The Last Victim (26 page)

We both agreed that all those years of being kept in his cell, only allowed visits from attorneys and some family, kept Gacy
looking normal to all who observed him. Seeing me had apparently caused him to relapse, as if a day hadn’t gone by since his
last murder. What I took for granted as “John acting crazy” was a side of him no one had apparently viewed in fifteen years.

That evening, despite the terror I’d felt at the prison, the thought that tormented me was what a failure I’d be if I gave
up. How could I face my family and friends? I’d look so . . . so
ineffectual
if I let Gacy get the best of me. I couldn’t remember ever feeling as low. Here I thought I’d set the agenda, control the
conversation, find out what I wanted. Instead, I ended up a basket case. A crybaby.

I called the airlines to find out about rescheduling my flight so I could leave the next day, but discovered that the soonest
a seat would be available would be the day after. If I didn’t return to the prison, I’d be stuck in town with nothing to do.

It was while talking to my parents later that I realized what a corner I’d backed myself into. I heard myself lying to them,
telling them everything was just fine. I wanted so badly just to tell them I’d lost it, that this killer had terrorized me.
I wanted to cry. I wanted my mom to hold me and tell me everything would be okay.

After I hung up the phone, I brooded about the reality of going back the next day. It would be tough, but what if I could
do things differently? Maybe I could reduce the risk. Straitjacket Gacy somehow. Newfound courage alternated with terror.
There was no way I was going to get much sleep that night.

Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Gacy moving around my room, rearranging things to his liking, just as he’d done in the prison.

I
awoke the next morning looking puffy and red-eyed, but also with a new dose of determination. Perhaps it was stupidity masquerading
as courage, but I still wanted to “tame the monster.” I’d never in my life accepted a low grade in anything, and I couldn’t
stomach the thought of flying home with my tail between my legs.

The deciding factor was Ken’s reassurance that he’d keep an eye on things during the day, since he’d be joining us sometime
during the morning to go over some legal stuff. An added incentive was the arrangement that had been made for me to meet another
convicted serial killer while Ken and Gacy were going over Gacy’s appeal process.

• • •

This time Gacy greeted me with a warm smile rather than a leer, behaving as if we were old friends. He was obviously trying
to put me at ease.

“What did you do for the rest of the day with Ken?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” I said. “We just ate dinner and walked around the town.”

“Did he try to fuck you?” he asked. I guess he was still hoping his assistant would do what he couldn’t—or hadn’t managed
to yet.

“No!” I said indignantly, playing the innocent. “He was very nice.”

“That’s good,” Gacy said, not meaning it. “I told him to treat you like you were my son.”

Right.
Gacy made it clear to everyone—Ken, the other inmates, even the guards—that I was his property to do with as he liked. As
if to emphasize the point, his eyes went to my wrist where I’d made a point to wear his bracelet.

“Are you wearing my other present as well?” he asked seductively, referring to the briefs he’d given me.

Since I was damn sure he’d never confirm one way or the other, I nodded. In actuality, I’d left the underwear in my room.
I could just imagine what a funny prop
that
would be when I told this story to my family and friends. To me, this was all still like a movie I was temporarily living
in. Eventually, the credits would roll, and I’d get to go home and deliver my review.

This time, per my new plan, I launched immediately into business to circumvent any funny stuff Gacy might have in mind. We
sat next to one another with his binder labeled “Top Secret Case Files” balanced on our laps. Periodically, I could feel him
trying to “accidentally” brush up against me, but I repeatedly pushed him away. It was such a strange feeling, reminding me
of when I was in junior high school and was on the other end of such advances, ones directed at girls I liked.

For the most part, we were able to stick to my agenda. We leafed through his book, page by page, viewing the dossiers on each
of his victims. He showed me the autopsy report on each, as if he was proud of his handiwork.

“They all deserved to die,” he explained. “If you lead the kinds of lives they did, something was bound to happen.”

