Harry Applebaum supported Becker"s account. Jack Rose denied it. Big Tim had ordered, hinted at, or in some way acquiesced in a gambler"s murder, and that is why so many people so high up at Tammany Hall had cut their deal so quickly with a Republican district attorney to protect the former East Side chieftain. But at this point, over a year and a half after Becker"s first trial, fewer and fewer people cared what a dead political leader had done. Time indeed moves on. They did care if a living crooked cop had crossed the line into murder, and had long since decided that he had.
Nagging questions of prosecutorial propriety remained. Even Governor Whitman, in the privacy of his own conscience, had to admit he had manipulated the system, witnesses, and evidence to secure a conviction. He cut deal after deal, buying testimony with immunity and with cash. He had whitewashed Tammany, relied on the testimony of murderers and perjurers. He had suborned perjury, most notably from his two key witnesses: Sam Schepps and James Marshall.
Yet, he must have justified it all to himself. Beating "The System" wasn"t easy. People were afraid to talk and were right to be afraid. When you had a chance to finally make a dent in the whole rotten operation, to trap a man like Becker, you did what you had to. Whitman did what he had to do, and if it made him governor-and maybe someday president-there was nothing wrong in that.
Was Becker really guilty? Whitman had to ask himself. Guilty even discounting what Schepps and Marshall and even Bald Jack Rose had to say? Two juries thought so, hadn"t given much consideration to the alternative. Becker did have a motive. He was brutal enough to order a man killed. He was arrogant enough to think he could get away with it.
If Becker was innocent, why was he so intimately involved with so many of the guilty: Rose, Webber, Vallon, Schepps? If he was innocent, by what remarkable coincidence had he deposited Jack Sullivan at the murder scene a half hour before the crime? Why had police cleared the sidewalks outside the Metropole to facilitate a murder? Why had they let the murderers escape? Why had they failed to obtain the correct license number? Why had they ignored, abused, and then locked up the man with the correct number? Why, if Becker didn"t want Rosenthal killed, had Bald Jack Rose phoned him in the middle of the night with the good news? Why if Becker had really planned on suing Beansy Rosenthal to defend his good name (and thus be subject to testifying), did he fail to take the stand in two trials to save his very life? Becker had ama.s.sed $100,000 in graft ($65,000 in one bank account alone). His friends on the force and in Tammany had raised a huge defense fund for him. Yet by 1915 his wife had to sell their home in the Bronx. Why? Becker"s defense team was expensive-but not that expensive. Were Becker"s defense attorneys buying their own witnesses with Becker"s money?
Yes, people do get framed. Charles Becker had framed Jack Zelig. Years ago he tried railroading prost.i.tute Dora Clark and a textile manufacturer"s wife from Paterson. No doubt he had framed dozens of others. Now, thought Charles Whitman, it was Lieutenant Becker"s turn-and justice would be done.
As the time before Becker"s execution receded into mere hours, his saintly-but naive-wife Helen trailed Governor Whitman from Albany to Peekskill to Poughkeepsie to make a last-minute plea for her husband"s life. When Whitman could run no more, she faced him and could say ... nothing. Nothing emerged but a flow of tears and anguished, heart-wrenching sobbing. Whitman walked away.
At Sing Sing, early on the morning of July 30, 1915, Charles Becker walked to the electric chair. He forgave his enemies and asked forgiveness from those he had wronged. Some contended he approached death stoically. The World said he appeared "about to be overcome by sheer nerve panic." Frank Ward O"Malley later would compare the calm demeanor of a black prisoner sentenced to death to Becker"s edginess, saying, "the Negro showed the Czar of the Tenderloin how to die." Arnold Rothstein thought that was about the best thing Frank ever wrote.
They strapped Becker into the chair, pumped 1,850 volts through him-and found him still breathing. They ran another 2,500 volts into him. Still he lived. A third charge finished the job.
