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

Then, suddenly, his career took off. In early 1937, Parker became Chief Davis’s executive officer. In this position, he served as Chief Davis’s scheduler, advisor, and gatekeeper, granting and withholding access to the chief and maintaining relationships with politicians from the mayor to city council members. He also headed the small bureau of public affairs. Work relations between the two men were formal: Parker was always “Lieutenant,” never “Bill.” Davis was simply “Chief.” In private, however, the two men became friends. Parker (and sometimes Helen) frequently joined Davis for hunting and fishing trips with Davis’s sons. Observers of departmental politics soon noted young Bill Parker’s all-too-obvious ambitions. The reluctant police officer, the young man who had barely bothered with his entrance exam, now clearly aspired to one day become chief.

Soon after Parker joined the chief’s staff, Davis made him an acting captain—a move that no doubt raised hackles in the department. Davis probably didn’t care. He needed Parker for something big.

    IN 1933, voters had replaced Mayor Porter with county supervisor Frank Shaw. Shaw was not Harry Chandler’s kind of candidate. For one thing, although he was ostensibly a Republican, Shaw embraced the agenda of the newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For another, Shaw had gotten his start in politics as a city council member backed by Kent Parrot, with whom he maintained close (if vague) ties. Chandler’s suspicions proved to be well founded. After taking office, Frank Shaw turned to his brother Joe, recently discharged from the U.S. Navy, to help him oversee municipal affairs. Joe’s title was personal secretary; however, he soon took control of every potential patronage and profit center in the city. Not surprisingly, “The Sailor” (as Joe was known) took a particular interest in the LAPD and in the Los Angeles underworld.

During the 1920s, Kent Parrot and Charlie Crawford had controlled Los Angeles. Joe was determined to revive the old police-underworld arrangements, but this time with himself on top. Where Parrot and Crawford had sought to impose a monopoly, Shaw was willing to tolerate a variety of players—as long as they all paid up and their operations didn’t attract too much attention. Remnants of the Combination soon resurfaced. So did new players such as Jack Dragna, a Sicilian crime boss who focused primarily on traditional activities like extortion, prostitution, and bootlegging. (He also had a legitimate sideline as a banana importer and often referred to himself as a banana merchant.) There was plenty of money to go around. The Hollywood Citizen-News estimated that the L.A. underworld was generating roughly $2 million a month (20 percent of which went to selected policemen, politicians, and journalists). Daily News columnist Matt Weinstock put the figure even higher. His sources figured the Combination at its height was grossing about $50 million a year.

The key to it all was control of the police department. Joe Shaw was determined to make sure he had it. In principle, Chief Davis answered to the Police Commission. In practice, Shaw placed the police department’s most important operations under his close supervision by insisting on making Shaw campaign manager James “Sunny Jimmy” Bolger Chief Davis’s secretary. The fact that the chief’s office was located in City Hall, just around the corner from the mayor’s office (an arrangement instituted by Mayor Porter), further shortened Davis’s leash. Bill Parker’s job was to help him escape it.