For weeks after that Thanksgiving dinner, Gary mulled over his position in the gang. He really wanted out, but it looked like he was going to have to ease himself out gradually, maybe stay with them through the winter, then slack off, get a real job, start avoiding Percy, and maybe by spring they’d leave him alone.
But then on December 17, 1982, the shit hit the fan and everything got crazy.
Gary Smith, Danny Deppner, Percy House, Barbara Deppner, and several of her children were driving to her mother’s house in West Milford. They were going there to drop the kids off for the day. As they approached the house, they noticed a police car parked off the road, backed up into the woods. Percy was immediately suspicious. It wasn’t the kind of road where the police would post a speed trap. When they got to Barbara’s mother’s house, they saw that her car wasn’t in the driveway. Percy ordered Gary and Danny to get out and go hide in the woods behind the house. He figured that if the cops were up to something, having the gang all together would give them a reason to haul them in.
Percy’s instincts were right. When he and Barbara backed out of the driveway and drove up to a stop sign at the top of the hill, police cars came out of nowhere and surrounded their station wagon. As the police emerged from their vehicles with guns drawn, shouting for Percy and Barbara to show their hands and not move, the frightened children wailed in the backseat. Percy snapped at them and told them to shut up. This was all a lot of bullshit. He’d been through this before. These sons of bitches were just out to hassle him, he figured.
But Percy was wrong about that. Passaic County had a seventy-nine-count indictment against him for an assortment of offenses, including theft and forgery of motor vehicle registrations. The cops weren’t just out to hassle him this time. Their intention was to put him and his gang away. They had arrest warrants for Gary and Danny, too.
As the police leaned Percy House over the hood of the station wagon to handcuff him while they read him his rights, he looked over at pregnant Barbara Deppner clutching her screaming baby. He didn’t have to say a word. His sad, baggy eyes said it all. She knew right away what he wanted her to do. Call Richie. She looked around at the faces of all the policemen. They were all focused on Percy. She nodded to him that she understood.
Later that day she caught up with her cousin Gary and her ex-husband, Danny, at Gary’s house. Veronica, Gary’s wife, was hysterical. Detective Pat Kane of the state police had been there earlier with a search warrant. He was looking for Gary. Danny and Gary were frantic. They were on foot, they didn’t have much money, and they didn’t want to get caught hanging around there, so Barbara drove them to the Sussex Motel in Vernon, where she rented a room and they all spent the night. She had already gotten in touch with Richie, right after Percy was arrested.
Barbara didn’t have that much money herself, but Danny had just put down a security deposit on a house in Lake Hopatcong, so the next morning they drove there in the hope that Danny could get the deposit back. But the landlord wasn’t around when they got there, and they didn’t want to stick around. They all piled back into the station wagon and headed east on Route 80. Richard Kuklinski had instructed Barbara to take Gary and Danny to some place called Paul’s Diner on Route 3 somewhere in Hudson County.
Forty-five minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of Paul’s Diner. A white Cadillac with a blue top was parked at the far end of the lot all by itself. Richard Kuklinski was sitting behind the wheel. Barbara pulled the station wagon up alongside the Cadillac and rolled down her window. The Cadillac’s power window glided down, and Kuklinski looked right through her, glaring at Danny and Gary.
“Follow me,” he said.
“Where we going?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes, and his stare bore into her. Her fingers were suddenly freezing. “Just follow me,” he repeated. His window glided up, and the Cadillac’s engine roared to life.
Barbara Deppner followed him to the Liberty Motel in North Bergen, where Kuklinski gave Danny some money and he rented a room under the name Jack Bush. Relieved to have the fugitives out of her car, Barbara headed straight back to her sister’s place, where she’d left her children.
