THE HAPPY HAT (22 page)

“I haven’t a clue.” Acky turned around and moved quickly toward the locked ward entrance.

“Hold it right there.” An FBI agent with his .45 low-load automatic held his arm straight out at Acky Spinelli’s chest.

“Crosley Bizetes. Sebastian Remo. And you…Corpsman. Stand fast. You’re under arrest for narcotic trafficking.” A DEA agent held his .45 in a two-hand hold while an FBI Agent disarmed Bizetes. All three, including the bedridden Remo gagging on his nasogastric tube, were handcuffed.

‡

Stokely came into the cast room. He looked at Norman and Skagan and flashed his FBI Identification. “I’m FBI Special Agent Adam Stokely. You already know Special Agent Isaac Kaplan. He’s essentially cleared both of you from association with the drug cartel people but we must follow operational protocol. Once we get your statements you’ll be released.” Stokely turned to Kaplan as Stokely’s walkie-talkie activated again.

“Ike you’re needed on F-1. They have three under custody. One’s a civilian–the one you identified. The other two are from Queens Naval–one a patient and the other a corpsman, over and out.”

Kaplan looked at Stokely’s notes. “Bizetes is the civilian. Remo’s the F-1 patient–the mail delivery guy. The other’s a senior corpsman–Achilles Spinelli. He’s our other unknown. I think we got them all except for Perkins.”

“Perkins has been AWOL all week.” Skagan spoke for the first time since the action began. “Ike…we have to talk. I’m… overwhelmed. I haven’t…a clue …what’s …what is happening here.”

“We will. We’ll talk. I have to go to F-1.”

“Are we under actual arrest?” Norman was flustered. He had been in tight situations before but what had taken place just now was totally unknown and unanticipated.

Stokely looked at Norman and Skagan. “No. You’re not under arrest. Ordinarily we would have read you your rights if that was our intent. The handcuffs are for your protection from our agents who don’t know you.”

Epilogue

“What am I doing here?” Dina Sparrow woke up in B-2–the locked psychiatric ward.

The FBI woman was only a year older than Sparrow. “You have to pass a physical exam before you go to the brig, Lieutenant. Apparently you passed out during our intervention. You don’t appear to be injured.”

“Brig? That’s jail. What is all this?” She no longer had handcuffs and her nurse’s uniform was wrinkled from lying in the hospital bed.

“You’re entitled to make a phone call to a lawyer or anyone you want to represent you. It can be from the Navy or the civilian sector.”

“Phone call? Yes. I want to make a phone call.” Sparrow stood up remembering the sudden appearance of armed civilians and the loud gunshot. “I need my handbag. It has my phone numbers.”

The FBI lady gave her the bag. “We did a thorough inspection of your bag. Nothing is missing Lieutenant.”

A phone call. Yes, I’ll be all right. Daddy will help me. He always helps me
. She found the emergency number for Dominic Sparrow.

‡

Norman felt reassured by Kaplan’s demeanor. He still didn’t know what the hell had happened. He was sitting in LCDR Curly Norton’s office.
As head of security Norton had to have been in this whatever it was.
“What can you tell me Curly?”

Norton pushed his seat back. “By now you know that Ike Kaplan is more than a hospital corpsman. All I can tell you is that he’s been an undercover FBI agent following an orthopedic patient in a plaster cast from Vietnam to Queens Naval Hospital. Apparently there were others like Kaplan at every military hospital in the states.”

“C’mon Curly. A plaster cast from Vietnam. They’re loaded with pseudomonas. Why would the FBI be interested in bacteria?” Norman saw Zettler pacing in the outer office
. Oh Christ. God knows what rumor is running amok around the hospital.

“It’s easier for me to tell you that this was a combined operation with the DEA.” Norton let his chair slap forward.

“Drugs! My ward is nothing but a repository for chopped up pieces of bacteria-ridden plaster.” Norman looked at Norton’s raised eyebrows. “What? Drugs in the plaster? But G-1 collects only Vietnam…” Norman stopped and his voice lowered. “Drugs are coming in from Nam in the plaster casts.”

Norton smiled. “Remember you didn’t hear it from me. Play dumb until they say something. Believe me you don’t want to be involved in this. God knows you and Minnie have been through enough with that nut case with the eyes not to mention the Hanoi invasion we had last Christmas.”

