Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

by David Pietrusza

  His defense was pure offense. If Fuller and McGee turned against Fallon (Bill always referred to himself in the third person), who could believe the word of such vultures-"confessed bucketeers and robber of millions of poor people"? Ernie Eidlitz? Of course, Eidlitz would testify against Fallon-of course, he would lie against Fallon. Fallon caught him stealing and fired him. The American had kept Eidlitz at great expense in luxurious hotels to lie against Fallon. The American had promised Eidlitz a job for life to lie.

  The American. Hearst. Fallon's mad genius took wing. He would not merely attack the integrity of Fuller and McGee and Eidlitz and Watson and Ferber. Any lawyer worth his salt-even an honest lawyer-would do that. No, The Great Mouthpiece would roll the dice and place William Randolph Hearst himself on trial.

  Why, he argued, had Hearst targeted Fallon for destruction? It had nothing to do with bribery. It had to do with protecting Hearst's precious public reputation.

  The very-married Mr. Hearst had a longtime mistress, stage and film star Marion Davies. Everyone knew of their affair, but no one dared mention it publicly. Fallon possessed birth certificates proving Marion Davies had delivered twins fathered by Hearst. Hearst had to silence Fallon, and if that meant ruining him with trumped-up bribery charges, that's what Hearst would do--what Hearst and his highpaid stooges and their phony witnesses had done.

  Fallon's tale was nonsense, bluff, and diversion. Hearst had no vendetta against Fallon, only against Big Tom Foley. But Fallon's own dishonesty and carelessness had left him vulnerable to prosecution. The American's war against the bucket shops was winding down; a new war against the crookedest attorney in town would sell papers.

  Beyond that, Hearst had no twins by Miss Davies, no offspring by her at all. "Believe me," one of Miss Davies's friends once exclaimed, "if Marion had one child by Hearst, she'd have worn it around her neck."

  But Fallon's outrageous strategy worked: baiting the presiding judge; distancing himself from his former clients; discrediting his former henchman, Eidlitz; knocking holes in the story told by Charles Rendigs ("that miserable creature who faces ten years under a conviction for perjury"); questioning Joe Pani's motives (he feared pros ecution for liquor-law violations); and above all making William Randolph Hearst the focus of the trial. Said Fallon to the jury:

  Eidlitz said to me that he told Watson he was fearful he would be arrested, and that he [Eidlitz] knew I had the birth certificates of the children of a motion-picture actress, and that I knew Mr. Hearst had sent a woman, who pretended to be a countess, to Florida to get evidence against his wife. He said he had told Watson that I intended to use that information to blackmail Mr. Hearst.

  Eidlitz said he told Mr. Watson that I had the number of the car and the name of the man who went to Mexico with the same party, the same moving-picture actress. He said a few days later Hearst communicated with Watson, and said to Watson: "Fallon must be destroyed."

  Newspapers of that era ignored the sexual indiscretions of the rich and powerful unless statements about these peccadilloes were uttered in a court of law. When Fallon mentioned William Randolph Hearst (and that was as early as the jury-selection process), the gloves came off. Every paper in town rushed to chronicle Fallon's charges. Worse, Victor Watson had to phone Hearst to report this catastrophe. Hearst ordered Watson: Print it, print it on page one of the American.

  Hanging over the trial was a more sinister presence than Hearst: Arnold Rothstein. At one point The Great Mouthpiece interrogated Victor Watson about a conversation they had:

  FALLON: Was the name of anyone else [besides Tom Foley] mentioned in that conversation?

  WATSON: I believe Stoneham's name was mentioned and Arnold Rothstein.

  FALLON: Don't you remember telling me Arnold Rothstein was the one man you were going to get, no matter how long it took you?

  WATSON: No, I said there were various rumors at different times reaching my ears about threats against my life, and among others I said I understood that Rothstein had made some foolish talk about shooting me.

  Fallon scoffed at Watson's fears and asked if he recalled Fallon saying "sweet things" ("one of the sweetest characters in the world") about A. R. Watson didn't-no doubt, because Fallon never uttered them. Fallon was toying both with Watson and with Rothstein.

