Yet everyone went to A. R. when they needed something. Everyone had to pretend to be his friend. He was the man who made things happen, who put people together.
The ultimate middleman.
New York American reporter Nat Ferber didn't like Arnold but he sized him up pretty well. "Arnold Rothstein was chiefly a busybody," Ferber observed:
with a passion for dabbling in the affairs of others. He was also a fixer, a go-between, not merely between law-breakers and politicians, but between one type of racketeer and another. Because he measured his success in these roles by only one yardstick, money-he was always on the make. It follows that I might have placed his penchant for making money first, but this was a trait he shared with many. As a fixer and a gobetween, he stood alone.
He did much of his fixing at Lindy's Restaurant in Times Square, spending so much time there that many thought he owned the place. Abe Scher, Lindy's night cashier, was used to seeing Rothstein at Lindy's and was familiar with his habits and desires. "Mr. Rothstein comes in," Scher recalled:
Every night he comes here. Regular as clockwork, he comes here. Sunday night, Monday night, any night. Everybody knows that. Like always, there are some people waiting for him. They are waiting near his table, the same one where he is always sitting ... You got to understand. This place, it is like an office for him. People come in and they are leaving messages for him. All day and night, they are telephoning for him here. It ain't that Mr. Lindy likes the idea, but what can he do? An important man like Mr. Rothstein, you do not offend. So, like I am saying, he comes in and he goes to his table. He is saying "hello" to people and they are saying "hello" to him. Some fellows, they go to his table and they are talking confidential to him. You know, they are talking into his ear ... Did he give anyone money? ... Who knows? Mr. Rothstein you see, but you do not watch ... Does he have his little black book? Is there a time when he is not having his little black book?
Half of Broadway treated Lindy's as their clubhouse. Actors in one corner; songwriters and song pluggers in another; gamblers in yet another. Damon Runyon gravitated to Lindy's newspapermen's section and wrote about the inhabitants of the underworld section. In Guys and Dolls, Lindy's became "Mindy's" and Arnold Rothstein became "Nathan Detroit." Elsewhere, Damon turned A. R. into "Armand Rosenthal, The Brain."
"Nobody knows how much dough The Brain has," Runyon wrote. "except that he must have plenty, because no matter how much dough is around, The Brain sooner or later gets hold of all of it." You could find A. R. in Lindy's almost any night, making deals, lending money at rates as high as 48 percent.
Arnold Rothstein compartmentalized his whole life into various segments, some legal, most illegal, a confusing, but profitable, mix of legitimacy and corruption. Most knew Arnold Rothstein as a gambler. He was much more. His "Big Bankroll" nickname revealed far more than one might surmise. From his earliest days on the streets, he carried huge amounts on his conservatively tailored person-eventually up to $100,000.
A big bankroll conferred immense power upon the bearer. Have a scheme? See Rothstein. In a jam? Go to Rothstein. You'd get the money on the spot, no paperwork, no wait. And so, A. R. fenced millions of dollars in stolen government bonds, backed New York's biggest bootleggers, imported tons of illegal heroin and morphine, financed shady Wall Street bucket shops, bought and sold cops and politicians.
Rothstein wasn't merely rich, he was smart. That was how he became rich. A. R. was "The Great Brain," smarter and savvier than those around him, no matter what crowd he was with: the gamblers, the reporters, the politicians, the hoodlums, the showpeople, the "legitimate" businessmen. They knew it, he knew it; he prided himself on his overwhelming intelligence, his ability to calmly, coldly manipulate any situation.
He bristled when people said he cheated, even though he did cheat-especially since he cheated. "Because the majority of the human race are dubs and dumbbells," he once boasted:
If you have a few brains and have learned to do things and size up people and situations they think you are crooked. You can't make so much money, and not be a crook. If I had the time I could tell you how to make money in any line you want and make it straight.
A crook is a fool. A liar is a fool. I never saw one yet that didn't hang himself if you gave him rope enough. To be a thief is an admission that you lack brains. A thief always has contempt for himself. Every man wants to be honest, to live clean, and keep his promises. But it takes brains, personality, and opinions. I back my opinion to win, every time.
I wasn't fifteen years old before I had learned my limitations. I never played with a man I wasn't sure I could beat. I knew how to size them up. I still do. That's all there is to making money.
A. R. pretended to be almost everything he was not, including a gambler. He hated real gambling, because real gambling involved real risk. And Arnold hated risk. He was too smart to take risks.
