“Sure, no problem. Got nothing to hide here. Clean as a whistle.” The mark was caught up in the moment, having no idea about the hatchet, rope, and shovel in the trunk of Richard’s car. Richard slid out of the Ford and opened the hood. The mark, of course, followed. As he was looking down at something Richard pointed to, Richard struck him with the jawbreaker just above the ear. He went right down, out cold. In seconds Richard put him in the trunk of his car, taped his mouth shut with industrial duct tape, hog-tied his feet and hands behind his back. Calm and cool, Richard got on the turnpike and drove south to the Jersey Pine Barrens, desolate forests that were perfect for what he had in mind. This was where he had disposed of Charley Lane—the projects bully—so many years ago. Richard had already scoped out a good spot, where he hid his car behind a thick stand of accommodating pines. Here he opened the trunk and dragged the panic-stricken mark from his car and tied him to one of the trees, his back tight up against it. Richard took a length of rope, forced it into the mark’s mouth, and tied it tightly to the rough pine tree, forcing the mark’s tongue up against the back of his rapidly constricting throat. The mark was crying now, trying to talk, to beg, to plead, but he only made muffled, unintelligible grunts. He seemed to know why this was happening, as if, in a way, he had expected it. Richard now actually told him that he had to suffer before he died, and went back to his car and retrieved the hatchet and shovel, very much enjoying this.
He made sure the mark saw the hatchet and shovel, watched the reality of their meaning in Richard’s enormous hands sink in. The mark began to scream, to try and break free, but that was impossible. He wet himself, a thing Richard would see many times in years to come. Richard proceeded now to smash the mark’s ankles and knees with the hatchet. Then he chopped off his fingers, one at a time. Richard stepped back to see the degree of pain the mark was suffering. He’d been planning to take the fingers back to Genovese as proof of the suffering, but suddenly got
When Richard finally killed the mark, he dug a hole in the pine-needle-covered ground, threw what was left of the hapless man into the hole, retrieved the proof Genovese had asked for, and returned to Hoboken, carrying it in a plastic bag he’d brought along, listening to country music as he went.
He found Genovese at home.
“Did you do the job?” Genovese asked.
“Yeah, it’s done,” said Richard.
“You bring me something good?” Genovese asked.
“Sure did,” Richard said, amused, placing the bag on the kitchen table. Curious, Genovese looked inside, and there was the mark’s head. A big smile spread over Genovese’s large, round face.
“Son of a bitch—beautiful…you did good, son of a bitch,” Genovese said, realizing he had found a rare man in this giant Polack. “Very good! Molto bravo…molto bravo!” he added.
“Want me to get rid of it?” Richard asked.
“No…leave it here. I want to show it to my friend. Did he suffer?” asked Genovese.
“Yeah, he suffered good,” Richard said, and Genovese paid him ten thousand dollars cash on the spot for, he said, “a good job well done.”
The cash in his pocket making a pleasant bulge, Richard left Genovese, knowing his reputation as an efficient contract killer was assured.
11
The Enforcer
Richard still frequently thought about killing his father Stanley. He’d start thinking about him, remember the brutal, callous treatment he’d suffered, get all mad inside, and want to beat him to death. On several occasions he actually went to a bar where Stanley hung out near the projects, looking to put a bullet in his head, but Stanley wasn’t there.
Stanley never realized how close he’d come to being killed by his second son.
Joseph, Richard’s younger brother, was also extremely violent, in frequent difficulties in school, always getting into trouble, stealing things, drinking excessively. Richard wanted to reach out to him, give him advice, put some money in his hands, but he loathed his mother so much now that he wouldn’t even go near their apartment anymore.
After being given the head of the car salesman, Carmine Genovese took a shine to Richard. Carmine had a lot of money on the street, and he now used Richard as his chief collector and enforcer. Had Richard been Italian, Genovese would surely have sponsored him for induction into the family, but he was Polish and that could not happen. Still, Carmine gave him a lot of work. Richard was collecting money for him from people up and down the East Coast. He was reliable, honest, and very violent when necessary, sometimes too violent. Richard was always knocking on Carmine’s door with brown paper bags of money in his hand. He never stole a dime from Carmine; indeed, he never even thought about it, which only made Carmine that much more fond of him. Most everyone that borrowed money from Carmine Genovese knew the ground rules out of the gate and paid it back quickly, as agreed to. Not to do so, everyone also knew, could be fatal.
For the most part Richard enjoyed working for Genovese. He made money—most of which he pissed away. People respected him and showed him deference, and his reputation as a dangerous “mob-connected guy” spread all over Jersey. Nobody fucked with him. Even other mob guys stayed clear of Richard Kuklinski. He became known as “the Polack.” That became his street name.
Richard took to always carrying two guns and a knife whenever he went out. If he wasn’t armed to the teeth, he felt naked. He was fond of over-and-under .38 derringers. They were so small that they could readily fit in the palm of a hand, and at close range they were lethal. Richard enjoyed killing
When asked if he believed in God, that it was a sin to kill a human being, he said:
Richard’s wife, Linda, gave birth to a baby boy they named Richard. Richard felt no love for or emotional attachment to his child. He was a natural extension of a sex act—nothing more. Richard didn’t even go to the hospital when Linda gave birth, nor did he help bring her home. He acted as though it were someone else’s child, not his; but it didn’t take long for Linda to become pregnant again.
Linda saw all of Richard’s weapons but never questioned what they were for. She knew how violent and psychotic Richard could be and acted as if she were blind. She knew too that if she questioned him, demanded information, asked questions, he might very well explode and hit her. In this Richard was a carbon copy of his father—the man he most hated in the world—but he did not, never would, hit his son, or strike any of the five children he would eventually have.
Richard was, for the most part, fond of children, saw them as put-upon innocents, and became enraged when he saw an adult hitting a child. One time he beat the hell out of a man he saw hitting his kids in a parking lot; in years to come he’d kill a friend of his because the man asked him to murder his wife and eight-year-old son.
Richard was still taking trips to Manhattan’s West Side, where he killed anyone who got in his way, was pushy, or rude. He very much enjoyed killing aggressive panhandlers, so quickly that they didn’t even realize what had happened until they hit the ground.
One night Richard came upon two burly leather-clad men raping a young boy behind a red eighteen-wheeler parked just near the Hudson. He was walking along, admiring how the lights on the Jersey side of the river played
