Authors: Anthony Bruno
“Did you know an individual by the name of Louis Masgay?”
“Nope.”
The other cop, the younger of the two, just stared at him. Detective Kane didn’t say a word, just tried to look mean. Kuklinski knew the routine. They weren’t the first cops to come around asking questions. Volkman, the talker, was going to be the friendly guy; Kane was going to be the hard ass. Kuklinski wanted to laugh in their faces. Who the hell did these guys think they were? Better yet, who the hell did they think they were dealing with?
“How about Paul L. Hoffman?” Volkman asked. “Did you know him?”
Kuklinski shook his head.
“Gary Thomas Smith?”
“Nope.”
“How about Daniel Everett Deppner?”
Kuklinski yanked up sharply on Shaba’s collar to silence the barking. “Never heard of him either.” He had his hand on the edge of the door, ready to close it.
Detective Volkman’s glance slid toward his partner. “Well, if you don’t know these men, Mr. Kuklinski, then I don’t suppose you know anything about a Mr. Roy DeMeo.”
Kuklinski squinted at the detective as his grip tightened on the dog’s collar. He wanted to know how the hell they’d gotten that one.
“Roy DeMeo,” Detective Kane snapped. “He was a soldier in the Gambino crime family. Until he was murdered.”
Kuklinski flashed a cordial smile. “Why don’t you boys come in? Let’s not talk out here.” He opened the door all the way and showed them in. Shaba was agitated, sniffing at their pants, but the dog had stopped barking.
Kuklinski led them up the short flight of stairs to the living
room. “Have a seat,” he said, indicating the couch, as he got comfortable in his favorite chair in the house, the beige leather easy chair next to the fireplace, his “throne.” The shaggy Newfoundland flopped down on the floor at his feet. He took the dark amber-tinted prescription glasses out of his shirt pocket, put them on, and tilted his head back. He stared at the two detectives and let the silence get uncomfortable. He wanted them to make the first move to see how much they really knew.
Detective Volkman, the talker, finally spoke up. “Are you sure you don’t know any of those men, Mr. Kuklinski?”
Kuklinski shook his head.
“You didn’t know George Malliband?” Kane asked.
“I don’t believe so.”
Volkman opened a small notepad. “On March 31, 1980, Mr. Malliband told his brother that he was going to a meeting with you to conclude a business deal. That was the last time he was seen alive.”
Kuklinski shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry. I have no recollection of such a person.”
He scratched Shaba’s head. He remembered George Malliband. A big mother, three hundred pounds easy. Barely fit into the barrel.
Detective Volkman consulted his notes. “On July 1, 1981, Louis Masgay was supposed to be meeting you in Little Ferry to buy blank videotapes. He was carrying a large amount of cash. His body was found two years later in Orangetown, New York.”
Kuklinski raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I’ve already told you, Detective. I don’t know these guys.”
He stroked the dog’s black fur. Almost a hundred grand. Frozen solid, stiff as a board. Made the cops look like a bunch of jackasses.
Volkman flipped to another page in his notepad. “Paul Hoffman. A pharmacist from Cliffside Park. He left his home on April 29, 1982, supposedly to meet with you to conclude a business transaction. Again, he also had a large amount of cash with him.”
Kuklinski sucked his teeth. “Don’t know him.”
He glanced down at the dozing Newfoundland. A real pain in the ass, that guy. Hardly worth the twenty grand for all the trouble he caused.
Detective Kane, the hard ball, piped up. “You gonna tell us you didn’t know Gary Smith and Danny Deppner either?”
Kuklinski stared at him through his dark glasses, then turned to Volkman. “Why doesn’t my friend Mr. Kane here like me?”
“Just answer the question please,” Kane insisted.
“I already told you, Detective. If I said I didn’t know them, I didn’t know them.”
Shaba lifted his head and growled. Kuklinski scratched the dog’s ears to quiet him down. Smith and Deppner had to go. They couldn’t be trusted anymore.
Kane glared at him, sitting on the edge of the couch as if he were going to jump up and do something. “Mr. Kuklinski, we have reliable information that you were well acquainted with Gary Smith and Danny Deppner, that they worked for you.” Kane spit out the words, challenging him.
