Dutch Shultz
The Story of Arthur Flegenheimer

I'll tell a tale of a brave man,

Tom Dewey was his name.

He made a vow by all on high,

The outlaws he would tame.

Tom gave his oath that rates of crimes

Would grow not fat but slimmer.

And soon the man they called Dutch Schultz

Lay in the Harnenzimmer.

Dutch Schultz was once one of the most infamous men in America. There was scarce a day that Dutch and his nefarious doings were not splashed on the headlines from Bakersfield to Nashua.

And no, despite what television viewers saw on the popular show The Untouchables, Elliot Ness wasn't involved in capturing Dutch Schultz. Elliot certainly didn't question Dutch as he lay dying in the hospital. The two men never met.

And besides, people who knew Dutch best - including police officers whose jobs brought them into frequent contact with "The Beer Baron of the Bronx" - didn't call him "Dutch". They called him Arthur.

Arthur Simon Flegenheimer was born on August 6, either in 1901 or 1902 depending on your source. The date 1902 seems to be what most people cite. However, 1901 is listed on his tombstone and is what we read on a popular informational website.

Arthur attended New York Public School 12. Now named the Dr. Jacqueline Peek Davis Elementary School, in Arthur's day the principal was John Condon who later would serve as an intermediary between the kidnapper(s) of the Lindbergh baby and the family.

Reportedly Arthur was not a bad student, but he dropped out at age 14 to go to work. At that time he was living with his mother, Emma, and his father seems to have run off. Arthur's first job was working for a printing company.

Of course, it's questionable if Arthur was really "dropping out". In the early 1900's most lower class kids - and even some from the middle - pursued no further education beyond the eighth grade. So Arthur was not exceptionally educationally deprived as a kid.

But evidently Arthur wasn't satisfied with the limited opportunities - or the money - of the printing industry. Looking for a business with more rapid advancement, in December 1919 Arthur was convicted of unlawful entry. Imprisoned on Blackwell's Island he escaped, but was almost immediately recaptured. Behind bars and with a fractious and difficult personality, Arthur was scarcely a model prisoner. Still, he was back on the streets in 1920.

Tom knew he couldn't fight them all,

With guns or bombs or axes.

But he knew that New York crooks

Don't pay their income taxes.

With writs, subpoenas, and the law,

He went to all their banks.

And found they owed to Uncle Sam

Dollars, gelt, and francs.

Arthur's time in the slammer, far from making him see the error of his ways, just solidified his resolve to continue his business plan. So over the years he ended up being arrested for disorderly conduct, grand larceny, assault, armed robbery, and homicide. None of the charges stuck and Arthur just shrugged it all off. The cops, he said, would charge him with anything.

Arthur realized the importance of diversity in his career path. He didn't stick to just one type of, well, we'll call it one type of business. Instead he would shift his activities to whatever would bring him the most money.

Arthur also managed to get appointed as a deputy sheriff. Of course, the appointment also let him legally carry a gun. Deputy Flegenheimer ultimately became a source of embarrassment to the then Bronx County sheriff, Edward Flynn - particularly after Franklin Roosevelt nominated Edward as ambassador to Australia. Finally Edward withdrew his name from consideration.

Tom took the news to court that day,

And the judge said he agrees.

That the man they called Dutch Schultz

Never paid his income fees.

The jury listened to Tom's tale,

And it caused them great excitement

And they decided to return

An income tax indictment.

By 1920, the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act were in full swing. So throughout the country it was illegal to manufacture, sell, or transport intoxicating liquors. Note it was not illegal to buy or drink booze.

And booze was where the money was. Gradually Arthur began to move up in the local booze business and in a few years the newspapers trumpeted him as the "Beer Baron of the Bronx". Because of his brushes with the law - which involved the usual charges of assaults, possession of firearms, and murder - Arthur also became a national celebrity.

By the mid-1920's, Arthur was a rising criminal star and working with the owner of a bar - then called a "speakeasy" - named Joey Noe. They also "manufactured, sold, and transported" booze to other speakeasies. If the other owners didn't buy Arthur and Joe's booze, then there were ways to persuade them.

