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

      THE TROUBLE STARTED when William Randolph Hearst’s Examiner splashed across its front page the sad story of a widow who had refused to pay a $9 radio repair bill she regarded as excessive. The radio repairman in question, Al Pearson, responded by initiating a lawsuit that led to the eventual fire sale of the widow’s home, which he then purchased for $26.50. He allowed her to stay on as a tenant paying $10 a week in rent. Outraged policemen at nearby Wilshire station took up a collection.

Pearson’s business practices had long attracted unfavorable attention: Police Commission chief investigator Harry Lorenson would later describe him as “the most dishonest businessman in the entire city.” When Cohen heard about the incident, he saw an opportunity to burnish his image. He and seven of his boys went over to West Adams to talk with Pearson about returning the widow’s house. When Pearson refused to yield to reason, Mickey’s cohorts gave the recalcitrant radio repairman a severe beating, cracking his skull and fracturing his right arm—before a large crowd of cheering neighbors.

As Cohen was leaving the scene to get into his car, one of his henchmen, a three-hundred-pound former prizefighter named Jimmy Rist, rushed up.

“Hey, the guy’s got a thing back there that listens to things!” he informed Mickey. “He’s got everything on it that went on.”

“Well, take that son of a bitch machine out of there,” Cohen snapped, before jumping into his Cadillac and heading back to his office. Rist hurried back to Pearson’s shop to carry out Mickey’s orders. What Rist didn’t know was that a neighborhood photobug had been shooting pictures of the entire episode from across the street.

Rist and his associates managed to grab the recorder. But in their haste to get away, Mickey’s men made an illegal U-turn. Two rookie patrol officers spotted the car and put on their flashers. A two-block chase ensued, during which time a tire iron, a riding whip, and two pistols were thrown from the car. Cohen’s men then pulled over. They were promptly arrested and taken down to the Wilshire Division station for booking. When Mickey heard about the arrest, he placed a call—to the chief of the Wilshire Division detective bureau, who hurried into the station. There he confronted the rookies, telling them they had ten minutes to get the guns, tire irons, hot plates, and stolen recorder back into Cohen’s men’s car. He then ordered their release.

That would have been that but for the photographer. Late that evening, Cohen got a call from a contact at the Los Angeles Times, informing him that a photographer had come in earlier that evening and, for $100, sold the paper negatives of his men being arrested (not realizing what he could have gotten for the negatives from Mickey). Mickey rushed down to the Times building and attempted to buy the negatives, but it was too late. The Times broke the story that tied Mickey’s men to Pearson’s beating, prompting Mickey to skip town. The lieutenant and sergeant involved in releasing Mickey’s men were suspended and then sacked. The press had a field day. Hearst’s Examiner likened widow Elsie Philips to Snow White; Mickey’s men were dubbed the seven dwarves. Cohen and his gunmen (who included the hapless “Happy” Meltzer) were arrested. As was Mickey’s habit, he quickly posted bail: $100,000 for himself, $25,000 to 50,000 for each of the dwarves. A trial was scheduled for October. Then, on September 2, 1949, Cohen henchman Frank Niccoli disappeared.

Mickey immediately suspected foul play. What he didn’t yet understand was that the Dragna crew was moving to eliminate him with the assistance of his supposed friend from Cleveland, Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno.

In the world of organized crime, where loyalty is paramount, tribal segregation has long been the norm. But Mickey had always been different. His organization in Los Angeles had drawn on two disparate groups, Jews from New York (like the late, lamented Hooky Rothman) and Italians from Cleveland or New Jersey (like Joe and Fred Sica). Fratianno was supposed to be part of Mickey’s Italian Cleveland contingent. Like Mickey, Fratianno had enjoyed a long run as a holdup man. Unlike Mickey, Jimmy had had the bad luck of being arrested while shaking down a bookmaker in 1937 and shipped off to prison. When Fratianno got out of the pen in 1945, Cohen helped him move to L.A., even springing for an expensive sanitarium sojourn to help cure Fratianno’s consumption.