White Jazz Part 60

Look: One gus.h.i.+ng red socket.

"NO!"--my scream/my gun out/aiming at them tangled up together.

I fired twice-two misses--ricochets off the pavement.

Two more shots braced against the hood--Bullock's face exploded.

Bone spray in my eyes.

Firing blind--ricochet zings, a jammed slide.

Dudley on Bullock--prying at his hands.

Dudley weaving, screaming exultant--his eye cupped back to his face.

I grabbed the money and ran. Echoes boomed behind me: "EYEBALL MAN! EYEBALL MAN!"

A week--backtrack it: I ran that one block to my building. Old bookie stash holes in the bas.e.m.e.nt--I tucked the money away.

Calls from the janitor's phone: Glenda, long distance: come down, grab the cash, hide. Pete in El Segundo: cut Chick loose--Glenda's got twenty grand for you.

Pandemonium at Sears--prowl cars responding to shots. Bullock dead, Dudley rushed to Queen of Angels. My explanation: ask Chief Exley.

I was arrested--bagged on Exley's APB. I was allowed one phone call--I buzzed Noonan.

A custody battle ensued--LA.PD vs. Feds--Noonan victorious.

Material witness protection--no charges filed on me yet.

A Statler Hilton suite, friendly guards: Jim Henstell and Will s.h.i.+pstad.

A TV in my room--dig the news: Mickey Cohen--solid-citizen Fed helper.

Gas Chamber Bob G.--nine days missing, where's the DA?

Frequent visits from Welles Noonan.

My tack: total silence.

His tack: threats, lawyer logic.

Exley called him the day we glommed Bullock; dig the deal he offered: A joint LAPD/Fed effort--Narco swings and Dave Klein brings in four witnesses. Cooperation a.s.sured; Exley quoted verbatim: "Let's bury the hatchet and work together. One of the witnesses will be a high-ranking LAPD man, more like a hostile interrogatee. He has intimate knowledge on the Kafesjian family, and I would call him federally indictable on at least a half-dozen charges. I think he will more than make up for the loss of Dan Wilhite, who regrettably committed suicide last week. Mr. Noonan, this officer is very dirty. All lask is that he be portrayed as a contained, totally autonomous ent.i.ty within the LAPD, just as you've agreed to portray the Narcotics Division."

Coming up: an LAPD/Fed press conference.

My "witnesses": Wylie Bullock--dead.

Chick V--probably hiding.

Madge--grieving somewhere.

Dudley Smith--on the critical list.

"Critical" PR--Exley press manipulation--no word on the Bullock thing issued. No City charges filed on me; Bullock cremated.

No "witnesses "--and Noonan was furious.

Threats: "I'll prosecute your sister on tax charges."

"I'll give the DA's Office my bugging tapes--Glenda Bledsoe G.o.dd.a.m.n admitted she killed Dwight Gilette."

"I have you on tape telling a man named Jack to 'kill him. 'If you refuse to talk to me, I'll have Federal agents comb a list of your known a.s.sociates for that man."

My tack: total silence.

My ace: sole-witness status--I knew EVERYTHING.

Days dragged. No more L.A. "crime wave" news--Noonan and Exley put the fix in. Tommy and J.C.--under Fed surveillance, untouchable.

A visit from Ed Exley.

"I think you stole money from me. Cooperate with Noonan and I'll let you keep it. You'll need money-and I won't miss it."

"Without your testimony Dudley can't be touched."

"If this agreement with the Feds falls through, the Department will look disgracefully ineffectual."

My tack: total silence.

A visit from Pete B. Whispers: Glenda's got the money--and she paid me my cut. Word's out you're a Fed snitch--Sam Giancana just issued a contract A visit from two Sheriff's d.i.c.ks: "We like Glenda Bledsoe for the Miciak job."

My tack--confession--I killed him solo. I dropped knife wound details-- they bought it--they said they'd file Murder One on me.

Noonan right there: "I will use the full power of the Federal Government to keep this man in my sole custody."

A phone call--Jack Woods checking in: "Meg's okay. Sam G. put the word out--you're dead."

Stale news.

Long days--playing cards with Will s.h.i.+pstad killed time. Instincts: he hates Fed work, he hates Noonan. I threw out a bribe flyer: erase the Glenda tape for thirty grand.

He agreed.

Noonan confirmed it the next day: "Incompetent technicians!"--a huge tantrum.

Long nights--bad dreams--killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns, lies.

Bad sleep, no sleep.

Afraid to sleep, nightmares on call: Johnny begging, one-eyed Dudley.

Glenda--hard to conjure--easy to hear: "You want to confess."

