by Philip Carlo
Barbara was concerned about her husband. He had become more and more distant. He was not the same man anymore. He hadn’t lost his temper or raised his voice once for many weeks. Strange.
It was, she decided, the quiet before the storm. Something was brewing; something was in the air; she just didn’t know what it was. Rather than worry, she focused her energy on preparing for Christmas, shopping, buying gifts—spending money, one of her favorite pastimes.
Again, at Bob Carroll’s insistence, Polifrone contacted Richard and told him he had the coke buyer all set up; everything was “a go,” and the cyanide was forthcoming. Another meeting at the Lombardi rest stop was set up.
Richard’s reservations about Polifrone were outweighed by two considerations: getting his hands on cyanide to properly kill Pat Kane, and taking off this rich Jewish kid, keeping all the money, and finally getting rid of Polifrone and his bad wig once and for all. It all fit together perfectly. To some degree the fact that Polifrone had been laid-back, hadn’t chased Richard, made him believe Polifrone might very well get the cyanide; have access to a rich kid looking to buy coke: after all, coke was the in drug. Almost everyone was doing it, even mob guys, and all the hip, fancy people.
This third meeting between Richard and Polifrone took place on December 12. It had snowed a few days earlier, and the rest stop was pocked with mounds of dirty snow. Richard showed up on time, at 11:00 A.M.
Polifrone said: “Listen to this. The Jewish kid asked me if I can get him three kilos. I said yeah, of course. Eighty-five thousand, cash. Wednesday morning he’s coming. He’ll be here around nine fuckin’ thirty. Now here’s the thing. I’ll pick up the cyanide that morning from my guy.”
“Doesn’t give me enough time. I need a couple of days to get it ready.” Richard went on to describe how he had to have a chemist mix a special liquid—the DSMO—with the cyanide. That would take a few days. Such a thing couldn’t be rushed.
Polifrone, wanting to move this thing forward and finally have Richard arrested, suggested they instead give the coke buyer “an egg sandwich” and kill him that way. He went on to say the Jewish kid loved egg sandwiches, was always ordering them.
“But will the kid eat?” Richard asked.
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Then that’ll work.”
“Guaranteed. It’ll be an egg sandwich. Every time I meet this kid, he orders an egg sandwich. We’ll get him an egg sandwich.”
“We can do that. Do they sell egg sandwiches here? I don’t even know if they do.”
Polifrone took care of this by saying he’d bring the egg sandwich, and the vial of cyanide.
This should have set off alarms in Richard’s head—giving the coke buyer an egg sandwich Polifrone would bring—but it didn’t. He seemed to accept what Polifrone was laying down. For him, none of this really mattered, though: in his mind both Polifrone and the coke buyer were going to die. Simple. He’d shoot them both in the head with a .22 equipped with a silencer, the same type of weapon he had sold to Polifrone weeks earlier.
That evening there was still another meeting in the war room at the attorney general’s office. The task force sat around the large table listening to the most recent tape and debating how to bring the case to a close. The final act of this drama was about to unfold, they all knew, one way or another. The question was what was the best way to finally arrest Richard. Bob Carroll suggested that they use an apartment and get Kuklinski on film actually giving the coke buyer—Detective Paul Smith—the cyanide-laced egg sandwich.
Smith didn’t like this idea at all. “What if he just decides to pull out a gun and shoot me—and Dom?”
He had a point.
It was decided, therefore, that the final act would play out at the Lombardi rest stop.
Polifrone contacted Richard the following day. The deal would go down, it was agreed, on Wednesday, December 17. He would bring the coke buyer to the Lombardi stop. Richard said he’d get a van so they could get the kid in the van. Polifrone said he’d meet with Richard earlier and give him three egg sandwiches and a vial of cyanide (actually harmless white powder), which Richard would use to poison the coke buyer’s sandwich as he saw fit.
For Richard the sandwich had become irrelevant nonsense; as soon as the coke buyer and Polifrone were in the van, Richard was going to kill them. End of story. He planned to borrow a van from Jimmy DiVita, a small-time hustler from New London, Connecticut. He would take the bodies to Pennsylvania and dump them in an abandoned mine shaft.
