The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer Read online

The men howled with laughter, except for Captain Brealy, who just looked confused and a little put off by their private joke.

  “You see, Captain,” Dominick explained, “two years ago I was working an undercover down in Monmouth County, posing as a bad guy, same as I’m doing now with Kuklinski. Well, there was this accountant down there who approached me about doing a hit for him. The guy was under investigation for the murder of his partner. He asked me if I could get rid of this investigator from the state who was on his tail. An investigator named Paul Smith.” He scowled at Paul and shook his head. “I could’ve done it and gotten paid for it. What was I thinking?”

  Paul Smith pressed his fingers to his eyes he was laughing so hard. Captain Brealy still looked puzzled.

  A big man in a dark blue suit breezed into the room then and hung his jacket over the back of the seat next to Dominick. “Sorry I’m late, gentlemen.” Deputy Attorney General Robert J. Carroll of the Division of Criminal Justice was built like a pro football player, and in fact, he had played tackle for Wake Forest. Once a street investigator for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, he had worked his way through Seton Hall University law school at night. The attorney general of New Jersey, W. Cary Edwards, considered Bob Carroll the state’s top investigative attorney. When the Kuklinski file had landed on the desk of the director of the Division of Criminal Justice, Robert T. Winter, he reviewed the case and, recognizing its importance, passed it on to Carroll for evaluation. After spending the weekend with the file, Carroll came up with several investigative possibilities, and within a month the Operation Iceman task force was formed with Bob Carroll as the man in charge.

  The deputy attorney general loosened his tie and sat down. “So what have I missed?”

  “Nothing. I just got here,” Dominick said. “Kuklinski called me again on the beeper this morning. That’s the second time in three days. He wanted to know if my source came through with the cyanide yet. I told him cyanide was a hot item right now because of the Lipton soup thing down in Camden, but I told him to hang tight, I’d get it for him.”

  Earlier that week, purely by coincidence, a New Jersey man had died of cyanide poisoning. Traces of the poison were found in the Lipton instant chicken noodle soup he had eaten for lunch. The story had been all over the papers, and the timing was perfect for Dominick. It gave him a good excuse for not being able to get Kuklinski the cyanide he wanted right away. But Dominick knew he wouldn’t be able to put the guy off indefinitely.

  Bob Carroll pulled a yellow legal pad out of his briefcase and started to take notes. “Did you discuss anything else?”

  “I told him I would also get him the coke he wanted, but I was all tied up right now getting guns and shit for my big customer. He told me he was gonna be talking to his source today to see if he could get me the kind of arms I need. He promised to get back to me. I asked him if I could get in touch with him at the number he beeped me with. He said I could use that number, but that I should be careful what I say when I call him.”

  Dominick looked from Bob Carroll to Bobby Buccino. “Now what have you decided about the cyanide? If I keep making excuses, he’ll think I’m a bullshitter and that’ll be the end of that. He’ll disappear. I’ve gotta give him something.”

  Buccino’s smile flipped over, and he shook his head. “Can’t give him the real thing. No way. He’ll use it.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t give him fake stuff either,” Paul Smith pointed out. “He’s used it before. He knows what cyanide’s like. He may know it’s bogus the minute he sees it.”

  Ron Donahue gave Paul Smith a sour look. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Paulie? You can’t give Kuklinski the real stuff. What if he tries to use it on Dominick?”

  “Yeah, but if we give him a fake and he finds out, we’ll lose him,” Smith said. “Then again, if we give him nothing, we may still lose him.”

  Captain Brealy extended two fingers in order to be recognized. “May I suggest something? We have several qualified undercover people in the state police. Let’s introduce one of our people to Kuklinski, say, as Dominick’s cyanide contact. It would ease some of the pressure of having to make excuses to the man, and it would give us the security of having two men.…”

  Dominick tuned the captain out. He had been afraid of this. Cooperation between law enforcement agencies was almost unheard of, and Operation Iceman was a very unusual three-way marriage, two state agencies with a federal agent by himself out on the line. But Dominick had a feeling something like this would happen sooner or later. Someone would decide that he needed “help” with the undercover end.