In the Governor"s Mansion, Whitman couldn"t sleep. At Tammany Hall Boss Murphy and his a.s.sistants kept watch through the night. And in the White Room at Jack"s, a different crew maintained its own vigil. They included Nicky Arnstein, Tad Dorgan, Frank O"Malleyand Arnold Rothstein. A. R. lay his gold pocket watch on the table to better track the time. At 5:45 A.M. he snapped it shut.
"Well," Rothstein finally said, "that"s it."
That was it for Charles Becker, it for the old style of police graft and corruption, it for the old-style gambling houses of Manhattan. Arnold Rothstein would invent floating c.r.a.p games that would move from hotel to hotel, apartment to apartment, warehouse to warehouse. Now gambling would move out to the suburbs, out to Long Island. Arnold Rothstein already had a new gambling house in the old Holley Arms Hotel out in Hewlitt, with none other than George Considine, Big Tim"s partner at the Metropole, as his partner. The cops could no longer be trusted to direct the shakedowns. That would be left to the politicians, but the politicians needed a smart man-"a smart Jew" as Big Tim might have put it-to be their go-between with gamblers, the judges, and the police.
A new world was being born, and Arnold Rothstein meant to make a profit on every continent.
CHAPTER 7 * "Let"s Go Looking for Some Action"
ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN BECAME not just the Great Bankroll, but the great go-between. If politicians wanted something from gamblers and vice lords, they approached A. R. If the underworld sought protection from Tammany"s judges and prosecutors and pliant police officers, it, too, approached Rothstein. He made things happen, quietly and without fuss. More importantly, he left no trail of evidence. Everything ran smoothly and profitably.
Arnold possessed power, influence, and cash, though he did not have total immunity. He had to change his gambling operations. The age of the permanent Manhattan gambling house was over. Maybe it would have ended anyway, but the Rosenthal shooting made its demise inevitable. No politician dared be part of such an enterpriseas Tim Sullivan had been. No police officer felt comfortable selling protection as brazenly as did Charles Becker.
However, the system remained safe in the suburbs. Former State Senator William H. Reynolds, a Brooklyn Republican, had moved from developing real estate in Brooklyn (he virtually created the BedfordStuyvesant, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, and South Brownsville neighborhoods) to-along with Big Tim Sullivan and Brooklyn"s Democratic boss, Pat McCarren-founding Coney Island"s fantastic Dreamland amus.e.m.e.nt park. In 1907 he moved on to Long Island, developing the resort community of Long Beach, which he modestly christened the "Riviera of the East."
For a while, he prospered. Along with Vernon and Irene Castle, the premier dance team of the time, he opened Castles by the Sea, an opulent nightclub, featuring the world"s largest dance floor, to showcase their talent. But Reynolds overreached himself. He went bankrupt, and Castles by the Sea became the Holley Arms Hotel. Around 1912 A. R., the Considine brothers, and fellow gambler Nat Evans, eventually bought the operation. Determined to make it a first-cla.s.s resort, Arnold dispatched his loyal servant, Tom Farley to oversee its operations. Eventually, they brought Sheepshead Bay bookmaker Edward G. Burke into their partnership.
Carolyn Rothstein described the place in rather mundane terms, an establishment featuring "the customary green rugs, and chandeliers, and the roulette and faro equipment," but it was more than that. This was gambling for the elite. The Holley Arms boasted s.p.a.cious, manicured grounds, and even a scenic stream outdoors. All croupiers wore proper formal attire. For its opening, A. R."s consortium imported every waiter and cook from Sherry"s restaurant on East 44th Street-and permanently stole away two of Sherry"s best chefs. As always, sn.o.b appeal was good business. "People like to think they"re better than other people," he would say. "As long as they"re willing to pay to prove it, I"m willing to let them."
While Rothstein"s clientele swilled the house champagne, A. R. retained his more bourgeois habits, much to the approval of the Sheepshead locals. "Mr. Rothstein is such a nice man," observed Mrs. Holley. "He drinks so much milk and eats so much cake. A man couldn"t help but be wonderful who likes milk and cake so much."