  Watson did, however, remember Rothstein's attempt to bribe him. A. R. had requested American sports editor William S. Farnsworth to approach his editor-in-chief, Watson, with a proposition: "Would you ask Watson if he had a price." Farnsworth returned with a terse-but coy-"yes" from his boss. At first that sounded positive. Then Rothstein correctly discerned its real meaning. "I don't trust that fellow Watson," he told Farnsworth. "He's a devil. He wouldn't take any money. What he means is that he wants me to squeal, and I can't do that."

  Throughout his trial, Fallon had been excitable, argumentative, cutting. In summation, he became white hot, but with a passion that was controlled, brilliant, calculating, and when he concluded with the words, "All that the world means to me, I now leave in your hands," he had done all he could. The trial concluded at 5:08 P.M. on August 8, 1924. Five hours later, the jury found him not guilty. The courtroom went wild, with Fallon's friends rushing toward him to carry him from the courtroom. The Great Mouthpiece leaned over the press table. He had something to say to Nat Ferber: "Nat, I promise you I'll never bribe another juror!"

  But trouble still stalked Fallon. He resumed drinking-heavily. Few cases came his way. Some said potential clients feared Hearst's influence, but the denizens of Fallon's world had far more to fear from a far closer source: Arnold Rothstein. They took their business elsewhere.

  But not even Arnold Rothstein could tell John McGraw what to do. When, in 1924, Giants coach Cozy Dolan was implicated in a late-season game-fixing scandal, McGraw hired Fallon to defend him. Fallon threatened to sue Baseball Commissioner Mountain Landis for defamation of character. Landis issued his own threat, this one for Charles Stoneham: Call off McGraw and Fallon or I'll run you out of baseball. Fallon backed down.

  On a hot August evening in 1926, Fallon entertained a woman and another couple at his Hotel Belleclaire apartment. A former girlfriend burst in and attacked Fallon's companion with a dog whip. He tried pulling her off. She flung acid into his eyes, which he wiped from his face with a gin-soaked piece of cloth. Miraculously, he was neither blinded nor disfigured.

  One day Fallon was in Supreme Court, defending McGraw in a minor civil suit, when he crumpled to the floor. They carried Bill to his wife's apartment at the Hotel Oxford, and there The Great Mouthpiece formulated his last defense-in the case of God v. Fallon. His old law partner, the now-disbarred Gene McGee, visited and heard Fallon's line of reasoning:

  You know, Gene, I never really sinned at all.... Everyone says I have sinned; that I'm paying the price of sin. That I tried to take life by a tour de force. Let's confine ourselves to the issue and let's not depart from the law. The law of sin is explicit and simple. To sin, one has to premeditate the sin. I never premeditated a sin. I acted spontaneously, always, and as the spirit moved me.

  He paused. Maybe from exhaustion. Maybe for effect. With Fallon, even now, you never really knew. He grabbed McGee's hand.

  "You see, Gene, I never really premeditated anything at all-not even death."

  The next morning, Fallon felt better, stronger, cheerier. He wanted to go the Polo Grounds. Agnes Fallon tried dissuading him. He flashed a smile and responded firmly, "Do you think for a minute that I am going to lie here when I can go to see a ballgame."

  She again tried stopping him. But no one ever told Bill Fallon what to do. He went to the bathroom to shave-just as he wanted to on the day of his arrest. He always wanted to look his best.

  He didn't make it this time, either. Agnes Fallon heard a gasp. She found her husband on the floor, blood oozing from his mouth, dead from a heart attack.

  William J. Fallon was forty-one.

  Fallon's sendoff was from the Church of the Ascension, at West 107th St
reet and Broadway. Val O'Farrell, John McGraw, and Charles Stoneham attended. McGraw, always a soft touch, paid for Fallon's mahogany casket.

  For Victor Watson, things had not progressed as planned. He had bagged Edward M. Fuller and Frank McGee-but who cared about them? Tom Foley had escaped. So had Rothstein and Charles Stoneham. The Fallon episode was not just a failure; it was a disaster. Seeing his name and, more to the point, Marion Davies's name, dragged through the mud outraged William Randolph Hearst. Immediately after Fallon's acquittal, Hearst transferred Watson to the Baltimore News, beginning a downward spiral for Watson, once one of the Hearst's rising stars. Marital and financial difficulties compounded his depression. In November 1938, Watson checked into New York's Abbey Hotel. On the back of a dirty envelope, he scribbled in pencil: "God forgive me for everything, I cannot ..."

