminal term for the profitable disposal of stolen items — the contents of the lavish apartment. Argentieri said he knew some people in New Jersey who would be very interested in the haul.

“This is a big fuckin’ score,” Argentieri told Fortino. “You’ll get a lotta respect for this work, I gotta tell ya, and you're gonna make us a lotta fuckin’ money.”


This would have been a perfect score had not one of Fortino’s crew been arrested by the FBI. The FBI pinched Steven Fritts for federal drug charges unrelated to the apartment job. With a growing family and a growing drug-habit, Fritts feared doing hard time in prison.

So he gave up Big Dom.

He told the FBI about the apartment job and the location of the warehouse. The FBI and the Philadelphia Police raided the warehouse. They also hit John Doe’s and arrested Fortino and his crew.

Despite his record as a poor student, Fortino did the math. As he was in his late 50s, he knew he might die in prison.

So he gave up Joe Darts.

Fortino was a gold mine of information concerning the local mob, and he confessed to aiding Argentieri in the murder of two rivals five years prior. He offered to tell the FBI and the Philly detectives where the bodies — or to be precise, the body parts — were buried. The Assistant U.S. Attorney was very happy with Fortino, and she arranged a very good deal for him.


So there we were in the Federal Detention Center. Fortino told me that his wife and young son were already out of state, safe in the Witness Protection Program. He said he would join them when he finished his testimony.

Fortino said that he was thankful that before the FBI went out and arrested Argentieri, the FBI agents escorted Fortino to his home, where he, his wife and his brother-in-law loaded up a truck with all of their household belongings for the trip out of state.

“Nobody suspected a thing. We were in and out in two hours,” Fortino said proudly. “After all, I know how to fuckin’ move furniture.”

© 2009 By Paul Davis