L.A. Noir (59 page)

“[A] dead-rotten law enforcement”: Stoker,
Thicker’n Thieves
, 131.

Mickey Cohen was not a man: “Year Passes but Murder Not Solved: Search for Woman’s Slayer Recalls Other Mysteries,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 14, 1949; Stoker,
Thicker’n Thieves
, 199. Quotes from Cohen come primarily from his published memoirs (as told to John Peer Nugent),
In My Own Words;
Muir,
Headline Happy;
and Vaus’s
Why I Quit… Syndicated Crime
, as cited below.

“I looked”: Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

The fact of the matter was: Demaris,
The Last Mafioso
, 30-31.

“Power’s a funny thing”: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 81.

Administrative vice’s response was: California Special Crime Study Commission on Organized Crime report, Sacramento, January 31, 1950, 32. See “Cohen Introduces Sound Recorder,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 6, 1949, 10, for an account of the incidents of the evening. “Cohen to Testify in Partner’s Case: Deputy Sheriff Denies Policeman’s Story That Meltzer Displayed Gun at Arrest,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 10, 1949, A8, would seem to verify Mickey’s claim that the gun was planted. However, historian Gerald Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” claims that strong circumstantial evidence linked the gun to Meltzer (404).

Mickey was furious: Stoker,
Thicker’n Thieves
, 179. “Brenda’s Revenge,”
Time
magazine, July 11, 1949.

As Mickey started to: Mickey’s claim to have driven all the way back to Wilshire without looking up seems implausible given the two miles of curves he would have had to traverse on San Vicente Boulevard.

Cohen didn’t report: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 122-23; Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood, Part III,” October 4, 1958.

The evening of: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 125-29. Muir,
Headline Happy
, 202-10.

By 3:30: Some accounts of the shooting mention only the shotgun (or two shotguns). See Muir,
Headline Happy
, 205, 207-209; Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 126.

Later that night: Muir,
Headline Happy
, 202-209; “Full Story of Mob Shooting of Cohen,”
Los Angeles Daily News
, July 20, 1949.

The papers, of course: Howser was actively attempting to organize and extort money from Northern California bookmakers, slot machine operators, and other gamblers. Fox,
Blood and Power
, 291.

Brown was a big teddy: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004; McDougal,
Privileged Son
, p. 194.

“I had gambling joints: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 146-47.

Cohen arrived in Chicago: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418.

“Wherein lies the fascination …”: Wright, “Los Angeles-The Chemically Pure,”
The Smart Set Anthology
, 101.

Other cities were based: Findley, “The Economic Boom of the ’Twenties in Los Angeles,” 252; “The Soul of the City,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 24, 1923, 114; Fogelson,
The Fragmented Metropolis
, 80; Davis, “The View from Spring Street: White-Collar Men in the City of Angeles,” Sitton and Deverell, eds.,
Metropolis in the Making
, 180. The “white spot” metaphor began innocently, as a description of business conditions in Los Angeles in the early 1920s, but soon took on troubling racial connotations.

The historic center of: Percival, “In Our Cathay,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 4, 1898, 6. See also AnneMarie Kooistra, “Angels for Sale,” 25 and 29 for maps of L.A.’s historic tenderloin district, as well as 91, 174-75; Henstell,
Sunshine and Wealth
, 89; Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 57; Sitton “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in
Metropolis in the
Making
, 309.

The city also boasted: Hurewitz,
Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics
, 104; Mann,
Behind the Screen
, 89.

Congressman Parker’s position: “Col W. H. Parker Called By Death: South Dakota Congressman Passed Away Yesterday—Speaker Cannon Expresses Deep Regret,” clipping from Deadwood newspaper, William H. Parker Foundation archives.

As a child, Bill: The oldest Parker sibling, Catherine Irene, was born on August 29, 1903. Bill was born two years later, on June 21, 1905, followed by Alfred on May 29, 1908; Mary Ann in 1911; and Joseph on April 10, 1918. Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004.

As an obviously intelligent: Sjoquist, “The Story of Bill,”
The Link
, 1994; Domanick,
To Protect and to Serve
, 91.

