Gangster Squad: Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles

by Paul Lieberman

  J. Ardizzone was Joe Ardizzone, the Iron Man of the Black Hand during the fruit cart wars, back when drive-by shootings were done on bicycle. He indeed had disappeared after the 1906 killing of a rival, fleeing to Louisville, Kentucky, disguised as a military officer, Captain J. D. Fredericks. But he returned to California unnoticed a couple of years later, bought a ranch in the hills above the San Fernando Valley, and turned it into a vineyard. Authorities insisted they did not realize that Ardizzone was back until 1914, when they surrounded the property and maneuvered by two armed guards to arrest him. But their attempt to nail him for the old murder proved futile, “case dismissed, insufficient evidence, no witness that would talk,” a police report summed it up. A few years later, when another Italian fruit dealer was killed in a more modern fashion, by a shot-gunner in a Buick, Ardizzone called the hospital to find out where the body was taken and then laughed when asked who might have done such a thing. He was perfectly positioned when Prohibition arrived in 1920 promising big profits for anyone who could supply hard liquor to the thirsty masses and perhaps use a shotgun to grow his market share.

  Ardizzone’s vice-chair for the banquet, J. I. Dragna, was Jack Ignatius Dragna, originally from Corleone, long before the Sicilian city was made famous by a movie’s Don Corleone. When Dragna first appeared on a Los Angeles police blotter in 1914 for extortion he looked fresh off the docks in his booking photo, a starched white collar pinching his neck and a round-topped hat tilted back above his moon-shaped face. Now he looked like just another middle-aged businessman with his large eyeglasses, gray suit, and a decorative handkerchief in his breast pocket. Dragna too was developing a vineyard in the hills, on 538 acres, and owned a large ship, the Santa Maria, supposedly for carting bananas up from Central America. Dragna also had a piece of what was being billed as “the finest pleasure barge on the coast.”

  He and five others had bought an old five-mast sailing ship built for service in World War I but used since then mostly for fishing. They transformed the main deck into a casino with eight craps tables, sixteen for blackjack, fifty slot machines, and four roulette wheels, those rigged to prevent anyone from winning too much. There was a polished wooden floor for dancing and a restaurant promising “the best $1 fish dinner in California.” In 1928, the football-field–long Monfalcone became one of the first of a fleet of gambling ships operating off the coast in what were believed to be international waters, beyond the law. Water taxis shuttled to and from the mainland carrying patrons well advised to watch their wallets—if they defied the odds and won, someone might follow them to their cars. Dragna himself thought it prudent to take precautions. Two policemen made the mistake of stopping his sedan early one morning after he came ashore with three of his men, prompting one to point a sawed-off shotgun at the officers. Dragna calmly raised his hand, ordering his guy to back down, and explained that they needed the shotgun—along with four pistols and two knives—to protect the weekend’s profits from the Monfalcone. Dragna did not volunteer that one of the crew in his car was a cousin of Los Angeles’ favorite Chicagoan, Scarface Al Capone. Later, when Dragna applied for U.S. citizenship, a judge said it wasn’t quite time, but he should keep trying—he seemed to have “a fine family.”

  Fred Whalen had no such illusions about these crude characters from the Old Country, the so-called Moustache Petes, for he, too, ran boats off the coast, reputed to be the fastest out there. One with a mahogany-walled cabin was named The Bobie, after his daughter, and had dual Liberty engines, like some aircraft used, so it could outrun the amply armed vessels of Dragna and his ilk and the patrols of the Coast Guard as well. But the great innovation of the Whalen boats was a feature that Fred’s brother-in-law worked up.

  Gus Wunderlich looked like a dolt with his snaggletooth grin and one of the squarest noggins ever seen on a human being—he literally was a blockhead. But he was a genius with anything mechanical, as good as Fred with his cue, and his idea for the rum-running speedboats was this: After they picked up a haul from the mother ship, or from an intermediary tender craft, he used a thick rope to lash all the barrels together at the rear of their speedboat. Then he placed the first barrel at the back edge, almost over the water and right above a hydraulic lift he built under the deck, the key to his system. If the feds got on their tail, they merely had to push a button and the front part of the deck rose and the back tilted down, so the lead barrel slid into the sea and then pulled the other barrels into the water behind it. The contraption came in handy after one large pickup of whiskey, close to two hundred barrels, slowed them down enough for a Coast Guard cutter to gain on them, despite their twin Liberties. Fred had to push the button and dump the damning evidence into the ocean, only to see the tops of the barrels floating above the surface—the containers apparently were less than full, a shortchange by the supplier on the mother ship. The swindle proved to be a savior, however, when the bobbing barrels created a minefield for the Coast Guard ship, shearing off the bottom of its wooden hull and leaving it dead in the water.

