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

It took twelve days and twenty-five stenographer notebooks to complete and record his confession. Reles’s testimony was stunning. In two weeks’ time, he clarified forty-nine unsolved murders. That wasn’t even the most startling part of his story. Previously, most police officials had assumed that Reles and his associates were basically just a nasty crew of criminals who operated in and around Brownsville and East New York. Not so, Reles told the prosecutors. He revealed that Buchalter had actually assembled a group that functioned as a killing squad for a nationwide crime syndicate. For the first time, authorities realized, in Turkus’s words, “that there actually existed in America an organized underworld, and that it controlled lawlessness across the United States,” from Brooklyn to California. Turkus would later dub it “Murder, Inc.” According to Reles, hundreds of people nationwide had been killed at its bequest. “Big Greenie” was one of them.

There was more. Reles told prosecutors that Bugsy Siegel and Buchalter lieutenant Mendy Weiss had organized the hit on “Big Greenie”—and that New York fight promoter Frank Carbo had pulled the trigger. Mickey Cohen pal Champ Segal had also been involved in the hit, Reles told authorities. He’d heard so firsthand. Reles testified that after the hit, he had overheard Siegel, Weiss, Louis Capone, and one of the original gunmen sent west to do the hit, Sholom Bernstein, discussing the rub-out. According to Reles, Bernstein had criticized the execution of the hit as something more befitting “a Wild West cowboy” than a professional assassin. In response, Siegel had allegedly replied, “I was there myself on that job. Do I look like a cowboy? I did that job myself.” After Bernstein left, Reles added, Siegel had proposed whacking him—for fouling up (“dogging”) the first hit.

Reles wasn’t prosecutors’ only important witness. They’d also flipped Al Tannenbaum, the other gunman Murder, Inc. had originally sent to Montreal to kill “Big Greenie.” Tannenbaum was now prepared to testify that New Jersey mob boss Longy Zwillman had sent him to California with pistols for the Greenberg hit and that on the night of the murder he’d been the driver of the crash car.

A stronger case against Siegel would have been hard to imagine. With two witnesses who could link Siegel to the murder, prosecutors on both coasts went to work. Brooklyn assistant DA Burton Turkus flew to Los Angeles to brief Los Angeles district attorney Buron Fitts on the evidence. Fitts immediately assembled a raiding party. His plan was to nab Bugsy at his newly built dream mansion in Holmby Hills, one of L.A.’s most prestigious neighborhoods.

The raiding party—three cars strong, its members specially chosen for their marksmanship skills—set out for the Siegel mansion at 250 Delfern Street on the morning of August 17, 1940. They were greeted at the front door by Siegel’s butler. The men informed him that they were there to see Benjamin Siegel. The butler nodded and asked them to wait. Several minutes later, he returned and opened the door of the mansion onto a lifestyle they could scarcely conceive of. At a time when the country was mired in the seemingly unending misery of the Depression, Bugsy Siegel was living like… a baronet. In the bar and lounge room, eighteen-foot carved divans flanked a deeply recessed fireplace, and a choice selection of whiskeys, cognacs, and cordials was available for guests. There were six “vanity rooms” for the ladies. The dining room table was made of exotic inlaid woods and sat thirty—without extensions.

Bugsy’s bed was still warm, but there was no sign of him. A member of the raiding party noticed a linen closet door ajar. Atop a pile of fresh sheets, investigators found footprints. The ceiling of the closet had a secret trapdoor that opened into the attic. There the raiding party found Bugsy Siegel in his pajamas, giggling. The gangster coolly informed his captors that he had fled because “I thought it was someone else.” The police were not amused. They hauled Siegel downtown and placed him under arrest for murder. Reles and Tannenbaum were flown to Los Angeles, and on the basis of their testimony, Siegel was indicted. His request for bail was denied. Siegel would await trial at the L.A. County Jail.

      MAYOR BOWRON and DA Fitts had run the remnants of the Combination out of town. Siegel’s trial gave them a chance to sweep out the Syndicate as well. But almost immediately the prosecution began to experience problems—strange problems. Reporters discovered that Siegel had access to a telephone, slept in the county jail doctor’s quarters, and employed another prisoner as his valet. Worst of all, he was leaving the jail virtually at will—more than eighteen times in a month and a half. The Examiner even spotted Siegel having lunch with the actress Wendy Barrie. In truth, he was not completely unattended. A deputy sheriff was on hand—as Siegel’s driver.