Naturally, such attempts at interfering with free enterprise irritated a lot of the other bootleggers. And on October 16, 1928, Joey was shot in a gangland "hit". Although Joey managed to hang on for more than a month, he died on November 21.

Despite the denials of - ah - certain officials - that the Mafia didn't exist, evidence suggests the contrary. There were certainly organized criminal organizations which could be traced back to Italy and Sicily as early as the 19th century (the word "Mafia" is even found in the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons"). And in the United States there was the Cosa Nostras.

Sometimes you'll read that Arthur was a member of the Cosa Nostra. That's not really correct. The Cosa Nostra was the name given by the members of the interconnected criminal organizations that traced its roots back to Italy and Sicily. In New York the Cosa Nostra was divvied up into the "Five Families". The Five Families coordinated their own actions with each other and to some degree with other Cosa Nostra families throughout the country. However, organized crime was much more ethnically diverse than is often pictured.

In the 1920's many people still thought of themselves as having strong ties to the countries of their origins. Even native born citizens might identify themselves (and others) as "Italian", "Irish", "Swedish", or "Scottish". In one famous novel, two of the characters, who lived in Chicago's South Side, were joining the local YMCA. The membership secretary greeted the young men.

"You're Christians, I assume?" he asked.

"Irish," they responded.

This strong ethnic identity applied to law-abiding citizens and criminals alike. By the early 20th century, criminal organizations were being referred to by terms like the "Italian Mafia", the "Irish Mafia" and even the "Jewish Mafia".

Friction between ethnicities is sadly quite common and there were problems between the various "Mafias". One of Arthur and Joey's biggest rivals was Jack Moran, better known as "Legs" Diamond. Jack was part of the Irish Mafia.

If there was anyone more difficult to deal with than Arthur, it was Jack. And people let him know it. There were at least five attempts on his life, but only the last one was successful. On December 18, 1931, Jack returned to his rented room after a night of partying. A little before 5:00 a. m., the landlady heard a volley of gunfire. She called the police who found Jack still in his bed but very, very dead.

As with virtually all mob murders, there is no definitive proof as to who were the hands-on killers. Sure, you'll read various chatroom comments like "Well, the whole world knows that Joe Blow was killed by Richard Roe." Such commentators need to take a lesson in epistemology to learn the difference in belief and knowledge.

And many people believe (but no one knows) that Arthur was the main perpetrator of Jack's demise. There's a lot of other people that would have been glad to have Jack out of the way. So we have to be satisfied with belief, not knowledge.

On the other hand, the various "Mafias" - a term not used by the crooks themselves - sometimes worked in tandem with surprising harmony. There were times the associations were so close they did indeed function almost as a single organization. You'll read that one of Arthur's closest associates was Vincent Coll, who sported a typical mobese nickname, "Mad Dog". Vincent was a member of the Irish Mafia, but was nevertheless one of Arthur's primary "enforcers".

We see then that the term "Mafia" has evolved to becoming a fairly generic term. These ethnic Mafias never really completely gelled into a single criminal organization. Vincent certainly never considered him an actual employee of Arthur's. Sure, he'd do a job for Arthur, but Vincent had his own businesses to run as well. Arthur, though, believed Vincent was on his payroll and should only work for him.

Arthur decided he didn't want to have to worry about Vincent's confused loyalties. And besides, "Mad Dog" just rubbed him the wrong way.

But Arthur was in a bit of a quandry. How do you find an enforcer to enforce against your primary enforcer? Well, Arthur took an increasingly Flegenheimerly - that is, irrational - approach. As the story goes, he walked into a police station and offered to give a free house to any cop who would bump Vincent off. The cops told him to beat it.

And yes, Vincent soon came to his end. But not from any officer taking up Arthur's offer. Vincent was in a drugstore making a call from a phone booth (if you don't know what a phone booth is, ask your grandad). As Vincent chatted away, a man walked into the drugstore with a submachine gun and riddled the booth - and Vincent - with .45 calibre bullets.

Again epistemologically speaking, many people believe Arthur was a prime mover in Vincent's untimely end. Whether true or not, he sent a wreath to the funeral.

Finally on December 5, 1933 all the brouhaha came to an end. What had been illegal, immoral, and fattening - drinking alcohol - once more became The American Way.