Sunday night, November 4, 1928, began for Rothstein not at Lindy's, but at his "legitimate" West 57th Street offices. In two days, America would go to the polls. Rothstein had placed heavy bets on Herbert Hoover for president and Franklin Roosevelt for New York's governor. It didn't take a "Great Brain" to predict that Hoover would trounce Alfred E. Smith. Smith was too Catholic, too wet, and too "Tammany" to beat Hoover during unprecedented prosperity. But once again, Rothstein proved smarter than most. He had bet early on Hoover, long before Smith's candidacy inevitably collapsed. Back in September, A. R. phoned Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Kansas City, to secure odds of 8-to-5 on Hoover. Now, they were 20-to-1.
It did, however, require some nerve to wager on Roosevelt. FDR hadn't held elective office in over a decade; 1928 looked like a Republican year; and FDR's opponent, New York Attorney General Albert Ottinger, was no pushover.
Rothstein's treasurer Sam Brown helped total up the wagers that night. If Hoover and FDR triumphed, Rothstein cleared $570,000. If both lost, he lost $1,250,000. There were other combinations. If Hoover and Ottinger won, A. R.'s winnings slipped to $300,000. If Smith and Ottinger won, he lost $900,000. He made one last bet that night, with gambler Meyer Boston.
As Rothstein prepared to leave, he received a call from Chicago's North Sheridan Hotel, from a Joseph Unger. The topic: A. R.'s newest-and now biggest-enterprise: drugs.
At 7:00 PM, A. R.'s chauffeur, Eugene Reiman, drove Rothstein's Rolls Royce to the Fairfield Hotel, where Rothstein had resided since his long-tottering marriage finally collapsed a few months previously. It wasn't difficult for Rothstein to find a suite at the Fairfield. He owned it.
Inez Norton lived there, too. Norton, a thirty-two-year-old exmodel and Ziegfeld Follies showgirl was A. R.'s current girlfriend. The tabloids said Inez was pretty; but her face was pudgy, her countenance hard. Two years before, she had married-and quickly divorced-a millionaire. Tonight, Arnold and Inez would dine at the Colony, Manhattan's most fashionable restaurant. At the Plaza Hotel, A. R.'s long-suffering, estranged wife, Carolyn, another blond former showgirl, supped with friends. A. R. and Carolyn were negotiating an end to their divorce, a process proceeding as amicably as such unpleasantries went.
Superficially, all seemed right in the world of Arnold Rothstein. "Arnold was very gay-his normal, natural self-and very much in love," Inez Norton recalled. "He didn't seem to have anything on his mind. He certainly didn't fear anything.
"We spoke of many subjects, but mostly of love; and he said that he hoped soon to be free to marry me. He said everything would be mine-his property and the money-but I cared only for him."
Sure, she did.
It had rained all day, and the windy and sleet-filled evening wasn't any better. When dinner ended, A. R. and Inez took A. R.'s limo to Times Square. Inez headed for the Rivoli, one of the area's opulent new picture palaces, where she and a girlfriend watched Eric von Stroheim's lavish The Wedding March-a silent film about the evils of marrying for money. Rothstein, who never went to movies, headed for Lindy's. He had business to attend to. He always had businesseve
n if he didn't know in advance what that business might be. Arnold Rothstein attracted business like a magnet.
It was 9:00 P.M. At Lindy's A. R. checked messages, spoke briefly with associates, and for about an hour conversed in hushed tones, as he almost always did, with Damon Runyon. Rothstein did most of the talking.
Right around 10:00, A. R. checked his billfold. He felt tapped out and dispatched chauffeur Eugene Reiman "to get some dough." At 10:12, six blocks away, Park Central Hotel switchboard operator Beatrice Jackson took a call from Room 349, a two-room suite, where three days previously a "George A. Richards, Newark, N.J." had registered without benefit of luggage. "Richards" paid $12 cash for a day's rent, paying again each morning thereafter.
"Place a call to Circle 3317," the voice from Room 349 told Beatrice Jackson.
Circle 3317 was Lindy's.
