Crime writer Anthony Bruno, who writes both fiction and nonfiction, says that writing The Iceman changed his life.  It was the first time that a "character" wanted to know how he was being portrayed.  Bruno had to be careful about what he said.

He was invited to write the book as a spin-off to the original HBO documentary from America Undercover, The Iceman Confesses.  He spent two years working on it, using interviews with both Kuklinski and his wife, letters from Kuklinski, a psychological report, and a thorough review of the public records on the Kuklinski investigation, arrest and trial.  He agreed to talk about his experience:

"He wouldn't talk to me for the longest time as the book was being written," Bruno says about Kuklinski. "I wrote to ask if he'd speak to me and at first he ignored me.  In fact, I was finished with the first draft of the book before he finally talked with me.  He talked with the HBO people, but not to me.

"When I first saw him on film, I was mesmerized.  His manner is so deceivingly welcoming…not glad-handing, but he's got such a way about him that I could see how he could con so many people into believing that he would get them whatever goods he was selling at the time.  It was always a scam; there never were any goods.  He'd end up killing the person for the money.  He's a natural actor.  There's something very winning about his personality.  That's what struck me most about him.  His external attributes are so in contrast to his manner, and yet there's an overtly scary side to him.

"One of the constant warnings I heard before I went to visit him at the prison was to look out for 'the shark look.'  That's when the eyes roll back and his face freezes for a split second.  In a five-hour interview, I saw it twice.  At one point, I brought up the subject of one of his daughters, and that set it off.  The other instance was a reference to a newspaper clipping that he'd sent me, with a post-it note.  He'd put random thoughts in these notes, like a gun caliber or a place.  Never a name or date.  So he'd written down a couple of restaurants, a room number, and a pastry shop.  I wanted to know what it meant, so I read them off and when I got to the pastry shop, I got the look again. What I did was just back off and go to another topic.  It's quick but it sets you back on your heels.

"When I first visited him, I interviewed him for five hours, and the first half was terrible.  I had the tape recorder running and I could see that he was paying more attention to the tape than to me.  His answers were clipped and unresponsive.  After about two hours, I said, 'We're not really getting anywhere, so I'm just going to pack up and go.'  As soon as the tape recorder was back in my briefcase, he started talking.  I pulled out a yellow pad and started scribbling notes, and I think he liked the control.  The more he talked, the more I scribbled, and that's when he started telling me lots of things.

"An FBI profiler thought that Kuklinski was obviously a serial killer, but I disagree.  He had no psychosexual motivation.  It was all motivated by profit.  He might kill three times in a month and then lay low for a few years.  Serial killers usually go through escalation, where they feel compelled to kill more frequently.  They become more excited and disorganized.  Ted Bundy is a good example of that.

"I think to call Kuklinski a mass murderer might be more accurate, but being profit-motivated was the key.  Most of his murders were scams to make money, but he was also associated with Roy DeMeo, a capo on the Gambino crime family, and in the second interview that he did with HBO he admitted to mob hits.

"My hunch on his connection with Prongay ["Mister Softee"] is that Prongay was the brains.  He was the mad scientist who came up with all the ideas, like freezing bodies and using cyanide as a spray.  Not that Kuklinski is stupid by any means.  But I think he lost his source for inventive methods when he killed Prongay.  It was hard getting information about Prongay because there were open murders associated with him.  Kuklinski admitted to killing him.

"Kuklinski's great quote to me was 'I'm not the Iceman, I'm the Nice Man'---when he wanted you to think he was a good family man from Bergen County.  But by the same token, if you listen to him long enough, he'll tell you fantastic things to pump up his other image of himself.  He once sent me a long letter about being part of the team that had abducted and killed Jimmy Hoffa.  When I checked into the details of the letter, he was all wrong.

Kuklinski's garage  (POLICE)

"About the possibility that they'd hidden a body in the freezer in the Mister Softee truck, the other police theory was that there was a drainage compartment in the floor of the garage where the truck was stored which was very cool, so they were able to keep him in a partially frozen state in that drain.  When I asked Kuklinski about whether it could have been in the ice cream truck, he gave me this acknowledging smile.  I'm hesitant to say that he admitted to it, but he gave me that impression.

"As for being so open with Dominick Polifrone, the undercover cop who went after him, apparently Kuklinski did this with others that he knew he was going to kill.  He would bring them into his confidence and tell them far too much, always in the back of his mind thinking, 'It doesn't matter, because I'm going to kill him.  He's dead.'  The insidious thing is that he layered all these scams.  He told you he could get you something and string you out, and he'd have you call me as his next target, to get you to vouch for him.  And everyone always said good things about him because they wanted what he was promising, so it seemed like he was on the up-and-up.  Then the fateful day would come when he'd kill you.  He'd collect his profits and sit back for a while.

"I did go to most of the crime scenes.  I went to see the motel room where Gary Smith had been left under the mattress.  Room 31.  It was pretty creepy to imagine that three people had rented that room from the time of the murder to the time when the body was discovered.

"I talked with Barbara Kuklinski often.  She'd call me every week or so when I was writing the book.  She talked pretty extensively about the abuse she lived with.  I never talked with Kuklinski about this directly, because it was her story.  I wanted to keep it pure.  She did say, 'Look at this nose.  Has this nose been broken more than once?'  She was right.  And she'd lost a child; thanks to a beating he'd given her.

"One thing that upsets people most is that Richard Kuklinski has a human side.  People didn't want to like him.  They didn't want to know about his childhood or his tears over his family.  People want their monsters black and white.

"Periodically I still hear from him. His is the first Christmas card I get every year.

He's very polite in his letters, and a pretty good artist.  Imagine the most gruesome tattoos that you can…that's the kind of art he does.  Skulls with confederate caps on, creatures from hell, things like that. 

"Judge Kuechenmeister [the presiding judge at Kuklinski's trial] told me that 95% of the time when he lays down a sentence, he sees relief on the convicted person's face, because these people lead disorganized lives and now they know that they're going to be fed, clothed and housed somewhere.  Their lives will now have regularity.  But that 5% that we might call 'master criminals'---the people who could organize their lives and who are successful as criminals---they're totally blown apart when the control is taken away from them.  It's devastating for them.

"I think prison is the most appropriate punishment for him, as opposed to the death penalty.  He told me that when he was arrested and they were bringing him back to the courthouse in Bergen County, there were two cops with him.  He was in shackles, and he said to one of them, 'Take off the cuffs.  Take off the shackles.  Let me run and shoot me in the back.  Let's get it over with.'  For someone as organized as he is, living this life now must be hell for him. 

"Yet the other side of that coin is that he's never admitted to a murder that took place after the death penalty was reinstated in New Jersey.  He was careful about that.  Here's the dichotomy again: He was willing to be killed on the spot yet he doesn't want to face the death penalty.

"I was concerned at times writing the book, and the cops warned me there might be people on the street who were connected to him, but I was Kuklinski's chronicler.  I was the one who put him between the covers of a hardcover book.  He liked the notoriety.  He wanted the book to happen.  He wanted people to know about him.

"I have no doubt that he still holds information about unsolved murders, and he's clever enough to dole it out slowly, to keep his story alive."

Bruno's book, The Iceman, was published in 1993.  His latest nonfiction crime book, The Seekers, is about a bounty hunter who relies as much on his spirituality as his physical skills to bring 'em back alive.