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

Only after the countess elaborated on the problems posed by the carabiniere—and the likely consequences for her husband—did Siegel give up on the idea. The Atomite demonstration fizzled, and “Sir Bart” and Countess di Frasso left for the French Riviera. There Siegel bumped into his old friend the actor George Raft, who was pursuing the actress Norma Shearer. Despite Atomite’s inexplicable failure, Siegel seemed to be in good spirits. Raft said he was looking forward to lingering on the Riviera. Then Siegel received a cablegram from New York and his mood suddenly changed. The next day Raft noticed he was gone. The Syndicate had a problem that required Bugsy’s unique talents.

The problem was Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg. Greenberg was a former associate of Siegel and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the Brooklyn-based crime lord and labor racketeer. Greenberg had been arrested and deported to his native Poland, but “Big Greenie” had no intention of going back to the old country. He jumped ship in France and made it back to Montreal. From there he sent a letter to a friend in New York, implying that if his old friends in Brooklyn didn’t send him a big bundle of cash, he might go talk to the authorities. Instead of sending cash, Buchalter associate Mendy Weiss sent two hitmen. “Big Greenie” checked out of his hotel just hours before the two assassins checked in. For a time, the trail went cold. Then, in the fall of 1939, “Big Greenie” was spotted in Hollywood. He had a new name (George Schachter), a new wife, and, given his lack of further communications, he’d evidently learned that blackmailing the Syndicate was a foolish thing to do. Nonetheless, at a meeting in New York, Siegel, Buchalter, New Jersey rackets boss Longy Zwillman, and Brooklyn crime overlord Albert Anastasia decided that “Big Greenie” had to go. Zwillman once again sent two gunmen to California. But the gunmen didn’t like the setup and returned to New York. Bugsy being Bugsy, he decided to take care of the problem himself.

The evening before Thanksgiving, on November 22, 1939, “Big Greenie” got a call to run down to the corner drugstore to pick up a package. As he eased his old Ford convertible into a parking space outside his modest house in Hollywood, triggerman Frank Carbo walked quickly out of the shadows toward the vehicle. Bugsy Siegel was waiting in a black Mercury sedan parked down the street. Al Tannenbaum was behind him, in a stolen “crash car,” ready to stop any car that pursued them. Champ Segal was parked five blocks away, ready to drive Carbo north to San Francisco where he would take a flight back to New York. From inside the Green-berg house, Ida Greenberg heard a rapid series of shots—a backfiring car, she thought, then the sound of two cars speeding down the street. When “Big Greenie” didn’t reappear, she went outside to look for him. She found him in his blood-spattered car, dead from five bullets fired at point-blank range into his head.

So much for “Big Greenie”—or so it seemed. Unfortunately for Bugsy, one of his old associates back in Brooklyn was about to start talking to the DA.

Abe “Kid Twist” Reles had a reputation as one of East Brooklyn’s nastiest thugs. “He had a round face, thick lips, a flat nose and small ears,” noted Brooklyn assistant DA Burton Turkus. “His arms had not waited for the rest of him. They dangled to his knees, completing a generally gorilla-like figure.” He also had the nasty habit of killing victims with an ice pick, which made him one of Louis Buchalter’s most feared executioners.

In January 1940, two months after Greenberg’s assassination, “Kid Twist” was picked up by the police on charges of robbery, assault, possession of narcotics, burglary, disorderly contact, and six charges related to various murders. For a guy like Reles, this should have been no big deal. After all, he’d been arrested forty-two times over the preceding sixteen years and had never done serious jail time. But as he languished in prison, Reles grew worried that several associates who’d also been picked up were ratting him out. So Reles informed his wife that he was willing to talk. One day, Mrs. Reles walked into the Brooklyn DA’s office and announced, “My husband wants an interview with the Law.”