by Philip Carlo
She did in fact die later that night. Richard reluctantly went to the wake only because Barbara convinced him he should go. He did not cry. He showed no emotion.
Stanley Kuklinski also came to the wake, and Richard didn’t even say hello to him. It was all he could do to keep from taking Stanley by the neck in front of everyone and choking the cold heartless bastard to death, right there. With great effort he held himself back. Barbara could see he was getting all bent out of shape at the sight of his father, his lips twisting up, his face flushing. Sitting there next to Barbara, all Richard could think of was killing Stanley; harsh black-and-white images of what Stanley had done to him moving in his head like a grainy old slow-motion film. It took much restraint for Richard not to take his father outside, put him in his car, kill him, and dump him down a Pennsylvania mine shaft. Richard told Barbara he wanted to leave. In the car on the way back home, she said, “You okay, Richard?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just…when I see Stanley it all comes back. That man should never have been allowed to have children.” Here he stopped talking. He didn’t want Barbara to hear the truth, what Stanley truly had done to him: how he had murdered Florian.
28
The Porn King of New York
True to his word, DeMeo gave Richard, on consignment, all the pornography he wanted. Richard bought himself a van, went to Brooklyn, and picked up boxes of porn produced by Roy, one hundred films per box. By now Richard had many contacts in the porn business across the country. He was distributing porn—both his and DeMeo’s—to wholesalers everywhere, and business boomed. For the first time Richard was making good money on a steady basis.
Richard was scrupulously careful about giving Roy all he was due, on time as promised. Roy began to take a shine to Richard. He admired his temerity, the fact that he had taken the beating “like a man,” as he told his crew. The fact that Richard had a gun in his pocket and didn’t use it; the fact that he came to the Gemini by himself. That, he knew, took balls.
DeMeo’s crew, however, didn’t like Richard. They thought he was aloof and unfriendly—he was—and he was a non-Italian…he was Polish. They made fun of Richard behind his back, told one another silly Polish jokes at Richard’s expense. Richard sensed the hostility, the cold stares, the sneers, but Richard didn’t care. He figured they were just jealous of his relationship with Roy, and he was right.
As months passed, Roy and Richard’s “friendship” grew. By now Roy had learned that Richard had killed well and discreetly for the De Cavalcante family, and one day, when Richard went to the Gemini to drop off some money, Roy sat him down in the rear apartment.
“I hear,” Roy said, “that you are cold like ice and do special work. That true?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“I have a lot of special work…. You interested?”
“Definitely.”
“Definitely?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll do it with no questions asked?”
“I’m not a curious man.”
Roy stared at Richard. Being stared at by Roy, with his penetrating black eyes, was like having two drills bore into you.
Roy had to see for himself if, in fact, Richard could do a piece of work, coldly and methodically.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s take a ride; you game?”
“Sure,” Richard said, and Roy, his cousin Joe Guglielmo, and Richard piled into Roy’s car. Joe was driving. Richard sat in the back.
“Let’s go to the city,” Roy ordered. He always ordered people to do things—never asked. In silence they drove to Manhattan. It was a nice cloudless day. The sky was blue. The sun shone. Someone was going to die. As they were going through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Roy turned around and handed Richard a short-barreled .38 with a suppressor on it.
“Use this,” he said.
“Okay,” Richard said, and casually slipped the gun into his waistband. They continued uptown and wound up on the west side of Greenwich Village, on a quiet tree-lined street. Richard’s old hunting ground. They passed a lone man walking a dog.
“Pull over,” Roy ordered. “See that guy with the dog?” he asked Richard.
“Yeah.”
“Cap him.”
“Here, now?”
“Here, now.”
Richard calmly stepped out of the car and walked toward the man with the dog, who was to the rear of the car, maybe twenty steps. After Richard passed him, he stopped and turned around and tailed the hapless man. He wanted to do the job right in front of Roy and Joe. Just as the dog walker passed the Lincoln, Richard caught up with him, made sure he was unobserved, quickly pulled out the gun, and fired, shooting the man in the back of the head.
He never even knew he died, or why.
