however, the truck driver was up and throwing fast, furious punches at him, well-placed combinations, like a boxer would. He was exceedingly strong and was beating Richard. The fight moved to a pool table. The truck driver managed to get Richard down on top of it and proceeded to pummel him. Richard grabbed an eight ball and, with all his strength, struck the guy alongside his bald head; again, he went down.
Richard didn’t want anything more to do with this situation—fighting for dear life in a bar over what amounted to nonsense. He left the Hoboken bar, got into a blue Chevy he had, and drove toward Jersey City, licking his wounds as he went. The bald-headed truck driver was the toughest, strongest guy he’d ever gone up against, and it was all over nothing. Thinking he had to learn to control his drinking and homicidal impulses, Richard went under a low train trestle between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets, where a car suddenly cut him off and made him come to a screeching stop. The truck driver jumped out of the car, all red-faced mad, followed by his friends; they were carrying pipes, storming toward Richard.
Under the seat of the car, Richard had a snub-nosed .38. He quickly grabbed it, and as the truck driver reached him, cursing, raising the length of pipe he had, Richard shot him square in the forehead. He went down and this time he stayed there, a finger of blood gushing in squirts from the sudden dime-sized hole in his head. Richard got out of the car and proceeded to shoot the other two dead, the report of the gunshots deafeningly loud under the cold metal trestle. Shaking his head in disbelief, Richard knew he had to move and move fast unless he wanted to go to jail. His mind raced. Quickly, he put the three bodies into the back of the bald-headed guy’s car and drove it down to the frozen, bleak waterfront, only a few blocks away. He retrieved his own car, parked it near the car with the bodies, put the three of them in the trunk, and took off for Pennsylvania’s Bucks County. He knew he had to get rid of the bodies, that they could never be found; if they were it would be a foregone conclusion that he had killed them. He had thought about just driving the car into the river, but he was concerned it would be spotted there and the bodies would be found, and of course tied to him.
The year before Richard had been in Bucks County hunting deer and had come across some interesting caves in which there were bottomless pits. He made a mental note then of these endless holes in the ground as a good place to get rid of a body, never imagining he’d have three bodies to dispose of. Richard had an uncanny sense of direction, and without much difficulty he managed to find the caves; one by one he carried the bodies inside and tossed them down a gaping, ominous hole. He could hear them banging along the sides of the hole as they went down, but not hit bottom. Huffing and puffing, his breath fogging in the February cold, he hurried back and forth, throwing each body in turn down the hole, amazed at how heavy a body became when life left it.
Finished, a job well done, Richard drove back to Jersey City listening to country music, resolved to stop getting into barroom brawls, fights over nothing. But that never happened. If someone, anyone, insulted Richard, spoke down to him, or was disrespectful, Richard wanted to kill him, and often did. This would be a recurring theme that played out often and tragically in Richard’s incredibly violent life.
Back in Jersey City, Richard carefully wiped his prints off the car, took off the license plates, drove it to the edge of a pier along the Hudson where he knew the water was deep, and eased it into the frigid, secret-holding, accommodating river. The car quickly disappeared. If the car was found at some point without any bodies inside of it, he’d have no problems. The sky was still dark, but a thick leaden dawn was coming on quickly. The wind blew hard. Richard walked back to his car and drove home, proud of his quick thinking, proud of the fact that he had met the enemy head-on and prevailed.
He felt they had gotten what they deserved, and he was, in the end, glad he had killed them. The last thought before he went to sleep, the February winds whistling, rattling the windows, was
Oddly enough, Richard wasn’t even questioned about the disappearance of the three men. He had, it seemed, amazing luck. He’d killed them on a quiet, desolate street with few houses nearby; a passing car could very well have come along, but none did. This luck would follow Richard for many years. It was almost as if he had some kind of dark, demonic archangel watching over him, keeping him safe…off police radar.
There were rumors that Richard had done in the three guys, but no one ever asked him, no cops questioned him, and Richard certainly wasn’t about to tell anyone what he’d done. He was tight-lipped in the extreme—another aspect of his personality that would serve him well for many years to come.
10
Murder for Hire
Carmine Genovese was out of jail and needed another man killed, though this time, he told Richard, the mark had to “suffer” before he died and the body had to “disappear.”
“This guy,” Carmine said, “did something to a friend of mine’s wife; something very disrespectful. You make sure he suffers—understand? Do it good and I’ll pay you double…okay?”
“Okay, sure, no problem,” Richard said. He did not ask what the man had done, why he had to suffer. That was irrelevant; none of his business.
Again, Carmine gave Richard a photograph of the mark and the address of the place he worked, a used-car lot on Raymond Boulevard in Newark. The mark was standing in the lot next to a woman that looked kind of like him.
“You do this right, I pay you very well, capisce?”
“Capisce,” Richard said.
“Maybe you can bring me a little piece a him so I can see for myself and tell my friend how he suffered.”
“A piece of him?” Richard repeated, a little confused.
“Yeah, so I can show my friend.”
“How big a piece?” Richard asked.
“Not so big, maybe like his hand…some toes, okay?”
“Yeah…sure, okay,” Richard said. “No problem. I aim to please.”
“Good,” Genovese said. They shook hands. The contract was sealed.
Glad Carmine was giving him another “piece of work,” Richard left his place, his mind suddenly filled with the job before him. This was, he would later reveal, the part he liked the most—the stalking of a victim. Richard immediately knew how to do this and looked forward to it. Clearly, Richard had grown into a psychotic sadist who had discovered a way to hurt and kill people, and get paid for it. Life was good.
It was a sprawling used-car lot. Colorful flags were strung across it every which way. Richard quickly found the mark. He was tall and thin and was often walking about the lot with customers. He even went on test drives with people. Before Richard made any kind of move he surveyed the place for two days—found out when the most people were there, when the mark arrived, and when he left. When Richard had a clear plan in his mind, he parked his car a few blocks away, on a quiet street lined with broken-down warehouses. There were fewer people shopping for cars about 11:00 A.M., just before lunch, and that’s when Richard walked onto the lot, straight up to the mark, a friendly smile about his high-cheekboned face. It was late March. The weather had become mild. Richard wore a baggy sport coat. In one pocket he had a .38 derringer, in the other a jawbreaker—a kind of blackjack with a piece of solid lead the size of a cigarette pack encased in black leather with a short, thin handle—perfect for knocking people unconscious with one blow. Smiling, Richard told the mark he needed an inexpensive car quickly, that his car had been stolen and that he needed wheels for work.
“Something reliable,” he said. “I’m not handy with engines and I don’t want to get stuck somewhere at night,” he explained, his face suddenly grave. Richard was, in fact, a consummate actor. He had a natural ability, no doubt acquired on the street, of looking someone square in the eye and lying through his teeth.
“Got the perfect car for you,” the mark said, and led him over to a two-door Ford. Richard looked it over carefully, kicked the tires.
“Can I take it for a spin?” he asked.
“Of course,” the mark said. “Let me get the keys.” He walked into the little office on the left. Richard had set the trap; soon he’d spring it. They piled into the car. Off they went. Richard drove a few blocks, talking about how well the car handled, then headed directly toward his car. Completely unaware of what was about to happen, the mark was no doubt calculating his commission. Richard pulled up to his car and stopped, said he wanted to check under the hood.
“Is that okay?” he politely asked, smiling.
