The Ice Man

by Philip Carlo

  “You’ll see it tomorrow,” Remi said with absolute certainty. That would leave Richard and Spasudo—if it was true—nearly sixty-three thousand each, after the banker got his half and Remi his end.

  “When…where—what time?” Richard asked, not quite believing this; it really did seem too good to be true.

  “I’ll bring it to your hotel,” Remi said.

  And sure enough, the following day Remi showed up at the appointed time with a check made out to the Mercantile Corporation for five hundred thousand dollars. Richard could barely believe his eyes, but there it was in his huge hand. All smiles, Richard said, “I didn’t think you could pull it off but you did. You’re a good man, Remi—good man!” He shook Remi’s pudgy hand. Richard noticed Remi didn’t seem that happy for a guy who had just made so much money.

  “Is there something wrong?” asked Richard.

  “There is…a slight problem,” Remi said. “A complication, you could say.”

  “What is it?”

  “Our friend, the banker, was apparently working with another group of people, and they, well, they screwed him, and then demanded more money…a bigger share.”

  Greedy bastards, Richard thought.

  “And they have threatened to expose him.”

  “Really?” Richard said, thinking, Ain’t it the way?

  “Yes.”

  Richard took another look at the check in his hand. “Well,” he said, “why don’t you take care of them?”

  “How? They’re dangerous people. I think…I think they’re gangsters,” Remi added, whispering the word.

  “Oh, gangsters, you say,” Richard said, amused.

  “Yes! This is the problem, you see.”

  “This isn’t a problem,” Richard said confidently.

  “It is…. You don’t understand—they’re dangerous. They’ve threatened not only him, you know, but his family too. His wife and children.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, my friend, you show me who these dangerous gangsters are and I’ll take care of them.”

  “You, how…Do you, you know, know some people who—?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Richard repeated with such certainty that Remi believed him.

  “I can show you the man,” he said.

  “Good,” Richard said.

  The following day Remi took Richard to the bank and showed him the official. He was sitting behind an ornate cherrywood desk adorned with brass lamps. To Richard’s surprise, he was Asian. The fellow trying to extort him was supposed to be coming to talk with him at noon, and he showed up on time. He was an Arab, sported a well-cut Italian suit, silk shirt, fancy tie. He carried a Vuitton attaché case. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard. He reminded Richard of the actor Omar Sharif. Richard smiled to himself, but his face was as cold and white as a marble statue in a cemetery on a winter night.

  The plan was for Phil Solimene to act as if he’d known Dominick Polifrone for a long time. Polifrone would take on the name and persona of Dominick Provanzano. He had a driver’s license in that name, and there were bogus warrants for Provanzano, if anyone checked. It was no secret that crooked cops were checking out police files and computers and gleefully selling information to the bad guys. Everyone in law enforcement knew this. If Richard had a crooked cop check out Dominick Provanzano, he’d pass the scrutiny with flying colors.

  The plan was for Dominick to start hanging out at the store, play cards, become “a regular,” as it were. He would, they hoped, be accepted by the criminals who made the store their second home. Phil Solimene would go out of his way to make sure everyone knew that Dominick was one of them—a slick, well-connected hood he’d known for many years, a guy with connections in New York’s Little Italy, trusted and confided in by “important people.”

  It was now early 1985. Pat Kane drove Dominick to the store in Paterson in an unmarked van, wished him luck, and watched Dominick swagger across the street and enter the store. This was, he was hoping, the first step in finally nailing Kuklinski. Kane had no idea about Richard’s trips to Europe at this juncture; he had no idea he was even out of town.

