Philip Carlo - The Ice Man

“Hey, how ya doin?” he greeted Richard.

“Okay, good,” Richard said, getting out of the car and shaking Polifrone’s outstretched hand. The agent was taken aback by Richard’s size.

“Let’s grab some coffee,” Richard said, and they headed inside the Dunkin’ Donuts. It was just about empty. Richard moved to a quiet corner on the left, thinking this Dominick guy might have great contacts in the underworld and all, but he was wearing the worst wig he’d ever seen. It looked like a raccoon went and died on his head, he’d later say.

The bad wig aside, Richard had taken his “friend” Phil Solimene at his word: that Dominick was “good people,” that they went back a lot of years. They both ordered coffees. Dominick was concerned about poison, that somehow Richard knew he was a plant and that he’d somehow manage to slip poison into his coffee. He purposely didn’t order anything to eat and made sure to keep his coffee close, actually in his hand.

“I’m glad we’re finally fuckin’ meeting, Rich. I hear all kinds of good fuckin’ things about you.”

“And me you. So you know Phil a long time?”

“Yeah, we go back. You too I hear.”

“I know Phil… what, now, over twenty years.”

“He’s a great guy. Stand-up.”

“Yeah… So let me tell you what I need, okay?”

“Sure, please.”

“I want to get some cyanide.”

“Cyanide, you mean like the fuckin’ poison?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Rich, go to, you know, go to a fuckin’ gardening store.”

“No, I mean high-grade stuff—laboratory quality. I got some rats I need to get rid of,” he said, amused.

“Yeah, well sure, I’m certain I could get ya that,” Dominick said, all serious. He wanted to, had to, draw Richard further out: cyanide, after all, was not illegal, nor was asking for it illegal. He had to get Richard involved in something that was overtly illegal. Dominick knew the game, knew what to say. The question was, would Richard take the bait?

“Rich,” he said, “I hear you got good contacts for serious weapons, I’m talking heavy steel here. My guy had to take off recently. I’ve got a good customer, a broad who’s hooked up with the IRA, and they got serious bucks and are looking for heavy steel. Can you help me there? You know, one hand washes the other?”

“Sure. Let me make a few calls,” Richard said.

There was something about Polifrone that Richard wasn’t comfortable with, that put him off. Yet they exchanged beeper and telephone numbers and planned to do business. The meeting soon ended. They walked outside together. The sky was lower and darker.

“I’m thinking of stopping and saying hello to Phil,” Richard said.

“Sure, good idea. I’ll follow you over,” Dominick said, and made his way back to his Lincoln and followed Richard to the store. They walked inside together. What a pair. As different as night and day.

“Hey, Rich!” Phil called out, acting overjoyed to see him. “Glad you two finally hooked up.”

Richard hugged Solimene and kissed him on the cheek, said hello to some of the other guys. During all the months Polifrone had been hanging around the store, he’d been clocking the action—he knew who was involved in counterfeit money, hijacking, robberies; but he couldn’t make any kind of move, yet. However, at the right time, he’d make sure all these criminals, the regular thugs that hung out at the store, were picked up.

“So you and Dom here go back,” Richard said offhandedly.

“Absofuckinlutely,” Phil said. “You can treat him like me, Rich. He’s a thousand percent!”

“Okay,” Richard said. “Good enough for me,” readily accepting what Solimene was saying. This was out of character for Richard. He was usually a particularly untrusting, suspicious individual. But he believed Phil and had no real reservations about Polifrone, other than his terrible hairpiece. He felt whoever had sold it to him should be arrested.

Phil, Richard, and Polifrone did a three-way handshake.

“Salud,” Phil said, wishing them luck on whatever enterprise they did together.

Richard had apparently taken the bait. He said he had to get going and soon disappeared.

“I told you, I told you I’d deliver him,” Solimene told Dominick.

“And you did. Good work,” Dominick said. He was anxious to let his superiors know he had finally hooked Kuklinski. He had been getting flak about a lack of results, but now he had something concrete to show for all the months he’d been working this case, the endless card games, cursing, cigar smoking, bullshit. When he left the store, he drove a few blocks, making sure he wasn’t tailed, used a pay phone, and told his people what had happened, what was said. “Our man has taken the bait,” he told headquarters.

Polifrone next called Kane. When Kane heard what had happened, he let out a loud whoop. He hurried into Lieutenant Leck’s office and told him the good news. They shook hands, high-fived each other.

“So we got him on the hook,” Kane said. “Now all we have to do is get him in the boat.”

As it happened, this was easier said than done.

Now what Kane and Polifrone needed to pull this off successfully was a larger, more sophisticated operation. They had not only to get Kuklinski to incriminate himself, but to record it and make it all admissible and viable in a court of law. They needed help—more resources, wiretaps, electronic surveillance, manpower, helicopters, money—and they would get most of it in the form of New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Bob Carroll.

It was time to take off the gloves.

Two days after their first meeting, Richard beeped Polifrone. The agent called him back. Richard wanted to know if he had secured the cyanide. He was anxious to get rid of Kane, and to do it properly he needed the cyanide.

“I’m working on it, Rich. How about you—you find what I need?”

“Got feelers out,” Richard said.

“Okay, I’ll get back to you on that ASAP, all right?”

“Yeah, good, okay,” Richard said.

Richard wanted to go back to Zurich, but he was hesitant to leave with this up in the air; now the first order of business was getting rid of Kane. He believed once that was done he’d be in the clear. But he knew it had to be done right, to make it look like a heart attack. He imagined spraying Kane in his surprised face, saw it happen in his mind.

Pssst, you’re dead, fuck you.

Since the two Colombians had come around the house, Richard was, Barbara noticed, quiet and withdrawn… introspective. He barely talked. She recently explained, I never saw him like this. He was just moping around the house, sitting in his chair and staring into space. He didn’t want to talk; he didn’t even want to go feed the ducks. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what.

Bob Carroll was a diligent, hardworking prosecutor. He had a full baby face, was stocky and square, appeared somewhat like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. That cherubic baby face, however, belied a tenacious prosecutor that won most trials he took before a jury. Bob Carroll was a supervisor of the New Jersey Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau task force, a relatively new unit put together to cross jurisdictions and build up and prosecute cases across the state of New Jersey, focusing on organized crime. Carroll worked out of a secretive unmarked two-story redbrick building in Fairfield. The entrance to the building was in the back, away from prying eyes. There were strategically placed surveillance cameras everywhere. If New Jersey had a Pentagon, a place from which to fight wars, this was surely it. When Carroll heard about the Kuklinski case, he contacted Kane and asked to see “the file.”