On a Friday night in a Norfolk, Virginia bar, a stone’s throw from the Navy’s most important base on the East Coast, you can meet a lot of miserable, drunken sailors. But if you visit a bar, as I did, on a Friday night in Crystal City, Virginia, within spitting distance of the Pentagon, you can meet a lot of miserable, drunken admirals, and one of them, Rear Admiral Richard “Dick” Schaedelficker, whom I encountered during happy hour last night at Charlie Chiang’s, was two anchor chains down leeward, three sheets to the wind, four points off course by the compass, five bells up the crow’s nest and about as miserable as an admiral can be.
“Tom?” Admiral Schaedelficker blurted out, blinking bleary eyes at me, hoisting a third or perhaps fourth tropical drink in his hand – a zombie, I think – “Tom Collins?”
“Certainly, Dick, it’s me,” I confirmed.
“[Expletive] hell,” he shouted, “how long has it [expletive] been, anyway? 2008? 2009?”
“2007, actually,” I responded.
“Oh yeah…” he yelled back, “now I remember… Carrier Strike Group Nine and Pacific Fleet logistics! All that, whatchacallit… mix-and-mingle…”
“Mixed integer optimization algorithms,” I interjected.
“Yeah, yeah, all that math and [expletive], getting ships into port and repaired and re-supplied and back out to sea again as quick as possible and uh…”
“For the lowest cost,” I offered.
“Yeah, yeah, all that nerdy [expletive]! Damn good to run into you again, Tom,” he proclaimed.
“Likewise a pleasure, admiral,” I told him. “How are you doing tonight?”
“Well, lemme tell ya, Tom,” be began, glancing up at the ceiling briefly, then reciting with evident and intense concentration, ‘Starkle, starkle, little twink; what the hell you are I think? I ain’t under the affluence of incohol, like some tinkle pink I are!’ How about that? And check this out! Okay, here we go… Z, X, Y, W, V, U, T, S, R, Q… uh… what the [expletive] was I talking about just then?”
“About how well you can hold your liquor,” I said.
“Damn right I can hold my [expletive] liquor!” Admiral Schaedelficker bellowed belligerently. “What mother-[expletive] here says I [expletive] can’t?”
“I don’t think anybody did, sir,” I assured him. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think anybody here at the moment would dare – not even that table full of MP officers over there.”
“Oh… them?” Admiral Schaedelficker remarked in a suddenly quiet and conversational tone. “Yeah. Good catch, Collins. Say, um… you hear about what happened to a couple of my good buddies, Rear Admiral Bruce Loveless and Vice Admiral Ted Branch?”
“Sure I have,” I confirmed, “they’ve both had their access to classified material suspended by the Navy in connection with a massive bribery scheme in Asia involving prostitutes, expensive gifts, premium event tickets, cash payments and luxury travel. It’s all related to the investigation of a firm named Glenn Defense Marine Asia, based in Singapore. The company CEO, Leonard Glenn Francis, was arrested by federal agents in San Diego this September, along with two US Navy commanders and a senior NCIS agent.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “that’s him – ‘Fat Leonard’ we called him; five-foot four and over three hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Also known as ‘The Shmoo,’ ‘Thunder Buns,’ ‘Peter Porker‘ and ‘Jabba the Hutt.’ They say he liked to call himself ‘The Lion King,’ and ‘Big Bro,’ but couldn’t ever get anyone else to go along with it unless he was in the room. At the moment, Leonard’s accused of defrauding the Navy out of more than $10 million in overcharges for ship tugboat towing contracts, ship docking feeds, ship re-fueling services, ship sewage disposal, ship supply restocking and general ship maintenance services.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “carrier strike group and fleet logistics.”
“And… you?” I inquired.
“Ah, [expletive], Tom,” he complained. “Everybody was doing it! Why pick on my buddies and me?”
“Everybody was doing… what?” I pressed.
“Letting Fat Leonard in on… information,” he shrugged. “The scuttlebutt, you know… the poop… when the ships were going to arrive, what they needed, that kind of thing.”
“In advance?” I sought to verify.
“Yeah, sure, in advance,” the admiral affirmed, “so Fat Leonard would know how to do a good job when the ships showed up.”
“And,” I pointed out, “make a killing every time a US Navy ship arrived by using that advance knowledge to make deals with suppliers and subcontractors all over the harbor on the basis of information that only he – and none of his competitors – had.”