Now the Dutchman he lived high and well

And had a high class babe.

He bought her pearls and jewels

And with her made the grade.

He spent dough on her like water

But the government tax finders

Never found a tax return

Of Arthur Flegenheimer's.

After Prohibition some of the bootleggers and speak operators became legitimate brewers and distillers and restaurateurs (which many had been before, anyway). Such legal options, though, were either too tame or didn't pay enough for Arthur's satisfaction.

Of course, organized crime had not simply been providing booze during Prohibition. Other money-making activities had been around for decades and continued. Arthur particularly liked "selling protection" - particularly when dealing with the local restaurant industry.

Arthur's modus Flegenheimerandum was simple, and in his opinion, clever. He didn't just waltz in to a local business and demand regular cash emoluments. That was illegal. Instead he created a professional "association", the Metropolitan Restaurant and Cafeteria Association. Arthur then "persuaded" the restaurant owners to join. Naturally as good MRCA members, they would gladly pay - quote - "membership dues" - unquote.

And what if the owners didn't join (and pay) up? Well, then all sorts of unfortunate things happened. Sometimes stink bombs would go off in their restaurant at peak hours. If that didn't help expedite the payments, then the owners might find their facilities would be trashed, shot up, or even bombed. And if that didn't work ....

Well, that usually did work and the restaurant owners paid their dues.

In return for the dues, the MRCA - that is, Arthur - promised the owners help in negotiating favorable terms with the various unions. Of course, that meant keeping the wages at a minimum. Arthur would then persuade the union leaders that accepting the lower wages was in their best interest. Of course, as a fee for his consultation, Arthur would get a percentage of the union dues. One estimate is that over 30% of the union payments went into Arthur's pocket.

Still, Arthur found that crime did not pay well enough. So he soon got into what the government, civic, and religious leaders had long denounced as a horrible vice - until later they realized that the vice was a virtue and a good way to suck in the moolah. That was gambling, or specifically, running a lottery.

The rules for lotteries vary. To play one of the oldest type of lotteries, you bought a ticket with a pre-printed number. Then a bunch of duplicate tickets were put into a large container or a rotating drum. The tickets would be jumbled up and then a ticket drawn. If your ticket and the one drawn had the same number, you won.

The drawback with this type of lottery is the player couldn't pick the number. A lot of people, though, liked to play their own "lucky numbers". So another lottereric genre was invented.

Here the player picks on a series of numbers in a given order. No one tells him what numbers to choose. Then if the player's numbers are those selected, the player wins.

Part of the reason for the popularity of lotteries is that the ratio of payoff and outlay is huge. A $1 ticket might get you millions of dollars.

But whether the lottery is fair in a mathematical sense depends on how much you pay for a ticket, the number of numbers that have to be picked, and what the payoff is. The problem in playing a lottery is not just that the odds are minuscule that you can win. But the expectation value of the payout is negative for player. That means that on the average you won't even break even.

That said, many people play the lottery simply because they think it's fun and that the per ticket cost is minimal compared to other entertainment. And that was pretty much the philosophy of a lot of the players of Arthur's lottery.

The name of the Arthur's lottery was the Numbers Game or the Numbers Racket. Also called "Street Numbers" (among other things), the usual procedure is to go to the local numbers bookie (or "agent" as some prefer). You then pick out three numbers. The bookie writes them down on a sheet along with your name. He then gives you your copy of the sheet and keeps the original.

Of course, for the numbers game it isn't practical to pick the winning numbers from a bin or hopper. Instead one method is to take the last dollar digit of the amount bet at a designated racetrack in the first, second, and third races. For instance, if the amount bet at the track in the races was $593,488, $402,867, and $287,944, then the winning number would be 874.

There are other ways of picking the winners. Instead of the digits of the payout of the races, the numbers might be the last three digits of the daily track attendance. Also winners could be determined from the last three digits of the daily balance of the US Treasury. Or the winning numbers might be culled from daily transactions of a local clearing house.

Usually a numbers payoff was 600 to 1. So a $1 winning number would net the player $600. But what made the numbers game really popular was some bookies would take almost any bet. Maybe 10¢ or less. The chance - however small - of laying down a dime and getting $60 was - and is - something that some people just can't turn down.

