The Iceman Read online

  But he had never hurt them, at least not physically. Verbally, psychologically—that was something else. Whenever report cards came home, he would never praise them for the A’s. He’d berate them for the B’s. But that was Richard’s whole philosophy of life: The glass was always half empty, and no matter what, things were never good enough. Not for him.

  That’s why money was so important to him. “It’s the green that counts, babe,” he would always tell her. Money was the only thing that made him happy—money and what it could buy. He loved to shop, loved to buy things for her and the kids. Christian Dior suits for her, spur-of-the-moment vacations, diamonds and gold jewelry for the girls, ridiculous toys for Dwayne—like the hunting bow that was never used. You could kill a bear with that thing, but it just ended up hanging on the wall over the window in Dwayne’s room, collecting dust. But that was Richard. He thought nothing of spending four, five, six hundred dollars on a single meal. When it came to his family, price was no object.

  Every six months they had new cars, and Richard was crazy about cars. He’d bought Dwayne the blue Camaro they had now. The thing was so souped up Dwayne had to call home from a pay phone the first time he took it out. He couldn’t control the thing, it was so powerful. Richard had to go pick him up and drive the car back. Now Richard was telling Dwayne he was going to buy him a Lamborghini Excalibur, asking him what the priests at school would say if they saw him driving up in one of those.

  Barbara just shook her head. There was no reasoning with Richard when it came to possessions. If he decided they had to have something, they had to have it. Case closed.

  It was money and the things money bought that made him feel like he was someone. When he was a poor kid in Jersey City, he felt that he was a nobody. Now he had money, and that made him a somebody. She knew that was the way he saw it. You were worthless unless you had a roll of bills in your pocket, unless you drove a Cadillac, unless you could buy whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it. That was what made you a somebody in Richard’s estimation.

  Money. That was the problem. It was the trigger that brought out the bad Richard. Whenever the money started running low, the bad Richard started coming out. And even though she’d never dream of asking, she knew the money must be running low now. She could smell it.

  Where the money came from, she didn’t want to know. Some of it came from Richard’s currency exchange business, the Sunset Company, named after the street in Dumont where they lived. Richard traded foreign currencies, and his business often took him to England and Switzerland. As far as she knew, that was all legitimate because Richard filed tax returns and declared that income. In June he’d gone to Zurich to conclude a deal to sell a large sum of Nigerian currency. He’d had high hopes for this deal because he was talking about buying a house in ultrarich Saddle River that he’d become fixated with, a million-dollar home right around the corner from former President Nixon. But when he came back from Switzerland, he was in a foul mood. The deal had fallen through at the last minute. They’d screwed him, he kept muttering. The house in Saddle River wasn’t mentioned anymore after that.

  But currency exchange wasn’t his only source of income. There was other money, money that was off the books. There had to be, considering the way they lived. But Barbara didn’t ask.

  She tore off another piece of bread and dropped it in front of her feet, enticing the ducks to come closer. She remembered times when they’d had to borrow food from the neighbors, they were so broke, and it wasn’t that long ago. From borrowed cans of Campbell’s soup to extravagant meals at fancy French restaurants—that was their life. To call it a roller coaster would be an understatement. There were ups and downs, and the thrills could be very thrilling; but unlike an amusement park ride, the scary parts were for real.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Richard on the phone and sighed. He was talking to John Sposato. A year ago Richard had had high hopes for John Sposato. They were going to make a lot of money together, he’d told her. At what he didn’t say, but from what she’d gathered, that big payoff hadn’t happened yet.

  John had had something to do with the currency deal that fell through in Zurich, and Barbara had a feeling that Richard was just trying to recoup his losses with Sposato now. She remembered the time last summer when she got a call from New Jersey Bell in the middle of the month asking for a down payment on their monthly bill. Why? she asked. Because your charges for the current month are already over seven thousand dollars, the woman from the telephone company said. Barbara nearly fainted. The calls were mostly third-party calls, long distance to Europe, made by Sposato from his place down in south Jersey.

  She’d told Richard about it, expecting him to go through the roof, but he didn’t. It was business, he’d said. He had faith in Sposato. John Sposato knew what he was doing, he’d said. Barbara didn’t believe it, and she had a feeling Richard really didn’t either. Richard rarely trusted anyone that much.

  Her doubts about Sposato were confirmed when she finally met him. The fact that Richard let her meet him said a lot in itself because he was very strict about keeping his business life separate from his personal life. Even though at the time Richard never said it directly, she knew that he wanted her opinion of this new partner—and if he wanted her opinion, that meant he had doubts about the man.

  She remembered when she first set eyes on Sposato in the parking lot of a truck stop on Route 80 in central Pennsylvania. To call him a big fat slob would be putting it nicely. His hair was long and stringy and looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a month. His last few meals were all over his shirt. He came with his wife and three children, and the toddler screamed and fussed the whole time. The woman gave the poor thing a box of Cap’n Crunch cereal to keep it quiet. They never bothered to feed any of the kids a real meal, and repeated hints that the toddler’s diaper needed to be changed were ignored by both parents.

