Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-Sterling Hayden’s Crime Wave

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

Crime Wave, starring Sterling Hayden, 1952

Once a con always a con, you can put money in the bank on that proposition, big money. And I ought to know since I, Detective Sergeant Hayden, Los Angeles Homicide Squad for twelve years and before that on the bunko and vice squads and before that a few years of pounding the pavement as a beat cop so I have seen it all. Seen crumb bums and con artists, two-bit gas station hold-up guys, church collection box stealers, white slavers, dopesters, hipsters, stone-cold killers, penny-ante jack-rollers, even a guy one night in a bar who tried, not knowing I was a cop, to get me to go in with him for a few upfront dollars on the profits to be had from pimping his girlfriend, his underage runaway girlfriend, the whole lot of them better off dead, off the streets anyway.

Yeah so I have put my share, no more than my share of guys away, keeping them for running wild in the streets of L.A. and bothering the citizenry, the tax-paying citizenry. I swear it has gotten worst since the war, guys coming back from the Pacific after busting up a few Japs or from Europe kicking ass on a few Germans in Berlin, or someplace like that, blood up, and not content to settle down in Boise or Butte, small no action towns, and so they headed west like locust, yes, just like locust expecting a golden rainbow to meet them at the California border with a glad hand. Of course half of them thought they would be “discovered” in Hollywood, like the world needed another homely cowboy from El Paso or hardware store clerk from Omaha to squire Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner around. Instead when they found no jobs, no director wanting to cast them as the next Errol Flynn, and they couldn’t go home to face Butte or Boston they took up with gees on the wrong side of the street. Easy money guys, guys who let them, them just then from hunger, in on a good thing. Busting some union guys’ heads who wouldn’t co-operate, maybe small Mom and Pop store robberies for twelve bucks and change, maybe muling some dope from Tijuana. Yah I have seen it all, seen lots of guys change one uniform for another. And maybe they like that, that three squares and a bunk rather than sitting in some rain-swollen ravine, or some busted-out railroad “jungle” dodging the bulls.

So like I say you can put money in the bank on that once a con proposition. Hey I don’t like it, would rather that every ex-con who has paid his dues would go down the straight and narrow but it just doesn’t work that way. Except maybe in socially uplifting movies like some Spencer Tracey crap about reforming guys, reforming hard guys after they did a short jolt, a short jolt the first time and came bragging about how easy it was doing that time. A piece of cake (and really hoping nobody finds out they spend that first night or two crying, crying for mother for chrissake). No the world don’t work that way, sorry. The minute they hit the street, maybe before if they belonged to some ferret-faced gang, they are back to their old tricks. Hanging with guys they are not supposed to be hanging with, known felons with rap sheets eight miles long, guys on the run who we are just waiting to pick up once they show their faces, hanging in places, pool halls, sleazy wrong side of the tracks bars where hard-ass criminals are known to hang, back alley actions where they are not supposed to be hanging and generally giving their probation officers, those that got an early ticket, the runaround.

As for work, yeah, as for work they, as they are at pains to tell you when you collar them hanging one shoe off some storefront wall, are just doing the best they can, a little of this, a little of that. That answer always has my dander up because that means they are without means, without legal means and are ready to bother the good citizenry of the sunny streets of our town and the people who pay me good money not to be bothered by the low-life. That this and that means, in cop talk, in plain cop talk English, a little back alley jack-rolling to meet expenses. Maybe pimping their girlfriends on the mean streets and back alleys when they are short of dough like that guy who propositioned me and is now finishing up a dime’s worth at Folsom. That is if they have girlfriends after they get out. If they are inclined toward girls after doing an all-male stretch, and some guys aren’t, some guys like that all male environment so they don’t have to deal with women if you know what I mean. You know turn homo, fags, light on their feet. Stuff they don’t show at the movies or on television but goes on all the time and not just in cozy Hollywood bungalow but all over. Some bottom feeders, guys short on brains and who don’t mind short money for their efforts and risks maybe graduate to armed robberies, or small time stuff, gas stations, Ma and Pa variety stores. Usually at that point though I, or one of my fellow officers. have cuffed them, trussed them up good and they go up for another jolt. Like I say, you can put, ah, I already gave you the skinny on that. You know what I mean.

Let me give you an example, okay, an example out of my own files, my own cases so there is no guesswork about it. No stuff about a tough cop making stuff up to pad his record or to puff himself up but stuff you can look up in any L.A. County courthouse. Yeah, let me give you an example of this Steve Lacey guy. I sent Steve up to San Quentin, the Q, for a nickel a few years back, a nickel as a wheelman for a busted bank caper. A wheelman for you civilians is a guy who drives the getaway car on a caper, the guy who if things go right make sure everybody gets away without a scratch. That’s all he does, he is specialist, and usually gets an even split of the take, no questions asked. He spends his loose time working out ways to get that machine of his to do impossible stuff, impossible police car trailing stuff. He also when the deal goes down and goes south gets the same time as the principals and so that is what happened with Steve. A bank caper over in Westminster went sour when a bank clerk decided to be to brave for long enough to hold the Stover gang whom Steve worked for up and for the cops to surround the place. Hence the nickel.

