LAPD '53

by James Ellroy

  The man had a history of heart disease and a bad case of arterial sclerosis. Mr. Emerson’s blow most likely sent him into a state of extreme agitation and shock. He died in the hospital later that day. A coroner’s inquest ruled Darby’s death to be homicidal. Legal proceedings were mandated. Emerson was ultimately exonerated.

  Palmdale now houses 157,000 dusty souls. It was a desert dump Then. It remains one Now. †

  * * *

  SHOOTING INTERIORS

  * * *

  NOVEMBER 26 & 11

  Here’s a twosky—both from November ’53. We’ve got close-quarters gunfire at two locations, both fleabag hotels—one in East L.A., one in Hollyweird.

  The East L.A. job was out of Narco Division. Detectives K. C. Soderman and Robert Conrad were prowling the premises of 2055 East 7th Street. They were searching for dope stashes among the hotel’s residents. A male Mexican named Edward Gonzalez aroused their suspicion. They found two pieces of white cotton—common dope fiend paraphernalia—in his shirt pocket, along with a cap of Big “H” wadded into a chewing gum wrapper.

  Gonzalez said, “I got to see my wife and kids.” He shoved Soderman and took off running. Soderman and Conrad yelled for him to halt. He kept running. Conrad’s gun discharged and sent a shot into Gonzalez’s side. Gonzalez hit the floor. The bullet sluiced through him and hit the wall.

  Soderman called for a meat wagon. They ultimately booked Gonzo and two more male Mexicans on suspicion of State Narcotics Code violations.

  It was an in and out, clean caper. It’s 1953. That was Then. The world was cleaner than it is Now. A minor dope bust, a single shot fired. The fleabag hotel looks uncommonly clean. A police detective is showing where that one bullet hole from a minor dope bust hit the wall.

  That’s thorough. That’s conscientious. That’s sincere.

  Our sister photo shows the upshot of close-quarters grief at Hollywood’s dog-dick Padre Hotel. A squawk hits the Hollywood Station switchboard. A man is threatening his estranged wife on the premises. Detectives Clay Hunt and William McRoberts are sent to investigate.

  Psycho estranged husband Robert Stewart attacks them on the dark second-floor hallway. He pulls a roscoe and zings out several off-the-mark shots. Hunt and McRoberts fire back and nail Stewart in the arms and neck. Check out this foto: A detective and two patrolmen are marking bullet holes on a wall.

  Stewart was rushed to County General and held in the jail ward. He talked to LAPD Detectives A. W. Hubka and J. E. Barrick before he kicked. He told them he did not intend to harm his wife—only to shoot himself in her presence. †

  * * *

  FREDERICKS

  * * *

  APRIL 14

  We’re back to that “walls-are-closing-in-on-me” job. Richard and Ruth Hilda Fredericks had three kids. Richard was an office clerk. Ruth Hilda stayed home and tended the rug rats. The marriage went bad in the classic ticking-time-bomb manner. Ruth Hilda split and got a cocktail-waitress gig. That was September ’52. She spent a short interval out of the crib and foolishly returned. A doctor from Richard’s place of employment huddled with her, concerned. Fellow employees reported that Richard had been acting strangely. One of them found a gun in his locker. Ruth Hilda and the doctor conferred. Ruth Hilda dropped a dime on Richard and had him committed to the psycho ward at L.A. County General Hospital.

  Richard did a quick observation jolt and was cut loose. Tick, tick, tick. The walls are closing in. Now, it’s January 7, ’53. Richard Fredericks could not take it one moment longer. He picked up a croquet mallet and beat Ruth Hilda dead.

  He cut off her hands and buried them in the backyard.

  He dumped Ruth Hilda’s handless body in the trunk of his car and drove south to Mexico. He took his kids with him. He dumped Ruth Hilda in a gulch off the Ensenada coast road. Ruth Hilda remained there, tagged as a Juanita Doe. A sharp-witted neighbor found Ruth Hilda’s absence fishy and tattled Richard to a pal on the LAPD. Richard had driven his brood to his mom’s place in Maplewood, New Jersey, in the meantime. LAPD launched a missing persons investigation. A detective was working a Jersey-based lead on another job at the time—and had Richard escorted out his mom’s pad by the New Jersey cops. He did not suspect Murder One. He expected reticent Richard to remain reticent during his visit to the local hoosegow. Richard revealed the deadly details—and immediately confessed the snuff as self-defense.

