The Ice Man Page 16

  “Jesus Mary mother of God, I don’t know!” he wailed, his eyes popping out of his head, cartoonlike.

  With that Richard calmly pushed the flame up against his crotch. The intense flame quickly burned through the fabric, and Richard held the searing heat to the man’s suddenly exposed testicles. He screamed and wailed, begging, promising, swearing he didn’t know. When the man’s balls were burned to a shriveled knob of flesh, Richard took away the flare. The guy was so distraught now he could hardly talk.

  Richard, a bona fide sadistic psychopath, felt no sympathy for the guy. John and Sean were slightly appalled. It was hard not to be. The man was a sorry sight.

  “Where’s our load, my friend?” Richard asked. “This is just the beginning.”

  “I…I…I…don’t know,” he managed to cry.

  “Okay, here goes your dick,” Richard said. “I’m going to burn your fucking cock off.” He brought the flare to him—

  “Don’t! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

  “Where is it?” Richard asked, really pissed now.

  “On a farm down the road. My friend Sammy has it.”

  “Sammy has it,” Richard said. “You fuckin’ moron. Why didn’t you tell us in the first place and avoid all this?”

  “Because I thought…I thought I could fool you,” the farm owner gasped, as if he’d been running full out.

  “Does it look like you fooled us?” Richard asked.

  “No.”

  “You could have avoided all this pain.”

  “I didn’t want to do it. My girl needed an abortion. I was desperate for money.”

  “You think money is worth your balls…. My friend, you don’t have any balls anymore.”

  “I knooow,” he wailed.

  “Idiot,” Richard said, “fuckin’ idiot!”

  Richard sent John and Sean to the farm while he stayed with Burned Balls.

  Sammy came walking out of the door of the farmhouse when they pulled up.

  “You got our truck?” Sean said.

  “What truck?” came the reply.

  “Here we go again,” John said.

  “Jon Atkins says you got our truck.”

  “Jon said that? I don’t have any truck,” said Sammy. He was a short burly guy with a big round head. There were food crumbs in his beard. Flies buzzed around his huge head. If you looked up “white trash” in the dictionary, you might very well see a picture of this individual. Sean called Richard and told him what Sammy had said.

  “Put some hurt on him,” Richard suggested. They whipped out their guns and began to pistol-whip Sammy. He immediately gave it all up, said the truck was behind a stand of trees out back, took them there, and lo and behold, they finally found their truck.

  Back at Burned Balls’ farm, Richard decided both of these guys had to die. He figured it would be just a matter of time before the guy whose feet and balls he’d ruined would come looking for revenge, and without a moment’s hesitation he shot them both in the head, and off the hijackers went, back to New Jersey, where they sold the load at the agreed-upon price.

  Money, however, seemed to burn a hole in Richard Kuklinski’s pocket. He took the family for a vacation to Florida, and he lost a lot of money at poker and baccarat tables. Nevertheless, with some of the money from the score and money Barbara’s mother and Nana Carmella gave them, Richard and Barbara managed to buy a new home, a two-family house in West New York. Richard had always wanted a house of his own, a castle he could be king of. He finally had it, and he would rule his castle with an iron hand.

  Enter the Lone Ranger

  It was late 1970, and a young man who would eventually play a pivotal role in Richard’s life was just finishing a four-year stint in the air force. His name was Patrick Kane.

  Kane was a tall, handsome twenty-two-year-old with a wiry, muscular body and a thick head of dark hair that he combed straight back. He had large walnut-shaped brown eyes filled with hope and optimism set into a symmetrical oval-shaped face. Kane had been brought up in Demarest, New Jersey, a small town where everyone knew one another. The youngest of three boys, Pat was an upbeat though pensive young man, still not quite sure what exactly he wanted to do with his life. He was thinking of working on a 250-acre farm a friend of his owned in Pennsylvania. What was drawing him to the farm was the fact that he’d be outdoors all day. Since Pat Kane had been a kid he had always coveted the outdoors.