To humor Polifrone and play out the sting, Richard agreed to meet him early Wednesday morning, December 17, to get the egg sandwiches and cyanide. The cyanide he’d use to kill Pat Kane. That was Richard’s plan.
53
With a Wiggle
It was December 17, 1986, a day that would live in infamy.
As usual, Richard was up early. He had coffee and toast and sat in the living room staring at the floor, wondering if he should go meet Polifrone or not. He had, he says, an uncomfortable feeling about this whole setup; but he decided he’d see how it went. After all, he reasoned, he’d put so much time into this thing already, he might as well see how it played out. He stood up, put on a waist-length black jacket, and headed out the door. Barbara wasn’t feeling well and was still in bed.
At 8:45 A.M., ATF Agent Dominick Polifrone was standing at the usual spot in front of the bank of the phones at the Lombardi rest stop. It was a bitterly cold day. Frigid winds tore across the rest area. People hurried to and from their cars to one of the six fast-food outlets. The sky was filled with churning, angry clouds that seemed at war with one another; traffic whizzed by; planes roared low overhead.
Polifrone had a white paper bag in his hand. It contained three egg sandwiches. In the pocket of his coat he had a thumb-sized glass vial, the supposed cyanide, which would be used to poison one of the sandwiches. Polifrone was armed to the teeth, wired up. Task-force detectives monitored his every move. Everyone was tense. This was it. This was D-day. This was the day it would go down. Everyone knew Richard was lethal—definitely armed, wouldn’t hesitate to kill. Polifrone looked forward to getting this done once and for all. He’d been on this cursed case now for nearly nineteen months. He was tired of it, tired of the bullshit, tired of the Ice Man task force, tired of walking on the edge. He stared at the access road and spotted Richard’s Oldsmobile Calais with Richard’s unmistakable, huge form behind the wheel.
“There he is,” he whispered, his words instantly transmitted to all the members of the task force. Pat Kane, Bob Carroll, Paul Smith, and Ron Donahue were hidden in a dark Chevy van with tinted windows and had a clear view of Polifrone.
Pat Kane could barely sleep the night before. All his effort, all his sweat and tears and sleepless nights, were finally paying off. He had never believed this day would come, but it was here. Richard Kuklinski would soon be behind bars, or dead. Those were the only two options. Bob Carroll had promised him that when the time came to arrest Kuklinski, he, Pat Kane, could do it—tell him he was under arrest and actually put the cuffs on him. This would be the highlight of Kane’s career, his life. As he lay in bed thinking about what would happen, he prayed—gave thanks for the help he was sure God had given him, given Polifrone and the task force, given Bob Carroll. Kane was sure God’s hand had played an integral role in all this, in all that would happen. Surely God, he believed, had provided Dominick Polifrone. As far as he was concerned, Richard Kuklinski was an instrument of Satan himself, and now, finally, he would be getting his due.
“How you doin’, Dom?” Richard asked as he approached.
“Good. I spoke to the kid last night. It’s all set. Here’s the sandwiches. I’ll go get him and be back in fifteen minutes.” Richard took the bag.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Polifrone assured. He didn’t like the way Richard was acting; he seemed distant…wary. “I’ll go get the kid and be back in fifteen minutes.”
“Oka
y. I’ll go get the van. It isn’t far from here. Just down the next exit. It’s just a ten-minute ride,” Richard said.
“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. I’ll be sitting in the driver’s seat. You can’t miss it.”
“Okay, I’m gonna bring him right into the back of the van to let him test the coke.”
“Okay.”
Polifrone now took a small bag out of his jacket pocket. “Here’s the cyanide,” he said, amplifying the word “cyanide” loud and clear so it would certainly be recorded. Polifrone said there was enough of the deadly poison to kill a lot of people. He asked where Richard was going to get rid of the coke buyer’s body.
