The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1)

by R. D. Herring

  ***

  After everyone made the cheeseburger run, we were allowed to use the head facilities in a separate building behind the Receiving Station. We were then put in a line across the entire property and told to walk ahead slowly picking up everything that didn’t crawl away - namely cigarette butts.

  A gray-green school bus with a serial number and ‘USMC’ painted on the fender arrived in front of the building just as the sun was setting. The PFC clerk put us in a formation and passed out our endorsed orders. He indicated that, if we lost them, we’d die. We were instructed to board the bus and cease all talking. One of the troop handlers came up the steps of the bus and handed some paperwork to the driver who attached it to a clipboard hanging on the dash. The troop handler gave the exit thumb to a kid from New Jersey and took the front row seat for himself.

  The driver eased the bus across the railroad tracks, turned right and our rude civilian ways were a thing of the past. It was getting too dark to enjoy the sights of the South Carolina Low Country. Occasionally, the sweep of the bus headlights would reveal a stand of palmettos and salt marshes.

  Forty-five minutes later, we had skirted the lights of the town of Beaufort and rolled to a stop beside a small sentry house, sitting smack in the middle of the road. Off to the side sat a well-lit guardhouse and a huge red and gold brick wall declaring this the ‘U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina’.

  The sentry that boarded the bus was wearing a tan short-sleeved shirt and blue pants (we learned pretty quick to call them trousers). He didn’t have the red leg stripes that my recruiter had. He did wear a white cartridge belt and what looked like a .45 automatic pistol in a side holster. He took the clipboard off the dash hook and looked at the paperwork. After counting the recruits on the bus and returning the paperwork to its hook, he nodded at the troop handler and tapped him on the knee as he descended the steps.

  Our olive drab submarine lurched forward on a winding course through a sea of darkness. The smell of the salt marshes was pungent - oddly foul and agreeable at the same time. It was intoxicating. Ancient Oak trees reached out above the highway and Spanish moss hung low like seaweed and reinforced my musings of being underwater. It hung so low we could have grabbed it if we’d been allowed to put our arms out the windows.

  ‘This must be a beautiful place in the daylight’, I thought.

  We re-entered civilization; huge white clapboard buildings stood everywhere. The strangest thing, what obviously was a two-foot diameter steam pipe suspended 12 feet off the ground, ran parallel to the streets and connected all buildings. I thought of being in a giant boiler room on a Mississippi riverboat.

  Our sub docked at the curb behind one of the big white buildings and became a busload of sweating recruits again. The troop handler debarked without so much as a goodbye. The driver scooped up his keys and clipboard, flipped on the interior lights and jumped off. What followed was the last 10 seconds of serenity we would know for eight weeks. I cupped my hand against the bus window glare and read the sign over the building’s double doors, ‘Recruit Receiving Barracks. The Marine Corps demands TEAMWORK, DISCIPLINE, DEVOTION TO DUTY. This is your first step’.

  Then, the shit hit the fan. A tall deeply tanned Sergeant seemed to materialize at the top of the bus steps. He couldn’t stand straight without hitting the ceiling. He bent forward slightly at the waist, feet planted apart, hands on hips.

  “YOU MAGGOTS WILL SHUT YOUR FACES!” I don’t think anyone was talking.

  “You will do exactly as I tell you. You will speak only when spoken to. When you do speak, the first word out of your mouth will be ‘sir’, and the last word out of your mouth will be ‘sir’. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  “Yes sir, sir... sir, sir...”

  “SHUT your ugly flaps! You turds disgust me. You sound like 10-year-old girls. THE FIRST... AND LAST WORD OUT OF YOUR SUCK WILL BE SIR!” He walked to the back of the bus.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” I think we attained a 12-year-old girl level.

  “When I tell you to do so, you will have three seconds to get off my bus. I want to see nothing but assholes and elbows! Do you understand?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!!”

  “GIT OFF THE BUS! ONE... TWO... GIT OFF THE BUS! GO, GO, GO!”

  We scrambled for the pavement. The crush ensured no shortage of elbows, every one seeming to find an eye socket or kidney. Two Corporals were standing on the curb continuing the chant, “GO, GO, GO...” while tugging and pushing us toward the base of the Receiving Barracks’ wooden steps and pointing out our individual positions. We ended up in a heel to toe single file standing under floodlights that turned night to day.

