Philip Carlo - The Ice Man

Soon, however, they realized that Merrick wasn’t as healthy as she seemed. She had a urinary block, which quickly caused kidney problems, high fevers, convulsions. She was in constant pain, and she had to make frequent trips to the doctor’s office to undergo numerous procedures and surgeries.

Meanwhile, Barbara became pregnant again. Her fifth pregnancy was a comparatively easy one, though during the last several months of it she was again bedridden. This was a difficult time for her. She was not easy to get along with, was sometimes demanding and short. She had to make frequent trips to the doctor. Bills piled up. Richard felt as if he were swimming upstream and could make no headway no matter how hard he tried. He hustled, took chances, but still had difficulty making ends meet. He felt trapped. Barbara gave birth to a second girl they named Christin.

As Merrick grew into an attractive child with large round eyes, she frequently had to stay in the hospital. Richard could not have been more attentive. He stayed by his first daughter’s side, stroked her hair, hurried to get her anything she needed. He even slept, as did Barbara, in her hospital room with her, on the floor with just a pillow and a thin blanket. Barbara was pleasantly surprised at what a caring, devoted father Richard was. For the first time she realized what a truly good man Richard could be, and she was glad he was her partner in this crisis.

Doctor and hospital bills mounted. The couple was soon deep in debt. Though Barbara’s mother and grandmother did what they could, Richard was forced to work more and more hours at the lab. Sometimes he’d do his shift, then stay the whole night printing pirated copies of popular films and cartoons. But no matter how hard he worked, how many overtime hours he put in, how many pirated films he printed and sold, there was never enough money. Barbara became pregnant yet again. The family moved to a larger apartment in Cliffside Park. Bills kept mounting. Richard recently put it like this: I felt like I was in a sinking hole, and the more I worked, the harder I tried, I was sinking deeper and deeper. This straight life wasn’t working for me!

Richard called John Hamil in Jersey City. “You guys got anything good coming up?” he asked.

“Fact is we do, Rich.”

This job involved a truckload of Casio watches, which were popular and easy to turn into cash. There was a guy in Teaneck who’d buy the whole load. Richard, John, and Sean went to see him. He had a warehouse just off Route 4. He was a big burly individual who talked out of the side of his mouth as though he had lockjaw. He confirmed that he’d take the whole load; a price was agreed upon. “Everyone wants one of those fuckin’ watches. I’ll take five truckloads if you guys can get your hands on ’em,” he assured them.

With that settled, Richard and his partners went about hijacking the load of Casio watches. They’d gotten a tip about the load, when and where it would be; they followed the truck and made the driver pull over and stop by showing phony police badges. Richard got in the cab and off they went, leaving the driver tied up on the side of the road. As always, Richard was wearing gloves. No matter what he did, if it was illegal, he wore gloves. They managed to get to the warehouse in Teaneck. The man who had agreed to purchase the load was all smiles. But he insisted his crew of three guys unload the truck to make sure there was a full load—one hundred thousand watches.

“Hey, my friend, they’re all there,” Richard said. “We didn’t even open the rig.”

“I’ve gotta check,” was his answer.

“Okay,” Richard said, “no problem, my friend,” wanting to get this over with, to get the money and go home to his family. He was, of course, armed. He had two pistols stuck into his pants under his jacket.

The three other guys used two high-lows to unload crates off the rig. Richard, Sean, and John watched them, not pleased. When they had the load on the ground they proceeded to open the crates and actually count the boxes of watches; there were exactly one hundred thousand of them. This took all of two hours.

Richard was becoming impatient. “See, I told you, my friend,” he said, knowing the more time he spent there, the greater the risk. Richard was becoming tense, and when that happened people often suddenly died.

“Come on in the office,” the buyer said. Richard had a bad feeling—something unsavory was in the air.

“Wanna drink?” the buyer offered, speaking out of the side of his mouth.

“No thanks, just the money,” Richard said.

“You know, I wanted to talk to you about that,” said the buyer, who looked more like a weasel by the minute.

“About what?” Richard asked, knowing the answer.

“The money.”

“What’s there to say, my friend? We agreed upon a price. You have the watches. Time for us to have the money. Simple.”

“Not so simple; I’m thinking I’d like to… renegotiate.”

“Come again?” Richard said, his high, wide brow creasing, his eyes growing cold, icelike, distant.

“Fifty large instead of seventy-five. I’m more comfortable with that,” said the weasel.

“My ass,” said Richard. “We agreed upon seventy-five. And now after you had your guys unload the watches you want to renegotiate? Funny, guy…. You know you’re a funny guy, my friend.” Richard looked at Sean and John, his eyes telling them to get ready because there was going to be trouble. Gunplay.

“You know Tommy Locanada from Hoboken. He’s my goombah. Let’s call him and he’ll tell you fifty is a good price.”

This really disturbed Richard. “You can call Jesus fuckin’ Christ himself if you want. We ain’t taking fifty. We agreed upon seventy-five. That’s what it is.”

“No it ain’t,” the buyer said, and with that Richard ran out of patience, whipped out the pistol, and shot the buyer in the head. He was dead before he even hit the ground, before he even knew his life was over. Richard hurried inside and quickly killed the three other guys—bullets to the head.

“We can’t have witnesses,” he said, and they put the watches back in the truck and split, making sure they left no clues. When the bodies were discovered the next day, the police summoned, the murders were put down as “mob related” and were never solved; never attached to Richard Kuklinski.

They managed to sell the load to Phil Solimene, a player Richard had known well for many years now. Solimene was a feral-looking man with thick dark hair slicked back. He was charming and affable. Solimene had his fingers in many pies, all of them illegal. He had a discount variety store in Paterson with no sign out front. He sold everything, and everything he sold was stolen: small appliances, perfumes, coffee and dried fruits, all kinds of canned goods—all hijacked, stolen stuff. Above the store he had a few girls who worked as prostitutes, and he sold porno movies too, even ones involving hard-core bestiality, any kind you wanted—women screwing and fellating dogs and Shetland ponies. There was a big market for that stuff, and Solimene was happy to fill it. He’d sell anything, including his own mother. He also ran a burglary gang, acting as a front for all kinds of thieves who stole from people’s homes all over New Jersey. He was, in a sense, the Fagan of New Jersey. On weekend nights Solimene hosted poker games in the back of the store. Richard liked him because he was a born outlaw, a slick operator, would do anything to turn a buck; they spoke the same language. Though Solimene was not a born killer, as Richard apparently was, he had no qualms about setting someone up to be robbed and killed. Solimene was one of the few friends Richard ever had—which proved to be a fatal mistake.