In later years, Parker: See “Police Instincts of Bill Parker Flourished Early,”
Los Angeles Mirror-News
, June 18, 1957, for a typical (and improbable) account of this period in Parker’s life.

Los Angeles was Deadwood: In 1934, the United States Geographical Board recognized the most popular variant, today’s “Los An-ju-less.” Henstell,
Sunshine and Wealth
, 26. However, controversies about the proper pronunciation lingered into the 1950s. “With a Soft G,”
Time
magazine, September 22, 1952.

Whatever its pronunciation: John Anson Ford, who moved to L.A. in 1920 from Chicago, recounts the wagon trail-like quality of the migration in this description of the journey: “We had not expected to find so many other motorists, equipped very much as we were, all heading for California. On long level stretches of the dirt roadway each day we could see cars ahead and behind us, perhaps half a mile apart. Each car was followed by a long plume of dust. These
automobiles, laden with camping equipment, household goods, and the unkempt appearance of both children and adults, made them easily distinguishable from local farmers or city dwellers. An amazingly large segment of the nation was on the move—and that move was to California.” Ford,
Honest Politics My Theme
, 52-53; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 75; Starr,
Material Dreams
, 80.

“The whole Middle West”: Garland,
Diaries
, 40.

“If every conceivable trick:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/hollywoodsign/index.html
.

Then there was the: Fogelson,
The Fragmented Metropolis
, 127. See also Tygiel, “Metropolis in the Making,” 1-9.

The Parkers settled first: “Champion ‘Ag-inner’ of Universe Is Shuler, Belligerent Local Pastor Holds All Records for Attacks Upon Everybody, Everything,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 1, 1930, A2; Starr,
Material Dreams
, 136-39.

By 1910, the year:
http://www.life.com/Life/lifebooks/hollywood/intro.html
; Starr,
Material Dreams
, 98; Ross, “How Hollywood Became Hollywood,” in Sitton and Deverell, eds.,
Metropolis in the Making
, 262.

Parker was plankton in: “Plans Submitted for Fine Theater: Picture Palace to Follow Elaborate Spanish Architecture,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 11, 1920, V1.

The first was Theodosia: “Milestones,”
Time
magazine, April 18, 1955.

As the movies heated: Dixon, “Problems of a Working Girl: Queer Aspects of Human Nature Exhibited to Quiet and Watchful Theater Workers, Says Love is Catching ’Like the Measles,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 15, 1919, 112.

As chief of police: Parker’s claim to have been born in 1902 rather than 1905 dates to this era, raising the possibility that he lied about his age so that he could claim to be slightly older than Francis. Divorce petition, Francette Pomeroy, Oregon City, OR.

Despite (or perhaps because of): Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004. It should be noted that my account of Bill’s first marriage comes almost entirely from his wife’s divorce petition. Such accounts are invariably one-sided; exaggerating spousal cruelty was a common tactic for achieving a speedy divorce. It should also be remembered that Bill’s response to his wife’s behavior would have struck many men as wholly justified at the time.

Any attempt to heist: Reid,
Mickey Cohen: Mobster
, 39. See also unpublished notes for Mickey Cohen biography dated February 6, 1959, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, Box 7.

“The purpose of any political”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 315, 341.

He was born Meyer: There is some confusion about Mickey’s birth date. Cohen himself generally claimed that he was born in 1913; however, his funeral marker says he was born in 1914. Still other evidence points to a 1911 birth date. See Lewis,
Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster
, 1; Cohen,
In My Own Words
, 3. Other accounts of Mickey’s life say that his father was a grocer.

Fanny, Mickey, and sister: Boyle Heights’s Jewish population jumped from 10,000 in 1917 to 43,000 in 1923, making it home to about a third of Los Angeles’s
Jewish population. Romo,
History of a Barrio
, 65. The current brick Breed Street Shul was finished several years later, in 1923.

