Vulgar Favours Page 38

  The once ebullient maestro became depressed, reclusive, and world-weary. “In the last four years of his life, Gianni was utterly contemptuous of everybody else in his life,” the source continues. “He was bitter; he only had nasty things to say about people. He only had energy to bitch and groan.” Gianni, like one of those ancient Roman emperors, had reached a point of material saturation that seemed to bring only malaise. “Gianni Versace, in the last year or two, could have cared less if he had gotten laid one more time,” the observer confides. “He was so bored, jaded, and tired. The first few years it was titillating. Then he was bored by how empty it all was. Gianni wouldn’t make the slightest effort to get boys in his bed. It was really down to a small trickle.” He concludes, “Being a diva, it does something to you—you lose perspective.”

  In 1996, Gianni was felled again—this time reportedly for a cancerous bone tumor in his cheek—and Donatella, who supposedly since 1993 had been groomed by Gianni to take over, emerged much more forcefully as a design entity in her own right, responsible for the lower-priced Versus line. They both acknowledged friction during the winter and spring of 1996, when Gianni disagreed with her choices for an advertising campaign and she seemed to overstep her bounds. However, as Gianni’s health improved in the last six months before his death—at a time when many people with HIV were experiencing similar results with new, life-saving medications—the family once again began to pursue vigorously their longtime dream of a public stock offering.

  Had Andrew Cunanan not crossed his path, Gianni Versace might have lived on for years, his secret intact.

  31

  Most Wanted

  WHEN ANDREW’S MONTH at the Normandy Plaza was up in the second week of July, he told Miriam Hernandez that he would be staying only three more days.

  “I found an apartment. By the weekend I’ll be gone.”

  “I enjoyed your stay,” Miriam told him kindly. “You’re a very nice guy; I’m sorry to see you go.”

  “Thank you,” Andrew said, obviously pleased. “You’re a very nice lady. You’re a sweetheart.”

  Andrew paid Miriam the daily rate on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Friday morning she called. “Kurt, are you leaving us today?”

  “No, tomorrow,” Andrew answered.

  “Your rent is due today.”

  “Can I pay you in the morning when I check out? I’m very, very tired. I don’t want to come down.”

  Miriam told him that would be fine. After all, she says, “The guy had been here almost two months.” She didn’t see Andrew Friday, and when she left she told her brother, Alberto, the night clerk, “Three-two-two is checking out.” Roberto was to get the last night’s rent in the morning.

  Friday night about 9 P.M., Andrew went out for his usual fast food, crossing Collins Avenue to Miami Subs and ordering the “Sixer Tuna Combo” for $2.99. Kenny Benjamin, who waited on him, thought he recognized him from America’s Most Wanted and immediately called the police. He told them there was a guy in the shop who resembled someone he’d seen on AMW but he couldn’t remember which program or what the person’s name was. He added, “Man, this is no joke.”

  “OK, where is he at now?”

  “He’s walking down the street, and he was just in here ordering food, but I think he just walked down the street now.”

  “Is he a white male or a black male?”

  “You know the guy—the guy, they profiled him on America’s Most Wanted.” Kenny had told the 911 operator, “It was the guy who killed his homosexual lover and a couple of other people, like, four people.” But there was no indication the police had any idea who he was talking about.

  Unfortunately, Kenny himself was standing in front of the store’s video camera, so all it showed was him talking on the phone. (Roberto Fabrizzi, the daytime manager, later said Andrew was a regular, but he never made conversation when he came in and he did not linger.) Kenny made the call at an extremely busy time at headquarters. Twenty-four 911 calls were backed up. Nevertheless, the police were at Miami Subs in minutes, but by then Andrew had disappeared.

  On Friday night, Versace, Antonio, and a friend had a pizza at Bang, a restaurant on Washington Avenue owned by an Italian whom Versace liked. They were relaxed and left early. Versace was still decompressing from the fall fashion shows he had staged in Paris to rave reviews shortly before arriving in New York. A few blocks down the street, Andrew was sighted at Twist, the club where Dennis Leyva had told the FBI to look for him. Andrew danced one dance with a hairdresser named Brad from West Palm Beach, identifying himself as Andy from California. On the dance floor, Brad said, Andrew had his hands all over him, grabbing and rubbing him. When Brad asked him what he did for a living, Andrew blithely said, “I’m a serial killer.” He laughed and said to Brad that he was really in investment banking. Then he disappeared into the crowd.

  That night Andrew was dressed rather preppily, in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Twist manager Frank Scottolini, three bartenders, and one of the regulars were all convinced they saw Andrew several times over the weekend. Andrew told one bartender, Gary Mantos, that he lived in São Paulo, Brazil, but that he was originally from San Diego, California, and that Miami reminded him of “Los Angeles in the eighties.” He sat at the bar and talked to an older man. “He didn’t know anybody,” says Mantos. “He was trying to act fabulous.”