One evening a particular powerful individual lost heavily at A. R."s tables. He was not a good loser. "h.e.l.l!" he fumed. "You can"t beat places like this."
A. R. tried placating him. He didn"t want this man as an enemy. In fact, he didn"t really want anyone-even the nonpowerful-losing more than their limits. People who lost more than they could afford to, might turn angry, bitter, and violent. "What do you mean you can"t beat places like this?" Arnold asked. "You"ve beaten this place yourself, and you"ve seen other people win too. Have you got a penny with you?"
The man did.
"Then toss it up. If I call it right you"ll owe me double the fifty grand. If I"m wrong you don"t owe me anything."
A. R. lost. If he had won, he would have kept tossing-and doubling the stakes-until he lost.
Manhattan, however, remained too big and too lucrative to cede completely to the reformers. Yet gambling houses were too visible. Night after night Big Apple neighbors-and do-gooders-witnessed their clientele streaming in and out. They knew what transpired within and complained-to aldermen, to police, and, worst of all, to newspapers. A decade before the same fate had befallen the brothels-and the wh.o.r.es set up shop in hotel rooms all over the city. Now high-stakes gambling did the same. It went on the move, night after night, from place to place, in hotels and apartments and garages.
The floating c.r.a.p game was being born, and Arnold Rothstein was its midwife. If he did not invent (or at least perfect) the floating c.r.a.p game, he certainly invented the floating card game. Around 1911 he had taken over a hitherto-modest operation called the Partridge Club. Moving from hotel to hotel, from the Astor to the Knickerbocker to the Holland House to the Ritz-Carlton to the Imperial, the Partridge Club served an upscale crowd-Herbert Bayard Swope; Broadway impresario Flo Ziegfeld; A. R."s old friends from Jack"s; Bruno Lessing; Wilson Mizner (who quipped that he played chemin-de-fer "by ear"); various representatives of the Imperial Russian government, including two naval commanders; comedian Lew Fields; stockbrokers Charles A. Stoneham and George H. Lowden; Pennsylvania steel magnate Leonard Replogle; oilman Harry E Sinclair; horse breeder and master oddsmaker Emil Herz; and Fire Commissioner John H. O"Brien. "Members" paid $30 per night to partic.i.p.ate; more often than not the fee included an elegant champagne dinner.
To attract and maintain such a clientele, A. R. required an appropriate front man. He found one in attorney George Young Bauchle, a cla.s.sic ne"er-do-well. Grandson of George Young, a founder of the Y&S licorice empire, Bauchle had earned a law degree, but that was pretty much his last respectable achievement. He married three times; whiled away evenings at such fashionable watering holes as Rector"s, Martin"s, Shanley"s, and Delmonico"s; and gambled away his fortune.
As Bauchle"s gambling turned from a mere disastrously expensive hobby to full-time habit, he met up-and-coming young gambler Nat Evans. Evans was pleasant enough company. (Damon Runyon termed him "one of the nicest chaps I ever met in the sporting game.") Evans shared an apartment in Saratoga with Bauchle for two summers, and drew him deeper into the professional gambling community.
Whether Evans brought Rothstein to Bauchle or whether Bauchle introduced A. R. to Evans, we do not know. But both men proved useful to Rothstein. Evans" personal charm ingratiated him to even Broadway"s most hardened characters. Bauchle provided continued entree to New York"s highest rollers.
All the while Bauchle extended special club privileges to its controlling force, Rothstein. In December 1916 Bauchle wrote "My dear Arnold": In order to keep the kitty up to the average at the table at which you play chemin-de-fer, which always runs behind the other table, I am going to ask you to help me to the extent of not offering side bets, and to set the example of paying the kitty and buying checks.
A lot of fellows see you turn to Bruce, or whoever is keeping the game, and say you will settle the checks in a little while and not volunteer to do so at the time with the result that your example is followed by others WHO HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THAT SORT OF THING.
