From South Philly To Sicily

 By Paul Davis 

I visited Sicily in 1975, five years before the Rigano murders. 

I was a young, enlisted sailor stationed aboard the USS Saugus, a U.S. Navy harbor tugboat at the American nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

I previously served on the USS Kitty Hawk as the aircraft carrier performed combat operations on “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam during the final years of the Vietnam War. I was separated from the Navy in December of 1971, and after two years of broken service, I went back into the Navy. I was assigned to the tugboat, so I went from serving on one of the largest warships in the world to a 100-foot boat. 

During the Cold War the U.S. Navy base at Holy Loch was the headquarters of Submarine Squadron 14 (COMSUBRON 14). The base, called "Site One," consisted of the USS Canopus, a 644-foot-long ship called a submarine tender, a floating dry dock that could accommodate submarines, and a large barge with a super crane. All were anchored squarely in the middle of the loch.

Submarines ventured to Site One from the sea before and after their patrols and tied up to the anchored submarine tender. The submarines received supplies, maintenance and repairs at the floating Navy base. The base also had several small boats that were tied up to the barge. Two of the boats were 100-foot harbor tugboats, which were the workhorses of the bustling naval base.

The USS Saugus (YTB 780) and the USS Natick (YTB 760) towed ships, barges, submarines and other craft in, out and around the site, as well as put out fires and broke up oil slicks. The tugboats were also sent to sea often to rendezvous with submarines for medivacs, classified missions, and the tugboats performed in exercises with the submerged submarines. During the winter months the tugboat sailed into rough and cold seas, gale force winds and high waves.

Working on the tugboat was hard, physical and dangerous, but we were proud of our service. Working with the rugged and independent crew on the tugboat felt like I was serving in McHale's Navy, one of my favorite TV shows from my youth. 

On my time off, I traveled across the British Isles as well as Ireland, France, Spain and Germany. As I was nearing the end of my enlistment, I took a week’s leave and ventured to Sicily, the island where my mother’s parents had come from. 

I enjoyed Sicily’s wonderful scenery, food and people, and as a student of crime, I was fascinated with Sicily’s darker side. 

I was warned by fellow sailors who had been stationed in Sicily not to fool with Sicilian women, as Sicilian men could be dangerous, but several pretty young girls flirted openly with me. The American dollar went very far in Europe in those days, so I was treated like an American prince. 

I met one beautiful girl who was a waitress in a Palermo café and spoke English well. She introduced herself as Nina. She had lustrous dark hair, lovely light olive skin and a full enticing figure. She returned often to my table, filling my wine glass and smiling at me. 

I asked her to have a drink with me after her shift, and we went to a bar and drank wine together and talked for hours. She said she was interested in America and wanted to immigrant to New York. I told her that I lived in South Philadelphia in the “Little Italy” section, and that I was half-Sicilian. She warmly embraced me. 

The following day we met, and she took me on a bus ride to the beach at Mondello, where we swam in the Mediterranean Sea and ate and drank heartily at a nearby restaurant. 

Lounging on the beach and looking out at the beautiful sea, I told Nina that I would soon be leaving the Navy and returning home to Philadelphia. I told her that I wanted to attend college and major in journalism, as I’ve always wanted to be a writer. 

As I looked out at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, I asked Nina why she wanted to leave all this for America. 

“There is limited opportunity here for a girl like me,” she replied. “But in America, there is unlimited opportunities.” 

“Well, there are some limits,” I told her. “And there is luck as well.” 

She smiled broadly and leaned over and kissed me. I enjoyed that day at Mondello and as we were leaving, we made plans to meet again the following day in Palermo at her café. 

When I returned to her café, I sat at an outdoor table and waited for her. I saw a small group of serious-looking hard men who were mulling around the café.  

Nina joined me at my table, and she told me in an excited voice that she had informed her father that my mother’s family came from Sicily and that I lived in South Philadelphia. Her father in turn told his Padrone, Don Nunzio Stillitano, who also came from South Philadelphia in America. 

As an aspiring crime writer, I knew very well who Nunzio Stillitano was. Known as “Nick the Broker,” he was a former boxing promoter and gambler, and he was the caporegime, or captain, of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s Wildwood, New Jersey crew. 

Despite coming from a relatively small organized crime crew in Wildwood, Stillitano was a powerful and influential criminal. His power and influence came from his national boxing promotions and illegal gambling, and his brokering overseas criminal enterprises as a representative of the American Cosa Nostra Crime Commission. 