He went down like a laundry bag, Richard confided.
Richard calmly walked back to the car and got in. “You’re fuckin’ cold like ice. Well done,” Roy said, smiling. “You’re one of us.” And they went back to Brooklyn. Richard had just proven to Roy, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a stone-cold killer, and that murder that day cemented their bloody relationship. When they arrived back at the Gemini Lounge and went into the rear apartment, Joey Testa, Anthony Senter, Chris Goldberg, and Henry Borelli were all there.
“The big guy,” Roy announced, “is fuckin’ cold. I just saw him do a piece of work right in the middle of the fuckin’ street. He’s one of us.”
Thus, Richard became a part of a coven of serial killers never seen before or since; they would, in years to come, make homicide history.
Richard, however, didn’t like any of this: he didn’t want any of these guys knowing about him, what he did, what “special work” he performed. He didn’t trust them and didn’t like them; he thought it was just a matter of time before they caused problems, for themselves, for Roy, and for him.
Richard needed to use the john and went inside the bathroom. There was an odd, thick, fetid smell hanging in the air. As he was taking a leak, he looked around the shower curtain and there, hanging over the tub, was a dead man. His throat had been cut and there was a black-handled butcher knife sticking out of his chest. His blood, rubbery and thick, was slowly draining into the tub. They were bleeding him.
These fucking guys are really into it, Richard thought, and went back inside.
“You see the guy taking a shower?” Roy asked, laughing out loud at his joke. The others laughed too.
“No, I didn’t see anything,” Richard said, and they sat down and had a meal of spaghetti olio and broccoli rabe. Roy enjoyed cooking and loved to eat. As they sat there and ate, drinking red wine—with the guy hanging over the tub—they made jokes, talked about sports, about a girl both Joey and Anthony had fucked the night before.
After having espresso, Chris and Anthony spread a blue plastic tarp on the floor. They brought the guy out of the bathroom and proceeded to cut him into “manageable pieces,” as Roy put it. “Makes getting rid of him easier,” he told Richard. They had a professional autopsy kit, with razor-sharp saws and knives made for the sole purpose of cutting up bodies. Within minutes they cut him into five pieces. Each piece was wrapped in brown paper, then put into heavy-duty black garbage bags. Richard watched this through amused eyes, thinking, These guys are something else, admiring how easily and expertly they disassembled the body. They’d obviously had a lot of practice and knew what they were doing. Chris Goldberg especially seemed to enjoy taking apart the body.
When Richard was ready to leave and go back to his family, he asked to speak to Roy on the side. They went outside. By now the sun was setting. A nice breeze blew in from Jamaica Bay.
“Look, Roy,” Richard said. “Don’t get me wrong here, but I’d rather just work with you on any special jobs.”
“You’re reading my mind,” Roy said. “Big guy, you are my secret weapon. I ain’t mixing you up with my crew. Don’t worry. They are all good, very fuckin’ stand-up guys—Chris is like my son—but I ain’t mixing you up wi
th them.”
“Okay,” Richard said. They hugged and kissed on the cheek, and Richard went back to his family in New Jersey. Like this, Richard Kuklinski became Roy DeMeo’s “secret weapon.”
The police could find no witnesses to the murder of the man walking his dog in the Village, no likely suspects, no rhyme or reason for the killing—still another unsolved New York homicide Richard Kuklinski had committed.
29
Family Man
Richard was scrupulously careful to keep what he was doing far from his family. Barbara had no idea what he was really up to; she didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell her.
Besides distributing porn, Richard rented a warehouse in North Bergen and from it sold counterfeit sweaters, handbags, jeans, and even perfumes. He bought large lots of these knockoff goods, had women sew brand-name labels into them, and sold them to wholesalers, who in turn sold them at flea markets all over the country. Money was rolling in. Richard still dabbled in hijacking, acting as the middleman between the hijackers and the buyers and always making a profit. He stopped drinking hard alcohol and tried not to gamble. He loved his family deeply and profoundly and didn’t want to do anything to undermine it. On the one hand, he was the perfect husband and father, considerate, loving, and generous to a fault. He’d gladly drive his daughters and their friends to movies and restaurants they liked; he took great joy in buying them nice clothing, two of everything; nothing was too good for his children. He constantly bought Barbara clothes and shoes and jewelry, mink coats—whatever she wanted. They went out to fancy restaurants every weekend. Richard always made sure Barbara’s favorite wine, Montrachet, was already at the table in an ice bucket waiting for her. He opened doors for her. He graciously pulled out her chair so she could sit down.