“I’m going to put it away for safekeeping,” he said, and laughed. It was an ice-cold laugh filled with malice, no mirth, his breath fogging in the cold. Richard now spotted the task force black van with the tinted windows. Something wasn’t right about it…was hinky, he would later explain.
“Let’s walk,” Richard said, and started across the lot, right to the van. They saw him coming; all quickly got down.
“Where you going?” Polifrone asked, concerned, his hand moving toward his piece.
“Just to walk a little,” Richard said. He got up to the van and actually looked inside. He couldn’t see anything. Now he started back toward his car, Polifrone following him, trying to get Richard to use the word “murder.” Richard opened his trunk and put the sandwiches inside, got in his car, and started the engine. He assured Polifrone he’d be back with the van, said it was two toned, light and dark blue. Richard’s plan was to come back in his car, and if the rich Jewish kid was there, he’d say the van wouldn’t start, the coke was in his warehouse, and they should follow him there. Once inside the warehouse, Richard would kill both Polifrone and the coke buyer. Richard had, in fact, tried to borrow a van the day before from Jimmy DiVita, but his van had too many windows. Anyway, the warehouse would be a better place to do the double homicide. Richard said he’d be back in twenty minutes. Polifrone said he’d be back with the coke buyer in exactly thirty minutes. Richard pulled away. As he went, he passed the bank of phones. In one was Deputy Chief Bob Buccino, making believe he was talking. He’d been listening to every word said. He had a nine-millimeter wrapped in a newspaper, was ready to blow Richard away. The chief truly hated Richard and was looking for an excuse to end it all right there, no long, expensive trial.
They could have arrested Richard there and then, but Bob Carroll wanted Richard to put the white powder on the sandwich and actually give it to Detective Paul Smith; that, he felt, would strengthen the case, tie Kuklinski directly to the murder of Gary Smith. When Richard returned they’d nail him “red-handed.” The parking lot was saturated with attorney general’s people and ATF and FBI agents, all ready to pounce, to bring down this serial killer who poisoned, shot, and stabbed people with impunity, as though he had some divine right.
Richard drove out of the rest stop. He went a half mile down the road, pulled over, put on plastic gloves, and carefully opened the vial. It didn’t look, he immediately thought, like cyanide. He ever so carefully sniffed the air—no distinct scent of almonds, the odor of cyanide.
This is fuckin’ bullshit! he thought, and sat there wondering what was up, more perplexed than anything else. He put the car back in gear and drove a ways, spotted a mangy dog sniffing around a group of garbage pails. He pulled into a restaurant, bought a hamburger, took it to the car, carefully—just in case—put some of the white powder on the burger, and walked over to the large rust-colored mutt. The dog smelled the meat, and his ears perked right up. Richard offered it the burger. With trepidation, as though he’d been tricked before, the dog took the burger and quickly gobbled it down as Richard curiously watched to see what would happen, his head tilted to the left with curiosity.
Happy, the dog moved off down the road, wagging its scrawny tail as it went.
Fucking liar! Richard thought. He didn’t yet know what the hell Polifrone was up to, but he wanted nothing more to do with it, whatever it was. He began thinking that Polifrone was maybe a contract killer who was, in fact, trying to set him up.
“Fuck ’im,” Richard said out loud, and drove to a phone booth and called Barbara to see how she felt. For the last two days her arthritis had been acting up, and she had a slight headache and a low-grade fever.
“I’m okay. I’m lying down,” she said.
“Would you like to go for breakfast?” he asked.
“Sure, I guess…okay.”
“I’m going to stop and pick up some things at the store and then come home.”
“Fine,” she said, and hung up. Richard drove over to the Grand Union and bought some groceries. As always, he bought more than was actually needed; one of Richard’s biggest pleasures in life was providing well for his family. He left the Grand Union with four big bags brimming with groceries, put them in the trunk, slid into his car, and slowly drove home, unaware of the gathering law-enforcement storm.
