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“How are ya doin’?” he said to me with an open smile. “I’m Andrew.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling back. If I’d concocted a “Koko plan of attack” before coming to the prison, it was all a blur now. I decided to just wing it.

As soon as we sat down, he began bombarding me with questions. “John tells me you go to school. What’s it like? Do you live there? Who do you live with?”

He fired the questions so quickly, all I could do was just nod my head. At first, I naively thought he actually cared about what I was doing with my life, so I answered each of his queries carefully, telling him about the university and the classes I was taking. I was puzzled that he seemed to show little interest in the answers I was giving, but I was content to stall for time while he revealed himself.

I knew there was something he wanted from me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I replayed the questions he asked me again, looking for clues. And soon I realized that, just like Gacy, Koko had a very distorted view of reality. For instance, his vision of college life was that it was one big orgy—students had sex with each other all the time, in every room on campus. Since I’m certain he’d never read a book in his life, except maybe a few pornographic novels, it was easy to see how he might have gotten that impression.

Once I picked up on what he wanted to hear, I fed him some tall tales. I told him how whenever a guy on campus saw an attractive woman, he’d just walk up and announce in the bluntest terms possible what he wanted to do with her. I led him to believe that this technique worked every time.

Koko’s eyes were gleaming. He was actually salivating. Imagine that: thousands of girls walking around, strutting their stuff, inviting guys like him to have his way with them. I tried not to think about what Koko’s way might involve, or I’d surely lose my concentration.

He seemed spellbound by my fanciful tales of debauchery on campus. He was captivated to the point that his grunts became cues, urging me to tell him more. He timidly asked if I wouldn’t mind sending him some photographs of the girls on campus, and then proceeded to write down his address.

Jeez, this guy was so simple. It had taken me exactly thirty minutes to build up trust to the point where it seemed he’d tell me most anything. Quite a contrast with Gacy! As I had many times in the past, I marveled at how diverse people are—even serial killers.

When Koko confided how lonely he was, I actually felt sorry for him. He had no friends in the world except for Gacy. His family never contacted him. He rarely had visitors—none in the previous few months.

“So,” I asked, “how do you deal with being locked up in a room for twenty-three hours a day? That must be hard.”

He nodded and looked forlorn. “You just gotta have a PMA.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Gacy had apparently passed on his belief that it is important to cultivate a positive mental attitude—PMA. It was obvious that Koko, a natural follower, had latched on to Gacy, a natural leader. Although their sexual orientations were as different as night and day, it made sense that, even in a prison setting, they’d act out their instinctive roles.

Whereas with Gacy I’d learned to be careful and diplomatic, with Koko I was very direct—almost recklessly so: “What hurts you the most about being in here, Andy? Do you dream about the women you hurt?” I looked directly into his eyes as I asked these questions, keeping my voice stern and confident.

It was like a dim light went on inside his head. Here he’d been told to expect a passive, worthless, weak kid, a boy toy Gacy had reeled in, but the person he was talking to seemed very assertive. What gives? is, I’m sure, what he was thinking. What he actually said was:

“You’re nothing like John said you were!”

“You’re right, I’m not!” I said with more force than I intended. I was probably declaring this as much to myself as I was to him.

Koko didn’t answer me at first when I asked him to tell me about