The Iceman Page 20

  Barbara put herself between Matt and the detectives. “He’s my daughter’s boyfriend if that’s any business of yours. Now what I want to know is what you’re doing here.”

  Volkman suddenly looked grim. “I told you, Mrs. Kuklinski. We need to talk to your husband.”

  “No, you didn’t tell me, Detective. What do you want to talk to him about?”

  Kane answered. “We need to question him regarding a number of murders.”

  “What?”

  “When do you expect your husband to return, Mrs. Kuklinski?”

  The last question didn’t register. “A number of murders” was still echoing in her ears. Those words and Shaba’s barking were the only things she could hear.

  “Mom? What’s going on, Mom?”

  The trembling in Christen’s voice struck a nerve. Her family, her home was being invaded. A mother’s instinct is to protect her children from harm, and Barbara immediately lashed out.

  “Get out!”

  “Mrs. Kuklinski—”

  “Get off my property!” she demanded.

  “Mrs. Kuklinski, if you let me ex—”

  “Show me a warrant or get the hell out of here. Get out!”

  “Mrs.—”

  “Christen,” she yelled, “let the dog go.”

  Shaba was agitated, barking and straining at the collar, baring his teeth. Christen could just barely control him. “But, Mom—”

  “Let Shaba go, I said.”

  But Christen wouldn’t let go of the dog’s collar. The two detectives just stood there, staring at the big black dog, waiting for something to happen.

  When it became obvious that the young woman wasn’t going to release the dog, Detective Volkman pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Mrs. Kuklinski, when your husband comes home, please have him call me.”

  Barbara Kuklinski just stared at the card in her hand. Murder? She didn’t believe this was happening.

  The two detectives crossed the lawn then and headed for their car, which was parked across the street a few doors down.

  Barbara stared at the state police seal on the business card. A number of murders? She knew Richard was no angel, but murder? He had a vicious temper, but not murder. She couldn’t imagine.

  Christen was trembling. “Were they serious, Mom?”

  Barbara pulled herself together. She didn’t want to upset the kids. “It’s nothing, honey. It must be some kind of misunderstanding. Take in the groceries for me, will you, Matt? Christen, bring Shaba inside.”

  “But, Mom—” Christen started, concern in her eyes.

  “Go ahead,” she told her daughter. “Take him in before the neighbors complain about the barking.”

  Reluctantly Christen did what she was told. Barbara followed her in. She went to the dining-room table and sat down without taking off her jacket. Her heart was beating fast. Staring ahead blankly, her eyes gradually focused on the china cabinet across the room, and her stomach started to ache.

  She suddenly remembered what that room had looked like the day Richard exploded in there. It had looked like a bomb site when he was through.

  It had been another one of his rages, one of the long, slow, torturous sessions. She couldn’t even remember how it had started. Most times she had only a vague notion of what she’d done to set him off. That time he’d made her sit right where she was sitting now as he yelled and screamed, interrogated and accused, smashing plates and cups and saucers one by one to punctuate his anger. It went on for hours, and the only way she could keep her sanity was by reciting a rosary in her head. When she finished that, she tried to remember the names of all the characters in the books she’d read in the last year. Anything to keep from focusing on the “bad Richard” raging in front of her. It had started sometime in the afternoon, and it was dark out when he finally ran out of things to break. When it was all over, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Royal Doulton lay smashed to bits on the floor.

  When Barbara Kuklinski realized where she was, her hand was in her pocket, clutching the business card in her fist. She knew she was going to have to tell Richard that those two detectives had been here to see him. There was no way she couldn’t tell him. But this would definitely bring out the “bad Richard.” She wished there were a way she could not tell him, but there wasn’t. The kids were there; they had seen it. If he somehow found out that those detectives had been here and the kids didn’t tell him about it—she didn’t even want to consider what he might do.

  No, she was going to have to tell him herself.

  Barbara closed her eyes and let her head drift back as she unclenched her fist on the business card.

