The Iceman Read online

  The next day after school he went to the corner candy store, determined to buy himself something for his confirmation. He’d seen wristwatches there, pinned to a sheet of cardboard hanging over the cash register. He had almost a dollar in change. The watches cost seventy-nine cents each, and his heart raced as he counted out the coins on the counter. The man took down the cardboard and let him pick the one he wanted, even though the watches were all the same. He picked one, and the man wound it for him, set the time, and said, “Good luck, kiddo.” Richie strapped it to his wrist and admired it.

  The next morning when Richie woke up, he noticed that the watch had stopped. He tried to rewind it, but the stem came out in his hand. He went back to the candy store, but the man refused to take it back.

  Richie wore it anyway, just so he wouldn’t be the only one without a new watch. But in his daydreams he dreaded the moment when Johnny would notice that his watch did not have the right time and the stem was missing, that the cheap band was cracking and left brown stains on his skin. He could hear what Johnny would say, how he would say it, how it would probably lead to another beating if his gang were around. Richie’s heart was thumping, his jaws clenched in fear and anger just thinking about it.

  Johnny and his gang had been bothering him for years. But that was going to stop. He was going to show them that he couldn’t be pushed around anymore. Not anymore.

  Richie stared hard into the dark shadows across the courtyard. He was staring at the corner of his building, the corner where Johnny would be coming from. Lately Johnny had been coming out here every night to call up to his gang members and taunt them into coming down so they could smoke and joke and yell up to the girls they knew and say dirty things about them. Sometimes Johnny would call up to him. “Hey, Polack, you sleeping up there? Or you just making believe so your mother won’t know you’re jerking off?”

  Every night this went on. But it was going to stop.

  Suddenly he saw something in the shadows. He squinted to see better. A glowing orange pinpoint was rounding the corner of the building, coming this way. It was a burning cigarette. Richie clung to the wall, the pole tight in his fist, close to his leg. His eyes were wide, and he wasn’t breathing. His pulse was racing. He didn’t have the urge to run this time. He wanted to get this over with. He wanted to show Johnny. He wanted to hurt him and teach him a lesson once and for all.

  The face behind the orange glow emerged from the dark. The small dark eyes, the wise-ass smirk. It was him. Cigarette smoke trailed off behind Johnny as he stepped closer, surprised to see Richie out there, but also pleased to see him, pleased to have his favorite target right there out in the dark courtyard, alone.

  Johnny stopped a few feet away from Richie, took a long drag off his cigarette, and just stared at him for a moment. “What the hell you doin’ out here, Polack? You looking for trouble or what?” He coughed up a laugh.

  Richie didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you, Polack. I asked you what you think you’re doing out here.”

  That vicious bark of his made Richie blink. It always did.

  “Answer me, Polack, or I’ll kick your fuckin’ teeth in.”

  Johnny stepped closer, and automatically Richie raised the pole.

  Johnny backed off but then laughed at him. “What the fuck you gonna do with that?”

  Richie was mute, both hands wrapped around the heavy pole.

  “Whattaya, playing stickball out here, Polack?”

  Johnny reached for the pole to take it away from him, but Richie pulled it back out of his reach.

  Johnny’s face turned mean. “Gimme that.” He lunged for the pole.

  Richie swung on impulse. It caught Johnny on the cheek, not hard, but it did hit him. It shocked Richie more than it did Johnny. Richie wanted to run, but he couldn’t move his legs. In his heart he didn’t want to run. He wanted to go through with this. He wanted to show Johnny that no one could mess with him anymore.

  Johnny glowered at him, his hand on his cheek. “You son of a bitch,” he whispered. “You little son of a bitch,” he repeated as he went for the pole again.

  But this time Richie swung hard. Johnny raised his hand to block it and took the full impact on his forearm. The boy yelped and cursed, holding his smarting arm and curling into himself.

  Richie stepped forward and hit him again, this time over the head.

  “Hey! Stop!”