But from the bookies' standpoint the numbers game had a problem. It's possible, for instance, that too many people could pick the same number. If that number won, then the bookie might not be able to pay off.

So popular numbers were paid off at lower rates. For instance, some people may think that the number 7 is "lucky". So a numbers like 777 might get a lot of play. The bookie would then draw a box around the number. Such "boxed" or "cut" numbers would get paid off at lower odds, say 400 to 1 or even less.

And of course, the numbers game, like almost any other form of gambling, could be rigged. It wasn't easy but it could be done. You'll read that a mob boss would make sure that certain races were bet on heavily by his buddies. This would influence which numbers ended up in the daily bet handle and so they could lay their bets with a higher probability to win. Exactly how this would work isn't clear since no matter how much Dutch and his buddies bet, a few other bets by someone else could shift the final digits.

Of course, sometimes an obliging clerk could be bribed to - quote - "make a mistake" - unquote - regarding the digits that were published. This practice, though, was extremely hazardous to the health of the clerks.

How much the now ubiquitous legalized state lotteries have dented the numbers game is a matter of debate. Some sources say it has reduced the illegal play considerably. Others say legal gaming has had some effect, but not as much as you might think. No one denies the numbers racket is still around.

But in the 1930's, legal lotteries were virtually unknown and the numbers game was the only game in town. Arthur moved in and tried to take over all the numbers banks in New York City. Although he never made many inroads in Harlem - which was controlled by the "Numbers Queen" Stephanie St. Clair and her business partner, Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson - Arthur was able to take over the racket in the other boroughs and suburbs.

But all was not well. By the mid 1930's a "Get-Tough-On-Crime" movement was in full swing. The New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, "The Little Flower", had just been elected and declared war on the mob. The governor of New York, Herbert Lehman, had also appointed a young and energetic (not to say ambitious) lawyer named Thomas Dewey as a special prosecutor. Tom went after all the big New York crooks, among them Lucky Luciano and, yes, Arthur Flegenheimer.

Ever since Al Capone was convicted of income tax invasion, federal prosecutors realized that you could put the big time gangsters away by comparing how much they spent with how much they claimed they made (Al's business cards said he was a second hand furniture dealer). Many of the mobsters didn't know about - or ignored - the law that even if income was garnered from illegal activities, you still had to pay taxes on it. And so Tom decided to nail Arthur for failing to recompense Uncle Sam.

Tom got Arthur indicted and convicted. But the conviction was quickly overturned. Then Arthur's lawyer argued that his client could not get a fair retrial in New York City. So he won a change of venue to Malone, a small town about 300 miles north of the Big Apple.

Once in Malone, Arthur then began to make friends. He rubbed elbows with the local citizens, donated to local charities and schools, and even bought uniforms for the kids' baseball teams. All in all, he made it a virtual certainty that he would be acquitted. When he was, the judge issued a spittle flinging diatribe against the verdict. But Arthur was free.

At least for a little while. Tom wasn't going to give up and Arthur saw no end in sight. So he went to Lucky Luciano and the others and said he had only one choice. He had to bump Tom off.

The Dutchman soon had hatched a plan

And took it to the bosses.

He told Charlie Luciano

The plan would cut their losses.

Lucky listened for a while

Then turned to all the rest.

And they agreed this idea

Was not Dutch at his best.

Lucky and the others said no. You didn't hit the cops - feds or otherwise - nor the prosecutors. That brought too much heat. They vetoed Dutch's plan.

Still Arthur asked Albert Anastasia, the head of the internal enforcement group of the mob (called "Murder, Inc." by the press) to do a feasibility study. Albert found that Tom's habits were regular. The prosecutor left home at 8:00 a. m. and stopped by a local cafe for a cup of coffee. Then he went on to his office. It was always the same time and same route.

All they needed, Albert said, was to get a couple of gunmen to go into the drugstore and interrupt Tom at his coffee. Albert may have been a bit optimistic since Tom himself had a couple of bodyguards. But Albert said he would do the job if he got the OK.

But Lucky and the boys still said no. Arthur would have to take his chances with the law. According to one report, Arthur just stormed out of the room saying he would handle the matter himself.

