L.A. Noir Part 7

Just when a narrative highly prejudicial to the police was starting to take shape, police officers arrested Sergeant Stoker-for burglary. A beautiful policewoman, Audre Davis, came forward and tearfully claimed that love had made her an accomplice in Stoker's crime. Stoker denied it, insisting he was being targeted for embarra.s.sing the department. (He also noted that Davis was the granddaughter of former Combination boss Charlie Crawford and that her father, former deputy chief Homer Cross, had retired to Las Vegas under suspicious circ.u.mstances.) The jury turned to Brenda Allen, who had finally been arrested, for clarification, but she only added to the confusion: She claimed to have paid off both Jackson and Stoker. Then, on July 19, someone opened fire on Mickey Cohen at Sherry's nightclub on the Sunset Strip, killing one of Cohen's henchmen and badly injuring a bodyguard provided by state attorney general Fred Howser-the same Fred Howser who had declined to prosecute Cohen for shooting Maxie Shaman four years earlier. Sh.e.l.l casings found across the street led to speculation that the shooter might be a policeman-payback, perhaps, for Mickey's disclosures about the vice squad.

At first, Mayor Bowron and the Police Commission defended Chief Horrall, insisting that he and his men were the victims of an underworld conspiracy. But even for a mayor who'd just won reelection, the pressure to do something was too great to resist. The cavalcade of conflicting confessions, the shootings on the Sunset Strip, the wild swirl of accusations and counteraccusations-it was all too much. Action of some sort was required. Politically, it was time for Chief Horrall and a.s.sistant Chief Reed to go. Once again the civil service protections that the chief of police theoretically enjoyed provided no protection. On June 28, Chief Horrall retired.

Faced with a public safety crisis, Bowron did what politicians in his position do: He turned to a military man. On June 30, Mayor Bowron called General William Worton, a decorated Marine general who had literally retired earlier that day, and asked him if he'd come up from Camp Pendleton to discuss serving as the emergency chief of police for Los Angeles.

* Every division had its own vice squad, which led to frequent jurisdictional confusion. When he first met Jimmy Vaus, Sergeant Stoker was actually just on loan to the Hollywood Division vice squad. (He normally worked out of Central Division.) Administrative vice operated freely throughout the city and worked from headquarters downtown. Every division had its own vice squad, which led to frequent jurisdictional confusion. When he first met Jimmy Vaus, Sergeant Stoker was actually just on loan to the Hollywood Division vice squad. (He normally worked out of Central Division.) Administrative vice operated freely throughout the city and worked from headquarters downtown.* The veracity of Stoker's claims is uncertain. While elements ring true, Parker himself would later dismiss them as fabrications. The veracity of Stoker's claims is uncertain. While elements ring true, Parker himself would later dismiss them as fabrications.

13.

Internal Affairs.

"Neither a slave nor a master be..."-Bill Parker, quoting Abraham Lincoln, Protective League banquet, June 30, 1949.

GENERAL WORTON'S first instinct was to decline the job. The chances of making a success of it just seemed too small.

Worton knew all too well what typically befell the well-intentioned outsider who stepped into a corruption scandal. During the mid-1920s, one of his closest friends, Marine Corps general Smedley Butler (aka "The Fighting Quaker"), had agreed to serve as director of public safety in Philadelphia under similar circ.u.mstances. At first, Butler accomplished wonders, shutting down speakeasies and brothels and curbing corruption. Then he made the mistake of targeting upper-cla.s.s watering holes, and was promptly forced out. Butler later described the experience as "worse than any battle I'd been in." This was saying something, considering that General Butler died in 1940 as the most-decorated officer in the history of the Marine Corps. Los Angeles seemed likely to present similar challenges to Worton. Why bother? After all, as he himself noted, "I owe this city nothing. I've never lived here. It's not my native city."

But Mayor Bowron wouldn't take no for an answer. All day, the mayor and his a.s.sociates worked on Worton. Former Marine Corps commandant Alexander Vandegrift-one of the corps's towering figures, the man who had staved off an attempt to absorb the Marines into the Army just two years earlier-likewise lobbied Worton to take the job. Gradually, Worton softened. Compared to commanding the Marine Corps's Third Amphibious Corps at Okinawa, how challenging could Los Angeles be? And so, at the end of the day, rather than departing from City Hall and returning to the farm in Carlsbad that he and his wife had purchased five years earlier to enjoy in their retirement, Worton raised his hand and was sworn in as L.A.'s emergency chief of police.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know why," he'd later say.

It didn't take long for General Worton to discover that he knew even less about policing than he'd thought.

LIKE OTHER DEPARTMENTS, the LAPD had a distinctly military appearance. Officers were uniformed and armed; ranks were hierarchical; positions had fairly explicit spans of control; and of course, violence and/or the threat of violence was routinely employed. This was no coincidence. Prior to 1937, under Chief James Davis, lines of command in the department had been notoriously unclear. The Red Squad had effectively reported to the business community; irregular officers such as Earl Kynette wielded enormous power; and police badges proliferated so widely that Davis's successors were forced to issue a new, redesigned badge. After Davis's ouster, the department's new leaders.h.i.+p had deliberately embraced the military model of organization in an effort to curtail past abuses. Lines of command were laid out; spans of command were tightened; appearance and discipline were emphasized.

But in other ways, the department's military appearance was deceptive. Policemen were not military personnel. They were civil servants, with civil service protections that limited their work hours and sharply curtailed the chief's ability to promote and demote officers. Worton soon realized that he really had no idea how powerful he was-or even if he was in charge. So he decided to find out by doing something dramatic. At the end of his first week on the job, he announced that he was transferring fifty officers, many quite senior, "all over the place."

"Deputy chiefs were kicked around here," Worton later gleefully related. "Captains were s.h.i.+fted [to] where they didn't want to go."

The primary purpose of the personnel move was not so much to place officers where their talents could be better utilized-Worton had no idea who most of these officers were-but rather to find out if he could could transfer them. He also figured "that if there was crookedness in the department... it would take the crooks another couple of weeks before they could get on to figuring who they could work with." transfer them. He also figured "that if there was crookedness in the department... it would take the crooks another couple of weeks before they could get on to figuring who they could work with."

