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 associate 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 principal."
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 pass 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.
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 b
ig-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 constitutional 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 title 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, substituting 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.
Omar Khayyam usually began slow and finished fast. In this race he seized an instant and commanding lead. Swept up in the excitement of the moment, the Times, recorded the scene:
[Omar Khayyam's jockey Everett] Haynes let his mount have his head from the start, and he dashed so quickly down past the judges that a sprint race seemed to be in progress. Omar 's speed was remarkable as he put out a lead of a length and a half in the first quarter of a mile, but it was not nearly so wonderful as the manner in which Hourless kept in close touch with him. As they passed close under the eyes of the spectators in the stands it was noticed that Robinson had a tight hold of Hourless, yet under that pull he did not allow his competitor to gain more ground until nearly around the first turn. Stretching his handsome neck still further Omar Khayyam drew away a little more until there was a length of open daylight between the pair.
Robinson still kept a restraining hand on his mount, but let out a link nearing the end of the backstretch. He closed ever so little and then dropped back again so that a shout arose that he had shot his bolt and was beaten. Never were critics more astray, for, rounding the far turn, Hourless began to move up in sinuous style and crept nearer and nearer to Omar who was still maintaining his smooth, frictionless stride. The angle appeared to bring him nearer than he really was and it was not until entering the stretch that it was seen that Hourless still had a full length to retrieve.
There had been no letup in the pace, but instead, as he straightened his horse out, Haynes swished his whip over Omar's ears, and the gallant horse responded with a spurt that for a moment made it appear that he was going to leave his rival far behind. It was only for a moment that the admirers of the English mount were flattered, for, as if in answer to the spurt, Robinson let Hourless run free for the first time.
Then the magnificent reserve power of the Belmont champion became evident. He cut down the lead with mighty strides, until at the eighth pole his dark body ranged alongside of the chestnut. It was near, but not near enough, and Robinson drew his whip to put his mount to the real test. Two cracks were sufficient, for Hourless leaped forward and in a few strides had settled the issue. At the sixteenth pole his head was in front, and in front to stay.
Hourless won by a length, setting a world record of 2:02.
Arnold Rothstein won $300,000.
The above is the standard history of the event-exciting enough by any standard. But certain aspects of it make little sense. Why would Arnold Rothstein so willingly risk $400,000 on a single race, so early in his career, when $400,000 most likely amounted to his entire fortune? And how could he be so sure that Jimmy Butwell was Hourless' problem? What if A. R.'s rivals meant to dope Hourlessor to skillfully slice a strategic tendon? A more likely scenario is that A. R. had engineered his coup not by outsmarting a fix, but by benefit of smoke and mirrors, creating the strong appearance of one to induce the Maryland gambling syndicate to take action.
Hourless was an appropriate heavy favorite, running so strongly in recent workouts, that he could clearly win with anyone in the saddle-anyone except a crooked jockey. What if A. R. could ensure that an honest, competent jockey would indeed be aboard Hourlesswhile making rival gamblers think otherwise?
What if Jimmy Burwell remained, by a certain moral definition, an honest jockey? That he merely promised a fix to those who would bet against A. R., but knew he'd never have to deliver one-because Arnold Rothstein's friend Sam Hildreth (in full control of the situation because August Belmont II was aboard a liner headed for Europe) would install Frankie Robinson in the saddle at the last minute-and that Arnold Rothstein not only knew of this scenario, he created it?
A. R. would cheat the cheaters. The ultimate sting.
By 1917 A. R. had become uncomfortably high-profile-not only for himself, but for people and activities around him.
New York tracks were privately owned. The Jockey Club controlled the track at Belmont-and August Belmont II controlled the Jockey Club. Belmont's father had built the family fortune, acting as the American agent for the House of Rothschild, but August II added to it substantially, most significantly through construction of New York's first subway line. Yet, he remained a mass of insecurities. As one author noted nearly a century later:
For all his wealth and success, the younger Belmont
remained an extremely unpopular figure in New York's social life. Short, fat, arrogant, and mean-spirited, he felt haunted by the Jewish ancestry he shunned and was forever sensitive to the point of paranoia about anyone who treated him with less than the respect he believed a successful Protestant of his standing deserved.
Jews like Arnold Rothstein embarrassed August Belmont II. Racetrack characters like Arnold Rothstein embarrassed August Belmont II. In late 1917 Belmont, perhaps having heard of A. R.'s recent adventure at Laurel, resolved to minimize Arnold's involvement with New York's racing scene and with the proud name of Belmont.
He approached Carolyn Rothstein at the track, visiting her in the Rothstein box, saying, "I wish that you would ask your husband to limit his bets. If he doesn't, it may be necessary for the Jockey Club to act to prevent his making a daily appearance at the track."
Carolyn had tried for years to get A. R. to stop gambling and knew she'd have no more success now. She'd merely infuriate Arnold and shift his wrath from August Belmont to herself.
"I would," she responded, "but I thought you might have more influence with him."
Belmont agreed reluctantly. After all, he and Arnold were hardly strangers: they had seen each other countless times at the track. They had also dined together and even crossed paths when calling on Tammany boss Charlie Murphy. They had been partners in Havre de Grace.
This wouldn't be the first time Arnold had been ruled off a track. A few years previously, Jamaica had barred him, but his influence got the ban lifted.
Most unsettling was how Rothstein's spectacular winnings fueled rumors of fixing. The industry could not afford that. A. R. protested his innocence, arguing that no one had ever proven-or ever could prove-that his stable had been involved in irregularities. "Sell your horses," said Belmont. "Stop your spectacular betting, stop coming to the tracks regularly, or we will rule you off."
Belmont admitted he possessed no proof. ("We have investigated all the races in which the Redstone Stable has participated, and there is no evidence that its horses haven't run true to form.") Of course, a Chicago grand jury would also find no evidence of A. R. fixing a World Series. And a Manhattan district attorney could discover no evidence of his shooting two police officers. Evidence had a way of disappearing around Arnold Rothstein.
Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series Page 12