Mickey soon became a: Clarke and Saldana, “True Life Story of Mickey Cohen,”
Los Angeles Daily News
, July 1949. This is the beginning of a nine-part series on Mickey that is a valuable, though not always reliable, guide to his life. See also “Cohen Began as a Spoiled Brat,” the second installment in the series.

Mickey’s entree came from: Mickey’s exact age at the time of this incident is somewhat unclear. In
Mickey Cohen: Mobster
, Ed Reid says that this occurred when he was seven (37-39). In his autobiography,
In My Own Words
, Cohen says that this incident occurred when he was nine (5).

What followed was a: Cohen,
In My Own Words
, Chapter One.

Clearly, Mickey had a: The FBI would later estimate his IQ to be 98. Cohen FBI files.

While Mickey started his: The following year Los Angeles would surpass it—a lead L.A. would maintain until the 1990s. Klein,
The History of Forgetting
, 75. However, Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 73, disputes the belief, widespread at the time, that Los Angeles was suffering a crime wave.

“The white spot of …”: “The Soul of the City,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 24, 1923, 114.

By 1922, Harry Chandler: In 1909, progressive reformers had dismantled the old ward system that had allowed Democrats, Catholics, and Jews to be elected to political office in favor of a system that provided for only citywide at-large elections. The result was a city government dominated by
Times
readers—white, middle-class Protestant Republicans. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 9.
The
Times
newsroom claimed that Chandler was the eleventh wealthiest man in the world. Gottlieb and Wolt,
Thinking Big
, 125; “The White Spot Glistens Brightly,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 17, 1921, II; Taylor, “It Costs $1000 to Have Lunch with Harry Chandler,”
Saturday Evening Post
, December 16, 1939.

Now was just such: Sitton, “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in Sitton and Deverell, eds.,
Metropolis in the Making
, 305.

At first, everything went: Fogelson,
Fragmented Metropolis
, 219. Los Angeles mayors initially served only two-year terms, hence the high tally.

This was embarrassing: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

By firing Oaks and: Sitton, “The ‘Boss’ Without a Machine: Kent K. Parrot and Los Angeles Politics in the 1920s.”

Bootlegging had been a profitable: Henstell,
Sunshine and Wealth
, 60.

At first, much of: Anderson,
Beverly Hills Is My Beat
, 130. See also Nathan, “How Whiskey Smugglers Buy and Land Cargoes, Well-Organized Groups Engaged in Desperate Game of Rum-Running,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 8, 1926, B5; Rappleye,
All-American Mafioso
, 40; and Henstell,
Sunshine and Wealth
, 60. It is not surprising that Nathan neglects to mention Combination figures such as Guy McAfee, who had ties to the Chandler-favored Cryer administration.

In the big eastern: Law enforcement was too. Historian Robert Fogelson has argued that people engaged in both professions for similar reasons, notably out of a desire for upward social mobility. According to Fogelson, this is one of the reasons why graft and corruption were so prevalent in urban police departments: Many of the men who staffed them were as interested in
getting ahead as the men who were paying them off. See Fogelson,
Big City Police
29, 35.
For more on Crawford, see “Crawford Career Hectic, Politician Gained Wide Notoriety as ‘Pay-Off Man’ in Morris Lavine Extortion Case,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 21, 1931, 2. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 305-6.

Crawford got back in: The exact relationship between Crawford and Marco is unclear. While Crawford seems to have kept a hand in prostitution, he was apparently more of a political fixer; Marco, in contrast, was more hands on. Most accounts of the era accord Crawford the position of primacy; however, some describe Marco as the leader of the Combination. Others point to Guy McAfee, “Detective McAfee is Exonerated,”
Los Angeles Time
s, September 23, 1916, I9.

Cornero tried to buy: I say “seemed overt” because in this instance, Farmer’s claim of self-defense was actually quite plausible. Nonetheless, in general it was clear that Farmer enjoyed considerable advantages, including (somewhat later) having his personal attorney on the Police Commission. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 233, 237.

“Mr. Cryer, how much …”: “Bledsoe Hurls Defy at Cryer, Challenges Parrot’s Status as De-Facto Mayor,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 23, 1925.