The results of this experiment were satisfactory. When one "very powerful" local politician threatened to have the new chief's job if he insisted on transferring a certain officer to the San Fernando Valley, Worton responded that if his decision wasn't upheld, he was quitting on the spot-to h.e.l.l with Los Angeles. The transfer was upheld. "To make a long story short... I did have the power," Worton concluded. Now he had to figure out what he was going to do with it.

It was clear the LAPD faced two great challenges-eradicating gangsterism and rooting out corruption. By 1949, eradicating gangsterism meant taking down Mickey Cohen. Rooting out corruption, however, was a more treacherous matter. Chief Horrall had retired, but a.s.sistant Chief Joe Reed-who everyone agreed was the man who really ran the department-remained in office, even as rumors of a grand jury indictment swirled. Moreover, both former Chief Horrall and a.s.sistant Chief Reed still enjoyed the strong rhetorical support of Mayor Bowron, who continued to insist that the department had fallen victim to Cohen's dirty tricks. In order to navigate his way through this mora.s.s, General Worton needed guidance from someone who was both familiar with the Los Angeles-and-beyond reproach. One name came up again and again: William H. Parker.

TO SGT. CHARLES STOKER, Bill Parker was a person "of overweening ambition-a man whose one desire was his objective-the office of Chief of Police." To many other members of the force, though, Bill Parker was a model for what a policeman should be: smart, a.s.sertive, and incorruptible. Parker's experiences and att.i.tude held a particular appeal to the 1,400 new police officers who joined the department after the war, 90 percent of whom had served in the military. Accustomed to military discipline, these men were also highly attuned to bulls.h.i.+t. Typical of the att.i.tude they brought (though perhaps a bit more c.o.c.ky than most) was an ex-Navy seaman named Daryl Gates. Gates joined the police in order to earn $290 a month for a few years while working toward a law degree. He definitely did not intend to be-his words-"a dumb cop." (Gates would serve as chief of the LAPD from 1978 to 1992.) But when Gates got to the Los Angeles Police Academy, he was impressed-not by the academy's "spit and polish" style; as a former Navy man, he'd already had plenty of that. Rather, he was struck by the abilities of his cla.s.smates. "I realized that I was one of the most undereducated [people] in the whole cla.s.s, and probably, clearly, not the smartest," says Gates. One of his cla.s.smates had studied chemistry at Berkeley; another had finished two years of law school. The instructors were even more impressive-"extraordinary," says Gates. The captain responsible for overseeing the academy was an ex-Marine officer and a former Olympic water polo star. Gates's lieutenant was Tom Reddin (a future chief of police). The academy's law instructor was Buck Compton, a UCLA football and baseball star who'd joined the 101st Airborne Division in time for the Normandy invasion (and whose deeds inspired the Stephen Ambrose book Band of Brothers; Band of Brothers; he would later prosecute Sirhan Sirhan and serve as a California Court of Appeals judge). he would later prosecute Sirhan Sirhan and serve as a California Court of Appeals judge).

The person who impressed Gates most, though, was Bill Parker.

Gates met Parker for the first time when Parker came to deliver a lecture on ethics and police history to Gates's cla.s.s. "Oh, were we impressed," recalls Gates. "Oh, man. It was that kind of quality that I saw and really turned me around in terms of what this department was all about."

Parker's speech was confrontational-and riveting. He was not interested in establis.h.i.+ng a rapport with the men or presenting himself as "a good guy." Instead, he started by cutting the men down to size.

"You're coming in, you haven't done anything to contribute to the stature or the history of this department," he told the cla.s.s. "You've done nothing. We antic.i.p.ate that you will do something, but you have [as yet] done nothing. You bring nothing to this department. It is what it is without you." He then proceeded to explain what the department was and what it should be.

It was, thought Gates, "an absolutely magnificent speech. It was electric." This was not a town hall-style affair. Parker entertained no questions. "He came in, gave his speech," and then left, recalls Gates.

Parker's legend was growing: D-day hero. The man who'd reorganized Axis police departments from Sardinia to Munich, purging them of fascists (a feat that seemed to bear more than a little resemblance to cleaning up the LAPD). The officer who'd stood up to Chief Horrall for veterans' rights, who'd topped both the inspector and the deputy chief promotion eligibility exams yet had to fight for promotions that were rightfully his. As for the ambition, that was obvious too. It had been since the late 1930s.

General Worton had no problem with ambition. On the contrary, he welcomed it. When he first introduced himself to his commanding staff, "I told each one of them that I wanted them to take a look at me," Worton said later. "I wanted each one of them to say, 'How are we going to get that old man's job away from him?'" The desire to earn the top job was, Worton thought, a healthy thing. "You should all want to be the chief of police of this city," he'd tell officers during his visits to the division headquarters during his first weeks on the job. "Somehow or other you should be thinking, 'How am I going to get this so-and-so out of here?'"

That Bill Parker was almost certainly thinking precisely that bothered General Worton not at all. On July 15, Angelenos woke up to the news that General Worton had moved Inspector Parker to a newly created position in his office. His duties, General Worton told the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times ("in cryptic Marine general style") would be "anything I want him to do." In fact, the meaning of Worton's move was obvious: a.s.st. Chief Joe Reed was being eased out. Worton's bland denials-when pressed by reporters, he simply observed that Reed had a civil service position and that the only way to vacate it was for him to resign or be removed on charges (of the sort that the county grand jury was then preparing)-only confirmed his intent. The smart money had Parker pegged as Worton's new number two. But roughly a week after Worton announced that he was bringing Parker into his office, the interim chief announced that he wanted Parker to head an entirely new bureau, Internal Affairs. ("in cryptic Marine general style") would be "anything I want him to do." In fact, the meaning of Worton's move was obvious: a.s.st. Chief Joe Reed was being eased out. Worton's bland denials-when pressed by reporters, he simply observed that Reed had a civil service position and that the only way to vacate it was for him to resign or be removed on charges (of the sort that the county grand jury was then preparing)-only confirmed his intent. The smart money had Parker pegged as Worton's new number two. But roughly a week after Worton announced that he was bringing Parker into his office, the interim chief announced that he wanted Parker to head an entirely new bureau, Internal Affairs.

