L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

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.

As the Kefauver hearings: Gates, Chief, 37. Other federal law enforcement agencies had likewise missed opportunities to go after the little gangster. The Bureau of Narcotics had identified Cohen’s close associate, Joe Sica, as the principal supplier of heroin in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, but had failed to place him as a member of Cohen’s inner circle. More curious still was the conduct of the FBI. While the bureau developed a large file on Cohen activities, it showed no inclination to develop a case it could take to prosecutors. This was entirely in keeping with the FBI’s long-standing lack of interest in prosecuting organized crime, which director J. Edgar Hoover insisted was primarily local and thus a matter for local law enforcement to address.

When Cohen himself appeared: “Cohen Deals Going Before Jury Today, Federal Inquirers Expected to Hear of Borrowings,” Los Angeles Times, February 9, 1951, A1.

Cohen had long maintained: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 169. He ultimately sold it to the Texas Stock Car Racing Association instead. “Mickey Cohen Cashes In on His Glaring Notoriety,” New York Times, April 3, 1951, 28.

It was no use: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 169.

The trial began on: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

The prosecution’s strategy: “Cohen Profits Told as Tax Case Opens, Federal Prosecutor Attacks Gangster’s Story of Loans,” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1951, 2; Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

Perhaps the hardest to: Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

At the end of: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 172-75; Cohen manuscript, Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library, n.p.

The smoking gun: Jennings, “The Private Life of a Hood,” conclusion, October 11, 1958, 116.