Percy, in the meantime, was stuck in the Passaic County jail, being pressed for the whereabouts of his associates Gary Smith and Danny Deppner. He repeatedly told the police that he didn’t know where they were, but the cops kept hounding him. Actually Percy wanted to know where they were and what they were doing himself, particularly Gary. He didn’t trust Gary anymore, hadn’t trusted him since Thanksgiving. Gary still had it in his head that he could reform himself, and Percy feared that if the cops got to him, he’d want to cooperate just to show them what a real good citizen he was now. Gary would turn on them, sure as shit. He was a time bomb waiting to go off. Sitting in his cell, Percy got the sweats just thinking about it. He’d done time before, but he’d never gotten used to the feeling of being locked up. The thought of doing another long stretch was making him short of breath. He couldn’t do it, he just couldn’t. He’d go crazy. He needed to know where the hell Gary was, but the goddamn cops weren’t letting him make any calls. For three days he waited, barely containing his panic until finally they let him have a visitor, Barbara Deppner.
Sitting across the table from Percy in a room with guards within earshot, Barbara told him not to worry because the big guy was baby-sitting the boys. Percy was still uneasy. He leaned forward, smiling sweetly for the guards’ benefit, and growled in her face. “Tell Richie to send Gary to Florida.”
A chill ran through Barbara Deppner’s veins. She knew exactly what he meant. Send Gary to Florida. Send him away. Have him killed. Gary was her cousin, but Percy had been ranting and raving for months about how dangerous Gary had become to them. To her, too. She could be charged as an accomplice. She could go to jail, too. The thought terrified her. Who would watch all her kids? And what would happen to the one she was carrying now? Would she have to deliver the baby in jail, then give it up immediately? No. She wasn’t about to let that happen. Gary was her cousin, but Percy was right. Gary was dangerous.
The next day she drove down to the Liberty Motel, where Gary and Danny were hiding, to deliver Percy’s message. Danny was in the room with Kuklinski when she arrived. Gary had gone out to get a soda.
She spoke quickly, fearing that Gary would walk in on them. “Percy says you should send Gary to Florida.”
Kuklinski was sitting in the one armchair in the room, seemingly lost in thought. She started to repeat it, but he cut her off. “I heard what you said.”
A few minutes later Gary returned with a couple of cans of Coke. She was startled to see his bruised face. He kept his eyes down, barely saying hello to her. Kuklinski explained to her that Gary had been a bad boy last night. First he had gotten caught shoplifting at the convenience store across the street, and the manager had almost called the cops on him. Then he’d hitchhiked home so he could see his wife and daughter. Danny whittled his index fingers at Gary, shame-shame. Then he balled his fist and nodded toward Kuklinski. “A little attitude adjustment,” Danny whispered.
Richie was staring at Gary sitting on the bed.
Barbara’s heart started to pound.
The next day, December 23, 1982, Kuklinski moved the fugitives again, to another motel in North Bergen, the York Motel, a two-story green stucco building perched on the edge of the rocky palisades on Route 3, five minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel. Again, Kuklinski gave Danny Deppner some cash and sent him into the office to rent a room. Under the blinking glare of multicolored Christmas lights strung around the plate glass window, Danny signed the register as Jack Bush and took the key to Room 31, a first-floor room that faced the narrow parking lot and a wall of gray jagged rock beyond.
At five o’clock that afternoon Barbara Deppner arrived at the York Motel at Richard Kuklinski’s request. She had her baby daughter, Jennifer, with her. When Kuklinski had called her, he didn’t say why he wanted her there, but she knew better than to
question Big Richie. He was obviously unhappy with the whole situation, and she prayed he wouldn’t take it out on her.
When she knocked on the door to Room 31, Danny answered. Through the doorway she could see Gary moping on the bed. Kuklinski wasn’t there. Danny told her to go over to the coffee shop at the Holiday Inn down the hill. He’d meet her there in a little while.
Over an hour later Danny finally showed up. Sounding as desperate as Percy had sounded in jail, he told her “the plan.” They were going to kill Gary tonight. They had to. He’d hitchhiked home again, and Richie was pissed as shit. Gary was gonna rat on them. He had to go. Richie was gonna bring them some hamburgers later. The one without the pickles would have poison on it. That was the one they would give to Gary.
Barbara clutched her baby so close the infant started to scream. She didn’t want to hear about it. She didn’t want to know. Then her ex-husband informed her that Richie wanted her to come back later that night with the car so they could dump Gary’s body.
