Philip Carlo: The Ice Man

This work is dedicated to my agent and dear friend, Matt Bialer,

for always being there, for his constant help, guidance, and unwavering support.This has been a long, bumpy road, Matt, a harrowing journey

I could not have made without you….

“My husband is a good man, a kind man—a great father. All my children’s friends are always saying they wish they had a dad like my husband—like Richard.”

“Richard is both fascinating and as frightening as your worst nightmare. He represents the worst of who we are—yet, he is absolutely fascinating to listen to.”

“This is the devil—No question about it. This is the devil!”

“He’s responsible for over two hundred murders—I mean personally responsible.”

“I’d never hurt a woman or a child. It’s just not in me.”

“He killed with guns, poison, bats, knives, strangulation, his fists, ice picks, screwdrivers, hand grenades, and even fire. We’ve never seen anything like him. Truth is, we’ve never even heard of anything like him.”

“Even now, I mean so many years later, my stomach gets all tense and my hands tremble when I think about him. But I love my dad. I love him a lot! None of it was his fault…. My father married the wrong woman.”

“When he told me he loved me, which he often did, I’d say ‘Me too.’ That’s it… just ‘Me too.’”

“My father terrorized us. We never knew when or where he’d explode. We tried to hide it from my brother because he would have tried to do something, protect us, you know, protect my mother, and my father would’ve killed him, I’m sure. One time this woman with kids in her car cut him off and he got out of the car at a light and tore the woman’s door right off her car.”

“They thought I didn’t know what he was doing, but I saw all the broken furniture and I knew my father did it. I saw my mother’s black eyes. I kept an ax under my bed and a machete just next to the bed because of him.”

“He’s very crafty and cunning, like some kind of jungle predator that nobody ever sees until it’s too late. We knew about him—I knew about him, was tracking him for years, but could never pin anything on him.”

“My mother was cancer. She slowly destroyed everything around her. She produced two killers; me and my brother Joe.”

“There are two Richards, and I never knew who would be walking in the door. He could be generous to a fault, or the meanest man on earth.”

“We called him ‘the Ice Man’ because he froze some of his victims, kept them in an icebox he had for a while, then put them out so we could not tell when the murder actually took place, you see.”

“I became very promiscuous because of my father. The only thing I had control of was my body. I did what I wanted—I did what he didn’t want me to do. I lost my virginity when I was twelve to an older man in a van. Just some guy who picked me up at a bus stop on the corner there.”

“I feel nothing inside for any of them. Nothing. They had it coming and I did it. The only people I ever had any kind of real feelings for were my family. Those others, nothing. Sometimes I wonder why I’m like this, feel nothing inside…. I wish someone could tell me. I’m curious.”

“Richard is totally unique. There’s not been anyone like him in modern times. He trusts me because I’ve never lied to him. He does have a nice side. Once he asked me if I was scared of him and I told him I wasn’t and asked him if I should be. He just stared at me. That was kind of scary—having him just stare with those chilling eyes of his.”

“What the feds did was outrageous. I mean they knew Sammy Gravano ordered Richard to kill a cop and they still made a deal for Gravano to walk.”

“I beat them to death for the exercise.”

“The Law, alone and aloof by its very nature, has no access to the emotions that might justify murder.”