FOR DECADES, vice and its attendant, corruption, had been ineradicable parasites on the body of the LAPD. The cycle of scandal, reform, and then scandal again had driven city politics for decades. Reform-minded police chiefs had tried everything to eradicate it, putting administrative vice under the chief's tight control; disbanding administrative vice; ignoring vice; suppressing it. Internal Affairs represented something new: an entire bureau focused solely on investigating misconduct and corruption within the LAPD. Worton emphasized its importance by moving Deputy Chief Richard Simon, who headed the patrol bureau, out of City Hall and moving Parker and Internal Affairs in.

It was the perfect position for Bill Parker, for a number of reasons. First, it gave him more authority to pursue and root out corruption than he'd ever had before (vastly more authority than he had enjoyed as lead prosecutor for the department trial board). Second, it allowed him to pursue his long-cherished goal of shoring up police autonomy. By demonstrating that the department was capable of policing itself, Parker hoped to defang the small but vocal group of activists and critics who had begun to call for a board of civilians to review complaints against the department. Finally, the position gave Parker access to information-to the department's deepest secrets, both real and imagined. A new element mingled with feelings of respect-fear. Fear about what Parker was learning-and about how he might use it.

General Worton and his new team moved quickly. Under his predecessor, Chief Horrall, lines of command had grown murky. Worton clarified them, creating an organizational chart where authority and responsibility for every major function were clearly a.s.signed. He doubled the training period for cadets at the police academy to ninety days, established a new corrections division, and ended the practice of automatically a.s.signing all rookie officers to either the Lincoln Heights jail or traffic duty downtown, both of which tended to sour new officers on police work. The two gangster squads he inherited (each with roughly a dozen men) were combined into a single intelligence squad and instructed to work closely with the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department on antimob activities. Worton also divided the detective bureau between two inspectors, diminis.h.i.+ng the power of that fiefdom, and placed the vice, robbery, and homicide squads under Deputy Chief Hohmann. Vice squad officers across the city were dispersed to other units. (Leaving officers in vice for years on end was, Worton thought, an invitation to corruption.) So were hundreds of other officers. The practice of accepting gifts of any sort was banned, at least in theory. The position of a.s.sistant chief was abolished too. The chief of police would no longer be able to pa.s.s responsibility for running the department to someone else.

General Worton was also keenly interested in departmental morale. Closer acquaintance with the LAPD had convinced Worton that, contrary to public perception, LAPD officers were generally dedicated and honest. But the Brenda Allen scandal had badly dented the department's self-confidence. "They didn't have the esprit of a good combat unit," Worton would later tell a reporter. So he set out to instill it, using the Corps's tried-and-true methods. The police academy became even more like Quantico. "Military bearing" became a prime objective for all LAPD officers. Worton also inst.i.tuted aggressive inspections, with an emphasis on spit and polish. He often conducted them himself. Where his predecessor, Chief Horrall, had seemed content to leave departmental matters to others, General Worton was everywhere.

"He would be out prowling at night, and some guy would stop somebody to write a ticket, and this big, black car would pull up behind him, and when the officer was finished this little guy would come walking over and say, 'Hi. I'm the chief,'" recalls Bob Rock (a future acting chief). He quickly became a popular figure with his men. "He made a really diligent effort to relate to the people, to the department," says Rock.

Worton's personal style-and his efforts to instill military pride in the department-proved popular, particularly with the department's new officers, most of whom had served in the military during the war. Initially, Worton had worried about moving too quickly in this direction. However, in short order, average patrolmen were snapping to attention and saluting sharply when he appeared (even though he never formally inst.i.tuted salutes).

PARKER MOVED decisively too, quickly forcing the resignation of an officer who'd been involved in a controversial shooting earlier in the year. It was an accomplishment that attracted considerable good publicity-and not the only one. One of Parker's duties for former chief James Davis had been to handle the press, and he knew how to keep his name in the headlines. On August 28, Parker presided over a huge Fire and Police dinner, lavis.h.i.+ng praise on guest-of-honor Mayor Bowron (for seven years of regular pay raises). The following month, at a meeting of the California American Legion's three hundred top officials, Parker received a well-publicized a.s.signment to promote "Americanism" after the convention listened to an up-and-coming Republican congressman from Whittier-Richard Nixon-warn of the dangers of a Communist insurrection. Integral to the success of this campaign, from Parker's perspective, was the removal of the cancer of organized crime, which cultivated base appet.i.tes and weakened the country when it needed to be preparing for the coming struggle with Soviet Russia. That meant dealing with the likes of Mickey Cohen.

The problems posed by Mickey were manifold. First, there was the criminal activity he was involved in. In the fall of 1949, as the county grand jury was attempting to sort out the welter of charges and countercharges between Mickey and the LAPD, another embarra.s.sing case was headed to court, this one involving a bookmaking front company called the Guarantee Finance Corporation.

Located in unincorporated county territory, Guarantee Finance was perhaps the most audacious bookmaking operation in 1940s Los Angeles. With 74 telephones in its central gambling room, Guarantee Finance employed more than 170 runners and handled gambling in excess of $7,000,000 a year. (It was also happy to arrange high-interest loans for clients with gambling debts.) The LAPD administrative vice squad identified the operation almost immediately but found that the sheriff's vice squad was strangely uninterested in shutting it down. Frustrated, Sgt. James Fisk took matters into his own hands and raided the establishment, destroying equipment and removing betting markers. A few months later, with the operation still running, Fisk carried out a second raid. This prompted sheriff department captain Al Guasti ("Iron Man" Contreras's successor as the supervisor of the Sunset Strip) to write then-a.s.sistant Chief of Police Joe Reed a stern letter, warning the LAPD to keep its nose out of county business. Finally, in early 1949, the state corporation commission raided the bookmaking operation and shut its operations down. The wholesale gambling operation the state raid revealed was yet another embarra.s.sing testament to the reach of the underworld into Los Angeles.