  Jimmy Nickerson, another bartender, who also saw Andrew on Friday from his station on the second level near the dance floor, figured from the way Andrew was dressed that he’d order Chivas Regal. Instead, Andrew asked for a glass of water and bummed a cigarette from Carlos Vidal, a regular customer. To Nickerson, those were telltale signs: “He was acting like a hustler.”

  Vidal is a news junkie. Not only had he followed the Cunanan case in the media but also he had seen the poster of Andrew in Scoop. Sitting right next to him, however, he did not recognize him. He recalls only, “The guy looked slightly familiar.” They exchanged a few words. Andrew said, “I’m down here on vacation.” Vidal also got the pickup vibes. He joked to Michael Lewis, a friend, “I’m sorry for who he picks up tonight.”

  “He made me uneasy,” Vidal says, “because I had [the serial-killer idea] in the back of my mind.” Vidal got up and went downstairs to the bathroom, where notices are posted, to see if there was a poster of Andrew. There was not. On his way downstairs, Vidal saw Andrew go out. “I thought there should be a poster up,” he says. Frank Scottolini, the manager, had never been contacted by the authorities. “To my knowledge the FBI never contacted anyone in the bar,” Scottolini says, despite the fact that the Bureau had been told that Twist was a most likely hangout for someone like Andrew. Back upstairs at the bar, Vidal recalls he laughed and said to Lewis, “‘That’s probably the serial killer.’ I’d seen him on network news. You say it, and you don’t believe it’s real.”

  Nevertheless, Vidal was uncomfortable and decided to leave. On his way out around midnight, he told Scottolini, standing at the door, “I think you had a serial killer in there. That guy I saw was the serial killer.” Scottolini had also seen Andrew, but he didn’t pay any attention. The next night Andrew showed up again, wearing a white baseball cap, glasses, shorts, and a backpack. The security camera was on at the door, and as Andrew walked in and out quickly, Scottolini was on the street talking to his assistant manager. Scottolini recognized Andrew and remembered what Vidal had told him. He was momentarily overwhelmed by a sickening feeling in his stomach. He turned to some friends, he remembers, and said, “‘There goes the gay serial killer.’ Then I dismissed it like it couldn’t be true.”

  WHEN ALBERTO, THE night clerk, called Andrew at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, he said he’d be down in ten minutes to pay the rent. At ten-thirty, Alberto realized that Andrew had skipped—gone out the back gate, leaving the key to 322 on the bureau. In the room, Alberto found a box for hair clippers. Andrew had apparently shaved his head. There was also a box for a lady’s girdle.

  Sunday
night Versace went to see the movie Contact with Antonio and a friend. He stayed in Monday night, when Andrew was supposedly seen at Liquid, at the Fat Black Pussycat party, pretending he lived in one of the most luxurious buildings on the beach. Earlier he had tried to borrow a dollar at Cozzoli’s Pizza, down the street from the Normandy Plaza, one of his fast-food hangouts.

  Tuesday morning Andrew was up bright and early. So was Versace, who walked three blocks south to the News Cafe and bought five magazines. Dressed in his trademark gray and black, Gianni Versace walked back to his villa at about 8:40. Andrew was across the street wearing shorts, a tank top over a baggy T-shirt, and a black baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. Carrying his backpack on his right shoulder, he crossed quickly and sidled past Mersiha Colakovic, who had just dropped her daughter off at school. Then, ignoring Colakovic, Andrew walked rapidly up the first few steps in front of Versace’s mansion. Versace was bent over, fitting his key into the lock of the black wrought-iron gate. Colakovic, who had walked past the two, glanced back to take another look at Versace, whom she had recognized. Appearing completely relaxed, he had smiled at her. Now she became an eyewitness to his murder.

  32

  Broad Daylight

  VERSACE LOST CONSCIOUSNESS instantly, his brain dead, although his heart continued to flutter and was kept beating by the paramedics who rushed him to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Andrew had come up from behind, holding Jeff Trail’s .40 caliber Taurus semiautomatic straight out in front of him, pointing the long barrel at Versace’s neck, right behind his left ear and cheek. The first bullet cracked the base of Versace’s brain, fracturing his skull and tearing the upper part of his spinal cord and neck. Andrew was so close to his target that the bullet produced a stippling effect—a tattoo of burned gunpowder the size of a half-dollar—on Versace’s neck. (When the high-performance Golden Saber bullet left the barrel of the gun, the force expanded the top of the slug so when it hit Versace, the entry wound was far larger than a normal bullet would have made.) The bullet flew out of Versace’s neck and hit one of the metal railings of the gate. The bullet then broke apart, and flying metal particles hit a mourning dove in the eye. The bird died instantly and was found lying on its back in front of the mansion.

  After the first shot, Versace’s head turned slightly, his eyes open. He received the second bullet through the right side of his face next to his nose. Shot from even closer range, that bullet lodged in his head and cracked the top of his skull. Versace immediately slumped to the steps in a pool of blood. Mersiha Colakovic stood on the sidewalk frozen in horror—she had seen the whole thing from less than thirty feet away. Andrew, displaying utter sangfroid, walked calmly away down Ocean Drive. Colakovic remembered that he walked oddly, like Donald Duck, with his feet turned out. Almost instantly, the front door of Casa Casuarina flew open. Antonio was the first to reach Versace. “No! No!” he cried. Lazaro Quintana, who lived nearby and had come over to play tennis with Antonio, saw Colakovic in front of the house. “What happened?” he demanded. She simply pointed to Andrew, now halfway down the block, going toward Twelfth Street. Quintana gave pursuit.