  J’accuse, J’accuse—at trial he claimed that Ruth Hilda went after him with a kitchen knife. The jury bought it. Richard was sentenced to one to ten years in prison. That was a rank injustice! And—he got a soft berth at Chino, where soul sax Dexter Gordon jammed regularly with other dope-jailed jazz greats. The Fredericks job was a gas chamber bounce if ever there was one! I can only attribute the namby-pamby sentence to misguided empathy on the judge’s part. He was probably prone to night sweats and visions himself. He probably knew that walls-closing-in-on-you gestalt all too well. †

  * * *

  TRIANGLE

  * * *

  JULY 17

  The eternal triangle. The infernal triangle, in this case.

  Our crime occurred on 7/17/53 and left all three points of the triangle muerto. It’s a psycho cop scenario with those peeper overtones so dear to my heart. The location was the Veterans Administration Hospital parking lot in West L.A. My dad kicked at the V.A. Hospital in ’65. I was 17. Dad’s last words to me were, “Try to pick up every waitress who serves you”—a legacy that I have fulfilled with mixed results.

  Back to 7/17/53. It’s nite. Our tragic troika is converging. Our licentious lover boy is Eugene J. Henry. The straying frau is Harriet Alden. The peeper-gunman is a Valley Division traffic officer named Don M. Alden.

  Ooooohhhhh, Daddy-O—five-year-old Ellroy’s got a jive-jumping jones for this dame—she’s dark-haired, wears glasses and could surely dispense the spanking that this tumescently torqued toddler so richly deserves!!!!! Too bad, Ellroy—she’s sitting in a parked car with her beetle-browed boyfriend, and Don Alden—in his LAPD uniform—is creeping up on them in the dark.

  He gets to the car. He aims his service revolver in and fires. Eugene Henry is instantly killed. Harriet takes a head shot, gets out and runs toward the administration building, with her hopped-up hubby in hot pursuit.

  He corners her. He kills her and kills himself. It made the papers for a mystical microsecond and quickly faded out. Whiskey Bill Parker probably pulled strings. Dragnet was his propaganda baby Then. This pile of postulant publicity surely gored his goat.

  Three dead in a hot heartbeat.

  Harriet and Gene might not even have been lovers. Intent and vibe do not constitute adultery. We’d all be mortally fucked if they did. †

  * * *

  PEEPER

  * * *

  OCTOBER 4

  Ralph T. Avery was a hot-prowl man. He peeped, he prowled, he surveilled, he surreptitiously entered. He targeted houses occupied by unmarried women—career girls’ cribs where young females lived alone or jungled up to save bread on rent. Hot-prowl men are snarky sneak thieves and pulsating pervs. B&E is a sizzling sex kick for these freaks. They’re burglars at base. They often graduate and become full-time rape-o’s. They prowl by nite and shamefully shatter the sanctity of peaceful abodes. L.A. by nite is their refuge. They live in sexual urgency. They’re low-tide predators. Forty clams in a woman’s purse is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig score. Maybe there’s soiled panties in a hamper. Maybe there’s fenceable jewels. Maybe there’s a young ginch sweet enough to take.

  LAPD had Avery under surveillance. He lived in Hollyweird, in a perv pad near Melrose and Wilton. The cops suspected him of a score of 459/sex assaults. They ran spot tails on him and watched him case pads on the verge of L.A.’s southside. He finally hit a house at 2714 South Normandie. Three sisters lived there: Shirley, Lucille and Catherine Farrage.

  Avery found a ladder in the backyard. He placed it under a dining room window and entered the house. LAPD Detectives J. E. Barrick,
W. L. Jackson and L. G. Kohler watched from outside. Avery flashlight-prowled the house. He stayed inside for a short spell and came back down the ladder. The cops yelled out for him to HALT!

  The puto perv BOLTED. He vaulted a fence. The cops knocked down the fence in pursuit. Avery leaped another fence, hotfooted it and made for a neighboring driveway. The cops opened fire and nailed him. Avery went down face-first. Let’s reprise the great Don DeLillo’s line. Avery died as a bit player in “the neon epic of Saturday night.” †

  * * *

  HANSEN/LIQUOR STORE

  * * *

  JUNE 9

  Here’s a rough one. There’s one ray of hope. Sergeant Harry Hansen’s on the job. That’s him pointing to the chalk floor outline and the single word “head.”

