Richard to be there to protect him.
As usual, Richard was wearing a large, baggy short-sleeved shirt, the tail out. The shirt covered the guns he had in his waistband. He had extra clips in his pants pocket.
John and Gene Gotti were already there, as were a few soldiers in his crew, and Aniello Dellacroce, the underboss of the Gambino family, John’s mentor, an old school diplomatic man. Everyone within La Cosa Nostra had believed Aniello would take over the Gambino family after Carlo’s death. He’d been the most likely choice. By right he should have, though that hadn’t happened. Still, in many of the captains’ minds Aniello Dellacroce was the real head of the family; he had kept a tenuous peace within the family after Carlo’s death. Dellacroce seemed sickly and frail, as if he would keel over any moment. He had large eggplant-colored circles under sad blue eyes, thin gray hair, a flattened nose. But this was a strong-willed individual, a tough Sicilian with a backbone of steel who believed it was better to make money than war, but would kill in a heartbeat if and when necessary. This meeting was an informal get-together. It was not, as such, a formal sit-down. Hellos, handshakes, reserved respectful age-old hugs and kisses on both cheeks, were exchanged. The smell of Old Spice and Canoe hung in the air. Richard was introduced. He respectfully nodded, shook hands; no hugs or kisses for him. Everyone knew who he was—Roy’s secret weapon, a virtual killing machine—and resented that DeMeo had brought him. It was an affront. But DeMeo had purposely brought Richard for just that reasons. He wanted to make a point; and he did without saying a word.
This was all before John Gotti became a Mafia superstar, a legend in both his own mind and the public’s, but even then he was ambitious in the extreme and quite deadly, everyone knew. Yet, Roy DeMeo had a far-reaching reputation as a very dangerous man that far overshadowed John Gotti’s.
As the meeting began, Richard stood stiffly in the living room as the others moved to a large dark wood dining-room table. DeMeo sat with his back to Richard, who carefully watched what was happening, studying eyes and hands as a tennis umpire observes a championship match. He couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. John Gotti expansively made his case, Roy made his, Dellacroce had a say, and soon they all shook hands. A deal had been struck. Richard could see that the Gottis were wary of DeMeo. Who could blame them? It was no secret that Roy had turned the apartment in the back of the Gemini Lounge into a virtual slaughterhouse, that DeMeo and his crew were murdering scores of people, cutting them up, and getting rid of body parts all over Brooklyn. Gotti thought of DeMeo as an out-of-control ghoul who would eventually make trouble for everyone in the family with all these murders.
Whatever the dispute had been about, it was obvious to Richard that it had been peacefully resolved. The meeting was soon over. DeMeo and Richard left. In the car on the way back to the Gemini, DeMeo said, “This fuckin’ Gotti can’t be trusted. Mark my words, he’s gonna be trouble. I don’t like him. He thinks he’s hot shit. He ain’t nobody. If it wasn’t for Dellacroce he wouldn’t even be made.”
Richard just listened. Back at the Gemini, Richard did not go into the club. He knew DeMeo’s people were inside, and he didn’t want to be around them. DeMeo thanked Richard for coming, and hugged and kissed him, and soon Richard was on the way back to his family, feeling in his gut that there really would be trouble someday because of John Gotti. It was clear in Gotti’s eyes, the way he moved, his body language, even how he gestured with his hands. He was, Richard thought, a storm waiting to happen.
Richard never drove straight home anymore. He always took roundabout routes, would suddenly pull off the parkway and wait for cars to pass him. He didn’t want to be followed home. He didn’t want anyone to know where he lived. Above all else, Richard wanted to protect his family, to keep the street and what he did far away from them.
Barbara still had no idea what Richard did, that he was one of the most proficient killers organized crime had ever known. However, one time she did find a gun wrapped in a rag in the garage, up on a high shelf. She put it right back, didn’t even mention it to him, not sure how he would react.
36
The Office
Richard was still losing his temper and abusing Barbara. He would often come home in a bad mood and get into an argument with Barbara over something small and inconsequential, she’d get in his face, he’d lose it and do damage—slap her, rant and rave, break things with his superhuman strength.
Barbara had bought a gorgeous dining table. It was made of thick Italian marble and had wide marble legs. It cost a fortune, but she wanted it, so they bought it. What Barbara wanted, Barbara got. The table was so heavy it took four burly men to pick it up and carry it inside the house and place it where Barbara wanted it. One afternoon Richard came home in a foul mood. He and Barbara got into it, and the two of them were arguing; he started to lose it. He wanted to slap her, wring her neck, throw her up against the wall. But rather than hurt her, he actually picked up the beautiful marble dining table and tossed it right out the large bay window that faced the street.
Aghast, Barbara berated him, having no idea just how truly dangerous Richard was, whom she was arguing with.
She would later say,
Unfortunately, these kinds of outbursts were happening in front of Merrick and Chris, though not Dwayne. It was Merrick that would usually calm her father down. She had a soothing effect on him. She talked softly to him, got him to leave the house, got him to take her to feed the ducks.
Over in the town of Demarest, a ten-minute drive away (the place where Pat Kane was born and raised), there was a small freshwater pond in the center of a park, called the Demarest Pond. Flocks of wild ducks always gathered there. Richard enjoyed going to this tranquil pond and feeding the ducks. He’d buy bread in a nearby store, sit on a green park bench just near the calm water’s edge, and feed the ducks. He often took Merrick there with him, and together they’d toss the ducks small pieces of bread, which they quickly gobbled up, and as they sat there Merrick would calm her father, talk to him about his childhood, make him forget his anger at Barbara, his anger at the world. Merrick had, for some unfathomable reason, a very calming, soothing effect on her dad. Chris rarely did this with her father, though Barbara did often come here with Richard too. They both enjoyed sitting on the bench, close to the calm pond, feeding the different ducks, talking quietly…at peace. The pond truly had a calming effect on Richard. The ducks knew Richard and would come waddling over at the first sight of him.
Richard’s daughter Chris drew further and further into herself, away from her father—away from the family. For Chris the arguments and violence were extremely upsetting and debilitating.
Chris was now a very attractive twelve-year-old. She had a long, slender body; long, thick blond hair; and a sweet, heart-shaped face with big blue eyes. One summer evening Barbara and Richard were arguing after dinner and he began to break things. Chris silently got up and left the house. She couldn’t deal with the violence, the yelling, her father’s temper, her mother’s “big mouth,” as she thought of it, and would later relate. She walked to the corner and sat on a wooden bench near the bus stop there, trying to figure out what to do, whom she could talk to, where she could get help, where she could turn.
Once, Chris had thought that all parents argued, that surely all dads tore the house apart; but now she knew that wasn’t the case at all, that her father was unique, and that her mother too was unique. As she sat there, dusk coming on quickly, lightning bugs starting to appear, a man in a red van pulled up and said hello to her, offered to take her where she was going.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Chris said in a small voice, knowing she shouldn’t be talking to a stranger. Barbara had warned her many times about talking to strangers.
“Would you like to go for a ride?” the man asked. He was in his midthirties, had blond hair, was attractive, seemed nice—seemed…interested in her.
“Okay, sure,” she said, and got in the van with the stranger, knowing she shouldn’t, knowing her parents would be angry, punish her severely for such a thing, but she didn’t care. She was taking control; she was in charge; that was it.
It didn’t take long for Chris to find out exactly what the blond man was interested in: He asked if she’d like to go to a secluded place he knew of and “fool around.”
“Okay,” she said, even before she realized she’d said it. He took her to a small clearing in some nearby woods and began kissing her. She let him; she didn’t resist him. He took her into the back of the van, undressed
