The Ice Man Read online

  “You come up with the money or you’re fuckin’ dead—fuckin’ dead, motherfucker!” DeMeo said, and they left.

  Richard was suddenly alone, bleeding all over the floor. He stood up, went into a bathroom off the hall, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a mess.

  Cursing out loud, using paper towels to wipe away the blood, Richard vowed to kill DeMeo. The wounds he’d gotten from the pistol-whipping were deep, and Richard had to go to St. Vincent’s Hospital on Seventh Avenue to have them stitched up. He received thirty-eight stitches on three different mean gashes on his head. His eyes blackened, his lip swollen, all stitched up, Richard slowly went back to New Jersey. He was so beat up that he didn’t want Barbara and his daughters to see him, so he went to his mother-in-law’s house. Shocked when she saw him, Genevieve let him in the house and got an ice bag for him. He told her, and later Barbara, that he’d been mugged, jumped by four guys and robbed. He slept that night at Genevieve’s house—mostly tossed and turned, planning how he’d torture Roy DeMeo.

  It didn’t take long for Richard to find out who Roy DeMeo really was—an associate in good standing of the Gambino family, who ran a ruthless band of serial killers. Richard knew if he killed Roy now, he’d surely be killed in turn, and quickly. He was so mad over what DeMeo and the others had done that if he hadn’t been married with children, he might have gone and found DeMeo and killed him anyway. But because of Barbara and his family, he had to play it cool—for now. No easy thing for Richard Kuklinski. But Richard knew that there would be, in the future, an opportunity for him to get revenge; he’d bide his time. But, he vowed, he would one day pistol-whip and kill Roy DeMeo.

  The first thing Richard did was make arrangements with Tony Argrila to pay him back the money. That done, Richard went to Brooklyn, to the Gemini Lounge, and asked for DeMeo. DeMeo was shocked to see Richard at the bar by himself.

  “I hear,” DeMeo said, “you’re doing the right thing. You got balls coming here like this.”

  “I wanted to talk with you.”

  “Yeah, well, talk.”

  “First off, I didn’t know who you were,” Richard diplomatically, and uncharacteristically, said. “Second, Rothenberg and Tony are stealing from each other—I’ve seen it myself. Sure I’m a little behind, but nothing like they’re saying. All the time Rothenberg is trying to give me material on the side. That’s the truth, Roy.”

  Richard figured, correctly, that it was Rothenberg who had sicced Roy on him, and now he was returning the favor.

  “I’ll tell you, big guy, you got balls; you got some pair a nuts coming here like this. I’m thinking maybe we got off on the wrong foot here—I got mad when I should’a been talking. I asked around ’bout you and I know you’re a stand-up guy. You had a gun on you, and didn’t use it…you got balls.”

  “Roy, I want to make money with you, not fight with you. That’s all I want to do here is make money…do business.”

  “I hear you got contacts all over the place; we can do something together. You just play straight with me and you’ll make money—a lotta money.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Let’s shake on it,” Roy said, and these two killers shook hands, a slight smirk on each of their faces.

  “I hear,” Roy said, “you got an Italian wife. Take a ride with me,” Roy offered. They got into his car and drove to an Italian food shop a few blocks away.

  “Come on,” Roy said.

  They went inside. The place had sawdust on the floor, salami and giant rolls of provolone hanging from the ceiling. Roy picked out all kinds of meats, Italian sweet sausages and giant blocks of different cheeses and a head-sized piece of mozzarella in water.

  “They make mozzeralla fresh a few times a day,” he told Richard. Roy paid for everything—$150—and gave Richard four big bags.

  “You bring this stuff home to your wife. She’ll like it, I bet you. Call me in a couple of days and we’ll do business, okay? I got a few lines of my own and I’ll front you all you want.”

  “Okay,” Richard said, genuinely taken aback by this little-seen generous side of Roy DeMeo.

  “Thanks, Roy,” Richard said, and it was done.

  Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Sinned

  Anna McNally, Richard’s mother, was terminally ill, dying of liver cancer. When Roberta, Richard’s sister, called to tell him of their mother’s impending death, he didn’t even want to go see her. Finally, he thought, she’s getting her due. But Barbara convinced him that he should go see his mother one last time, so he and Barbara went. Barbara had no use for Anna; she knew what a rotten mother she’d been to Richard. But still she was his mother, and Barbara felt he should see her one last time before she died. It was the right thing to do.

  As the years had gone by Richard grew to despise his mother more and more. He pretty much blamed her for everything: for marrying Stanley; for having children with Stanley; for how Stanley mercilessly beat Florian—killed Florian—for how Stanley beat him.

  When they arrived at the hospital, however, Anna did not even acknowledge his presence. She was facing the wall, holding blue rosary beads, repeating over and over “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” nonstop, as if it were a Tibetan chant. Richard spoke to her. He tried to say good-bye. But she wouldn’t even look at him. It seemed as though she were already dead and gone but her body didn’t yet realize it. She had shrunken to a mere shell of the robust, attractive woman she had once been. For Anna McNally, life had been cruel—a constant bitter struggle filled with heartache, hard menial labor, pain, suffering, and want. For Anna death would be a blessing, certainly better than her life had been, and she welcomed it.

  She did in fact die later that night. Richard reluctantly went to the wake only because Barbara convinced him he should go. He did not cry. He showed no emotion.

  Stanley Kuklinski also came to the wake, and Richard didn’t even say hello to him. It was all he could do to keep from taking Stanley by the neck in front of everyone and choking the cold heartless bastard to death, right there. With great effort he held himself back. Barbara could see he was getting all bent out of shape at the sight of his father, his lips twisting up, his face flushing. Sitting there next to Barbara, all Richard could think of was killing Stanley; harsh black-and-white images of what Stanley had done to him moving in his head like a grainy old slow-motion film. It took much restraint for Richard not to take his father outside, put him in his car, kill him, and dump him down a Pennsylvania mine shaft. Richard told Barbara he wanted to leave. In the car on the way back home, she said, “You okay, Richard?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just…when I see Stanley it all comes back. That man should never have been allowed to have children.” Here he stopped talking. He didn’t want Barbara to hear the truth, what Stanley truly had done to him: how he had murdered Florian.

  The Porn King of New York

  True to his word, DeMeo gave Richard, on consignment, all the pornography he wanted. Richard bought himself a van, went to Brooklyn, and picked up boxes of porn produced by Roy, one hundred films per box. By now Richard had many contacts in the porn business across the country. He was distributing porn—both his and DeMeo’s—to wholesalers everywhere, and business boomed. For the first time Richard was making good money on a steady basis.

  Richard was scrupulously careful about giving Roy all he was due, on time as promised. Roy began to take a shine to Richard. He admired his temerity, the fact that he had taken the beating “like a man,” as he told his crew. The fact that Richard had a gun in his pocket and didn’t use it; the fact that he came to the Gemini by himself. That, he knew, took balls.

  DeMeo’s crew, however, didn’t like Richard. They thought he was aloof and unfriendly—he was—and he was a non-Italian…he was Polish. They made fun of Richard behind his back, told one another silly Polish jokes at Richard’s expense. Richard sensed the hostility, the cold stares, the sneers, but Richard didn’t care. He figured they were just jealous of h
is relationship with Roy, and he was right.

  As months passed, Roy and Richard’s “friendship” grew. By now Roy had learned that Richard had killed well and discreetly for the De Cavalcante family, and one day, when Richard went to the Gemini to drop off some money, Roy sat him down in the rear apartment.

  “I hear,” Roy said, “that you are cold like ice and do special work. That true?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “I have a lot of special work…. You interested?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Definitely?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll do it with no questions asked?”

  “I’m not a curious man.”

  Roy stared at Richard. Being stared at by Roy, with his penetrating black eyes, was like having two drills bore into you.

  Roy had to see for himself if, in fact, Richard could do a piece of work, coldly and methodically.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s take a ride; you game?”