  When, that fateful day, Dominick Polifrone opened the door and entered the store, he metamorphosized into Dominick Provanzano. Phil Solimene looked up, saw him, and called out, “Hey, Dom, come on in!” a big smile on his chiseled face, hugged and kissed him, and proudly introduced him to the regulars. Here Polifrone was in his element. He was, in fact, a born actor, a smooth, seamless natural bullshit artist, and he quickly made himself at home, played cards with the guys, a rogues’ gallery of thieves and thugs: men who lived on the outside of the law, made their own rules, would steal anything that wasn’t bolted down and hurt anyone who got in their way, outlaws all. With Solimene’s obvious blessings and endorsement, Polifrone was quickly and readily accepted as one of their own. Every other word out of Polifrone’s mouth was “fuck,” and he quickly let it be known that he could get any-fuckin-thing, any kind of guns, drugs, silencers, hand grenades, assault rifles. People believed him. Why shouldn’t they? After all, Phil Solimene—Fagan himself—said he was “stand-up.”

  Dominick had the natural gift of gab, was a wonderful teller of stories and jokes, and in no time he had everyone laughing and patting him on the back. He dressed, looked, and sounded the part. He had a Cuban cigar in his mouth. Even Bobby DeNiro couldn’t’ve been more convincing. Dominick’s bad, ill-fitting wig played well into his persona, though he hadn’t planned that. He wore this wig all the time.

  When, that first day, Dominick left the store, walked across the street, and got into the unmarked van, Kane was relieved. If anything went wrong, if Dominick was hurt, it would surely be his fault, laid at his feet.

  “How’d it go?” Kane asked.

  “A fuckin’ piece a cake,” Dominick said, “Solimene’s good. He even got me believing we go back a lotta years.”

  “Great,” Kane said, finally seeing a golden glimmer of light at the end of that foul-smelling tunnel.

  Back in Zurich, through the crooked Asian bank officer, Remi found out where the Arab they’d seen lived, in a two-story brick house on a quiet street in town. Richard and Remi checked it out. Richard immediately decided against a gun or overt violence. He wanted this to appear like a natural death. He didn’t want any kind of police scrutiny. He decided that poison would be the best way to go. He said nothing of his plans to Remi. The less Remi knew the better. The first order of business, Richard knew, was to make sure the check cleared. He promised Remi that as soon as the money was in the account, he’d take care of the Arab.

  “I believe you, I believe you will,” Remi said.

  Richard soon left for the States, went to Georgia, and warily deposited the five-hundred-thousand-dollar check. He was uncomfortable doing this. He was expecting lawmen to jump out with badges and guns. But no such thing happened, and, to his delight and amazement, the check cleared.

  Richard began asking questions of mob guys he had met over the years about the best way to move money. He also spoke to a tax lawyer he knew in Hoboken that did a lot of work for people in the underworld. With the new information, Richard devised a plan to move the money through a series of banks, one in Luxembourg, one in the Cayman Islands, and another in New Jersey, to disperse the money so that it wasn’t traceable. This was all before the banking laws were changed to make such transactions much more difficult.

  Phil Solimene called a few times and asked Richard to come by the store, said he had some “good action,” but Richard was very busy now with his new schemes, his mind preoccupied, and he wasn’t as comfortable in the store as he used to be. He knew Percy House had become a rat, and was concerned he’d somehow be tied to the murders of Danny Deppner and Gary Smith.

  Richard now thought long and hard about killing his daughter Merrick’s former boyfriend, Richie Peterson. He was a weak link in the chain, knew too much; but Richard ultimately decided against it. He was fond of Pet
erson, as was Barbara. He’d wait. But he knew he had made a mistake by allowing Peterson into his confidence.

  Richard had to get back to Zurich and attend to the Arab. He carefully prepared the cyanide spray, placed it in a special sprayer, wrapped it up well, and put it in his toiletries case. He had to leave for Zurich the following evening. But first there was this unfinished business of the dealer with the children in the basement. Richard had not forgotten about them; he kept seeing their faces, and he could not rest until he fixed this problem, as he put it.

  He loaded a .38 revolver with hollow-point rounds, fitted it with a silencer, and drove to the dealer’s home. He had a hard time finding the place but finally did locate it. It was near midnight. Richard slowly moved past the house. Lights were on on the ground floor. He drove down the road, parked his car, put on plastic gloves, then walked back with his long, fast gait. Without hesitation he moved straight onto the driveway and toward the house.

