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

by R. D. Herring

  We glanced at each other. Was that a joke? Don’t take a chance; don’t laugh. We all nodded.

  “Ski, you get ‘em on the right bus. Get your kissin and huggin done prior to 0900. You’re on your way out a’ here at that point. We have no work details this weekend. The Skipper has approved shore liberty until 2200 tonight. If you leave this Naval Station, you will be in the Alpha Uniform. You will not go south of 32nd Street, meaning you will not go into Mexico. Period. There are watering holes just outside the gate across Harbor Drive. You can catch a bus on Harbor Drive that’ll take you north to downtown San Diego.” He paused to think.

  “Remember, every swingin dick outside that Main Gate has one purpose in mind, to separate you from your back pay. Travel at least in pairs and keep your billfold in your sock. Trust nobody you ain’t been in a firefight with. If you get into trouble, find the Military Police or Shore Patrol. It prob’ly won’t be pleasant, but they’ll get you back here alive. If you want shore liberty, muster for inspection on the Main Deck, aft, at 1100. Liberty expires at 2200 tonight. Be onboard this ship before that. If you don’t want shore liberty, the Navy Exchange, including a slop chute, is one block east of this pier. You can wear utilities to drink there. Any questions?”

  No.

  “Also, I got word that Lieutenant Logan is doing fine at Balboa Hospital. He lost one of his legs. Visiting hours are 1400 to 1600. I’m posting scoop about his room number and the bus route number. You can catch the bus right out here on Harbor Drive. Any questions?”

  No.

  “Do not screw this up, ladies.” And he was gone.

  At 1100 on the fantail, Corporal Ski called us to attention as SSgt. Holeman approached with ball bearing strides in the hot San Diego sun. He looked like a recruiting poster in glistening shoes, tan trousers and long sleeved shirt. The knot in his field scarf rode on top of a battle pin that held his shirt collar edges together and parallel. Every crease was razor sharp. The square brass buckle of his spit-shined fair leather belt sparkled like polished gold. I thought, ‘The Germantown Post Office recruiting sign has sprung to life’.

  We all eyeballed him as best we could from the position of attention. Ski saluted and presented the platoon for inspection. We were screwed! Our uniforms bore witness to having been at the bottoms of our seabags for over a year. Ski had showed us how to lay them flat under our mattresses a couple of days before, so we thought we were in tall cotton. Here, Holeman, by his example, without saying a word, showed us how wrong we were. We looked like soup sandwiches. Holeman was going to put us UNDER that ship. He took the report, returned the salute and posted Ski back at the head of our squad-sized platoon. Bend over; here it comes...

  “Boys,” barely audible over the waterfront racket, “we’ve been through a lot together. Look out for each other. Keep your billfold in your sock. I’m proud of all of you. 2200 on the ship. Dismissed.”

  Like everybody else, I took one step back, executed an ‘about face’ and trotted toward the gangplank and USA dirt. If it had been my station in life, I would have gone over to Holeman and asked, ‘Are you okay, Bob?’ He just had that look about him.

  Mike Sekach, of shitter scrubbing fame, was a New Yorker. Dave Cournea was a very smooth Eyetalian from Detroit. We all hit the Main Gate together. Our intention was to find the bus stop and take a look at San Diego. Later, we’d go by the hospital and check on the Lieutenant. The half-mile walk from the pier was hot and dry. A cheerful looking place called the ‘Tap Room’ sat directly across Harbor Drive.

  With unspoken words, we organized ourselves and were sitting at the bar ordering drafts in no time flat. We were drinking our third draft, laughing and talking a little too loud when we decided to hit the bricks for a while. Outside and around the corner, we spotted ‘Davy Jones’ Locker’. What the hell? We were thirsty again. It turned out to be a big old place with lots of folks, some Marines, mostly sailors.

  Even though servicemen weren’t allowed to wear civilian clothes on liberty in San Diego, our shipmates had told us about the locker clubs in the area. A sailor could rent a locker to stash his civvies while he was at sea. He would then store his uniform while on liberty. So, there were a lot of casually dressed civilians in the place, probably sailors.

