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

Mickey was a bit unclear on the born-again thing but told Vaus “that was fine with him.” Vaus summoned his courage and plowed ahead. He intended to go straight, he told Mickey, despite the financial hardships this would entail. Cohen wished him the best of luck and offered a gift of $1,500 that he happened to have in his bedroom. Vaus declined. Now that he had resolved to walk with the Lord, he didn’t think it would be right to take such a sum from a notorious gangster. He left with only $500.

Vaus’s conversion became the talk of the city. Billy Graham’s star ascended ever higher. Graham then offered Vaus a job as a junior spokesperson, essentially, someone who would accompany Graham on his crusades and testify to the power of faith. Vaus, in turn, offered Graham something enticing: the prospect of “saving” Mickey Cohen. He arranged for Graham and radio host Stuart Hamblen to stop by the Cohen residence for a visit. Cohen’s housekeeper served them hot chocolate and cookies. The men got along well. A few weeks later, Graham invited Cohen to attend a private meeting “of Hollywood personalities.” At the meeting, Graham asked people who wanted him to pray for them to hold up their hands.

“Mickey lifted his hand,” Graham later recounted, “and I am sincerely convinced that he wanted God.”

The effort to convert Mickey Cohen had begun.

      BILLY GRAHAM’S PRAYERS were apparently effective. At 4:15 a.m. on February 6, 1950, the radar alarm designed by Jimmy Vaus went off. Mickey grabbed a shotgun and peeked out the front door. Seeing nothing, he went back to his wife’s bedroom. No sooner had he gotten into LaVonne’s bed than a massive explosion rocked the house. Windows throughout the neighborhood were blown out; police officers at a station three miles away felt the shock waves. When Cohen opened his eyes, his roof and most of the front of his house, including the bedroom where he normally slept, were gone. His first thought was of Tuffy (who slept beside him in an exact replica of Mickey’s bed, save for the fact that his bedcovering was monogrammed “TC” rather than “MC”). Fortunately for the terrier, he had followed Mickey to LaVonne’s bedroom that night. Police arrived to find Mickey in his bathrobe, shaking his head at his closet of ruined $300 suits.

Police later estimated that twenty-eight sticks of dynamite had been placed under the Cohen residence. Providence—or Lady Luck—seemed to be keeping a vigil over Mickey Cohen.

Three days later, the critical witness in the beating case of rapacious radio repairman Al Pearson came before the jury. Hazel Pearson was Al’s daughter-in-law; she worked in his shop and had witnessed the attack the previous spring. But instead of offering testimony that would send Mickey and his surviving henchmen to the pen, Hazel turned on her father-in-law, whom she described as a crook and a chiseler.

“I’ve never really liked the man,” Hazel told the all-female jury. One month later, Mickey Cohen was acquitted.

      MICKEY COHEN wasn’t the only person toying with a conversion experience. Interim police chief William Worton was also reaching some startling conclusions about how the LAPD should operate and how it should be run. His ideas put him on a collision course with Bill Parker.

Worton had taken over as the LAPD’s emergency chief the previous July. The city charter provided for a sixty-day term, renewable once. However, when September arrived, Mayor Bowron was not ready to dispense with General Worton’s services. So the city attorney was prevailed upon to issue an opinion that allowed him to continue in office. General Worton’s “temporary” appointment was extended into the winter—and then again into the spring of 1950. If Mayor Bowron had had his druthers, it seems clear he would have simply appointed General Worton chief of police. But the city charter was explicit: The next chief of police had to come from within the department. It seemed an insuperable obstacle. But Worton was convinced that there was a way he could continue to direct the department without running afoul of the city charter. He would simply change what the chief of police did.