There is some disagreement as to how large of an organization that Roth or his inspiration Lansky had by the fifties or sixties.
That aside both the fictional character and his real life analogue had quite wisely made themselves pretty essential to most of the important people in organized crime. In real life there weren't a lot of people that would see a profit in knocking off Lansky. So traveling around with a lot of goons/bodyguards wasn't necessary-particularly when if need be he could use Cuban police or US Cuban exiles for that purpose. Also Roth had Johnny Ola (as Lansky had Vincent Alo)...
I'm sure Roth's wife knew he was a "businessman".
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming
Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
| 