Lindy's owner Leo Linderman liked "The Great Brain," though his wife Clara despised him. However, neither Lindy nor Clara appreciated the incessant phone calls Rothstein received at their establishment. They ordered Abe Scher not to take any more of his calls, but not accommodating A. R. didn't really seem like a good idea to the thin young man. So Abe passed the message on just one more time. He didn't know who was calling. He didn't have to know. He didn't want to know. All he knew was: It's for Rothstein. "Tell A. R. I want to talk with him," said a voice Scher did not recognize-or one he would find convenient, no, essential, not to recognize.
"There are phone calls for him. They are wanting `Mr. Rothstein,' or `Arnold,' or `A. R.'," Scher would later recount in classic Damon Runyon Guys-and-Dolls present tense. "I do not ask who is wanting him. One thing I do not do is to be asking questions. In my business you mind your own business, understand?
"Anyhow, this last call comes, it must be maybe a quarter after ten. I tell him he is wanted and he goes to the telephone. He talks maybe a minute.... Did I hear anything? ... The way he talks, you could stand right beside him and not hear anything. Besides, who listens?"
Arnold Rothstein listened to the voice on the phone. Putting on his hat and coat, he said. "I'm going over to see McManus. I'll be back in a half-hour."
McManus was George "Hump" McManus-not one of A. R.'s more satisfied customers. In recent months, A. R. had substantially lengthened his list of dissatisfied customers. Arnold always possessed two minds regarding the repayment of obligations. Money owed him was to be remitted promptly-and to that end A. R. was not above employing threats or actual violence. "God help you if you don't," he invariably responded when debtors promised repayment. He never spoke more sincerely regarding the Deity.
When Arnold owed others, however, he proved notoriously laggard, and in recent months, he grew slower still. His luck had turned bad. At Belmont Park on Memorial Day he lost $130,000. His sizable Long Island real estate holdings had proven disastrous. Despite his "Big Bankroll" reputation, Rothstein had always played it close to the vest financially. He put his cash to work feverishly in scheme after scheme, keeping little in reserve. Paying debts often involved rushing about to secure cash. As he grew wealthier, his situation became more difficult, not less.
Capping Rothstein's recent setbacks were huge losses in a spectacular three-day long craps and poker session. A. R. had pretty much invented the floating crap game, much as he had either invented or perfected a lot of things: rumrunning, labor racketeering, the modern drug trade. All in all, he invariably stood ready to do business, to act as middleman, to be available, for anything profitable. "Rothstein," said his most prominent attorney. "The Great Mouthpiece," William J. Fallon. "is a man who dwells in doorways. A mouse standing in a doorway, waiting for his cheese."
At the game in question, back in early September, Arnold Rothstein acted not as middleman, but as active participant-and biggest loser. The action transpired in Apartment 32 of the Congress Apartments at 54th Street and Seventh Avenue-home of small-time gambler Jimmy Meehan. The twenty-five-year-old Meehan bragged he was a "commission broker," hinting his "commissions" came from hosting various games of chance. Jimmy rented his apartment on a modest hourly basis. For this game, arranged by George McManus, Meehan received $10 an hour.
Besides A. R., McManus, and Meehan, several other professional gamblers participated: Arkansas-born Alvin C. "Titanic" Thompson; Meyer Boston and his brother Sam (Sam used his Wall Street brokerage house as a front for the brothers' gambling activities); upstater "Red Martin" Bowe; and San Franciscan Nathan "Nigger Nate" Raymond.
The story that Thompson had survived the Titanic's sinking was apocryphal, but tales of his remarkable skills as gambler, con man, and golfer were not. Thompson often augmented skill with guile. "Over the years," one writer so artfully noted, Titanic had "won the admiration of everyone who admires crooked gamblers by his willingness to bet large sums on anything, provided, of course, that the anything had been previously rigged." Damon Runyon based his character "Sky Masterson" on Thompson.
The Boston brothers (so named for the city of their birth; their actual surname was Solomon) were longtime denizens of the Lower East Side. A 1912 report described short, pudgy loudmouthed Sam Boston as "a full fledged pickpocket and fagin . . . noted for his propensities as a seducer." Handsomer and quieter, Meyer was playing pinochle for an astounding $500 a game.
Nate Raymond had been barred from Pacific Coast League ballparks for fixing baseball games. He was in town with his bride, the very minor Hollywood actress Claire Omley Ray. They married aboard a plane over northern Mexico, with heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey as best man.
Betting at the game in question commenced on Saturday night, September 8, 1928. It ended Monday morning. Each man started with $500 in chips, with bets in the hundreds-of-dollars range. But three hours after the opening deal, Rothstein raised the stakes. "A thousand I hold a higher spade than you, Titanic," he challenged Thompson. A. R. won, and side bets in the thousands now accompanied each hand.