  Pat Kane was a superb athlete and excelled at all the sports he played—wrestling, baseball, football, and basketball. He was very fast and strong and had excellent natural reflexes and coordination. But his favorite sport was fishing. He loved to fish on quiet, out-of-the-way lakes and streams, eating what he caught. He did not like hunting, because he felt it was inherently unfair to shoot an unsuspecting, unarmed animal who couldn’t fire back.

  Kane had been stationed in Sacramento, California, and Iceland. He met his sweetheart, Terry McLeod, while stationed in California. They met on a blind date and it was love at first sight. Pat had just left her, and already missed her a lot.

  The day Pat returned home, his brother Eddie, a New Jersey state trooper, came to pick him up at Newark Airport. Ed was wearing his immaculate gold-and-black trooper uniform and driving a shiny state police car. The two brothers hugged long and hard. The Kane family were all very close. While Eddie was driving him to their parents’ home, Eddie said: “Pat, the test’s next Tuesday.”

  “What test?” asked Pat.

  “To be a state trooper.”

  “Eddie, I’m not sure what I want to do yet.”

  “Pat, it’s a great job. The money and benefits are good, and you’ve got a chance to make a difference, to make this world we live in a better place. You’d be a good cop, Pat, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “The test is next Tuesday,” Eddie repeated. “Pat, we are the first and last defense against the bad guys. Without us, society would fall apart.”

  Pat knew his brother had a point; he just didn’t know if he wanted to live the regimented life of a state trooper. The New Jersey State Police was, he knew, run like a military operation; you had to follow strict guidelines, rules, and regulations, something Pat had been doing now for the last four years. He wanted some space, room to breathe, not to jump from one uniform to another.

  When Eddie and Pat reached the Kane home, Patrick senior and Helene Kane, Pat’s parents, came hurrying out of the front door, both of them hugging and kissing Pat and welcoming him home. He was their youngest, and they’d been worried about him; he had never lived away from home before he left for the air force. Now he was back safe and sound, and they were very pleased.

  “Welcome home, son. Welcome home,” Patrick Kane said, holding his last born hard. Pat was so happy to be home and with his parents that tears came to his eyes.

  “Come on inside, son. I’ve cooked you a wonderful meal,” Helen Kane said.

  As it happened, it took a full year for Pat to decide what he wanted to do with his life. During that time he worked at menial jobs, did a lot of fishing, spoke to his sweetheart on the phone several times a week, went to visit her when he had the funds. Pat had little money; his parents weren’t wealthy people, and cash was tight.

  Several factors finally convinced Pat to become a state trooper. First and foremost was his brother Ed. Just about every day Pat saw Ed in his slick state trooper uniform, his gun prominent on his right hip. Second, Pat came to realize just how vitally important law-enforcement officers really were. They were, just as Eddie had said, the first and last defense society had against the rapists, murderers, thieves, and desperadoes that so permeated society. Every day Pat heard about the unspeakable atrocities people committed on one another. You couldn’t read a newspaper or watch the news without learning about another heinous crime. The third reason Pat was drawn to becoming a state trooper was the challenge. The physical tests and requirements were extremely difficult. You had to be in tip-top shape to qualify.
On the average only fifty out of five thousand applicants met the physical mandates. Last, he was drawn to the state police because he’d be working outdoors most of the time.

  In the spring of 1971, Pat Kane applied to be a state trooper. He readily passed both the written and physical tests, and toward the end of that winter he became a Jersey state trooper. His parents and brothers came to the graduation ceremony. Pat Kane cut a dashing, handsome figure in his spanking new uniform, and he looked forward—in a big way, he recently explained—to making a difference; to trying to make this volatile world we live in a better place, keeping the wolves at bay.

  One of the first things Pat did after graduating the trooper academy was to ask Terry to marry him. She said yes, and soon she moved up to Demarest, New Jersey, leaving her family and all her friends behind, and married Pat.

  Pat Kane now felt he had everything a man could hope for: a good job that was meaningful, rewarding and challenging, and kept him outdoors, and a beautiful, devoted wife who thought the world of him.