The second thing that made Mickey seriously inconvenient was the fact that someone kept trying to kill him-in a sloppy and inept fas.h.i.+on. On August 2, a pipe bomb intended for Mickey exploded across the street from Cohen's Brentwood house, upsetting the neighbors and, by extension, their elected representatives. It would not do to have a resident of Brentwood die in the cross fire of a gang war. Worton decided to go after Mickey with everything he had. His first step was to sic the new intelligence squad on Cohen.

On August 3, officers searched the apartment of Cohen a.s.sociate Mike Howard (Meyer Horowitz) after getting a tip that he might be dealing drugs. They didn't find any narcotics, but they did discover two unlicensed pistols. So they hauled in Howard and sent two LAPD detectives and a federal Bureau of Narcotics agent over to Cohen's house to question him about the incident.

Mickey was not happy to find police officers at his door.

"What the h.e.l.l do you want?" he snarled. When he found out what they'd come to ask him about-some gun charge involving an a.s.sociate-he lost it. Didn't they realize that he had guests (among them Earl Brown, Life's Life's crack crime writer, and Al Ostro of the crack crime writer, and Al Ostro of the San Francisco Daily News) San Francisco Daily News) and that it was dinnertime? He asked if the police had a warrant. They didn't. and that it was dinnertime? He asked if the police had a warrant. They didn't.

"Well then go f.u.c.k yourself," Mickey told them. "And tell the chief to go f.u.c.k himself." Then, for good measure, he added, "Get the h.e.l.l off my property, you sons of b.i.t.c.hes."

The officers retreated. But two weeks later, in a clear indication that the police were playing by new rules, they returned and arrested him for using obscene and insulting language against a police officer. Mickey got out on bail, and a trial date was set for September 15, 1949.

The press was delighted. Mickey's journalist guests testified that Mickey had indeed questioned the legitimacy of the law officers' births. Cohen's situation looked dire, but his attorneys had a trick up their sleeves. To back his a.s.sertion that calling someone a "son of a b.i.t.c.h" wasn't obscene, Rummel pointed to none other than President Harry Truman, who had recently called columnist Drew Pearson the exact same thing. The courtroom laughed, the jurors retired to deliberate, and four hours later Mickey Cohen once again walked out a free man.

Within weeks, his name was back in the papers, this time in connection with one of the biggest trials in recent Hollywood history, the trial of actor Robert Mitchum. Mitchum had been busted by the sheriff's department vice squad with a joint of marijuana at a party in the Hollywood Hills, in a raid whose timing was so fortuitous as to be suspicious. Nonetheless, he was convicted and s.h.i.+pped off to prison for a brief stint behind bars (accompanied by a photographer from Life Life magazine). Now Paul Behrmann, a former business manager and actors' agent who had once represented Mitchum (but who had since gotten into troubles of his own with the law) came forward with a startling tale. Behrmann told DA William Simpson that Cohen was running a s.e.x-and-extortion ring that specialized in capturing big-time businessmen and actors in compromising situations. Cohen's stable of accomplices supposedly included a party girl named "Bootsie" and the twenty-four-year-old redheaded a.s.sistant to "French lover teacher" Claude Marsan. The suggestion was made that Mitchum, too, had been set up by Cohen. magazine). Now Paul Behrmann, a former business manager and actors' agent who had once represented Mitchum (but who had since gotten into troubles of his own with the law) came forward with a startling tale. Behrmann told DA William Simpson that Cohen was running a s.e.x-and-extortion ring that specialized in capturing big-time businessmen and actors in compromising situations. Cohen's stable of accomplices supposedly included a party girl named "Bootsie" and the twenty-four-year-old redheaded a.s.sistant to "French lover teacher" Claude Marsan. The suggestion was made that Mitchum, too, had been set up by Cohen.

With Mickey on the loose, every day seemed to bring a new humiliation for Los Angeles area law enforcement. But the LAPD was also squeezing Cohen. Mickey had demonstrated his clout by sparking the scandal that led to Chief Horrall's ouster, but in General Worton, Cohen had arguably found a cure that was worse than the disease. It wasn't that Cohen felt fundamentally threatened by Worton; Mickey was convinced that the general "knew little or nothing of the workings of this office." However, since Chief Horrall's forced retirement, the LAPD had gone all out to make Mickey's life miserable. Constant surveillance made it difficult for Mickey to do business. A grand jury had begun to investigate Cohen's (protected) gambling operations in Glendale. There were reports that the FBI had also begun an investigation. But the worst blow of all had come from a small outfit convened at Gov. Earl Warren's behest the previous summer, the Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime. Although the state legislature had been careful to make the commission as toothless as possible (for example, denying its four investigators subpoena power), the commission had an a.s.set whose tenacity could not be easily blunted-chief counsel Warren Olney III.

OLNEY CAME from one of California's most distinguished families. His grandfather was one of the founders of the Sierra Club; his father had been a justice on the California Supreme Court. Olney himself was one of Governor Warren's closest and most valued a.s.sociates. He was also something of an authority on interstate gambling and the racing wire. As the head of the California attorney general's criminal division in the late 1930s (when Warren had been the state attorney general), Olney had begun to investigate bookmaking in California, with a particular focus on Moses Annenberg's Nationwide News Service. At first, Olney had struggled to figure out what was so important about the wire service. But after three days at Reno's Bank Club, it came to him. The tout sheets, the hot tips, the fluctuating pari-mutuel prices, the odds at the gate, the conditions of the track-all of that was really just a distraction. Bookies needed the wire so that they could quickly roll $2 bets from one race into $2 bets on the next race. Most gamblers weren't reading the Daily Racing Form Daily Racing Form, looking for an inside edge. They were betting on race after race just like gambling junkies played slots.

"Bookmaking has nothing to do with horse races," Olney concluded. "It's a strict lottery-nothing more than that." The wire delivered the information that made it possible to place bet after bet, hour after hour.