  A number of murders. God help us, she thought.

  TWENTY FIVE

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1986—4:00 P.M.

  The day after Thanksgiving was quiet at 169 Sunset Street. Too quiet. Barbara and the girls had gone to the mall, and Dwayne was out with his friends. Richard Kuklinski was home alone, holed up in his office. The door was closed even though there was no one else in the house except Shaba, curled up in a corner of the room, sound asleep. Richard had his feet up on the desk, staring out the window, massaging his temples. He’d had a headache since he woke up that morning.

  That detective’s business card was on the desk. Volkman and his buddy Kane. He wondered what the hell they really knew. And if they did know something, who told them?

  Percy House and Barbara Deppner, that’s who. Who else could it be? He knew the state had them in protective custody somewhere out in Pennsylvania. Someone from “the store” had happened to run into Percy by chance out there, and word had gotten back to Kuklinski. At least now he knew the general vicinity of where they were living. He glanced down at his briefcase on the floor and frowned.

  Even if he did find them, getting rid of them wouldn’t be that easy. Sure, he could shoot them or knife them or even strangle them, but all those methods leave evidence. Besides, the state cops must check in on them pretty regularly if they’re in protective custody. Getting them at home could be risky.

  If only he could get some cyanide …

  With cyanide he could do it anywhere. Follow them till they went somewhere, then spray them in the face as they got out of the car. Or put it in a sandwich or something. Get them to eat it, the way Gary Smith had.

  If only he had some cyanide …

  Dominick Provenzano had said he could get him some, but he never came through with it. Dominick was giving him some fugazy bullshit about his source clamming up because of that Lipton soup poisoning in Camden. But that was back in September. Things must have cooled down by now.

  Kuklinski’s eyes slid to the phone on his desk. Dominick said he could get it. Guys say a lot of things they don’t really mean especially when they’re trying to make themselves out to be more important than they really are. He hadn’t heard from Dominick in almost a month. The guy was supposed to be all hot to make a deal on a shitload of arms and crap for the IRA. What happened to that? The guy was bullshit. He had to be. Unless he’s found another source for what he wanted.

  Dominick had been talking big money last time they discussed this deal. Half a million. If Dominick was being straight about that, ripping him off would be one sweet payday. It had been too long since Kuklinski had made a decent score, and he was getting low on cash. That had really hit home yesterday when he sat down to Thanksgiving dinner with Barbara and the kids. Christmas was coming. Barbara was out starting her Christmas shopping right now. He’d always hated the holidays, but Barbara loved this time of year. He needed money to buy her something nice. He was still feeling a little guilty about the house they hadn’t bought, the one around the corner from President Nixon in Saddle River. He had gotten everyone all excited about moving; then he just dropped it because he didn’t have the money. He felt he had to make it up to Barbara.

  But aside from Christmas presents, he needed money anyway. Real money. Too many deals had fallen through lately. They were starting to live like
everyone else in this goddamn neighborhood, and his family deserved better than that. He deserved better than that. He was Richard Kuklinski after all, and Richard Kuklinski was never going to be poor ever again. Never. That’s why he needed money.

  A fluttering sensation spread through his chest, and his breathing was suddenly short. It occurred to him that maybe he was losing his touch. He was going to be fifty-two in a few months. Maybe he was getting too old for all this. The panic of being stuck without cash zinged through him like an arrow. Maybe he really was losing it. Those two state police detectives were on his case, and those other two rats, Percy House and Barbara Deppner, were probably telling them anything to keep them happy, probably telling them he had killed JFK. He hadn’t pulled down a single major score this year. And Dominick Provenzano, the one guy he’d thought he had on the line, didn’t seem to care about him anymore. Richard Kuklinski could see Dominick’s half a million dollars flying right out the window.

  Kuklinski kneaded his temples and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. His head was splitting. His whole world was turning to shit. What the hell had happened? What was wrong with him?

