Free The Last Victim by Jason Moss, Jeffrey Kottler Page B

wasn’t inhibited about flaunting it. Second, it suggested
     I wasn’t above
selling
my body—which, undoubtedly, would play into his incredible rage toward boy hustlers. I remembered, for example, that a hustler
     by the name of Donald Voorhees was responsible for Gacy’s early conviction for sodomy. Thereafter, from what I could determine,
     most of Gacy’s victims shared physical characteristics with Voorhees.
    I tried to answer every item on the questionnaire in a way that I believed would entice Gacy. I was like a fly fisherman who’d
     felt the tiniest tug on the line, and was trying to shake the fly in a way that would get the fish to take the hook.

11
Setting Bait
    I t had been several days since I’d mailed in the questionnaire and I wondered how long it would take for Gacy to reply. I’ve
     never been patient during the best of times and this was positively agonizing.
    I’m a compulsive worrier and I agonized over the responses I eventually settled on. Maybe I shouldn’t have said something
     about my parents so quickly. I could think of a dozen other responses I wished I’d constructed differently.
What if he doesn’t write back?
    While the wait continued, I thought about the other killers I wanted to contact. As a preliminary step toward writing them,
     I tried to obtain addresses for some of the more famous Death Row inmates—a task that turned out to be far easier than I anticipated.
     Charles Manson, in particular, was fairly simple to track down, so I started reading a bit about him as a way to keep myself
     occupied.
    Since I’d been unable to persuade my parents that becoming a serial killer’s pen pal was “cool,” I made it a point to leave
     school promptly every afternoon so I could intercept the mail. I figured I’d have a clear shot at it, given that my parents
     were always at work, and my brother was at school. After a few days I developed the habit of sitting in a rocking chair in
     my parents’ room, which faced the street, waiting for the mail truck to come.
    Our mail lady, Cynthia, was utterly dependable, never varying more than a few minutes from her usual arrival time. This was
     especially important because I was cutting things very close. There were times my mother would come home from work only a
     few minutes after I’d sorted through the mail.
    “Well, Jason,” Cynthia said one day after finding me standing by the mailbox, “this might just be your lucky day.” We had
     become fast friends and I’d confided to her the sort of thing I was looking for. She tilted her head in the direction of the
     top letter on the stack of our mail. Clearly typed at the top of the envelope was the return address: Menard Correctional
     Center.
    All riiiiight!
    I read through the letter, which was quite long, quickly the first time, just to get the main ideas Gacy was expressing. He
     seemed to be trying to make it clear that he was a very open and safe person. He wanted me to know that I could confide in
     him about anything, and he was obviously hoping I’d do so.
    It was strange to read Gacy’s words—to think that this man, who’d taken the lives of so many young men just like me, was now
     turning his attention my way. I could feel a chill that reminded me of the first time I watched
Friday the 13th
all the way through. All the time you’re watching the movie, hearing that scary music, seeing the unsuspecting kid about
     to get decapitated, you want to scream out: “You idiot! Get the hell out of there! Can’t you sense that monster about to devour
     you?” I felt like I might be in a movie as well, and I wondered, if an audience
were
watching, whether they’d scream out for me to throw the damn letter down and run for my life.
    One part of Gacy’s letter, in particular, caught my attention because of the subtle ways he was trying to get me to open up
     to him, especially with regard to my sexual attitudes and behavior:
    . . . One of the things you should know about me,