  When authorities nicknamed the Whalen patriarch “Freddie the Thief,” his family thought that all wrong. Their moniker for him was “Mile-Away,” because that’s where he’d be, a mile away, when the you-know-what hit the fan. But nothing was that simple in the bootlegging trade. As an independent and an Irishman, Freddie tried to steer clear of Italians such as Dragna and Tony “The Hat” Cornero (born Stralla), who by the age of twenty-five had a chauffeur-driven Cadillac thanks to the large network of rum-running trucks he’d assembled and his control of mother ships, including a lumber schooner capable of carrying 7,000 cases from Canada down to Mexico. Yet even Cornero and his brother had to fear hijackings when they weren’t pulling them on rivals. It could happen at sea or during nighttime landings at remote coves, when the speedboats cut their engines, and the whiskey was unloaded to dories, which were rowed onto beaches where law enforcement was friendly for a price. There was peril at every step, though one contemporary description may have been a bit melodramatic:

  Stuttering machine gun fire in the fog. Murky lights of waiting trucks. Muffled voices on the beach and the wind-born coughing of marine motors. Creaking car locks and dories shooting the pounding breakers … Hard men, tough men, sometimes desperate men ready to kill.

  Fred Whalen allowed himself only one bootlegging partnership, down in Mexico with Percy Hussong, whose family owned a popular cantina in Ensenada, the tavern that later would claim to have invented the margarita. The Hussongs had a perfect arrangement with a mother ship, getting their whiskey for skiffs full of fruits and vegetables in addition to a little cash. When the Hussongs headed back toward shore, the Mexican Navy would only shoot over their heads—the sailors were not about to jeopardize their chance of having a drink the next evening. It was different up the coast when the Whalen-Wunderlich gang found itself under fire while approaching a beach one moonless night—they did not get the impression that the gunmen atop the cliffs were trying to miss.

  * * *

  FREDDIE’S OTHER SIGNIFICANT business relationship those days was with a cop in Santa Monica, the beach community with a carousel on its pier. Lieutenant Thomas Carr was the Sherlock Holmes of local law enforcement, using a professional makeup kit and closet full of costumes to disguise himself as everything from a tattooed sailor to an English dandy in order to mingle in waterfront bars and pick up scuttlebutt on the bootleggers. The newspapers called him “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” after the silent film actor Lon Chaney, who transformed himself into the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The remarkable Lieutenant Carr also was an Olympic-caliber marksman, underscored when the supposed deadeye sheriff from Twin Falls, Idaho, strutted into Los Angeles with his pearl-handled pistol and buckskin jacket, touted as the winner of a six-gun competition staged by the Idaho Frontier Club. After a challenge was issued, they stuck an ace of spades on a post at a police shooting range to see who could hit the little black spot most frequently … and the California beach co
p blew away the Wild West lawman in the cowboy hat.

  Carr became a minor celebrity through episodes like that, but when the newsmen went away and his English derby hat went back in the closet he was just another bloke who liked a few drinks and a few extra dollars to spend. Freddie Whalen kept him happy on both counts and served him up a few lowly bootleggers to nab—having a cop on your side was a safer way to deal with rivals than hijacking their loads, or blowing their brains out.