  Richie hit him again, harder. Johnny yelled louder. Johnny was pleading with him to stop. Richie hit him again, raising the heavy pole over his head and swinging it down onto his tormentor’s back as if he were trying to ring the gong at a carnival. Richie wanted him to shut up. The rest of Johnny’s gang would hear him, and they’d come down to help him. Richie kept hitting him. He wanted Johnny to be quiet.

  “Shut up,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

  But Johnny didn’t shut up. He was screaming like a girl now, and Richie bashed him again and again, swinging as hard as he could with each blow. Johnny finally quieted down, and Richie felt something he’d never felt in his entire life: power. He gained strength with each new blow as he saw Johnny fall down on his knees, getting weaker and more helpless. The rush of total control flew through his veins like a drug. It felt good. It felt great. He kept swinging, pounding Johnny sideways now, hammering his head the way Ted Williams hammered home runs. He couldn’t stop. He had to hurt Johnny. He had to show him. He was Richard Kuklinski, and no one messed with Richard Kuklinski. No one. No one.

  When he finally stopped, Johnny was flat on the ground, and it was hard to get a good whack at him in that position. Richie stood over him, breathing hard, waiting for him to get up so he could hit him again. He was out of breath, but he felt so good. He was exhilarated, in control, powerful. He’d shown Johnny. The whole gang would know not to mess with him anymore. He’d shown them.

  He climbed the stairs back up to his apartment and hung the pole back in the closet, then got into bed. He lay awake for a while, reliving the excitement of his triumph, then fell into a deep sleep.

  The next morning Richie’s mother yelled from the bedroom door, telling him to get out of bed or he was going to be late for school. He’d been sound asleep and he didn’t want to move, but the sound of men’s voices coming from outside drew him to the window. Police cars were parked in the asphalt courtyard. At least a dozen men were clustered around the spot by the incinerator wall where he’d left Johnny the night before. There were a lot of people from the projects down there, too, the usual busybodies trying to find out what was going on. Some of the kids from Johnny’s gang were talking to the cops, one kid sticking out his bottom lip and frowning, shaking his head no.

  “Richard, you’re gonna be late!” his mother yelled from the kitchen.

  “What’s going on outside?” he yelled back.

  “What?”

  “Outside. Down by the incinerator.”

  “You know that fresh boy Johnny from downstairs? Somebody killed him last night. Now hurry up and get dressed, or you can forget about breakfast.”

  Richie’s fingers were numb as he stared down at the courtyard. Johnny was dead? He hadn’t meant to do that. He’d just wanted to teach Johnny a lesson. That’s all. He hadn’t meant to kill him.

  “Richard! Are you dressed yet?”

  His stomach started to ache as he stepped back from the window, afraid that the cops would look up and see him. He went out into the hallway and opened the closet door. He inspected the pole, turning it around and around on its brackets. There was no blood that he could see. Maybe he hadn’t killed Johnny. Maybe someone else did it after he left. Maybe someone else found Johnny unconscious down on the ground and took the opportunity to get rid of him. It was possible. He did bully other kids, too. But somehow Richie didn’t really believe it. He knew he was the one.

  The cramps in his stomach got so bad he doubled over in pain. His mother kept yelling for him to get dressed and get to school. It wa
s an ordeal getting his clothes on. Thank God, she had already left for work by the time he finished. She’d put some cereal and milk out on the table for his breakfast, but the sight of it nauseated him, and he threw up in the kitchen sink. He leaned on the edge, waiting for more to come up, and through the closed kitchen window he could still hear the police down in the courtyard. He decided to skip school and stay home.

  He was afraid to go out, afraid to go to the windows, afraid they’d find him and take him away. He lay in bed, imagining the worst. The other kids in Johnny’s gang would tell the police that he was the one who probably had done it, that he hated Johnny because Johnny picked on him. Maybe Mr. Butterfield hadn’t been that drunk last night. Maybe he’d seen Richie holding the pole and told the police about it. They’d come up to the apartment, beat the door down, and drag him away. He wondered what they did to kids who killed other kids. Did they throw kids in jail? He’d heard about reform schools, but he didn’t really know what they were. He’d killed Johnny. Maybe they’d kill him. Strap him to the electric chair and pull the switch, same as they did to adult killers.

