L.A. Confidential (30 page)

  Meanwhile, what has happened to some of the Mickster's chief goons? Well, nebbish-like Mo Jahelka keeps triplicate sets of books for the franchise holders, whiz at figures that he is, and Davey Goldman, stuck in stir with his boss, walks Mickey Cohen, Jr., around the McNeil Island yard. Abe Teitlebaum, Cohen muscle goon, owns a delicatessen that features greasy sandwiches named after Borscht Belt comedians, and Lee Vachss, Mr. Icepick To The Ear, sells patent medicine. _Our_ favorite Mickey misanthrope, Johnny Stompanato (sometimes known as "Oscar" because of his Academy Award--size appendage), nurses a long-term case of the hots for Lana Turner, and may have returned to his old pre-Cohen ways: running blackmail/extortion rackets. Assuming that Whalen and Mickey don't collide upon the Mick's release, things look hunky-dory and copacetic, don't they? Gangland amity all around?

  Perhaps _no_.

  Item: in August of 1954, John Fisher Diskant, an alleged Cohen franchise holder, was gunned down outside a motel in Culver City. No suspects, no arrests, current disposition: the case reposes in the open file of the Culver City P.D.

  Item: May 1955: two alleged Cohen prostitution bosses, franchise holders both--Nathan Janklow and George Palevsky--are gunned down outside the Torch Song Tavern in Riverside. No suspects, no arrests, current disposition: the Riverside County sheriff says case closed due to lack of evidence.

  Item: July 1956: Walker Ted Turow, known drug peddler who had recently stated his desire to "push white horse very large and become a bonaroo racketeer" is found shot to death at his pad in San Pedro. You guessed it: no clues, no suspects, no arrests, current disposition with the LAPD's Harbor Division: open file, we're not holding our breath.

  Now, dig it, children: all four of these gang-connected or would be gang-connected chumps were shot dead by three-man trigger gangs. The cases were barely investigated because the respective investigating agencies considered the victims lowlifes whose deaths did not merit justice. We wish we could say that ballistics reports indicate that the same guns were used for all three shootings, but they weren't--although .30-30 ripples pistols were the killers' M.O. all three times. And we at _Hush-Hush_ know that no interagency effort has been launched to catch the killers. In fact, we at _Hush-Hush_ are the first even to connect the crimes in theory. Tsk, tsk. We _do_ know that Jack Whalen and his chief factotums are alibied up tight as a crab's pincer for the times of the killings and that Mickey C. and Davey G. have been questioned and have no idea who the bad boys are. Intriguing, right, dear reader? So far, no overt moves have been made to take over siesta time Kingdom Cohen, but we have word that Mickey minion Morris Jahelka has packed up and moved to Florida, scared witless . .

  And the Mickster is soon to be paroled. What will happen then??????

  Remember, dear reader, you saw it here first. Off the record, on the QT and _very_ Hush-Hush.

1957

            CONFIDENTIAL LAPD REPORT: compiled by

            Internal Affairs Division, dated 2/10/57

     Investigating officer: Sgt. D. W. Fisk, Badge 6129,

     IAD. Submitted at the request of Deputy Chief Thad

              Green, Chief of Detectives

       Subject: White, Wendell A., Homicide Division

Sir:

  When you initiated this investigation you stated that Officer White passing the sergeant's exam with high marks after two failing attempts and nine years in the Bureau startled you, especially in the light of Lt. Dudley Smith's recent promotion to captain. I have thoroughly investigated Officer White and have come up with many contradictory items which should interest you. Since you already have access to Officer White's arrest record and personnel sheet, I will concentrate solely on those items.

  1. White, who is unmarried and without immediate family, has been intimately involved on a sporadic basis with one Lynn Margaret Bracken, age 33, for the past several years. This woman, the owner of Veronica's Dress Shop in Santa Monica, is rumored (unsubstantiated by police records) to be an ex-prostitute.

