John Wayne Gacy (2 page)

Mr. Gacy arrived in his brand-new black four-door 1979 Oldsmobile 98 promptly at 5:30 p.m., as agreed, and parked in front of the store just off Touhy. There was snow and slush left over from a typical Chicagoland December snowfall, which would melt some during the day and freeze up solid during the night. John negotiated the puddles left over from the day’s thaw and thought about offering to return with his snowplow to clear the parking area completely, thereby alleviating the puddle problem—he did plowing
as a side business—but once inside the store, he was distracted by other things and never made the offer.

He shivered as he unzipped his black leather bomber jacket, stamped his feet on the matting just inside the door, and shook off the damp chill from the outdoors. He immediately saw Phil Torf coming from the rear of the store to meet him, and he lumbered his rather-cumbersome two-hundred-plus-pound five-foot-nine-inch frame down the aisle, big fleshy hand extended in greeting. As he passed the cash register, he smiled at the young cashier, Kim Byers, bundled up in an ill-fitting oversized light blue nylon down parka because she was exposed to the arctic blasts from the open doors every time a customer came in or went out. He made a mental note to attempt to sell the Torf brothers on a revolving door system to replace the simple double doors that presently existed and were the only thing blocking out the crisp December air.
They are heating the outdoors and exposing their poor little cashier to the elements in the process
, he thought.
She might catch her death from a cold or flu.

He wasn’t sure if he remembered Kim from his last extended visit to the store when he did the previous remodeling job. Back then, he was an employee of P.E. Systems, a firm that specialized in remodeling and design for the pharmacy industry. He had learned a lot from his time spent with that company, and now he was returning as the proud owner and proprietor of PDM Contractors (Painting, Decorating, and Maintenance), the company he had founded after he left P.E. Systems.

John and Phil shot the shit for quite a while before the contractor got down to business, taking measurements and figuring out a quote. During his time at the store, he was introduced, or in some cases reintroduced, to many of the employees; most of them were young kids working part-time after highschool to make some extra spending money, save for college, or save for a car.

One such part-timer was Rob Piest, a fifteen-year-old sophomore and budding star gymnast at Maine West High School in
Des Plaines. Rob fell into the save-for-a-car category, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated at the seemingly insurmountable task of saving enough money to purchase a reliable car on his $2.85/hour wage at the pharmacy. He had looked at a Jeep and was getting close to his goal; he had $900, but it seemed to him to be taking forever. He wanted to make more money. He was fuming a bit because his employers had rebuffed his previous requests for a raise.

Rob had not been introduced to John Gacy; he was much too busy working, but he thought he had overheard the contractor talking to Linda Mertes, a longtime employee at the pharmacy, about his policy to pay his young workers $5 per hour to start. He couldn’t believe that a highschool kid working part-time could make that much money. Linda later confirmed this fact to Rob, and he was intrigued, to say the least. Imagine making nearly twice as much money each and every hour! Rob was fast approaching his sixteenth birthday, and he, like every other teen his age, wanted to be ready when that magical age arrived—sixteen years old, the age when he would finally get his driver’s license.

At 7:15 p.m., when Mr. Gacy finished his business at the pharmacy and left the store in his shiny new car, Rob was slightly disappointed. He hadn’t had the opportunity to approach the man with an offer to work for him. He had, however, noticed that while the contractor was taking measurements and “walking off” the store, writing up his proposal and speaking with Mr. Torf, the guy seemed to be looking at Rob, watching him work. This happened more than once during the time the man was in the store. Rob was sure that the fat guy with the fancy new black luxury cruiser was impressed with his hardworking style, his attention to the task at hand, the overall way he worked so hard at his job. Maybe if he approached him later, called him on the phone or something, Mr. Gacy would give him a job that paid $5 per hour. If that happened, Rob would be driving his own brand-new Jeep before he knew it.

Meanwhile, John Gacy was speeding south on Interstate 294 on his way home from what he was sure was yet another successful bid for a new remodeling job. He had become adept at schmoozing the potential customer. He had long ago realized that he wasn’t just selling the job, the work itself—he was selling himself. There were hundreds of guys that could do that job as well as he could, although he did pride himself in his attention to detail. He considered himself a perfectionist; lots of contractors did good work, but they didn’t have his stories, his jokes, and his knack for befriending the customer. The $1,600 proposal that he had left with Phil Torf was money in the bank as far as he was concerned.

As John negotiated the ramp that led to the Kennedy Expressway and moved to the right lane where he would exit south at Cumberland Avenue, he looked at the seat next to him, then all around the interior of the car. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself. “I left my damn appointment book at Torf’s place.” John was close to his home at 8213 W. Summerdale. It was just east of Cumberland, so he decided to continue home to check his answering machine before he made the trek back to Des Plaines. He also figured he might as well take his black Chevy pickup with the snowplow attached on his return. Maybe he would pick up some further business while he was there. Perhaps it would not be a totally wasted trip.

When Gacy checked his answering machine, he was reminded that he was late for another appointment that he had made with Richard Raphael, a business associate who lived in Glenview, Illinois. John knew he had to hurry but he figured Des Plaines was on the way to Glenview. It would all work out.

Had he not forgotten his address book, he would not have gone back to the pharmacy that evening. He would have driven straight to Glenview.

That evening, when John Wayne Gacy pulled up in front of Nisson Pharmacy for the second time, it was just past 8:00 p.m. He had made record time traveling back because he rarely paid any attention to speed limits. He thought of himself as someone far above those poor little souls that had to bother themselves with such mundane rules. He was much too important a figure to have to worry about speeding tickets. He would simply have them “fixed.” He knew all the right people in all the right places.