  Richard was thinking about buying into the truck stop with Sposato, and they were here to check out the place. At first Barbara assumed this would be a legitimate investment; then she met Richard’s partner in the flesh. But Richard was high on Sposato in those days, so she didn’t dare spoil it by expressing her gut feelings about him.

  The day after they returned from Pennsylvania, Richard made an appointment with a real estate agent to see houses in Saddle River. She was the agent who showed them the house he’d wanted so badly. Barbara watched Richard’s face from the backseat of the agent’s car as they drove through the neighborhood. Richard’s eyes narrowed when he spotted a video camera mounted on a high pole in the driveway of one grand home. There was another camera sticking out of the mailbox. She knew he wouldn’t like this. Richard insisted on privacy.

  But when the real estate agent told him that this was where Richard Nixon lived, his face changed. Barbara knew exactly what he was thinking. Living in the same neighborhood as a former president of the United States meant prestige. Richard liked that. From a dirt-poor kid in the Jersey City projects to back-fence neighbors with Tricky Dick. That would really be something for Richard. That night after dinner he kept joking about what it would be like taking Shaba out for a walk in that neighborhood, running into Nixon out walking his dog.

  Barbara closed her eyes and sighed.

  “No! Just shut up about that!” Richard yelled.

  The ducks scattered in fright. Barbara glanced over her shoulder and saw Richard scowling into the pay phone as his voice boomed across the pond. The ducks paddled across to the other side.

  Richard was jabbing his finger into the air, lecturing the phone as if Sposato were right there in front of him. She couldn’t make out what he was saying now, but his tone was clear, and the anger in his face confirmed it. What little patience Richard had was wearing thin. She wondered whether Sposato realized how close to the edge he was skating. From what Richard had said, Sposato was supposedly a smart guy. For his sake she hoped he was smart enough to stay on Richard’s good side.

  Richard banged
the phone down, then picked it up again and punched out another number. She strained to hear who he was calling now.

  “Hello, Lenny? It’s Rich.” All of a sudden the anger was gone. He was smiling into the phone.

  Barbara turned back to the pond. She didn’t want to hear.

  On the other side of the water the ducks were cowering in a huddle, their wings pulled in tight. She tore up what was left of the loaf and scattered it on the bank, then folded the plastic bag and got up from the bench. There was no use hanging around any longer. The birds were too scared to come back. The day was starting to get hot anyway. You could feel the humidity rising already. She walked across the grass to go wait in the car. It was going to be another wicked day.

  FOUR

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1986

  Special Agent Dominick Polifrone of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had a lot on his mind as he parked the Shark, his long black Lincoln Continental coupe. Backing into a space on the busy north Jersey road, watching for cars coming up from behind, he was thinking about his family. Today was the first day of school for his kids, and his wife, Ellen, was overjoyed. The boys, Drew and Matt, had moped around all weekend, complaining that the summer had been too short, driving their mother nuts. His daughter, Keri, couldn’t wait to get back and start eighth grade. She was thirteen, and she and her girlfriends were boy-crazy all of a sudden. Dominick wasn’t sure if he was ready to have boyfriends hanging around the house. Keri wasn’t even in high school, for God’s sake. But right now he had to stop worrying about all that because he wasn’t Dominick Polifrone now.

  Agent Polifrone got out of the car, locked the door, and flipped up the collar of his black leather jacket against the rain as he glanced across the city avenue at the ordinary-looking storefront on the first floor of the three-story brick building, the place that had no name and was known simply as “the store.” When he stepped into “the store,” he would be “Michael Dominick Provenzano,” “Dom” to those who knew him, a “connected” guy currently in the market for guns. Unlike Dominick Polifrone, Michael Dominick Provenzano didn’t give a shit about wives, report cards, and Little League games. Provenzano’s main interest was in making deals and making money. That was the mind-set that Special Agent Dominick Polifrone had to put himself in as he waited for a break in the traffic so he could cross the street.

  Tires hissed on the wet pavement as he started across. He looked through the plate glass window of the greasy spoon luncheonette next door to “the store” to see if he recognized any faces. Thank God he’d already had lunch. You took your life in your hands eating in that place. Even the coffee was treacherous. But sometimes having coffee there was a necessary risk. It was where the clientele from “the store” went when they wanted a little privacy to discuss a deal.

  The narrow driveway next to the store was jammed with big cars—Caddys and Lincolns. The end of the drive was blocked by an idling police cruiser with its front end hanging out into the street. The trunk was open. A cop in uniform had a cardboard box on his shoulder, which he was carrying in through the side door. Dominick followed him up the steps. The cop glanced at him around the edge of the box and avoided eye contact, but once they got inside the doorway and no one challenged Dom’s presence there, the cop smiled and nodded.

  “Need any umbrellas?” the cop asked, lowering the box off his shoulder. It was full of brand-new umbrellas, the tags still on them. Dominick had no doubt that they’d just “fallen off the truck.”

  Dominick stroked the ends of his bandito mustache as if he were thinking about it. “Nah. Can’t move stuff like that.”

  The cop shrugged and dropped the box. He kicked it into a corner and looked around for another taker.