No, they had no such right. Only the club"s real operator didn"t have to pay his debts.
Partridge Club regulars fancied themselves as more than mere gamblers. They were sophisticated, witty, madcap. In December 1912 Bauchle, Evans, Mizner, and John Shaughnessy were at Rector"s, bantering about the upcoming holiday. Mizner confessed he didn"t particularly care to be in New York for Christmas. Evans and Shaughnessy promptly agreed, whereupon Bauchle suggested they all leave aboard a liner.
"We-would-take-the-first-ship-leaving-from-thisside," a member of the trio countered.
"For a thousand dollars apiece I"ll bet you that you won"t," Bauchle challenged, noting that the Cunard liner Mauretania sailed at 6:00 p.m.-in thirty-five minutes.
Mizner, Shaughnessy, and Evans accepted Bauchle"s challenge, hopped into his car, raced to the pier, engaged a stateroom, and sailed for Europe. A few days later they wired Bauchle. "We counted on getting clothes from the purser and the barber," the trio wailed, "but we couldn"t get things to fit us. Why, oh why, did you take advantage of our impulsiveness and our inexperience."
Partridge Club stakes ran high. One night Arnold arrived with $5,000 in his pocket, and ran his chemin-de-fer winnings to $165,000. At which point, Harry Sinclair walked over from another table, called out "Banco," and had the cards dealt to him. He won and walked away with the entire $165,000.
To cover his Partridge Club losses, stockbroker George H. Lowden came to a bad end, embezzling $300,000 in stock certificates from his firm-which he used as collateral for a $100,000 loan from Rothstein. Lowden was caught, found guilty, and sentenced to Sing Sing. His firm"s princ.i.p.als wanted their stock back and sued A. R. Defended by Bauchle, Rothstein claimed to be merely acting as Lowden"s agent. The actual lender was Knott, Temple and Company, a failed brokerage house owned in part by Partridge Club member Charles Stoneham. Knott, Temple left behind no records and no a.s.sets. Rothstein never returned one dime of Lowden"s stolen stocks.
The publicity surrounding the suit prompted an investigation by District Attorney Edward Swann. "It would appear," observed Swann, "that Nat Evans, Arnold Rothstein, Henry Tobin, and Max Blumenthal, all professional gamblers, are the driving force in the club"s activities. The rest are simply window dressing, cloaks of respectability to get the unwary suckers to come in and be fleeced."
In February 1918 Swann had Bauchle arrested for maintaining a gambling establishment. Charges were soon dropped, but the Partridge Club was finished-and ultimately so was George Bauchle, though it took a few more years for him to hit bottom. Bauchle had inherited a half-million-dollar fortune. Thanks to his sporting ways, he was eventually borrowing money from Rothstein, and helping him fence stolen jewelry. Originally, Arnold Rothstein needed Bauchle"s society connections. Now they were gone, and A. R. discarded the man like yesterday"s newspaper.
Bauchle ran through what little remained of his fortune. Numerous appeals to A. R. for a.s.sistance met with indifference. In 1921 Bauchle departed for the season at Saratoga and didn"t return, leaving behind a wife, daughter, and $50,000 in debts. By the following spring, Nat Evans informed reporters that Bauchle had sailed for China.
Rothstein told them he was sure Bauchle must have left the country-otherwise he"d still be dunning A. R. for money he claimed was owed him. A. R. was lying. Bauchle begged Arnold for funds repeatedly, as witnessed by this letter, written from somewhere on the lam, on November 1, 1922: Dear Arnold, Having been ignored by you before I would not write to you were it not for the fact that I am in need of two things. The combination is funny. I need some dental work and an overcoat. I would like to have you write me direct, but I am staying in a rooming house and hope to make a connection very soon that would be a very good job.