  Terry, Pat recently explained, gave up everything, her family, her home, her friends, surroundings she was familiar with, to be with me. To be my wife. As far as I was concerned I was the luckiest guy in the world.

  Thus the die was cast, the stage set for one of the most important, shocking murder investigations in the annals of modern crime history anywhere in America, indeed, the world.

  PART III

  VERY BAD GOODFELLAS

  Making Ends Meet

  Richard Kuklinski was still putting in a lot of overtime hours, though at another film lab. Now he was pirating mostly porno movies; there was a large, ever expanding market for porn, and Richard was dutifully filling it.

  All the overtime hours he was putting in, however, were causing guys in the lab to complain to the film printers’ union, and a union delegate came around the lab to talk with Richard. The delegate was a broad-shouldered Irishman with an attitude problem, the type of guy who doesn’t know how to wield authority—a bully. He stopped Richard as he was leaving work. The lab he was working at now was on West Fifty-fourth. They went into the DeWitt Clinton Park on Twelfth Avenue to talk. By now it had gotten dark.

  “We got complaints,” the union guy began, “that you’re taking all the overtime.”

  “Hey,” Richard said, “they ask me if I want the time, I say yes. I got a wife and child. What’s the problem?”

  “Problem is you’re stealing from the other guys.”

  “My ass. They’re saying they don’t want the work. I do. Take a walk.” Richard started on his way. The union guy grabbed Richard’s shoulder, and Richard spun and hit him a solid roundhouse right. As the union man went down he struck his head hard on the edge of a park bench. Unmoving, he stayed on the ground.

  Richard checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one. Oh shit! he thought. I’m in hot water now.

  He knew people had seen them together and figured someone at the union knew the guy had come out to talk with him, and now he was dead. Not good. Richard quickly hid the body in some bushes there, went to a nearby hardware store, bought some strong rope, and hustled back to the park. He spotted a wooden milk crate in front of a bodega and grabbed it. Richard made sure no one was watching, dragged the guy to a tree, tied the rope around his neck, threw the other end over a thick branch, hoisted the guy up, tied the loose end of the rope to a park bench, put the milk box under his dangling feet, and left him there like that, quite dead, swinging in a breeze off the nearby Hudson River, no one the wiser.

  When the police found the body of the union official, they first believed it was indeed a suicide but soon suspicion fell upon the notorious Westies gang. This was their turf, the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. The leaders, Micky Featherstone and James Coonan, were picked up and questioned. They truthfully said they knew nothing. Richard was never even suspected, let alone questioned. He had amazing luck when it came to killing people.

  For the most part Richard now stayed clear of his mother and his sister, Roberta. He had grown to genuinely hate his mother, thought of her as “cancer,” and he despised Roberta, thought of her as a whore; however, after several years had passed he did have some contact with his brother Joseph. What had happened in the bathroom stall was forgotten. Richard felt he could have done more to help Joseph: give him advice, direction, a brotherly helping hand. Richard now saw his brother once a month or so. They’d meet in a bar for a drink, Richard would give him a few dollars, and that was it. Though he didn’t like it, Richard had learned to accept his brother’s homosexuality.

  Joseph, like Richard, had a hair-trigger, homicidal temper, and hurt people with broken bottles, chains, and stools in bar fights. Several times Richard had to go to Jersey City to get Joseph out of jams. Each time Richard helped Joe, he warned him it was the last time, said he had a family now and couldn’t be coming to get him out of trouble all the time.

  Richard received a call from Joe late one Saturday afternoon. “Richie, I got a problem,” Joseph said.

  “Yeah, what now?”

  “I’m in a bar. There’s four guys here and they won’t let me leave.”

  “Why not?”

  “They say I owe them money.”

  “Do you?”

  “We were playing cards and I guess I lost.”

  “How much?”

  “Not much.”

  “Just walk out, Joe.”

  “They won’t let me. I tried. There’s four of them. They got…bats.”