  “Sure,” Richard said, and Roy, his cousin Joe Guglielmo, and Richard piled into Roy’s car. Joe was driving. Richard sat in the back.

  “Let’s go to the city,” Roy ordered. He always ordered people to do things—never asked. In silence they drove to Manhattan. It was a nice cloudless day. The sky was blue. The sun shone. Someone was going to die. As they were going through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Roy turned around and handed Richard a short-barreled .38 with a suppressor on it.

  “Use this,” he said.

  “Okay,” Richard said, and casually slipped the gun into his waistband. They continued uptown and wound up on the west side of Greenwich Village, on a quiet tree-lined street. Richard’s old hunting ground. They passed a lone man walking a dog.

  “Pull over,” Roy ordered. “See that guy with the dog?” he asked Richard.

  “Yeah.”

  “Cap him.”

  “Here, now?”

  “Here, now.”

  Richard calmly stepped out of the car and walked toward the man with the dog, who was to the rear of the car, maybe twenty steps. After Richard passed him, he stopped and turned around and tailed the hapless man. He wanted to do the job right in front of Roy and Joe. Just as the dog walker passed the Lincoln, Richard caught up with him, made sure he was unobserved, quickly pulled out the gun, and fired, shooting the man in the back of the head.

  He never even knew he died, or why.

  He went down like a laundry bag, Richard confided.

  Richard calmly walked back to the car and got in. “You’re fuckin’ cold like ice. Well done,” Roy said, smiling. “You’re one of us.” And they went back to Brooklyn. Richard had just proven to Roy, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a stone-cold killer, and that murder that day cemented their bloody relationship. When they arrived back at the Gemini Lounge and went into the rear apartment, Joey Testa, Anthony Senter, Chris Goldberg, and Henry Borelli were all there.

  “The big guy,” Roy announced, “is fuckin’ cold. I just saw him do a piece of work right in the middle of the fuckin’ street. He’s one of us.”

  Thus, Richard became a part of a coven of serial killers never seen before or since; they would, in years to come, make homicide history.

  Richard, however, didn’t like any of this: he didn’t want any of these guys knowing about him, what he did, what “special work” he performed. He didn’t trust them and didn’t like them; he thought it was just a matter of time before they caused problems, for themselves, for Roy, and for him.

  Richard needed to use the john and went inside the bathroom. There was an odd, thick, fetid smell hanging in the air. As he was taking a leak, he looked around the shower curtain and there, hanging over the tub, was a dead man. His throat had been cut and there was a black-handled butcher knife sticking out of his chest. His blood, rubbery and thick, was slowly draining into the tub. They were bleeding him.

  These fucking guys are really into it, Richard thought, and went back inside.

  “You see the guy taking a shower?” Roy asked, laughing out loud at his joke. The others laughed too.

  “No, I didn’t see anything,” Richard said, and they sat down and had a meal of spaghetti olio and broccoli rabe. Roy enjoyed cooking and loved to eat. As they sat there and ate, drinking red wine—with the guy hanging over the tub—they made jokes, talked about sports, about a girl both Joey and Anthony had fucked the night before.

  After having espresso, Chris and Anthony spread a blue plastic tarp on the floor. They brought the guy out of the bathroom and proceeded to cut him into “manageable pieces,” as Roy put it. “Makes getting rid of him easier,” he told Richard. They had a professional autopsy kit, with razor-sharp saws and knives made for the sole purpose of cutting up bodies. Within minutes they cut him into five pieces. Each piece was wrapped in brown paper, then put into heavy-duty black garbage bags. Richard watched this through amused eyes, thinking, These guys are something else, admiring how easily and expertly they disassembled the body. They’d obviously had a lot of practice and knew what they were doing. Chris Goldberg especially seemed to enjoy taking apart the body.

  When Richard was ready to leave and go back to his family, he asked to speak to Roy on the side. They went outside. By now the sun was setting. A nice breeze blew in from Jamaica Bay.

  “Look, Roy,” Richard said. “Don’t get me wrong here, but I’d rather just work with you on any special jobs.”

