“You may be on to something,” Fred had told me, “where the wound to that girl’s face is concerned. These cops and reporters aren’t from Chicago, like us-they don’t know how to read the signs.”
“Getting slashed ear-to-ear means you’re talking too much. How hard is that to read?”
“Well read this, Nate: that vacant lot where this girl was found is only a couple blocks from where Jack Dragna lives.”
“What? No shit?”
“None. He’s a well-known Leimert Park resident.”
Jack Dragna was the so-called “Capone of California.” Born Anthony Rozzotti, Dragna had been a typical Prohibition-era mob boss, operating bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution out of L.A.’s Italian ghetto; Nitti had done business with him in the early ’40s, when Willie Bioff and George Browne infiltrated the movie unions.
I gathered that Dragna-whom I’d never met-had resented the intrusion of Ben Siegel, a few years before, into the Los Angeles scene. East Coast mob bosses Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano had simply foisted Siegel upon Dragna, unapologetically muscling in on the California Godfather’s territory; and in recent months-after Ben began focusing his attention on the Flamingo hotel/casino in Las Vegas-Siegel’s L.A. rackets interests had been turned over to his former bodyguard, the diminutive, dapper, if somewhat goonish Mickey Cohen.
“Are Cohen and Dragna business partners,” I asked Fred, “or business rivals?”
“Yes,” Rubinski said. “Rumor has it Dragna is working against Mickey, but it’s all sub rosa stuff. You know Mickey a little, don’t you?”
“A little is right-I remember him from Chicago. And Ben Siegel reintroduced us a few months ago, on Tony Cornero’s gambling ship.”
“Ah, the late lamented Lux,” Fred said. “Well, you know Mick is a regular at Sherry’s. He’s an affable little guy, for a roughneck. He’d be good for you to get to know better.”
“I don’t mind Mickey Cohen frequenting your restaurant, Fred, but I’m not sure we want him for an A-1 client. We’re already trying to collect bad debts for Ben Siegel, and I’ve got enough p.r. problems over my so-called Capone/Nitti associations.”
“Cohen’s not that kind of gangster. He’s just a bookie.”
“Yeah, and hasn’t he been bumping off his rival bookies?”
“That’s none of my business, Nate. As long as they don’t go shooting up Sherry’s, what do I care?”
“What does it mean to you, Fred, a woman murdered, wearing the slashed mouth of an informer, being dumped on Dragna’s doorstep?”
“Could be Cohen warning Dragna-or maybe Dragna warning Cohen. Plays either way.”
“Maybe I do need to talk to Mickey Cohen.”
“Nate, I can make that happen.”
“Fred, I’ll let you know.”
Fowley and I had just passed Doheny Park, with its bougainvillea-terraced sea cliffs, when the reporter suddenly began sharing his insights on Elizabeth Short.
“We got the perfect Hollywood story here,” Fowley was saying, as Perry Como sang “Prisoner of Love” on the radio. “Small-town girl, beauty contest winner, comes looking for fame… gets it the hard way.”
“I’m not so sure being a movie star was her goal,” I said.
“Are you kidding? You heard her mom-this was a typical movie-struck kid, the time-honored see-her-name- in-lights, stars-in-her-eyes routine.”
“Stars and stripes in her eyes, you mean.”
“Huh?”
“Elizabeth Short had a thing for men in uniform,” I said. “You heard her mom say that, too.”
Fowley shrugged. “Yeah, well lots of would-be actresses were Victory Girls, during the war. You were in the service, right, Heller? Marines?”
“Yeah.”
“I was in the Coast Guard. Hey, it wasn’t the Marines, but we sank two German submarines on two convoys. And even that sorry Coast Guard uniform of mine-why, it was like a license to steal. I got more nookie than a Mormon on his honeymoon.”
“Is there a slide show that goes with this?”
“You know what I’m talking about; and these little Victory Girls-like Elizabeth Short-all they had to do was see a uniform, maybe a medal or two, or hear a sad tale about shippin’ out tomorrow, and they’d be on their backs, making the ‘V’ for victory-”
“That’s my point, Bill. I think this girl spent more time laying soldiers and sailors than trying to break into the movies. Everybody told her she was pretty enough to be a movie star-but maybe what she really wanted was a husband.”
“House, picket fence, passel of kiddies… maybe. We can run with that, if the Hollywood angle gets old.” He shook his head, grinned goofily. “Reminds me of this Mocambo deal.”
“Mocambo deal?”
“Yeah, the robbery at the swanky nightclub. It’s what we were playing up, before the Werewolf Slayer came dancing into our boring lives.”
“I didn’t follow that story. Fill me in.” What else did we have to do? We were gliding by the white stucco and red roofs of the Spanish Village-style city of San Clemente.
The heist had gone down a week ago, Monday, January 6. The notion of the glittering Mocambo-a prime haunt of almost every Hollywood star-being victim to an armed robbery summoned images of men with guns rushing in from (and back out into) the night, terrorizing beautiful women in furs and handsome men in tuxedos, lush surroundings echoing with harsh commands.
In reality, the job had taken place in the morning, at 10:30, a “daring daylight robbery” by three armed thieves wearing slouch felt hats and raincoats. The trio had come in the back way, rounded up four employees (three of them women) into a small office, and calmly emptied the safe of $15,000 in cash and another ten grand worth of jewelry. The cash represented the nightclub’s weekend receipts, the jewels were part of a display for a Beverly Hills jewelry store. One of the thieves stood six foot four and his face was badly acne scarred, although that description fit none of the four men the cops had recently arrested.
“The ringleader is a guy named Bobby Savarino,” Fowley said. “Three other guys got nailed, too-apparently they’re part of a pretty active heist string-the cops are looking at them for some bank robberies, too, including one where a teller got shot.”
“How did these L.A. cops you’re so dismissive of manage to make the arrest?”
“Well, Savarino and his partner, I forget his name, were brought in on some unrelated petty theft charge, and got put into a show-up, where the Mocambo witnesses made ’em.”
“This is fascinating, Bill, don’t get me wrong-but why do Victory Girls screwing soldier boys remind you of this Mocambo heist?”
Fowley grinned, sitting up, leaning over the wheel. “It’s this guy, Savarino-he’s half genius, complete idiot. When he was arrested, looking for sympathy, he tells the judge he’s a war hero-not just any kind of war hero, but a Congressional Medal of Honor winner.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! He has documents with him, too-his ‘Separation-Qualification Record,’ which states he’s the most decorated enlisted man in the ETO.”
“Has Audie Murphy been informed?”
Fowley snorted a laugh. “Get this-the documents say our armed robber was not only presented with the Congressional Medal by Harry-Ass Truman himself, he also got the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, oh hell, I forget what all.”
“And he was a phony?”
“Fourteen karat. Yours truly made a simple phone call to the War Department in D.C. They never heard of the bum.”
I laughed. “Well, I hope he got some mileage out of it before you came along and spoiled his fun.”
“I should say he did. He’s got a curvy little redheaded wife, who bought the story, and when I interviewed him, he started laughing and admitted he had his share of girl friends, too, who liked gettin’ close to a bona fide war hero… which kinda rubbed me the wrong way.”