  “Bats?”

  “Yeah.”

  Richard took a long, exasperated breath. “This is the last time I’m going to help you—understand?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Joe said.

  Richard hung up.

  Everyone knew Joseph Kuklinski was his brother, and Richard didn’t like the idea of a group of guys holding him hostage, threatening him with bats; where did they get off thinking they could get away with such a thing?

  Richard had a locked attaché case he kept hidden in the garage. From it he retrieved two .38 over-and-under derringers loaded with dumdum bullets and put them in his jacket pockets. Then he put a hunting knife in his sock and drove to Jersey City, getting angrier with each mile. Angry that his brother was such a fuckup, angry that these guys would dare to hold him hostage. Richard parked his car a few blocks away from the bar, made sure no one was laying for him, and walked into the bar. His brother was sitting at a table off to the left. There were indeed four burly guys sitting around him. One of them, Richard could see, had a bat under the table.

  “Come on, Joe, let’s go,” Richard ordered. Joe began to get up. The largest of the four guys walked over to Richard.

  “He ain’t goin’ anywhere till he pays what he owes. I’m glad you came, Rich. We know you’re a stand-up guy.”

  “How much does he owe?”

  “Five fifty.”

  “I’ll make sure he does his best to pay you back. Come on, Joe, let’s go,” Richard ordered again.

  “Hey, I says he ain’t goin’.”

  “Joe, walk toward the fucking door,” Richard ordered.

  “We know all about you, Rich, that you always carry a gun. Why don’t you pay what he owes?”

  “I ain’t paying you anything. If you know all about me you know I’m not going to let you hold my brother against his will. Joe, come on over here!” Joe began to stand.

  “Stop him,” the one close to Richard said.

  Richard ran out of patience. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket, let them see the gun in his hand.

  “I got a slug for each of you,” Richard said. “Come on, Joe!”

  With that the four guys backed up. Joseph joined Richard. They both walked out the door.

  “Thank you, Rich,” Joe said.

  “This is the last time. You gotta stop this shit.”

  “They cheated. That’s what this is all about—they set me up.”

  “I don’t give a hoot. Joe, I can’t be doing this stuff. I got a wife and
two kids. Merrick is sick. She needs me. I can’t be doing this anymore…okay?”

  “Okay…I understand,” Joe said.

  By now they were half a block away from the bar. They began to cross the street, when a car, the four guys in it, came barreling down on them. The driver tried to run the brothers over. Richard pulled out one of the derringers and fired two shots. One of the bullets hit the trunk lock, and the trunk popped open. Within seconds, it seemed, police sirens filled the air. Richard tossed both the derringers away. Police cars blocked off each end of the street. The driver of the car told how Richard had shot a gun at them. Richard, of course, denied it.

  “What gun, where?” Richard said.

  But the cops found the two bullet holes in the car and began looking for the gun, and they found one of the derringers. Everyone was cuffed and arrested. Richard was fit to be tied. He needed this like a hole in the head. At the police station, Richard denied having any gun, and he warned the four guys in the car to keep their mouths shut.

  “You don’t say anything and we’ll all walk, got it?”

  They nodded, but Joseph again began arguing with them, saying they had cheated him, they had set him up, they had called the cops.

  “Shut up—all of you shut the fuck up,” Richard demanded. “The cops are listening.” They became quiet. Detectives interrogated them. Everyone kept his mouth shut, but the detectives knew what had happened and kept badgering Richard. He wouldn’t even talk to them. Richard didn’t like cops; they were corrupt bullies with guns and badges, and he had no reservations about letting his animus show.

  Finally able to make a call, Richard phoned a criminal attorney in Jersey City and told him what had happened. The attorney came over to the jail and told Richard he needed money to “resolve the matter.” Jersey City was one of the most corrupt municipalities in America. Cops and judges could be bought and sold for little more than a song and dance. Richard quickly made another call, got John Hamil on the phone, told him what had happened, and asked him to get three grand to the lawyer.