The Ice Man

by Philip Carlo

  Moving with the music, shaking his huge body as he went, Richard swished-danced past the mark, and as he went he stuck him with the needle while moving toward the exit. Within a minute the mark went down, and he was soon quite dead. Everyone believed he’d had a heart attack. At the autopsy in the medical examiner’s office, the poison was not even detected.

  According to Richard, one of the guys on the Jimmy Hoffa hit, Sal Briguglio, got into some trouble with the law, and word spread that he was trying to use what he knew about the Hoffa murder to get himself out of trouble. This is what caused Hoffa’s remains to be dug up, compacted in the trunk of a car, and exported to Japan. Richard was given the contract to kill Briguglio. He and another Jersey assassin, Paulie Salerno, tracked Sal to Little Italy. As he was walking near Mott Street, Richard struck him from behind with a jawbreaker, knocked him down, and shot him numerous times with a .38 equipped with a suppressor, then quickly walked away. The cops were called. Detectives questioned neighborhood people. No one saw anything. Another mob-related murder in Little Italy…nothing new.

  Poison and Richard Kuklinski went together like peanut butter and jelly: for one of the few times in his life, Richard bought books and carefully studied them, medical texts about poisons. For several weeks he was reading and taking notes, teaching himself the subtleties and finer points of killing people with poison. He learned about cyano, prussic acid, hydrocyanic acid, hydrogen cyanide, aniline, and cyanic acid, and their proper applications. Whenever he saw Paul Hoffman, he asked him questions, and Hoffman gladly answered Richard’s questions, and provided Richard with the actual poisons. Hoffman, of course, was charging Richard exorbitant amounts, but Richard didn’t care; it was just the price of doing business.

  Like a child with a new toy, Richard was anxious to try out these new killing tools. He loved, he says, the subtlety of poison: that there was no violence, guns, blood, broken bones; that it was odorless and colorless, yet as lethal as—perhaps more lethal than—a bullet to the head.

  With vials of poisons in his pocket, Richard went out into the world to fill murder contracts. In many instances, Richard could get close to a mark, invite him for a meal, a drink—and use my new friends, as he called the poisons.

  His name was Billy Mana. He was a made guy in the Genovese family. His boss wanted him dead. Richard contacted Mana, invited him for a drink, saying he had a load of fur coats he wanted to sell “real cheap. I’m in a hurry to move the load,” Richard said.

  Like all mob guys, Mana was money hungry, and he met Richard for a drink in a Union City bar. Richard had a pinkie-sized vial of cyanide with him. When Mana went to the john, Richard quickly and discreetly—like a magic trick—dumped the poison in Mana’s drink. Mana soon came back and knocked off his drink. Richard graciously ordered another round. Before it was served, however, Mana choked, held his throat, his eyes swelling, and soon fell over.

  “Heart attack, call a doctor!” Richard called out and soon disappeared, as if he never was there.

  Pleased, Richard made his way home, back to his family, like Dracula returning to his lair. Over the coming months, whenever possible, Richard used poison to kill, in food, in drinks, on pizza. He became quite the expert in the application of deadly substances.

  This, of course, only bolstered his reputation as an assassin, and even more murder contracts came his way. He was traveling all over the country now to murder people the mob wanted dead. He’d go anywhere to do a piece of work. He was very busy; too busy. He knew this could not go on forever; but he greatly enjoyed the work, the challenge, a successful outcome. It made him feel godlike, a truly lethal force. Richard became the brightest star in a rogues’ gallery filled with stone-cold killers. As Richard’s reputation spread, people “in the life” didn’t like to be around him, looked at him warily out of the corner of their eyes. Even Roy DeMeo was wary of Richard. DeMeo was one of the few people in the world that knew how truly dangerous and diabolical Richard was. When DeMeo had a beef with John Gotti and his brother Gene, he asked Richard to come to a meeting with them and watch his back.