State detectives Tommy Trainer and Denny Cortez were watching the Kuklinski home that morning. That was their assignment. Every twenty minutes or so they cruised past the split-level Kuklinski residence. It was a damp, very chilly day. The sky was a mass of angry clouds the color of gunpowder. The promise of snow hung in the air. Christmas was just around the corner and all hell was about to break loose on this quiet Dumont street.
Close to 10:00 that morning Cortez and Trainer drove past the house and there was Richard in the driveway, taking the four bags of groceries from the car’s trunk.
Shocked to see him just suddenly there like that, not at the rest stop where he was supposed to be, they called the task force, who were equally shocked to learn that Richard was in Dumont. He obviously wasn’t planning on coming back to the Lombardi rest stop. Richard saw the two detectives cruise by, giving him the hairy eyeball. He wondered why they were staring so intently at him. He did not connect these men to Polifrone—kind of strange, given his suspicious nature.
Deputy Chief Bob Buccino was running the show that morning. He now ordered the strike force to go to Richard’s home and arrest Richard there, and they all started toward Dumont, over fifteen unmarked vehicles, sirens screaming, red lights frantically spinning. More than anything, Buccino wanted to avoid a shoot-out on the residential street. He assumed Richard had all kinds of heavy-duty weapons in the house—assault rifles with armor-piercing rounds, hand grenades, dynamite, God knew what else. Fearing Richard had contacts in the Dumont police force, Buccino did not tell the Dumont police what was about to happen, a courtesy normally given to the local cops when a big bust was about to go down.
Richard put the groceries on the kitchen counter and began to unpack and put them away. Barbara, feeling weak, a bit pale, only hoped she wasn’t sick for the holidays, the putting up of the tree, all the cooking, the joyful opening of presents. As she watched Richard stow the groceries, she thought about how kind and good he could be when he wanted to, how mean and sadistic he could be at other times. There were, she was thinking, more sure than ever, two Richards. She had married two men.
“Ready, Lady?” he asked.
“Ready,” she said.
By now Richard had forgotten about Polifrone. He had washed his hands of him, would never have anything to do with him again. He planned to call Phil Solimene after breakfast and tell him how Polifrone was full of shit, and ask why the fuck he would vouch for such a jive-ass blowhard. Richard used the bathroom. Barbara slowly slipped on a blue goose-down ski jacket Richard had recently bought her. It was nice and warm but had one of those zippers that went diagonally across the front, from left to right. The zipper often became stuck when she tried to close it, as it did now. She asked Richard to close it for her. She didn’t want to get a chill. Using his pliers-like grip, he easily manage
d to zip the jacket closed. As mean and violent as Richard could be to Barbara, he loved her dearly. She was the only woman he’d ever loved, and he held her in high esteem, thought the world of her.
“After we eat, I’m taking you to the doctor,” he said.
“That’s not necessary. I just need rest, Richard.”
“Yeah, well let the doctor take a look at you,” he insisted.
She didn’t answer. She was in no mood to argue. She just wanted a nice breakfast, scrambled eggs with bacon that had “a little wiggle,” as she put it, not too well done. They headed for the door. He opened it for her.
By now the strike force had reached Dumont and had gathered on the south end of Sunset Street just down the block. Deputy Chief Buccino, the detectives, and the agents were discussing what was the best way to take Richard down. As they spoke, one of the agents spotted Richard and Barbara leaving the house and getting in the car.
“He’s coming!” he shouted. “He’s with his wife!” he added.
They all hurried back to their vehicles and got ready to pounce.
Detective Pat Kane was pumped up. Now, finally, Richard was going down. All his work had paid off. This was it. The moment he’d been hoping for, praying for, was finally here.
Polifrone wasn’t there. He’d gone to the courthouse in Hackensack at Buccino’s request.
After Richard helped Barbara into the car, he got behind the wheel, started the car, and drove right toward the gathered strike force, completely unaware he was driving into the proverbial hornet’s nest and then some. Richard had a .25 automatic under the seat. The strike force was armed with machine guns and shotguns. As he slowly made his way south along the street where he had lived seventeen years, he spotted the strike-force vehicles haphazardly lined up.