  The beer was cold and we were happy. The jukebox was wailing. I thought it was Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. Somebody played something called ‘Rocket 88’, delta blues set to swing music, or something! I walked over to the jukebox. Some cat named Ike Turner was laying it down about his Oldsmobile Rocket 88.

  My mind was reeling and lazing down the Mississippi at the same time. Pure happiness had been absent from my life for so long I barely recognized it. I felt like a million bucks.

  “Hey, Sweetmeat.” Some beefy guy, wearing a buzz cut and a short sleeve plaid shirt, was sitting alone at a table drinking shots with a Narraganset.

  “Wanna dance?” he asked.

  “Wanna piss off,” I answered and returned to my barstool.

  I got there in time to hear the end of Dave’s list of all the reasons he felt sorry for the first girl he could talk into doing the horizontal boogie with him. I had a fresh draft waiting for me. Dave was looking very debonair lighting his Parliament. He saw me looking and insisted I take one. I had lit maybe two cigarettes before in my life. In the midst of coughing and watery eyes, a greater sense of euphoria came over me.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. The jukebox-punk started to speak.

  “Hey, Fancy Pants...”

  Then I heard the sound of a baseball bat busting a ripe watermelon. I snapped my head to the right to see blood spray all over the white jumper of the surprised sailor sitting two stools down. I turned back to my left. Jukebox-punk lay crumpled on the deck. SSgt. Holeman stood there rubbing his knuckles.

  “I was over in back there with Alice. I saw the faggot make the move. Piss ants! That one got kicked out of the Navy four, five years ago. Hey, Whitey, come over here”, he called the bartender from the other end.

  “Whitey, you ol’ Leatherneck, bring us four Jack Daniel’s. These Marines are coming home!”

  “Sarge, I don’t even drink liquor,” I made a weak case.

  “This ain’t liquor, Stone. This is God’s gift to mankind. On the eighth day, God created the United States Marine Corps and Jack Daniel’s!” Bob had been wasting no time himself.

  He tossed back the shot and indicated we should do the same. While we did, he was instructing Whitey to hit us again. We drank a toast to the Corps, and Holeman told us he had orders back to the drill field at the San Diego Recruit Depot. He said he was thinking about setting up housekeeping with Alice. He said they were going upstairs to practice and he was gone.

  The jukebox-punk stirred. Scrambling for the exit, he got busier than a cat trying to cover crap on a marble floor.

  “Boys, let’s find that bus stop if you expect to see any of San Diego.” I was probably the drunkest, but I was also the oldest. Reality always seems to interfere with the enjoyment of life.

  The ‘Downtown’ bus dropped us at the USO on Broadway. The hustle and bustle tempo was overwhelming and thankfully a little sobering. We walked east down Broadway in and out of clothing stores and pinball arcades that were a city block big. Sailors, Marines, and young men in civvies were everywhere. The town was awash with gaping, yelling, celebrating young faces. The atmosphere was intoxicating and magnetic.

  Sidewalk hawkers were selling it all, from bibles to jewelry to something called a ‘Donkey Show’ in Tijuana. Along there somewhere, I ate my first burrito. It was absolutely delicious, even though Cournea swore they were made out of dog meat. We got past the U.S. Grant Hotel and peeked to our right down along 4th Avenue. There, the crowds thinned, and we saw nothing but several blocks of signs advertising girls, girls, girls and the coldest beer in town.

  Down the avenue we strolled. The closer to the waterfront, the seedier things got. Big adventurers, the first westerners to set foot in Istanbul, we drank
a few more overpriced beers then I spotted it, ‘Doc Webb’s Tattoo’. We crossed 4th Avenue and peered in the window past framed photos of a man in a pith helmet in strange places with dark-skinned semi-naked people. The captions chronicled Doc Webb’s travels to exotic shores. Inside, the walls were papered with color drawings of tattoos. The man from the photos walked out of the back room wearing a yacht captain’s hat and looked right at me.

  “You’re next. Like any of that flash you see on the walls?”

  I had never considered getting a tattoo. I remembered a bayonet instructor at Parris Island had the Eagle, Globe and Anchor tattooed on his shoulder. It surprised me when I pointed to a picture of the Marine Corps emblem.

