A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner

Author:Richard Rayner [Rayner, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-53011-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

On the morning of July 14, 1930, Frank Keaton, a disabled and unbalanced machinist, rose at dawn. He dressed hastily and headed downtown to City Hall where the banker Motley Flint was slated to give evidence in a civil trial. Keaton, dour and ordinary, had lost his savings when Julian Pete collapsed. He was one of the herd whose dreams L.A. had shattered. On the other hand, Flint, the suave brother of a former senator, had made millions out of the scam through a privileged investor pool. Perhaps the first banker to see the future in Hollywood and a backer of Warner Bros., Flint was a booster, a player in the drama of making the city happen, a prophet of the golden days that he said would be L.A.’s future in perpetuity. Flint had in the pockets of his slick suit $63,000 cash. Keaton had ten cents, a pack of cigarettes, a copy of Bob Shuler’s pamphlet “Julian Thieves,” and a .38 caliber nickel-plated hammerless revolver. “It felt big as a cannon,” Keaton later said.

Keaton sat in the spectator section while Flint, cool and poised, gave his evidence on behalf of a young motion picture executive named David O. Selznick. By the end of the decade Selznick would produce Gone With the Wind. Motley Flint, on the other hand, was about to meet his doom.

Frank Keaton wasn’t a well man. He’d recently been struck by a falling electric cable. Sitting in the courtroom, he felt his eyes begin to sting and a pain in his head grow sharp. As Flint left the witness stand and got ready to depart the court, pausing only to chat with David Selznick’s mother, Florence Selznick, Keaton sprang to his feet, drawing the .38 from his pocket and firing three times. Motley Flint was dead before he hit the floor. Keaton made no attempt to escape. Instead he slumped in a chair, saying, “Oh God, why did I do it?” Keaton’s trial was a formality; he was found guilty on September 5, sentenced to hang, and the Julian Pete had claimed two more victims.

The murder of Motley Flint was another fatal collision of have and have-not. It was a tragic climax, for the gusher of Julian Pete scandal blew itself once and for all when Dave Clark, acting in his new capacity as head of the complaints department, went to see Buron Fitts and reported that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the bribery and influence peddling charges against Charlie Crawford and Jack Friedlander. This meeting took place in Fitts’s office, high in the Hall of Justice. From his window Fitts had a view of City Hall with its high white tower. On his desk was a small American flag, in a case were medals he’d won in France, and the walls were lined with shelves of law books. Later Fitts said he was surprised by what Clark told him, and asked Clark if he was really sure.

Clark replied that he’d reviewed all the paperwork, and spoken to Jack Roth and other witnesses; there just wasn’t enough to go on.

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