This system was generating immense amounts of money for Mickey Cohen. According to LAPD estimates, in mid-1949, Mickey had about five hundred bookmakers paying for protection (typically, $40 per week for every telephone in their operation plus $5 a week per agent). Even if the average bookie had only two telephones, this would have generated more than $160,000 a month. In exchange for such princely sums, Mickey provided attorneys and bail money for bookmakers unfortunate enough to be arrested. This service was famously speedy. In one notorious case, vice squad officers arrested a bookmaker at 3:05 p.m. only to be presented twenty-six minutes later with a bail bond and a writ of habeas corpus, signed by a judge and duly executed, ordering them to release the arrested bookie. Cohen also provided insurance against clients who engaged in "past posting"-placing bets after the race was over-in the form of a menacing visit to bettors who tried to cheat. After these visits, bettors rarely persisted in their claims.

Olney realized that there was a simple way to end it all: cut the wire. An investigation by the California Public Utilities Commission revealed that all the bookmakers in California were supplied over a single telegraphic wire leased from Western Union by the Continental Press service.* Continental then telegraphed information on odds, post times, track conditions, and results to "drops" across the nation. The Special Crime Study Commission identified eight in Southern California-front companies with unclear owners.h.i.+p structures and bland names such as Consolidated Publish Inc. and Southwest News. The system was fast but also vulnerable. Olney's investigators discovered that Western Union's contract with Continental gave state law enforcement authorities the power to request that the wire be terminated if they suspected it was being used, directly or indirectly, in violation of California law. Clearly, Continental's services were being used to violate California law, but when Olney directed the state attorney general's office to that provision, it did nothing. Finally, after months of pressure from Olney and his commission, Attorney General Howser ended his foot-dragging and presented Western Union with such a request. Western Union disconnected the wire, throwing bookmaking in California into chaos. Continental then telegraphed information on odds, post times, track conditions, and results to "drops" across the nation. The Special Crime Study Commission identified eight in Southern California-front companies with unclear owners.h.i.+p structures and bland names such as Consolidated Publish Inc. and Southwest News. The system was fast but also vulnerable. Olney's investigators discovered that Western Union's contract with Continental gave state law enforcement authorities the power to request that the wire be terminated if they suspected it was being used, directly or indirectly, in violation of California law. Clearly, Continental's services were being used to violate California law, but when Olney directed the state attorney general's office to that provision, it did nothing. Finally, after months of pressure from Olney and his commission, Attorney General Howser ended his foot-dragging and presented Western Union with such a request. Western Union disconnected the wire, throwing bookmaking in California into chaos.

The halt was temporary. A mysterious new ent.i.ty, the Illinois News a.s.sociation, soon appeared with a request to provide a new telegraphic wire service. When the public utilities commission declined to authorize it, the "news a.s.sociation" sued in federal court-and lost. Undeterred, the news a.s.sociation appealed and sought a temporary resumption of wire service, pending the outcome of its appeal request. Attorney General Howser, ever solicitous of the underworld, declined to provide attorneys to defend the public utilities commission's action. Despite lacking counsel, the state utilities commission again prevailed.

The interruption of the wire service had a dramatic impact on gambling in Los Angeles. Without the wire, the ability to roll money quickly from one race into the next was greatly diminished. The most profitable gambling establishments, the so-called horse parlors, where bettors came into a room and placed cash bets directly, one race after the other, disappeared almost overnight. Instead, bettors were directed to call "runners," who took bets over the phone (customers were given an unlisted number and a code word) and then relayed them back to a central office, where bookies collected information via long-distance telephone calls. Volume diminished, and, as the time required to receive results increased from a few minutes to half an hour or longer, the risk of "past posting" increased. The single most lucrative source of Syndicate revenues in the Southland was being squeezed.

Mickey Cohen felt the pinch. But the impact of the wire shutoff wasn't limited to his pocketbook. The wire service was not just a source of vast profits for the Syndicate: Because every serious bookie needed it, the wire was also a tool for licensing and organizing gambling in every big city across the country. "[T]he inevitable result [of its termination]," predicted Olney, "will be the disorganization of bookmaking and the eradication of the organization upon which the Capone Syndicate could and would have based its organizat ion of the California underworld." Cohen understood the threat. But he was preoccupied with a more pressing problem: the people who kept trying to kill him.

Mickey accepted the fact that his chosen profession entailed risks. That local crazies like Maxie Shaman would occasionally come at him was no surprise. What was a surprise was that professional hit men would repeatedly try to kill him. Bugsy Siegel had died because he'd angered virtually every other top figure in the Syndicate. Mickey hadn't. On the contrary, he'd gotten the nod to take over Bugsy's book. Manhattan mobster Frank Costello, the most influential Mob boss in the country, backed him. So did the Cleveland outfit, a far larger presence in Los Angeles than is commonly realized. A rogue hit of the sort attempted at Sherry's-one that endangered civilians and nearly killed a policeman-seemed like something no professional criminal would do.

But not only had someone made the attempt, they were continuing to do so. And if they couldn't touch Mickey directly, they were prepared to do the next best thing. They would target the members of his gang. Ironically, it was Cohen's sense of street justice (and his instinct for good PR) that made him vulnerable.

THE TROUBLE STARTED when William Randolph Hearst's Examiner Examiner splashed across its front page the sad story of a widow who had refused to pay a $9 radio repair bill she regarded as excessive. The radio repairman in question, Al Pearson, responded by initiating a lawsuit that led to the eventual fire sale of the widow's home, which he then purchased for $26.50. He allowed her to stay on as a tenant paying $10 a week in rent. Outraged policemen at nearby Wils.h.i.+re station took up a collection. splashed across its front page the sad story of a widow who had refused to pay a $9 radio repair bill she regarded as excessive. The radio repairman in question, Al Pearson, responded by initiating a lawsuit that led to the eventual fire sale of the widow's home, which he then purchased for $26.50. He allowed her to stay on as a tenant paying $10 a week in rent. Outraged policemen at nearby Wils.h.i.+re station took up a collection.

