The formula of permitting local operators to retain management was followed last year when the mob moved into Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida, and was used also with much success in Newark, New Jersey, where the non-Italian mob of Abner “Longy” Zwillman was absorbed into the Mafia. The Cleveland branch, run chiefly by Jews and Irish, was given the same modus operandi and absorbed.
The chain of command and remittance from the District to top headquarters is through Prince Georges County, Maryland, where Gianaris handles the numbers intake from the District and Lewis superintends payments for horse wire service—which is utilized also as a clearing house to transmit receipts from all other illegal activities, entered on the books as payments for the services or as losses on bets.
La Fontaine’s organization is kept together by Lewis and Meyers. Charlie Ford, Washington lawyer, who appears frequently in this book as counsel for gamblers, vice-hucksters and bottle-clubs, is the trustee of La Fontaine’s fabulous estate. In this connection some complicated bookkeeping is required.
It develops La Fontaine was only a front man. Eighty percent of his holdings belonged to the Big Mob. His death brought intricate mixups, and what was his and what was the Mob’s had not been identified in full detail. The situation is similar to that which followed the slaying of Edward J. O’Hare, Chicago mobster, who operated race tracks for the Capone syndicate. The stock of Sportsman’s Park, Chicago, and the Miami Beach Kennel Club was in his name. He left it to his heirs and associates. It took years for the accounts to be straightened out, and when they were, some money was paid over in the form of a “loan” to Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, a close associate of the late Capone, who is one of the ruling heads of the secret Grand Council of the Mafia.
The La Fontaine payoff to the top was made through Nig Rosen of Philadelphia to Meyer Lansky of New York. Lansky is a tributary of Frank Costello and a gambling partner of Joe Adonis. Nig Rosen is a friend of Washington Police Chief Barrett.
La Fontaine was one of the most colorful men Washington ever saw. His legendary career as a gentleman gambler spanned half a century. This last of the gas-lit era gamblers was one of five children of a poultry dealer. He was apprenticed to his father’s trade and might have carved for himself a similar career, except for a fatal flaw in his make-up: he could not bear to kill a chicken, nor could he stand the thought of others killing chickens he had raised. He hid his favorites in his father’s attic.
A three-cent strike Jimmy made on the old St. Louis lottery netted him $12. With this he set up shop across the Potomac in Virginia. He then went to work for the Heath brothers, old-time gambling combine. He soon had his own card table and he prospered. Subsequently he opened the Mohican Club, near Glen Echo, Maryland. Expanding, he purchased a large tract in Prince Georges County and established “Jimmy’s Place.” Around it he built a high green fence and within it men won and lost fortunes. Women never got past the door and no man who couldn’t afford to lose was ever admitted again. It was staffed by more than a hundred carefully chosen attendants, all covered by social security. They made regular contributions to a retirement fund.
The house limit was $200 on craps, $500 a card on blackjack, and $10 on numbers, with no-limit games in private rooms for certain customers who could stand a tough tap. “Jimmy’s” catered to as many as 2,000 gamblers a night.
Oddly, La Fontaine never got out of the poultry business. His passion was cock-fighting and he maintained a stable of 100 birds. Seeing them killed in action did not affront him. He also made horse book and traveled from track to track. La Fontaine bankrolled Tex Rickard, the fabulous fight promoter, in his early days. After Rickard’s death he formed a silent partnership with Herman Taylor, Philadelphia fight promoter.
Jimmy served a jail term for income tax evasion and paid a fine of more than $200,000. The Big Mob had long cast covetous eyes on La Fontaine, who by now not only had his own profitable gambling enterprise on which he himself admitted paying off $100,000 a year for local protection, but he controlled also the entire underworld in the lush Maryland counties adjoining the District. About 20 years ago, emissaries from Philadelphia came down to muscle him out. One representative of Nig Rosen, a gunman named Milsie Henry, was mysteriously murdered, for which La Fontaine was loudly but not officially mentioned. The case is still unsolved. Shortly thereafter, La Fontaine was kidnaped by hoodlums from New York and Philadelphia. Before he was returned his family had to come up with $40,000 “expense money.” And the Mafia was declared in on his enterprises.