I just nodded, amazed at his ability to deny responsibility. He seemed to be saying:
Even if I did kill them, it was their fault.

“They went out in the streets and hustled their asses,” he pointed out. “That’s why they got fucked over.”

This conversation was so strange because we were both pretending we were talking about a mysterious killer who had yet to
be found. Although his language would sometimes slip, he was careful to keep up the fiction of his own innocence. Once I acknowledged
his lack of culpability, then he’d freely talk about the crimes as if someone else had done them.

“John,” I asked at one point, “who the hell is the guy who killed all these kids, then?”

“We think it’s actually a group of guys. Probably drugs were involved.”

I smiled at the way he used “we” as if his theory of the case were the prevailing one. I wondered what would happen if I pushed
him more.

“Doesn’t it piss you off to think that all these people out-smarted and manipulated you?” I asked. “I mean, to think that
these guys came into your house, used all your stuff, and then framed you for murder. How could you have not seen it coming?”

“Those fuckin’ kids couldn’t control a goddamn thing!” he screamed, as angry as I’d yet seen him. “Nobody framed me. They
just got lucky and I took the fall.”

He seemed to calm down of his own accord. “The state contends I was the killer, that I had all this anger and rage. Shit,
I had no time to kill anyone, even if I wanted to. I was running a $300,000-a-year business.”

Continuing through his secret files, we next moved to his appeals to the United States Supreme Court. I had a keen interest
in the law, and I was fascinated by what I saw here regarding the intricacies of preventing an execution. Gacy, by contrast,
seemed profoundly bored. I noticed that he kept looking at his watch, then glancing outside the room to check where the guards
were positioned. Each time I noted his attention averted away from me, I checked the time as well, counting the minutes until
Ken would arrive.

So far, I was encouraged by the way the morning was progressing—it wasn’t at all like the disaster of the previous day. It
really seemed as if I’d gained the upper hand.

Unfortunately, my optimism was misplaced, a fact that became clear when I noticed the pen in Gacy’s hand. He kept playing
with it. Still vivid in my mind was his threat from the previous day in which he described how easy it would be to stick the
pen in my neck and let me choke on my own blood.

“So, John,” I said to ease the tension, “tell me about the next step with your appeal.”

“Huh?” he answered, not at all sure what I’d asked him.

“I said—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. “Would you like to see the way I supposedly killed those boys?”

“You mean the rope trick?” I answered apprehensively, remembering having read about it. It
would
be interesting to see how he did it. I was feeling confident I could control him.

“Here,” he said, “give me your wrist. I’ll show you how it works.”

I noticed now that he wasn’t making any attempt to hide his guilt. Strange how he seesawed back and forth between indignant
protests of innocence and outright admissions of being what everyone said he was.

The rope trick is what Gacy called his technique of strangling victims. First, he’d place some rope around the neck of a boy
under his control—usually, the boy was handcuffed with his arms behind his back—and he’d twist the rope once. Next, he’d place
a stick or some other object behind the twisted rope and slowly turn it. This method of strangulation enabled him to have
complete control over the victim’s airflow. If he wanted the victim to die quickly, he’d twist the stick several times tightly,
but if he wanted him to breathe again, he’d gently unravel the stick. Using this method, he could take his victims in and
out of consciousness as he pleased, enabling the torture to go on for hours.

Gacy took the pen in his hand and inserted it under the bracelet I was wearing, next to my skin. “Feel the pain this could
cause,” he said, smiling as he twisted the pen around, causing the bracelet to tighten around my wrist.

Just as I started to wince, he said, “Now I could have some fun; I really could.” With that, he gave it one final twist, pinching
my skin in the process.

And just as one hand let go of my braceleted wrist, the other hand grabbed my arm. “Do you remember what we discussed yesterday?”
he asked in a menacing tone of voice.

“You mean about your case?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” he growled. He then brought my hand down to the level of his crotch. You have to remember
that his hands were cuffed together, so if he had an itch or something while holding on to me, my arm would have to follow
his down.

