L.A. Noir (63 page)

Faced with a public: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 307.

“I’ll be damned if…”: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 310.

Like other departments, the: Chief Davis eventually handed over a list of 7,800 people who’d received badges. It included such luminaries as Shirley Temple (a Davis favorite), King Vidor, Louis B. Mayer, and Bela Lugosi. Larry Harnisch, “Mayor Investigates Honorary L.A.P.D. Badges,” October 28, 1938,
Daily Mirror blog
, accessed October 28, 2008.

The primary purpose of: See Benis Frank, interviewer, “Oral History Transcript: General William Worton,” 309.

To Sgt. Charles Stoker: Stoker,
Thicker’N Thieves
, 222; “New Police Chief on Job, to tell Program in Week,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 1, 1949, 1; Daryl Gates,
Chief
, 15.

It was, thought Gates: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

That Bill Parker was: “Chief Names Staff Inspector in Top Level Police Changes: Parker Given Number Two Post,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 15, 1949, 1.

For decades, vice and: “Police Shift Offices Due to City Hall Jam,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 19, 1949, 2.

General Worton and his: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 40910; “Ex-Marine Tightened Up Los Angeles Police,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, March 12, 1952.

General Worton was also: “Novice Chief Brings New Confidence …,”
San Francisco Call-Bulletin
, May 10, 1995.

“He would be”: Author interview with Bob Rock, December 10, 2004, Los Angeles, CA.

Parker moved decisively too: “Police Officer Keyes Resigns Under Attack,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 26, 1942.

“Well then go fuck …”: “‘Innocent’ in Cussing, Says Mickey Cohen,”
Los Angeles Mirror
, August 31, 1949.

Within weeks, his name: Server,
Baby, I Don’t Care
, 166, 203-204. See also “Americana,”
Time
, January 31, 1949. Mitchum’s conviction on drug possession charges was overturned in 1951, which suggests that the accusations against Mickey may well have been true.

With Mickey on the: Warren was backed up by five high-powered commissioners: former U.S. ambassador to Russia Adm. William H. Standley; former Union Pacific president William M. Jeffers; mining magnate Harvey Mudd; Gen. Kenyon Joyce, onetime deputy president of the Allied Control Commission for Italy; and Gerald H. Hagar, Oakland, past president of the Star Bar. “Warren
Picks First of Crime Commissions: Jeffers and Mudd Among Those Named Under New State Law,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 22, 1947.

“Bookmaking has nothing to …”: Fox,
Blood and Power
, 288.

This system was: California Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950.

Olney realized that there: Special Crime Study Commission report, March 17, 1949, 72, 79-80.

The interruption of the: Special Crime Study Commission report, March 7, 1949, 16-25.

Mickey accepted the fact: In fact, by the late 1940s, Anthony Milano, under-boss of the Mayfield Street gang during Mickey’s Cleveland days and brother to Cleveland mob boss Frank Milano, lived virtually around the corner from Mickey, in an imposing private residence off Sunset Boulevard. Ostensibly, Milano was now the president of an eastern bank (a six-year-sentence stint in the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth evidently posing no obstacles to a career in finance). In practice, the LAPD noted that he was in contact with Mickey on an almost daily basis. Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 29-30.
Ovid Demaris’s book
The Last Mafioso
, which presents Jimmy Fratianno’s perspective on the period, suggests that Mickey was genuinely surprised by efforts to rub him out. Not everyone agrees. Rob Wagner’s
Red Ink, White Lies
argues that Cohen rejected Syndicate demands to share his underworld profits, thus triggering an entirely predictable gang war (229).

The trouble started: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 95-100. There are multiple accounts of exactly what happened with the photographs. See also Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958, 114.

Rist and his associates: “Bowron Asks Grand Jury Action in Police Scandal, Two Officers Suspended; Cohen Posts $100,000 Bail,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 23, 1949, 1.

