Rothstein (41 page)

Later in those early-morning hours, Rothstein worsened. Doctors conferred, pondering what, if anything, to do next. Another transfusion might be necessary, and they kept a professional blood donor-Walter W. Brown of 1437 Parker Street, the Bronx-in readiness. Dr. Edward L. Kellogg told the press: “Rothstein has at least a chance for his life.”

He didn’t. Arnold Rothstein died at 10:50 A.M. on Monday, November 6, 1928. They carried his body out of Polyclinic Hospital in a plain open pine box, past a handful of onlookers, and into a waiting ambulance bound for the Bellevue Hospital morgue. Dr. Charles Norton, M.D., the city’s chief medical examiner, signed the death certificate, noting that the “chief and determining cause of death was bullet wound of belly, large gut, urinary bladder, prostate & pelvis-homicidal.”

That may have well been true, but, as in his life, and as he would have wanted it, nothing else about A. R. on the certificate was recorded truthfully:

MARITAL STATUS: “Married.”

Not exactly.

RESIDENCE: “912 Fifth Avenue.”

Not for a while.

OCCUPATION: “Real Estate.”

Clearly not.

Undertakers at Riverside Memorial Chapel, at Amsterdam Avenue and West 72nd Street, just two blocks west of the Fairfield, outfitted A. R. in a simple dark suit but also a purple-striped prayer shawl and a white skullcap, burying him as a proper Orthodox Jew. It was not a large funeral by gangland standards, a little over two hundred onlookers.

Inside, his widow mourned. So did his parents, his brothers, his sister Edith. The family sat apart from other mourners. Rabbi Leo Jung led the services. Cantor J. Jassinowski sang Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Periodically, a woman-history doesn’t record her identity-would break down, and her grief triggered a wave of sobbing through the fifty-or-so women present. Few people approached A. R.‘s $25,000 bronze and mahogany casket, to gaze upon Arnold through its thick glass lid. Again, by gangland standards, the floral displays were modest. Broadway producer George White sent flowers. So did Sidney Staler and his associate in overseeing A. R.‘s bookmaking operations, gambler Frank Erickson. But it was that casket that impressed reporters. In life Arnold Rothstein had never been flashy or ostentatious-but that casket now attracted attention. Not even Chicago gangsters had caskets so expensive.

When services concluded, they took A. R., filed past the 500 or 600 curiosity seekers who outside patiently waited for a glimpse of the show. His body traveled to Union Field Cemetery in Queens, where they lowered his magnificent casket into the ground, next to … his brother Harry.

ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN LAY IN HIS GRAVE, but the inevitable questions remained: Who killed him? Why? And what, if anything, were New York’s duly elected authorities going to do about it?

George “Hump” McManus, having rented Room 349 and summoned A. R. to it, remained suspect number one. But no witnesses placed A. R. in the room, said Big George fired the shot, or connected him to the murder weapon.

McManus remained in hiding, as did his bagman, Hyman Biller, and his chauffeur, Willie Essenheim. District Attorney Banton rounded up what supporting characters he could, Sidney Stajer and Jimmy Meehan, the Boston brothers, and Nate Raymond. They didn’t know a thing.

Or so they said.

On Friday night, November 17, cops arrested three hoodlums associated with the dead man: Fats Walsh, Charles Lucania (Lucky Luciano), and Charles Uffner. Detained in connection to an October 1928 payroll robbery, the charges were mere pretext. Police focused their questions on A. R.‘s murder. Luciano and Uffner were prominent narcotics dealers, Walsh, Arnold’s former bodyguard. Walsh pled ignorance regarding Rothstein. He didn’t know a thing about A. R.‘s losing money at cards. Hadn’t seen him since the Thursday before the shooting. “Rothstein,” he said with a straight face, “never was the associate of gangsters, as has been reported. It is silly to say that he was connected with any drug smuggling ring.”

A few days later, A. R.‘s old crony, judge Francis X. McQuade, dismissed all of the robbery charges against the trio.

Another early suspect was Broadway character Willie “Tough Willie” McCabe, alternately nicknamed “The Handsomest Man on Broadway.” Nate Raymond told investigators that he had “let McCabe in” on a share of his $300,000 winnings from Rothstein, and the district attorney’s office suspected that McCabe had threatened A. R. to pay up. It was believed that shortly after the game at Meehan’s, McCabe twice visited A. R.‘s West 57th Street offices, staying the last time for an hour and a half.

McCabe denied everything. Raymond hadn’t promised him anything. Providing an airtight alibi, he hadn’t even been in New York between September and Election Day. He had been in Savannah, Georgia, trying to start a dog track.