There was a knock on the door and Agent Ike Kaplan walked in. “Mr. Norton may I have a private word with Dr. Norman.” Kaplan sat at Norton’s desk as he left.

“I knew you were too good to be true. No corpsman was ever as good as you and a natural leader to boot.” Norman leaned forward. “Will any of this go on my record or be made public?”

“Any of what?” Kaplan produced a slight smile. “I’m an FBI Agent and we had a sting on drug smuggling into Queens Naval Hospital. We arrested the perpetrators and it’s over.”

“What about the plaster casts? You were on G-1. All the plaster from Vietnam came to G-1. Your guys were on Zingo like flies on shit if you pardon my expression.” Norman suddenly remembered what Curly Norton had told him and he said no more.

“Read my lips Lieutenant. We arrested civilians sneaking drugs into Queens Naval via G-1. That’s it. End of story. Let me take your handcuffs off. I have some papers for you to sign.” Kaplan handed some sheets from a file folder.

Norman read them and signed them. “So this was a ‘non-event’–the plaster casts I mean.”

“It never happened.” Kaplan stood up.

Norman had a flashback to when Captain Foaming was CO at Queens Naval. He had to erase the fact that a Vietnam returnee Marine came back with a bottle of human eyes. He had to sign a similar non-disclosure document. Norman rubbed his sore wrists. They shook hands.

‡

LCDR Philomena Skagan came in next. She passed Norman without saying a word and sat in front of Kaplan. He went around the desk and removed her handcuffs avoiding eye contact.

They sat looking at each other. Suddenly her eyes glistened and she was about to speak. Kaplan held up his hand. “Don’t. Please. Not yet. We’ve both led two lives–a life here in the Navy and a life outside of the Navy.”

Skagan blinked to release a tear from her right eye and wanted to say something. Kaplan held up a hand again.

“Actually I had only one job. I’m an FBI Agent. My cover was being a hospital corpsman.” Kaplan leaned closer to the desk. “I am a real corpsman–up to today. I had to be trained and actually serve in Vietnam. I was under fire and tended to Marines out in the Nam bush.” He sat back again. “I had to maintain that identity until our operation was over. It’s now over. And this is also my last operation. I leave the Agency next month.”

Kaplan folded his hands on the desktop. His voice was mellow. “My plans are known to you. I’m going to law school. I want to have a life of my own where who you see is what you get. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you but I did…and I am.” He couldn’t help the emotion welling up in his chest and now evident in his voice. The FBI Agent of his training was leaving him. “I want the life we talked about when you leave the Navy. I want us to be together forever.”

Tears began to form and linger on her lower eyelids. She reached for a tissue on Curly Norton’s desk. Skagan tried to control her breathing but she needed deep breaths to maintain a clear head. She was trying to process everything. So much of her life ahead depended on these moments.

Kaplan continued in the interim silence. “I can understand any anger you have and any disappointment you have. But I want us to go on from here–side-by-side.” He tented his fingers together as the silent seconds seemed like minutes. “Say something to me–please.” Kaplan leaned forward with his hands palms down on the desk.

Skagan cleared her throat. “I do have something to say.” She wiped her moist eyes and took a deep breath. After a few swallows she spoke. “What are their names?”

Kaplan’s eyes widened. “Names? Whose names?”

“The names of our three children.”

‡

There was always a crowd at the Egyptian tomb and artifact section in New York’s Museum of Natural History. Perkins was totally conscious for what seemed like forever but it was actually only four days. He began rebreathing his own carbon dioxide since the porosity of the plaster cast limited its egress and he was more sedated than alert and awake. Likewise air exchange never delivered the 20% oxygen of ambient air through the pinholes at his nose. His level of consciousness had ebbed slowly and now–seven days later–he could only imagine voices in the distance. He didn’t know where he was within the Museum of Natural History and now he didn’t care. He was tired. He was cold. There was no longer any pain from the sensation of his bladder or bowel bursting. Flashing spots and target-like lights were no longer there. Bizetes had said it would take two weeks to die but Bizetes also said that he would be observed by others for a much longer time.
What did he mean? It doesn’t matter. I just want to sleep.