  Dominick scanned the room. It was nothing to look at. The floor was littered with cigarette butts, the walls hadn’t seen paint in twenty years, and there was hardly a place to sit, but “the store” was a virtual K mart of criminal activity.

  A dozen men or so huddled in twos and threes under clouds of cigarette smoke, buying and selling stolen property, making connections, planning hijackings and burglaries, bragging and bullshitting. Dominick noticed a short, wiry guy in a maroon silk shirt and a burgundy leather sports jacket scribbling in a notepad as he nodded and smiled and talked to a heavyset guy in his forties whose hairline nearly touched his eyebrows. They didn’t know Dominick, but Dominick knew who they were. The hairy guy had a methamphetamine factory somewhere out in Pennsylvania. The little guy was a loan shark associated with one of the New York Mafia families. It looked like the hairy guy was taking out a loan, perhaps to expand his speed business. Dominick made a mental note, so he could pass it on.

  At a wobbly kitchen table with mismatched chairs, a scruffy-looking character with a ragged red beard dealt out cards to three meticulously groomed older gentlemen who all wore sheer nylon socks and lots of gold jewelry.

  A fat man with three chins and a wart on the side of his nose was coming down the back staircase, peering over his belly and stepping carefully as if he were crossing a stream on slippery stones. He looked happy. No wonder. A pair of prostitutes had their own boutique up on the third floor.

  A smudged glass counter near the front door held a small electric fan, a few cheap Korean cameras, and a set of aluminum pots and pans. The merchandise was just there for show. It was covered with dust and hadn’t been touched in the seventeen months Dominick had been coming here. Except that there used to be two fans. Dominick recalled the first hot day of the summer when a little old Italian lady came in wanting to buy a fan. Everything stopped when the regulars finally noticed her. They stared at her as if she were from the moon. Someone grabbed one of the fans and gave it to her for nothing, then told her to get the hell out. The poor old lady was still good for a laugh now and then. She had become something of a legend at “the store”—the first and only honest person ever to walk into this place.

  Over by the pay phone on the wall, Lenny DePrima, one of the regular fixtures here, was talking to the crooked cop with the umbrellas. Dominick had to talk to DePrima. But before he could make it across the room, someone grabbed his sleeve.

  “Hey, Dom.”

  Walter Kipner peered over his tinted aviator glasses and grinned up at Dominick. Thick ropes of gold chain mingled with his gray chest hairs. His silver gray mane was perfect.

  “Hey, what’s up, Walt?” Kipner always had something going.

  “C’mere. I wanna show you something.” Kipner led Dominick over to a secluded corner. He had a Bloomingdale’s shopping bag in his hand. He opened the bag and let Dominick take a peek. It was full of five-dollar bills, bundles of them bound with rubber bands.

  Kipner pulled a loose bill out and handed it to Dominick. “Made in England. The best. You can’t tell the difference, can you?”

  Dominick rubbed the counterfeit bill between his fingers. “Yeah, not bad.” Frigging Kipner. He was into everything.

  “If you take half a mil, you can have ’em for twenty cents on the dollar.” Kipner was slathering like the wolf who ate Grandma.

  Dominick pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I dunno, Walt. Fives. Who the fuck wants fives? Twenties, sure. But fives? Gimme a break. You gotta walk around with a fucking suitcase with these things.”

  Kipner looked deeply hurt. “Whattaya talkin’ about, Dom? Fives are perfect. Who the fuck bothers to check out a five? You tell me. Big bills they check. But they don’t check little stuff. Never. That’s why they’re perfect.”

  Lenny DePrima was still over by the phone, but the cop was gone. Dominick really had to talk to him.

  Kipner lowered his voice. “You take a mil and I’ll give ’em to you for fifteen cents. Just for you, Dom.”

  Dominick kept his eye on DePrima. He had to get rid of Kipner and his phony fives so he could talk to him, but he’d write this up later in his daily report. Kipner was a real piece of work. In the last year he’d tried to sell Dominick everything—silencers, rocket lau
nchers, plastic explosives. This was the first time with counterfeit money, though. If this guy only knew what a pass he was getting. It had been decided from the beginning that they weren’t going to bust any bad guys Dominick found out about and risk blowing his cover. For the past seventeen months he’d had just one target and that was all he was supposed to focus on. His assignment was to get close to Richard Kuklinski—that’s all. But now, almost a year and a half later, he was no closer to Kuklinski than he had been when he started this undercover. That’s why he and Lenny DePrima had to have a little talk. DePrima had to start doing more.

  Dominick suspected that Lenny DePrima was jerking him around now. Between the New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, they had more than enough on DePrima to make his life miserable. He was a known fence with a lengthy criminal record, and they could easily put him away for receiving stolen property. They could also prosecute him for a number of auto thefts, burglaries, and hijackings he’d sponsored. This was how people in DePrima’s business ordered their wares. If there was something you knew you could sell, you hired somebody else to steal it for you. Cars, jewelry, fur coats, TV sets, sewing machines, watches, canned goods, whatever. Dominick remembered when a hijacked truckload of Maine lobsters had appeared a couple of days before New Year’s. DePrima figured he could unload lobsters easy for the holiday, so he’d put in an order.