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

Back in New York: Ramrus interview, March 18, 2008; Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 52-53.

For the most part: Wallace and Gates, Close Encounters, 52.

“That is a big …”: Fox, Blood and Power, 325-26.

The very next day: Fox, Blood and Power, 326. For a different account of the gangsters’ response to the police raid, see Hilty, Robert Kennedy, Brother Protector, 124.

It was clear that: Ben Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Back in Washington, Robert: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 82.

One year earlier the: Russo, The Outfit, 317.

“The results of the …”: Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 229.

Chapter Twenty-one: The Electrician

“[W]hat’s the meaning in …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 193-95.

By late 1958, Mickey: Otash, Investigation Hollywood!, 179-86.

Cohen had the temperament: Gabler, An Empire of Their Own, 152.

But in 1958, Cohn: “A Star Is Made,” Time, July 29, 1957.

There’s another more plausible: There are many versions of this episode in Davis’s life. See Fishgall, Gonna Do Great Things, 114, for the most convincing.

Whatever version: Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood,” part two, September 27, 1958, 117.

In this, he was: Cohen, In My Own Words, 187.

The day after Stompanato’s: See, for instance, “Lana’s Romance with Stompanato Cools: Star Asks to Be Left Alone,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 10, 1958, 8.

Renay was a sometime: Renay, My Face for the World to See, 129-32.

Meanwhile, Cohen and Hecht: “$200,000 Tax Writeoff Offer to Cohen Told,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 1961, 29.

On the whole, though: “Lawmen Blast High Court Order to Identify Informants in Arrests: Ruling Termed Crippling in Drive on Dope,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, October 2,1958; “Poulson Cuts Police Budget by $6 Million, Commissioner Promptly Warns Mayor that City Faces Criminal Invastion,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1959.

“It won’t be long,”: Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 446.

“Anything she says is …”: “Mickey Cohen Proud of Actress in Murder Quiz, Admits Liz Renay, Questioned in Anastasia Case, Loaned Him $10,000 He’s Repaying,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1958, C12.

“Her red hair was …”: “Girl Friend of Mickey Cohen Quizzed Again, Won’t Tell Treasury Agent About Gifts from Bodyguard of Slain Anastasia,” Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1958, B1.

The next day, Cohen: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 244. See also http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=166332&cat=boxer, accessed10/25/2008.

To celebrate the thumb: Cohen, In My Own Words, 193-97.

Chapter Twenty-two: Chocolate City

“We are all members …”: Webb, The Badge, 244.

The polite word was: To his credit, Parker recognized that this was a problem soon after he became chief and set to work on curbing this unfortunate tendency. “Ex-Sergeant Strange Praises Chief Parker, Remembers Sincerity,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1996, C12.

As the 1920s progressed: Bass and Donovan, “The Los Angeles Police Department,” 155.

As a policeman, Parker: During Chief Davis’s tenure as chief, Parker might also have dealt with Lt. Homer Garrott, an African American lieutenant whom Davis made an acting captain. Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958.

The primary draw: Parson, Making a Better World, xi.

Los Angeles even: Escobar, Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity, 186-203. PBS’s American Experience documentary The Zoot Suit Riots also provides an excellent account of the era (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/zoot/index.html; accessed 2/21/2008).

“I feel that when …”: David Williams to Herb Schurter, April 1, 1959; Parker to Williams, April 13, 1959; Williams to Parker, April 21, 1959, LAPD records, CRC.

Williams wrote back to: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 471. See also Williams’s July 9, 1959, letter to Councilman John Holland, Council File No. 89512, CRC.

The spat soon went: “Parker Hits Influx of Parolees to L.A.: Tells City Council of Huge Rise in Crime,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 13, 1959.

The black press: Memorandum to the City Council from the Police Commission, “Subject: Council File No. 89512,” August 6, 1959, CRC. See also FBI September 4, 1959, report, captioned “Top Hoodlum Program,” Parker FBI file.