  The Gotti brothers and their crew also had a reputation for being dangerous, ruthless—quick to kill and ask questions later. But even they wanted nothing to do with DeMeo and the Gemini gang. True, DeMeo and John Gotti were in the same family, but there was friction between them. Yet, because they were in the same family, in theory anyway, disputes and disagreements had to be settled with talk, amiably, not murder. When DeMeo and John Gotti—these two ruthless men with oversized egos—had a disagreement over how merchandise stolen from Kennedy Airport was divvied up, who would get what, there had to be a “sit-down,” the mob term for resolving disputes with reason and conversation, not violence.

  John Gotti, like DeMeo, had a reputation as a no-nonsense, two-fisted, dangerous man with a volatile temper. He had recently been released from jail, having done time for his involvement in a murder: Gotti had killed Jimmy McBratney, the man rumored to be responsible for the abduction and murder of Carlo Gambino’s nephew. Gotti hired the famous Roy Cohn, who made a sweetheart deal for Gotti—four years for attempted murder, a cakewalk.

  Gotti had done the time and was out now and making waves in the Gambino family. He, like many in the Gambino clan, hated Paul Castellano, for a host of reasons: Paul’s greed; his insistence that all the captains come pay homage to him once a week at the Veterans and Friends Club; the fact that he was appointed because of family connections; the fact that he failed to prevent the FBI from bugging his home; the fact that his affair with the housekeeper had become public scandal, much talked about in Mafiadom.

  DeMeo didn’t like or trust John Gotti, and when the sit-down occurred DeMeo brought along Richard as his bodyguard. As they drove to the meeting, held in the home of another Gambino captain, Roy said, “Big Guy, we can’t trust this fuckin’ Gotti. Keep your eye on him, and don’t let me out of your sight, got it?”

  “Got it,” Richard said.

  Richard had three guns on him and a knife strapped to his calf.

  Richard enjoyed being taken into DeMeo’s confidence like this. Of all the killers in his crew DeMeo had chosen Richard to watch his back. DeMeo knew that Richard was the coldest, most dangerous killer he had ever come across, and he trusted Richard. Over the years they’d been doing business together now, Richard had been scrupulously honest—always kept his word. DeMeo still had no idea that Richard was waiting for the right opportunity to kill him; that Richard never forgot the beating he’d given him; how he pointed the cocked Uzi at him and laughed. On the one hand, Richard liked Roy, his gregarious, generous ways when he was in a good mood; on the other hand, he despised him—his loud, bullying ways, how he went from hot to cold in the blink of an eye.

  Roy and I were alike in many ways. When I was in a good mood, I was the nicest guy—give you the shirt off my back. When, however, I was on a tear…I scared myself, he explains in all sincerity.

  The site was a redbrick two-family home on Brooklyn’s Mill Basin, a simple, unassuming structure. A three-foot statue of the Virgin Mary, dressed in blue and white, stood in the front yard, as though to scrutinize visitors with a critical eye. Richard was pleased—proud in his own way—that DeMeo was trusting him like this, counting on Richard to watch his back. This could, Richard well knew, turn into a life-and-death situation, and DeMeo wanted Richard to be there to protect him.

  I was, you know, kind of honored, Richard explained.

  As usual, Richard was wearing a large, baggy short-sleeved shirt, the tail out. The shirt covered the guns he had in his waistband. He had extra clips in his pants pocket.

  John and Gene Gotti were already there, as were a few soldiers in his crew, and Aniello Dellacroce, the underboss of the Gambino family, John’s mentor, an old school diplomatic man. Everyone within La Cosa Nostra had believed Aniello would take over the Gambino family after Carlo’s death. He’d been the most likely choice. By right he should have, though that hadn’t happened. Still, in many
of the captains’ minds Aniello Dellacroce was the real head of the family; he had kept a tenuous peace within the family after Carlo’s death. Dellacroce seemed sickly and frail, as if he would keel over any moment. He had large eggplant-colored circles under sad blue eyes, thin gray hair, a flattened nose. But this was a strong-willed individual, a tough Sicilian with a backbone of steel who believed it was better to make money than war, but would kill in a heartbeat if and when necessary. This meeting was an informal get-together. It was not, as such, a formal sit-down. Hellos, handshakes, reserved respectful age-old hugs and kisses on both cheeks, were exchanged. The smell of Old Spice and Canoe hung in the air. Richard was introduced. He respectfully nodded, shook hands; no hugs or kisses for him. Everyone knew who he was—Roy’s secret weapon, a virtual killing machine—and resented that DeMeo had brought him. It was an affront. But DeMeo had purposely brought Richard for just that reasons. He wanted to make a point; and he did without saying a word.