  He then jumped from an eleventh-story window. Hundreds had crowded Fallon's funeral. Only a handful attended Watson's.

  NOBODY LOVED ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN.

  That was his complaint, not his actual problem. Arnold Rothstein was incapable of love-that is, of loving any human being. He loved money. He loved power. He loved the good life, the bright lights of Times Square, the thrill of fixing a World Series or a championship prizefight, the warm glow of knowing you were smarter than the next fellow-and his knowing it, too.

  But people? Arnold Rothstein didn't have friends. He had acquaintances, business associates, but not friends. Well, maybe one friend-Sidney Stajer. Yet, no one could fathom what bound the dapper millionaire gambler and the cheap little drug addict together. Nobody comprehended why A. R. tolerated Sidney, let alone was fond of him. Arnold's marriage? A disaster, albeit one that took years to fully unravel and for Carolyn Rothstein to finally abandon.

  A. R. retained but tatters of a family relationship. Marriage to a shiksa shattered what remained of a relationship with his father, but it had been irretrievably mutilated long before that. The son's gambling, his lying, his dishonesty, his greed saddened and disgusted Abraham Rothstein. It was not what being a Jew was about. It was not what being a mensch was about.

  Abraham and Arnold seemed so different, yet they shared a common trait, one that only grew in years to come. Because of Abraham Rothstein's reputation as a just and holy man, many turned to him for guidance. Carolyn Rothstein wrote that her father-in-law "went out of his way to mediate difficulties between various groups in business." Ironically, this attribute would become apparent in A. R.

  Perhaps Arnold was finally trying to meet Abraham's standards, though in his own way. "It has been interesting to me," Carolyn continued, "to observe that as time went on Arnold took on a manifestation of this side of his father's character. He would go about New York offering his services in delicate matters which required adjustment-perhaps between the law and a victim of it, perhaps between a criminal and a victim, perhaps between a man and his employer."

  At first glance, this shared habit might reflect positively on the son. But what was virtue in Abraham may have proved the key to the successful criminal nature of his son.

  "Much has been written about [A. R.] by men who knew him well," noted journalist Nat Ferber. "I cannot understand why he has not been revealed in his true role. Arnold Rothstein was chiefly a busybody with a passion for dabbling in the affairs of others. He was also a fixer, a go-between, not merely between lawbreakers 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 go-between, he stood alone."

  It fell to Carolyn Rothstein to make the connection-and to understand the difference between father and son:

  Invariably Arnold came out of these affairs of mediation successful, but usually at a sacrifice of time and money to himself. He had to be a big shot, and a big shot couldn't afford to be cheap. It was one of the many ways in which he fed his inordinate vanity, a vanity which grew hungrier and hungrier as the years rolled past.

  I am not trying to compare the social, religious or moral qualities of the father and son. I am merely submitting the fact that where the father in legitimate channels made sacrifices to help persons in trouble, the son did exactly the same service in the purlieu of the half-world and the underworld, and in the great world too, for that matter.

  Arnold Rothstein's relationship with his parents remained difficult, even into the 1920s, even into his middle age. It was not entirely his fault. In his own way, A. R. tried to be a good son. When Abraham Rothstein fell into financial hard times, his son assumed responsibility for $350,000 in debts-but that was not enough to erase his unforgivable sin, marrying outside his father's faith.

  In 1923 sixty-year-old Esther Rothstein contracted pneumonia. Her physician advised the family that she lay very near death. Her children-including A. R.-hastened to her side. But it being the Sabbath, his wife dying or not, Abraham prepared for synagogue, taking Edgar and Jack with him.

  A. R. tried joining them.

  "You cannot," his father stopped him quietly but firmly. "Have you forgotten? You are dead."

  A. R.'s limousine brought him home, but he couldn't remain there. Carolyn's presence only reminded him of his father's displeasure. He headed for Reuben's, taking his grief with him. No one dared approach-except Sidney Stajer. Stajer asked what was wrong.

  "I'd like to go to the synagogue and pray for my mother, but I can't," Arnold responded. "Besides, I've forgotten the prayers."

  "I know them," said Stajer. "I'll go to the synagogue and pray for her in your place."

  Maybe, that kind of caring, that occasional break from the fast buck, was why Arnold liked his drug-addicted friend.