Rothstein again ignored him, and now Bauchle resorted to a veiled threat: Dear Arnold, Please read this letter through as it is important. My att.i.tude toward you in various parts of the country has been that of a friend, etc. In Chicago, where you are considered the worst crook working, I have defended you. On the Pacific Coast, you are spoken of as a kind of Jesse James and Oregon Jeff, and in New Orleans you are accused of crimes that cover the penal code. I asked an editor for a job, and his reply was that he would give me ,$350 for a Sunday story about you if I wrote what I really know. I was broke at the time but declined the offer. I have done a lot of shady things, but would not do that and never will.
Bauchle never did write that article, though more than once he wished he had. But few ever dared anger Arnold Rothstein-no matter the provocation.
But A. R."s life was far more than gambling, it was also Broadwaythe Great White Way, chorus girls, musicals, the legitimate theater, and grand, ornate motion picture palaces. It was only naturally that Rothstein"s world of gambling and gangsters intersected with that Broadway. Hoodlums like Larry Fay, Owney Madden, Legs Diamond, and Frenchy DeMange invested in Broadway shows, owned nightclubs, dated showgirls. Nicky Arnstein became Mr. f.a.n.n.y Brice. Bucket shop operator Edward M. Fuller and W. Frank McGee married actresses Louise Groody and Florence Ely. Racketeer Larry Fay wed Broadway"s Evelyn Crowell. Rothstein attorney Bill Fallon won the devotion of showgirl Gertrude Vanderbilt.
Rothstein was no exception. He was married to one showgirl (Carolyn Green), had others as mistresses (Bobbie Winthrop, Joan Smith, and Inez Norton), and employed others (Lillian Lorraine and Peggy Hopkins Joyce) to steer suckers his way. He traded warm notes with movie star Marion Davies (mistress of William Randolph Hearst), and at one time held $1.5 million in life insurance policies on three Broadway producers.
In 1922 he borrowed $20,000 from Irving Berlin-and never got around to repaying it. On another occasion A. R. offered to become Berlin"s partner in music publishing. "I don"t need you for a partner," Berlin responded brusquely, "and I don"t need your money."
In 1918 two Broadway impresarios-the Selwyn brothers, Archie and Edgar planned to build a theater on West 42nd Street. Having known Carolyn Rothstein since her performing days, they approached Arnold for $50,000. "Arnold lent it to me at once," Archie Selwyn recalled. "He didn"t even want an I.O.U. All he wanted was six percent."
That 6 percent they paid earned the Selwyns a bonus from Rothstein. In 1922 they joined with fellow producer Sam Harris to open two adjacent theaters on Chicago"s North Dearborn Avenue. Before their opening, however, Chicago labor racketeer "Big Tim" Murphy demanded $50,000 for protection. Arch begged Rothstein for help.
"Listen, Tim," A. R. informed the burly Murphy, "these fellows haven"t any such dough as that. They"re friends of mine, and what you"re doing to them, you"re doing to me. You leave it to me and I"ll treat you right. You can trust me. But call your dogs off and see that the boys get a square deal."
Murphy"s price fell to $10,000. "He [Rothstein] had influence in every big city in the country," said Arch Selwyn. "And he loved it."
But Rothstein"s friendship had limits. George White, producer of a series of successful Broadway reviews-George White"s Scandalslearned the Selwyns were severely cash-strapped and offering to lease their Apollo Theater for a three-year term at drastically reduced rates. White could use the theater for his own productions, or sublease it to other producers. It was a no-lose situation-but he needed cash, a lot of it, to make it work and needed it quickly.
White knew Rothstein only as an occasional, but convivial, dinner companion. He now approached him for working capital. A. R. grasped the idea immediately and, as usual, had no problem profiting from the difficulties of old friends. Within a day, White had his cash, cash lent at a hefty interest rate. As White predicted, he had secured a tremendous deal, so lucrative the Selwyns tried breaking the lease. They failed.
