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

by David Pietrusza

  And stretching the realm of happenstance was this: As Aulbach and Tom McManus stood talking, who should arrive but Gillie Biller? Ostentatious in his air of innocence, he remarked for Aulbach's benefit, "What do you think of that? Rothstein was shot in the hotel and I am living in the hotel and I just heard of it?"

  Early in the case, Detective Paddy Flood told reporters something that at face value seemed to betray a basic ignorance of what really happened-i.e., that George McManus was "Richards": "We know the identity of those who were in the room, although we have as yet been unable to locate them. One was `Humpty' McManus and the other was `Richards.' " In reality, he may have been saying something far more significant. Tom McManus was also known as "Hump." Flood revealed more than he wanted to, but everyone ignored his slip.

  Circumstances surrounding the McManus family became even more suspicious. At roughly 1:00 A.M. investigator Flood and fellow detective Joseph A. Daly learned of the call from Room 349-hearing about it while at Lindy's. On reaching the Park Central, they first stopped to pick up a key for that room from house detective Burdette N. Divers. However, they didn't go to the third floor. Instead, they visited Room 252-Frank McManus's quarters. He wasn't in, but Flood and Daly found his wife in bed and interrogated her concerning Big George's address. She couldn't-or wouldn't-provide it, but gave them his unlisted number: Endicott 2649. Despite their presumed interest in George McManus's whereabouts, they made no further effort to find him until 9:00 the next morning.

  When Flood, Daly, and Divers finally reach Room 349, the phone rings. Divers picks up the receiver, obliterating whatever fingerprints are on it-the prints of whoever called Lindy's and summoned A. R. to his death. The voice on the other end asks for "George."

  At 2:30 A.M., Biller, Tom, and Frank McManus arrived in Room 349. Tom McManus and Paddy Flood were old friends, having met ten or twelve years before when Tom was still on the force. An official departmental report of police malfeasance in the Rothstein murder indicated that the trio "came to the room and, after some conversation, they left," but actually, as Paddy Flood testified, they stayed for twenty minutes.

  While they remained, Detective Flood again inquired as to George McManus's home address. Flood said at the murder trial, "Tom McManus told me that he wouldn't give it to me, but that he would try to find George." Flood accepted that answer.

  Police sensitivity for the McManuses' departmental connections was further revealed by the kid-glove treatment tendered the force's remaining family member. For the better part of a week, police ignored Lieutenant Stephen McManus. Not until Saturday morning, November 10, 1928, did Manhattan Chief of Detectives Inspector John J. Coughlin and Deputy Inspector Carey summon him for questioning. "It is only natural," said Coughlin, "in view of the fact that his brother was reported to have played the role of peacemaker between those who held Rothstein's $300,000 I. O. U.'s and the gambler. The lieutenant told me he has not seen his brother since several days before the shooting. He said he does not know where George McManus is now."

  Of course, it also would have been perfectly natural to summon Lieutenant Steve McManus sometime earlier in the preceding week and logical to mention that George was not merely a reported "peacemaker" but actually the case's prime suspect-and that one of Steve's brothers, Tom or Frank, was believed to have fled with Hyman Biller to Havana.

  Police (and Tammany) sensibilities toward the McManuses were further revealed in Commissioner Whelan's official report on his department's investigation into the murder. While the report goes into excruciating detail regarding lax paperwork and notification practices, nowhere does it identify either Frank or Thomas (identified familiarly as "Tom") McManus as having any relationship to the department.

  District Attorney Joab Banton operated in the same manner as the police. On November 29 reporters noticed Lieutenant Steve McManus's presence in the Criminal Court Building and asked Banton if he had subpoenaed him. "I don't know," the district attorney responded. "He may have been here in some other case. I don't see any need for him at all in the Rothstein case." No need, save for all the obvious ones, plus the fact that investigation had determined that prior to the killing, prior to it reaching George McManus, the murder weapon had once been in the hands of the detective bureau.