  We were hustled through the entrance into a big open room - a squad bay, we later learned. Instead of being a sleeping facility, it had six waist high wooden counters running the length of the room and there were short partitions marking each recruit’s position at the counter. The break in the middle of all this counter space was a raised walkway so that when one of the Corporals stepped up, he had a clear view of each recruit and what was in front of him.

  Our original orders, as endorsed at Yemassee, were collected. There was a huge sign on the wall to our front that went into exhaustive detail listing what was contraband, and that was the first thing on the Corporal’s mind. We got one more chance to save our souls and our asses before it became a chargeable offense. Then, anything legal we might have brought - watches, jewelry, shaving kits, everything, went into the cardboard box on the counter in front of each of us.

  After the Corporal looked in each box, we followed instructions, reached under the counter, crumpled old newspapers, stuffed and taped up the box. Then we were told to fill out the label with our home address. We also filled in, signed and addressed a form letter that said: ‘Dear ____________, I have arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, S.C. I will be writing to you soon once I am assigned to a training platoon. Please write to me, but don’t send packages of any sort. I have everything I need to complete recruit training’.

  We were lined up in front of a small room that had three barber chairs, although there was a single barber waiting. The barber’s hand moved with a blur. He was so adept at taking it all off in six swipes, we each got as many seconds in the chair. We lined up on the far side of the barber’s door dripping a little blood on our collars until the troop handler retrieved us and took us to the barracks directly above the administrative receiving area.

  All the double metal bunks were pushed back against the walls and each bare mattress was curled in an ‘S’ shape at the end of the flat springs. The Corporal herded us to the huge bathroom area (we quickly learned it was a head), pointed out mops, buckets and oversized scrub brushes. He directed us to scrub down the wooden deck with soap and water from one end of the squad bay to the other. We were to use the scrub brushes. The mops (swabs) were to be used only to dry the deck afterwards. We were so relieved that the Corporal was almost civil in his instruction that we busted our butts for three sweaty hours to perform the job just as he directed.

  Captain Ahab would have approved, as did a different Corporal who came to inspect. After we put the equipment away, he explained that he was going to take us back to the first deck, across the middle of the ‘H’ shaped building to a squad bay and show us our racks. We were told to remove our shoes, get in the assigned rack, keep our mouth shut and stay in that assigned rack until reveille.

  More than half the racks were already filled with shoeless recruits in civilian clothes snoring away on bare mattresses. What the Corporal didn’t tell us was the naked hanging light bulbs would be shining all night. Regardless, we were all asleep the moment our heads hit where the pillows should have been.

  It seemed that two minutes had passed when the most horrendous thunderclap slammed my eyelids open. I was so tired - had to sleep. Then the voices, “GET OUT A’ THOSE RACKS YOU SCUM SUCKING PIGS. HIT THE DECK, NOW! MOVE, MOVE, MOV
E!”

  There were two of them. They worked each end of the squad bay and up and down the line of double racks on either side. One of them threw the metal trashcan down the middle aisle - again, the thunderclap.

  “GET ON LINE AT THE END OF YOUR RACK AT THE POSITION OF ATTENTION! DO IT, MAGGOTS! QUICKLY! FASTER...!”

  So, there we stood at 5:30 a.m., two lines of shocked, tired, scared boys facing each other across the center aisle of the squad bay, holding whatever was our own interpretation of the position of attention.

  “HEAD AND EYES STRAIGHT TO THE FRONT, MAGGOTS... SHOULDERS BACK... YOUR FEET WILL BE AT A 45-DEGREE ANGLE... YOUR ARMS STRAIGHT. YOUR FINGERS WILL BE SLIGHTLY CURLED AND YOUR THUMBS WILL BE ALONG THE SEAMS OF YOUR TROUSERS.... THAT IS THE POSITION OF ATTENTION. NOW, LOOK AT ASSISTANT DRILL INSTRUCTOR CORPORAL LYNER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SQUAD BAY. HE IS AT THE POSITION OF ATTENTION... DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  “SIR, YES, SIR!”

  I thought that should impress him. We had learned that the night before. It didn’t.

  “Ain’t that sweet? You girls like to whisper. SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR, YOU PUS-FILLED SHITHEADS!”