On May 23, 1922, Abie"s Irish Rose, a play chronicling the romance between the Jewish Abraham Levy and his Irish sweetheart, Rosemary Murphy, opened on West 46th Street"s Fulton Theater to uniformly scathing reviews and smallish audiences. Playwright Anne Nichols, however, retained faith in her creation. To keep the show alive until audiences built, she approached A. R. for $25,000. In return she offered an interest in the show.
By this time, A. R."s own mixed marriage no longer was in the wonderful stage. "I"m not in show business," he shot back. "I"ll lend you the money if you have collateral." And with that he proceeded to interrogate her as to what collateral she might produce. His terms and manner frightened Nichols. "You"re sure the show"s going to be a hit," he wheedled. "What are you risking? I have to be protected."
A. R. received 6-some said 10-percent interest and forced Nichols to purchase numerous insurance policies from him. Ultimately, he netted $3,000 on the deal. Audiences, however, finally discovered Abie"s Irish Rose, despite continued critical hatred (Life"s Robert Benchley, for one, maintained a weekly drumfire of insults), the play ran a then-record 2,327 performances-almost longer than Rothstein himself. Had A. R. accepted Anne Nichols"s original offer he would have netted $1 million.
As for Miss Nichols, Arnold"s treatment left her so embittered that on the day she repaid her loan, she canceled every insurance policy held with him.
Some show-business folk found A. R. more than helpful. Once, when Ray Miller, one of the 1920s premier jazz bandleaders, cashed $76,000 in bad checks, the Chelsea Exchange Bank wanted to prosecute. A. R. promised to make good on Miller"s debt and kept the matter quiet.
At his West 57th Street offices in 1927, A. R. briefly employed songwriter Con Conrad. He opened Rothstein"s mail but, in actuality, possessed considerable musical talent, having already written "Barney Google" and the Eddie Cantor hits "Margie" and "Ma, He"s Makin" Eyes at Me." In the mid-1920s, however, Conrad had suffered a string of Broadway flops. Rothstein invited him to dinner and, in the course of the evening, mentioned how frequently he was propositioned to invest in plays but knew nothing about the business and never followed through.
Conrad sympathized with creative artists in need of the backing A. R. could provide-after all, he was now reduced to opening mail for gangsters. Later that evening, he whistled some new tunes he"d written for an all-black show he planned. Rothstein, who loved black dialect ("I like to hear those people talk"), thought the songs were great.
"Why don"t you get it produced?" A. R. asked.
"No money. I"m just like those other fellows who come to you."
"How much would it cost to get it going?"
"Oh, about $25,000-might as well be $25,000,000."
"Go ahead with it, and draw on me for the money from day to day as you need it. I"ll back it and take a cut on the profits. You can"t lose."
Conrad"s Keep Shu f flin" followed in the footsteps of Shuffle Along, a phenomenal success of the 1921-1922 season (and more significantly, Broadway"s first all-black musical). Keep Shu f flin" featured Shuffle Along star Fats Waller and opened in February 1928 at nondescript, out-of-the-way Daly"s 63rd Street Music Hall. Despite mixed reviews, it ran for a respectable 104 performances before going on the road. A. R., though, was a slow pay even to show people he employed, at one time owing Waller $1,000.
Carolyn Rothstein wrote that A. R. owned a "cabaret in Harlem." Actually, he owned pieces of numerous clubs, including two Harlem nightspots: The Rendezvous on St. Nicholas Avenue and the famed Cotton Club at Lenox Avenue and 142nd Street, held through mobster Mike Best, whose primary owner was the far better known mobster Owney Madden. Through hoodlum Harry Horowitz, A. R. also owned a $6,000 share of Big Bill Duffy"s Silver Slipper, a speakeasy made popular by the smash-hit comedy team of Clayton, Jackson, and Durante.
Sometimes, mere mention of Rothstein got you a piece of the action. In 1924 songwriter Billy Rose opened his Backstage Club in a second-story loft above a 56th Street garage. With comedian Joe Frisco as master of ceremonies and Helen Morgan as house chanteuse, it proved highly lucrative. So much so that a Rothstein bodyguard-his name has been lost to history-soon approached Rose. "The cops like me," the thug informed him. "If you"re my partner, you won"t have to smash your liquor and pour it down the sink if the cops raid your nice little place."