  “You’re reading my mind,” Roy said. “Big guy, you are my secret weapon. I ain’t mixing you up with my crew. Don’t worry. They are all good, very fuckin’ stand-up guys—Chris is like my son—but I ain’t mixing you up with them.”

  “Okay,” Richard said. They hugged and kissed on the cheek, and Richard went back to his family in New Jersey. Like this, Richard Kuklinski became Roy DeMeo’s “secret weapon.”

  The police could find no witnesses to the murder of the man walking his dog in the Village, no likely suspects, no rhyme or reason for the killing—still another unsolved New York homicide Richard Kuklinski had committed.

  Family Man

  Richard was scrupulously careful to keep what he was doing far from his family. Barbara had no idea what he was really up to; she didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell her.

  Besides distributing porn, Richard rented a warehouse in North Bergen and from it sold counterfeit sweaters, handbags, jeans, and even perfumes. He bought large lots of these knockoff goods, had women sew brand-name labels into them, and sold them to wholesalers, who in turn sold them at flea markets all over the country. Money was rolling in. Richard still dabbled in hijacking, acting as the middleman between the hijackers and the buyers and always making a profit. He stopped drinking hard alcohol and tried not to gamble. He loved his family deeply and profoundly and didn’t want to do anything to undermine it. On the one hand, he was the perfect husband and father, considerate, loving, and generous to a fault. He’d gladly drive his daughters and their friends to movies and restaurants they liked; he took great joy in buying them nice clothing, two of everything; nothing was too good for his children. He constantly bought Barbara clothes and shoes and jewelry, mink coats—whatever she wanted. They went out to fancy restaurants every weekend. Richard always made sure Barbara’s favorite wine, Montrachet, was already at the table in an ice bucket waiting for her. He opened doors for her. He graciously pulled out her chair so she could sit down.

  On the other hand, he could lose his temper over some little thing and become tyrannical, mean, a menace. The Kuklinski home could be, one moment, a tranquil Shangri-la, the next moment a storm-besieged island in the middle of a dangerous, turbulent sea.

  When my dad was normal, he was golden. When he lost it he was…he was a maniac, his daughter Chris recently explained.

  Richard bought himself a new white Cadillac. The family began looking for a new house in a better part of Jersey. West New York, Hudson County, was changing; many minority groups were moving in, and Richard and Barbara wanted to move to “green
er pastures.”

  They wound up buying a split-level ranch-style home in Dumont, New Jersey, with a garage and three bedrooms. This was a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, a good place to bring up children, a reasonably juicy slice of the American dream come true. Barbara wanted a pool and the grounds covered with bright green healthy sod—no problem; whatever Barbara wanted, Richard was anxious and only too happy to provide. He still had no concept of money and readily spent it as quickly as it came in.

  On weekends, the Kuklinskis had extravagant barbecues, invited everyone on the block. Richard was, for the most part, outgoing and friendly—a good neighbor, quick to offer a helping hand. He’d don a cooking apron and happily grill burgers and franks for his children and all their friends. He watched them play in the pool, making sure no one was hurt. He gladly doled out towels and helped dry his children off, happily cleaned the yard after a day of the kids playing. The Kuklinskis had also been blessed by the birth of a son. Barbara had always wanted a boy and her dream had come true. They named the boy Dwayne, after a country singer Richard was fond of.

  When Richard did get mad, however, he’d explode. He didn’t seem capable of controlling his anger, and when he became angry his cruelty knew no bounds. It was as if he became a different person; he’d break his children’s toys and keepsakes, smash chairs and tables and knickknacks. After Barbara had the kitchen redone, all new appliances and cabinets installed, Richard lost it and actually tore the cabinets right off the wall, and he pulled the kitchen sink out and tossed it through one of the kitchen windows.

  Afterward, he always felt bad, indeed hated what he’d done. He was so angry at himself that he couldn’t even look at himself in the mirror. When he was like that, in one of his out-of-control tirades, all Barbara and the children could do was stay the hell out of his way, and they did, as best they could.