Philip Carlo - The Ice Man

“You come up with the money or you’re fuckin’ dead—fuckin’ dead, motherfucker!” DeMeo said, and they left.

Richard was suddenly alone, bleeding all over the floor. He stood up, went into a bathroom off the hall, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a mess.

Cursing out loud, using paper towels to wipe away the blood, Richard vowed to kill DeMeo. The wounds he’d gotten from the pistol-whipping were deep, and Richard had to go to St. Vincent’s Hospital on Seventh Avenue to have them stitched up. He received thirty-eight stitches on three different mean gashes on his head. His eyes blackened, his lip swollen, all stitched up, Richard slowly went back to New Jersey. He was so beat up that he didn’t want Barbara and his daughters to see him, so he went to his mother-in-law’s house. Shocked when she saw him, Genevieve let him in the house and got an ice bag for him. He told her, and later Barbara, that he’d been mugged, jumped by four guys and robbed. He slept that night at Genevieve’s house—mostly tossed and turned, planning how he’d torture Roy DeMeo.

It didn’t take long for Richard to find out who Roy DeMeo really was—an associate in good standing of the Gambino family, who ran a ruthless band of serial killers. Richard knew if he killed Roy now, he’d surely be killed in turn, and quickly. He was so mad over what DeMeo and the others had done that if he hadn’t been married with children, he might have gone and found DeMeo and killed him anyway. But because of Barbara and his family, he had to play it cool—for now. No easy thing for Richard Kuklinski. But Richard knew that there would be, in the future, an opportunity for him to get revenge; he’d bide his time. But, he vowed, he would one day pistol-whip and kill Roy DeMeo.

The first thing Richard did was make arrangements with Tony Argrila to pay him back the money. That done, Richard went to Brooklyn, to the Gemini Lounge, and asked for DeMeo. DeMeo was shocked to see Richard at the bar by himself.

“I hear,” DeMeo said, “you’re doing the right thing. You got balls coming here like this.”

“I wanted to talk with you.”

“Yeah, well, talk.”

“First off, I didn’t know who you were,” Richard diplomatically, and uncharacteristically, said. “Second, Rothenberg and Tony are stealing from each other—I’ve seen it myself. Sure I’m a little behind, but nothing like they’re saying. All the time Rothenberg is trying to give me material on the side. That’s the truth, Roy.”

Richard figured, correctly, that it was Rothenberg who had sicced Roy on him, and now he was returning the favor.

“I’ll tell you, big guy, you got balls; you got some pair a nuts coming here like this. I’m thinking maybe we got off on the wrong foot here—I got mad when I should’a been talking. I asked around ’bout you and I know you’re a stand-up guy. You had a gun on you, and didn’t use it… you got balls.”

“Roy, I want to make money with you, not fight with you. That’s all I want to do here is make money… do business.”

“I hear you got contacts all over the place; we can do something together. You just play straight with me and you’ll make money—a lotta money.”

“Sounds good.”

“Let’s shake on it,” Roy said, and these two killers shook hands, a slight smirk on each of their faces.

“I hear,” Roy said, “you got an Italian wife. Take a ride with me,” Roy offered. They got into his car and drove to an Italian food shop a few blocks away.

“Come on,” Roy said.

They went inside. The place had sawdust on the floor, salami and giant rolls of provolone hanging from the ceiling. Roy picked out all kinds of meats, Italian sweet sausages and giant blocks of different cheeses and a head-sized piece of mozzarella in water.

“They make mozzeralla fresh a few times a day,” he told Richard. Roy paid for everything—$150—and gave Richard four big bags.

“You bring this stuff home to your wife. She’ll like it, I bet you. Call me in a couple of days and we’ll do business, okay? I got a few lines of my own and I’ll front you all you want.”

“Okay,” Richard said, genuinely taken aback by this little-seen generous side of Roy DeMeo.

“Thanks, Roy,” Richard said, and it was done.

Anna McNally, Richard’s mother, was terminally ill, dying of liver cancer. When Roberta, Richard’s sister, called to tell him of their mother’s impending death, he didn’t even want to go see her. Finally, he thought, she’s getting her due. But Barbara convinced him that he should go see his mother one last time, so he and Barbara went. Barbara had no use for Anna; she knew what a rotten mother she’d been to Richard. But still she was his mother, and Barbara felt he should see her one last time before she died. It was the right thing to do.

As the years had gone by Richard grew to despise his mother more and more. He pretty much blamed her for everything: for marrying Stanley; for having children with Stanley; for how Stanley mercilessly beat Florian—killed Florian—for how Stanley beat him.

When they arrived at the hospital, however, Anna did not even acknowledge his presence. She was facing the wall, holding blue rosary beads, repeating over and over “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” nonstop, as if it were a Tibetan chant. Richard spoke to her. He tried to say good-bye. But she wouldn’t even look at him. It seemed as though she were already dead and gone but her body didn’t yet realize it. She had shrunken to a mere shell of the robust, attractive woman she had once been. For Anna McNally, life had been cruel—a constant bitter struggle filled with heartache, hard menial labor, pain, suffering, and want. For Anna death would be a blessing, certainly better than her life had been, and she welcomed it.

She did in fact die later that night. Richard reluctantly went to the wake only because Barbara convinced him he should go. He did not cry. He showed no emotion.

Stanley Kuklinski also came to the wake, and Richard didn’t even say hello to him. It was all he could do to keep from taking Stanley by the neck in front of everyone and choking the cold heartless bastard to death, right there. With great effort he held himself back. Barbara could see he was getting all bent out of shape at the sight of his father, his lips twisting up, his face flushing. Sitting there next to Barbara, all Richard could think of was killing Stanley; harsh black-and-white images of what Stanley had done to him moving in his head like a grainy old slow-motion film. It took much restraint for Richard not to take his father outside, put him in his car, kill him, and dump him down a Pennsylvania mine shaft. Richard told Barbara he wanted to leave. In the car on the way back home, she said, “You okay, Richard?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just… when I see Stanley it all comes back. That man should never have been allowed to have children.” Here he stopped talking. He didn’t want Barbara to hear the truth, what Stanley truly had done to him: how he had murdered Florian.

True to his word, DeMeo gave Richard, on consignment, all the pornography he wanted. Richard bought himself a van, went to Brooklyn, and picked up boxes of porn produced by Roy, one hundred films per box. By now Richard had many contacts in the porn business across the country. He was distributing porn—both his and DeMeo’s—to wholesalers everywhere, and business boomed. For the first time Richard was making good money on a steady basis.

Richard was scrupulously careful about giving Roy all he was due, on time as promised. Roy began to take a shine to Richard. He admired his temerity, the fact that he had taken the beating “like a man,” as he told his crew. The fact that Richard had a gun in his pocket and didn’t use it; the fact that he came to the Gemini by himself. That, he knew, took balls.