As his pickup truck squeaked to a stop in front of the drugstore with its second set of headlights blazing above the snowplow, he noticed the kid that he had seen stocking shelves earlier carrying some trash out to the Dumpster in the alley. He watched as a young girl threw a snowball at him and ran away to join her friends, giggling and laughing. She was obviously someone he knew from school or from the neighborhood. The kid was wearing the same blue nylon parka that he had seen on the cashier earlier that evening. It was Rob Piest.

“You are a hard worker,” Gacy said through the side window of his truck.

Rob looked up, squinting into the bright lights over the plow. John switched them off, allowing Rob to see who was talking to him.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Gacy.” He pointed to the pickup truck. “Different ride.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Linda told me. She said something about you looking for help … or something.”

“I could use a hard worker like you. I bet I pay better than your boss, Phil, does too. You interested?”

“Yeah … yes, I am, sir, but I gotta get back inside right now. I can’t let Mr. Torf see me talking to you about a job. You know what I mean. Plus, I’m on the clock.”

“Loyalty, I like that. It’s one of the qualities I like most. If I hang around till you get off, could we talk then?”

“Sure, but my mom is coming to pick me up at nine o’clock.”

“I’ll hang around. I have some more measurements that I have to take anyway,” Gacy lied. “Then we can talk. It won’t take long to exchange information. Right? Would that be OK?”

“That would be great, Mr. Gacy.” Rob ran into the store. He was giddy. He could already see himself driving his brand-new Jeep.

John watched Rob enter the store and throw his jacket on some boxes near the cash register. Then he sauntered into the store as if nothing had happened, where he immediately saw Phil holding his appointment book.

“Did you forget something?” Phil asked, smiling, taunting him.

About five minutes before nine o’clock, John, while he futzed around pretending to remeasure the shelves in the store, saw a woman, who was obviously Rob’s mother, enter the pharmacy. She spoke to some of the other kids and to her son and then meandered toward the greeting card section to wait for her son to finish up. John went outside to his truck. He surreptitiously eyed Rob and nodded toward the door as he left, all in keeping with their plan to meet without alerting Phil Torf.

Minutes later, Rob grabbed his coat, mumbled something to his mother about what he was planning, and ran out the door.

Rob Piest was never seen alive again.

___________________

“W
HAT’S YOUR NAME
? What do your friends call you?” Gacy asked this as soon as he saw Rob bound enthusiastically out of the pharmacy. John had the engine running, and the cab of the truck was beginning to warm up.

“Rob … Rob Piest.”

“Hop in, Rob.”

“Ah …, Mr. Gacy, my mom is inside the store. She is here to pick me up.”

“Don’t worry, Rob, I’ll take you home. She will understand. Won’t she?”

“But, sir, it’s her birthday. My family is waiting at home for me so we can cut the cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ … all of that. I really have to be quick about this.”

Everyone who ever knew John Gacy knew one thing about him—he was a master manipulator. He could sell ice cubes to Eskimos. He had the Polish version of the gift of gab. John had already decided that this young man was coming home with him. He was not taking “no” for an answer.

“You love your mother,” he asked the question in the form of a statement, a foregone conclusion.

“Well, yeah, of course I do,” Rob promptly answered.

“Imagine coming home with the news that you have landed a new job that pays $5 per hour to start, a job with perks and a future. She would be happy for you, wouldn’t she? That would make her happy, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure, it would.”

“And what better present could you give to your mom on her birthday than to make her happy? Isn’t that the purpose of a present?”

“I guess so …”

“I have been watching you work, Rob. You have a great work ethic. I am also impressed by your devotion to your mom. Hell, I love my mom too. All true men should love their mothers. But I need for you to fill out some forms if you are going to work for me, and those forms are in my office at my house, which is about twenty minutes from here. I can have you back in about forty or forty-five minutes, an hour, tops. Only, in an hour from now, when you walk into the house, you will be able to tell that wonderful mother of yours that you have a new, well-paying job, that you have doubled your salary. What do you say? I have an appointment myself that I must get to after I drop you. You do want the job, don’t you?”

“Are you saying I have the job, Mr. Gacy?” Rob was bubbling over with excitement. Five dollars per hour! He could easily make
$100 per week. He would have enough for his Jeep well before his birthday in March. This was a dream come true.

“You will when we finish filling out those forms. We have to comply with all of the legal stuff, after all, right? No employer can afford to play fast and loose with the goddamn IRS.”

Rob glanced back at the door of the pharmacy, thought for a second about how happy his mom would be when he told her about his new job; then he put his hand on the passenger-side door handle of the truck, opened the door, and jumped up into the pickup. He looked at his new boss.

Mr. Gacy had a big toothy grin peaking out from below the bushy mustache that he wore, creasing the flabby jowls hanging off his beard-stubbled face. “Welcome aboard,” he said through his ear-to-ear smile. He was pleased with himself. And then they drove off.

“I have a good feeling about this. I think this just might work out well for both of us,” John said as he drove at breakneck speed.

“Don’t you worry about getting a ticket, Mr. Gacy?”

“First, call me John, or Colonel. I’m an official Tennessee colonel. All my guys call me Colonel or John. Mr. Gacy was my father. Second, you will come to know that you are about to start working for a very important guy. I know people. I know some of the most important people in this city. I’m a personal friend of Mayor Bilandic’s. Plus, I’m connected. Syndicate connected. You will learn a lot working with me, kid. Wait and see.”

Judging by the way Mr. Gacy drove, Rob tended to believe what he was being told. Nobody would drive like this unless he was pretty sure he was not going to get in trouble for it.