  Nothing.

  Richard Kuklinski took his feet off the desk and pulled up his chair. He picked up a pen and started drawing boxes on a yellow legal pad. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing. He was a somebody. He was somebody because he knew he had the ability to do whatever was necessary to survive. He was somebody because he knew things no one else knew, things he’d done that the cops were still trying to figure out.

  He drew boxes as he ticked off his achievements in his head.

  He had done Gary Smith and Danny Deppner.

  He had done Louis Masgay and put him in the freezer.

  He had done Paul Hoffman, the pharmacist.

  He had done George Malliband, a deadbeat who pushed his luck a little too far.

  He’d done Mister Softee.

  Johnny, the bully at the projects.

  The pool hustler in Hoboken when he was nineteen.

  He’d done a few jobs for Roy DeMeo.

  He’d done the guy in California through the peephole with Softee.

  He’d done the Asian guy who fell out his hotel-room window in Hawaii.

  He’d done the wiseguy in Manhattan on Christmas Eve, the guy who wouldn’t pay up. Afterward he went home to put a wagon together for Dwayne, and he saw it on the TV news: “Mysterious Mob-Related Slaying in Midtown.” He couldn’t get the goddamn wheels on the wagon.

  He had done one on a bet, shot the guy in the throat and waited to see if it would take at least five minutes for him to bleed to death. He’d lost the bet.

  He’d done the guy who stopped at a red light and started to light a cigar. Blew the guy’s head off before he even took a puff.

  Then there was the kid who had cut him off on the highway. He ran the kid’s car off the road, beat him to pulp with a baseball bat, then backed over his body before he left. Just because the kid pissed him off.

  He’d gotten away with doing a loan shark who worked for a Gambino captain. Stiffed the guy, then whacked him after he complained to the wrong people.

  There was the guy in Switzerland.

  The guy in the Howard Johnson’s parking lot on Route 46.

  The guy who shit his pants praying to God, begging for mercy.

  The guy with the wavy white hair who owed money in Oklahoma. Shot in the head by the golf course.

  The contract job where they wanted the tongue cut out and shoved up the ass.

  There was the guy in the garage who was working on his truck.

  The guy who got it in the ear with an ice pick.

  The two guys who had made the mistake of sticking up a mob-sanctioned card game.

  The big black guy in that bar in Harlem, splattered his head like a watermelon with one shotgun blast.

  There was the guy who looked so surprised when he suddenly realized the big Polack was holding a little two-shot derringer on him. Two dumdum bullets were more than enough.

  There was the guy he’d done in Dracula’s apartment, shot the top of his head right off.

  The guy out walking his dog.

  The guy from the video arcade, three .22s to the back of the head.

  Then there were the ones in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Colorado.…

  When he finally couldn’t think of any more, the page was full of boxes. A whole page of them. He smiled down at the pad. The butterflies weren’t fluttering in his chest anymore. His headache was gone. He gazed at all his little secrets on the page. They were his and no one else’s.

  He stared at the telephone as he leaned back in his chair. Maybe it was time to give Dominick a call, he thought. He was smiling as he opened the top drawer to get his address book.

  TWENTY SIX

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1986—10:00 A.M.

  The sky was overcast at the Vince Lombardi Service Area. Sea gulls hovered and soared, scouting the parking lot for tasty litter. Two gulls picked through the green barrel near the bank of phone booths and pulled out a discarded hamburger bun. Dominick Polifrone watched them feast, his hands jammed in the pockets of his black leather jacket, a white silk scarf tied loosely around his neck.

  Out in the parking lot Bob Carroll and Paul Smith sat in the silver sedan. Another investigator was posted by the entrance to the service area. Dominick watched for the coffee cup on the silver sedan’s dashboard to disappear, his signal that Kuklinski had arrived.

