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

Siegel first visited Los Angeles: In addition to appearing as a dancer in vaudeville shows and on Broadway, Raft was also a regular presence at Jimmy Durante’s Club Durante and at Texas Guinan’s El Fey. This did not mean that Raft himself was in any way fey. In addition to being a sometime prizefighter, he was a close associate of Manhattan beer king Owney Madden. Such tough guy-showbiz connections were quite common in the 1920s. Bootlegger Waxey Gordon was an enthusiastic backer of such Broadway musicals as Strike Me Pink, even going so far as to order his gunmen to turn out in tuxedos for opening night. (Wisely, he also had them check their guns at the coat check.) Muir, Headline Happy, 159.

He was receptive: Muir, Headline Happy, 160-64, discusses Siegel’s post-Prohibition quasilegitmacy (and stock market troubles). See also Lacey, Little Man, 68, 79-80.

Siegel’s lifestyle reflected his: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 27, 30.

“Caution, fathered by the …”: Muir, Headline Happy, 161.

Los Angeles offered the: Muir, Headline Happy, 157-62. Siegel himself sometimes put the date of his arrival in Los Angeles one year later, in 1935. “Siegel Denies Buchalter Aid: Film Colony Figure Testifies on Removal Fight,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1941, A1.

“If I had kept…”: Jennings, We Only Kill Each Other, 36-38; Muir, Headline Happy, 162-65.

Bugsy’s pals back East: See Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 1, Hecht Papers, New-berry Library; Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

One who declined to: A 2 percent take would have generated a healthy $200,000 a year in bookie action—not bad for the Great Depression. Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4-5, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Cohen had outstayed his: In his autobiography, Cohen claims that he didn’t take a dive (30). In his earlier conversations with Ben Hecht, however, he admitted that he did. Cohen manuscript, 19, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

Mickey was living like: Taxi companies routinely employed violence to secure the best stands. Payoffs to police were also common. In Los Angeles, independent cabbies’ frustration with the dominant Yellow Cab company (which was widely believed to have struck a deal with the police) boiled over into full-scale riots on more than one occasion in the 1930s. Cohen manuscript, 21-23, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

“I says”: Hecht manuscript, 82-84 Hecht Papers, Newberry Library; Cohen, In My Own Words, 36-37.

The next day Mickey: This account draws heavily on Ben Hecht’s account and is strikingly different from the blustering story Mickey tells in his autobiography. Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

(Years later, columnist Florabel…): Cohen, In My Own Words, 45.

Cohen hit Neales’s joints: Notes in the Ben Hecht Papers suggest that Siegel paid the sheriff’s department $125,000 on at least one occasion. Hecht, “Mickey Notes,” 4, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library. In the early 1950s, the California Commission on Organized Crime discovered links between Sheriff Biscailuz and Irving Glasser, a notorious bondsman closely associated with Siegel and Cohen. Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 402.

Soon after: Cohen manuscript, n.p., Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

“Ya know, I’m going …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

“It was a bad …”: Unpublished manuscript, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

During his first: Hecht manuscript, 9-10, Hecht Papers, Newberry Library.

This attitude angered Mickey: Cohen, In My Own Words, 41.

Chapter Eight: Dynamite

“We’ve got to get”: Richardson, For the Life of Me, 224.

In a city awash: McWilliams, Southern California, 170.

Clinton had always been: “Penny Money At Cafe: Clinton ‘Caveteria’ Caters to Customers of Lean Purse,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1932, A8. See also Starr, The Dream Endures, 165-66.

Clinton’s introduction to politics: Ford, Honest Politics My Theme, 86-87, 90.

The county grand jury: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 339, 351.

Clinton turned to Judge: The case was one of statutory rape; the victim was actually a prostitute supplied by a madam who specialized in underage girls. In the lead-up to Fitts’s decision not to prosecute, one of the developer’s employees arranged to purchase property from the DA’s parents for a strikingly generous price. Fitts’s investigators then prevented the girl in question from testifying by holding her in isolation in a downtown hotel. Richardson, For the Life of Me, 176.

The report was scathing: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 35657; Starr, The Dream Endures, 168-69; Parrish, For the People, 127.