The Dutchman swore he'd take Tom out

Before the day was done.

Though the others said that if he did

It would put them on the run.

"We'd rather fight against young Tom

And not the federal boys."

But Dutch just spewed and sputtered

And made a lot of noise.

Lucky and the rest saw that they had a loose cannon in their midst. There was only one thing to do.

Dutch stood there and curled his lip,

And sneered at the Commission.

"I'll do the job myself," he said.

"I don't need no permission."

When Dutch walked out, the men agreed

That Dutch had sealed his fate.

And if he tried to change his mind

It would be much too late.

Arthur also had regular habits. At the end of the day he would go to the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey, a city which is conveniently situated close to Manhattan. There he would tally up the daily numbers take.

So on October 23, 1935, Arthur and Abe Landau, one of the chief mob accountants, walked in. Moving past Jack Friedman, the bartender, the group also included Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz, Arthur's bodyguard. Lulu - as Arthur had done once before - had obtained a deputy sheriff's commission so he could legally carry a gun. The three men sat at their usual table in a back room and well away from the front door.

The Dutchman, Abe, and Rosencrantz

Walked in from the night's gloom.

They then moved to their spot

Back in the dining room.

Pulling out their daily take

From the number's racket.

The Dutchman then took the dough

And he began to stack it.

Once in the Palace they would order a dinner of steak and French fries. How good the cuisine was is a matter lost to history. But evidently it was good enough for Arthur who was rarely particular. Once he said no one should spend more than $2 for a shirt.

Arthur's nightly business wasn't only limited to the numbers racket. That night another visitor dropped by. That was Max Silverman, the bail bondsman who had posted Arthur's $50,000 bail for his income tax trials. Max later said he had just shown up to pick up some of the fees for the legal team.

Max soon left and then Otto "Abbadabba" Berman showed up. Abbadabba's real surname was Biederman, and he was considered something of the clown of the organization. Abbadabba was also a friend of the writer Damon Runyon, and served as the model for one of Damon's recurring characters "Regret the Horse-Player". Abbadabba was also a bookkeeper and handicapper. How good a bookkeeper and handicapper is not clear. By some accounts Abbadabba might lose 27 out of 28 races.

The back dining room was well suited for the nightly meetings, particularly for someone like Arthur who had a lot of people who were mad at him. Their table was situated where Arthur could sit with his back to the wall while Lulu and Abe could keep an eye on the doors. That night was actually pretty quiet and there weren't many customers.

Then about 10:15, two men walked in the front door and ordered Jack and everyone else to lie down on the floor adding the obligatory "And no one will get hurt." Of course, they really meant no one in the bar would get hurt.

After everyone complied, the men, guns in hand, hustled to the back room. There they saw Lulu and Abe sitting at the table.

But Arthur? He wasn't there.

You see, the nightly accounting sessions took some time. Arthur's party would show up around 6:00 p. m. and might still be at the table by midnight. Naturally with the extended meetings, Arthur and the others sometimes needed to take a few minutes off.

The steaks were sizzling on the grill

And the fries were in the fryer.

The stacks of bills beside Dutch Schultz

Were climbing ever higher.

While the others tallied up the books

The Dutchman rose and spake,

"Excuse me, boys, now's the time

To take a Welcome Break."

Abe and Lulu didn't need to think about what was going on. For one thing they knew who the two men were. One was Charlie "The Bug" Workman and the other was Emmanuel "Mendy" Weiss. Among other activities, Charlie and Mendy were two of the top hitmen for the mob.

Now despite what you've seen on television and in films, in a gunfight the instigators go in with their guns drawn and at the ready. Their antagonists therefore have to draw their weapons after the fight begins, adding at least a second or two to their reaction time. So the general rule is the guys who start a gun battle will usually be the ones to win.

That's pretty much what happened. With his revolver, Charlie started shooting. Mendy first blasted the table with a shotgun and then began firing his own pistol.

Lulu got seven slugs. Abbadabba, who unlike the others was not armed, was smacked six times. Abe "only" got three slugs. Not surprisingly, Charlie and Mendy weren't hit.

But where was Arthur?

