By August it becomes so familiar people hardly notice it anymore. It’s an innocent singsong tune played on a celeste that is very reminiscent of the theme song from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and the recorded sound track is played over and over again, often late into the night. It comes from the Mister Softee ice-cream trucks that trawl the inner-city neighborhoods, enticing children outside with that familiar strain, inviting them to come down and buy a cool, sweet treat. Inevitably anyone who drives one of these ice-cream trucks becomes known to his patrons as Mister Softee, but in the early 1980s there was one driver from North Bergen who was known to Richard Kuklinski as Mister Softee, and he was into more than just Dixie cups and Eskimo Pies. His real name was Robert Prongay. Just as Agent 007, James Bond, had Q, the technical wizard who supplied him with deadly gadgets and hightech weaponry, the Iceman had Mister Softee. Although he was ten years younger than Kuklinski, Prongay was the Iceman’s instructor in the various methods of assassination.