Steve did his nickel standing, and drew some probation time by keeping out of trouble at Q and also just so we could keep an eye on him since a couple of guys from that Westminster job, planning guys not at the scene of the crime never were, like happens more than you would think, apprehended. Bank job guys you have to watch kind of close, okay, something about the racket drives them screwy, maybe it is because like some guy said, some guy that was a real pro at bank heists although he did his share of time just the same, that is where the dough is. I don’t know all I know is this kid Lacey got out of Q, got a job as a mechanic, an auto mechanic, was working steady, and even got married, married to a dish from what his probation officer told me. Later once I got a look at her I agreed she had something, something to get worked up about, something to slip under the sheets with, but I also could see where she wasn’t going to be satisfied with cute tiny apartments forever and washing oily overalls either. Steve was an upright citizen for a couple of years, so I didn’t bother him, didn’t put the squeeze on him to keep me informed about stuff or about the whereabouts of his confederates in that Westminster job in order to keep that job, that steady paycheck, that cute little apartment, and that dishy wife with the big future wanting habits. But I knew he would break out sometime, all he needed was a little coaxing, a little coaxing from her about needing new furniture or something and a little proposition from a right guy, at the right time, a big score.

Then we heard Doc Blanchard, Nibs Bronson, and Slugger Burke broke out of the Q, worked a few small time penny ante armed robberies to keep themselves in coffee and crullers and then made the big mistake that brought them to my attention. One of those armed robberies went bust, a cop, a state cop, got killed over in Inglewood and the whole thing landed in my lap. See Slugger Burke took a couple of slugs in the melee too. And that is where Steve comes in. He was buddy-buddy with these guys in Q, don’t ask me how I know I just do, okay. I have my sources, private and confidential, so don’t press the issue. So who do you think Slugger goes to see about getting patched up? Not some priest or the county hospital, no way. Yeah, Steve, Steve with the open arms.

The problem, the big problem which put him on the spot, for Steve though was that Slugger kind of ruined things when he expired on Steve’s living room floor. So Steve, a smart guy in some ways, calls his probation officer crying about how Slugger came in, how he, Steve, tried to get rid of Slugger and all that malarkey. Naturally the bleeding heart probation officer, Finney, a guy ready to retire so what does he care, believed the sob story. Me, I thought it was hooey, nowhere, strictly low-rent. I brought the kid in, let him simmer in the county jail for few days, let him get used to that old walls closing in on him for good feeling and then I just sprung him. See if Slugger knew exactly where to go for help then Doc and Nibs were sure to know that too. So I put Steve out there as bait just to make sure my case against him was airtight, no gum ups. I was working on all cylinders on this one, I could smell the sweet smell of gas already.

And you know sure enough Doc and Nibs show. But here is the best part, as I learned later, later after the some smoke had cleared. This Betty, Steve’s wife, the dish, apparently had some influence over him, some good influence before she lowered the wanting habits on him, at least for a while. She begged him to cut these guys loose and he was ready to. Ready to except they, tough guys and already as good as dead on that cop killing, were going to cut her up if Steve didn’t play ball. Then Doc explained this caper, this bank caper he had been planning all the time he was in Q, a big caper for big dough and easy street down in cheap living Mexico. Steve was all ears then, all set to take his cut, all set to cut from his grease monkey job, his crummy apartment, his too small paycheck. Steve could see, unlike Betty, that that nine to five stuff was okay for the suckers, for the chumps but he wanted his, and wanted his for her too. Naturally a big bank heist needed an expert wheelman, and he was the king hell wheelman on the coast, and so there it was.

Of course what Doc and the boys didn’t know was that we were closing in on them, had used Steve as bait long enough. We should have had the whole crew right then except Doc, with that con’s intuition that sometimes “knows” something is not right, blows Steve’s place, taking this Betty as a hostage just in case Steve backed off. We almost had them there but we found something in the apartment that helped us, helped us nail the bastards. So we were wise to the bank heist, a big one alright, the First National Bank of L.A. Jesus, that Doc was thinking big I have to give him that. Not big enough though because we had the whole thing wired. We had nothing but cops in the place acting as employees and customers and the whole thing exploded in their faces. We grabbed them all like taking candy from a baby. A nice day’s work.

Oh yeah, I forgot, that information we got from Steve’s place was a note from Steve plastered on a mirror in the bedroom giving us the skinny on the heist. So every once in a blue moon a guy goes straight, goes nine to five, but that only goes to show that my idea is right, right as rain. Once a con always a con. The Steve exception only proves the rule. And you can put money in the bank on that one, big money.