The Iceman

by Anthony Bruno

Kuklinski pulled his car into the closest available space to the bank of telephone booths. He emerged from the car, and Dominick saw that he was wearing his street clothes—gray leather jacket over a navy blue shirt, a yellow T-shirt, and pressed blue jeans. He was wearing his dark glasses, too. The big man walked toward Dominick, avoiding the puddles and stepping over the slush at the curb. They shook hands when they met.

  “How ya doing, big guy?” Dominick said.

  “Not bad.”

  Dominick wished he could see Kuklinski’s eyes behind the glasses. He handed Kuklinski the white paper bag. “Here’s the sandwiches. The kid called me last night and again this morning. There’s no problem.”

  Kuklinski took the bag. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Where’s your friend now?”

  “He’s not far from here. I’m gonna go get him.” Dominick couldn’t read Kuklinski. He seemed reluctant, annoyed, something. Maybe this was the way he got when he was getting ready to kill. Or else he was suspicious. Dominick hoped that wasn’t the case. Just stick with the program, Rich, he thought. No improvising. Just stick with the program.

  No one wanted the Iceman to start improvising.

  “I’ll go get the kid and be back in like fifteen minutes.”

  Kuklinski nodded. “Okay. I’ll go get the van. It isn’t far from here. Just down the next exit. It’s just a ten-minute ride.”

  “What color is it, so I’ll know?”

  “Blue.”

  “Now where are you gonna park it so I can bring him right there?”

  “Right here. We might as well do it over here out of the way of everybody.” Kuklinski seemed to be getting into it. He didn’t seem so reluctant now. Dominick relaxed a bit.

  “I’ll be sitting in the driver’s seat,” Kuklinski continued. “You can’t miss it.”

  Dominick lowered his voice. “Okay, I’m gonna bring him right into the back of the van to let him test the coke.”

  “Okay.”

  “Here.” Dominick took the crumpled brown paper bag out of his pocket. “Here’s the cyanide.”

  Kuklinski took the bag and shoved it into his pocket. “Okay.”

  “You got enough shit there to take care of Hackensack and Paterson. Now I’m gonna bring him back in his car, so afterward I’ll take care of the car while you get rid of him. Where you gonna put him?”

  “I’m gonna put him away … for safekeeping.”

  Dominick wished to hell he could see Kuklinski’s eyes. He couldn’t tell if the Iceman was being funny or evasive or what.

  “Okay, everything’s all set, right?” Then Dominick made believe he just remembered something. “You got a pair of gloves for me? I didn’t bring none.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll give you a pair.” He nodded toward his car, and they started walking across the slushy lot.

  “Fucking cold,” Kuklinski commented as he zipped up his jacket.

  “I know.” Dominick was thinking about Bob Carroll’s last instructions. He should try to get Kuklinski to say that he intended to commit murder. Dominick looked at the bag with the sandwiches in Kuklinski’s hand. “Whattaya gonna do? Put it on the food—”

  “Yeah.”

  Dominick wanted Kuklinski to elaborate, but he wasn’t going to push it. Not at this point. Not when he couldn’t see his eyes.

  Kuklinski pulled out his keys and unlocked the trunk of his car. He put the sandwiches and the brown bag with the bottle of quinine in and started poking around, looking for a pair of gloves for Dominick. He couldn’t find any. “I’ll get you a pair. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you what. When you come back with the van, go get three coffees. I’ll pull up back over here somewhere.” Dominick pointed to a row of empty slots on the far side of the telephone booths.

  Kuklinski shut the trunk. “You’ll see the van right away. It’s a conversion van, all dressed up. Two-tone blue. Light blue and dark blue. You won’t miss it.”

  “Okay, how long will it take you to get back here?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “All right. I’ll be back in exactly half an hour.”

  “When I see you come in, I’ll go in and get the coffees. Then I’ll come out and …” Kuklinski let his words trail off.

  “Right.”

