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

With sarcastic indignation, Hecht explained that “all the rich Jews of Hollywood were indignantly opposed to Jews fighting.”

“Knockin’ their own proposition, huh?” said Cohen, speaking for the first time. Then Howard quietly asked Hecht, “What city were you born in?”

“New York City,” Hecht replied.

“What school did you go to?” persisted Howard.

“Broome Street Number Two”—on the Lower East Side, Hecht replied. That did the trick.

“I’d like to see you some more,” Cohen said, gently this time. “Maybe we can fix something up.” What he fixed up was a gala benefit dinner at his nightclub, Slapsie Maxie’s Cafe. Hecht was the keynote speaker. When he arrived, he was stunned to find nearly a thousand people in attendance, including almost every player in the Los Angeles underworld.

“You don’t have to worry,” Howard whispered to Hecht. “Each and everybody here has been told exactly how much to give to the cause of the Jewish heroes. And you can rest assured there’ll be no welchers.” Hecht delivered an impassioned speech. Then “the bookies, toughies, and ‘fancy Dans’” stood up and announced their pledges. Mickey wasn’t satisfied. He turned to Howard.

“Tell ‘em they’re a lot o’ cheap crumbs and they gotta give double.” Howard obliged and then Mickey walked up on the stage and stood in the floodlights. According to Hecht, “he said nothing.” He just stood and glowered.

“Man by man,” continued Hecht, “the ‘underworld’ stood up and doubled the ante for Irgun.” At the end of evening, Cohen had raised $200,000.

Cohen’s clout was growing. Just a few days later, on June 20, 1947, Mickey got the break of a lifetime. It came at the expense of the man who’d made him what he was, Bugsy Siegel.

      LAS VEGAS had sucked Bugsy Siegel in—and then spat him out. When Billy Wilkerson’s Flamingo Casino broke ground in late 1945, he estimated that he’d need about $1.2 million to build the casino he envisioned. Lansky and Siegel had recently sold the El Cortez for a tidy profit, and in March 1946 the two men made a million-dollar investment in Wilkerson’s project.

Wilkerson saw Bugsy Siegel as an investor, not a managing partner. After all, Bugsy Siegel didn’t know anything about building a grand casino. He’d never even run a nightclub before. But Siegel had other ideas. By early 1947, Wilkerson had fled to Paris to escape from his former business partner.

Wilkerson was right. Siegel had never built a large establishment before, and it showed. The original budget for the new casino was $1.2 million. Siegel spent a million on plumbing alone. By the time the Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946, Siegel and his investors—who included the top leadership of the Syndicate—had plowed more than $5 million into the project. Rumors of outrageously expensive design changes started to spread. Some Syndicate chieftains became concerned that Bugsy’s new girlfriend, Mob moll Virginia Hill (whom Outfit figures in Chicago had long used as a “mule” for transporting large amounts of cash) was stashing their money in Swiss bank accounts. Worse, when the Flamingo finally did open, it lost money. Siegel was forced to suspend operations to finish construction and figure out what had gone wrong. When it reopened in the spring, the Flamingo moved into the black, netting $250,000 in the three months that followed. But the hard feelings remained. There was also the matter of Siegel’s attitude. Was their old friend Bugsy contrite about all the Syndicate money he’d spent? Not at all. On the contrary, he wanted even more.

At issue was the business of supplying bookies with racing information. For more than a decade, Moses Annenberg’s Nationwide News Service had dominated this lucrative business.^* But in 1939, Annenberg disbanded his wire operations, and leadership passed to James Ragan, who reconstituted the old monopoly as the Continental Press Service. Faced with pressure from the Outfit, Ragan went to the FBI for protection. But they weren’t interested in his stories about how the old Capone mob had reemerged under new leadership. In Chicago on June 24, 1946, two shooters opened fire on Ragan while his car was stopped at the corner of State Street and Pershing Drive. Ragan was rushed to Michael Reese Hospital, where after ten blood transfusions he managed to swear out an affidavit identifying the gunman. In the weeks that followed, Ragan made a remarkable recovery—only to die suddenly on August 15. An autopsy suggested mercury poisoning. As for the gunman Ragan had identified, the affidavit identifying him was lost.

Ragan’s successors got the message. They immediately sold the wire service to front men controlled by the Outfit. Bugsy Siegel did not. With Continental now in Mob hands, Chicago informed Siegel that he could go ahead and shut down the Trans-American wire. Siegel refused. He’d built a viable and highly profitable business. He wanted something in exchange for giving it up—specifically, $2 million. This demand went over poorly.