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

In those days, Cohen was far from a charmer. The tough, tight-lipped little hoodlum whom Donahoe first encountered bore little resemblance to the talkative, press-loving gangster whom a later generation of Angelenos would come to know. Yet when you arrest someone enough, it’s hard not to form a relationship. Mickey soon found that he admired the big cop. During the 1930s, robbery/homicide had been the bagman squad—the unit that handled payoffs—for the LAPD. Even after the purge of Davis-era officers, in the late thirties, a whiff of corruption still clung to the unit. Donahoe, though, was different.

“One of the finest gentleman I ever met” was Cohen’s verdict: “He would never take [a] dime—never let me go—[a] strictly on the level guy.”

Donahoe didn’t reciprocate these sentiments. When Donahoe learned that Mickey had started dating a cute Irish dance instructor/model, LaVonne Norma Weaver, he was concerned. Donahoe seems to have had something of a soft spot for a damsel in distress, and based on what he knew about Mickey Cohen, the petite redhead was definitely in danger. Mickey had presented himself to LaVonne as a prizefighter. Donahoe took it upon himself to enlighten her as to Cohen’s true identity as a stickup man.

That would have done the trick for most girls. If it didn’t, Donahoe might have expected that Mickey’s bizarre dating behavior would. The couple’s first date was typical. First, Mickey arrived late—really late. He told LaVonne he’d pick her up at seven. He arrived at eleven. Then he swung back by his apartment so that she could meet his associates, before finally taking her to dinner at midnight.

But LaVonne was clearly a forgiving and adventuresome young woman. (In addition to dating Mickey, she was also a pilot.) Mickey’s chronic tardiness and late hours didn’t seem to bother her. Nor did bizarre habits such as cycling through two or three suits a day and eating ice cream and French pastries at virtually every meal. If she had any qualms about his habit of disappearing for an hour or two mid-date (while he went off to heist a joint or conduct business), she never showed it. Clearly, she did not bring burdensome conversational expectations to their relationship either. In fact, she was almost as taciturn as Mickey himself: “Actually, we never had too much conversation together,” he later allowed. “She was the type of girl who didn’t ask questions,” said Mickey with evident satisfaction.

In the fall of 1940, the two were married, somewhat impulsively, in a wedding chapel on Western Avenue. Mickey’s Boston terrier, Tuffy, was one of the witnesses. When the war ended in 1945, LaVonne wanted what every woman wanted: a new house. Moreover, she wanted it in Los Angeles’s sportiest new neighborhood: Brentwood. So Mickey bought a lot near the Riviera Golf Club and started to build. But unbeknownst to Mickey, one of his general contractors was the LAPD. The Cohens’ new house was wired like a recording studio. In the spring of 1947, the Cohens moved in, and the LAPD started listening.

What they heard was surprising. Cohen, so taciturn in public, was a huge talker on the telephone. Every day, he spent hours talking to bondsmen, newspapermen (and-women), bankers, and bookies—and not just in Los Angeles. Mickey’s acquaintances on the East Coast reached from Miami to Boston. Topics of conversation included paying off the sheriff’s office and the Los Angeles County DA’s office. He also talked about doing business with California’s new attorney general, Fred Howser. Large sums were discussed—a mysterious $4 million “proposition,” an $8 million venture in Las Vegas. Mickey mentioned that in one three-month period alone, his operations in Burbank had netted half a million dollars. He discussed spending $30,000 during a single trip to New York. He talked about his $120,000 house. He spoke (bitterly) of spending $50,000 on LaVonne’s interior decorator and on home furnishings. Evincing little understanding for the necessities of criminal conspiracy, LaVonne, in turn, was frequently overheard castigating her husband for his large phone bills.

In short, the LAPD seemed to have Cohen in its sights. But unbeknownst to the men who had tapped Mickey’s manse, they also had a problem. The police had a mole.

PART THREE The Enemy Within

12 The Double Agent

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

—Jeremiah

WIRETAPPER JIMMY VAUS couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be a cop or a crook—so he tried to be both. In doing so, he set off on a path that led directly to Mickey Cohen.