  “I want that one.”

  Forty-five minutes and twelve dollars later, we were walking back to the USO arcade. Mike Sekach asked why we didn’t go see Lieutenant Logan.

  “I know,” I said. “If we get off the ship tomorrow, that’s where we’re headed.”

  Sunday morning the buzz in our berthing compartment was about the wonders of San Diego, the heavy drinking, the run-ins with sailors, and the beautiful dames that were almost had. I came back from chow and just sat on my rack. I didn’t take part in that conversation. Sure, we’d been hardened by war, emotionally immobilized, but we shared a sense of noble cause and an ethic of hard work in the brotherhood of the Corps.

  That vulgar town was designed to syphon that away, along with our personal dignity and hard earned cash. The winged Sirens were singing from the rocky heights of ‘San Diego Island’. When you got right down to it, that town was a ball of shit somebody had sparkle coated. The insight was a little confusing and I couldn’t wrap it in words enough to explain to anybody. I rubbed my raw shoulder and shook my head.

  We got shore liberty on Sunday. Everyone had made it back to the ship by 2200 the night before. Everyone made it back with all his teeth except, as SSgt. Holeman pointed out, Corporal Ski. Ski muttered the obligatory, ‘Should a’ seen the other guy’. I stopped by the Navy Exchange and called Ginger and then Mama. I told them I’d call in a couple of days when I knew more.

  We did make it to see Lt. Logan on Sunday. Matter of fact, it was a platoon get-together in his Balboa Hospital room. Saturday must’ve held more pressing matters for the other guys as well. Lt. Logan had casts on his leg and a half. He had lost some weight, but looked good. He gave his Philly telephone number to all of us along with the perpetual invite. He told us he’d never known finer men. I had no idea what a big part of my life he later would become.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Monday morning at 0900, Corporal Ski, as ordered, formed us up on the pier aligned with the ship’s bow number. We were in the prescribed uniform and had all our gear in our seabags staged to the rear of the formation. Ski had little to smile about even if he had had the teeth to do so. Most of us looked like death eating a soda cracker.

  Unable to completely stop their hearts with alcohol poisoning on Saturday, some had given it their all Sunday evening. Scuttlebutt was that a couple of Marines were cut a huss when they staggered back aboard ship a half hour late. Word was, SSgt Holeman had been there as their advocate with the Officer of the Deck. This morning, tongues were dry and swollen and nobody was talking.

  SSgt. Holeman came down the gangway and headed in our direction carrying a stack of envelopes. His utility uniform and cover were pressed, and he generally looked like he had relaxed on the ship and slept all weekend. I thought I knew better than that.

  “Listen up,” his standard greeting. “When I call your name, you will step forward and receive your written orders. Do not lose these. You will be instructed what to do with them when you reach your destination today. When I give them to you, take them directly to your seabag and secure them. Then fall back in.”

  We went through that drill alphabetically and returned to formation.

  “Corporal Ski, come get this bus assignment roster. Men, I have been assigned to Recruit Training Regiment, MCRD, San Diego. You are each authorized to contact me, if you ever need to do so. Semper Fi!”

  He handed Ski a clipboard and turned as in marching. He was gone. Corporal Ski called out the names of us short timers and directed us to the Camp Elliot bus. He told the others to grab their gear and follow him as he took off in the direction of the Pendleton bus.

  “Hey, Ski,” I yelled, “your time’s up. How come you’re going to Pendleton”?

  “Nothing for me out there, Stone. I’m shipping over. Good luck, bud”.

  I dropped my seabag and ran back. I made Ski write Mama’s phone number on the back of his bus assignment roster. The Camp Elliot driver honked his horn and I trotted to make the bus. I glanced back when I hit the first step. I never again laid eyes on Corporal Bruno Wisniewski.

