The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

matter of time before the guy whose feet and balls he’d ruined would come looking for revenge, and without a moment’s hesitation he shot them both in the head, and off the hijackers went, back to New Jersey, where they sold the load at the agreed-upon price.

Money, however, seemed to burn a hole in Richard Kuklinski’s pocket. He took the family for a vacation to Florida, and he lost a lot of money at poker and baccarat tables. Nevertheless, with some of the money from the score and money Barbara’s mother and Nana Carmella gave them, Richard and Barbara managed to buy a new home, a two-family house in West New York. Richard had always wanted a house of his own, a castle he could be king of. He finally had it, and he would rule his castle with an iron hand.

 21

 Enter the Lone Ranger

It was late 1970, and a young man who would eventually play a pivotal role in Richard’s life was just finishing a four-year stint in the air force. His name was Patrick Kane.

Kane was a tall, handsome twenty-two-year-old with a wiry, muscular body and a thick head of dark hair that he combed straight back. He had large walnut-shaped brown eyes filled with hope and optimism set into a symmetrical oval-shaped face. Kane had been brought up in Demarest, New Jersey, a small town where everyone knew one another. The youngest of three boys, Pat was an upbeat though pensive young man, still not quite sure what exactly he wanted to do with his life. He was thinking of working on a 250-acre farm a friend of his owned in Pennsylvania. What was drawing him to the farm was the fact that he’d be outdoors all day. Since Pat Kane had been a kid he had always coveted the outdoors.

Pat Kane was a superb athlete and excelled at all the sports he played—wrestling, baseball, football, and basketball. He was very fast and strong and had excellent natural reflexes and coordination. But his favorite sport was fishing. He loved to fish on quiet, out-of-the-way lakes and streams, eating what he caught. He did not like hunting, because he felt it was inherently unfair to shoot an unsuspecting, unarmed animal who couldn’t fire back.

Kane had been stationed in Sacramento, California, and Iceland. He met his sweetheart, Terry McLeod, while stationed in California. They met on a blind date and it was love at first sight. Pat had just left her, and already missed her a lot.

The day Pat returned home, his brother Eddie, a New Jersey state trooper, came to pick him up at Newark Airport. Ed was wearing his immaculate gold-and-black trooper uniform and driving a shiny state police car. The two brothers hugged long and hard. The Kane family were all very close. While Eddie was driving him to their parents’ home, Eddie said: “Pat, the test’s next Tuesday.”

“What test?” asked Pat.

“To be a state trooper.”

“Eddie, I’m not sure what I want to do yet.”

“Pat, it’s a great job. The money and benefits are good, and you’ve got a chance to make a difference, to make this world we live in a better place. You’d be a good cop, Pat, I’m sure.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“The test is next Tuesday,” Eddie repeated. “Pat, we are the first and last defense against the bad guys. Without us, society would fall apart.”

Pat knew his brother had a point; he just didn’t know if he wanted to live the regimented life of a state trooper. The New Jersey State Police was, he knew, run like a military operation; you had to follow strict guidelines, rules, and regulations, something Pat had been doing now for the last four years. He wanted some space, room to breathe, not to jump from one uniform to another.

When Eddie and Pat reached the Kane home, Patrick senior and Helene Kane, Pat’s parents, came hurrying out of the front door, both of them hugging and kissing Pat and welcoming him home. He was their youngest, and they’d been worried about him; he had never lived away from home before he left for the air force. Now he was back safe and sound, and they were very pleased.

“Welcome home, son. Welcome home,” Patrick Kane said, holding his last born hard. Pat was so happy to be home and with his parents that tears came to his eyes.

“Come on inside, son. I’ve cooked you a wonderful meal,” Helen Kane said.

As it happened, it took a full year for Pat to decide what he wanted to do with his life. During that time he worked at menial jobs, did a lot of fishing, spoke to his sweetheart on the phone several times a week, went to visit her when he had the funds. Pat had little money; his parents weren’t wealthy people, and cash was tight.

Several factors finally convinced Pat to become a state trooper. First and foremost was his brother Ed. Just about every day Pat saw Ed in his slick state trooper uniform, his gun prominent on his right hip. Second, Pat came to realize just how vitally important law-enforcement officers really were. They were, just as Eddie had said, the first and last defense society had against the rapists, murderers, thieves, and desperadoes that so permeated society. Every day Pat heard about the unspeakable atrocities people committed on one another. You couldn’t read a newspaper or watch the news without learning about another heinous crime. The third reason Pat was drawn to becoming a state trooper was the challenge. The physical tests and requirements were extremely difficult. You had to be in tip-top shape to qualify. On the average only fifty out of five thousand applicants met the physical mandates. Last, he was drawn to the state police because he’d be working outdoors most of the time.

In the spring of 1971, Pat Kane applied to be a state trooper. He readily passed both the written and physical tests, and toward the end of that winter he became a Jersey state trooper. His parents and brothers came to the graduation ceremony. Pat Kane cut a dashing, handsome figure in his spanking new uniform, and he looked forward—in a big way, he recently explained—to making a difference; to trying to make this volatile world we live in a better place, keeping the wolves at bay.

One of the first things Pat did after graduating the trooper academy was to ask Terry to marry him. She said yes, and soon she moved up to Demarest, New Jersey, leaving her family and all her friends behind, and married Pat.

Pat Kane now felt he had everything a man could hope for: a good job that was meaningful, rewarding and challenging, and kept him outdoors, and a beautiful, devoted wife who thought the world of him.

Terry, Pat recently explained, gave up everything, her family, her home, her friends, surroundings she was familiar with, to be with me. To be my wife. As far as I was concerned I was the luckiest guy in the world.

Thus the die was cast, the stage set for one of the most important, shocking murder investigations in the annals of modern crime history anywhere in America, indeed, the world.

PART III

  VERY BAD GOODFELLAS

 22

 Making Ends Meet

Richard Kuklinski was still putting in a lot of overtime hours, though at another film lab. Now he was pirating mostly porno movies; there was a large, ever expanding market for porn, and Richard was dutifully filling it.

All the overtime hours he was putting in, however, were causing guys in the lab to complain to the film printers’ union, and a union delegate came around the lab to talk with Richard. The delegate was a broad- shouldered Irishman with an attitude problem, the type of guy who doesn’t know how to wield authority—a bully. He stopped Richard as he was leaving work. The lab he was working at now was on West Fifty-fourth. They went into the DeWitt Clinton Park on Twelfth Avenue to talk. By now it had gotten dark.

“We got complaints,” the union guy began, “that you’re taking all the overtime.”

“Hey,” Richard said, “they ask me if I want the time, I say yes. I got a wife and child. What’s the problem?”

“Problem is you’re stealing from the other guys.”

“My ass. They’re saying they don’t want the work. I do. Take a walk.” Richard started on his way. The union guy grabbed Richard’s shoulder, and Richard spun and hit him a solid roundhouse right. As the union man went