Stillitano was involved in world-wide gambling, narcotics and other criminal enterprises. The FBI and the DEA claimed he headed a modern-day “Murder Inc,” group that strictly enforced Cosa Nostra’s criminal enterprises overseas. 

Stillitano became wealthy as he received a percentage of all the gambling and narcotic deals that he brokered. He also made the crime commission’s members wealthy, which made them happy. 

And according to Nina, he was the dapper, lean and gray-haired elderly man who was seated at a table near us. Nina said that Don Nunzio wanted to meet me. 

Nina took me to his table. Stillitano told me and Nina to sit, and he poured us wine from the bottle on his table. We ordered lunch. 

He was a very polite old school gentleman. He appeared to retain just a bit of his old South Philly accent. He told me to call him Nick. 

I took note of his elderly handsome features but what stood out to me was his large, protruding, and cold black eyes that belied his courtly manners and dress. 

I told him I recalled seeing him often at Rocco’s Gym in South Philadelphia when I was a teenager. I was an amateur boxer at the South Philly Boy’s Club along with my friend Tony DeAngelo, whose uncle was Rocco DeAngelo, a former professional boxer who owned and operated the gym on Passyunk Avenue. 

I loved going to the gym and hitting the bags alongside pro fighters. And I enjoyed seeing the famous former and current fighters who came to visit. Stillitano also came into the gym, impeccably dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt, black tie and shined shoes. 

Stillitano was well-known in South Philly as a boxing promoter and a Philadelphia Cosa Nostra member. He was treated like royalty at the gym, although he acted like a businessman rather than a gangster.  

Stillitano laughed at my recollection and said he remembered Rocco and his gym very well. He asked about me and my family. I told him my late mother was a Guardino, and my maternal grandparents came from Palermo. We also talked about South Philly, which he had not seen in some time. 

He asked me what I planned to do when I got out of the Navy, and I told him that I wanted to become a writer. 

“Newspaper guy or book writer?” he asked. 

“Both, I hope,” I replied. 

“Like Hemingway?” 

“Well, yes. Hemingway was one of my favorite writers, and many other writers I admire also worked as newspaper reporters before they wrote novels.”                          

 “I met Hemingway in Cuba. Good guy. I knew many newspaper guys from the old days, but a man in my tradition,” he told me that day in Sicily, “does not speak about himself publicly.” 

We talked about Cuba, Hemingway and South Philly for about an hour, and I was taken aback that he spoke openly about himself and his criminal life – up to a point - often using the euphemism “in my tradition.” 

The tradition being the Cosa Nostra way of life. 

After eating, Nina stood up and I followed suit. I shook hands with Stillitano, and he wished me luck in my future endeavors. I thanked him, but I refrained from wishing him further success in the crime and murder business. He kissed Nina on her cheek, and he walked away from of the café slowly, the serious-looking men following in his wake. 

I would go on to spend two more wonderful days with Nina before I headed back to Scotland. 

I returned home to Philadelphia in 1976. Since then, I have often thought about Sicily, about Nina, and about my meeting with Nunzio Stillitano. I thought it portended the future that I, an aspiring crime writer, met one of the biggest criminals in the world many years before I became a published writer. 

And now, so many years later, having achieved my dream of becoming a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I was on my way to interview Salvatore Stillitano, Nunzio Stillitano’s son. 

Salvatore Stillitano, a fourth-generation Cosa Nostra member, was known by mobsters, cops and reporters as a “Mafia Prince.” 

'The Rigano Murders'

 The Rigano Murders 

By Paul Davis

Rigano’s was crowded on that Friday evening in January of 1980.

People were lined up three deep at the nightclub’s long bar as they waited to buy drinks from the busy bartenders. Many others danced wildly and happily to club music on the large, square dance floor under a glitter ball that flashed roving light beams down upon them.

The well-dressed crowd was mixed, but many of the patrons were young people in their 20s from nearby South Philadelphia. They crossed the Walt Whitman bridge from South Philadelphia and drove to the upscale neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to visit the trendy nightclub. Among the South Philadelphia patrons were a dozen or so of the younger members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.    

The young criminals from South Philadelphia were more than welcome at Rigano’s, as they were flashy big spenders and the two owners were themselves members of Cosa Nostra, although they were connected to the New York Bonfiglio crime family by way of Sicily.

