Free Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series by David Pietrusza Page A

know."
    Carolyn Rothstein recounted that in August 1912 she and Pearl visited their beaus for a weekend in Saratoga. The truth is less chaste. Swope actually invited Pearl to live with him for the spa racing season. Pearl coyly asked who her chaperone on the trip would be, though she honored such niceties only when necessary.
    "Arnold Rothstein," replied Swope.
    "Thanks," Pearl shot back. "My mother will be so relieved. Do you think white slavery is preferable to black slavery?"
    "I'm an abolitionist," Swope retorted lamely, but Pearl wasn't dissuaded. She wanted to be with Swope, and middle-class conventions were not about to keep them apart.
    It's reasonable to assume that Carolyn Green also spent that August in Saratoga; that it was not three in a cottage, but four.
    In any case, on the couples' return from the track on August 12, 1909, Arnold bemoaned the fact that Carolyn would soon leave for the city and they would be apart; at least, that was Carolyn's version.
    "If we were married we could be together, Sweet," said A. R., "why not get married?"
    That made sense to Carolyn, though A. R., after a bad day at the track, could barely afford a license.
    Arnold acquired the necessary document, and the foursome drove to almost the city line, to 185 Washington Street, the "little white house," as Carolyn described it, of Saratoga Springs Justice of the Peace Fred B. Bradley. Arnold gave his occupation as "salesman." Both newlyweds gave their residence as "Saratoga Springs."
    Most likely the groom wore standard business attire on that Thursday night. The bride depicted her wardrobe:
    I was wearing a large black hat of Milan straw, a black-andwhite silk dress, black patent leather shoes, and black stockings. There were no flesh-colored stockings in those days, and well I remember my sense of shock when I saw flesh-colored stockings being worn for the first time. They seemed indecent.
    I always wore black and white in those days. We all wore corsets, of course, and I have a memory that my sleeves were rather large, and my skirts rather long.
    Arnold Rothstein and Carolyn Greenwald might have waited until morning to become man and wife, but no gambler would have made that play: marrying on Friday the thirteenth. Swope and Pearl Powell were the ceremony's only witnesses. The new couple retired to Rothstein and Swope's rented cottage.
    In New York, the Morning Telegraph's account of the ceremony concentrated more on the bride than the groom (whom it characterized as a broker), and noting her showgirl friends' chagrin at being excluded from the festivities.
    Carolyn Green's dreams had been answered. She soon woke from her reveries. Before leaving Saratoga, husband Arnold approached with a question. His luck at the track had not improved. Could he pawn her jewelry? Her engagement ring?
    She agreed. They barely had money for train fare to Manhattan and for establishing a home, at the new Hotel Ansonia, up at West 73rd and Broadway. The Ansonia was a fine place. Their single room wasn't. A flimsy partition separated the bed from "what might be called the dressing section." A suite it was not.
    It took Arnold six months to retrieve Carolyn's engagement ring. It would not be the last time he'd pawn her jewelry. Sometimes his back would be against the wall. That was understandable. Other times, he merely wanted to fatten his bankroll or possess more cash to put to work. "I don't need the money," he'd explain, "but I might. It gives me room to maneuver. Besides, it's one way of using someone else's money. I can lend it out at a lot more interest than I'm paying."
    Pawned jewelry was but part of Carolyn's problems. A. R. kept gambler's hours, living by night, arriving home at five or six each morning, and when no pressing business such as a horse race caused him to rise, sleeping until three in the afternoon. "I had this black hair," Carolyn Rothstein would recall of her wedding day, "and in two years it turned gray. Gambling did it."
    For a