  Hansen was the lead detective on the celebrated Elizabeth Short/Black Dahlia case of January ’47. That case remains unsolved and hovers as Hansen’s idée fixe. He’s a great detective. If anyone can solve the Dahlia snuff, it’s Homicide Harry. Now, it’s 6/8/53—and he’s got a fucking hybrid baffler.

  It’s a strong-arm liquor store 211/187 homicide. The robber-killer’s still at large. Here’s the gist—off the record, on the Q.T. and very hush-hush.

  The liquor store is situated at Olympic Boulevard and Alvarado. The area was run-down in 1953—but it’s a third-world hellhole Now. Note the interior photos. The store sells rotgut juice. There’s Gallo Muscatel, Regal Pale and Eastside Old Tap Lager beers. There’s also nutritious corn chips, candy bars and salted nuts on sale. The proprietor/victim is a man named Joseph James Reposo. He’s a white male American/age 73.

  The caper went down on 5/29/53. Reposo was behind the counter. The presently unknown suspect entered the store and asked him for a bottle of scotch. Reposo proffered a jug. The suspect said it was too expensive. Reposo turned to grab a cheaper bottle. The suspect hit him from behind several times. Reposo slumped to the floor, unconscious. He would later describe the suspect as:

  White male American/40 to 45/5′ 9″, 145 lbs, sandy hair. Clad in light gray suit/gray hat.

  Reposo was discovered behind the counter a half hour later and was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital. The suspect glommed $25.51 in cash register cash, $61.00 in wallet cash, Reposo’s pocket watch and an elk’s head watch chain.

  Reposo was interviewed at the hospital. He looked at a large run of mugshots and did not see the suspect. He stated that a blonde woman loitered in the store on the two days preceding the robbery. She was a white female American/about 28/5′ 2″, 110 lbs. Reposo thought she might have been casing the store and booted her out. Officers led him through a female mug run. Reposo did not see the blonde.

  Joseph James Reposo died on 6/8/53. His watch was pawned at Cecil Loan on 6/23/53. The pawner supplied an obvious pseudonym. He signed a pawn ticket. Four hundred handwriting specimens were subsequently checked, with negative results. The case remains unsolved and open.

  And deadpan ghastly and blunt-force blunt. Joseph James Reposo, slaughtered for $150 in cash and merchandise. †

  * * *

  ROOST

  * * *

  JUNE 26

  211 P.C.—redux.

  The Roost rocked. It was a juke joint on Temple and Rampart—a mile west of downtown L.A. A gambler named Les Bruneman was rubbed out there in ’37. It was a mob hit. The triggermen drew life terms. Now, it’s 16 years later. It’s January ’53. Two out-of-town punks named Glenn Kingsbury and Robert O’Leary decide to clout the joint. LAPD Vice Officers R. D. Long and E. P. Norman are running tavern checks, catastrophically concurrent.

  Combustion!

  Long covered the front. Norman covered the back. They let the heist go down. Kingsbury and O’Leary burst out the front door. Long told the papers that he yelled for them to halt—but that wasn’t how the game was played in those long-gone/dearly-missed years of yore. Yeah, baby! Officer R. D. Long opened fire and put Kingsbury on the night train to the Big Nowhere!!!!!

  Kingsbury stumbled into the Roost and dropped dead, while neighborhood nabobs noshed fried chicken and jacked gin fizzes beside his body. O’Leary sped off in the getaway sled. Officer E. P. Norman radioed in a report. A juvie car chased O’Leary—but the cocksucker ex-caped. He was later apprehended in San Francisco.

  Dig the corresponding photographs. They portray a heartwarming moment of racial unity in the Jim Crow ’50s. Black folks are hobnobbing with Mr. Charlie outside the Roost. Inside, white man Kingsbury is covered by a light-colored cotton shroud that somewhat resembles a Klan sheet. Witnesses are bellied up to the bar. It’s an all-male aggregation. Many of the men are smiling. Man, this is a stag nite deluxe!!!!!!!!!! †

  * * *

  KEYHOLE

  * * *

  NOVEMBER 4

  211 P.C.—re-redux.

  We’re at the crazy crossroads of Hollywood and Vine. There’s a gin mill called the Melody Lane, affixed with a front door shaped like a keyhole. The door opens into a dank dive and despair den for the determined dipso. And, right now, two determined heist men are taking it down.