Pearson's business practices had long attracted unfavorable attention: Police Commission chief investigator Harry Lorenson would later describe him as "the most dishonest businessman in the entire city." When Cohen heard about the incident, he saw an opportunity to burnish his image. He and seven of his boys went over to West Adams to talk with Pearson about returning the widow's house. When Pearson refused to yield to reason, Mickey's cohorts gave the recalcitrant radio repairman a severe beating, cracking his skull and fracturing his right arm-before a large crowd of cheering neighbors.

As Cohen was leaving the scene to get into his car, one of his henchmen, a three-hundred-pound former prizefighter named Jimmy Rist, rushed up.

"Hey, the guy's got a thing back there that listens to things!" he informed Mickey. "He's got everything on it that went on."

"Well, take that son of a b.i.t.c.h machine out of there," Cohen snapped, before jumping into his Cadillac and heading back to his office. Rist hurried back to Pearson's shop to carry out Mickey's orders. What Rist didn't know was that a neighborhood photobug had been shooting pictures of the entire episode from across the street.

Rist and his a.s.sociates managed to grab the recorder. But in their haste to get away, Mickey's men made an illegal U-turn. Two rookie patrol officers spotted the car and put on their flashers. A two-block chase ensued, during which time a tire iron, a riding whip, and two pistols were thrown from the car. Cohen's men then pulled over. They were promptly arrested and taken down to the Wils.h.i.+re Division station for booking. When Mickey heard about the arrest, he placed a call-to the chief of the Wils.h.i.+re Division detective bureau, who hurried into the station. There he confronted the rookies, telling them they had ten minutes to get the guns, tire irons, hot plates, and stolen recorder back into Cohen's men's car. He then ordered their release.

That would have been that but for the photographer. Late that evening, Cohen got a call from a contact at the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times, informing him that a photographer had come in earlier that evening and, for $100, sold the paper negatives of his men being arrested (not realizing what he could have gotten for the negatives from Mickey). Mickey rushed down to the Times Times building and attempted to buy the negatives, but it was too late. The building and attempted to buy the negatives, but it was too late. The Times Times broke the story that tied Mickey's men to Pearson's beating, prompting Mickey to skip town. The lieutenant and sergeant involved in releasing Mickey's men were suspended and then sacked. The press had a field day. Hearst's broke the story that tied Mickey's men to Pearson's beating, prompting Mickey to skip town. The lieutenant and sergeant involved in releasing Mickey's men were suspended and then sacked. The press had a field day. Hearst's Examiner Examiner likened widow Elsie Philips to Snow White; Mickey's men were dubbed the seven dwarves. Cohen and his gunmen (who included the hapless "Happy" Meltzer) were arrested. As was Mickey's habit, he quickly posted bail: $100,000 for himself, $25,000 to 50,000 for each of the dwarves. A trial was scheduled for October. Then, on September 2, 1949, Cohen henchman Frank Niccoli disappeared. likened widow Elsie Philips to Snow White; Mickey's men were dubbed the seven dwarves. Cohen and his gunmen (who included the hapless "Happy" Meltzer) were arrested. As was Mickey's habit, he quickly posted bail: $100,000 for himself, $25,000 to 50,000 for each of the dwarves. A trial was scheduled for October. Then, on September 2, 1949, Cohen henchman Frank Niccoli disappeared.

Mickey immediately suspected foul play. What he didn't yet understand was that the Dragna crew was moving to eliminate him with the a.s.sistance of his supposed friend from Cleveland, Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno.

In the world of organized crime, where loyalty is paramount, tribal segregation has long been the norm. But Mickey had always been different. His organization in Los Angeles had drawn on two disparate groups, Jews from New York (like the late, lamented Hooky Rothman) and Italians from Cleveland or New Jersey (like Joe and Fred Sica). Fratianno was supposed to be part of Mickey's Italian Cleveland contingent. Like Mickey, Fratianno had enjoyed a long run as a holdup man. Unlike Mickey, Jimmy had had the bad luck of being arrested while shaking down a bookmaker in 1937 and s.h.i.+pped off to prison. When Fratianno got out of the pen in 1945, Cohen helped him move to L.A., even springing for an expensive sanitarium sojourn to help cure Fratianno's consumption.

Far from responding gratefully to Mickey's gestures, Fratianno drifted into the sphere of Jack Dragna and his ambitious nephew Louis Tom, both of whom chafed at the notion of a Jew running the rackets. The Dragna circle soon felt comfortable enough with Fratianno to enlist him as a conspirator in an effort to regain control of the Los Angeles underworld-by rubbing out Mickey. "The Weasel" was happy to help. Their first target was Cohen henchman Frank Niccoli, who also happened to be one of Fratianno's old stickup buddies from Cleveland. At Dragna's behest, Jimmy called up Niccoli and asked him to come over for a drink. He let Niccoli finish it before having him strangled. The killers then stripped off Niccoli's clothes, stuffed the body in a mail sack, and threw it in the back of their car. A few hours later, Niccoli was interred with a sack of lime in a vineyard in Cucamonga. Niccoli's car was then abandoned at LAX.

It took Mickey several days to realize that Niccoli was missing. But Superior Court Judge Thomas Ambrose was not impressed by Cohen's claim that something awful had happened. The judge suspected that Niccoli had simply flown the coop. Reports that Niccoli had been sighted in Mexico filtered in. Police officers were dispatched to search for him in Texas. When Niccoli didn't appear in court on October 3, the first day of the trial, the $50,000 Mickey had put down as bail was forfeited.

Then, on October 10, another Cohen henchman, Davey Ogul, vanished. His car turned up two days later. Again the judge rejected Mickey's claims that foul play was involved and, when the dead man failed to present himself in court, Mickey was out another $25,000. With the police breathing down his neck, it was practically impossible to do business anyway. So on October 13 Mickey took the humiliating step of instructing his remaining henchmen to return to jail, where their safety would be guaranteed.

But where is true safety in this world? Surely not in jail. The constant attempts on his life, his miraculous escapes from death-it was enough to make a man think of Providence, for as the Psalmist said, "It is thou, Lord, only that makest me dwell in safety."

