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

At 4:15 a.m. on February: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 137; Demaris, The Last Mafioso, 40.

Police later estimated that: Leppard, “Mr. Lucky Thrives on Borrowed Time,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 3, 1959.

During the fall of: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 411-12.

These were powerful backers: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

The race was now: Webb, The Badge, 250-52.

On August 2: “Parker Appointed New Police Chief Head, Patrol Division Head Promoted in Climax to Hot Battle Over Worton’s Successor,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1950, 1. See also Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418. In describing Parker as the LAPD’s fortieth police chief, I discount Dr. Alexander Hope, who headed the volunteer Los Angeles Rangers (Sjoquist, History of the Los Angeles Police Department, 36). I also count previous chiefs who served more than one term, such as James E. Davis, only once.

Mayor Bowron was notably: Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1950. Later that day, Bowron issued a more positive statement on the Parker appointment.

“I know I’m supposedly …”: “Los Angeles Police Chief: William Henry Parker 3d,” New York Times, August 114, 1965, 8.

Chapter Fifteen: “Whiskey Bill”

“There is a sinister …”: Kefauver Committee report, quoted in Turking and Feder, Murder, Inc., 426.

It had been a: Mickey would later deny being held overnight. “That was always newspaper bullshit,” he claimed. “They’d say to me, ‘How long ya going to be in town?’ I’d say, ‘I’m leaving at such and such a time on Wednesday.’ So they’d give the story to the newspapers that, ‘We ordered him to leave town by Wednesday’” (In My Own Words, 147). This is probably boasting.

A freshman senator from: Russo, The Outfit, 259.

At some point in: Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 1950-52, 49. See also Russo, The Outfit, 251-52.

The killing itself was: “Truman Speeds War on Crime; Mickey Cohen Pay-off Charged, Racketeers’ Tax Returns to Be Eyed,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1951, 1.

“Lookit, nobody notified me …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 148; Russo, The Outfit, 255.

“I ain’t never muscled …”: “I Ain’t Never …,” Time, November 27, 1950.

Other Mob bosses had: Dragna’s legitimate businesses included a 538-acre vineyard near Puente and a Panama-flagged frigate that shuttled bananas between Long Beach and Panama. Special Crime Study Commission report, January 31, 1950, 25-26. For Mickey’s legitimate holdings, see “Portrait of a Punk,” Cosmopolitan. The Kefauver Commission was particularly well informed about Mickey because its chief investigator, Harold Robinson, had come from Warren Olney’s special crime study commission. Warren Olney, “Law Enforcement and Judicial Administration,” 297.

Anyone who bothered to: Calculations come from the Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 37.

This should have led: Final Report of the Special Crime Study Commission, November 15, 1950, 39.

Mickey cracked his first: “MAD GUNMAN CAPTURED, Mickey Cohen Tells Inside Story of L.A., Bland Gangster Spars with Counsel in Quiz; Sheriff Also Testifies,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1950, 1.

The audience chuckled: Cohen, In My Own Words, 148.

During Parker’s first month: Webb, The Badge, 253.

Parker argued that if: The idea for an interagency intelligence agency was not new. In the fall of 1947, District Attorney William Simpson, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, and Police Chief C. B. Horrall had announced the creation of a similar entity. “Police Network in 20 Cities to Keep Constant Tab on Mobs,” Los Angeles Daily News, November 11, 1947. However, Parker revived the idea and gave it a concerted push that previously had been lacking.

“This plan goes deeper …”: Webb, The Badge, 253.

The assembled group was: “Parker Declares City Is White Spot of Nation,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1950.

“[W]e have become a …”: Parker, “Religion and Morality,” in Parker on Police, 18.

The idea of an: “Worton Shifts 33 in Police Shake-Up: Top Flight Officer Named Intelligence Aide to Chief in Reorganization Move,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1949. Earlier in his career, Worton himself had been a special intelligence officer in the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence. “Worton ‘Man of the Year’ in the Los Angeles Mirror Mailbag Vote,” December 30, 1949.

Parker shared Worton’s enthusiasm: Chief Parker, for one, seems to have suspected this. Kefauver, Crime in America, 241.