Barbara couldn’t answer. Her throat ached. She started to shake her head, but Danny started shaking his.
“Better not say no,” he warned her. “Richie’ll get mad.”
Danny was serious.
But even though she didn’t say anything to Danny, she made up her mind on the spot. She wasn’t coming back. She didn’t want any part of this. As she drove out of the parking lot of the Holiday Inn, she was determined to go home and stay home. She loved Percy, and she felt sorry for Danny, but Gary was her cousin, for God’s sake.
* * *
Later that evening Richard Kuklinski returned to the York Motel with a bag of hamburgers and french fries. Gary and Danny were hungry. They didn’t have any money, and they hadn’t eaten all day. As Kuklinski handed out the burgers, he exchanged glances with Danny Deppner. Danny unwrapped his hamburger and lifted the bun. He checked to make sure his had pickles on it.
Gary unwrapped his and dug in. But as Kuklinski watched him devouring the food, he wondered why the hell the cyanide was taking so long.
Then it happened. Gary had eaten better than half of the hamburger when it finally started to work.
Gary Smith dropped the burger and fell back on the bed where he was sitting. His throat was on fire straight down to his stomach. The room was spinning, and he felt as if his face were going to explode.
He knew Richie was going to kill him. He’d known it all along, and now it was happening. In his last moments he pictured his daughter Melissa’s room the way it was two nights before, when he’d hitchhiked home. He’d gone back there to say good-bye to her. She was sleeping, and he didn’t have the heart to wake her up. His wife was in the doorway, whispering to him, begging him not to go back to the motel, that Richie would kill him.
“I know,” he’d murmured, and he started to cry. The tears streamed down his face and spattered the sheet around Melissa’s chin as he bent down to kiss her good-bye for the last time.
“I have to go back,” he told his wife as he walked past her, heading for the front door. Richie had threatened him after he had hitchhiked home the first time. Richie had promised that if he tried to run away again, he’d find Melissa and he’d kill her. Richie hadn’t yelled or screamed the way Percy did when he made threats. He said it nice and calm, just a plain statement of fact, a reality of life. There was no question in Gary’s mind that Richie would do it. That’s why he had to go back to the York Motel. For Melissa.
Blurry shapes loomed over Gary as he started to black out.
Danny and Richie were laughing at him. “Look at his eyes,” Danny said. “Look at his eyes. They’re all goofy.”
They kept laughing at Gary as he choked and writhed on the bed. But then Richard Kuklinski stopped laughing. Gary wasn’t dying fast enough. Maybe he hadn’t eaten enough. Maybe there wasn’t enough cyanide in his system.
He looked around the room for something they could use to finish Gary off. There were two lamps in the room, one on either side of the bed.
Danny saw the lamps, too. He wasn’t laughing now. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down. Gary was supposed to die fast. Instead, he was choking, making too much goddamn noise. Someone was gonna hear him. Why the hell wasn’t he dead yet? He’d eaten the damn hamburger.
Danny unplugged one of the lamps, stepped on the cord, and jerked it out of the base. Wrapping the ends of the cord around his hands, he went to the bed, put one knee on the mattress, and hovered over Gary. His heart was pounding as he looped the cord around Gary’s neck and yanked Gary back. Gary put up no resistance. Danny held him tight, jerking him back and up as if he were riding a wild horse. He pulled so hard, the cord snapped. Gary flopped back on the bed. Danny quickly took the longest piece of cord and wrapped it around Gary’s neck again, continuing to strangle him even though he wasn’t moving anymore. When his hands started to cramp, he finally let got.
Danny looked at Kuklinski, panting for breath. “Is he dead, Rich? Or should I do some more? What do you think?”
Four days later, on December 27, 1982, the guests in Room 31 called the motel office to complain that there was an awful stink in their room. They said it was coming from the bed.
The bed in Room 31 was a simple wooden frame built to support a mattress and box spring. The space under the box spring was hollow and completely enclosed. As the manager walked out into the cold without a coat to go see what the problem was, all he could think was that somebody must have left some food or something under the bed and forgotten about it. One of the goddamn maids probably.
