"Ellroy, James - White Jazz" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellroy James)
U.S. Attorney Noonan, 40, declined comment on the above speculation, but a surprise ally defended him with some vigor. Morton Diskant, civil liberties lawyer and Democratic candidate for Fifth District City Councilman, told this writer: "I distrust the Los Angeles Police Department's ability to maintain order without infringing on the civil rights of Los Angeles citizens. I distrust the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office for the same reason. I especially distrust Robert Gallaudet, most specifically for his support of (Fifth District Republican Councilman) Thomas Bethune, my incumbent opponent. Gallaudet's stand on the Chavez Ravine issue is unconscionable. He wants to evict impoverished Latin Americans from their homes to procure space for an L.A. Dodgers ballpark, a frivolity I deem criminal. Welles Noonan, on the other hand, has proven himself to be both a determined crimefighter and a friend of civil rights. Boxing is a dirty business that renders human beings walking vegetables. I applaud Mr. Noonan for taking the high ground in combatting it."
WITNESSES UNDER GUARD
U.S. Attorney Noonan responded to Mr. Diskant's statement. "I appreciate his support, but I do not want partisan political comments to cloud the issue. That issue is boxing and the best way to sever its links to organized crime. The U.S. Attorney's Office does not seek to supersede the authority of the LAPD or to in any way ridicule or undermine it."
Meanwhile, the boxing probe continues. Witnesses Ruiz and Johnson are in protective custody at a downtown hotel, guarded by Federal agents and officers on loan from the Los Angeles Police Department: Lieutenant David Klein and Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr.
"Hollywood Cavalcade" Feature, _Hush-Hush_ Magazine, 10/28/58:
MISANTHROPIC MICKEY SLIPS, SLIDES,
AND NOSEDIVES SINCE PAROLE
Dig it, hepcats: Meyer Harris Cohen, the marvelous, benevolent, malevolent Mickster, has been out of Federal custody since September, '57. He did 3 to 5 for income tax evasion; his ragtag band dispersed, and the former mob kingpin's life since then has been one long series of skidmarks across the City of the Fallen Angels, the town he used to rule with bullets, bribes and bullspit bonhomie. Dig, children, and smell the burning rubber of those skids: off the record, on the Q.T and _very_ Hush-Hush.
April, '58: former Cohen henchman Johnny Stompanato is shanked by Lana Turner's daughter, a slinky 14 year old who should have been trying on prom gowns instead of skulking outside Mommy's bedroom with a knife in her hand. Too bad, Mickster: Johnny was your chief strongarm circa '49--'51, maybe _he_ could have helped curtail your post prison tailspin. And tsk, tsk: you _really shouldn't_ have sold Lana's sin-sational love letters to Johnny--we heard you raided the "Stomp Man's" Benedict Canyon love shack while Johnny was still in the meat wagon on his way to Slab City.
More sin-tillating scoop on the Mickster:
Under the watchful eye of his parole officer, Mickey has since made attempts to straighten up and skid right. He bought an ice cream parlor that soon became a criminal haven and went bust when parents kept their children away in droves; he financed his own niteclub act, somnambulistic shtick at the Club Largo. Snore City: bum bits on Ike's golf game, gags about Lana T. and Johnny S., the emphasis on "Oscar," the Stomp Man's Academy Award size appendage. And--Desperation City--the Mickster salaamed for Jesus during Billy Graham's Crusade at the L.A. Coliseum!!!! The chutzpah of Mickey renouncing his Jewish heritage as a P.R. ploy!!!! For shame, Mickster, for shame!!!!! And now the scenario darkens.
Item:
Federal agents are soon to scold Mickey for infringing on the contracts of local prizefight palookas.
Item:
Four of Mickey's goons--Carmine Ramandelli, Nathan Palevsky, Morris Jahelka and Antoine "The Fish" Guerif--have mysteriously disappeared, presumably snuffed by person or persons unknown, and (very strangely, hepcats) Mickey is keeping his (usually on overdrive) yap shut about it.
Rumors are climbing the underworld grapevine: two surviving Cohen gunmen (Chick Vecchio and his brother Salvatore "Touch" Vecchio, a failed actor rumored to be _trшs_ lavender) are planning nefarious activities outside of Mickey's aegis. Get in on the ground floor, Mickster--we've heard that your sole source of income is Southside vending and slot machines: cigarettes, rubbers, french ticklers and one-armed bandits stuffed into smoky back rooms in Darktown jazz clubs. For shame again, Mickey! Shvartze exploitation! Penny ante and beneath you, you the man who once ruled the L.A. rackets with a paralyzingly pugnacious panache!
Digsville:
Meyer Harris Cohen is now in the movie biz!!
Move over C. B. DeMille: the fabulous, benevolent, malevolent Mickster is now sub-rosa financing a horror cheapie currently shooting in Griffith Park! He's saved his negro exploited nickels and is now partners with Variety International Pictures in the making of _Attack of the Atomic Vampire_. It's sensational, it's non-union, it's a turkey of epic proportions!
Further Digsville:
Ever anxious to parsimoniously pinch pennies, Mickey has cast lavender loverboy Touch Vecchio in a key role--and the Touchster is hot, hot, hotsville with the star of the movie: limpwristed lothario Rock Rockwell. Off-camera homo hijinx! You heard it first here!
Final Digsville:
Enter Howard Hughes: Mr. Airplane/Tool Magnate, lascivious luster after Hollywood lovelies. He used to own R.K.O. Studios; now he's an independent producer known for keeping wildly wellendowed wenches welded to "personal service contracts"--read as bit roles in exchange for frequent nighttime visits. Dig: we've heard that Mickey's leading lady left the mammary-mauling mogul spinning his own propeller--she actually amscrayed on a Hughes contract and car hopped until Mickey materialized at Scrivner's Drive-In dying for a chocolate malt.
Are you smitten, Mickster?
Are you heartbroken, Howard?
Hollywood Cavalcade shifts gears with an open letter to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Dear LAPD:
Recently, three wino bums were found strangled and mutilated in abandoned houses in the Hollywood area. Very Hush-Hush: we've heard the still-at-large killer snapped their windpipes postmortem, utilizing great strength. The press has paid these heinously horrific killings scant attention; only the sin-sation slanted L.A. Mirror seems to care that three Los Angeles citizens have met such nauseatingly nasty nadirs. The LAPD's Homicide Division has not been called in to investigate; so far only two Hollywood Division detectives are working the case. Hepcats, it's the pedigree of the victims that determine the juice of investigation--and if three squarejohn citizens got choked by a neck-snapping psychopath, then LAPD Chief of Detectives Edmund J. Exley would waste no time mounting a full scale investigation. Often it takes a catchy tag name to bring dirty criminal business into the public's consciousness and thus create a clamor for justice. Hush-Hush hereby names this anonymous killer fiend the "Wino Will-o-the-Wisp" and petitions the LAPD to find him and set him up with a hot date in San Quentin's green room. They cook with gas there, and this killer deserves a four-burner cookout.
Watch for future updates on the Wino Will-o-the-Wisp, and remember you heard it first here: off the record, on the Q.T. and _very_ Hush-Hush.
PART ONE
STRAIGHT LIFE
CHAPTER ONE
The job: take down a bookie mill, let the press in--get some ink to compete with the fight probe.
Some fruit sweating a sodomy beef snitched: fourteen phones, a race wire. Exley's memo said show some force, squeeze the witnesses at the hotel later--find out what the Feds had planned.
In person: "If things get untoward, don't let the reporters take pictures. You're an attorney, Lieutenant. Remember how clean Bob Gallaudet likes his cases."
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