though because he was a man, Richard would not let Barbara kiss him hello or even hug him. She could only shake his hand. Carl and Nancy had two children, and all the kids loved playing on the beach, making sand castles and frolicking in the surf. Richard enjoyed playing with the kids. He helped them with their castles and sea walls, dug deep holes for them, let them cover him in sand, though his skin was fair and he always ended up sunburned. Barbara would warn him about the sun as if he were a child, remind him how sensitive he was to it, but Richard so enjoyed playing with the children that he’d inevitably end up burned red like a steamed lobster.
They had barbecues and cookouts on the beach, everyone happy and smiling and having a good old time. To look at Richard there on the beach with the children, you’d think he was the best dad in the world. A wonderful, devoted family man who surely wouldn’t hurt a fly.
That summer the family also went down to Florida to visit Barbara’s father. Little Dwayne couldn’t fly because he’d get ear problems from the altitude of the plane, so the family drove. They got up early—all the kids excited about the trip, Disney World, seeing their grandpa—piled into the car, and headed south on the New Jersey Turnpike. During this Florida trip, Richard did not lose his temper at the way someone drove. They stopped at a restaurant and had lunch on their way down and continued on. Barbara and the children sang and played license- plate poker, seeing who could find the most matched numbers on any given plate, and they looked for animal- shaped clouds. They stayed in a good hotel, where the kids played in the pool, and continued on in the morning. Richard even sang along with the family as they went.
As fun and good as the trip was, both Chris and Merrick were wary and on guard; they never knew when their father would go off, when Barbara might say something to upset him. Barbara had a sharp tongue and would use it to cut Richard if she had a mind to. It was, in a sense, her way of getting back at him for bullying her.
In Florida, they stayed with Barbara’s father. He now had a house on the Intra-coastal Waterway and had a twenty-two-foot Chris-Craft fishing boat. He gladly took the kids out on fishing trips—Barbara did not go because she became seasick—and they gleefully caught snappers, blue runners, and blow fish that Al cleaned and grilled that night. Barbara’s dad was an excellent cook, and it was always a big treat to eat anything he prepared. Chris recently observed,
Sometimes they saw sharks in the water, a very dramatic thing. Once a small tiger shark took a snapper Richard was reeling in. The children were both horrified and fascinated; the sharks gave Richard macabre ideas.
Barbara very much enjoyed going to fine outdoor restaurants along the water in Naples and having sumptuous meals. Like most married women with three children, she liked to be waited on. The children were all exceedingly well behaved, like three small adults, never acted up or made any kind of fuss. Richard always insisted on taking care of the check. He wouldn’t even let Al put his hand in his pocket. Richard paid with cash, never any credit cards. He carried around a roll of hundred-dollar bills that could choke a horse. All his money was earned illegally now—he had no “straight employment” and there couldn’t be any record of the money he spent so readily. There was one fancy restaurant, Phillipe’s, that Barbara particularly liked. All the waiters wore stiff white shirts, black bow ties, and vests. Al would inevitably get the children in trouble by making them laugh—he’d hang onion rings on his ears, tickle them, and grab their feet under the table. Al Pedrici loved his grandchildren to no end and couldn’t get enough of them.
After a few days at Al’s house, the Kuklinskis drove to Disney World and stayed in the Contemporary Hotel, the best one in the Disney complex. It was expensive, but you could get the monorail right there straight to the rides, where all the action was. The family would get up early so they could enjoy as much as possible before it became too hot. As much as Barbara loved Florida—going for long swims, watching the children play on the beach —she didn’t like the heat or the humidity. It made her tired and irritable, and when Barbara was irritable she and Richard inevitably clashed. Still, the Florida vacations were great fun.
32
Blood Money
For Richard Kuklinski, money mattered. With money you were a successful man; without it you were a failure, a needy no one who had to watch the good things in life go speeding by.
After Richard killed Paul Rothenberg, he was in good with DeMeo, but more important, he was in solid with Nino Gaggi and by extension the Gambino family. Roy invited Richard to dinner in an Italian restaurant called the Villa in Bensonhurst. It was on Twenty-sixth Avenue, in an old-fashioned home with large pillars out front. The restaurant served first-rate home-style Neapolitan cooking, Nino’s favorite. Everyone there knew who Nino was, and he was waited on as though he were Italian royalty; the best of everything, food and wine and service, was immediately his. Richard was impressed. It was hard not to be. Nino was obviously pleased that Richard had done away with Paul Rothenberg, and he promised that Richard would “earn with us.”
DeMeo acted as if he had created and molded Richard…a kind of secret Frankenstein’s monster killing machine who would faithfully carry out any contract, no questions asked, no piece of work too dangerous.
Because of DeMeo, Richard would become an integral part of the killing arm of the Gambino crime family. The fact that Richard was not Italian and did not hang out with wiseguys proved to be a big plus and would eventually get him involved in taking down the heads of two different crime families—a unique distinction.
After the sumptuous dinner with Gaggi and DeMeo at the Villa, Richard headed back to his family in Dumont. Dumont was as different from Bensonhurst as the sun is from the moon. In Dumont, Richard was able to wrap himself in a cloak of respectability: he was the good neighbor, the guy who drove his daughters’ friends all over, a faithful, stoic usher at Sunday Mass. Richard had no use for the church or its hypocritical teachings, but Barbara insisted that all her children attend private parochial schools, which were quite expensive, and that the family attend Sunday Mass together every week. In these things Barbara was the boss. Richard had nothing to say. He acceded to all of Barbara’s demands and directives when it came to the children—where they went to school, how they dressed, who their friends were, their table manners.
The following week Richard was beeped by DeMeo and went to meet him at the diner near the Tappan Zee Bridge.
“Hey, Rich,” DeMeo greeted him, and they warmly hugged and kissed, these two stone-cold killers, and began to walk around the parking lot.
“Got a special piece a work for you. This Cuban cocksucker down in Miami beat up and raped the fourteen- year-old daughter of an associate of ours. She couldn’t pick him out in a lineup because he wore a fuckin’ bandanna, but we know who he is; he works as a maintenance guy in the complex where they have a place. It’s called the Castaway right in Miami, on Collins Avenue. Richie, you go see him and make sure he fuckin’ suffers…really suffers! You understand?”
“My pleasure,” Richard said, and he meant it.
“This is from our associate,” Roy said, and slipped Richard an envelope with twenty thousand dollars in it. Mob guys make trainloads of money, and twenty thousand was a mere drop in the bucket, though it was enough for Richard to leave for Miami the following day. Now he did not stop for lunch or stay at a nice hotel on the way down. He drove straight through. When he bought gas and oil he paid with cash. Even if he had a credit card he would not use it, because he wanted no record of this trip. There was no photo of the mark, but DeMeo told him the kind of car he drove and that he parked it in the designated area for hotel employees; he even gave him the license-plate number.
The only people Richard hated more than bullies were rapists. As he drove he thought about how he’d feel if one of his girls were attacked that way…the rage and hatred he’d know. As cold and indifferent as Richard could be to human suffering, he had great empathy for a young woman who had been raped. This killing was a piece of work he’d enjoy. This was a piece of work he’d gladly have done for free.
As always, Richard was careful about not speeding, even though he was in a hurry—indeed looked forward to—doing the job. He had with him a .38 loaded with hollow-point rounds and a razor-sharp hunting knife with a curved blade and a hardwood handle. The handle had four notches on it—Richard liked to notch his knives when he