  Arnold's siblings married, but their unions brought him scant happiness. Sister Edith wed Henry Lustig, a former produce pushcart vendor now in wholesale. A. R. loaned Henry money to enter the restaurant business, forming Manhattan's Longchamps chain. In return, Arnold not only found a tenant for one of his numerous properties, he became Lustig's partner. The chain prospered. But Rothstein suspected Henry of skimming profits. One day, Lindy's received a delivery from Lustig's wholesale business, Henry Lustig Co., and Arnold noted the price of each item carefully. The next day he phoned Longchamps' comptroller, inquiring what he paid for the same items. Lustig charged Longchamps more. A. R. was being taken. Lustig was shifting profits from his partnership with Rothstein to his own business. "Buy me out or I'll close up the place," Arnold threatened. The partnership ended.

  Arnold's relations were hardly better with a young relative named Arthur Vigdor. Vigdor needed assistance for medical school. Arnold provided help-all of $25.00. Decades later Vigdor, whose first job on graduation was at Longchamps, still referred to Rothstein as a "rotten bastard."

  In early 1928, A. R.'s youngest brother, Jack, eloped with wealthy heiress Fay Lewisohn-wounding Arnold grievously. Virginia Fay Lewisohn represented New York's Jewish aristocracy. Her late father had been a wealthy and respected Manhattan real estate baron. Her maternal grandfather, Randolph Guggenheimer, founded (with halfbrother Samuel Untermyer) Guggenheimer, Untermyer and Marshall-not just the nation's premier Jewish law firm, but among the most prestigious of all American firms.

  But Arnold had heaped such shame upon the family name that Jack Rothstein could not bring it to this union. He became "Jack Rothstone"-and broke his brother's heart.

  By 1928 Arnold and Carolyn had separated, but the "Rothstone" news so upset A. R., that he phoned his estranged wife, asking to see her. It was the "only time I ever saw Arnold show great emotion," she recalled. "When he arrived he began to weep. Tears rolled down his cheeks.... I am sure that this was by far the worst blow Arnold ever suffered in his life."

  Arnold Rothstein's marriage to Carolyn had not been good for quite some time. He claimed to love his wife. He claimed to need her, and on a certain emotional level, he did. As he cut himself off
from parents and from normal morality and decent society she became his emotional anchor, someone to come home to, someone waiting there for him.

  He should have gotten a dog.

  Carolyn Rothstein was kept on an emotional leash, increasingly isolated from her friends, a web of fear imprisoning her and her husband behind iron doors and barred windows and a cordon of thuggish bodyguards. And while A. R. professed love for Carolyn, his actions spoke a different language. When she would travel and write or wire her husband, he would toss the correspondence to his secretary contemptuously, ordering her to respond. "You know how to answer that-," he would bark, "the usual junk."

  It wasn't any better when Carolyn was in New York. He might take her to the track, but generally he left her alone, night after night, as he pursued the additional millions that were never enough. When he returned, it was to a separate bedroom. Rothstein biographer Leo Katcher tells a tale of sexual incompatibility. Katcher didn't footnote, didn't cite sources, so his allegation is difficult-if not impossible-to verify. But it may indeed be true.

  Carolyn Rothstein claimed ignorance of Inez Norton, but she knew of other "other" women. Most are now unknown, but we do know that A. R. set aside a $100,000 trust fund for former Follies showgirl Joan Smith. But she died in 1926, and the fund reverted to Carolyn. An even earlier conquest by A. R. was minor actress Gertie Ward.

  Most important was Barbara "Bobbie" Winthrop, another Ziegfeld girl, a beautiful blonde, with wide blue eyes and an upturned nose. Carolyn Rothstein knew about Bobbie Winthrop. She read it in the papers.

  Not directly, but she knew. A wife often does. The paper wasn't even a real newspaper, just a scurrilous scandal sheet called Town Topics, and one day it carried this item:

  BROADWAY BEAUTY

  A tailor-made man prominent in the guessing fraternity is seen nightly in the Broadway restaurants with beautiful Bobbie Winthrop.

  "Guessing fraternity" translated into gambling fraternity. That part was clear to all, but it was the phrase "tailor-made man" that convinced Carolyn. Few members of the Broadway fraternity were as fastidious as her husband. Feminine intuition took hold.