  Camp Elliot was a mostly deserted World War II training and transshipment area inland and north of San Diego. There was still a parachute school, but it was several miles away. Huge empty wooden warehouses baked in the sun and all had parched and peeling white paint. Unused, dedicated train tracks still meandered amongst the buildings. We were delivered to the Administration Building where we turned in our paperwork and were told to expect to be there most of a week. A Corporal from the S-1 Office was the Duty NCO and showed us to our open squad bay wooden barracks building. After securing our seabags, we were issued two sheets and an optional blanket

  He told us about a one-day dry cleaning service behind the small Post Exchange. Most of us dropped off a uniform so it would be squared away for travel home. Cournea, Sekach and I hit the little PX and bought the Korean Campaign ribbons we knew we rated - going home would be our last chance to wear them.

  We had to show up for three formations a day in case the Admin Office needed to get hold of us. Other than a couple of trips to the S-1 office to sign paperwork, it was pretty much base liberty, not that there was much of a base. Being a ways from the ocean, it got plenty hot during the day. No vegetation seemed to grow. There were some sagebrush-looking things in the perimeter fencing, but they showed no green in the middle of summer. Back home, they used to say, ‘It so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs’.

  Dave Cournea found a stash of Jim Thompson novels and I tore through a couple of them. There was a bank of pay phones by the PX, so I loaded up with nickels and waited in line to call my love to Ginger and Mama every evening.

  Tuesday morning, at the 0730 formation, Sekach and I got tagged for a working party to move furniture for Casual Company’s new Officer-In-Charge. We were instructed to report to the Police Sergeant, Corporal Brown, at the rear of the Admin Building. The Police Sergeant was the ‘Jack of All Trades’ and would have been the Company Gunnery Sergeant if he’d had the rank. I mean, he was a logistics man, not an actual policeman.

  Mike and I were in a good mood as we headed out to find Cpl. Brown. It was the best time of the day Inland San Diego had to offer. The air was dead calm, but the sun’s rays hadn’t started melting the asphalt yet. We saw the gray-green Chevy pick up truck beside the road as we cleared the back corner of the building. Two Marines were smoking and joking, sitting on the wooden steps that led into the building. The one with stripes flicked his butt into a sand-filled, red and yellow painted coffee can.

  “You my workin party?” We got the introductions out of the way.

  “Ferg, you take Sekach over to 1320 and get a load of that furniture we marked. It’s gonna take a couple a’ trips, so don’t bust your backs; and don’t even come back if you scratch the Lieutenant’s shit.”

  Ferguson jammed his smoke into the butt kit and motioned to Sekach. “C’mon. What’s your first name?”

  “What’s your story, Stone? You just gettin back from the ‘Suck’?” It was the first time I’d heard that expression, but I nodded.

  Brown went on, “I got home two months ago; since I’m a short timer, I got stationed in this shit hole. The only good thing about Camp Elliot is, there’s a good looking dame behind every tree.” I did look around, alread
y knowing there were no trees. “Come October, I’m out a’ here and out a’ the Crotch. You can find me raisin Black Angus in Nebraska.” I just kind of stared at Cpl. Brown, not a little impressed with his ability to verbalize how I was feeling.

  “Well, let’s go, Stone. We got ‘a square away this butter bar.”

  The new Officer-In-Charge, Second Lieutenant Peterson, sat at a desk, the only furniture in the large room, taking papers out of a brown leather book bag. Cpl. Brown made a quick introduction, and then gave me my marching orders.

  “Okay, Stone, first, open all these windows. You’ll find a broom and dustpan in the supply closet, out in the passageway, to the right. Sweep this whole area down a couple a’ times. Bear a hand when Ferguson gets back. Don’t get in the Lieutenant’s way. I’ll be back after a while.”

  I found my supplies and got busy sweeping the old floorboards worn white with who knows what military business. I was glad to be doing something, even that. I looked up and Lt. Peterson was leaned back staring at me.

  “Stone, did you make it to Korea?”

  “Yes, sir. Just got home.”

  “What was it like?”

  Be careful, now. “It was cold, sir.”

  Peterson smiled, “Yeah, I heard. I made it to Pre-deployment Training at Pendleton. My orders got cancelled while I was at Bridgeport. Ever run across a Captain Fred Peterson? He was my brother.”

  “No, sir. My Platoon Commander was Lieutenant Logan. He lost a leg. He’s at Balboa Hospital now.”