  They’re more like heist punks, two years out of New York’s Elmira Reformatory. We’ve got Edward Stewart Cogovan and Harold La Verne Riddle, both from Lockport, New York. They were pulling heists and burglaries back east, but they felt cop heat breathing down their scrawny punk necks. They thought L.A. would be Eeeeasy Street. Punks—don’t you know that it’s Whiskey Bill Parker’s town, and there’s a bounty on dipshits like you?

  Cogovan and Riddle enter the bar. A sharp-eyed Marine notices that they’re armed and buzzes the fuzz. Officers R. L. Newsletter and David Tutor arrive. And, unknown to the punks, two detectives are lurking out on the sidewalk.

  We’re back inside the Melody Lane. Recognition passes—punks to cops. The punks disarm the cops and march them outside at gunpoint. One of the two lurking detectives is Sergeant Don Grant. Dig it: Fireworks pop!

  We know Grant. He responded to the man-in-the-swimsuit suicide later in ’53. Remember—infamous “Red Light Bandit” Caryl Chessman accused Grant of beating on him at Hollywood Station. Grant would later watch Chessman suck gas in San Quentin’s green room. Presently, Demon Don’s trigger finger is itching.

  Bam! Grant fires. Cogovan gets it in the neck. Riddle is riddled in the chest. Passersby on crowded Holly-weird Boulevard scatter and shriek. The punks are disarmed, cuffed and rushed to the jail ward at County General. Kidnapping charges are filed.

  The punks survived. Police teletypes revealed that Cogovan shot his father to death in ’48 and did that juvie jolt in Elmira. The punks were wanted for the recent punk antics in New York—and had only been in L.A. four hours at the time of the shootout.

  It’s Whiskey Bill Parker’s town. Pistol-packing punks, verboten. †

  * * *

  MEXICAN RAT PACK

  * * *

  DECEMBER 14

  You thought the “Rat Pack” was a classy clique comprised of Frank Sinatra, Dino Martin, Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford, didn’t you? Take another think, pendejos. See that cheezy East L.A. niteklub interior? See Ramon “Mundo” Pacheco, dead in the alley behind it? Pacheco’s a pachuco, pendejos. The L.A. Examiner is hot on the trail of Rat Pack Violence.

  It’s youth gang intrigue. Malevolent Mexican punks are on the prowl. Five punkolas with a grudge against puto Pacheco stabbed and beat him to death.

  The grief began in the niteklub and spilled out to the alley. There were shitloads of eyeball witnesses who told a coroner’s inquest they saw nada. District Attorney S. Ernest Roll thought they’d been coerced into silence.

  The Pacheco snuff was the apogee of a Rat Pack Crime Wave. Five tuffs bottle-slashed two youths at the edge of Pershing Square. Three pestilent punks jumped a Marine on a downtown street and killed the 56-year-old man who came to his aid. Woo, woo! L.A.’s roiling with Rat Pack Fever! The Examiner publishes a Rat Pack Exposé. Dig this nihilistic nomenclature of L.A. ’53. The punks are subdivided by age group. “Cherries,” “Midgets�
�� and “Chicks” run 15 to 18. If you’re over 18, you’re a veteran. Gang ranks swell from 20 to 100 members. There’s 35 in the “El Hoyo” mob. “Dogtown” boasts 110. There’s 35 in “Valley Vampires.” There’s only 25 in the “Loma Street Gang.”

  Smell the air? Hear that murky music? It’s the scent of testosterone-toasted male madness. It’s malevolent and miasmic and lashing latinlike toward YOU. The Viscounts and “Harlem Nocturne” wail wickedly at all White Male Americans. Sinatra’s Rat Pack is in its impotent infancy. The real rodents are wrapped in rancor and heading OUR way. †

  * * *

  WINO

  * * *

  FEBRUARY 6

  Jesus Fernandez Munoz. Transient. Wino, stumblebum, derelict, good guy down on his luck. The coroner’s register one-sheet is perfunctory. It’s an accidental death. Men like Munoz are accident-prone. He was walking on or sleeping on a concrete beam below the Aliso Street Bridge. He might have been blitzed on muscatel, terpin hydrate, or white port and lemon juice. He might have scored some red devils or yellow jackets in East L.A. and added them to the brew. He might have been soberly walking west to downtown L.A. Maybe he was looking for handbill-passing trabajo at one of the slave markets on skid row. Maybe he was dreaming of a nice, safe cot at the Midnight Mission. The contents of his pockets went unlisted on the one-sheet. Maybe he possessed the required chump change for a short dog of sweet lucy.