  As for Los Angeles police, they were a joke. When Freddie arrived in town their chief was distinguished-looking Louis D. Oaks, soon caught in his official car with a half-empty bottle and a half-dressed woman not his wife, prompting his actual spouse to complain (in divorce papers) that he was the captive of both intoxicating liquor and a Follies dancer. A couple of years later the department got a chief originally from Texas, James “Two Gun” Davis, a proud onetime cotton-picker who was nearly as expert with a pistol as Santa Monica’s Lieutenant Carr. Never mind that Davis enjoyed daily massages and manicures, he soon formed a Gun Squad headed by Lefty James, the hero cop wounded as a rookie in 1913. Davis also talked big as Texas. “The gun-toting element and the rum smugglers are going to learn that murder and gun-toting are inimical to their best interests,” he said. “I want them brought in dead, not alive, and will reprimand any officer who shows the least mercy to a criminal.” Tough words, indeed, but once the Depression descended on top of Prohibition the leaders of Los Angeles seemed less concerned with rum-runners than with the vagrants drifting into town. New task forces swept up those invaders by the dozens and gave them a choice—jail or the first freight train east, the pokey or Yuma, Arizona and points beyond. Eventually the LAPD dispersed its officers all the way to the state’s borders to stop the hobo hordes there, launching what became known as the Bum Blockade. Communists and other radicals also diverted police resources and a Red Squad soon was competing with the Gun Squad for center stage, doing its part by seizing the muckraking writer Upton Sinclair at one rally of supposed subversives.

  All the while, Los Angeles police never could stop the violence tied to the Prohibition liquor trade, which finally turned on its leading practitioner. The Black Hand’s old strongman, Joe Ardizzone, survived one wild shotgun shootout then vanished after leaving his vineyard at 6:30 A.M. to pick up a cousin just in from Italy. His wife had to wait years to have him officially declared dead but there was no waiting period for his banquet vice-chairman, J. I. Dragna, who was in line for a promotion right away.

  The remarkable Fred Whalen made it through that era virtually unscathed. He did have one speedboat smashed against the rocks and a mahogany-adorned cruiser sunk by a leak. But the worst part of that was getting sunburned on the beach of San Clemente Island before he and Gus were rescued by a foul-smelling whaling ship. Authorities never caught on to their method of transporting their whiskey over land, using trucks decorated exactly like those of the Mayfair Markets supermarket chain, maroon with fruits and vegetables painted on the side. For direct sales, Fred took over a recently closed dry cleaning shop in the lower level of a hotel, next to a back alley, where he invited customers to drive up to a window and get their illicit refreshment handed to them in a paper-wrapped bundle. Not surprisingly, some naive neighborhood residents brought in actual clothes to be cleaned, so Freddie had to hire a man to set up an off-site plant to do that work … and soon they had three locations serving as drop-off points for the legitimate dry cleaning business, in addition to distributing their booze. When drive-through dry cleaners became commonplace years later, the Whalen clan wondered whether their site, in the hotel, had been the first.

  Fred dutifully gave his occupation as “dry cleaner” when the 1930 census taker came by the South Alvarado Street home he shared with his wife Lillian and their children, Bobie, who was thirteen by then, and Jack, listed as eight. But few dry cleaners took their family for Sunday drives in a Stearns-Knight Touring Car, a luxurious tank that made their old Marmon seem like a heap—this car really was meant for a CEO. Gus Wunderlich also embraced their dry cleaning front when the census taker came by his home, listing himself as the “tailor” at the shop. His younger brother had some fun, though, when he was surveyed by the census—George Wunderlich gave his profession as “aviator.” In 1928, the National Air Races had come to the city’s Mines Field, which eventually would become Los Angeles International Airport but then was a mere cluster of runways amid wheat, barley, and bean fields. Two hundred thousand spectators drove through the farms to see demonstrations of the latest military aircraft along with races around pylons that drew a Who’s Who of flyers including Charles Lindbergh, a year past his solo flight across the Atlantic. The risks were on display, too—John J. Williams, one of the Army Air Corps’ “Three Musketeers” of aviation, was killed during a practice run. But many in Los Angeles got the flying bug and a fortunate few bought their own planes. Fred Whalen’s was a two-seat Alexander Eaglerock, a single-engine biplane favored by the barnstormers who set down in rural areas and offered the wide-eyed locals ten-minute flights for fifty cents.

  The biplane was neither big enough nor sturdy enough to carry much booze—it was just another showy plaything for the Whalen clan’s patriarch. Freddie had one lesson from the salesman before inviting Gus to join him on his maiden flight as the whole family gathered to admire his new toy. But someone else clamored to come along, Freddie’s young son, Jack. The boy’s mother gave a dirty look as the boy pleaded, “Me, too!” but Freddie flashed his salesman’s smile and waved for his son to join them. There was barely room in the tiny passenger compartment for the youngster and his uncle Gus to stuff themselves in before Fred took off like a pro and guided the plane through the Sepulveda Pass and over the orange orchards of the San Fernando Valley.

