by Philip Carlo
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.
46
“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 store 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.
“You’ll see it tomorrow,” Remi said with absolute certainty. That would leave Richard and Spasudo—if it was true—nearly sixty-three thousand each, after the banker got his half and Remi his end.
“When…where—what time?” Richard asked, not quite believing this; it really did seem too good to be true.
“I’ll bring it to your hotel,” Remi said.
And sure enough, the following day Remi showed up at the appointed time with a check made out to the Mercantile Corporation for five hundred thousand dollars. Richard could barely believe his eyes, but there it was in his huge hand. All smiles, Richard said, “I didn’t think you could pull it off but you did. You’re a good man, Remi—good man!” He shook Remi’s pudgy hand. Richard noticed Remi didn’t seem that happy for a guy who had just made so much money.
“Is there something wrong?” asked Richard.
“There is…a slight problem,” Remi said. “A complication, you could say.”
“What is it?”
“Our friend, the banker, was apparently working with another group of people, and they, well, they screwed him, and then demanded more money…a bigger share.”
Greedy bastards, Richard thought.
“And they have threatened to expose him.”
“Really?” Richard said, thinking, Ain’t it the way?
“Yes.”
Richard took another look at the check in his hand. “Well,” he said, “why don’t you take care of them?”
“How? They’re dangerous people. I think…I think they’re gangsters,” Remi added, whispering the word.
“Oh, gangsters, you say,” Richard said, amused.
“Yes! This is the problem, you see.”
“This isn’t a problem,” Richard said confidently.
“It is…. You don’t understand—they’re dangerous. They’ve threatened not only him, you know, but his family too. His wife and children.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, my friend, you show me who these dangerous gangsters are and I’ll take care of them.”
“You, how…Do you, you know, know some people who—?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Richard repeated with such certainty that Remi believed him.
“I can show you the man,” he said.
“Good,” Richard said.
The following day Remi took Richard to the bank and showed him the official. He was sitting behind an ornate cherrywood desk adorned with brass lamps. To Richard’s surprise, he was Asian. The fellow trying to extort him was supposed to be coming to talk with him at noon, and he showed up on time. He was an Arab, sported a well-cut Italian suit, silk shirt, fancy tie. He carried a Vuitton attaché case. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard. He reminded Richard of the actor Omar Sharif. Richard smiled to himself, but his face was as cold and white as a marble statue in a cemetery on a winter night.
The plan was for Phil Solimene to act as if he’d known Dominick Polifrone for a long time. Polifrone would take on the name and persona of Dominick Provanzano. He had a driver’s license in that name, and there were bogus warrants for Provanzano, if anyone checked. It was no secret that crooked cops were checking out police files and computers and gleefully selling information to the bad guys. Everyone in law enforcement knew this. If Richard had a crooked cop check out Dominick Provanzano, he’d pass the scrutiny with flying colors.
The plan was for Dominick to start hanging out at the store, play cards, become “a regular,” as it were. He would, they hoped, be accepted by the criminals who made the store their second home. Phil Solimene would go out of his way to make sure everyone knew that Dominick was one of them—a slick, well-connected hood he’d known for many years, a guy with connections in New York’s Little Italy, trusted and confided in by “important people.”
It was now early 1985. Pat Kane drove Dominick to the store in Paterson in an unmarked van, wished him luck, and watched Dominick swagger across the street and enter the store. This was, he was hoping, the first step in finally nailing Kuklinski. Kane had no idea about Richard’s trips to Europe at this juncture; he had no idea he was even out of town.
When, that fateful day, Dominick Polifrone opened the door and entered the store, he metamorphosized into Dominick Provanzano. Phil Solimene looked up, saw him, and called out, “Hey, Dom, come on in!” a big smile on his chiseled face, hugged and kissed him, and proudly introduced him to the regulars. Here Polifrone was in his element. He was, in fact, a born actor, a smooth, seamless natural bullshit artist, and he quickly made himself at home, played cards with the guys, a rogues’ gallery of thieves and thugs: men who lived on the outside of the law, made their own rules, would steal anything that wasn’t bolted down and hurt anyone who got in their way, outlaws all. With Solimene’s obvious blessings and endorsement, Polifrone was quickly and readily accepted as one of their own. Every other word out of Polifrone’s mouth was “fuck,” and he quickly let it be known that he could get any-fuckin-thing, any kind of guns, drugs, silencers, hand grenades, assault rifles. People believed him. Why shouldn’t they? After all, Phil Solimene—Fagan himself—said he was “stand-up.”
Dominick had the natural gift of gab, was a wonderful teller of stories and jokes, and in no time he had everyone laughing and patting him on the back. He dressed, looked, and sounded the par
t. He had a Cuban cigar in his mouth. Even Bobby DeNiro couldn’t’ve been more convincing. Dominick’s bad, ill-fitting wig played well into his persona, though he hadn’t planned that. He wore this wig all the time.
When, that first day, Dominick left the store, walked across the street, and got into the unmarked van, Kane was relieved. If anything went wrong, if Dominick was hurt, it would surely be his fault, laid at his feet.
“How’d it go?” Kane asked.
“A fuckin’ piece a cake,” Dominick said, “Solimene’s good. He even got me believing we go back a lotta years.”
“Great,” Kane said, finally seeing a golden glimmer of light at the end of that foul-smelling tunnel.
Back in Zurich, through the crooked Asian bank officer, Remi found out where the Arab they’d seen lived, in a two-story brick house on a quiet street in town. Richard and Remi checked it out. Richard immediately decided against a gun or overt violence. He wanted this to appear like a natural death. He didn’t want any kind of police scrutiny. He decided that poison would be the best way to go. He said nothing of his plans to Remi. The less Remi knew the better. The first order of business, Richard knew, was to make sure the check cleared. He promised Remi that as soon as the money was in the account, he’d take care of the Arab.
“I believe you, I believe you will,” Remi said.
Richard soon left for the States, went to Georgia, and warily deposited the five-hundred-thousand-dollar check. He was uncomfortable doing this. He was expecting lawmen to jump out with badges and guns. But no such thing happened, and, to his delight and amazement, the check cleared.
Richard began asking questions of mob guys he had met over the years about the best way to move money. He also spoke to a tax lawyer he knew in Hoboken that did a lot of work for people in the underworld. With the new information, Richard devised a plan to move the money through a series of banks, one in Luxembourg, one in the Cayman Islands, and another in New Jersey, to disperse the money so that it wasn’t traceable. This was all before the banking laws were changed to make such transactions much more difficult.