But the stink in Room 31 was unlike any rotting food he’d ever smelled. He got his fingers under the box spring and mattress and lifted them off the frame. The stench made his eyes water. Then he saw the face, and he dropped the mattress. He ran back out into the cold and went to the office to call the police.
The first two officers on the scene held handkerchiefs to their faces as they shined a flashlight into the space under the mattress. When they called in their report of the body found under the bed, they identified the deceased as “an overweight black male.”
Sealed in the enclosed space under that bed in an overheated room over the Christmas weekend, Gary Smith’s body had decomposed rapidly. He was so bloated, the buttons were popping on his plaid flannel shirt. His tongue was so swollen, it protruded from blubbery lips. His eyes were dull and milky. His skin was charcoal black.
NINE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1986
Special Agent Dominick Polifrone checked his watch as he strode down the hallway at the offices of the state Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau in Fairfield. It was almost 7:00 P.M. Now that he’d finally made contact with Kuklinski, Operation Iceman was in full swing. The special task force targeting Kuklinski had basically amounted to a lot of promises, theory, and intention until three days ago. Now it was time to get down to business.
The door to the conference room where they were scheduled to meet was open. Dominick glanced around the long table as he walked into the room. He recognized the three men in plainclothes, but he didn’t know the man in uniform. Dominick could see from the uniform that he was a captain in the state police, and he appeared to be in his mid-fifties.
“Gentlemen,” Dominick said, “how goes it?”
“Hey, Dom, how’s it going?”
“Che se dice, Dominick?”
“How ya doing, Dom?”
Investigators Paul Smith and Ron Donahue of the state’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau and their boss, Deputy Chief Robert T. Buccino, got up to shake his hand. The captain stood up, waiting for an introduction.
“Dominick, this is Captain Brealy,” Buccino said.
“Nice to meet you, Captain.” Dominick shook his hand.
Captain Brealy smiled and nodded. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Agent Polifrone. I hear that you’ve lived up to your reputation this week.”
Dominick’s brows furrowed. “Excuse me, Captain?”
“You’ve met the I
ceman at long last. We’re all very happy to be making some progress on this thing finally.”
Dominick was ready to take this the wrong way, but he let it pass. “Yes, Captain,” he said with a smile, “I’m very happy, too.”
“So, Dom, did you see our friend today?” Paul Smith nodded at an eight-by-ten surveillance photo taped to the wall that showed Richard Kuklinski getting into his car. With his smooth unlined face, big mischievous smile, and thick hair, Paul Smith looked like a kid compared with the others. He was in his mid-thirties, but he could easily pass for someone ten years younger. “I know you went for coffee with him, Dom. I hope you didn’t let him buy you a hamburger.”
Ron Donahue snorted up a laugh. Ronny was the crusty grand old man of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, an old-fashioned Irish cop who didn’t take any guff and sure as hell knew how to dish it out. Though he rarely talked about himself, anyone who was anyone in law enforcement in the state of New Jersey seemed to have a good Ron Donahue story. Wiseguys throughout the state despised him, and Mafia defendants routinely booed and jeered at him in open court whenever he showed his face. He was that good.
Deputy Chief Buccino rolled his eyes and chuckled. Unless you knew him, it was hard to believe that Bobby Buccino had spent most of his career with the spit-and-polish state police, retiring as a lieutenant. With his round face, ready smile, and easygoing manner, he looked like everybody’s favorite uncle—except to those who’d seen him in action.
As Dominick took a seat at the end of the table, he squinted and pointed a menacing finger at the young investigator. “Smith, I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
The men howled with laughter, except for Captain Brealy, who just looked confused and a little put off by their private joke.
“You see, Captain,” Dominick explained, “two years ago I was working an undercover down in Monmouth County, posing as a bad guy, same as I’m doing now with Kuklinski. Well, there was this accountant down there who approached me about doing a hit for him. The guy was under investigation for the murder of his partner. He asked me if I could get rid of this investigator from the state who was on his tail. An investigator named Paul Smith.” He scowled at Paul and shook his head. “I could’ve done it and gotten paid for it. What was I thinking?”
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