  Dominick wished Kuklinski would come right out and say it, but he knew from experience that bad guys rarely do that. He didn’t think Kuklinski was on to him, though. This just seemed like his normal degree of caution. Normal for a killer, that is.

  Kuklinski got back into his car and started the engine as Dominick walked toward his black Lincoln. As Kuklinski backed out of his space, Dominick waved, then turned away as he spoke out loud for the transmitter. “All right, boys, you got the choice here. You can take him now or wait till he comes back and take him with the van. I suggest we let him go and come back. Let him go get the van.”

  Arresting him with the sandwiches and the simulated cyanide would be fine, but it would be much better if they waited until he actually put the “poison” on the sandwiches. Dominick got into his car and looked at his watch. It was five of nine.

  Through the windshield Dominick saw a heavyset man in his early fifties inside one of the phone booths. It was Deputy Chief Bobby Buccino. He was pretending to be on the phone, but in fact, he had an earplug in his covered ear, and he was listening in on Dominick’s transmissions. A folded newspaper was taped over his hand. Inside the newspaper he was holding a 9mm automatic. He’d been there the whole time Dominick and Kuklinski had been there.

  In the rearview mirror Dominick could see the unmarked black van where three heavily armed troopers—Detectives Ernie Volkman, Pat Kane, and Dennis Vecchiarelli—were waiting. Ron Donahue was also back there somewhere in another car. Other investigators from the Attorney General’s Office and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms were scattered around the area. Dominick’s best friend, Lieutenant Alan Grieco of the Bergen County Homicide Unit, was back there, too. A plainclothes trooper with a shotgun and another one with an assault rifle were at separate positions nearby. Uniformed state troopers were parked along the turnpike near the entrance ramps in case additional backups were needed. When Kuklinski returned, they’d hit him hard and fast. If it all went down the way they’d planned it, there’d be no opportunity for accidents or unpredictable behavior. No improvising.

  Dominick turned the key in the ignition and put the Shark into gear. He had to go get the “rich Jewish kid.” It wouldn’t be long now.

  THIRTY ONE

  9:45 A.M.

  An hour later, as the arrest team waited for Richard Kuklinski’s return at the Vince Lombardi Service Area, Barbara Kuklinski sat in her living room, her eyes closed and a hand over her forehead. She felt miserable. She had a headache and a fever, but she didn’t think it was the flu or a cold. The damp, chilly weather had probably aggravated her arthritis, and fever was usually the first symptom. She’d already called her doctor and made an appointment to have her SED rate taken to check for signs of infection in her bloodstream. It would confirm what she already suspected.

  She opened her eyes and stared blankly at the unlit Christmas tree, the colored balls and tinseled garland shining dully in the gray morning light. She didn’t want to be sick for Christmas. The kids always got so excited, even now that they were older. It was the one holiday she loved most.

  She got up and went to the window. Looking through the curtain, she saw Richard outside, hunched over the open trunk of the Calais. He was doing something in the trunk, but she couldn’t see what because the lid was blocking her view. She wondered why he’d decided to come back home. He had left the house early that morning, and normally he would have been gone for at least a few more hours.

  Richard had called her a little while ago from the Grand Union on the other side of town to ask her if she wanted to go out for breakfast. He’d said he was picking up a few things that Dwayne had wanted, pasta and cookie
s. She’d told him how awful she felt and that she’d called the doctor, so he offered to make breakfast for them at home instead. He’d hung up before she could object. When Richard cooked, he cooked for an army. The cleanup after he was through was hardly worth the effort. Hanging up the phone, she’d changed her mind and decided to go out to breakfast despite her fever. She could go straight to the doctor’s office from there. The thought of dealing with Richard’s mess in the kitchen made her weary. Sometimes it was just easier to go along with what he wanted than to argue with him.

  She parted the curtain for a better view but saw only the top of her husband’s head behind the open trunk. Whatever he was doing, he was awfully busy doing it. She sighed and closed her eyes. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to ask. She was in no mood for a fight.