Mickey Cohen wasn't a religious man. But in the autumn of 1949, G.o.d came calling at 513 South Moreno in the form of an unlikely duo: Cohen wiretapper Jimmy Vaus and a charismatic young evangelist named Billy Graham.

* Legalized pari-mutuel betting (where the odds reflect at-track wagers calculated by a pari-mutuel machine) was legal in California, but off-track bookmaking was banned, as it was in every state save Nevada. That made it impossible for Continental to collect information openly. So instead it employed undercover "signalers" or "wigglers" who transmitted odds and race results through a complicated set of signals to outside observers who typically monitored the track with high-powered binoculars and quickly relayed information to the Continental Press "drops." Drops were typically little more than a large room with fifteen to twenty telephones (each carefully registered to a false name), placed on a rack before a loudspeaker. At the beginning of the racing day, calls were placed to subscribing bookmakers and left open all day. When information came in from Chicago, an operator at the drop read it into a microphone that broadcast it out through the loudspeaker and into the battery of phones, which bookmakers on the other end heard instantly and simultaneously. The system was remarkably fast (for the pre-Internet era). Bookmakers in L.A. (who, incidentally, placed the vast majority of bets on out-of-state races) could get results from the New Orleans race tracks in as little as a minute and a half. (California Special Crime Study Commission report, March 17, 1949, 72, 79-80.) Legalized pari-mutuel betting (where the odds reflect at-track wagers calculated by a pari-mutuel machine) was legal in California, but off-track bookmaking was banned, as it was in every state save Nevada. That made it impossible for Continental to collect information openly. So instead it employed undercover "signalers" or "wigglers" who transmitted odds and race results through a complicated set of signals to outside observers who typically monitored the track with high-powered binoculars and quickly relayed information to the Continental Press "drops." Drops were typically little more than a large room with fifteen to twenty telephones (each carefully registered to a false name), placed on a rack before a loudspeaker. At the beginning of the racing day, calls were placed to subscribing bookmakers and left open all day. When information came in from Chicago, an operator at the drop read it into a microphone that broadcast it out through the loudspeaker and into the battery of phones, which bookmakers on the other end heard instantly and simultaneously. The system was remarkably fast (for the pre-Internet era). Bookmakers in L.A. (who, incidentally, placed the vast majority of bets on out-of-state races) could get results from the New Orleans race tracks in as little as a minute and a half. (California Special Crime Study Commission report, March 17, 1949, 72, 79-80.)

14.

The Evangelist.

"He has the making of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time."-the Rev. Billy Graham, commenting on Mickey Cohen.

THE YEAR 1949 had been a disastrous one for Jimmy Vaus. "Happy" Meltzer's trial and the revelations that followed had exposed him as a double agent and placed him in considerable legal peril. And so it was that driving home late one Sat.u.r.day night in November, filled with mournful thoughts, listening to the original singing cowboy, radio host Stuart Hamblen, Jimmy Vaus heard something that would change his life.

"A few nights ago," began Hamblen, "I went to the Big Tent at Was.h.i.+ngton and Hill, and after I heard Billy Graham preach, I accepted Christ as my personal Savior." Hamblen was so committed to Jesus, he continued, that he was selling his racehorses-save for his sentimental favorite, the champion Thoroughbred El Lobo.

This was serious. Everyone who listened to Hamblen's radio program knew he was crazy about the horses (as well as other not-strictly-religious activities such as c.o.o.n-hunting and skirt-chasin'). "He meant business if he were selling his horses," concluded Vaus.

The next day was a Sunday. Vaus went to the beach. It was foggy and cold. He dropped by Mickey Cohen's house in Brentwood. Mickey wasn't home. He drove down to a bar on Was.h.i.+ngton Boulevard-and then realized, with a start, that he was headed straight for the Billy Graham revival meeting.

By November 1949, everyone in Los Angeles knew about Billy Graham. One month earlier, the lantern-jawed young evangelist with the fierce blue eyes and the booming voice had arrived in town with plans to hold a series of old-fas.h.i.+oned tent revival meetings. The idea was quaint. The messenger wasn't. Graham was Hollywood's idea of what a minister should be-a six-foot, two-inch booming baritone who wore sharp, double-breasted suits and flashy ties. Nonetheless, Graham's campaign for Christ might well have remained a modest affair but for the mysterious intervention of William Randolph Hearst. Soon after Graham arrived in town, the editors at the morning Los Angeles Examiner Los Angeles Examiner and the evening and the evening Herald-Express Herald-Express received a terse telegram from San Simeon: "Puff Graham." The city's largest morning tabloid responded with typical elan. Graham noticed that suddenly "reporters and cameramen were crawling all over the place." Stories about Graham's "Crusade for Christ" played across the front pages of the two papers for weeks, as did breathless accounts of the goings-on within what was now dubbed "the Canvas Cathedral" ("the largest revival tent in history"). Modest crowds became impa.s.sioned mobs. And so that Sunday evening Jimmy Vaus found himself squeezing onto a back bench under the big tent, one of the roughly six thousand people who'd come to hear Graham speak. received a terse telegram from San Simeon: "Puff Graham." The city's largest morning tabloid responded with typical elan. Graham noticed that suddenly "reporters and cameramen were crawling all over the place." Stories about Graham's "Crusade for Christ" played across the front pages of the two papers for weeks, as did breathless accounts of the goings-on within what was now dubbed "the Canvas Cathedral" ("the largest revival tent in history"). Modest crowds became impa.s.sioned mobs. And so that Sunday evening Jimmy Vaus found himself squeezing onto a back bench under the big tent, one of the roughly six thousand people who'd come to hear Graham speak.

"You know," Graham boomed through the tent, "there's a man in this audience tonight who has heard this story many times before, and who knows this is the decision he should make.... This is your moment of decision."

Suddenly, Vaus found himself gliding up the isle toward the platform at the front of the tent where Graham was standing. Then he was down on his knees. He left in a daze. As he was exiting the tent, a photographer's light-bulb flashed. The next day, newspaper readers awakened to the headline WIRE-TAPPER VAUs. .h.i.tS SAWDUST TRAIL WIRE-TAPPER VAUs. .h.i.tS SAWDUST TRAIL.