As Sherlock Holmes said when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Arthur wasn't in the dining room and he wasn't in the bar.

There was only one possible room left.

The Dutchman walked through the door

And stood facing toward the wall.

He never heard the footsteps

As the men came down the hall.

And when they saw that Dutch was there

They knew he'd understand

What a shame that was not

A pistol in his hand.

Exactly what happened next remains a topic of dispute. Some accounts have Charlie going into the men's room and discourteously dispatching Arthur with a single shot to the left side. Other say Arthur was coming out the door.

On the other hand, later forensics found that Lulu, Abe, and Abbadabba were hit with shotgun pellets or 0.38 calibre slugs - the choice of Charlie and Mendy. But the shot that hit Arthur was from a 0.45 - the type of gun that Lulu and Abe carried. So some authors concluded that Arthur was hit by a stray bullet from one of his own men.

It is true that Lulu and Abe, although literally riddled with bullets, managed to pull their weapons and return the fire. Abe even managed to follow Mendy outside. He was still shooting at the getaway car before he collapsed against a trash can.

After the initial volley, Charlie went to look for Arthur. When he returned to the dining room, he found Mendy (and the getaway car) was gone. Quite irritated - and he let people know about it - Charlie nevertheless made his own exit. But he did and managed to get away on foot.

Lulu managed to get as far as the barroom before collapsing onto the floor. But he still managed to get up and stagger to the bar. He handed Jack a quarter.

"Give me change for that", he managed to gasp (pay phone calls were only a nickel). Jack handed him the change and Abe called the operator.

"Get me the police," he said. "Hurry up."

When the call went through, Lulu told the officer, "Send me an ambulance, I'm dying." But when the officer asked the caller where he was at, there was no reply. Lulu had once more fallen to the floor.

Lulu's vagary notwithstanding, the cops showed up in short order. They found Abe outside, and Lulu on the floor. Arthur had also managed to stagger from the back room and made it about halfway through the bar. The police found him sitting face down at a table.

Since Lulu, Otto, and Abbadabba were the most seriously wounded, the first ambulances took them to the Newark City Hospital. The cops told Arthur that another ambulance was on the way.

All men were taken to the Newark City Hospital. Abbadabba lasted only until five minutes to 3 the next morning (October 24). Then Abe went a few hours later at 6:30 a. m.

At first it looked like Arthur would recover. But peritonitis set in and he began to talk incoherently. A police stenographer was assigned to take down whatever he said. Arthur's ramblings have become a favorite stream of consciousness puzzle. The Beat writer, William Burroughs, incorporated them into a typically classifiable Burroughsisian writing called "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz".

Actually Arthur's statement was a combination of answers to questions from the police and his own comments, some lucid, others less so. But he was to ask that Father Cornelius McInerney be called. When he got to the hospital, Father McInerney baptized Arthur into the Catholic Faith and gave him the last rites.

Around six o'clock on October 24, Arthur went into a coma. His wife Frances was allowed in. She tried to speak to him but it was clear Arthur couldn't hear her. So Frances immediately left. The official time of death was 8:35 p. m.

Oh, yes. If you've been keeping tabs, you may be wondering what happened to Abe. Well, he managed to hang on longer. He died the next morning, October 25, at 3:20. That, then, was that.

Arthur's death caused a gap in the leadership of his organization. But as always there was never a dearth of people to step in. So there is no truth to the rumor that after Arthur died, people started saying "When you're out of Schultz, you're out of beer."

Despite the uncertainly and confusion, most scholars accept that it was indeed Charlie who shot Arthur. The story was reportedly told by Charlie himself. The discrepancy of the calibre of the bullets was resolved since Charlie supposedly had a spare which just happened to be a .45 Colt. Well, perhaps. But with the confusion, the flying bullets, and everyone scrambling, that Lulu or Abe accidentally shot their boss remains a possibility.

Now at this point, we have to reiterate that the usual story is that the murders happened because Dutch wanted to do away with Tom Dewey. However, there's some reason to see this explanation is, if anything, only part of the story.