  “SIR, YES, SIR!”

  “ASSUME THE POSITION OF ATTENTION!”

  A short muscular Staff Sergeant appeared from the cross section of the ‘H’-shaped building and took a position in the center of the squad bay.

  “Everybody, get your eyeballs on me. I am Staff Sergeant Zane Lewis.” His voice was loud, but he sounded reasonable. “I am the Senior Drill Instructor of Platoon 129. Resume the position of attention.”

  “Many of you will graduate from Recruit Training with Platoon 129 and earn the title, Marine. Some of you will not.” He began pacing up one line of recruits, then down the other, inspecting carcasses. He wore a tan, longed-sleeved uniform with knife-edge creases. His shoes were liquid black. He wore a block of ribbons over his left pocket you couldn’t cover with your hand.

  “While you are a member of Platoon 129, you can forget about Rosy Rottencrotch back home. You can forget about your parents and all your loved ones. I am now your mother, and I am now your father. Your ass belongs to me.”

  SSgt. Lewis was passing directly in front of me when he made that last statement. As if to emphasize who owned what ass, he swung around 270 degrees and drove his right fist into my gut up to his wrist. I dropped to my knees still trying to keep my head to the front as tears welled in my eyes.

  He continued to pace and to speak in a measured tone, “Now, you girls see what that big son of a bitch got for absolutely nothing. If some asshole thinks he wants to try me, step forward right now. I’ll take you into that head and I guarantee only one will come out. That one will be me.”

  Nobody stepped forward.

  “You have just met Sergeant Bozelli and Corporal Lyner. They are my Assistant Drill Instructors. Either one of them will kill you and eat the evidence.” That revelation got me scrambling back to my feet and the position of attention.

  “We will work your asses off and make Marines out of you regardless of who you are, or where you come from. If you are willing to work...”

  “I am from Boston, Massachusetts and I’ve been in the Marine Corps for nine years. I have access to your records. I know where every one of you is from and your family’s address. If any one of you ever runs his mouth on me and jeopardizes my career, I will kill each and every one in your family.”

  “I think it’s time Platoon 129 got some good Marine Corps chow.” He turned on the ball of his foot and was gone.

  That seemed to be Sgt. Bozelli’s cue. “YOU HOGS GOT FIVE SECONDS TO GET YOUR SHOES ON AND GET BACK TO THE POSITION OF ATTENTION! DO IT! FOUR... THREE... TWO... TOO SLOW! GET TO THE END OF YOUR RACKS! NOW! HEAD AND EYES STRAIGHT TO THE FRONT!”

  Sgt. Bozelli and Cpl. Lyner managed to teach us ‘port side’ and ‘starboard side’, run the platoon in to make a head call, get most of our shoes on and push us out the back hatch without succumbing completely to apoplexy. A pattern was forming - the Drill Instructors taught us what we needed to know then held us responsible for that knowledge. They were screaming at us to get on the street and get in a platoon formation. They could not take a breath without spewing a barrage of spittle and guttural curse words.

  We had no idea how to get into a platoon formation.

  SSgt. Lewis was standing calmly in the middle of the street, “Listen up, Ladies. This is the end of your cheap civilian shit. You, you, you and you are squad leaders. Form up on me like this...”

  SSgt. Lewis dispensed schooling on the rudiments of Close Order Drill and marching to his cadence. We might have been proud of ourselves for marching to the chow hall except for the Assistant Drill Instructors’ constant reminders that we couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel. The sick-sweet-rot-salt-swamp-air of Parris Island hung so thick in the early morning you could taste it, and it tasted vaguely of blood. Not a soul would ever forget it.

  After morning chow, we were marched back to the Receiving Barracks and run through the drill of ‘Port Side’, then ‘Starboard Side, make a head call’. Some of us on the Port Side did succeed in executing a standing head call. The lines in front of the commodes hadn’t moved when the Assistant D.I.’s informed us, as only they could, that our two minutes were up, “PORT SIDE, CLEAR THE HEAD…10, 9, 8, 7…” Woe to the maggot who wasn’t standing at the correct position of attention in front of his rack when the count hit ‘one’. “STARBOARD SIDE, PREPARE TO MAKE A HEAD CALL... DO IT!” We quickly learned from our misery and used the commodes only as urinals after morning chow.