  One of the few observers noticing George McManus's obvious police connections was former Hylan administration official Henry H. Klein, author of a book on the Becker-Rosenthal case. In a New York Evening Post article, Klein pointed out that George McManus's father and two brothers had police department connections and asked why:

  It would seem to be a simple task to have found McManus, whose movements must have been known to several persons. If the Police Commissioner gave Lieutenant [Steve] McManus an assignment to bring his brother in and kept him on that job until he did so, the chances are Lieutenant McManus would have walked into Police Headquarters with his brother in a short time.

  When the New Republic ruled out George McManus as the murderer, it did so not merely on the basis of his size and temperament. It also pointed out that McManus's prosecutors "appear to have everything against him necessary for a conviction-except evidence and a motive."

  There had been evidence, of course, but New York's Finest had done their best to obliterate it. There had been witnesses, but they had conveniently changed their testimony. Which leaves us with the topic of motive.

  Why was George McManus so angry? Yes, he had a temper. Yes, he was intoxicated, but after all it wasn't his money. At least, that is what we are asked to believe: that Big George felt honor bound, in the unwritten but inviolable gamblers' code, to collect for Nate Raymond, a man he barely knew.

  Honor bound?

  Reflect upon what little honor we have seen displayed in these pages-how each gambler has looked out only for himself and upheld obligations only when in his own best interest. No, George McManus was not about to threaten New York's most powerful underworld figure just to "honor" unwritten obligations to some down-on-his-luck West Coast gambler, one who did not even seem that upset himself.

  Why was George McManus so mad?

  The answer, of course, lies in the famous card game at Jimmy Meehan's. It was not at all what it seemed. It was indeed fixed, but just as the 1919 World Series and the Rothstein murder investigation were fixed in multiple ways, so was this card game.

  With A. R., life-and death-were never simple.

  Nigger Nate won that night. So did Meyer Boston and Martin Bowe and even the kibitzer Joe Bernstein. There were but two big losers: Arnold Rothstein and George McManus.

  And, as A. R. never paid any of those debts (and collected all the cash he could in the bargain, including some from Nate Raymond), Hump McManus took the only actual loss: $51,000.

  Basically, the game was fixed. Arnold Rothstein suspected it, and we have indirect confirmation of his theory, from John Scarne, perhaps the finest cardplayer and manipulator of the twentieth century. A few years before his death, Rothstein hired the nineteen-year-old Scarne to stage a display of his phenomenal card-cutting abilities (in the select audience, according to Scarne was George McManus) and toyed with the idea of bankrolling Scarne in crooked card games. Scarne refused, but began to move in A. R.'s circles.

  Said Scarne regarding the game at Meehan's:

  I later obtained further information about that fateful card game from several of the participants, and one thing it did prove to me about most high-rolling gamblers was that if they thought they could get away with it they would double-cross or cheat anyone-suckers or smart gamblers, friends or enemies.

  From the vantage point of years one thing is obvious. Titanic Thompson was wrong when he swore from the witness stand that you can't cheat in a Stud Poker game patronized by professional or big-time gamblers. I must disagree with Titanic's sworn statement.

  I know differently.

  If McManus conspired with Raymond, Thompson, et al. to fleece Rothstein, he deserved to have his $51,000 loss returned from Nate Raymond's winnings.
But if A. R. never paid Nigger Nate, Nate could never repay McManus. Hump McManus wasn't acting on behalf of Nate Raymond, not driven to a drunken lather from consideration of some Californian he barely knew-he was looking out merely for himself.

  And that would explain why Nate Raymond and all emissaries of Raymond's were missing from Room 349-why everyone in the room was connected with George McManus.

  The Big Bankroll didn't die over a $300,000 gambling debt. He wasn't that big anymore. He died over a measly $51,000-not much more than double the price of his casket.

  The times were changing in November 1928. The Big Money from Wall Street would soon vanish. Prohibition would follow. Tammany Hall would soon be out of power. Maybe A. R. would have adjusted. He was smart enough and tough enough. But maybe he, too, would have wound up behind bars-like Capone, Lepke, or Luciano. You never know. Arnold Rothstein died at forty-six. Most of his contemporaries survived him. Some for months. Some for years. Some for decades. Tidying up the loose ends of the life of Arnold Rothstein, here is the fate of these members of the supporting cast. One cannot help concluding that while crime pays temporarily, in the long run its bill usually comes due with a rate of interest even A. R. dared not charge:

  NICKY ARNSTEIN emerged from Leavenworth on December 21, 1925. His marriage to Fanny Brice survived jail but wilted from verbal abuse and adultery. They divorced in 1927. "I didn't even go back to New York for my clothes," Arnstein would recall. "She auctioned them off with her furniture later. I was through."