“It’s Raymond’s word against McCabe’s,” said District Attorney Banton to the press, “-which are you going to believe.” He believed McCabe.

Cops searched everywhere for Rothstein’s killer, everywhere except where George McManus hid. Detroit authorities questioned two men originally held on robbery charges. The reason: They drove a car with New York plates. The duo had actually been in Detroit for the past two months. In Philadelphia cops arrested a Frankie Corbo, wanted for a 1924 New York pool-hall murder, and seriously pondered whether to grill him in regard to Rothstein’s death. Briefly, New York police suspected Legs Diamond’s involvement; but, like Willie McGee, Diamond possessed an airtight alibi: he was in California in early November.

While police grilled the wrong people and pursued their slow motion search for Hump McManus, Banton’s office began building a circumstantial case against him. Their strongest evidence was beautiful in its simplicity. Sunday night, November 4, 1928, was cold and damp. Arnold Rothstein walked from Lindy’s to the Park Central, clad in a blue chesterfield overcoat. When he appeared in the hotel’s service corridor, he had none. It was never found. In the closet of Room 349, detectives discovered another overcoat-not Rothstein’s, but remarkably similar to it. Same color. Same fabric. Even the same tailor. But it belonged to George McManus; his name was sewn into its lining. The following conclusion appeared inescapably: A. R. went to Room 349, removed his coat, was shot and, in the ensuing confusion, a drunk and panic-stricken George McManus grabbed the wrong overcoat-Arnold Rothstein’s-and fled.

But police possessed little else. No one saw Arnold Rothstein in Room 349, or entering it, or even entering the hotel itself. He had lost a significant amount of blood-but, remarkably, none externally. Thus, no blood could be found in Room 349, in the third-floor corridor, or in the stairwell.

Police possessed the murder weapon but couldn’t connect it to McManus, his bagman, Hyman Biller, his chauffeur, Willie Essenheim, or indeed, any living human being. They possessed no fingerprints of value. Most had been obliterated. What few prints existed failed to match any on file. However, the official investigation reported that police had compared the prints to those of hotel or police department personnel only. It did not mention comparing them to those of the actual suspects.

Of course, police might also have compared Rothstein’s fingerprints to the one pristine print they possessed, thus placing A. R. in the room. They didn’t. Said the official police report on the investigation:

The only fingerprint which was not compared with the impression found upon the [drinking] glass was that of Arnold Rothstein, which might have resulted in definitely establishing that he had been in Room 349. During his lifetime, the fingerprints of Rothstein were not obtained [despite shooting three policemen!]. After his death, it was the duty of the Homicide Squad, under the regulations of the department, to have obtained these fingerprints. This, however, was not done and the body of Rothstein was buried, without his fingerprints ever having been secured.

And, of course, the victim had not talked-or if he had, those he confided in maintained their own discreet silence.

On Monday, November 19, a mystery witness appeared before the grand jury that District Attorney Joab Banton had assembled to investigate A. R.‘s death, the best sort of witness as far as the city’s newspapers were concerned-a blonde. “She appears to be a natural blonde,” Banton observed, “about twenty-five years old, maybe less. She has light blue eyes.”

Ruth Keyes was a twentythree-yearold “freelance clothing model” married to an Illinois Central Railroad brakeman, visiting Manhattan on a “shopping trip,” and registered in Room 330 of the Park Central. Husband Floyd conveniently remained in Chicago.

On Saturday, November 3 she made new friends. “Saturday night,” she told Chicago reporters, “the night before the shooting. I went into the hall to find a maid. In the hall I met a man who had a room on the same floor. He seemed to be quite nice and, I suppose, I flirted with him a little. His name was Jack, he said, and he wore a blue suit.

“Along about 4:30 Sunday afternoon Jack called my room and asked me to join him and another man in his room, No. 349, and have a drink. I don’t seem to remember what the other man looked like. At about 6 o’clock I left them there.”

Nothing about Mrs. Keyes’s new acquaintances indicated they planned anything significant-or fatal. “Jack” (i.e., McManus) repeatedly begged her to stay and peeled $50 bills off his bankroll to encourage her. He did what he could to please-dancing, singing, catching ice cubes in his drinking glass. “It was,” giggled Ruth, “all quite silly.” She checked out of her room at approximately 7:00 P.M. on Sunday night, November 4, 1928-about three-and-a-half hours before Arnold Rothstein’s arrival.

