On the night of December 2, 1959, the notorious L.A. gangster Mickey Cohen witnessed a hit on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks -- and he may have ordered it.

Somebody put a bullet between the eyes of Jack (the Enforcer) Whalen, said by police to be the Valley's biggest bookie at the time.

The Valley had the reputation for being the home of the L.A. mob, and Cohen was the city's most quotable crook. He tended to find trouble. Once he and his lawyer brawled at Charley Foy's Supper Club, then at 15463 Ventura Boulevard. The night of the Whalen shooting, he was at Rondelli's, a cafe of notorious repute at 13359 Ventura Blvd.

Police had been trying to shut down Rondelli's and the murder brought heat from Police Chief William Parker. Cohen at first told detectives he was sitting opposite Whalen when the gunfire erupted: ``I just ducked.'' Nonetheless, he was booked at Van Nuys headquarters.

Later, guns linked to Cohen and his late bodyguard, Johnny Stompanato, turned up in a trash bin behind Rondelli's. (Stompanato had recently been stabbed to death in the boudoir of Lana Turner, allegedly by the actress's daughter.)

A Cohen associate took the fall for the Whalen murder, but two years later Cohen was indicted on new evidence. Trial witnesses included comedian Joey Bishop, who testified he was supposed to meet one of Cohen's codefendants for dinner that night but cancelled because he was too tired. Jurors deadlocked 9-3 for Cohen's acquittal.

Cohen, who lived for a time in a rented home at 13841 Wyandotte Street in Van Nuys, beat the rap on Whalen. He went to prison anyway on tax evasion charges.