On the other hand, he could lose his temper over some little thing and become tyrannical, mean, a menace. The Kuklinski home could be, one moment, a tranquil Shangri-la, the next moment a storm-besieged island in the middle of a dangerous, turbulent sea.
When my dad was normal, he was golden. When he lost it he was…he was a maniac, his daughter Chris recently explained.
Richard bought himself a new white Cadillac. The family began looking for a new house in a better part of Jersey. West New York, Hudson County, was changing; many minority groups were moving in, and Richard and Barbara wanted to move to “greener pastures.”
They wound up buying a split-level ranch-style home in Dumont, New Jersey, with a garage and three bedrooms. This was a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, a good place to bring up children, a reasonably juicy slice of the American dream come true. Barbara wanted a pool and the grounds covered with bright green healthy sod—no problem; whatever Barbara wanted, Richard was anxious and only too happy to provide. He still had no concept of money and readily spent it as quickly as it came in.
On weekends, the Kuklinskis had extravagant barbecues, invited everyone on the block. Richard was, for the most part, outgoing and friendly—a good neighbor, quick to offer a helping hand. He’d don a cooking apron and happily grill burgers and franks for his children and all their friends. He watched them play in the pool, making sure no one was hurt. He gladly doled out towels and helped dry his children off, happily cleaned the yard after a day of the kids playing. The Kuklinskis had also been blessed by the birth of a son. Barbara had always wanted a boy and her dream had come true. They named the boy Dwayne, after a country singer Richard was fond of.
When Richard did get mad, however, he’d explode. He didn’t seem capable of controlling his anger, and when he became angry his cruelty knew no bounds. It was as if he became a different person; he’d break his children’s toys and keepsakes, smash chairs and tables and knickknacks. After Barbara had the kitchen redone, all new appliances and cabinets installed, Richard lost it and actually tore the cabinets right off the wall, and he pulled the kitchen sink out and tossed it through one of the kitchen windows.
Afterward, he always felt bad, indeed hated what he’d done. He was so angry at himself that he couldn’t even look at himself in the mirror. When he was like that, in one of his out-of-control tirades, all Barbara and the children could do was stay the hell out of his way, and they did, as best they could.
Also, when Richard was mad at Barbara, he had no reservations about abusing her in front of the children. It was as though he didn’t even know they were there. He slapped her, pushed her, beat her. Horrified, his daughters watched this, begging that he stop, screaming and crying and pleading with him to stop. If not for his daughters’ intervention, their pleas, he might well have killed Barbara in a fit of rage. If he had killed her in such a fit, he would also have killed his children.
“If Mommy dies, Merrick,” he actually told his firstborn, “you know I’ll have to kill you and your sister. I couldn’t leave any witnesses…you understand?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Merrick said.
Barbara was, she said, trapped. There was nowhere for her to turn. If she went to the police and showed them her injuries, her black eyes and bruises, he might be arrested; but she knew that he’d be out on bail soon enough and he’d come looking to kill her. He had told her as much in plain language on numerous occasions.
And she believed him.
In her heart Barbara was certain, she explained, that Richard would destroy her if she ever went to the authorities or did anything to cause him to lose his family. Before that he’d kill them all.
However, as odd as this sounds, Barbara was not cowed by Richard. She’d stand up to him, defy him, point her finger in his face and dare him to hit her again—which he usually did. “Big shot, think you’re so tough, beating up a woman—you aren’t tough. You ain’t tough at all!” she’d say, right in his face.
If, daughter Merrick recently explained, my mom had kept her mouth shut it wouldn’t’ve been so bad. She made things worse—a bad situation even worse. It was like she wanted to egg him on. I used to tell her to be quiet—“Mommy, be quiet”—not to answer him back, not to stand up to him—“Mommy, shut up”—but she didn’t.