  “Frankly, Captain,” Dominick said, “introducing a new man to Kuklinski wouldn’t be a very good idea at this point. I just met the guy. We know he’s very cautious. If I try to introduce somebody new to him now, he’ll back off. We’ll lose him.”

  Captain Brealy raised one eyebrow. “You don’t know that for sure. You say Kuklinski is desperate for cyanide. If he’s that desperate, I think he’ll deal with a new person.”

  Dominick bit his tongue before he said something he’d regret. “Captain, with all due respect, I’ve been doing undercover work for a very long time. I know what it’s like out there and I know how bad guys think. Kuklinski may be desperate for cyanide, but he’s not stupid. The man has been an active killer for at least six years. No matter how badly he needs the poison, self-preservation is his highest priority. If he gets suspicious because all of a sudden there are too many new faces in his life, I’ll lose him, and I won’t get him back. I guarantee it.”

  The captain leaned forward on his elbow and fixed Dominick with a stare like a bald eagle. “You seem awfully confident of your instincts.” He shifted his gaze to the deputy attorney general. “It seems awfully foolhardy to hinge an entire operation on one man’s gut feelings.”

  Bob Carroll started to explain why Dominick had been specially recruited for this job, how his unique undercover abilities had been invaluable in the arrests and convictions of dozens of Mafia members over the years.

  But Dominick was only half listening. Obviously Captain Brealy did not believe that Dominick Polifrone was any different from any other undercover agent. He had to be convinced that Dominick actually was unique. Dominick stared the captain in the eye and became “Michael Dominick Provenzano.”

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” he said, interrupting Bob Carroll. “With all due respect, sir, I think there’s something you don’t understand here. Richie Kuklinski is a motherfucker, a cocksucking motherfucker. He kills people the way the rest of us go take a shit. He just does it, doesn’t even think about it. It’s his right. That’s how he thinks. If he wants something bad enough, he’ll fuck you, he’ll fuck me, he’ll fuck anybody he has to to get it. He also thinks a lot of himself. He thinks he’s hot shit. So if he doesn’t respect you, he won’t bother with you. And to get Richie Kuklinski’s respect, you gotta be a motherfucker just like him. No, worse.”

  Captain Brealy was sitting back in his seat, stunned. All cops curse to one extent or another in order to assert themselves, but Dominick Polifrone was the master of the ballistic “fuck.” Normally he didn’t like to curse, but when he had to, he could use the word like a weapon. When he cursed, you felt as if you’d been whacked in the chest with a lead pipe.

  The room fell silent. Bob Carroll was tapping his pen against his lips. Paul Smith was struggling to contain his grin. The captain coughed into his fist. He looked as if he were about to respond to Dominick when someone’s beeper suddenly went off.

  “It’s mine,” Dominick said, pulling the small device out of the pocket of his leather jacket. He looked at the phone number on the LCD readout. “It’s Richie,” he said. “The home number.”

  “There’s a phone right there,” Captain Brealy said, nodding to the sideboard behind Dominick. “Call him.”

  Dominick shook his head. “Let him wait.”

  The captain’s eyes shot open. “Let him wait? You’ll lose him, for God’s sake.
Call him back.”

  “No. I’m not gonna suck up to him. He has to come to me.”

  Captain Brealy frowned and looked to Bob Carroll. “Is this how your office plans to run this investigation?”

  The deputy attorney general tucked in his chin and blew out his cheeks. He looked sideways at Dominick. “Maybe you could—”

  Dominick held up his hand and cut him off. “Lemme tell you something, Captain. The name of this game is control. If I go running to him every time he calls, he’s gonna think I’m bullshit. And once he thinks that, he’s not gonna want anything to do with me. That’s why he’s got to come to me. I’ve gotta call the shots. Not him. I have to maintain control over him, not the other way around.”

  Captain Brealy focused on Bob Carroll. “Who’s running this investigation, Mr. Carroll? I wasn’t aware that ATF was running the show.”

  “This is a joint effort, Captain. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is participating, not supervising.”

