Well, I Am SHOCKED!!!!

Turns out, I knew David (Daood) C. Headley, the accused mastermind of the Mumbai 2008 attack. But then, so did everyone else who chanced to come into either of Miss Headley’s Khyber Pass bars in Philadelphia back in 1984. Daood was (is) Serrill Headley’s son and he bartended at both the up-scale bar on North Second Street and the considerably less tony shot-and-a-beer saloon on Callowhill. I tended bar in Miss Headley’s newly-opened saloon at 17th and Callowhill. It was called Khyber Pass North. It got really busy around four in the afternoon when the judges, attorneys, and assorted other low-lifes and parolees lurched out of the Family Court at 19th and Vine --which is the building that is the twin of the main Library next door. As a matter of fact, folks looking for books and folks looking for their courtroom used to go into the wrong building all the time. Maybe still do. Daood was a piece of work. Back then, he was in his early twenties, He was absolutely gorgeous. He was over six feet tall and looked liked a typical American college student (he was enrolled at Princeton, but rarely went to classes). He had one brown eye and one blue-green eye. At that time, the story circulating the two bars was that Daood’s mother had married a high-ranking Iranian official, had two children, a boy and girl by him and then started an affair with his brother...a huge no-no. So she grabbed her son and fled to America. These days, one reads in the papers that Daood’s father was Pakistani. I guess Serrill got a divorce because when I was tending bar at Khyber Pass North she was married to an editor at the Inquirer. I forget his name. Dick something. He was a really nice guy. Rumor also had it that she was having an affair with Inquirer writer Dorothy Storck. I had to deliver something to Daood one time. He lived in a second-floor apartment in Olde City. The place was chock-a-block with weapons of all kinds and there were posters on all the walls showing Shiite soldiers. Daood was very proud of being a Shiite. I thought he was just an arrogant, slogan-spouting pisser. Guess I was wrong. After I was no longer working at the bar, I heard that Serrill had to go to Iran and get Daood out of prison for smuggling drugs. How she did it, I don’t know...lots of money exchanged hands I have no doubt. But she did manage to get him back to the US. Daood was a babe-magnet at Khyber Pass. He had a very young and pretty girlfriend, and also had a stunning 40-year-old mistress who sat alone in a booth waiting for him to get off work and cried bitter tears because of the sweet young thing. Tomorrow, for your delectation, I will post the story I wrote back in the day about Daood called “The Day the Raiders Won”. And no, it never got published. But tomorrow is the day.