  In 1964, when Arnstein's son-in-law, producer Ray Stark, was working to bring Funny Girl, the story of the Brice-Arnstein romance, to Broadway, he feared Arnstein would sue over his onstage portrayal. Stark invited Nicky to New York for the premiere. While in Manhattan, Arnstein hit Stark up for money repeatedly. When the producer finally had enough, so did Arnstein, who returned home, huffing, "I don't want to see what they will make me into."

  Nicky Arnstein died at age eighty-six in Los Angeles on October 2, 1965.

  ABE ATTELL continued finding himself in and out of trouble. In July 1929, he beat the rap for scalping fight tickets. In 1931 Justice Department officials raided an unlicensed New Jersey radio station linked to a $100 million-a-year, twelve-ship, rum-running operation. Inside, they discovered a little black book containing several references to Attell.

  Eventually, the Little Champ went straight. He owned Abe Attell's Steak and Chop House at 1667 Broadway (and was charged with staying open illegally on primary day, a benign transgression by Attell standards) and another bar, May O'Brien's (named after his second wife) at East 55th Street and Second Avenue.

  In the late 1950s he appeared with several other ex-boxers, on the television quiz show, The $64,000 Challenge, against a team featuring Dr. Joyce Brothers. He later acted shocked to find it was fixed. (In typical Attell fashion, he denied everything.)

  Boxing's oldest living ex-champion died at age eighty-five on February 6, 1970 in New Paltz, New York. Despite having fixed the 1919 World Series, he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1955, the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1982, the San Francisco Boxing Hall of Fame in 1985, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

  DISTRICT ATTORNEY JOAB H. BANTON'S handling of the Rothstein case ruined his dreams of a judgeship. He returned to private practice, never again held public office, and died at age seventy-nine on May 29, 1942.

  GEORGE YOUNG BAUCHLE died forgotten at age sixty in suburban Port Chester in July 1939. The Times decorously termed him "well known as a first nighter, automobilist, and patron of various sports."

  HYMAN "GILLIE" BILLER, widely thought to have perished during his flight from New York following Rothstein's murder, reappeared in Miami in January 1930, penniless and supposedly fearing extradition. Less than two weeks later, District Attorney Crain quashed Biller's indictment-an almost unprecedented dismissal in a murder case where the suspect remained a fugitive. That April, Biller returned quietly to New York. In early August, police discovered him gambling at Yankee Stadium and, despite his loud protests, ejected him from the ballpark. That was his last time in the public eye.

  FANNY BRICE had second thoughts about divorcing Nicky Arnstein. "I didn't believe we were through . . . ," she later contended. "I knew I was just as much in love with Nick as the day I first saw him." In February 1929, however, she married showman Billy Rose at a City Hall civil ceremony. Brice eventually turned her back on the ethnic humor that launched her success, and gained perhaps even greater fame in Hollywood and on radio as bratty, accentless "Baby Snooks."

  She died at age fifty-nine on May 29, 1951, of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

  LEPKE BuCHALTER and Gurrah Shapiro continued labor racketeering. In 1936 federal authorities convicted both of Sherman Antitrust Act violations. In 1937 they won a new trial, but before it began, they disappeared. Buchalter remained at large until the night of August 24, 1939, when he dramatically surrendered to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and gossip columnist Walter Winchell. "Mr. Hoover," said Winchell, "meet Lepke."

  "Nice to meet you," Lepke replied calmly. "Let's go."

  Buchalter thought that surrendering to the FBI would secure immunity from prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey for the murder of candy-store owner Joseph Rosen. Lepke was wrong. The feds double-crossed him and turned him over to Dewey. After numerous delays, Buchalter went to the chair at Sing Sing on March 4, 1944.