  Their destination was a new airstrip in Van Nuys—after making a few lazy loops over the Valley they were going to land, take a breather, and come back home. The problem was, Fred hadn’t mastered the altimeter. The biplane hit down too hard on the new runway and bounced back into the air. Then Fred tried landing again and miscalculated again, bashing into the ground once more before catapulting back into flight. That’s when Gus began to panic. After the second failed landing, he gestured madly from the passenger seat like he was gonna jump, while Fred waved for him to climb over the divide and try the damn stick himself. They were screaming back and forth but unable to hear each other over the engine. Freddie Whalen may have thought his wits and his smile put him above all peril but now he was going to crash and burn and kill them all.

  The third time he made it. He still came down roughly on the new airstrip, but the wheels stuck and they landed and were safe. Only then did Fred realize that one person on the plane had not panicked. His little son had remained calm, even delighted, through everything. Gus said the boy had squealed “Wheeee!” one of the times they nearly crashed and died. Freddie Whalen couldn’t be prouder—he told everyone how fearless his boy had been, the child who would grow up to become known as Jack the Enforcer.

  * * *

  SO ONE LESSON they should have learned was that Freddie’s wits and smile did not place him above all peril. Another lesson was in the danger of messing with the wrong people—that could kill you, too. Gus Wunderlich learned as much in the episode that sent him to prison.

  Gus could blame his ice cream bar machine for his foolhardy decision to become a modern-day pirate. After years of using his mechanical wizardry in the cause of Freddie’s rum-running he invented a device to churn out frozen desserts. But with the lifting of Prohibition at the end of 1933 it wasn’t easy to find funds to patent and market an invention, so Gus turned to an alternate means of raising capital.

  Another member of their bootlegging crowd came up with the insane idea of robbing one of the gambling ships. There already had been a couple of mysterious fires on the pleasure barges and two murders, one victim proving to be not the croupier he claimed but an East St. Louis hood who used the ship-top gambling as a cover to fence s
tolen jewels—that was a rough crowd on the seas. But the former rum-runner Harry Allen Sherwood had an inside tipster, a former cook on the S.S. Monte Carlo, and he was convinced that a band of modern-day pirates could make a big score on that boat. The Monte Carlo had been an ugly concrete-hulled tanker during the decade it hauled oil and it still was ugly after new owners built a warehouse-sized structure on the deck, with a curved roof, to serve as a casino. But all you saw at night were the twinkle lights. On one Saturday alone 1,736 patrons took the 25-cent water taxis to and from the gambling ship where the dining area had linen tablecloths and a sign above the craps tables promised, “These Dice Are 100% Perfect.”

  The six-man gang struck after the busy Fourth of July weekend, 1935, when the ship’s safe figured to be loaded. Several of the pirates headed out in a 48-foot gray speedboat, the Zeitgeiste, while others left shore in a stolen wooden fishing boat, the Nolia. They picked a foggy night, so no one would see their boats meet up mid-ocean where all the men got into the quieter fishing craft. By 3:30 A.M., the last gamblers had left the Monte Carlo and its main deck had gone dark. The pirates had stocking masks over their heads, gloves on their hands, and two sacks full of handcuffs, leg irons, and chains. They glided the fishing boat alongside the gambling ship and climbed up, everyone armed.

  The pirates surprised the Monte Carlo’s crew down below, in the kitchen, playing poker. The men being robbed later said someone called out, “Down on the floor, all of you,” then, “Do as you’re told and no one gets hurt.” The gang made them empty the safe of cash and an assortment of trinkets, $10,000 worth of necklaces, rings, and watches left by gamblers who had fallen in debt or were desperate for more chips. One loser that weekend had hocked a large diamond solitaire in a platinum mounting, a ring worth $1,000. He was offered just $50, and took it, and that ring too was snatched by the thieves along with stacks of wrapped bills and silver dollars from a wall rack, $22,000 cash in all. One of the pirates told the chained victims “Take it easy boys. See you in church.”