  This meeting with Kuklinski had been hastily arranged, and they were short of manpower today, so these were the only backups Dominick had. He was also wearing only the Nagra tape recorder. They couldn’t get the Kel transmitter to work, so Dominick’s backups wouldn’t be able to monitor what went on between him and Kuklinski today.

  Standing inside a phone booth, Dominick wondered what kind of attitude his “friend” would be wearing today. They hadn’t seen each other in over a month. Kuklinski had pulled back, and the task force had decided to let him be. But that had given him a lot of time to think things over. He might be happy to see Dominick, more anxious than ever to do the arms deal with him. Or he could be mad as hell that Dominick was wasting his time, that Dominick was all talk and no show. Or Kuklinski could be any shade of gray in between. There was no telling until he got there.

  The gulls squawked and flapped their wings, fighting over the hamburger bun. Dominick glanced over at the silver sedan. The cup was gone from the dash. He scanned the cars pulling into the lot, looking for the blue Camaro. He wasn’t expecting the white Cadillac that rolled into a space on the far side of the phone booths.

  The Caddy’s door swung open, and out stepped Kuklinski, dressed in a dark suit and tie under a black cashmere overcoat. Dominick was stunned. He hadn’t expected this either.

  Dominick extended his hand as Kuklinski approached. “Jesus, Rich, you look like the board of health here, all dressed up nice.”

  Kuklinski flashed a toothy smile as he shook Dominick’s hand. “So whatcha been doing, guy?”

  “Same shit.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  They moved over to the picnic table. Dominick sat on the tabletop. Kuklinski put his foot up on the bench and leaned on his knee.

  Dominick lowered his voice. “You know, Rich, I gotta tell you something. I was at that greasy spoon next door to ‘the store’ the other day, and there were these two detectives there. From the state police, I think. They were asking questions about you.”

  Kuklinski shrugged. He seemed unconcerned.

  “I’m just telling you to let you know, Rich. You better be careful now.”

  “Dom, they been on my ass since 1980, and they still haven’t got me. Maybe someday they will. Who knows? But in the meantime, what the hell’m I gonna do about it?”

  “Well, I’m just passing it on. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yeah, Kane and Volkman, I know all about them.”


  “One of them, his name was Pat something or other, he asked me if I knew you. I told him I didn’t know nobody. Whatta they want you for?”

  The big man tilted his head from one side to the other. “They’re after me because—well, let’s just say there were some people who got hurt. Some … problems.”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  “Then there’s this one guy who turned out to be a pointer. The police got him in protective custody now. Problem is they can’t get anybody to back up his bullshit. I been trying to find him.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I hope he gets a bad cold and drops dead.”

  Dominick laughed. “That would be nice.”

  “This guy who turned out to be a pointer had a couple of friends who had accidents. I was lucky with them. But these goddamn troopers got a bug up their asses about me. They want to get me for murder.”

  “No shit.”

  “Yup. I’d love for this other guy, the pointer, to have an accident like his buddies. But like I said, they got him in protective custody.” He shook his head. “Percy House,” he grumbled in disgust.

  Dominick couldn’t believe it. Kuklinski had come right out and said he was looking for Percy House. He mentioned Percy House by name. But why was Kuklinski telling him this?

  “Yeah, those goddamn troopers are dying to get me. I’m probably a thorn in their side, just like Percy’s a thorn in mine. I mean, face it, I’m no virgin. I done a lot of shit in my time. The cop that gets me won’t be getting no virgin. He’ll be getting an old whore with me.”

  “So whattaya gonna do about this?”

  “Nothing. I’ll do just what I been doing. Being careful, and staying out of sight. That’s why I don’t go to ‘the store’ no more. I haven’t been there in two years.”

  “Well, Rich, if there’s anything I can help you out with, just let me know.”

  “There’s nothing that can be done, Dom. If they get me, they get me. But they got nothing on me. If they did, they wouldn’t be going around asking everybody questions about me. Right? So until they have something they can use, I intend to just go about my business and do what I have to do.”