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I pressed him further. “Did you feel any power?”

“Look,” he said impatiently, “I dumped the body in the crawl space and buried it. I felt fine. I slept fine. I was fine.” With each assertion, he seemed more and more irritated. He also seemed more and more distracted, until I’d concluded he’d stopped listening altogether.

He rose from his chair and began looking out in the hallway where the guards were now standing. He seemed to be watching carefully to monitor their movements.

“Um, John,” I said with a catch in my voice, “when are the guards coming back? They promised to take our pictures together.”

He suddenly turned on me, his face furious. “The guards are on the other side of the bars. Do you know how long it would take them to get in here if you screamed? Probably two minutes. I could kill you right now if I wanted. You know that, don’t you? I could take this pen and stick it right here in your neck.”

He’d been standing behind me as he screamed this, so I quickly assumed a defensive posture. He just kept ranting. “You’d bleed to death all over the floor by the time you got any help.”

I’d never been so scared in my life. Although I was physically more powerful than him, and although he was handcuffed, the difference between someone on the streets saying, “Hey, I could kill you,” and him saying it was profound. Adrenaline—psychotic adrenaline—counted for a lot, I knew. Knowing that those hands were responsible for the death of so many others my age ate away at my courage. I realized, then and there, that in spite of my youth and strength, John Wayne Gacy could very well hurt me if he wanted to.

But he wasn’t going to try anything like that just yet. First, he was going to attempt to break me down completely, reduce me to a perfectly compliant victim.

“I have a special treat for you, Jason,” he said, leering. He reached down into his sock where he’d hidden a small packet of baby oil. Apparently, he intended to use this as a lubricant to sodomize me, considerate lover that he was.

He pointed to the chair he now admitted placing in the storeroom across the hall. “See that chair, Jason?”

I nodded dumbly.

“That’s where I’d do you. They wouldn’t find your body until all your blood ran on the floor.”

I tried to appease him as best I could. I was thinking, Now’s the time to come out of your role, let him know you’re not someone to be trifled with. But the strangest thing happened: I was frozen in the character I’d pretended to be. It was like I’d become Jason the Wimp and couldn’t escape. I couldn’t seem to do anything but reassure him he was in control, that he really could do whatever he wanted.

In some hidden corner of my brain it occurred to me that I was getting just what I’d bargained for. I’d wanted to know what Gacy did with his victims just before he killed them.

Now I knew.

37

Breakdown

Gacy just stared into my eyes for what seemed like several minutes. After taking one final look to make sure the guards were safely out of range, he stood in front of me and told me to stand up.

“Why do you want me to get up?” I said in a squeaky voice. It didn’t even sound like me. “I thought we could look at your logbook now.”

“Do you mind, Jason?” he said petulantly. “Maybe I’d like to see what you look like standing up! I only got a view of you for a second when you came in.” That wasn’t quite true, of course; he’d been stealing glances at my crotch every chance he got. But I decided to humor him.

“Fine,” I answered, rising to a standing position. I couldn’t believe that a few moments earlier he’d been threatening to rape and kill me and now he wanted me to model for him.

I took a quick stride across the small room to grab the logbook and then returned to my chair, making sure I didn’t let him get behind me again.

My pose of being genuinely interested in him—despite his barrage of threats—apparently disoriented him, threw off his “game” temporarily, because he consented to give me a quick look at his book. The contents included notes on everybody who’d ever been involved in