  NATHAN BURKAN, after gutting A. R.'s papers, returned to the lucrative world of copyright law, becoming general counsel for Columbia Pictures and one of several counsels for United Artists. He died of "acute indigestion" at his Great Neck estate on June 6, 1936. He was then working on the Gloria Vanderbilt custody case, representing Gloria's mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt.

  SLEEPY BILL BURNS virtually disappeared following the Black Sox Scandal. He died at age seventy-three at the Trammel Rest Home in Ramona, California on June 6, 1953. Burns' obituary did not appear in the following edition of the Official Baseball Guide.

  MAURICE CANTOR lost his assembly seat in the 1930 election. Shortly thereafter he moved out of New York City to Long Beach, Long Island. In the 1930s he defended such hoodlums as Salvatore Spitale and Lucky Luciano henchman Jack Eisenstein. In 1959 he reappeared in public view during an investigation of corruption at Roosevelt Raceway.

  HAL CHASE never appeared in major-league baseball after the 1919 season, but played semipro ball until age fifty. Increasingly alcoholic, he drifted around Arizona and California mining towns, ultimately being supported by his sister and her husband. Neither could stand him. Chase died of beriberi on May 18, 1947 in Colusa, California.

  DAPPER DON COLLINS, con man and sometimes rumrunner, continued his illicit ways. He was sentenced to sixteen months for swindling New Jersey apple farmer Thomas Weber out of $30,000. "This was an excellent prison," he told reporters on his release in August 1930. "I recommend it as a wonderful vacation spot." He then announced he was heading for Paris-and-like Judge Craterwas never seen again.

  BETTY COMPTON, Jimmy Walker's mistress and later his wife, died of cancer, aged forty, in New York on July 12, 1944. Walker and Betty's fourth husband, Theodore Knappen, moved in together to keep her infant child (fathered by Knappen) and the two children Walker and Compton had adopted together. It didn't work out.

  STEPHEN CRANE, after being run out of New York following the Charles Becker-Dora Clark affair, took up reporting in Florida. Crane, whose first book was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, clearly had a soft spot in his heart for prostitutes, soon taking up with Jacksonville madam Cora Taylor. After covering wars in Cuba and the Balkans, Crane died of tuberculosis in Baden, Germany, in 1900 at age twenty-eight.

  "NICK THE GREEK" DANDOLOS continued as one of America's premier high-stakes gamblers, once reputedly winning $50 million in a single night. During his career he won or lost approximately $500 million. In the summer of 1949 Dandolos challenged gambler Johnny Moss to a legendary high-stakes, full-view-of-the-public, f
ive-month poker marathon at Las Vegas's Horseshoe Casino. Dandolos lost $2 million. Exhausted, he pushed back his chair, calmly said, "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go," and went to bed. The Greek died broke in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, 1966. Friends paid for his funeral, burying him in a golden casket.

  JACK DEMPSEY became a beloved elder statesman of sport, opening a popular restaurant in the Brill Building, at 1619 Broadway, just a few doors down from Lindy's. The Manassa Mauler died of a heart attack at age eighty-seven in New York City on May 31, 1983.

  LEGS DIAMOND spun out of control. In July 1929 at his Broadway nightclub, the Hotsy Totsy Club, Diamond and associate Charles Entratta fatally shot William "Red" Cassidy and Simon Walker. Through witness intimidation, Diamond escaped punishment, but soon became embroiled in a gang war against Dutch Schultz. In October 1929, he found himself riddled with bullets at the Hotel Monticello. For safety he moved operations to the Catskill Mountains. On the night of December 18, 1931, unknown assailants shot and killed Diamond in a shabby Albany, New York row house, a property now owned by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Kennedy, author of Legs.

  Some have said that Dutch Schultz's gang killed Diamond. Others say Lucky Luciano's. Numerous other theories have been advanced. Suffice it to say that Diamond had a lot of enemies. Legs's widow, Alice Kenny Diamond, was the solitary mourner at his funeral. She committed suicide at an Ocean Avenue (Brooklyn) rooming house in 1933.

  NATHANIEL I. "NAT" EVANS, A. R.'s partner in gambling houses and the World Series fix, died on February 6, 1935, leaving his only heir, his son Jules, to sue seventeen different insurance companies to collect on the loss of The Brook.