In the world of: Mickey’s experiences in Cleveland contributed greatly to his multicultural precociousness. In the early thirties, the Cleveland underworld had been divided between two essentially cooperative groups, the Italian May-field Road gang, run by “Big Al” Polizzi, and the Jewish Cleveland Syndicate, whose leaders included Louis Rothkopf, Moe Dalitz, and Morris Kleinman. These two groups worked together closely in what was known as the Combination. Interestingly, during his days in Cleveland, Mickey had worked primarily with the Italian gangsters, particularly Mayfield Road gang underboss Tony Milano. Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 8-9.

Far from responding gratefully: Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 24.

“He has the making …”: “Jigs and Judgments,”
Time
, July 23, 1951.

“A few nights”: Vaus,
Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime
, 71-72.

By November 1949, everyone: “Heaven, Hell & Judgment Day,”
Time
, March 20, 1950.

Suddenly, Vaus found himself:
Los Angeles Times
, November 8, 1949; Vaus,
Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime
, 71-76.

It was with some:
Life
, January 16, 1950; “Portrait of a Punk,”
Cosmopolitan
.
It is difficult to know how much financial pain Mickey was really feeling. In an article written several months after Vaus’s visit with Cohen, one of the most astute observers of the Southern California scene, lawyer/journalist Carey McWilliams, estimated that Mickey was receiving payoffs in the amount of $427,000 a year. Given the fact that the state public utility commission had effectively choked off the wire service that was once the most profitable part of Mickey’s portfolio, that number seems high. Columnist Florabel Muir, who was close to Mickey and had excellent sources in the underworld, believed that Cohen was under real financial pressure. Of course, Mickey had other activities—extortion, slot machines, perhaps narcotics—which undoubtedly helped offset at least some of the pain.

“Mickey lifted his hand”: See Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 106-107, for an account of the meeting. Sensitive to charges that he had considered betraying his faith, Cohen plays down the conversion angle. Compare Cohen’s account with Graham’s, “The New Evangelist,”
Time
cover story, October 25, 1954.

At 4:15 a.m. on February: Lewis,
Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster
, 137; Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 40.

Police later estimated that: Leppard, “Mr. Lucky Thrives on Borrowed Time,”
Los Angeles Herald-Express
, December 3, 1959.

During the fall of: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 411-12.

These were powerful backers: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

The race was now: Webb,
The Badge
, 250-52.

On August 2: “Parker Appointed New Police Chief Head, Patrol Division Head Promoted in Climax to Hot Battle Over Worton’s Successor,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 3, 1950, 1. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418. In describing Parker as the LAPD’s fortieth police chief, I discount Dr. Alexander Hope, who headed the volunteer Los Angeles Rangers (Sjoquist,
History of the Los Angeles Police Department
, 36). I also count previous chiefs who served more than one term, such as James E. Davis, only once.

Mayor Bowron was notably:
Los Angeles Times
, August 3, 1950. Later that day, Bowron issued a more positive statement on the Parker appointment.

“I know I’m supposedly …”: “Los Angeles Police Chief: William Henry Parker 3d,”
New York Times
, August 114, 1965, 8.

“There is a sinister …”: Kefauver Committee report, quoted in Turking and Feder,
Murder, Inc.
, 426.

It had been a: Mickey would later deny being held overnight. “That was always newspaper bullshit,” he claimed. “They’d say to me, ‘How long ya going to be in town?’ I’d say, ‘I’m leaving at such and such a time on Wednesday.’ So they’d give the story to the newspapers that, ‘We ordered him to leave town by Wednesday’” (In
My Own Words
, 147). This is probably boasting.

A freshman senator from: Russo,
The Outfit
, 259.

At some point in: Moore,
The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime
, 1950-52, 49. See also Russo,
The Outfit
, 251-52.

The killing itself was: “Truman Speeds War on Crime; Mickey Cohen Pay-off Charged, Racketeers’ Tax Returns to Be Eyed,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 2, 1951, 1.

“Lookit, nobody notified me …”: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 148; Russo,
The Outfit
, 255.

“I ain’t never muscled …”: “I Ain’t Never …,”
Time
, November 27, 1950.