Barbara’s only way of fighting back, of not losing her own identity, who she was, was to stand up to her husband, and she did, and she regularly suffered the consequences.
Daughter Chris explained it this way: My father married the wrong woman. If, say, Mom was more meek, I mean less outspoken, the tirades would’ve ended much more quickly. But she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut and made it worse. Even when he was actually striking her, beating on her, my mom would taunt, berate, and belittle my dad. My mother…my mother encouraged it.
Barbara, however, does not feel that way: There was no way, she explained, that I was going to allow him to walk all over me and I was going to keep my mouth shut and let him abuse me. I had nowhere to turn, no one to ask for help, and so I told him…I told him how I felt. Maybe, I mean now looking back on it, I was encouraging him, enabling him, but I was not about to let him make a doormat out of me and keep my mouth shut; forget that.
Afterward, Richard was always angry at himself for terrorizing his daughters. Dwayne was still too young to know what was going on. Yet, Richard never said he was sorry or that it wouldn’t happen again. He acted as though nothing had occurred; everything was just peachy and dandy. It was as though a terrible storm had come and gone and the destruction was just a natural consequence of the storm. Nothing more. He had nothing to do with it. It was all the storm’s fault.
Daughter Chris took to calling the operator after one of her father’s tirades and hanging up when she heard the operator’s voice; she somehow felt comforted and reassured knowing that there was someone at the other end of the phone, someone out there who would help. Chris and her sister began to pack an “escape bag,” as they called it. In it were some clothes, a favorite toy or two, an extra pair of shoes for each of them. They figured it was only a matter of time before their father really did kill their mother, and they wanted to have an escape kit ready to go so they could run out the door when the time ca
me.
In no uncertain terms, Barbara again told Richard that if he ever laid a finger on her children, she’d cut his throat when he was sleeping. She said this with such cold, calm sincerity that he believed her. Besides, he would cut his hands off before he ever physically hurt any of his children.
Barbara…Barbara was another matter entirely.
Sometimes, when Richard was losing it, his face paling, his lips twisting up, that terrible clicking sound coming from his lips, he’d actually strike himself with his fist so hard he’d knock himself out cold. This was, he recently confided, the only way he could avoid striking Barbara and terrorizing his little girls: to knock himself out, and he did.
Richard knocking himself unconscious was a frightening, unsettling, sobering thing to see. Not only did he hit himself, he banged his head against the wall so hard he’d knock himself out cold, come to after a while, and silently leave the house, like a tornado going away—quietly disappearing over the horizon.
True, Richard did not strike his children or physically abuse them in any way, but he was causing them great anxiety and pain inside…a thing Barbara seemed oblivious to. Outwardly, Chris and Merrick appeared well adjusted and happy, but inside they were in turmoil. They did, however, make friends easily, were outgoing and gregarious, and did reasonably well in school.
Merrick, though, was still plagued by kidney and bladder problems, high fever, infections, and convulsions, and spent a lot of time in the hospital, and consequently missed an inordinate amount of school, several months of every year.
When Merrick was hospitalized, her father was always there, getting her whatever she needed and making sure she was comfortable and receiving good treatment. He catered not only to his daughter but to all the other children on whatever ward she was housed. He was always bringing dolls and toys and candy to the kids on the ward. He had tremendous empathy for these sick children and would gladly do anything he could, including paying for procedures and medication children needed that their parents could not afford. One child, a seven-year-old girl in the room next to Merrick’s, was dying of cancer, had only a few days left. Her parents could not afford the hospital TV, and it was disconnected. When Richard came to see Merrick and heard what had happened, he was outraged that the child’s TV was disconnected, went and found the technician, paid him, and made him immediately activate the child’s television. Richard was a true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No matter what he did, however, what kind of outburst he had, no matter how afraid of him she was, Merrick always forgave her father, never ever held anything against him. These two, Richard and Merrick, had some kind of special bond that neither Barbara nor Chris had with Richard.