  We were then told to get on the street in a platoon formation. We did a pretty good job, had not Sergeant Bozelli and Corporal Lyner been the judges. The Senior Drill Instructor appeared, gave us further critique, and then marched Platoon 129 to a gigantic metal warehouse where we received our initial issue of utility uniforms and boots. One set we put on; the rest we stuffed into our issued seabag. We also received our bucket issue - a metal bucket containing basic toiletries, clothes marking kit and a scrub brush. We boxed up our civilian clothes and, again, filled out a label with our home address.

  The smokers were given a carton of cigarettes and matches - the choice was Wings or Camels. A barrel-chested Master Sergeant declared that the shaving gear, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, deodorant and cigarettes, if we took them, would be docked from our first month’s pay by way of something called a ‘PX chit’.

  Platoon 129 reformed on the street behind the metal building, holding our buckets with our seabags over our shoulders. Sgt. Bozelli shared his hopes, “I JUST HOPE I CATCH WUNNA YOU SLIMY COCKSUCKERS USING THAT DEODORANT.”

  Staff Sergeant Lewis approached and called the platoon to attention. “Save the deodorant for graduation day. If you smell good when Jody comes to see you, you’ll get some leg. Right, FACE!”

  “NOW, CLOSE IT UP - ASSHOLE TO BELLYBUTTON. FASTER! CLOSE IT UP, GIRLS. MAKE THAT IDIOT IN FRONT OF YOU SMILE!” Sgt. Bozelli and Cpl. Lyner busied themselves physically adjusting individual positions; their mouths and their fists were flying.

  “Forward... HARCH! DOUBLE TIME... HARCH! Close it up! YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME.”

  We took off running, each chest pressed against the back of the recruit in front, down the street, across what looked like the main drag, run in place, road guards out, wretched thrashing waiting on Corporal Lyner’s rabid instruction to the road guards. If forward movement was challenging, running in place was misery. We ran and flailed for a mile around the Recruit Training Regiment Parade Field to our three story wooden barracks tucked away by the salt swamps on the far side. Words fail description of all that; it was a little bit worse than the worst you can imagine.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  (Saturday, June 11, 1960. Zucca’s Italian Garden, Manhattan.)

  I sat at a table under the purple ceiling of Zucca’s Restaurant savoring my third ‘two fingers’ of Lynchburg’s finest when I saw Dan Logan walk in still s
quinting from the light change. Two o’clock, right on time. I was glad to see him upright.

  He was wearing his wooden leg and using a cane, something he didn’t do often enough. He relied way too much on a wheel chair. I stood. He spotted me and made his way over. I had grabbed a small table near the buffet, ‘The Roman Table’.

  “Hey, Wood. Think I could get one of those?” He awkwardly flopped in the opposite chair. I snubbed out the Lucky and turned in my chair. A skinny waiter, in a long white apron, stood in front of us before I completely got my hand in the air. His dark rimmed glasses, black cookie duster and quirky movements made me think of Groucho Marx. Matter of fact, I did a double take.

  I ordered two more. Dan’s discerning palate enjoyed a good Tennessee whiskey also. We’d shared many a bottle from Jasper Newton Daniel’s Distillery. Unlike me, Dan found the politics of life interesting and was good at it. To me, politics was just another hard to spell word. We traded small talk until Groucho brought the goods and disappeared.

  “Dan, screwy stuff is going on with this Rossi case,” I ventured towards the purpose of our meeting.

  “Maybe more than you know. You ain’t exactly been around since we talked on Tuesday. Whaddaya got?” Small talk was over.

  I recounted the events of the previous day and, specifically, the surprise midnight get-together at the Lower East Side gin joint after I had garaged my car. He sipped his liquor and nodded a little until I got to the morning office visit by Miss Margolies. His eyes locked onto mine and narrowed. He had questions about her, what she said, how she acted. I showed him her business card and he took a small leather notebook from inside his suit coat and wrote down the information.

  I briefly summarized what I knew. The Margolies dame was frustrated to the point of going down to the crossroads and making a deal with the Devil. She was prepared to ice Rossi for killing her father. To me, it looked like Rossi set up the meet so his button man could knock her off. He probably thought it was a darb idea to have her blipped off by the same henchman that chilled her father.