  While Barbara Kuklinski watched her husband from her living-room window, Detectives Thomas Trainor and Denny Cortez of the New Jersey State Police were also watching him. They had been assigned to monitor the Kuklinski residence in Dumont that morning. At 9:20, Detective Cortez had driven their unmarked car past the house at 169 Sunset Street. Sitting in the passenger seat, Detective Trainor saw no sign of Richard Kuklinski or the red Oldsmobile Calais at that time. Cruising the neighborhood and staying out of sight so as not to be obvious, they returned twenty-five minutes later and could now see Richard Kuklinski standing in the driveway, leaning over the open trunk of the red Oldsmobile he’d been driving that morning. Not wanting to be spotted by Kuklinski, they circled the block and parked far enough up the street from the cedar shake split-level so as not to be seen. Trainor radioed the arrest team at the Vince Lombardi Service Area to report that Kuklinski was back home, doing something they could not identify in the trunk of the red car.

  The Shark was parked at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, a mile north of the Lombardi Service Area. Dominick Polifrone was standing outside at a pay phone, the receiver clamped on his shoulder so he could keep his hands warm in his pockets. He was talking to Deputy Chief Buccino, who was still at the service area. “So where the hell is he, Bobby?”

  “We don’t know yet, Dom. I’m waiting to hear.”

  Buccino was in charge of the arrest, and he was the one calling the shots. Dominick had worked with him before, and he knew that Bobby Buccino was the kind of no-nonsense field commander who led from the front lines. With twenty-five years in law enforcement under his belt, he was no one’s jolly uncle at times like this. The deputy chief’s goal for the day was clear: Arrest the suspect and make sure no one gets hurt.

  “Where’s Paul?” Dominick asked.

  “He’s on the road, waiting to hear. Just like the rest of us.”

  “You think Richie knows?”

  “I don’t know.” Buccino’s voice was terse. If he was frustrated, he wasn’t showing it.

  Dominick was trying not to be frustrated. He kept telling himself that this really wasn’t a problem, that they’d catch up with Kuklinski later on, no problem. Still, he was worried. Kuklinski was improvising, and that could mean trouble. Sure, they already had a mountain of evidence to use against him: the Nagra tapes of him talking about killing with cyanide; his intentions to kill the pointer, Percy House; his admission that he had frozen one of his victims and kept him on ice for more than two years as an experiment; his plan to set up an illegal arms sale with “Tim.” They also had the .22-caliber pistol fitted with a silencer that Kuklinski had sold to Dominick. They had plenty of evidence to nail this guy, so it really didn’t matter whether or not they caught him red-handed with a “poisoned” egg sandwich. So what if they didn’t get the big finale the way they’d planned it? That didn’t matter. What was really bothering Dominick was the fact that Kuklinski was out there improvising. There was no telling what he was up to now.

  “Why don’t I call him up?” Dominick suggested. “I’ll find out what went wrong and try to set it up again for tomorrow—”

  “Do you really think he’ll go for the rich kid thing again? How will you explain it to him? Logically how long could you keep this kid hanging? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah … You’re probably right.” Dominick stuck his free hand under his armpit. He was freezing out there in the cold.

  Then something suddenly occurred to him. He remembered Kuklinski talking about the nest egg he had stashed overseas. Probably in Switzerland. What if he really was on to them? He could hop on a plane and flee to Switzerland and live happy as a clam off his nest egg.

  “Bobby, have you checked the airports—”

  “Hang on a minute, Dom.”

  Dominick heard other voices on the other end of the line, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. All he could hear was Buccino’s voice giving orders. He was telling them to go, go, the arrest was on.

  “Bobby! Bobby, what happened?”

  “Kuklinski’s at home. Trainor and Cortez just spotted him. They just called it in. We’re gonna take him down there.”

  “What about the van? Does he have the blue van with him?”

  “I don’t think so. I gotta go now, Dom.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at the house—”

  “No,” Buccino ordered. “You go back to the courthouse in Hackensack and wait for us.”

  “But, I can—”

  “No,” Buccino barked. “I don’t want you at Kuklinski’s house. You’re not supposed to know where he lives. If he spots you there, he’ll know something’s up, and I don’t want a shoot-out in the middle of the street. You stay away.”