With his other hand, he began to undo his zipper and pull out his penis again, just like the day before. As he did this, he
tightened the hold he had on my wrist. I could see his fingers turn white from the amount of pressure he was exerting. I struggled
to pull my arm away, eventually breaking free. I was so relieved that I barely noticed he was starting to play with himself
again.

“Do you see this cock?” he said to me in a hoarse whisper. “Do you see the big head on my cock? I’m going to shove this big
head down your throat. You’re going to choke on this cock, Jason, until you beg me to stop.”

His face was now bright red. I could actually see his veins bulging through the skin. He was breathing hard, moaning gutturally
as he stroked himself.
Uh-oh,
I thought. It was yesterday all over again.

This time, though, he was having trouble maintaining his erection, and to raise his sexual excitement, he stepped up the verbal
brutality. “Jason,” he said, eyes riveted on my body, “last night I lay in my bed thinking about what I’m going to do to you
today.”

I gulped. The confidence I’d felt earlier had just about drained off. “Uh, John, maybe we’d better—”

“I thought long and hard about how I’m going to rape you,” he interrupted. “It doesn’t matter whether you want it or not,
you’re going to get it. After I’m done with you, you’re going to lie on the bloody floor so I can piss all over your face.
Seeing your blood on the floor is going to make me very happy.” As he talked, he kept massaging himself, working himself into
a full erection again.

During the previous night, I’d considered what I might do if he came on to me again, or threatened my life. I felt somewhat
better prepared to fend him off, but I knew that a knock-down, drag-out fight or a sprint to the barred door to call out to
the guards would effectively blow the whistle on this relationship I’d spent so long nurturing. There was even a chance that
an altercation inside the prison would make the newspapers. Before I took the final step—a fight, or sprint, for my life—I
wanted to make sure there were no options left.

“You’re just a piece of shit!” Gacy screamed. “You’re nothing. You’re worth nothing. I could easily take care of you
just like the others.
”

He said it!
I thought to myself. He admitted he’d killed those other boys. Of course, a lot of good that admission was going to do if
I didn’t get out of this cell soon.

As if through a haze, I heard him continuing to scream at me, “Take your clothes off so I can fuck you.”

“Couldn’t we just talk?” I pleaded. “You’re scaring me.”

“I said take your pants off. I want you to bend over the chair or I’ll make you.”

Okay, it was about time I let him know who I really was. I could feel my own internal strength return as I tensed to kick
him in his fat stomach, or better yet, right in the crotch. The fat pervert needed to be taught a lesson!

As someone once said, though:
99 percent of life is timing.
Weirdly—perhaps providentially—at precisely the point Gacy began reaching for me and I knew one of us would end up badly
hurt, we both heard the sound of someone coming down the hall. It was the guards!

It was almost comical. Ken and his escorts were on their way and here Gacy was standing over me with his penis hanging out
of his pants. Just as the gate opened, he sat down and zippered up his equipment. He was shaking and sweating profusely.

“We’re here,” Ken yelled out as he walked down the hallway, almost as if he knew he should give some warning.

The first person who strode into view was Andrew Kokoralies, Gacy’s friend and fellow killer on Death Row. Next came Ken with
a chipper smile on his face that quickly turned serious when he saw Gacy looking sick.

I
had
to get out of this room. I couldn’t stand the thought of being with Gacy for another moment. I had trouble catching my breath.
I felt nauseous, probably from the overdose of adrenaline in my system. I was also very, very angry.

A
ndrew Kokoralies and John Gacy became friends because they shared a taste for killing, and also because of their proximity
as neighbors on Death Row. While Gacy’s preference ran toward young boys, Kokoralies preferred dismembering women with piano
wire.

One of the reasons I’d agreed to return to Menard Correctional Center for a second visit was that I’d been alerted that Ken
would be meeting with Gacy that day to go over his latest appeal, which had apparently been turned down, and some paperwork
needed handling.