"Wait a minute," Rose protested. "Who said anything about wanting a partner?"
His new friend did not hear Rose"s reluctance. "I want 25 percent of this club," he responded, tossing an envelope full of C-notes at Rose. "Here"s a deposit."
Rose still didn"t get the message: "Thanks, but I work alone."
There were no protests from Rothstein"s stooge, no counterproposals. But that night, police visited the Backstage and, as predicted, busied themselves pouring Rose"s expensive liquor into drains ultimately reaching the East River.
The next morning the bodyguard reappeared. Rose admitted: "I was wrong. I don"t work alone. Not this time, anyway. Meet me at my lawyers and we"ll draw up the papers."
"Who needs lawyers?" came the response. "We both know how to add. And if you don"t, we do!"
Rothstein hated to lose money, and would go to great lengths not to pay what he owed-or, better yet, to retrieve it once he had paid. Once he lost $2,000 to an a.s.sociate known as "Abe" and asked of him what he had done with the money. Abe had invested it. "Good boy! Wise boy," said Arnold. "But, Abe, I liked the way you took it from me. And, Abe, I"ve got a simp over in "The Place" with about $5,000 he hasn"t any right to keep, he is so foolish. Drop around. I have a proposition to make to you."
Abe met with A. R. and received $2,000 to bet against "the simp." Abe lost it all, plus $12,000 more.
Several days later, Abe and A. R. met at Lindy"s. "I am sorry, A. R.," said Abe, "but you owe me about $12,000. Your sucker friend not only took me for your $2,000 but trimmed me for $12,000 of my own money."
"Listen, Abe," Arnold replied. "You are getting a little off the track. I didn"t give you that $2,000. I lent it to you for an opportunity, and you owe it to me. And with interest. I didn"t tell you to risk $12,000. That was your own foolishness. You owe me $2,000, and the interest we will talk about when you pay the princ.i.p.al."
It took Abe a year to discover that Arnold had set up the entire scenario, importing "the simp" from out of town for the express purpose of recouping A. R."s original $2,000.
Lending money was Arnold"s business. Collecting it was even more than a business; it was an obsession. Attorney Bill Fallon described A. R. as "a man who dwells in doorways. A mouse standing in a doorway, waiting for his cheese." As Carolyn Rothstein recorded in her memoirs: Often on my way home in a car, I would have myself driven slowly up Broadway, past Forty-seventh to Fiftieth Street. It might be a cold night, or a rainy one. Or it might be snowing. But more often than not, Arnold would be there. I would ask him to come home. He would shake his head and say: "I"m waiting to see someone to collect from. "
If you understood the sort of person to whom he loaned money, you"d realize that sooner or later that person would pa.s.s by where Arnold was waiting. You"d also understand that the thing to do, if you wanted your money, was to catch the person when he was in funds. Arnold was in a position to hear whether or not his debtors had had a good day. If they had, he knew he could get his money if he could find them. He would stay out hours in all kinds of weather to collect small sums, even of amounts as low as fifty dollars. Yet, he might have made thousands that same day.
The amounts, it always seemed to me, were not what counted so much with Arnold, as the percentages. He was playing with chips, and the chips must show a profit.
CHAPTER 8 . "Take Any Price"
TO OWN A GAMBLING HOUSE was a dream come true. To be the underworld"s point-of-contact with Tammany Hall was better still. But to own your own stable and racetrack ... that signaled that a man had arrived.
Racing. The Sport of Kings. Today, plebeian hordes throng Aqueduct and Belmont and Saratoga, lured by dreams of winning trifectas or a free T-shirt or bobble-head doll. In A. R."s days, kings may not have attended, but the rich certainly did. The rich-and not quasigovernment agencies-owned the tracks and ran them for their fellow rich. The wealthy put their money not into condos at Aspen or beachfront property at the Hamptons, but into racing stables. The Belmonts, the Whitneys, traction magnate Thomas Fortune Ryan, nouveau-riche oil baron Harry Sinclair, tobacco men like the Lorillards, and big-time gamblers like Frank Farrell, all raced thoroughbreds.