  Suddenly a motion detector triggered and lights went on. Richard froze. The lights went off. No one seemed to notice. He quickly moved right up against the house and along it, avoiding the radius of the motion detector. There were deer in the area, and Richard figured the dealer had gotten used to deer triggering the motion detector and had became complacent.

  Quickly, catlike, Richard moved to the back of the house. He approached a ground-floor window. It wasn’t locked. He ever so slowly slid it up and in two movements was suddenly inside, big and foreboding and deadly serious. He heard men talking and moved forward, toward the voices, on silent feet. Three men—the dealer and two others Richard had never seen—were sitting at a dining-room table. He raised the .38, took aim, quickly shot the first two, pop-pop, in rapid succession. The third was shocked, looking around to see what the hell had happened, when he too was shot and crumpled to the floor. Richard made sure they were all dead. He then moved straight to the door that lead to the basement, unlocked and opened it.

  “Can any of you count to twenty?” he called out.

  No answer.

  “I say can any one of you count to twenty?” he repeated.

  “I can,” a young girl said.

  “Okay, good. When I tell you, start counting. Then when you are finished all of you can come up here. There is a phone right in the kitchen. Those men can’t hurt none of you no more. Don’t be afraid. It’s over now! Call the police—dial 911. Then all of you go outside. The police’ll get you back to your people…. Okay, start counting,” Richard said, and made for the front door, unlocked it, and left, leaving the door wide open. He quickly made his way across the driveway, back to the street, and into his car, and returned home to Dumont. He felt better now. He was sure those children would soon be in good hands. That night he slept well.

  In the morning, after he took Barbara for a nice breakfast, they went to feed the ducks in Demarest—coincidentally the town where Pat Kane had grown up. Richard was in an unusually good mood. Barbara was pleased. He said nothing about his recent business ventures. She didn’t ask. They sat by the calm lake on a green wooden bench and fed the ducks. They were always happy to see Richard. He had given many of them names. They knew him and he knew them. Richard then dropped Barbara off, went to see John Spasudo, brought him up to speed, saying nothing about killing the dealer and his friends or about the Arab he planned to kill. After seeing Spasudo, Richard drove over to Paterson. By now Phil Solimene had called a half dozen times and Richard wanted to see what was up. The usual lineup of suspects was there. As always, everyone was happy to see “Big Rich,” the king of the jungle himself. Dominick wasn’t there. Solimene and Richard walked out back.

  “Where ya been, Big Guy?” Solimene asked.

  “Been busy,” Richard said, not mentioning anything about Zurich. He still trusted Solimene; he was just tight-lipped by both nature and habit.

  “An old buddy of mine came around the other day,” Solimene said. “He’s got a shitload of weapons, anything you want—including fucking rocket launchers.”

  “Really, where from?”

  “The city, downtown. I know him twenty years. He was away for a while. You need anything, I’ll hook it up—anything.”

  “Naw, I’m good right now. Can he get grenades?”

  “Absofuckinlutely. He’s got some kinda in with the army, I think.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Dom Provanzano.”

  “Related to Tony Pro?”

  “Maybe, I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, good to know,” Richard said, and ended it there. He had other things on his mind, bigger fish to fry.

  Solimene asked him why he hadn’t been coming around. “Something wrong, Big Guy?”

  “No, just been tied up.”

  “Why don’t you come in for the game Saturday?”

  “If I can,” Richard said, and soon left. He did not suspect Solimene in any way. As Richard drove back to Dumont, he wondered if this Dom guy could get his hands on some cyanide. Richard had killed both Paul Hoffman and Robert Pronge, his two sources for poisons, and would soon need a new contact.

  Richard caught an early-evening flight back to Zurich, checked into the same hotel the following morning. Not wanting to waste any time, he showered, ate, and made his way to the house where the Arab lived, the convenient cyanide spray in his jacket pocket. There was a café across the street and down the block. Richard sat down facing the building, ordered a tea. He had a newspaper with him and he began to read it, keeping the paper high so he could watch the building. He sat there for three hours drinking teas. Nothing. He got up to leave, slowly walked past the house, reached the corner, turned and walked back and returned to the café and now ordered some food, watching, waiting—intent upon murder. Richard was a relentless, patient hunter when he had a job to do. It was as though he separated himself from reality; he could sit for hours on end just waiting.

