by Philip Carlo
It was while fishing for muskellunge one Sunday—his favorite pastime—that an idea first came to Kane that could, he believed, move the investigation forward, perhaps even bring it to a successful conclusion. The muskellunge is a very clever, some say cunning, predator in the pike family. Known as muskies, these fish live in hard-to-reach spots in freshwater lakes. They are very hard to catch, cannot be fooled easily by lures and baits. They can grow to six feet in length, are fast and furious and have razorlike teeth. They are so vicious that they not only feed on other fish, but actually attack and eat ducks, muskrats, and other warm-blooded vertebrates. If there is a ruthless serial killer in the fresh waters of northern New Jersey, it is surely the muskie. As Kane was trying to catch the shadowy muskie that Sunday, with live bait, he first got the idea of using live bait to get Kuklinski.
Kuklinski was very much like a muskie, Kane was thinking—struck at will, was cunning, a hard-to-catch killer.
Yes, what Kane needed to get Kuklinski was live bait, a beguiling decoy that could fool him and draw him out in the open. Pat Kane started asking around about a man who could get close to Kuklinski, an adept undercover cop who could draw him out in the open.
John Spasudo also had his fingers in many pies. His passport had been taken away because he was on bail in a forgery case, so he had asked Richard to go overseas to consummate this currency-exchange deal. Some crooked Nigerian government officials had stolen a lot of cash and managed to get it out of the country, to Zurich. The problem was that the money could not be turned into any other currency because no one wanted it. There was, however, another government official in Nigeria who would allow the currency back into the country for an under-the-table fee of ten cents on each dollar. This official would stamp the money as legitimate and cause a check to be issued to a second corporation Richard would start, which would be paid in dollars.
Richard liked Zurich. It was clean and orderly, and the people were pleasant and accommodating. He checked into a hotel in the middle of town, the Hotel Zurich, met the man who had access to all this Nigerian currency, a Belgian named Remi, a short, heavyset individual with thick eyebrows. Richard was wary, but Remi took him to an office just outside of town, and there was the Nigerian currency, packed in thick plastic squares—150 pounds of it. Richard would have to take the currency to Nigeria. He was not too excited about going to Africa, but he’d go anywhere to make money. It was now arranged for the money to be transported back to Nigeria. Richard would fly on the same plane, which left the following day. Richard had always had a kind of wanderlust and he was curious to see Nigeria, one of the poorest, most violent countries in the world, where people were still bought and sold, where human sacrifice is still practiced. As planned, Richard met the official—a dark-skinned, tall cadaver of a man—and the money was quickly approved for import back into the country. Richard had to stay overnight to catch a return flight to Zurich. He didn’t like anything about Nigeria, its disorder, its overwhelming poverty, its dusty roads, withered palm trees, harried street dogs that seemed concerned that they could become someone’s dinner at any moment. To say that Richard Kuklinski, with his fair Polish-Irish complexion, stood out, was an understatement. He was glad to leave the next day and hoped he wouldn’t have to come back.
Zurich was just the opposite, neat and tidy and prosperous. Richard, as was his way, took long walks, curiously watching the fastidious Swiss go about their fastidious, ordered lives. The one thing that struck Richard the most, still sticks in his mind these many years later, was how clean the place was—not even a piece of paper on the floor. Richard found a park that was open all night and people strolling about without a care, no fear of muggers or being robbed. While waiting for the check from Nigeria, Richard had glorious meals, mostly by himself, but a few with his new friend Remi.
Remi told Richard about a second scheme he’d been working on: a man who worked in a Swiss bank would provide him with the numbers of Swiss bank accounts, even bank checks drawn on these accounts. “I am talking here about huge accounts of giant corporations and people who have much money to hide, people who could never go to the police—understand?” Remi said, his lips barely moving as he talked, like a ventriloquist.
“I understand.”
“We need an account in the States where we can clear the checks. Would you be interested in such an enterprise?”
“What’s our end?”
“Half must go directly to the banker; we will split the other half.”
“And all I have to do is open an account and deposit these checks, you say?”
“Exactly.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
“No more than seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. Once the amount goes above that, the transaction will automatically be looked at more closely.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I don’t kid about money.”
“Sure, I’m in,” Richard said, and agreed to open still another corporate account back in the States to facilitate this scam. This all seemed too good to be true, but Richard had heard of far more bizarre things and he knew well the black-hearted larceny that lived in men’s hearts and readily accepted the deal Remi had laid out.
The check soon arrived from Nigeria. It was for $455,000. Richard’s end would be 25 percent. Richard took it and went back to the States in the first-class section of a Pan Am flight, with plans of soon returning to Zurich.
Pat Kane walked into Lieutenant Leck’s office and said, “The only way we are ever going to get Kuklinski is if we get someone close to him. We are going to need a really good undercover guy. Someone who could fool him. Draw him out into the open.”
“You have anyone in mind?” Leck asked.
“I was talking to the chief of homicide in Bergen County, Ed Denning. He says he knows a top-notch undercover guy—he’s with ATF. What do you think?”
“Sure, give it a try. Why not?” he said, knowing Kane was right—that he’d been right all along.
