“I know nothing whatever of the facts,” Mayor Bowron said. “I never heard of the matter before, directly or indirectly. If there is anything at all to the statement by Sam Rummel, attorney for Mickey Cohen and his gang of hoodlums, I ask who is the accessory after the fact in not revealing the information to the District Attorney at the time of the happening rather than waiting until three weeks before the city election?
“Assuredly, this will make clear to the public mind in whose corner Mickey Cohen is and to what length he and his ilk will go in their effort to break into Los Angeles. This will provide another chapter for the State Crime Commission’s report.”
A police officer named Arthur Logue was the first witness called by District Attorney William G. Russell.
Logue had been a member of the administrative vice squad for two and a half years and at approximately midnight on January 15, in company with Lieutenant Wellpott and Sergeant Jackson, he drove to a spot across from Cohen’s haberdashery in the 8800 block on Sunset Blvd. There the men were met by two other police officers, Gene James and A. L. James. The five men kept Cohen’s store under observation for an hour and a half. At that time five men came out and left in two Cadillacs. Logue said the five officers trailed the first Cadillac, which contained Mickey Cohen, Harry Meltzer and the driver, Dave Ogul.
“We trailed it for nearly two miles,” Logue said on direct examination. “We were in between the two Cadillacs and the rear Cadillac continually blew its horn in an apparent attempt to attract the attention of Cohen. They tried to pass us but we didn’t let them.”
Officer Logue said they finally halted both Cadillacs at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ogden Drive. He testified that he rushed to the rear right door of the first Cadillac, jerked it open and saw Harry Meltzer sitting in the rear seat with a gun almost completely hidden in both hands.
“I started to raise my gun,” Logue said from the witness stand, “and then Meltzer dropped his gun and opened his hands. I reached in, picked up the gun, put it in my pocket and told Meltzer to get out of the car. I searched Meltzer and Cohen and then made a thorough inspection of the Cadillac. I then placed Meltzer in the police car and after other routine questioning of the five men we drove off with Meltzer.”
These were the facts of the Meltzer case, and the reason why Cohen began his hate of Police Chief Parker and Mayor Bowron. Cohen wanted to help Meltzer. He used veiled threats against the officers in the case, telling them he had recordings of conversations between them and Brenda Allen. In order to make good he offered Jim Vauss a deal for the Allen recording.
In the sum-up of Mickey’s career, lurid, violent, there was an aftermath. Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino, the two Mafia gunmen, were shot down on the streets of Los Angeles. Who killed Attorney Sam Rummel, and why, is anybody’s guess, but it pointed to Brancato and Trombino. Most of Cohen’s hoods deserted him, including Joe Sica. He was mixed up in the Lana Turner affair when the actress’ daughter, Cheryl, knifed Johnny Stompanto fatally.
Cohen demanded all sorts of investigations of the killing because Johnny Stompanto was a pal of his. He got more bad publicity. He tried to kill Paul Caruso, a prominent Los Angeles attorney, who had handled many civil matters for him. There were legal fees in the amount of $8,000. Caruso asked for payment and Cohen told him to try and get it.
Caruso drove to a nursery that Cohen was then operating. Cohen pulled a gun. Caruso grabbed Lillian, Cohen’s sister, who standing beside him, held her in front of him, and backed slowly out of the South Vermont store, leaped into his car and drove away.
The government got after Cohen again for various tax matters and put him away for another ten years. He is still in prison. He is due to be released shortly. He may decide to pick up where he left off. If he does, he will find himself in serious trouble not only with the police but with the underworld. Neither wants any part of him, for obvious reasons. He became accustomed to the big buck, a fancy home, big cars, fancy wardrobe, and a spotlight whose glare he fancied despite the fact it burned him to a crisp. But that’s Mickey Cohen. He probably doesn’t mind a prison cell so long as everyone will recognize him as a big-shot. Was he a big-shot? He’ll be one, in his own mind until he dies. And that could be sooner than you think.
Planting Time
by Pauline C. Smith
He was my all, the one thing I had, my life. But — I knew someday he’d be the death of me...
It was real peaceful when Ben wasn’t around, so quiet a man could set and doze once in a while if he was a mind to. Floyd Holladay tipped his chair back against the weatherbeaten front of the house and gazed out over parched fields. When he squinted, letting the sun beads flicker through his narrowed vision, the young orchard beyond looked like it might have forty little saplings instead of only half that number.
The day was like a blanket, soiled and folded double as the breeze stirred up breathless, woolen fluffs of dust from the cracked ground.
This rushing the season was enough to give a man spring fever. Floyd stretched his legs so that the edge of bright light just reached the tips of his dusty work shoes.
He yawned, letting the luxury of inertia rest upon him, and bent his arms to clasp his hands behind his head.
The darker blue moons had long since dried on the faded blue of his shirt.
This kind of day, with the feel of summer close by and the frost hardly out of the ground, a man wanted to warm his winter-tight body in the flannel air and fold back his ear to the plaintive note of the medow lark. A man just kind of wanted to rest a day like this, and let the heat sneak into him.
If his brother were here now, things would be different.
Floyd jerked upright. The front legs of his chair struck the porch floor.
He snapped his eyes wide. His startled glance scuttled from the half-planted orchard to the highway.
All he could see was the dry grass of last year’s crop and the glisten of a few brown, stubborn leaves that still clung to the horny branches of the road trees.
He tried to settle back again, stretching out one foot to the sun’s edge, rocking on the two legs of his chair, nervously moving a finger in half-time to the grace notes of the meadow lark.
Ben probably wouldn’t be back for a couple of days yet. Maybe three. Gradually, Floyd thought himself back into sluggishness as the monotonous drone of newly-hatched insects rode the lazy breeze and came whispering to him like a sleepy breath.
This was the life. Sprawled in the shade of the porch. Letting the buzz of the bees tickle his eardrums and the warmth of the air brush his cheek.
Contentedly, he squinted his eyes at the twenty slender saplings.
Then he heard something.
He rapped his chair to sharp attention. Staring past the half-completed orchard to the curve of the road, he hunched in rigid vigilance.
There it was again.
The panting chug of an overheated motor.
Now a swirl of dust.
Floyd leaped from the porch, disregarding the steps. He sprinted an erratic trail over the dry clay of the yard. Frantically his eyes searched the ground as he ran.
He failed to find the pick or the shovel.
Then he reached the pump and there they were, leaning against the pump handle. He grabbed up the tools just as the truck clanked into the yard and braked with a final explosion.
Floyd looked lip at the dusty face of his brother, and into the eyes regarding him bleakly.
“Surprised to see you so soon, Ben,” he said with strained heartiness. “Didn’t hardly expect you back ’til tomorrow, or maybe the day after.” He ran his sleeve over his mouth. “Just come up to the house for a drink. Hot work.”