“And who is this reliable person who says I knew these two fellas?”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge that person’s name.”
“And why is that, Detective? I thought this was America. I thought you were supposed to know who your accusers are. Or maybe I just watch too many TV shows, Detective. Could that be my problem, Detective?”
Shaba growled deep in his throat.
Kuklinski glared at Kane through his dark glasses. He had a pretty good idea who their “reliable” source was. Frigging Percy House and that bitch of his, Barbara Deppner, Danny’s ex-wife. He knew he should’ve taken care of those two a long time ago. Just like Gary and Danny. But if Percy House was talking, he wasn’t saying much—at least not yet—because these two from the state police didn’t know shit. If they did, they wouldn’t be sitting
here playing games with him. They’d have an arrest warrant. These fools didn’t know shit.
“How about Robert Prongay?” Kane pressed. “Did you know Bobby Prongay?”
“Nope.”
“Think hard. Maybe you just forgot. He used to drive a Mister Softee ice-cream truck in North Bergen. He kept that truck in a garage right across from a garage you used to rent. Is it coming back to you now, Mr. Kuklinski?”
Kuklinski stared at him for a moment. Then he spoke softly. “I don’t care that much for ice cream, Detective.”
“That wasn’t what I asked, Mr. Kuklinski. I asked if you knew Robert Prongay.”
“No. I didn’t know him either.”
Kuklinski kneaded the dog’s neck. Mister Softee. Dr. Death.
Volkman ruffled some pages to break the tension. He was supposed to be the “good cop” after all. He was supposed to make things nice. “How about Roy DeMeo, Mr. Kuklinski? Did you know him?”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Have you ever been to a place called the Gemini Lounge, Mr. Kuklinski? On Flatlands Avenue in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Kuklinski?”
“That sounds like some kind of gin mill, Detective. I’m a family man. I don’t go to places like that.”
Kane fidgeted in his seat. He looked like he was about to say something, but a glance from Volkman kept him quiet.
“Roy DeMeo was a made member of the Gambino crime family,” Volkman said. “He was into pornography, among other things. Weren’t you also involved in the pornography business at one time, Mr. Kuklinski?”
Kuklinski felt the blood rushing to his face. “Pornography? No, Detective. I told you, I’m a family man.”
Shaba whimpered as he dug his fingers into the dog’s neck.
Unwanted memories drifted back. The office on Lafayette Street in Manhattan around the corner from the film lab. Roy’s crazy crew. The apartment behind the Gemini Lounge where Dracula lived. Sausage and angel hair. The sharks off Long Island. Unconsciously Kuklinski touched the scar high on his forehead.
Volkman continued. “DeMeo’s body was found in the trunk of his own car in January 1983.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Something was found on top of his body. You wouldn’t have any idea what that item might be?”
Kuklinski didn’t say a word. He just stared and let the moment stretch. Then he smiled. “Are we playing games here, Detective?”
Kane barked. “No, Mr. Kuklinski, we are
not
playing games.”
“Then what are you doing here? I told you already. I don’t know any of those guys you’re talking about.”
“We have a reliable source who says you—”
“Would you like me to tell you what you can do with your ‘reliable source,’ Detective Kane?”
He pictured Percy House’s big ugly face. Rat bastard.
Detective Kane was fuming. He looked like he was having a hard time just keeping himself on the couch. Kuklinski grinned at him.
Volkman flipped some more pages. “Now just to be absolutely sure, Mr. Kuklinski, let’s go over the names one more time. Okay?”
Kuklinski shrugged. “Whatever’ll make you happy.”
“George Malliband, Junior. You say you didn’t know him?”
“I don’t believe I ever met anyone by that name. No.”
“And did you know Louis Masgay?”
“Nope.”
“Paul Hoffman?”
“Don’t know him.”
“Robert Prongay.”
Kuklinski shook his head.
“Gary Smith.”
“Don’t know him either.”
“Danny Deppner.”
“Never heard of the guy.”
Kane was squinting at him. He looked very skeptical. “If you don’t know any of these men, Mr. Kuklinski, then why are you grinning like that?”
Kuklinski’s grin broke out into a toothy smile. “I guess I’m just a happy guy, Detective.”