  “It doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  Bob Carroll sat back in his chair and said nothing for a moment. His face was placid but determined, the defensive tackle waiting for the snap. “I have every confidence in Agent Polifrone’s abilities, Captain. I plan to rely on his expertise as far as the undercover phase of this investigation goes.”

  Captain Brealy didn’t back down. “Well, I’m beginning to question the federal agent’s judgment. I’m going to have to call my headquarters in Trenton and see what they decide.”

  “You can call anywhere you want, Captain, but this decision will be made in this room. And it’s already been made,” Carroll said.

  Brealy glared at the deputy attorney general as he pointed at the beeper in Dominick’s hand. “The target has made contact. I believe we should respond.”

  Dominick tossed the beeper down onto the table and looked at Brealy. “I do plan to respond, Captain. But not now. Richie’s gonna wait until I’m ready to talk to him.”

  Captain Brealy frowned at Dominick, then shot an angry glance at every man in the room. His chest was heaving. He was pissed.

  Dominick sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He wondered how long this happy marriage would last.

  It was twenty after midnight when Dominick finally got home that night, and everyone was in bed. He was too wound up to go to sleep, so he poured himself three fingers of scotch, lit a cigar, and went out on the deck. He sat down in his favorite redwood chair and stared into the woods beyond his backyard. The Polifrones lived in northern Bergen County, about five miles from Kuklinski’s home in Dumont.

  At nine-thirty Dominick had returned Kuklinski’s call from the Organized Crime Bureau offices in Fairfield. Kuklinski said he wanted to get together to discuss the arms deal. He wanted to meet tomorrow at the Vince Lombardi Service Area off the New Jersey Turnpike in Ridgefield. Dominick told him he couldn’t make it, he was busy. Kuklinski told Dominick he’d bring his source, who would tell him just what kind of weapons he could get. Dominick repeated that he was too busy right now. He told Kuklinski to call him over the weekend.

  Dominick drew on his cigar. Kuklinski was baiting the hook, offering to introduce him to his gun source. Dominick knew better than to bite at that one. Why would Kuklinski link him up with his source? Dominick could do an end run around the middleman and cut a deal directly with the source, leaving Richie out in the cold. Kuklinski was smarter than that. What he was really doing was trying to lure Dominick out. But why? And why at the Lombardi Service Area?

  At the meeting of the task force earlier that evening they hadn’t decided what to do about Richie’s request for cyanide. All they could agree on was that they would not give him the real thing. Whether Dominick would give him a fake substance or continue to stall him indefinitely was left unsettled. And that had left Dominick unsettled.

  At one time Kuklinski had his own source for cyanide, so it was possible that he could go back to that source. Dominick kept thinking about the Vince Lombardi Service Area, having coffee with Kuklinski at the Roy Rogers there, Richie sneaking cyanide in his coffee.…

  Okay, if they went for coffee, he wouldn’t let Kuklinski get the food, never. He’d watch Richie and the food from the moment it left the fast-food counter.

  But logically Kuklinski had no reason to kill him. There was no profit motive, no money to be made. Why kill Michael Dominick Provenzano, a guy with Mafia connections? Kuklinski knew better than to screw with a connected guy.

  Unless he knew that Dominick wasn’t connected. Unless he knew that Dominick was really a cop. What if Kuklinski’s old buddy Lenny DePrima from “the store” had warned him? What if DePrima was playing both sides of the fence?

  Dominick took a long sip of scotch and considered that possibility. If a wiseguy ever found out you were an undercover cop, you’d get the beating of your life, but he wouldn’t kill you, not on purpose. It was mob policy. But Richard Kuklinski might not show the same kind of restraint.

  Dominick tried not to think about what the Iceman might do to him if he ever found out who he really was. Maybe he’d freeze him like that guy from Pennsylvania. Maybe worse. Maybe a lot worse. Maybe he’d cut him up and dispose of the parts. They’d never find his body. Maybe put him in a junk car and let the crusher pack it down to the size of a steamer trunk. Maybe—

  “Dominick?”

  He jumped, spilling his drink. He looked up to see his wife, Ellen, silhouetted in the floodlights. She was in her robe, her dark hair tousled.