The two owners and operators of the nightclub were Ciro and Angelo Rigano. The two brothers hailed from Palermo, Sicily. The 26 and 25-year-old stocky brothers with curly black hair looked like twins. They left Sicily to make their reputation and fortune in America. Their entry into America was sponsored by their father’s cousin, Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the New York Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

The Rigano brothers’ popular and successful nightclub was not their primary source of income. The two brothers made the bulk of their money selling heroin, using the nightclub as their base. Their dealers spread across the region.

To operate in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s territory, Bonfiglio had to approach Angelo Bruno, his longtime friend and fellow Cosa Nostra National Crime Commission member, and ask him for permission for his second cousins to set up a nightclub and heroin operation in the Philly mob’s territory. Of course, Bonfiglio offered Bruno a percentage of the drug sales. Bruno agreed.

Bruno and Bonfiglio were partners in several criminal ventures, from organizing overseas high-end gambling junkets to promoting and “fixing” national boxing matches. Bruno and Bonfiglio also voted together whenever an issue came to a head at the National Cosa Nostra Crime Commission.   

Known as a businessman and racketeer rather than a violent gangster, Bruno was a friend to politicians, cops, entertainers and his South Philadelphia neighbors. He made most of his money from illegal gambling, loansharking and controlling unions. Although in his more than two decades as the Philly boss, he had men killed and many more beaten over serious issues, he much preferred to negotiate and exert influence over others rather than commit violence.

In one situation in 1969, a heroin addict named Michael “Blackie” Russo was holding up mob-run card games. Russo was called Blackie due to his raven-black long hair and scraggily black beard, and he was recognized easily by the poker players when he waved a long-barreled revolver at them and demanded they place the money on the table, and their wallets, watches and rings into a pillow sack.

When the series of robberies were reported to Bruno, his underlings asked the mob boss for the authority to murder the drug addict. Bruno gave Russo a pass, as the addict was a nephew to a made member.

“Lean on him,” Bruno ordered. “Tell him to go rob liquor stores.”

But despite a “good talking to” by his uncle, Russo went on to hold up another game. Bruno’s underlings, including Russo’s uncle, called for Russo to be “whacked,” but Bruno ordered that Russo be given “a good beating.”

When Russo recovered from the beating, he needed money for his drugs, so he went out and robbed another card game. Only then did Bruno reluctantly order that Russo be murdered.          

Bruno was born Angelo Annaloro in Sicily in 1910. His conciliatory reputation began in 1959 when the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Ida fled the United States to avoid narcotic charges. Antonio “Mr. Miggs” Pollina succeeded Ida as the crime family boss.

Concerned about Bruno as a rival, Pollino ordered an underling to murder him. Instead, the underling informed Bruno of the murder plot. Bruno went to the Commission in New York to redress his grievance. The Commission sided with Bruno and authorized him to murder Pollino and become head of the Philadelphia crime family.

Instead, Bruno spared Pollino’s life and told him to retire from Cosa Nostra and move away from Philadelphia. Bruno then became the Philadelphia boss.

With his easy-going public demeaner, pencil moustache, white hair, jeff cap and big glasses, Bruno appeared to be everyone’s kindly grandfather. But in private, he ruled his crime family with an iron hand. But as the 1980s began, many in his crime family came to resent him for his greed and his old school Cosa Nostra ways. 

Allowing the Rigano brothers to sell heroin in Cherry Hill, New Jersey infuriated Bruno’s captains, soldiers and associates, as he forbade them to sell narcotics. It was bad enough that despite Bruno’s edict on narcotics, he turned a blind eye as the biggest methamphetamine dealer in Philadelphia operated openly in Bruno’s South Philly neighborhood as well as across the city.

The mobsters also knew that Bruno received a weekly fat envelope full of cash from the “meth” dealer. Now, Bruno was receiving another fat envelope from the Sicilian heroin dealers. And he was not sharing any of that tribute drug money with anyone under him.

The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra troops under Bruno were not happy.

Ricardo “Ricky” Amato, a tall, thin man in his 50s with a pinched face, was an unhappy caporegime in the Philadelphia crime family. He was unhappy that Angelo Bruno restricted his ability to earn a living by not allowing him to venture into narcotic trafficking. He was especially unhappy that Bruno did not share his drug money from those who were exceptions to his rule.