  Richie bounced off his bed and ran to the closet. He threw the few clothes that were hanging onto the floor and pulled the pole down again. In the bathtub he ran hot water and scrubbed the pole with a washcloth, just in case, then dried it with a towel and put it back.

  It wasn’t enough, though. He paced the apartment long into the afternoon, wondering what the police knew, what kind of evidence they could have, when they’d come for him. He shivered and his teeth chattered as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering when they’d finally come. The pillow was soaked with sweat when he finally passed out as if in a fever.

  When his mother returned that night after picking up his four-year-old brother and three-year-old sister from the neighbor who watched them, Richie pretended that he’d gone to school, that everything was normal. His mother didn’t mention Johnny. As usual, she was too exhausted to talk about anything. For a while that afternoon he’d thought maybe he could tell her and get it off his chest. But now he knew he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t tell anyone.

  That night he couldn’t sleep. He kept hearing Johnny’s voice out in the courtyard. That, and the whomp of the closet pole as it kept hitting Johnny’s head.

  The next morning Richie lingered in bed and deliberately made himself late, intending to stay home again. He was never going to go back to school. He was never going to leave the house. He was going to die here. He was going to starve to death because he couldn’t eat and he couldn’t stop throwing up.

  All he did was lie in bed, thinking about Johnny, thinking about that moment when the cops would break down the door.

  But that moment didn’t come.

  He stayed home for the rest of the week, worrying, pacing, sweating.

  But nothing happened.

  The nuns notified his mother that he hadn’t been to school all week and asked why she hadn’t sent a note if he was sick. She got so mad she beat him with the broomstick and told him that he was going to school on Monday and that he’d better not try to pull a stunt like that again. She also made him go to church on Sunday, and the sweat poured off him as he sat through Mass, glancing at the pews all around him, looking for the one boy in the gang who would point at him and yell out that Richard Kuklinski was the one who had killed Johnny.

  But that didn’t happen.

  On Monday morning he told his mother he was sick for real, but she didn’t buy it, and she made him leave the apartment with her. Walking to school, he tried not to be obvious, but he couldn’t help looking back whenever he heard a car coming up from behind. He kept expecting a police car to come and take him away.

  But that never happened.

  In school he couldn’t pay attention, and the nun who taught his class scolded him several times for daydreaming. If anyone would finger him, she would, he thought. Nuns can spot sinners a mile away. He kept waiting for her screeching accusation, followed by the cops coming into the classroom to haul him away.

  But that never happened.

  Nothing happened.

  It had been almost two weeks since that night in the courtyard, and nobody had bothered with him. No cops, none of the kids in the gang, no one in Johnny’s family, not even Mr. Butterfield. No one at all.

  But this was a trap, he thought. They were all pretending. The police were just waiting for the right moment when they could pounce. This was a trap.

  It occurred to him that maybe Johnny wasn’t even dead, that one of these days he’d be walking down the street and Johnny would pop out of nowhere, back from the hospital where the police had been hiding him. He’d point his finger at Richie and tell the police, “That’s him. The skinny Polack is the guy who tried to kill me.”

  Richie couldn’t eat; he couldn’t sleep. He dreaded going out.

  But nothing ever happened. Nothing.

  Gradually he started to calm down. Maybe no one knew. Maybe he was safe. Then one day he caught himself smiling, and he realized that he hadn’t thought about Johnny for a whole day. He started going out on the street more, and eventually he stopped worrying about police cars. He still thought about Johnny, but he wasn’t worried about him anymore. He still felt bad about it, but in another way he also felt good about it. The bully was gone, and no one was bothering him. He’d solved his problem. When you hurt people, they leave you alone.

