“You haven’t even told me about the envelope yet.”
“Interesting stuff, candid photos taken back in the forties, and documents explaining the shots. One picture shows Byron’s men, guys from the DA’s office strong-arming a public official. With a little basic detective work we were able to track down Mel. He was one of the men in the picture.”
Mel added, “I went to work for the DA right out of law school. I thought Byron was a god, committed to reform, and all that sentimental claptrap.” He picked up a spoon and slowly stirred his coffee. He didn’t drink it, just moved his spoon in measured circles. “I guess I was a patsy…”
“Go on,” Sol urged.
“It wasn’t long before Rinehart tapped me to join an internal covert group, officially known as the Gangster Squad. Unofficially they called us Byron’s Bulldogs. We worked for Byron, but took our orders from Rinehart. Did anything he told us to do: black bag jobs, shakedowns, extortion, that sort of thing. My loyalty to the boss and my size, I guess, were why they wanted me.” He looked up. “I have a little flower shop out on Rosecrans now.”
Sol reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a photo, and slid it across the table. I picked it up. “The photo shows Rinehart, Mel, and a few others going nose to nose with a member of the State Board of Equalization, a guy named Bonelli,” Sol said. “The State Board approves liquor licenses. They caught up with Bonelli late one night outside of Sherry’s Restaurant, Mickey Cohen’s old hangout. And guess what? Bonelli’s pockets were stuffed with blank license forms. Isn’t that right, Mel?”
“Yeah, he had a dozen or more on him.”
“One of Cliff Clinton’s private investigators took the picture.” Sol chuckled. “They used big old flash cameras back then and the bright light made the strong-arm guys look like a bunch of startled deer.”
“Bonelli was selling licenses. No questions asked,” Mel said. “Kind of a self-help program. He was helping himself to Cohen’s dough at the State’s expense.”
“You guys caught him?” I asked.
“Oh, we knew about it all along. He was scattering licenses like confetti, selling them to anyone who met his price. Byron wanted his share.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You mean the Gangster Squad actually extorted money from Bonelli, pressured him to cough up a portion and give it to Byron?”
“That’s the way it worked.”
“So Byron was dirty after all.”
“Byron was like Robin Hood, but not quite. He took from the rich and gave it… to himself. Bonelli wasn’t the only one; there were others, many others.”
Rita brought food to the table: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and juice. In spite of the mind-blowing revelations about Byron, I couldn’t keep my mind off the dish she set before me.
“Hope you guys don’t mind, but I’m starving,” I said, digging in.
While I ate, Mel continued to outline how Byron had used his office as a makeshift collection agency. “We didn’t just roust corrupt public officials and politicians. We also went after racketeers, bookmakers, the illegal wire services, and anyone or anything else where Byron could smell a buck.”
“How could you keep an operation like that under wraps?” Sol asked. “It still isn’t public knowledge.”
“Who was going to blow the whistle? The crooks? The greedy politicians? Everyone, it seemed, was on the pad one way or the other. Nope, no one could squeal. If they did they’d go to jail, too.”
“Clifford Clinton knew.”
“He didn’t know much. Not the real stuff that went down. He’d heard rumors, tried to get evidence. A few photos and his suspicions, that’s about all he had-no proof of anything.”
“He was honest and tenacious, I’ll say that for him,” Sol said. “If he’d lived longer, he would’ve brought down the whole damn County Government.”
“Yeah, he tried his best and he rattled a few cages, sure, but Byron had the Times on his side. Clinton couldn’t make enough noise to overcome the newspaper’s editorials. The Times had backed Byron in the election. Labeled him as a reformer and they were sticking to their guns. There’s an old saying: never start an argument with an outfit that buys ink by the barrel.”
“How could you justify such blatant criminal activity? You were a member of the bar, for chrissakes,” I said, pushing my plate back.
“Well, here’s the simple answer. Byron only went after the bad guys. And-”
“You were an officer of the court. You’re rationalizing, Mel.”
“Okay… so I took the extra bonus money and kept my mouth shut.”
“You must have realized at some point how wrong it was,” Rita said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Why are you telling us about this now? After all these years?”
“After a while my conscience kicked in. The whole mess started to grate on me. I couldn’t sleep, constantly fought with my wife. I became a basket case, started drinking. Hell, I lost my family over it. Finally I had enough. I quit, tore up my bar card, and got an honest job. I never told a soul about the Gangster Squad’s real purpose until now. Byron’s still out there, but I’m not afraid anymore.”
What could I say? Drinking, fighting with his wife, quitting his job-except for the names, places, and a few other details, his story was mine.
“Was violence part of the equation?” Sol asked.
“It got a little rough at times.”
“How about murder?”
“We were dealing with a tough crowd. Some of our clients were directly involved with the mob.”
“Just for argument’s sake, Mel,” Sol said. “Suppose someone… a woman, perhaps, back in 1945 had documents or something, real strong evidence, proof that Byron was as crooked as the day is long. And suppose the woman tried to blackmail him. Maybe threaten to rat him out to the State Attorney General, or the Feds. Do you think it’s possible, just possible, that Byron would’ve had her eliminated?”
Sol was talking about Vera. Practically asking Mel straight out if Byron had murdered her at the motel back then. Or if, perhaps, he had the Bulldogs do it for him.
Mel lowered his head and said nothing. We kept silent, watching him. The moment of truth had arrived. Would he actually cop to a murder, a capital crime that had no statute of limitations? A few seconds later he ran his hand through his hair and looked at each of us one at a time. His eyes reflected the sadness in his soul.
“Mel,” Sol said softly. “You can talk to us. We’re not here to make judgments about you or your past. We’re only interested in Byron.”
Mel glanced around the kitchen and focused on a ceramic red rooster hanging on Rita’s wall next to a copper pot. “Are you talking about a certain murder that happened out in the valley in ’45?”
“Yes.”
He kept staring at the rooster. “About the dead woman they’d found at a sleazy motel, the woman with a telephone cord twisted around her neck?”
“Yes, Mel, I am. And if you know anything, now is the time to come clean.”
“Yeah, I know all about it.”
CHAPTER 41
“Tell us, Mel,” I said. “Do you know if Byron murdered Vera, the woman with the cord around her neck?”
“I couldn’t swear he killed her. But if he did, he didn’t send us to do the job,” Mel replied. “Yet something wasn’t kosher. Right after the murder happened, Byron got real antsy. Wanted to get the case over with fast. When the cops picked up Roberts, Byron pounced on it. Took over the prosecution himself. The DA had nothing solid on the guy so he made up some cock-and-bull story. He railroaded the poor bastard right into a jail cell.” Mel hung his head. “Hell, I knew Roberts was innocent. I let it go.”
“Goddammit, that’s my client you’re talking about!” I snapped. “You should have done something.”
Mel said nothing, just looked at me.
“Go on, Mel. Then what happened?” Sol asked.
“Then the shrew who owned the motel started making waves. Threatening to sue everyone over the lousy fingerprint powder in the room, loss of income, cockamamie bullshit like that. She wrote letters to anyone who’d read them. Byron didn’t need the publicity. So he sent us out there to talk to her. You know, get her to dummy up. Imagine that, sending the Gangster Squad to hassle a lady like her. A private citizen, no less. I told Rinehart that Byron was making a big mistake.”