Not that he needed the money. Amato was caught on an FBI wiretap telling his fellow caporegimes that he had more money than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. Amato made a fortune overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking and theft from legitimate businesses in South Philadelphia. But he hated the boss for not sharing his drug tributes with his captains.

“It’s the principal, not the money,” Amato told his fellow mobsters. But of course, he wanted the money as well.

Although Amato’s parents came over from Sicily, he hated Sicilians. He said they were greedy and notorious cheap skates. He called them “Zips” and “greaseballs,” and he hated that Bruno dealt with them.

Amato was also unhappy at the way Bruno had made Atlantic City an “open city” like Las Vegas when New Jersey legalized casino gambling in the seaside resort town in 1978. Bruno retained a hold on several unions in Atlantic City, so the Philadelphia crime family made a fortune as the casinos began to operate. But his decision to call Atlantic City an open city allowed other Cosa Nostra crime families to operate in a city that was firmly in the Philadelphia crime family’s territory.

“He’s allowing these New York wiseguys and other crooks to pick our pockets in Atlantic city,” Amato told the gathering of Philadelphia caporegimes in his South Philly home in the Packer Park area. “And we can’t sell narcotics, but he allows these fuckin’ Sicilian “Zips” to set up shop in our backyard.

“It’s a fuckin’ insult.”     

The other angry captains nodded in agreement. Richard Amato, the capo’s son, overheard the conversation as he emptied ashtrays and refilled the captains’ glasses with Sambuco, Scotch and wine. Some thought it ridiculous, but the son was called “Little Ricky,” even though the 25-year-old was hefty and even taller than his father.

Little Ricky was ambitious, and he waited desperately to become “made,” and he dreamed of being inducted formally into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family. He saw himself as a future boss of the crime family.

After the other captains left Amato’s house, the father sat his son down and explained what must be done, and how Little Ricky must do it.         

On that busy Friday night at Rigano’s, Little Ricky Amato was one of the many customers at the bar. He was accompanied by Joseph “Fireplug” Caruso, a short and stocky young man who was Amato’s best friend. Amato swallowed his Scotch in a gulp and Caruso lifted his bottle of beer and gulped down half of it. Amato slammed his glass on the bar, looked at Caruso and began to walk towards the men’s room. Caruso smacked his bottle down on the bar and the shorter man followed Amato.

Amato and Caruso lingered at the sinks, washing their hands until they were the only ones in the men’s room. Amato then pulled a ski mask out from his sport jacket and placed the mask over his head. As Caruso was also placing his ski mask on his head, Amato pulled out his 9mm Colt and theatrically jacked a round in the chamber, like they do in the movies. Caruso pulled out his 38. Smith & Weston.

“Let’s do this, Joe,” Amato said.

The two young mobsters rushed out of the men’s room and moved swiftly through the crowd towards a back table where the Rigano brothers were holding court with two young girls and a criminal associate named Billy Yates.

The Rigano brothers were so engrossed with drinking and laughing with the girls and Yates that they failed to see the two-masked gunmen moving towards their table.      

Amato and Caruso began shooting as they neared the table and Ciro Rigano and Yates died instantly from the hail of bullets. The girls screamed and ducked under the table as Angelo Rigano was up and attempting to run from the table. Amato ran up quickly behind the fleeing Sicilian and shot him in the upper back and the back of his head. Rigano fell and slid across the dance floor.

Most of the crowd at the nightclub were running and screaming from the numerous shots while many others had dropped to the floor. No one attempted to stop the two masked gunmen from running out of the nightclub. The two fleeing gunmen fired at a man in the parking lot as they jumped into their car. Amato rolled down his window and fired off two shots in the air to scare off anyone looking to stop them from driving away. 

      

The sensational murders at Rigano’s made headlines in all of the Philadelphia area newspapers and was the lead story on the TV news broadcasts. The Rigano murders also led to the murder of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss on March 21, 1980.  

After having dinner at a South Philly restaurant, Angelo Bruno was driven home by Sicilian John Stanfa. As Bruno sat in the passenger seat of the car in front of his South Philadelphia row home, someone came up to his window with a shotgun and blasted the 69-year-old mob boss. He died instantly. 

A macabre photo of the late mobster, his head back and his mouth agape, ran on the front page of the Philadelphia newspapers and other newspapers across the country.  

The brutal murder of Angelo Bruno led to further murders and an internecine mob war that stretched from South Philly to Sicily.  

© 2025 Paul Davis  

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