The inspiration for the major motion picture starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, with Ray Liotta and Chris Evans He was smart, merciless, and deadly. And it took someone just as tough to bring him down.   A mob contract killer known as “The Iceman” for hiding a body in an ice-cream truck freezer, Richard Kuklinski boasted a personal body count of more than a hundred victims. Using guns, knives, poison, ice picks, tire irons, baseball bats, and bombs, the family man from New Jersey killed for fun, for money, to cover up his own crimes, and to satisfy his inner rage. Law enforcement officials knew all about Kuklinski and had a list of his victims, but couldn’t get near him—until undercover agent Dominick Polifrone posed as a mobster and began a deadly game of cat and mouse.   In this harrowing true-crime account, Anthony Bruno delves into the mind of a cold-blooded killer, chronicling the Iceman’s grisly crimes and probing the bizarre dynamics of Agent Polifrone’s dangerous liaison with him. For as Polifrone carefully built up a case against Kuklinksi, he knew he was running out of time—because the Iceman was planning to kill him too.   “Bruno puts his writing talents to white-knuckle use with a tight focus on a killer with no human feelings.”— Kirkus Reviews “Excellent . . . [re-creates] the tension and stress Polifrone experienced in fulfilling his risky undercover assignment.”— Publishers Weekly “Bruno puts his writing talents to white-knuckle use with a tight focus on a killer with no human feelings.”— Kirkus Reviews   “Excellent . . . [re-creates] the tension and stress Polifrone experienced in fulfilling his risky undercover assignment.”— Publishers Weekly Anthony Bruno is the author of eleven crime novels and four true-crime books, including Seven (based on the hit movie starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman). His nonfiction work The Seekers: A Bounty Hunter’s Story was nominated for the Edgar Award for best fact crime book. His novel Bad Apple was adapted for television in 2004. JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY—1949   The boy stood in the shadows, leaning against the brick wall, listening to the night. The distant clack of diesel engines from the Hoboken train yards filled the sky over the Sixteenth Street projects. Tugboats on the Hudson sounded their horns as they pushed garbage scows downriver, heading out to sea. The rumble of the incinerator on the other side of the brick wall vibrated the boy’s back. It seemed like they burned garbage all the time around here. He looked up at the stars shining dully through the drifting smoke from the incinerator. For fourteen-year-old Richard Kuklinski, life was all garbage, and he just couldn’t take any more. He’d had it.   The warm bricks heated his back as his breath turned to vapor on the cold air. Down by his side, he held the wooden closet pole. His hand was sweaty as his eyes darted into the darkness and he listened for the footsteps, for that voice. Johnny’s voice.   He glanced up at the projects, the lights in the windows. His apartment was up there somewhere, but he wasn’t sure which window was his. It didn’t matter really. The apartments were all the same here, and they all stunk. The heavy wooden pole came from the hallway closet, the only closet in the whole apartment. It was stupid having a closet pole up there, the way he figured. There were hardly any clothes to move when he took it down. Just about the only clothes he and his little brother and sister owned were the ones they wore. Whenever something wore out and his mother could afford it, they’d just go downtown and replace it, wear it home stiff, sometimes with the tags still on. He felt his frayed shirtfront, ashamed of the way he had to go around. The other kids in the projects teased him all the time, but the most stinging remarks always came from Johnny. “Richie the rag boy.” “Hobo Richie.” “The skinny Polack.”   His mother never listened to him. She always bought his clothes big so he wouldn’t outgrow them too fast, she said. But he was a skinny kid, and he never grew into them. They just flapped around him as if he were some kind of a … hobo.   Might as well be a hobo, he thought. He spent all his time wandering the streets as it was, staying to himself. He didn’t hang out in gangs the way other kids did. He didn’t get along with those kids. He preferred his own company, walking around, seeing what there was to see, watching the sailors getting drunk and picking up whores over in Hoboken, watching the tired factory workers dragging themselves in and out of the Maxwell House factory just to make a buck, watching people arguing with shopkeepers up in Journal Square, going crazy to save a few pennies on a pound of potatoes.   It was all garbage. People going nuts just so they could grab a little piece of something for themselves. But it was all garbage. Couldn’t they see that?   One time he was over on Henderson Street, just walking around, when