Two nights, six legal pads--Dave "the Enforcer" Klein con fesses-- Killings, beatings, bribes, payoffs, shakedowns--my police career up to Wylie Bullock. Lies, intimidation, vows trashed, oaths broken. Exley and Smith--my accessories--tell the world.

Ninety-four pages--s.h.i.+pstad leaked it to Pete B.

Conduit Pete, copies to: _Hush-Hush_, the L.A. _Times_, the State AG.

Time ticking, Noonan crazed: the press conference is pending, Ineed you to talk.

Threats, offers, threats-- I talked: "Give me two days of freedom under Federal guard. When I return to custody we'll prepare my testimony."

Noonan--reluctant, half crazy: "Yes."

L.A. _Herald-Express_, 12/6/58:

LAPD--FEDERAL PRESS CONFERENCE CANCELLED

The announcement last week surprised everybody: the Los Angeles Police Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern California District, were holding a joint press conference. Adversaries during U.S. Attorney Welles Noonan's still ongoing Southside rackets probe, the two law enforcement agencies had recently come across as anything but friendly. Federal officers charged the LAPD with allowing vice to rage in South-Central Los Angeles, while LAPD Chief of Detectives Edmund Exley accused Mr. Noonan of mounting a politically motivated smear campaign against his Department. That dissention ended last week when both men issued identical statements to reporters. Now, tomorrow's press conference has been precipitously called off, leaving many members of the Southern California law enforcement community baffled.

Last week's press release was carefully worded; it hinted only that a cooperative Federal-LAPD effort had been mounted, one perhaps aimed at securing indictments against members of the LAPD's Narcotics Division. Much more was to have been revealed tomorrow, and an anonymous source within the U.S. Attorney's Office stated that he thought the joint effort was scotched due to breach of official promises. Queried as to exactly what "promises," the source stated: "A Los Angeles police officer skipped Federal custody. He was to have testified against members of the LAPD Narcotics Squad and a criminal family they have long been allied with, and he was also to have induced a total of four other potential witnesses into testifying. He did not deliver those witnesses, and when allowed two days out of custody to take care of personal matters, he attacked his guard and escaped. Frankly, without him the Federal Government has only Mickey Cohen, a former gangster, to offer testimony."

CRIME WAVE SPECULATION

This situation occurs in the middle of a statistically staggering Los Angeles crime wave, much of it Southside based. The City homicide rate for the past month soared 1600%, and although neither the LAPD nor U.S. Attorney's Office will confirm it, speculation has linked last week's gangland killings in Watts to the Hollywood Ranch Market shootout that also left four dead. Add on the mysterious disappearance of Los Angeles District Attorney Robert Gallaudet and the November 19 Herrick family slayings, still unsolved, and you have what Governor Goodwin J. Knight has called "a powder keg situation. I have every confidence in the ability of Chief Parker and Deputy Chief Exley to maintain order, but you still have to wonder what could cause such a drastic upsweep in crime."

Asked to comment on the press conference cancellation, Chief Exley refused. Queried on the recent crime wave, he stated: "It was simply coincidental and non-tangential, and now it's over."

L.A. _Mirror_, 12/8/58:

LAPD PRE-EMPTS FEDS IN DARING MOVE

The Los Angeles Police Department's famously stern Chief of Detectives Edmund J. Exley called an impromptu press conference this morning. He was expected to digress on the recent Federal Southside crime investigation and offer comments on why the LAPD and local U.S. Attorney's Office have apparently abandoned their short-lived "cooperative venture" into probing both Southside malfeasance and the Los Angeles Police Department's own Narcotics Division.

He did neither. Instead, in a terse prepared statement, he blasted the Narcotics Division himself and said that he would personally deliver incriminating evidence to a specially convened County grand jury, then offer tax fraud information unilaterally to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Describing "Narco" as a "police unit autonomously run amok," Exley stated that he was certain its "long-standing tradition of graft" did not extend to other LAPD divisions, but Internal Affairs Division, under his supervision, was going to "comb this police department like a bloodhound sniffing out graft to make sure."

Stunned reporters asked questions; Exley refused to answer them. He did state that the commanding officer of Narcotics Division, Captain Daniel Wilhite, 44, recently committed suicide, and that Internal Affairs detectives were currently interviewing various "Narco" officers with an eye toward securing voluntary grand jury testimony.

Asked just how "dirty" "Narco" was, Chief Exley said, "Very. I am personally stating that it has been in collusion with a vicious dope-pus.h.i.+ng family for over twenty years. It is my desire to reform the Narcotics Division from the ground up and take that family down. I will be pa.s.sing pertinent Federal venue information on to U.S. Attorney Welles Noonan, but he should know that I am taking the primary responsibility for cleaning my own house."