  This was all before John Gotti became a Mafia superstar, a legend in both his own mind and the public’s, but even then he was ambitious in the extreme and quite deadly, everyone knew. Yet, Roy DeMeo had a far-reaching reputation as a very dangerous man that far overshadowed John Gotti’s.

  As the meeting began, Richard stood stiffly in the living room as the others moved to a large dark wood dining-room table. DeMeo sat with his back to Richard, who carefully watched what was happening, studying eyes and hands as a tennis umpire observes a championship match. He couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. John Gotti expansively made his case, Roy made his, Dellacroce had a say, and soon they all shook hands. A deal had been struck. Richard could see that the Gottis were wary of DeMeo. Who could blame them? It was no secret that Roy had turned the apartment in the back of the Gemini Lounge into a virtual slaughterhouse, that DeMeo and his crew were murdering scores of people, cutting them up, and getting rid of body parts all over Brooklyn. Gotti thought of DeMeo as an out-of-control ghoul who would eventually make trouble for everyone in the family with all these murders.

  Whatever the dispute had been about, it was obvious to Richard that it had been peacefully resolved. The meeting was soon over. DeMeo and Richard left. In the car on the way back to the Gemini, DeMeo said, “This fuckin’ Gotti can’t be trusted. Mark my words, he’s gonna be trouble. I don’t like him. He thinks he’s hot shit. He ain’t nobody. If it wasn’t for Dellacroce he wouldn’t even be made.”

  Richard just listened. Back at the Gemini, Richard did not go into the club. He knew DeMeo’s people were inside, and he didn’t want to be around them. DeMeo thanked Richard for coming, and hugged and kissed him, and soon Richard was on the way back to his family, feeling in his gut that there really would be trouble someday because of John Gotti. It was clear in Gotti’s eyes, the way he moved, his body language, even how he gestured with his hands. He was, Richard thought, a storm waiting to happen.

  Richard never drove straight home anymore. He always took roundabout routes, would suddenly pull off the parkway and wait for cars to pass him. He didn’t want to be followed home. He didn’t want anyone to know where he lived. Above all else, Richard wanted to protect his family, to keep the street and what he did far away from them.

  Barbara still had no idea what Richard did, that he was one of the most proficient killers organized crime had ever known. However, one time she did find a gun wrapped in a rag in the garage, up on a high shelf. She put it right back, didn’t even mention it to him, not sure how he would react.

  The Office

  Richard was still losing his temper and abusing Barbara. He would often come home in a bad mood and get into an argument with Barbara over something small and inconsequential, she’d get in his face, he’d lose it and do damage—slap her, rant and rave, break things with his superhuman strength.

  Barbara had bought a gorgeous dining table. It was made of thick Italian marble and had wide marble legs. It cost a fortune, but she wanted it, so they bought it. What Barbara wanted, Barbara got. The table was so heavy it took four burly men to pick it up and carry it inside the house and place it where Barbara wanted it. One afternoon Richard came home in a foul mood. He and Barbara got into it, and the two of them were arguing; he started to lose it. He wanted to slap her, wring her neck, throw her up against the wall. But rather than hurt her, he actually picked up the beautiful marble dining table and tossed it right out the large bay window that faced the street.

  Aghast, Barbara berated him, having no idea just how truly dangerous Richard was, whom she was arguing with.

  She would later say, Mind you, we are talking about a table that took four men to bring in the house. He picked it up like nothing and tossed it right out the window, shaking her head at the memory, smoking.

  Unfortunately, these kinds of outbursts were happening in front of Merrick and Chris, though not Dwayne. It was Merrick that would usually calm her father down. She had a soothing effect on him. She talked softly to him, got him to leave the house, got him to take her to feed the ducks.