  As the months passed, he’d see detectives down in the lobby of his building every once in a while, talking to the neighbors about Johnny, checking to see if there was any new information they could pick up. Richie would walk right by them and head for the stairs, biting his grin until he rounded the corner and no one could see him. He knew who killed Johnny, but no one else did. It was his little secret, his alone. It was something no one else in the whole world had except him, and it made him valuable. It made him special. It made him someone.

  TWO

  JULY 1986

  The doorbell chimed. Richard Kuklinski, age fifty-one, looked up from the TV set and frowned. His wife, Barbara, was out shopping with their daughters, Merrick and Christen, but his son, Dwayne, was around someplace. Kuklinski never answered the door himself, so he ignored it and returned to the movie on TV. Dwayne would get it.

  The doorbell chimed again, and Shaba, the family dog, stirred from his nap. The Newfoundland was all black, shaggy, and as big as a small bear. Shaba had been near death when Kuklinski found him in a Dumpster. The puppy had been abandoned along with two female pups that were already dead when Kuklinski heard the pathetic yelps coming out of the garbage. The dog’s name was Polish for “little frog.” They’d named him that because when Richard Kuklinski first brought him home, he had big webbed feet, and before he could run, he hopped around the house like a frog.

  The doorbell chimed again, and the big dog opened his eyes and growled.

  Kuklinski called out to his son, “Dwayne! Get the door.” He reached down and scratched the growling animal’s head. “It’s all right, Shaba. It’s all right.”

  But the bell chimed again, and Kuklinski scowled. The dog got up and barked as he trotted to the front door. Kuklinski ran his hand over his bald head and scratched his beard. “Dwayne?” But Dwayne didn’t answer. He must have gone out.

  The dog was barking at the front door. “Shut up, Shaba,” Kuklinski grumbled, trying to pay attention to the movie. But the dog kept barking.

  The doorbell chimed once more, and the dog barked louder, becoming more frantic.

  “Shit,” Kuklinski mumbled as he hauled himself up from the sofa in the den and unfolded his six-foot-four, 270-pound frame.

  “Shaba,” he called out as he went to retrieve the dog, “shut up.”

  The dog didn’t listen, which wasn’t unusual, but Kuklinski was mad now. Must be goddamn Jehovah’s Witnesses, ringing the bell like that. He’d make them sorry they’d ever got up this morning, the bastards.

  He climbed the stairs of the split-level hous
e to the front door and grabbed Shaba by the collar as he turned the bolt and opened the front door a few inches.

  “Whattaya want?” he snarled into the crack. Shaba strained at the collar and barked by his side.

  Two broad-shouldered men in jackets and ties were at the door. One was holding up a badge. “Mr. Richard Kuklinski?”

  Kuklinski opened the door a little more and squinted at the badge. “Yeah? Can I help you?”

  “I’m Detective Volkman, New Jersey State Police. This is Detective Kane. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Kuklinski tilted his head back. “About what?”

  “Several murders.”

  “I don’t know anything about any murders.”

  Shaba growled and thrashed his head to get loose from Kuklinski’s grip.

  “Did you know an individual by the name of George Malliband, Junior?” Detective Volkman asked.

  Kuklinski shrugged and shook his head.

  “Did you know an individual by the name of Louis Masgay?”

  “Nope.”

  The other cop, the younger of the two, just stared at him. Detective Kane didn’t say a word, just tried to look mean. Kuklinski knew the routine. They weren’t the first cops to come around asking questions. Volkman, the talker, was going to be the friendly guy; Kane was going to be the hard ass. Kuklinski wanted to laugh in their faces. Who the hell did these guys think they were? Better yet, who the hell did they think they were dealing with?

  “How about Paul L. Hoffman?” Volkman asked. “Did you know him?”

  Kuklinski shook his head.

  “Gary Thomas Smith?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about Daniel Everett Deppner?”

  Kuklinski yanked up sharply on Shaba’s collar to silence the barking. “Never heard of him either.” He had his hand on the edge of the door, ready to close it.