  As it grew dark, the Arab did show up, driving a gray car, hurried inside. Richard was pleased; now he knew he was still in town. Richard finished eating, paid the check, and made his way back to the Arab’s apartment. He was planning to knock on the door and spray him in the face when he opened it. As he walked, he slipped on plastic gloves. However, when Richard was some thirty steps from the house, the Arab came hurrying down the stairs, an unlit Cohiba cigar in his mouth. There was no wind. The time seemed right. Much of successful contract killing was about timing, moving swiftly and decisively. Richard took the little spray bottle out of his pocket. The mark got into his car, and as he was bringing a lighter to the tip of his cigar, holding the flame there, puffing away, Richard was suddenly next to him—psst, a quick spray directly into the man’s face. Richard walked on as if nothing had happened; he didn’t even look back. He knew he had a bull’s-eye. It was amazing how quick and agile Richard was for such a big man. He was there, he was gone, like a puff of smoke.

  The Arab did die. When he was found and the authorities were summoned, his death was written up as a normal passing—a heart attack, just as Richard planned.

  When, later, Richard met Remi and told him that the Arab wasn’t a concern anymore, Remi was very pleased, and bewildered.

  “How,” he kept asking, “did you manage this?” his brow all creased with curiosity.

  “I arranged for him to have a heart attack,” Richard modestly said, and no more, a slight smile on his face.

  The following day, Richard opened a numbered account in Zurich, took a train to Luxembourg, opened a second account, and returned to Zurich. Now all he had to do was open a fourth account in the Cayman Islands and it would be done.

  Remi gave Richard a second check, this one for $675,000, made out to the Mercantile Corporation. Richard soon returned to the States, drove down to Georgia, and deposited this check. He went to the Cayman Islands and opened still another corporate account. Then Richard soon arranged for the funds from the second check to be transferred to the Cayman Islands account, then to the Zurich account, and finally to the Luxembourg acco
unt, creating a trail of money nearly impossible to follow. Richard next arranged for Remi and the Asian bank official to get their ends from the Luxembourg account. He then gave Spasudo his end.

  If, Richard believed, Spasudo kept coming up with viable schemes, without trouble, he’d play straight with him. Spasudo told Richard how the dealer and two of his friends had been shot to death. “It’s a dangerous world,” Richard said. Nothing more.

  Phil Solimene again called and invited Richard to the store. Richard said he’d come by “when I can.” Solimene knew he had to be very careful with Richard. If Richard sensed any kind of setup, a double cross, he’d kill Solimene in a heartbeat, Solimene knew, and so did everyone else—the state police and the ATF.

  Unbeknownst to Kane and the authorities, Richard again left for Zurich. This time he had to stay and wait for a check for nearly two weeks. He didn’t like being away from home so long, but he had no alternative. He phoned Barbara several times a day, spent a fortune on phone calls, but that didn’t matter. It got so that he missed Barbara to such a degree, wanted to make love with her so much, that he flew in, made love numerous times to his wife, and left the very next day, went back to Zurich. There were many opportunities for Richard to bed women in Zurich, Remi offered him different females, but Richard declined. “I look but don’t touch,” he told Remi.

  Richard would not cheat on Barbara. He thought that low-down and immoral, and wouldn’t do it. He had, though, no morality when it came to killing men, feeding live human beings to rats; such things, in truth, didn’t even phase him. But, infidelity, forget it. He wouldn’t do it. Perhaps that was why he could be so brutal to Barbara: he viewed her not so much as a human being with feelings, but as an object that belonged to him, and because she was an object he could do as he wished with her. Barbara recently said, When he was away, the house was…peaceful. The pressure, the tension, he brought weren’t there. Truthfully, I preferred it when he was away. The kids and I had more fun. We didn’t have to worry about him tossing over the dinner table.