Shortly after the The Gunfight at the Palace Chop House, one of Arthur's chief partners, Martin Krompier, had finished getting a shave and a haircut. At one minute past midnight, he was just putting on his coat when two men walked in and began firing, as they say, in Marty's general direction. Marty was hit four times: once in each arm, once in the stomach, and once the chest. Although he wasn't expected to survive, amazingly, he did and lived until 1973.

True, Arthur's refusal to follow Lucky's advice and leave Tom alone could have been a factor in the action. But it seems that the take-out of Arthur was intended to be a general removal of not just Arthur, but of Arthur's organization. But no further information ever came to light.

There was some confusion as to the final deposition of the case of Arthur Flegenheimer. You see, Arthur and Frances were never officially married. So who was the true next of kin was a bit muddled. Frances also wasn't very cooperative. She admitted she had once lied to an earlier question and when asked if she knew Mary Krompier, she answered maybe she did and maybe she didn't. There were also rumors that there were other Mrs. Flegenheimers drifting around, a contention which Frances indignantly denied.

Alas, it seems there were other claimants to Arthur's estate. A blonde lady - Frances was a brunette - showed up at the hospital to ask for Arthur's effects. She identified herself as "Mrs. Schultz", an identification that was suspicious as people who knew him best always called Arthur by his real name(s). "Mrs. Schultz" was told everything had been impounded. The lady left and no one saw her again. Some time later another women showed up also claiming to be "Mrs. Schultz" and wanting whatever Arthur had on him at the time. She was also told to talk to the cops.

In the end Francis was left with nothing but two life insurance policies at $5000 each - not bad money for the time but not a fortune either. Emma, Arthur's still living but elderly mother, seems to have been left with even less.

You may read that the mortal remains of Arthur have been lost. Well, not exactly. Contemporary reports confirm he was buried in a Catholic ceremony on October 28th at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Father McInerney officiated and to save time - the service lasted a mere 15 minutes - Father McInerney skipped the eulogy. There is a monument marking Arthur's resting place, and sharing the same headstone is a Martha Geis Flegeheimer, six (or seven) Arthur's senior who died two years after Arthur. In the same genealogical records, Martha is identified as Arthur's wife. Confusingly the genealogical resources also name Francis as "Francis Geis Maxwell" - note the common name with Martha - and that she was a "partner" to Arthur.

The story of Arthur Flegenheimer has more or less a clear-cut ending. Mendy Weiss was later arrested and sentenced to death for an unrelated crime. On March 4, 1944, both Mendy and two others went to the electric chair in Sing Sing prison.

And even more amazingly, Charlie was actually arrested - and convicted - for the murder of Arthur Flegenheimer. He spent over 20 years in prison and was then paroled. He ended his days as a garment salesman in New York City.

What happened to Frances and the two kids? Well, they moved west and dropped from sight.

Now you know the story

How Charley "Bug" and Weiss

Sent Dutch Schultz to his fate

And laid him out on ice.

Charlie went to Trenton Jail,

Mendy went to die.

Because they shot the Dutchman

In די קלאָזעט on the sly.

References

Kill the Dutchman! - The Story of Dutch Schultz, Paul Sann, Arlington House, 1971. Reprint: Da Capo, 1991.

"Arthur Flegenheimer", Find-A-Grave, Find-A-Grave Memorial #932, 2001.

"Should You Play Powerball? Science Solves The Mystery", Ethan Siegel, Forbes, January, 2016.

"Schultz's Millions", Stephen Dubner, The New Yorker, November, 2001.

Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling, John Scarne, Simon and Schuster, First Edition (1961), Second Edition (1974). This book has a chapter about the Numbers Game.

"Schultz Funeral Is Held Secretly", The New York Times, October 29, 1973.

"A. Martha Flegenheimer (Geis)", Geni.

"Arthur Simon Flegenheimer", Geni.

"Frances Geis Maxwell", Geni.

"Dutch Schultz", The Outlaw Journals, www.babyfacenelsonjournals.com.

"His Wit was Hard-boiled", Richard Rayner, The Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2008.

"Street 'Numbers' Already Popular", Joann Stevens, The Washington Post, April 23, 1980.

"Relics of the Bygone (and the Illegal)", Michael Wilson, The New York Times, March 22, 2013.

"Numbers Racket Busted in Philadelphia", Tom MacDonald, WHYY, October 20, 2017.