Celebrity criminal Jimmy Vaus had been born again.

It was with some nervousness that Vaus drove over to Mickey's house to explain his conversion. November had not been a good month for Mickey. After forfeiting bail on his disappearing gunmen, Mickey needed to be able to show more income from legitimate sources. So he announced plans to sell his haberdashery. Cohen carried it out with unusual style. A huge sign appeared in the haberdashery's window: MICKEY COHEN QUITS MICKEY COHEN QUITS! A spotlight danced across the Los Angeles sky from the doomed store, as if its closing were a movie premiere. Curious Angelenos responded by the hundreds, helping themselves to a look into Mickey's luxurious lair (as well as a chance to purchase $25 ties at $10 prices). Vaus feared that Mickey's mood might be bad. But when he arrived at 513 Moreno, he found the gangster in good spirits. When Vaus informed Mickey that he was "going back to the Church, back into Christianity," Cohen responded, good-naturedly, "Well, what the h.e.l.l else ya been?"

No, no, Vaus explained. "You're not a Christian till you give your life to Lord Jesus Christ and are born again."

Mickey was a bit unclear on the born-again thing but told Vaus "that was fine with him." Vaus summoned his courage and plowed ahead. He intended to go straight, he told Mickey, despite the financial hards.h.i.+ps this would entail. Cohen wished him the best of luck and offered a gift of $1,500 that he happened to have in his bedroom. Vaus declined. Now that he had resolved to walk with the Lord, he didn't think it would be right to take such a sum from a notorious gangster. He left with only $500.

Vaus's conversion became the talk of the city. Billy Graham's star ascended ever higher. Graham then offered Vaus a job as a junior spokesperson, essentially, someone who would accompany Graham on his crusades and testify to the power of faith. Vaus, in turn, offered Graham something enticing: the prospect of "saving" Mickey Cohen. He arranged for Graham and radio host Stuart Hamblen to stop by the Cohen residence for a visit. Cohen's housekeeper served them hot chocolate and cookies. The men got along well. A few weeks later, Graham invited Cohen to attend a private meeting "of Hollywood personalities." At the meeting, Graham asked people who wanted him to pray for them to hold up their hands.

"Mickey lifted his hand," Graham later recounted, "and I am sincerely convinced that he wanted G.o.d."

The effort to convert Mickey Cohen had begun.

BILLY GRAHAM'S PRAYERS were apparently effective. At 4:15 a.m. on February 6, 1950, the radar alarm designed by Jimmy Vaus went off. Mickey grabbed a shotgun and peeked out the front door. Seeing nothing, he went back to his wife's bedroom. No sooner had he gotten into LaVonne's bed than a ma.s.sive explosion rocked the house. Windows throughout the neighborhood were blown out; police officers at a station three miles away felt the shock waves. When Cohen opened his eyes, his roof and most of the front of his house, including the bedroom where he normally slept, were gone. His first thought was of Tuffy (who slept beside him in an exact replica of Mickey's bed, save for the fact that his bedcovering was monogrammed "TC" rather than "MC"). Fortunately for the terrier, he had followed Mickey to LaVonne's bedroom that night. Police arrived to find Mickey in his bathrobe, shaking his head at his closet of ruined $300 suits.

Police later estimated that twenty-eight sticks of dynamite had been placed under the Cohen residence. Providence-or Lady Luck-seemed to be keeping a vigil over Mickey Cohen.

Three days later, the critical witness in the beating case of rapacious radio repairman Al Pearson came before the jury. Hazel Pearson was Al's daughter-in-law; she worked in his shop and had witnessed the attack the previous spring. But instead of offering testimony that would send Mickey and his surviving henchmen to the pen, Hazel turned on her father-in-law, whom she described as a crook and a chiseler.

"I've never really liked the man," Hazel told the all-female jury. One month later, Mickey Cohen was acquitted.

MICKEY COHEN wasn't the only person toying with a conversion experience. Interim police chief William Worton was also reaching some startling conclusions about how the LAPD should operate and how it should be run. His ideas put him on a collision course with Bill Parker.

Worton had taken over as the LAPD's emergency chief the previous July. The city charter provided for a sixty-day term, renewable once. However, when September arrived, Mayor Bowron was not ready to dispense with General Worton's services. So the city attorney was prevailed upon to issue an opinion that allowed him to continue in office. General Worton's "temporary" appointment was extended into the winter-and then again into the spring of 1950. If Mayor Bowron had had his druthers, it seems clear he would have simply appointed General Worton chief of police. But the city charter was explicit: The next chief of police had to come from within the department. It seemed an insuperable obstacle. But Worton was convinced that there was a way he could continue to direct the department without running afoul of the city charter. He would simply change what the chief of police did.

The Los Angeles Police Department's organization was unusual. Everyone described General Worton as the police chief, but in fact he was not technically in charge of the department. The Police Commission was. Worton was technically the department's "general manager." The organizational chart clearly put him under the five-member civilian board appointed by the mayor, much as corporate CEOs answer to their companies' boards. That, at least, was the theory. In practice, the Police Commission provided almost no direction to-much less oversight of-the department. There were a number of reasons for this. Unlike a corporate board whose members come primarily from business backgrounds similar to that of their CEOs, the police commissioners were civilians, not police professionals. As a result, they simply didn't have the knowledge or experience to evaluate how the chief and the department were doing.

They also didn't have the time. In addition to supervising the police department, the commission was also responsible for licensing a whole range of businesses (auto-repair shops, p.a.w.nshops, dance halls, and so forth) and approving activities (parades, public dances) that might involve the police department. This licensing task alone was enough to fully occupy the commission, which typically met one morning a week. The commission also relied almost entirely on police department personnel to conduct its investigations. Finally, even if the commission had decided to go after the department's general manager, the chief of police enjoyed something no CEO had: civil service protection. No wonder Police Commissions often made only the barest pretense of directing the department. By the end of Chief Horrall's tenure, the police chief no longer even met with the commission on a regular basis.