In early April Pat Kane drove to Trenton, New Jersey, to meet this super undercover guy.
How the Fuck You Doin’?
Dominick Polifrone was thirty-nine years old, had hardened dark street-eyes, full cheeks, a Fu Manchu mustache, wore an ill-fitting black wig. He was nearly six feet tall, a strapping, powerful man with broad shoulders, a second generation Italian American with dark olive skin. Polifrone was happily married with three young children. He had successfully infiltrated mob circles numerous times, had gathered credible evidence that was used in federal courts to get convictions, and no one he helped put away knew he was responsible. Polifrone knew the walk and the talk, how to dress, what to say and how to say it. He had taken on the persona, the rough exterior, swagger, speech, and mannerisms of mob guys. Often, every other word out of his mouth was “fuck.” Pat Kane was immediately impressed by Polifrone. When they first met he not only thought he could do the job, but do it very well; he was, Pat would later say, perfect, “right out of a Mafia movie.” He was, indeed, “almost too good to be true,” Kane said.
The two men, as different as night and day, one brash and bold, the other polite and introspective, sat down, and Pat Kane slowly ran down everything he had. As he talked, Polifrone’s high, wide brow creased with curiosity, the furrows deepening as Kane spoke. Curiosity soon turned to dismay, then outright anger. After Kane had laid out what he had, Polifrone said, “You mean to tell me this fuckin’ guy killed all these people and is still out there fuckin’ walking around?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Kane said, his boyish face rock hard, his gaze sure and steady, filled with resolute, steely resolve.
“That’s fuckin’ unbelievable!” he said.
“Tell me about it. Will you help?”
“The question isn’t will I help, of course I will. It’s how do I get my bosses to okay it?”
Polifrone worked for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and they did not investigate murders;
homicides were not their jurisdiction, which of course Pat Kane already well knew, and he had a ready answer:
“I’ll tell you how,” he said. “Firearms—he deals in firearms,” Kane said.
“Straight up?”
“Yes.”
“That’ll fuckin’ do it.” Polifrone went and made a few phone calls, ran down for his superiors what Kane had told him, and within an hour he was given the green light. He and Kane shook hands.
“Let’s get this fuckin’ guy!” Dominick said, and thus a rare coupling between the New Jersey State Police and the federal government was done. This pairing would grow to be one of the largest state-federal law enforcement efforts ever, a task force unequaled in New Jersey’s history.
But “Let’s get this fuckin’ guy” was a lot easier said than done.
Richard Kuklinski was a very untrusting, dangerous man. He could smell a cop a mile away. It was a talent he had developed, indeed honed, from a lifetime of crime, stalking and killing at will, a lifetime of being an alpha predator in a very dangerous jungle, as he perceived his world. How, they wondered, could they get Dominick Polifrone near Kuklinski, let alone get his faith and confidence? This was the million-dollar question, a giant mountain to climb.
All excited, very pleased, Pat Kane arrived home that evening, a man reborn. For one of the first times in far too long he was smiling, not quiet and morose. For the first time since this ever expanding case fell into his lap, Kane could see light at the end of a dark, treacherous tunnel strewn with the many rotting corpses of Richard Leonard Kuklinski’s victims.
When Richard arrived home from Zurich that weekend, he was in a good mood. He was always in a good mood when he made money. The following day he went to see John Spasudo and told him about the trip, how well it had gone.
“I told you, I told you, Rich!” Spasudo said, shaking Richard’s enormous hand.
“That you did, my friend—that you did,” Richard said, and the two of them soon split the profit from the Nigerian currency exchange; it was a good amount of money, and there was the prospect of making even more money. A lot more money. Richard hadn’t believed it would be that easy, but now he was a true believer, and John Spasudo was—for now—his new best friend.
Why didn’t Richard just kill Spasudo, take his share of the money and be done with him? When recently asked that question he said, ’Cause I had a use for him. If he could pull this off, there was no telling what he could do, I was thinking.
But Richard didn’t like John Spasudo, and the more he got to know him, the less he liked him. For instance, when Richard met Spasudo’s wife, Spasudo told Richard, in a winking, conspiratorial tone, “If you like, you can fuck her,” which stunned Richard, who was still very much a prude. What kind of man, Richard wondered, offered his wife like she was a favorite golf club? Spasudo also had a girlfriend, Sherry, and when Richard met her, Spasudo told him he could fuck her too.
“No thanks,” Richard said, thinking Spasudo surely had loose screws and nuts in his head. Then, something occured that completely turned Richard off to John Spasudo, indeed, numbered the days Spasudo had left on this planet. Richard was asked if he could get a few hundred pounds of pot. As usual, Richard would sell anything to turn a buck. He turned to Spasudo and asked him if he knew someone.
“Sure,” Spasudo said, only too happy to show Richard that he had contacts for anything, that he was a man of many talents and resources; and Spasudo took Richard to see “a friend.”
This friend lived in a nice house in an exclusive area of North Jersey. He was a bookish, nerd type, as Richard refers to him. He had a secret panel in the living room, behind which he had neatly stacked bales of marijuana wrapped in rough burlap. Richard got two hundred pounds, paid the guy a fair price, and put the grass in his van. Back in the house, the dealer asked Richard if he’d like to “see his toys.”