By the early 1910s, Arnold Rothstein was now rich and would take his place among wealthy society-whether they wanted his company or not.
Before even owning a horse, he owned a track, or at least part of a track: Maryland"s Havre de Grace racecourse. In 1912 local interests conceived the idea for a fairgrounds, with racing as an ancillary use. Quickly, however, Havre de Grace turned into a full-blown racetrack, built by a New York construction firm and funded, in large part, by August Belmont II and Arnold Rothstein.
Havre de Grace, "The Graw," confounded skeptics and quickly earned large profits. Carolyn Rothstein called it her husband"s most successful real estate venture-if one may term a racetrack a real estate venture-thanks in part to Edward G. Burke, A. R."s partner in the Long Beach gambling house, who oversaw track management. Rothstein"s Maryland partners now regretted cutting him in for so large a share and offered to buy him out. When he refused, they cajoled Annapolis lawmakers to regulate racing in their state and to limit nonstate residents to 75 shares in any Maryland track. Rothstein"s attorney, William Fallon, urged him to fight the measure on const.i.tutional grounds, but A. R. knew he was beaten and sold out for $50 a share.
In October 1917, after selling his Havre de Grace shares, Rothstein scored a major coup-his biggest to that time-at neighboring Laurel, winning $300,000 on a single race. Wilfred Viau"s Englishborn chestnut colt, Omar Khayyam, that year"s Kentucky Derby and Travers winner, and August Belmont"s Hourless, winner of the Belmont, the year"s best three-year-olds, met in a special match race. In both the Brooklyn Derby and the Realization, Omar Khayyam had defeated Hourless head-to-head. The latter defeat particularly irked Hourless" trainer, the legendary Sam Hildreth, who cajoled Laurel management into staging a mile-and-a-quarter duel between the two horses. The prize: $10,000 and a gold cup donated by Washington Post publisher Edward B. McLean and presented by the governorand the unofficial t.i.tle of "three-year-old of the year."
Twenty-thousand people, the largest crowd in Maryland racing history, came to watch, arriving by the trainload from Baltimore and Washington, Philadelphia and New York-among them Arnold Rothstein. Despite Omar Khayyam"s superior record, Hourless, on the strength of some very strong workouts, remained a prohibitive 3to-4 favorite: to win $3.00, one had to bet $4.00. Betting was frantic, and officials installed special parimutuel machines to handle the track"s action-$71,000, a hefty total for the time.
A. R. wasn"t about to stoop to betting with a machine. He announced publicly that he had $240,000 to bet on Hourless. He found no takers. The next morning, however, a syndicate of Mary land gamblers called. They"d accept Rothstein"s action-no limit to the amount. A. R. smelled a rat. His investigations confirmed his suspicions, and he alerted Sam Hildreth that unless he made some changes, Hourless was a sure loser. Hildreth knew exactly what A. R. meant. In the Realization, Hourless" jockey, Jimmy Butwell, had not only ridden his horse into a position where he could not move forward, he lost his whip. Hildreth resolved to replace Butwell.
Laurel could barely contain the huge crowd. To relieve the crush, two races before Hourless and Omar Khayyam were to compete, authorities allowed spectators into the infield. "Several thousands," wrote the New York Times, "tramped across the track to gain vantage points on score boards, flower beds, hurdles, and any other stand that would raise them above the ground."
As the horses went to the paddock, Hildreth announced a switch, subst.i.tuting young Frankie Robinson for the veteran Butwell-a move that stunned the crowd. The celebrated Butwell had not only ridden Hourless all season, including in his Belmont victory; he had taken Omar Khayyam to victory in the Derby and the Travers.