  2. White, who was brought into Homicide by Lt. Smith in 1952, has, of course, not turned into the superior case man that (now) Capt. Smith assumed he would be. His 1952--5 3 work under Lt. Smith with the Surveillance Detail was, of course, legendary, and resulted in White's killing two men in the line of duty. Since his (April 1953) shooting of Nite Owl case collateral suspect Sylvester Fitch, White has served under Lt./Capt. Smith with little formal distinction. However (rather amazingly), there have been no excessive force complaints filed against him (see White's personnel sheets 1948--51 for records of his previous dismissed complaints). It is known that during those years and up until the spring of 1953 White visited paroled wife beaters and verbally and/or physically abused them. Evidence points to the fact that these illegal forays have not recurred for almost four years. White remains volatile (as you know, he received a departmental reprimand for punching out windows in the Homicide pen when he received word that his former partner, Sgt. R. A. Stensland, had been sentenced to death), but it is known that he has sometimes avoided work with Lt./Capt. Smith's Mobster Squad, straining his relationship with Smith, his Bureau mentor. Citing the violent nature of the assignment, White has been quoted as saying, "I've got no more stomach left for that stuff." Interesting, when given White's reputation and past record.

  3. In spring 1956, White took nine months' accumulated sick leave and vacation time when Capt. E. J. Exley rotated in as acting commander of Homicide. (A well-known hatred exists between White and Capt. Exley, deriving from the 1951 Christmas brutality affair.) During his time off from duty, White (whose Academy scores indicate only average intelligence and below average literacy) attended criminology and forensics classes at USC and took and passed (at his own expense) the FBI'S "Criminal Investigation Procedures" seminar at Quantico, Virginia. White had failed the sergeant's exam twice before embarking on these studies, and on his third attempt passed with a score of 89. His sergeantcy should come in before the end of the 1957 calendar year.

  4. In November 1954, R. A. Stensland was executed at San Quentin. White asked for and received permission to attend the execution. He spent the night before the execution on death row drinking with Stensland. (I was told the assistant warden overlooked this infraction of prison rules out of a regard for Stensland's ex-policeman status.) Capt. Exley also attended the execution, and it is not known if he and White had words before or after the event.

  5. I saved the most interesting item for last. It is interesting in that it illustrates White's continued (and perhaps increasing) tendency to overinvolve himself in matters pertaining to abused and (now) murdered women. I.e., White has shown undue curiosity in a number of unsolved prostitute killings that he believes to be connected: murders that have taken place in California and various parts of the West over the past several years. The victim's names, DODs and locations of death are:

          Jane Mildred Hamsher, 3/08/5 1, San Diego

          Kathy NMI Janeway, 4/19/53, Los Angeles

          Sharon Susan Palwick, 8/29/5 3, Bakersfield, Calif.

          Sally NMI DeWayne, 11/02/55, Needles, Ariz.

            Chrissie Virginia Renfro, 7/16/56, San Francisco

  White has told other Homicide officers that he thinks evidential similarities point to one killer, and he has traveled (at his own expense) to the above-listed cities where the crimes occurred. Naturally, the detectives that White has talked to considered him a pest and were reluctant to share information with. him, and it is not known whether he has made progress toward solving any of the above cases. Lt. J. S. DiCenzo, Commander of the West Valley Station squad, stated that he thinks White's hooker-killing fixation dates back to the time of the Nite Owl case, when White became personally concerned about the murder of a young prostitute (Kathy Janeway) he was acquainted with.

  6. All in all, a surprising investigation. Personally, I admire White's initiative and persistence in pursuing a sergeantcy and his (albeit untoward) tenacity in the matter of the prostitute homicides. A list of my interview references will follow in a separate memo.

          Respectfully,

          Sgt. D. W. Fisk, 6129, lAD

CONFIDENTIAL LAPD REPORT: Compiled by

Internal Affairs Division, dated 3/11/57

            Investigating officer: Sgt. Donald Kieckner, badge 688,

          IAD. Submitted at the request of William H. Parker,

Chief of Police

            Subject: Vincennes, John, Sergeant, Surveillance Detail

Sir:

  You stated that you wished to explore, in light of Sgt. Vincennes' deteriorating duty performance, the advisability of offering him early retirement by stress pension before the twentieth anniversary of his LAPD appointment comes up in May 1958. I deem that measure inappropriate at this time. Granted, Vincennes is an obvious alcoholic; granted also, his alcoholism cost him his job with _Badge of Honor_ and thus cost the LAPD a small fortune in promotional considerations. Granted again, at 42 he is too old to be working a high-risk assignment such as the Surveillance Detail. As for his admittedly deteriorating performance, it is only deteriorating because Vincennes was, during his Narcotics Division heyday, a bold and inspired policeman. From my interviews I have concluded that he does not drink on duty and that his deteriorating performance can best be summed up by "sluggishness" and "bad reflexes." Moreover, should Vincennes reject an early retirement offer, my guess is that the pension board would back him up.