“Oh, [expletive], Tom,” Admiral Schaedelficker whined, “we’re all adults here, right? We know how the [expletive] world works, don’t we? Fat Leonard’s out there in Far East, Tom, not here in Washington. He’s got to bribe God knows who in every local and national government he deals with just to do business himself! The greedy [expletive] sons of [expletive] who run places like Singapore don’t send their kids to [expletive] Harvard on their [expletive] civil-service salaries, you know! So we slip Fat Leonard the scuttlebutt. So Fat Leonard makes an extra ten million dollars. So what? In the end, bottom line, when you total everything up, slipping Fat Leonard the scuttlebutt is a win-win situation! It saves the Pacific Fleet fifty, maybe a hundred million dollars, plus, we get some well-earned and highly deserved perks!”
“Like free luxury hotel rooms?” I probed.
“That, in most cases, would have been vacant on the nights in question,” he argued.
“Like show tickets and restaurant meals?”
“As if anybody who claims they’re a… journalist,” he sneered, “doesn’t get to see Lady Gaga or sample the chef’s new champagne flights along with a complimentary dinner? That kind of stuff is chump change for promoters and proprietors and impresarios, we both know that. And how about junkets – Congressional junkets, huh? How about all those free golf trips, sports tickets, free first-class airline transportation, gourmet meals and such other items, that members of Congress get free of charge, all paid for by US big business [expletive] who aren’t any better than Fat Leonard, eh? I’ll tell you the difference – the only difference – and that difference is, they’re white Americans and Fat Leonard isn’t, that’s all!”
“And Manila envelopes stuffed with cash?” I insisted. “Who gets those legitimately, just because they happen to be somebody?”
“Well… that, yeah,” he admitted with a crimson blush, “that’s… not good.” But try making ends meet on a Navy commander’s pay and you’ll see how easy it is to rationalize taking that envelope.”
“And the prostitutes,” I demanded, “what about them?”
“Oh, well,” he declared, “that’s actually easier to explain than the money. Take me for instance – I married the woman who’s been my wife for the last twenty-five years because she happened to be the daughter of a US Navy admiral. It was the obvious thing to do, career-wise, and it worked out exactly as planned – now I’m a US Navy admiral, too. The only problem is, in bed, the daughter of an admiral makes love exactly like you think the daughter of an admiral would make love, which is to say, competently, with consistent technique and inspired by a sense of duty; in other words, Tom, strictly straight sex in the usual, expected place, with your choice of Missionary or Feminist positions for the approach – but that’s it, Tom, that’s all that ever happens for twenty five [expletive] years! Fat Leonard, on the other hand, he could get you a Malay, a Filipina and Thai girl who would do anything you tell them to do, and they would do it all night long if you wanted. Now, show me a naval officer who has spent two months at sea on a vessel in a nuclear powered aircraft carrier battle group who is going to turn that kind of action down!”
“I don’t suppose I could,” I admitted, “and maybe that’s the real problem.”
“Damn [expletive] [expletive] you [expletive] couldn’t!” Admiral Schaedelficker shot back, his voice rising in an excited crescendo. “As a matter of fact, it was those hot Oriental creatures that most of the guys asked for most of the time – not the comped hotel rooms or nightclub covers, not the free fancy chow, sports or concert tickets, not the golf trips or even those [expletive] envelopes full of money! No, it was getting naked in bed with three or four Asian beauties who would follow… your… commands… yeah… that’s what horny US Navy officers like me wanted, maybe more than anything else! And you know what, Tom? It was so [expletive] good, I’d give Fat Leonard all the classified Pacific Fleet maneuver information in the [expletive] Pentagon for just one more [expletive] night of it!”
“Sir,” a large MP captain said as he tapped Admiral Schaedelficker on the shoulder, “if you don’t keep your voice down, I will have no choice but to arrest you.”
“Oh,” the admiral shuddered sheepishly. “That must be the liquor talking, not me.”
“Of course sir,” the MP replied as he turned and walked back to his table.
“Um… by the way, Tom,” Admiral Schaedelficker continued in a conspiratorial whisper, “since Fat Leonard was arrested, things have been, you know, kind of… well, let’s say, quiet on the Western Front, if you catch my drift. You wouldn’t happen to have the phone numbers of any good… um… escort services… you know, that sort of thing?”
“Admiral,” I confided, “I get all the [expletive], [expletive], [expletive], [expletive] and [expletive] I want from my girlfriend Cerise and her occasional overnight female guests. Consenting adults. No money involved.”
“You damned landlubbers, you [expletive] civilians,” he complained. “Life’s always so easy and uncomplicated for you!”