  Bobby Buccino hung up, and Dominick was left listening to the dial tone. He knew Buccino was right, he should stay away, but he couldn’t help feeling left out. After all the time he’d put into this thing, he was going to miss the arrest. It wasn’t that he wasn’t going to “get the collar.” That was television bullshit. This was a shared operation, and that had been understood from the very beginning. The glory belonged to everyone. What he regretted was that he wasn’t going to see the look on Richie’s face when he found out that “Dominick Provenzano” was really a cop. Dominick knew it was going to be a priceless moment, but unfortunately he was going to have to find out about it secondhand.

  As he walked back to the Shark and blew into his cold fingers, he could see the flashing dome lights on the highway in the distance as the arrest team sped off toward Dumont. He got into the car, started the engine, and just sat there for a moment, thinking, wondering where Richie had the blue van stashed, wondering why he hadn’t come back, wondering what the hell he was up to.

  As he put the car into reverse and backed out of the space, he realized that all that didn’t really matter because in a half hour they’d have him in handcuffs. He still wished he could see Richie’s face when they took him down, though, even if it was from the back of the crowd. He could stay out of sight. No one would ever know he was there. It would be a shame to miss the arrest after all he’d gone through with this investigation. A damn shame …

  THIRTY TWO

  10:45 A.M.

  The only thing Barbara Kuklinski could think about as she got into the red car was getting through breakfast and getting to the doctor. She felt weak and listless, and the fever wasn’t going away.

  Richard got in on the driver’s side and looked at her. “You sure you don’t want to stay home and let me make something?”

  She shook her head. “No. Let’s just go, so I can see the doctor.”

  He started the car but didn’t put it in gear right away. When she looked up, she caught him staring at her. His expression was strange. She couldn’t tell if he was concerned or angry at her. “Let’s go, Rich,” she said gently. “I’ve got an appointment.”

  He put the Calais into gear and backed out of the driveway. She glanced sideways at his profile. She couldn’t figure out if this was the good Richard or the bad Richard.

  As he pulled out onto Sunset Street and headed toward the end of the block, she noticed the Christmas decorations on the neighbors’ houses and worr
ied about the upcoming holidays. Richard hated Christmas. It always made him surly and suspicious because it reminded him of all the things he hadn’t had as a child. She worried that he wouldn’t keep his black mood to himself this year and that he’d ruin the holidays for her and the kids.

  She looked at him again as he signaled to turn left at the end of the block. “Rich?” she said.

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “Do you want—”

  Suddenly a big black shape appeared right in front of them. A black van was coming straight at them.

  “Rich! Look out!”

  The van’s brakes screeched, and it swerved right into their path, blocking the road ahead. Barbara felt the pull of their car as her husband stomped on the brakes. Her heart was pounding. Her only thought was that the driver had just had a heart attack, that he’d lost control of the van and was going to plow right into them. But when she saw three men jumping out of the van with weapons drawn and pointed at them, she didn’t know what to think.

  “Oh, God! Rich! What’s going on?”

  Her husband grumbled something under his breath, but she was too scared to understand what he was saying.

  Investigator Paul Smith didn’t wait for ATF Special Agent Ray Goger to stop the car they were in before he jumped out. They had just cruised by the Kuklinski house and seen Richard Kuklinski getting into the red Oldsmobile. Smith, who was in constant radio contact with the black van, had given the order: “Go! Take him! Take him down!”

  As more cars arrived on the scene and plainclothes officers spilled into the street, Paul Smith drew his gun and led the pack running down the street toward the black van to assist with the arrest. His boss, Deputy Chief Bobby Buccino, was a few feet behind him.

  Suddenly Smith heard the unexpected screech of spinning tires. Up ahead the red Oldsmobile Calais was mounting the curb, doing an end run around the black van. The Calais ran over a lawn, then bounced back into the street, metal scraping the pavement and tires smoking. The engine roared.