Outwardly A. R. maintained his composure. Rothstein was almost always calm, ever moderate in habit. While others cursed, chainsmoked, and swilled bootleg liquor to steady their nerves, "The Great Brain" sipped water, did not fidget or curse, did not smoke or drink, nor even chew gum.
On this long night, A. R. also did not win. It was not a case of bad cards. Almost always he possessed hands good enough to bet on. Invariably the competition held better. He should have realized luck was not on his side and quit, but he didn't. Rothstein knew that the biggest bankroll-usually the house, but not in this case-holds an advantage as long as the game continues. Ultimately the odds turn, and the bigger bankroll outlasts the smaller ones. Rothstein counted on that. But the odds never turned.
While Rothstein lost, Nate Raymond won. Not surprisingly, Raymond wanted to walk away. Each time he attempted to phone his new bride and prepare his exit, Rothstein stopped him. "Arnold," Nate begged. "this play is getting kind of rough. You're in pretty far now. What do you set for the limit?"
"The sky," A. R. responded. "I haven't any limit."
Rothstein continued losing. Finally, as everyone teetered into exhaustion, A. R. dared Raymond to cut the high-card for $40,000, the biggest bet on a high-card cut in gambling history.
"I wanted to go to the ball game," Raymond later swore in court. "So I cut a card with him. Rothstein cut himself a deuce."
It was over. Raymond finished $219,000 ahead; Joe Bernstein $73,000; Titanic Thompson $30,000. Hump McManus had lost $51,000; Red Bowe $5,700. Rothstein totaled his losses, which were almost completely in markers-his I. 0. U. s. He had lost $322,000, nearly $10,000 an hour.
Rothstein loved money and hated losing. And hating to lose meant making more enemies. "He was not a good loser," related Meehan, who had known him for eight years. "He always wanted to win. That's why he would never play the other guy's game. He always waited for them to play his game. Then he would clean up a million, or maybe two million, and say `Good night, boys,' and blow. But, oh boy, when they took him over the jumps how he squawked."
Rage burned within Roth
stein, an anger fueled by the growing suspicion that he-"The Great Brain"-had been cheated. It was ini tially a vague feeling. How could his luck be so abysmally bad? How could he possess so many decent hands and still lose time after time? At first, he couldn't figure out how it was being done, but after a while he put together a theory. Nothing he could prove, mind you, but sometimes you don't need exact proof. You just know.
By the time the game ended, Arnold Rothstein knew. Perhaps that's why he challenged Raymond to that last bet-just to verify how crooked everything was. "That's about $80,000 in stakes and $204,000 in side bets," Rothstein hissed as he eased his way to the door. "I think, my friends, that some of you play cards with more skill than honesty-I think I've been playing with a pack of crooks."
Such an accusation carried both injury and insult; for if the game was fixed, A. R. was under no obligation to pay his considerable debts.
"Why you low rat," someone shouted, "this is one of the few games that you ever sat in that was on the level. You'll pay, big boy, don't you worry about that. Who do you think you are to call anyone crooked? You're a welcher-You've been welching all your life, but you're not going to welch this time."
"Is this the way he always does business?" Titanic Thompson asked. This wasn't what he had planned. "That's A. R.," McManus replied, hoping it would all blow over. "Hell, he's good for it." The other four Easterners, Sammy and Meyer Boston, Red Bowe, and Joe Bernstein joined McManus in comforting the out-of-towners. "You fellows want to sell your paper?" Bernstein laughed. "I'll buy it at a discount." Neither Thompson nor Raymond accepted his offer. McManus reassured them. "He'll be calling you in a couple of days."
Usually, that's how it played out, but weeks passed, and Rothstein didn't pay. To make things worse, he repeated his suspicions, telling his close associate, the gambler and confidence man Nicky Arnstein, that he had indeed been cheated. Arnstein extended his sympathy, but crooked games, cheating, and cardsharping were all part of the cost of doing business. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. When you lose, you pay up. "Arnold," Nicky advised. "rigged or not, you have to pay off. Even if it was crooked, no point to your advertising you were a sucker." Damon Runyon also urged his friend to settle. "I never welch," A. R. responded. "I'm just making them sweat a little."
Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series Page 2