  Over in the town of Demarest, a ten-minute drive away (the place where Pat Kane was born and raised), there was a small freshwater pond in the center of a park, called the Demarest Pond. Flocks of wild ducks always gathered there. Richard enjoyed going to this tranquil pond and feeding the ducks. He’d buy bread in a nearby store, sit on a green park bench just near the calm water’s edge, and feed the ducks. He often took Merrick there with him, and together they’d toss the ducks small pieces of bread, which they quickly gobbled up, and as they sat there Merrick would calm her father, talk to him about his childhood, make him forget his anger at Barbara, his anger at the world. Merrick had, for some unfathomable reason, a very calming, soothing effect on her dad. Chris rarely did this with her father, though Barbara did often come here with Richard too. They both enjoyed sitting on the bench, close to the calm pond, feeding the different ducks, talking quietly…at peace. The pond truly had a calming effect on Richard. The ducks knew Richard and would come waddling over at the first sight of him.

  Richard’s daughter Chris drew further and further into herself, away from her father—away from the family. For Chris the arguments and violence were extremely upsetting and debilitating.

  Chris was now a very attractive twelve-year-old. She had a long, slender body; long, thick blond hair; and a sweet, heart-shaped face with big blue eyes. One summer evening Barbara and Richard were arguing after dinner and he began to break things. Chris silently got up and left the house. She couldn’t deal with the violence, the yelling, her father’s temper, her mother’s “big mouth,” as she thought of it, and would later relate. She walked to the corner and sat on a wooden bench near the bus stop there, trying to figure out what to do, whom she could talk to, where she could get help, where she could turn.

  Once, Chris had thought that all parents argued, that surely all dads tore the house apart; but now she knew that wasn’t the case at all, that her father was unique, and that her mother too was unique. As she sat there, dusk coming on quickly, lightning bugs starting to appear, a man in a red van pulled up and said hello to her, offered to take her where she was going.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Chris said in a small voice, knowing she shouldn’t be talking to a stranger. Barbara had warned her many times about talking to strangers.

  “Would you like to go for a ride?” the man asked. He was in his midthirties, had blond hair, was attractive, seemed nice—seemed…interested in her.

  “Okay, sure,” she said, and got in the van with the stranger, knowing she shouldn’t, knowing her parents would be angry, punish her severely for such a thing, but she didn’t care. She was taking control; she was in charge; that was it.

  It didn’t take long for Chris to find out exactly what the blond man was interested in: He asked if she’d like to go to a secluded place he knew of and “fool around.”

  “Okay,” she said, even before she realized she’d said it. He took her to a small clearing in some nearby wood
s and began kissing her. She let him; she didn’t resist him. He took her into the back of the van, undressed her, and proceeded to have all forms of relations with her, including intercourse, which she willingly let him do. This was Chris’s way of taking control of her life. Her body was hers, hers only, nobody could take that away from her—and she was going to use it, let it be used, any way she wished. She certainly didn’t enjoy what he was doing, what he had her do. She was doing it to assert her own individuality, to rebel. Chris knew that if her father saw such a thing he would probably kill her, and would surely tear this man apart, literally. But she didn’t care….

  When it was over, he was done, he thankfully took Chris back to the bus stop, the bench where he had found her, and she got out of the van, thanking him as she went, polite and sweet, not traumatized at all. He didn’t ask to see her; she didn’t volunteer any information. She didn’t want to see him again. They both knew what had happened was wrong—very wrong, sinfully wrong, against-the-law wrong.

  Chris slowly walked back home, a virgin no more. Barbara asked her where she’d been.

  “At a friend’s house,” she said.

  Richard knew his violent outbursts were wrong, and he didn’t like himself because of them. He knew he shouldn’t be violent with Barbara, but he had no control over his volatile temper. It was as if a bomb exploded inside him. Richard decided to rent an office, to have a place he could go when he wasn’t in a good mood, a place where he could prepare himself for hits, calm himself after a job was done. He had come to realize that he shouldn’t be around his family at such times. It wasn’t fair to them. It was outright dangerous, he also knew.