“What toys would that be?” asked Richard, and the dealer led Richard and Spasudo to a narrow stairwell, hidden in a panel under the main stairs to the second landing. They followed him down a narrow set of wooden steps into a secret finished basement. When Richard reached the bottom of the stairs, he was shocked to see children, ranging in ages from seven to fourteen, boys and girls, black and white, about a dozen of them. They were all quiet and wide-eyed, forlorn and frightened.
“Would you like one of them?” the dealer asked, as if they were tasty, fresh desserts on a tray in a busy restaurant.
“No, no thanks,” Richard growled as white-hot anger slowly welled up inside of him. The soft clicking sound immediately issued from his lips. John Spasudo had a big grin on his face. It was all Richard could do not to take out his gun and kill both of them on the spot. He quietly turned and went back up the stairs, his wide shoulders filling the space, making a silent promise that he’d return—for one reason only.
Seeing the children like that had an unusually bad effect on Richard. If there was one thing he hated, it was seeing children abused in any way. It caused a flood of repressed memories to come to the surface. No longer smiling, no longer friendly, Richard stared at the dealer with icy disdain. Richard recently explained: I couldn’t get the sight of those little kids out of my head…. It was eating at me. I had to do something. I couldn’t stop thinking about them; I’m getting mad even now, so many years later, at the thought of it—the memory, you know.
Outside, Richard told Spasudo that he didn’t approve of such things, in fact he deplored them. Spasudo thought it was a big joke. For Richard there was nothing funny about it.
The following day, Richard left for Georgia to open a checking account to facilitate the cashing of the stolen bank checks. He wasn’t sure if this was for real, if it would work, but Remi had come through once, with the Nigerian money. It had gone as smoothly as a Swiss clock, and Richard was optimistic. But as he drove down to Georgia, he kept thinking of the children, what was being done to them. He thought too about their parents and families—how he’d feel if one of his three children was in such a position. He put on the radio and listened to country music, trying to get his mind away from those children, what was in their eyes, the sadness about their small faces, his own childhood, but not having much luck.
Richard was opening the new corporate checking account in Georgia because he had sold a lot of porn in Georgia over the years and was familiar with the place, liked its live-and-let-live attitude. He had no difficulty opening the account under the name of the Mercantile Corporation.
As Richard drove back to New Jersey, his mind returned to the children. He resolved to go back to that house the following day, but John Spasudo called and told Richard that Remi had contacted him and that he had to go back to Zurich as soon as possible.
“Tell him I’m on my way,” Richard said, and the next day Richard was on his way back to Zurich. Barbara was used to these sudden trips and didn’t think twice about his abrupt departure. She says she preferred it when he was gone. There was peace in the house, she explained.
“The Store”
The key to getting close to Richard Kuklinski, Pat Kane had long believed, was Phil Solimene, the owner of “the store,” in Paterson, and Richard’s only friend.
Solimene was, perhaps, the only person in the world—aside from Barbara—that Richard trusted, that Richard considered…a friend. Richard had known him for well over twenty years, had committed every imaginable crime with him, including murder. Solimene even knew where Richard and his family lived, had been to the Kuklinski home for drinks and coffee several times, with his wife, Percy House’s sister.
Because of Kane’s constant pressure, Percy House finally agreed to be a snitch to get out of jail; he wore a wire and went to “the store,” where he managed to get Phil junior to admit his involvement in a burglary gone sour in which an elderly man had been murdered, beaten to death. House also tried to get Richard to incriminate himself on a secreted tape, but Richard didn’t trust him, indeed flat-out threatened to kill him, and Percy House hurried from the sto
re as though his ass were on fire and never went back.
Phil Solimene Sr. also got himself in trouble with the law, and when Pat Kane approached him and told him that he wanted him to set up Richard, Solimene reluctantly listened. Also, Solimene’s son was now doing time in a Jersey state prison, and Kane thought he might be able to use that as leverage to turn Solimene. “You help us nail Kuklinski,” Kane said, “and your life will take a turn for the better. You don’t help us and your life will take a serious turn for the worse; it’ll become a train wreck. I promise you.” Because Kane had an innocent, cherubic baby face, a threat coming from him was unsettling. “Plus,” Kane continued, “I’ll make sure your son does easy time closer to you, in Rahway, instead of Trenton State.”
As much as Solimene dreaded Richard—and he truly did—he dreaded losing his freedom even more; and after several meetings with Kane and federal agents from both the ATF (including Polifrone) and the FBI, Phil Solimene, the one person in the world Richard trusted, agreed to help the authorities; and the rope to hang Richard Kuklinski suddenly became a little longer…stronger; a tangible reality slowly swinging, as if in a soft breeze, above Richard’s head.
Richard arrived in Zurich and checked into his hotel. He wasn’t there ten minutes, when Remi showed up. They had an early lunch together in a four-star restaurant near the hotel. Remi said, “All is good; we will have the first check tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand,” Remi said with a straight face as he shoveled buttery escargot into his mouth with practiced efficiency.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Richard said.
