The Last Coyote

And he always asked for-and got-the death penalty. Bosch noticed that in the stories from the later fifties, he had been elevated in title to senior deputy district attorney and then by the end of the decade to assistant, one of the top jobs in the office. It was a meteoric rise to have taken place in only a decade.
    There was one report on a press conference in which DA John Charles Stock announced he was placing Conklin in charge of the Special Investigations Unit and charging him with cleaning up the myriad vice problems that threatened the social fabric of Los Angeles County.
    “I’ve always gone to Arno Conklin with the toughest jobs,” the DA said. “And I go to him again. The people of the Los Angeles community want a clean community and, by God, we will have it. To those who know we are coming for you, my advice is, move out. San Francisco will have you. San Diego will have you. But the City of Angels won’t have you!”
    Following that there were several stories spread over a couple of years with splashy headlines about crackdowns on gambling parlors, pipe dens, whorehouses and the street prostitution trade. Conklin worked with a task force of forty cops comprised of loaners from all departments in the county. Hollywood was the main target of “Conklin’s Commandos,” as the Times dubbed the squad, but the scourge of the law came down on wrongdoers all over the county. From Long Beach to the desert, all those who labored for the wages of sin were running scared-at least according to the newspaper articles. Bosch had no doubt that the vice lords Conklin’s Commandos were targeting operated business as usual and that it was only the bottom feeders, the replaceable employees, that were getting the hook.
    The last Conklin story in the stack was on his February 1, 1962, announcement that he would run for the top spot in the district attorney’s office on a campaign of renewed emphasis on ridding the county of the vices that threatened any great society. Bosch noted that part of the stately speech he delivered on the steps of the old downtown courthouse was a well-known police philosophy that Conklin, or his speechwriter, had apparently appropriated as original thought.
    People sometimes say to me, “What’s the big deal, Arno? These are victimless crimes. If a man wants to place a bet or sleep with a woman for money, what’s wrong with that? Where’s the victim?” Well, my friends, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that and who the victim is. We’re the victim. All of us. When we allow this kind of activity to occur, when we simply look the other way, then it weakens us all. Every one of us.
    I look at it this way. These so-called little crimes are each like a broken window in an abandoned house. Doesn’t seem like a big problem, right? Wrong. If nobody fixes that window, pretty soon kids come along and think nobody cares. So they throw a few rocks and break a few more windows. Next, the burglar drives down the street and sees the house and thinks nobody around there cares. So he sets up shop and starts breaking into houses while the owners are at work.
    Next thing you know, another miscreant comes along and steals cars right off the street. And so on and so on. The residents start to see their own neighborhood with different eyes then. They think, Nobody cares anymore, so why should I? They wait an extra month before cutting the grass. They don’t tell the boys hanging on the corner to put the cigarettes out and go back to school. It’s gradual decay, my friends. It happens all across this great country of ours. It sneaks in like weeds in our yard. Well, when I’m district attorney the weeds are coming out by the roots.
    The story ended by reporting that Conklin had chosen a young “firebrand” from his office to manage his campaign. He said that Gordon Mittel would resign from the DA’s office and begin work immediately. Bosch reread the story and immediately became transfixed by something that hadn’t registered during his first read. It was in the second paragraph.
    For the well-known and not-press-shy Conklin, it will be his first run for public office. The 35-year-old bachelor and Hancock Park resident said he has planned the run for a long time and has the backing of retiring DA John Charles Stock, who also appeared at the press conference.
    Bosch turned the pages of his notebook back to the list of names he had written before and wrote “ Hancock Park ” after Conklin’s name.