“Why do I have a feeling you know more than you’re saying, Mr. Kuklinski?”
Richard Kuklinski just grinned at him.
He ran his fingers through Shaba’s thick coat as the two detectives looked at each other, trying to figure out how to walk away from this without looking like a couple of assholes. But these two jokers came in here with nothing, Kuklinski thought. That was their first mistake. They were on a fishing expedition. But they had nothing, and they
were
nothing. The way Richard Kuklinski figured it, they were a couple of two-bit state cops, struggling with their mortgages and their car payments, scraping to get by, looking forward to nothing more than getting their twenty years in so they could get their shitty little pensions. They were losers. They knew nothing and they had nothing.
But Richard Kuklinski, on the other hand, had everything.
The big man adjusted his glasses and grinned with satisfaction. “Now is there anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?”
The duck pond in Demarest, New Jersey, was Barbara and Richard Kuklinski’s special place. They would come here two, three times a week after breakfast just to sit and feed the ducks and Canada geese. Richard would go across the street to the deli and buy a loaf of bread, and they’d while away the morning, tearing up slices and throwing the pieces into the water. It was very peaceful here, and Richard always said this place calmed him down. But sitting next to him on their usual park bench this morning, Barbara Kuklinski could tell that her husband wasn’t calm—not really—and that made her very nervous.
Out of the corner of her eye, Barbara could see her husband glancing back at the pay phone at the edge of the parking lot again.
Richard tossed out the bread in his hand and looked at her. “You want me to get the blanket from the car? To sit on.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“You sure? I’ll go get it.”
“No, I’m fine, Rich.”
“Okay.” He was looking at the pay phone again.
Smoothing the short blond hair at the back of her head, Barbara tried not to let on that she thought anything was wrong. But there was definitely something the matter today. Not that Richard couldn’t be genuinely sweet. Most of the time he was very attentive to her and courteous to a fault. He really worried about her, and he cared about her, and sometimes no gesture was too extravagant to make her happy.
When they first met, she had been working as a secretary at a trucking company and he was working on the loading dock. For him, it was practically love at first sight, and he pursued her relentlessly, sending her flowers every single day until she agreed to go out on a date with him. Barbara was thrilled by the attention, but she was afraid to get involved with him. She knew that her Italian-American parents would not approve of him simply because he wasn’t Italian. But Richard could not be dissuaded, and the flowers kept on coming, every day a new bouquet on her desk. Eventually she gave in and agreed to go out with him on a double date, but the first time she brought Richard home, she told her parents he was Italian and made him use an Italian name. Richard played along with the ruse because he said he loved her. It was months before Barbara confessed to her parents that Richard’s real name was Kuklinski.
Tossing pieces of bread into the water, Barbara smiled to herself, thinking back to those days when Richard was thin and bashful and always so sweet and thoughtful.
She also remembered when Merrick, their oldest daughter, was born and how sick she had been. The baby had developed a kidney infection, and Richard stayed up all night, night after night, sitting next to the crib with his hand on Merrick’s back to keep her warm, watching her breathe, cleaning up her spit-up, changing her diapers.
Barbara brushed away a tear from the corner of her eye. She had a lot of precious memories of her life with Richard. They’d had
some very good times together. She sighed, and then her smile started to fade. They’d also had some not-so-good times.…
There were the times when things weren’t going Richard’s way, times when he could be a major bastard. After twenty-five years of marriage Barbara knew instinctively when things weren’t right with Richard. She could
smell
it on him. In her mind there were actually two Richards—the good Richard and the bad Richard—and she had a terrible feeling that she was sitting here with the bad one.
Today it wasn’t obvious which Richard he was. Of course, it never was—not until it was too late. Even the children could be fooled sometimes because he was tricky. He hid his moods. He could be furious about something, and you’d never know it. He would sit on his anger for weeks; then suddenly, out of the blue, he would fly into a rage, scream and yell for hours on end. And when the bad Richard went into one of his tirades, the best thing to do was to stay out of his way. But that never worked well for Barbara. The children were generally spared the full treatment, but with her it was different. Whenever he got started, she had to sit and listen and take it. Or else. She knew firsthand what the consequences of walking away from him could be.