Other Mob bosses had: Dragna’s legitimate businesses included a 538-acre vineyard near Puente and a Panama-flagged frigate that shuttled bananas between Long Beach and Panama. Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 25-26. For Mickey’s legitimate holdings, see “Portrait of a Punk,”
Cosmopolitan
. The Kefauver Commission was particularly well informed about Mickey because its chief investigator, Harold Robinson, had come from Warren Olney’s special crime study commission. Warren Olney, “Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration,” 297.

Anyone who bothered to: Calculations come from the Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 37.

This should have led: Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 39.

Mickey cracked his first:
“MAD GUNMAN CAPTURED
, Mickey Cohen Tells Inside Story of L.A., Bland Gangster Spars with Counsel in Quiz; Sheriff Also Testifies,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 18, 1950, 1.

The audience chuckled: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 148.

During Parker’s first month: Webb,
The Badge
, 253.

Parker argued that if: The idea for an interagency intelligence agency was not new. In the fall of 1947, District Attorney William Simpson, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, and Police Chief C. B. Horrall had announced the creation of a similar entity. “Police Network in 20 Cities to Keep Constant Tab on Mobs,”
Los Angeles Daily News
, November 11, 1947. However, Parker revived the idea and gave it a concerted push that previously had been lacking.

“This plan goes deeper …”: Webb,
The Badge
, 253.

The assembled group was: “Parker Declares City Is White Spot of Nation,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 9, 1950.

“[W]e have become a …”: Parker, “Religion and Morality,” in
Parker on
Police
, 18.

The idea of an: “Worton Shifts 33 in Police Shake-Up: Top Flight Officer Named Intelligence Aide to Chief in Reorganization Move,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 4, 1949. Earlier in his career, Worton himself had been a special intelligence officer in the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence. “Worton ‘Man of the Year’ in the
Los Angeles Mirror
Mailbag Vote,” December 30, 1949.

Parker shared Worton’s enthusiasm: Chief Parker, for one, seems to have suspected this. Kefauver,
Crime in America
, 241.

The intelligence division didn’t: Lieberman, “Crusaders in the Underworld: The LAPD Takes On Organized Crime,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 26, 2008.

“When Johnny saw the …”: Otash,
Investigation Hollywood
, 184.

“We’re selfish about it…”: “Novice Chief Brings New Confidence
San Francisco Call-Bulletin
, May 10, 1955.

As Kefauver attempted to: Because Guarantee Finance operated as a “fifty-fifty book,” with management and participating bookies sharing expenses, the cost of juice was almost certainly twice that figure—$216,000. Kefauver,
Crime in America
, 240.

Later that evening, at:
Scene of the Crime
, 126-27.

Mickey was hustled off: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 150-51.

But solving the case: The LAPD was right. However, the two Tonys were killed not because the police were closing in on them for the Rummell shooting—they had no involvement in that—but rather because the two men had recently heisted a big bookmaking operation in Las Vegas. Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 51-54.

“The Weasel” had an: Stump, “L.A.’s Chief Parker—America’s Most Hated Cop,”
Cavalier Magazine
, July 1958. See also Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 56-60, for Fratianno’s account of the interrogation.

Parker moved quickly to: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 425-26.

“Well, get out,” Parker: Gates,
Chief
, Chapters One and Two. Gates’s characterizations of Parker are often ungenerous, as when Gates describes Parker as “a stern, cantankerous man with a reputation as a bully” (25). Throughout the earlier pages of his memoir, Gates presents himself as an independent-minded rebel, eager to break free of Parker’s tutelage. Yet in the version of Gates’s memoirs annotated by Helen Parker (available for perusal at the William H. Parker Police Foundation) a very different and in some ways more plausible picture of the young Gates emerges as an officer whom Parker had to push out into the field. There is probably at least some truth to this alternative account.

Fortunately, Daryl Gates was: Helen Parker would later deny claims that Parker was a heavy drinker, insisting that her husband simply enjoyed a cocktail or two at the end of the day. This claim can be set aside. Gates’s testimony on this point is compelling and corroborated by others, such as Deputy Chief Harold Sullivan.