The Iceman Read Online Free PDF Page B

that never happened.
    In school he couldn’t pay attention, and the nun who taught his class scolded him several times for daydreaming. If anyone would finger him, she would, he thought. Nuns can spot sinners a mile away. He kept waiting for her screeching accusation, followed by the cops coming into the classroom to haul him away.
    But that never happened.
    Nothing happened.
    It had been almost two weeks since that night in the courtyard, and nobody had bothered with him. No cops, none of the kids in the gang, no one in Johnny’s family, not even Mr. Butterfield. No one at all.
    But this was a trap, he thought. They were all pretending. The police were just waiting for the right moment when they could pounce. This was a trap.
    It occurred to him that maybe Johnny wasn’t even dead, that one of these days he’d be walking down the street and Johnny would pop out of nowhere, back from the hospital where the police had been hiding him. He’d point his finger at Richie and tell the police, “That’s him. The skinny Polack is the guy who tried to kill me.”
    Richie couldn’t eat; he couldn’t sleep. He dreaded going out.
    But nothing ever happened. Nothing.
    Gradually he started to calm down. Maybe no one knew. Maybe he was safe. Then one day he caught himself smiling, and he realized that he hadn’t thought about Johnny for a whole day. Hestarted going out on the street more, and eventually he stopped worrying about police cars. He still thought about Johnny, but he wasn’t worried about him anymore. He still felt bad about it, but in another way he also felt good about it. The bully was gone, and no one was bothering him. He’d solved his problem. When you hurt people, they leave you alone.
    As the months passed, he’d see detectives down in the lobby of his building every once in a while, talking to the neighbors about Johnny, checking to see if there was any new information they could pick up. Richie would walk right by them and head for the stairs, biting his grin until he rounded the corner and no one could see him. He knew who killed Johnny, but no one else did. It was his little secret, his alone. It was something no one else in the whole world had except him, and it made him valuable. It made him special. It made him someone.

TWO
JULY 1986
    The doorbell chimed. Richard Kuklinski, age fifty-one, looked up from the TV set and frowned. His wife, Barbara, was out shopping with their daughters, Merrick and Christen, but his son, Dwayne, was around someplace. Kuklinski never answered the door himself, so he ignored it and returned to the movie on TV. Dwayne would get it.
    The doorbell chimed again, and Shaba, the family dog, stirred from his nap. The Newfoundland was all black, shaggy, and as big as a small bear. Shaba had been near death when Kuklinski found him in a Dumpster. The puppy had been abandoned along with two female pups that were already dead when Kuklinski heard the pathetic yelps coming out of the garbage. The dog’s name was Polish for “little frog.” They’d named him that because when Richard Kuklinski first brought him home, he had big webbed feet, and before he could run, he hopped around the house like a frog.
    The doorbell chimed again, and the big dog opened his eyes and growled.
    Kuklinski called out to his son, “Dwayne! Get the door.” He reached down and scratched the growling animal’s head. “It’s all right, Shaba. It’s all right.”
    But the bell chimed again, and Kuklinski scowled. The dog got up and barked as he trotted to the front door. Kuklinski ran his hand over his bald head and scratched his beard. “Dwayne?” But Dwayne didn’t answer. He must have gone out.
    The dog was barking at the front door. “Shut up, Shaba,” Kuklinski grumbled, trying to pay attention to the movie. But the dog kept barking.
    The doorbell chimed once more, and the dog barked louder, becoming more frantic.
    “Shit,” Kuklinski mumbled as he hauled himself up from the sofa in the