Philip Carlo - The Ice Man

Meanwhile, Richard’s porno business was thriving. He consigned almost everything he produced or Roy fronted him within a day or two of receiving it. Now that Paul Rothenberg was gone, Richard and Roy were filling the vacuum created by his sudden demise. Richard only wished he had killed Rothenberg sooner.

The next job Richard did for the Gambinos was in Los Angeles. As usual Richard traveled first class. He got a big kick out of the fact that he was a professional killer, sitting there like all the other businesspeople, except that his business was the business of taking life, quickly or slowly, whatever the client preferred.

Through Gambino family ties in Los Angeles, Richard secured a .22 with a silencer, rented a van, and went to fill the contract. He had a photo of the guy and his address, and knew he used the same phone booth at the same time every day. The mark was a made man and this was a sanctioned hit. He was giving information to the feds and had to go.

Like clockwork the mark, a burly, big-bellied Italian, left his apartment, made his way to the phone booth, and started talking animatedly, waving his free hand as if he were conducting an orchestra. Richard had been told to call Roy when he spotted the guy, which he now did. As usual, Richard used a phone booth, beeped in the number, and Roy called him back.

“You find him?” Roy asked.

“I’m looking at him right now. He’s on the phone. Loves to talk.”

“He’s talking to a guy I’m with right now.”

“You want me to move?”

“Hold off. We need to find out something first,” Roy said.

And every day for nearly a week, Richard was in position and would call Brooklyn as the mark talked up a storm, and was told “not yet.” Richard didn’t like all this hanging around, but he would do what the job called for. Several times a day he’d call home, make sure everything was okay—the concerned dad and husband just checking in.

Finally, Richard was given the green light. It was raining that day. He positioned the van where he knew the mark would walk, opened the side panel an inch or so, and waited. The mark had, Richard knew, broken the cardinal rule: he’d fallen into the same pattern every day, making Richard’s job that much easier. Sure enough the mark came walking toward the van, his mind preoccupied. Richard raised the .22 and waited for him to be in position, and when he was in the precise line of fire Richard pulled the trigger—a soft pop, hitting the mark in the side of the head, a little left of the temple. He went right down, brain-dead before he hit the wet pavement. Richard used a .22 Magnum hollow-point round, which entered the skull and bounced about inside the mark’s head, making instant mush of his brain.

Richard got behind the wheel and headed to LAX, pleased that this piece of work was finally done. He hadn’t liked having to hang around for several days. But he was a hunter and knew that with all hunting, patience was a prerequisite.

As always Richard got rid of the murder weapon on his way to the airport, and he soon boarded a flight back to Newark. He took a cab home and walked in the house in a good mood. He had been paid thirty grand for this job. The Los Angeles police knew nothing about Richard, and this murder was never linked to him.

Barbara was in the kitchen preparing dinner; the girls were setting the table; Dwayne was reading a book. Richard kissed everyone hello, got hugs and kisses from his children.

“How was your trip?” Barbara asked, having no idea what Richard had just done; she only knew he’d been in LA “on business.”

“Good,” he said, no more.

The family soon sat down for dinner, roast beef and potatoes, one of Richard’s favorites. He sliced the meat carefully, just so, not too thin, not too thick. The girls talked about school. Dwayne talked about the book he was reading. Richard, as always, sat quietly and listened.

Merrick was enrolled in the prestigious Devonshire Academy, an extremely expensive private school. Chris was enrolled in Holy Angels, also an expensive parochial school. That’s what Barbara wanted; that’s the way it was going to be. Barbara was, for the most part, oblivious of the costs, certainly of the chances Richard was taking to earn the kind of money needed for the private schools, and for all the trappings required to attend such schools.

Young Dwayne, Barbara had realized early on, was a gifted child, and she could not have been more proud of him. He had an IQ of 170 and loved to read; he’d much rather read a book than watch cartoons or play with toys. He loved the Golden Books series, quickly burned through them, and went on to the classics: The Jungle Book and Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, Moby-Dick, Oliver Twist. Books fascinated him. Barbara would often catch him in bed, under the covers, with a book and a flashlight to read. She treated Dwayne as if he were royalty, and repeatedly let Richard know how smart Dwayne was; this, without any malice. She was just a proud mom effusively expressing herself. But Richard didn’t take it that way. Yes, Dwayne was his son, yes he was pleased the boy was obviously gifted—but he was still a male, and Richard didn’t want any other males stealing away Barbara’s attention. Richard inevitably became jealous of Dwayne and was, for the most part, standoffish and somewhat aloof from his last born, his own son, he readily admits.

Barbara did not want any more children with Richard. She already had serious misgivings, she says, that she had three children with him. She’d gotten a tubal ligation to make sure she could never become pregnant again. Richard was a very sexual man. The older he became the more he wanted to make love to Barbara, every day… sometimes twice a day, even more. She wasn’t always receptive to his overtures, which would immediately infuriate him, and he’d take her whether she wanted to or not. That was his nature. That’s what he did. This was a frequent source of friction between them because Richard would not take no, “I’m not in the mood,” for an answer. If she said, “I have a headache,” he’d say, “I don’t want to make love to your head.”

He’d even become violent with Barbara if she said no. He took it as rejection—a thing he would not tolerate, on any level for any reason. Even if she was menstruating, he didn’t care. For him it was irrelevant. Richard was obsessively loyal to Barbara, would never ever go with another woman, wouldn’t even think about it, he says, and thus he felt he had the God-given right to have his wife whenever the hell he pleased. He was, for the most part, a gentle, considerate lover; he never hurt her during sex, never wanted to bind her or dominate her or anything like that. He was conventional, indeed a bit puritanical, when it came to sex. Yet, he was hot-blooded like a dedicated Latin lover and often wanted to make love to Barbara.

Like all things, Barbara had to learn to accept this, make the best of it. But Richard always made sure she too was satisfied. In that way he was “quite considerate,” she recently revealed.

Because of financial pressures Richard was always looking for more ways to make more money. There was never enough money. But as word of Richard’s dedication, expertise, and efficiency spread, more and more people contacted him to do hits, and blood money came rolling in. He took pieces of work all over the country, indeed, the world. Wherever the Mafia had interests, did business, there was conflict, disagreements, backstabbing, the disrespecting of wives, girlfriends, daughters, there were people who had to die. Richard filled the bill. He traveled to Wisconsin, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Las Vegas, Mississippi, Chicago, Arizona, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Wyoming, Indiana—all over the place—and killed people. Some he left where they dropped. Others disappeared forever… were buried, squashed in the trunks of cars, thrown down bottomless pits in Pennsylvania, fed to rats in Bucks County.