  “Why don’t you come to bed, Dom? It’s late.”

  Dominick’s eyes were wide open. His heart was pounding. “Yeah … I will. Soon as I finish my cigar.”

  Ellen nodded and went back inside.

  Dominick drew on his cigar and stared into the dark woods. His heart was still pounding.

  TEN

  Early in the afternoon of July 1, 1981, Louis L. Masgay left his home in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania, twenty miles south of Scranton, and headed for Little Ferry, New Jersey. Masgay, who was fifty years old, owned and operated Leisure City, a discount variety store, in nearby Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Before he left, he told his wife that he was going to New Jersey to meet a supplier who had agreed to sell him a large quantity of blank videotapes at a very good discount. To make this purchase, he was going to use all his savings in addition to a forty-five-thousand-dollar loan he had obtained from a local bank, the First National Bank of Wyoming. He was taking the money in cash, nearly a hundred thousand dollars, which he had stashed in a concealed compartment in the driver’s side door of his black 1980 Ford Carry Van. The “supplier” he was going to meet was Richard Kuklinski.

  As he backed out of his driveway that afternoon, Louis Masgay was anxious and a little apprehensive. He’d already traveled to New Jersey five times in the past month to meet Kuklinski and conclude this deal, but Kuklinski had stood him up each time. There was always a problem. Each time Masgay would come home, his van empty, and Richie would call a few days later to apologize and tell him that his connection had screwed him up again but that he had another connection who could get him more tapes, only this guy’s price was a little bit higher than the last guy so Masgay would have to bring a little more cash next time. Masgay had wanted to tell Richie to go to hell, forget about it, but even with the increase, Kuklinski’s price was still very good. Too good to pass up really. He knew he could move those tapes at his store and make a nice profit. But this was going to be Richie’s last chance. If Kuklinski stood him up this time, he would tell him to go to hell.

  Masgay’s son, Lou Junior, worked for his father and was already on his way to pick up a load in New York that day. Since they were going to be in the same area, they agreed to meet at the Golden Star Diner in Little Ferry, New Jersey, where Louis Masgay always ate when he was picking up merchandise in the northern part of that state. Lou Junior did meet his father at the diner where they had coffee together. He asked his father if he wanted any help loading the videotapes. Masgay assured his son t
hat he wouldn’t need any help and told him to head on home so he wouldn’t miss his regular bowling night.

  But Louis Masgay did not return home that night, and his wife started to worry. This was unusual for him. He always let her know if he was going to be staying away overnight so she’d know where he’d be. By midnight Mrs. Masgay had called the Forty Fort police and filed a missing persons report with Detective Henry Winters. Detective Winters asked Mrs. Masgay and her son to try to remember as many details as they could, what Mr. Masgay had said before he left, where he was going, whom he was going to see, how he appeared at the diner in New Jersey, what his mood was—anything they could think of. The next morning Detective Winters contacted the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department in New Jersey and notified them that Louis Masgay was last seen in their jurisdiction.

  Several days later Detective Winters learned that Louis Masgay’s black 1980 Ford Carry Van had been found abandoned on Route 17 North in Rochelle Park, Bergen County, New Jersey. It was found on a narrow stretch of the highway where there is no shoulder, and the van was blocking the right lane of traffic. The cab was locked, and the police had to break in to move it. They found that the primary gas tank was empty, but the secondary tank was full, leading them to suspect that whoever was driving the van did not know how to engage the reserve tank. A hidden compartment in the driver’s side door was also discovered, but it was empty.

  Detective Winters pursued the case for more than two years with little satisfaction. At times he felt that the authorities in New Jersey just weren’t very interested in pursuing the case of Louis Masgay. Except for the Masgay family and Detective Winters, no one seemed to care about the missing man.

  Then, in September 1983, a body was found in a wooded area off Causeland Mountain Road in Orangetown, New York, three miles north of the New Jersey border. The body was taken to the Office of the Rockland County Medical Examiner, where the chief ME, Dr. Frederick Zugibe, performed the autopsy.