L.A. Noir Quotes

“The Combination had finally been smashed. In a world with Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel on the loose, it was simply too dangerous for men like Guy McAfee to operate in Los Angeles without police protection. Moreover, it seemed evident that the new mayor was determined to “close” Los Angeles. And so the organized crime figures who had held sway over the L.A. underworld since the 1920s left Los Angeles. Most relocated to a dusty little town in the Nevada desert where gambling was legal and supervision was lax—Las Vegas.”
― John Buntin, L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

“To block the Klansman auto wrecker, Kent Parrot turned to an auto dealer whose only other high-profile supporter was, oddly, New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth. Reformers backed the “absolutely incorruptible” city council president William Bonelli (who would later flee to Mexico to avoid an indictment on corruption charges).”
― John Buntin, L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

“In his interactions with the men he was training, Stillman didn’t bother to distinguish between the two. “Big or small, champ or bum, I treat ’em all the same—bad,” he once said, in what Budd Schulberg described as his “garbage disposal voice.” “If you treat them like humans, they’ll eat you alive.”
― John Buntin, L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

“Apple Mary” appeared in Novak’s office at dusk, and spoke in voices “hot and sticky—like a furnace full of marshmallows.” What made it work was the tremulous, intimate voice of Pat Novak himself—”
― John Buntin, L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City