Mrs. Keyes promised investigators she’d do all she could to help, though positive identifications were difficult. “Everyone had had a lot of drinks,” she said, “and that makes them look different.” She was sure Arnold Rothstein had not been among her new acquaintances. She met a lot of men in her line of work; A. R. was never among them.

Meanwhile, police had proceeded in slipshod fashion from the beginning of their work. When detectives arrived in Room 349 on the night of the evening, the phone rang. They allowed house detective Burdette N. Divers to answer-and to obliterate any fingerprints upon the instrument. Leaving the room, they posted no guard, potentially allowing anyone to enter, remove evidence, or wipe clean any remaining prints. Detectives delayed searching McManus’ twelve-room apartment at 51 Riverside Drive until November 16-almost a full eleven days after the shooting. On arrival, they found it stripped of every photograph of the suspect. They also learned that sometime after 11:00 P.M. on November 4, McManus and his chauffeur, Willie Essenheim, had stopped by the apartment. Essenheim ran upstairs-and returned with a heavy winter overcoat for his boss.

While police halfheartedly sought A. R.‘s murderer, others scrambled for his cash. The last will and testament Maurice Cantor placed under Arnold’s feeble hand amply provided for Cantor and coadministrators Bill Wellman, and Samuel Brown, but was less generous to Rothstein’s family or his widow. On March 1, 1928 a still-very-coherent Arnold Rothstein had employed attorney Abraham H. Brown to draw up a will leaving half his estate to his wife. The will he signed as he lay dying reduced Carolyn’s share to one-third-and left the income from one-sixth of the estate for a ten-year period to Inez Norton. After ten years, Inez’s one-sixth reverted to Cantor, Wellman, and Brown. The idea pleased neither Inez nor Carolyn. Inez wanted more, wailing: “He said everything would be mine!” Carolyn wanted Inez shut out completely. “We will find no trouble … in cutting Miss Norton off without a penny,” her attorney Abraham I. Smolens threatened. “She got enough from him when he was alive, without trying to horn in on a widow’s share.”

Abraham and Esther Rothstein, and Arnold’s surviving sister, Edith Lustig, got nothing. Brothers Edgar and Jack received just $50,000 each. On November 14, 1928, Abraham Rothstein petitioned Surrogate Court Judge John P. O’Brien to overturn Rothstein’s deathbed will.

Left • Heavyeight champion Gene Tunney (center) with his manager Billy Gibson (left) and legendary boxing promoter Tex Rickard. Rothstein won $500,000 on the first Dempsey-Tunney fight. Did he and Abe Attell plot to make it a “sure thing”?

Below • Lindy’s Restaurant on Broadway served as A. R.‘s unofficial office. On the night of Sunday, November 4, 1928, a call to Lindy’s summoned Rothstein to the Park Central Hotel and his death.

Above • Rothstein’s mistress, showgirl Bobbie Winthrop, committed suicide in 1927.

Right • Arnold Rothstein’s longsuffering wife, Carolyn Green Rothstein, filed for divorce prior to his death.

Right • Rothstein’s last mistress, showgirl Inez Norton, stood to profit from his revised will.

The Many Faces of Arnold Rothstein

Above left • Arnold Rothstein, all business, circa 1920. Courtesy of Transcendental Graphics.

Above right • Man about town.

Left • Sportsman at the track; note pressman’s crop marks on photo and A. R.‘s painted pants.

Above left • A. R. gave small time Broadway gambler Jimmy Meehan his gun before he walked to the Park Central Hotel-and his death. Above right Attorney Maurice Cantor drew up A. R.‘s last will and got Rothstein’s signature on it while A. R. was on his deathbed. Below • The first floor service corridor of the Park Central, where the mortally wounded A. R. was discovered.

Excitable Park Central chamber maid Bridget Farry saw George McManus in Room 349 on the night of the murder.

Mayor James J. “Gentleman Jimmy” Walker knew A. R.‘s murder “meant trouble from here on in.”

The Colt .38 “Detective Special” revolver that killed Rothstein-“the most powerful arm that can be carried conveniently in a coat side pocket.”

Left • Cab driver Al Bender-he found the murder weapon lying on Seventh Avenue.

Above • Mayor Walker’s mistress Betty Compton was with him when he got the news of Rothstein’s death.

Above • The Park Central Hotel-“A” marks Room 349, “B” marks the spot on Seventh Avenue where the murder weapon was found. Courtesy Library of Congress.

In late 1929 George McManus (at right; shown with his attorney James D.C. Murray) faced trial for Arnold Rothstein’s murder.