“That’s him.” A man pointed from the notation on the back of his museum admission ticket. “The wrappings are in good shape. It’s not a real mummy. I saw the film.” The observer whispered. “They said he stole from us.”

Others with tickets issued by the drug syndicate were ordered to take pictures of the mummy known to them from the drug cartel only as “the thief”. He was a man who was “cocooned” alive or so they said because he skimmed from the organization. It was mandatory for all new cartel members to see the film from duct-taping to plaster-wrapping and the final placement in the museum. Someday the odor of putrefaction would lead to discovering the man known as Navy Hospital Corpsman Amstel Perkins but not for months and maybe not for a year.

Author’s Note

THE HAPPY HAT is my third novel based on my Vietnam War service at three major stateside Navy hospitals; the other novels being THE EYEMAN and THE DUTY CREW. If you were to check with the FBI, they would confirm that THE HAPPY HAT is purely a work of fiction. I leave it up to the reader to decide in their own mind what really happened. Was I, as a General Medical Officer, caught up in a sting to catch drug dealers in an orthopedic ward or in a global cartel of movement of heroin from Asia to the US via wounded warriors’ plaster casts?

Many servicemen like me have stories to tell and if we don’t give them up they go with us to the grave. I could spend my lifetime writing lengthy war novels but I chose to delve into only those with the most impact on my life. The rest I relegate to the short story realm because there are so many. US NAVAL HOSPITAL highlights several such short episodes although each one could live life as a novel. I chose nine other brief literary presentations in another short story collection entitled THE PRESSURE CHAMBER. With every military related episode I am treating my own PTSD. Writing becomes therapeutic for both the writer and the reader because it enables us to mirror our experiences off others thereby externalizing some of life’s events which could otherwise create domestic, society and health problems.

Peter Glassman MD, PhD

Glossary

Crosley Bizetes–senior Brownsville drug dealer

Bork–Skagan’s Maine Coon cat

LCDR Buzzby Brisbane–infectious disease MD

LCDR Stanley Caruso–G-1 Staff Orthopedic Surgeon

Robert Dempsey–DEA agent–NYC

G-1 Corpsman Kenneth Gantz–cast room tech

Ensign Delilah Gomez–Orthopedic Nurse

LCDR Martin Jacobs–G-1 ortho resident

Jaeko–NY Cartel Puerto Rican cab driver and Cartel liaison

LCDR Petula Jessel–Head OB nurse

JMOOD–Junior Medical Officer of the Day

JNOOD–Junior Nurse Officer of the Day,

Chief Corpsman Isaac Ike Kaplan–FBI undercover Corpsmen assigned to Boomer

Abraham Linsky–Perkins colleague in crime cartel

LCDR Ronald Loomis–General Surgeon

Manuelo–Puerto Rico transaction contact

SGT Dorin McBain–Australian heroin supply intermediary

Mickey Meaghan–artillery patient & Boomer gurney pusher

Boris Mindel–chemist in charge of heroin recovery

Jetta Minone–lower echelon Bizetes drug dealer

LT Paul Norman–General Medical Officer at Queens Naval Hospital

LCDR Curly Norton–Queens Naval Hospital Chief Security Officer

Angelo Novo–Army Corporal and Boomer’s mortar man gurney pusher

Amstel Perkins–G-3 Corpsman and drug cartel Queens connection

Claude Remick–Skagan’s first sexual experience.

Sergio–one of Zingo’s thug plaster pickup man

Army Corporal Sebastian Remo–dirty surgery patient head of heroin ring

Captain Morton Skagan–Philomena’s dad

LCDR Philomena Skagan–Queens Naval Hospital plaster cast logistics nurse

LT Dina Sparrow–G1 ward nurse and drug cartel Navy Officer .

Dominic Sparrow–Dina’s father and heroin cartel leader from Chicago

Corpsman Achilles (Acky) Spinelli–F-1 Corpsman and Remo goomba

Sergeant William Boomer Stiles–total body cast Artillery Marine Sergeant

Adam Stokely–FBI liaison to DEA–NYC

Lt Minerva Zettler–Paul Norman’s fiancée nurse

Frannie Zingo–biodisposal cast removal cartel thug-in-charge