  Sir, I know that you consider Vincennes a disgrace as a policeman. I agree with you, but advise you to consider his connection to District Attorney Loew. The Department needs Loew to prosecute our cases, as your new chief aide, Capt. Smith, will tell you. Vincennes continues to solicit funds and run errands for Loew, and should Loew, as expected, be reelected next week, he would most likely intercede if you decided to pressure Vincennes out of the Department. My recommendation is as follows: keep Vincennes on Surveillance until 3/58, when a new commander is scheduled to rotate in with his own replacement officers, then assign him to menial duties in a patrol division until his 5/15/58 retirement date arrives. At that time, Vincennes, humbled by a return to uniformed duty, could probably be persuaded to separate from the Department with all due speed.

          Respectfully,

          Donald J. Kieckner, IAD

BANNER: L.A. _Times_, March 15:

LOEW REELECTED IN LANDSLIDE;

   STATEHOUSE BID NEXT?

EXTRACT: L.A. _Times_, July 8:

MICKEY COHEN WOUNDED IN

  PRISON YARD ATTACK

  McNeil Island Federal Prison officials announced that yesterday mobsters Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen and David "Davey" Goldman were wounded in a vicious daylight attack.

  Cohen and Goldman, both slated to be paroled in September, were watching a softball game on the prison yard when three hooded assailants wielding pipes and handmade "shivs" descended. Goldman was stabbed twice in the shoulder and beaten viciously about the head, and Cohen escaped with superficial puncture wounds. Prison doctors said that Goldman's injuries are severe and that he may have suffered irreparable brain damage. The assailants escaped, and at this moment a massive investigation is being conducted to discover who they are. McNeil administrator R. J. Wolf said, "We believe this was a so-called death contract, contracted to in-prison inmates by outside sources. Every effort will be made to get to the bottom of this incident."

_Hush-Hush_ Magazine, October 1957 issue:

MICKEY COHEN BACK IN L.A.!!! ARE

HIS BAD OLD GOOD TIMES HERE TO

STAY???

  He was the most colorful mobster the City of Fallen Angels had ever seen, Hepcat--and to dig his act at the Mocambo or the Troc was like watching Daddy-o Stradivarius chop a fiddle from a tree trunk. He'd crack jokes written by gagster Davey Goldman, slip fat envelopes to the bagmen from the Sheriff's Department and do a wicked Lindy hop with his squeeze Audrey Anders or the other comely quail sashaying on the premises. Eyes would dart to his table and the ladies would surreptitiously survey his chief bodyguard, Johnny Stompanato, and wonder, "Is he really _that_ large?" Sycophants, stooges, glad-handers, pissanters and general rimbamboos would drop by the Mickster's side, to be rewarded with jokes, a backslap, a handout. The Mick was a soft touch for crippled kids, stray dogs, the Salvation Army and the United Jewish Appeal. The Mick also ran bookmaking, loansharking, gambling, prostitution and dope rackets and killed an average of a dozen people a year. Nobody's perfect, right, Hepcat? You leave your toenail trimmings on the bathroom floor, Mickey sends people on the night train to Slice City.

  Dig it, Hepcat: people also tried to kill Mickey!!! A mensch like that?--No! !!! Yes, Hepcat, what goes around comes around. The trouble was, the Mick had more lives than the proverbial feline, kept dodging bombs, bullets and dynamite while those around him went down dead, survived six years at McNeil Island Pen, including a recent shiv/pipe attack--and now he's back! Sy Devore, watch out: the Mickster will be in for a few dozen shiny new sharkskin suits; Trocadero and Mocambo cigarette girls, get ready for some C-note tips. Mickey and his entourage will soon descend on the Sunset Strip, and--_very Hush-Hush_--yes, ladies, Johnny Stompanato is _that_ large, but he only has eyes for Lana Turner, and word is that he and Lana have been playing more than footsie lately . . .

  But back to Mickey C. Avid _Hush-Hush_ readers will recall our October '56 Crimewatch feature, where we speculated on the gangland "lull" that has been going on since the Mick went to stir. Well, some still unsolved deaths occurred, and that pipe/shiv attack that wounded Mickey and left his stooge Davey Goldman a vegetable? Well . . . they never got the hooded inmate assailants who attempted to send Mickey and his man to Slice City...