  Running down Ocean, Quintana shouted, “You bastard!” Andrew did not even seem fazed. He turned left onto Twelfth Street and then right into an alley—Ocean Court—that led directly to the Thirteenth Street Garage, where William Reese’s red pickup had been parked for nearly five weeks. Three sanitation men at Twelfth and Ocean Court saw Quintana chasing Andrew. Quintana warned them that Andrew had a gun, just as Andrew lifted the gun and pointed it at him. Quintana then gave up the chase, and the garbage men knew better than to follow an armed man up an alley. They ran to Twelfth and Collins, one street over, hoping to see Andrew emerge at Thirteenth and Collins, which was across the street from the garage entrance. But all they saw was a police car with its overhead lights on in the middle of the street.

  The police were responding to a rear-ender that had occurred on Thirteenth between Ocean and Collins, and Andrew slipped right by them. The person who had been rear-ended, coincidentally, was Gary Knight, the gay activist, who suffered knee injuries. Knight cannot be sure, but he thinks he saw someone matching Andrew’s description hail a cab going south on Collins through the intersection at Thirteenth. After the person threw a bag into the backseat and hopped in, the cab drove away.

  Across the street and down from the Casa Casuarina, Victor Montenegro, a city employee who was fixing a parking meter between Tenth and Eleventh, heard the first gunshot. He looked up in time to see Andrew fire the second shot into Versace’s face and then coolly walk away on Ocean Drive. Montenegro radioed police and ran toward Versace. Meanwhile, inside the mansion, Charles Podesta, Versace’s cook, called 911 at 8:44 A.M. “A man’s been shot. Please, immediately, please!” Cops on bikes showed up in two minutes to find Versace sprawled on the steps. Officer Calvin Lincoln, the first to check, found no vital signs. Hotel Astor employee David Rodriguez was on his way to work when he heard a shot and then, a few minutes later, saw Versace’s body on the steps, with people slowly gathering round. Versace’s sandals were left behind, and his sunglasses had tumbled down the steps. Rodriguez says, “I looked all around for a camera, it seemed so set up.” When he arrived at the Astor, he told Laura Sheridan, the manager, “They’re shooting a movie at Versace’s house.” If the scene itself seemed unreal, the aftermath was even more so.

  FOR THE MIAMI Beach Police Department, July 15 was another terrible Tuesday. “Everything major happens on Tuesday,” says Detective Paul Marcus. “Most homicides, big fires. You get up in the morning, and it’s Tuesday and you think, Oh, jeez.” Marcus was the acting sergeant in homicide when the first call about the murder at 1116 Ocean Drive came in. Sergeant George Navarro, who was usually in charge, had the day off. Detective Paul Scrimshaw, who had been investigating homicides for eleven and a half years and was the most senior detective in the bureau, was out the door immediately. He arrived on the scene by 8:55. The beat cop asked, “Do you know who this is?”

  “No,” Scrimshaw answered, in a way that signified, Why would I care?

  “It’s Gianni Versace.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Marcus arrived two minutes later. “I didn’t think anything but that it was a normal, everyday South Beach shooting,” he says. “I looked at the scene in the middle of Ocean Drive. I saw the blood in the shoes. I didn’t even see Versace’s house. I just thought, Another shooting, but on the steps of the Versace mansion.”

  When Marcus pulled up, Scrimshaw told him, “You’re not gonna believe this—it’s Gianni Versace.” Marcus reacted swiftly. “I’m on the phone with the lieutenant, the captain.” Soon the police have visitors. “Then we are descended upon by the media,” Marcus continues. “All of a sudden, they are dropping out of the sky. On the grass across the street, it grew and grew and grew. It got to a point that it was overwhelming there.” At that particular moment South Beach was also saturated with cops. The night shift was still out, and the day shift had been on for an hour and a half. Because the garbage men had seen Andrew running down the alley toward the parking garage, the cops on patrol checked the garage at 8:56 A.M. More cops were already out front for the fender-bender. A half-dozen police covered the garage, including exits and the alley. At 9:12 a pile of clothes was found on the third level, outside the passenger door of a red Chevy pickup: a black tank top underneath a gray T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. The T-shirt appeared to be damp with perspiration. Inside the truck under the brake pedal was a black backpack. A license check was run on the South Carolina tag, but it yielded nothing, since the plate had not been reported stolen.

  At 9:17 the patrol officer in the alley radioed that he saw someone on the roof wearing a red shirt and glasses. “He might be part of the parking crew. He just peered over the edge. He’s just walking around. Dark skin, Latin male. He looks like security for the building, wearing one of those kinds of shirts.” Whoever it was went from one corner of the garage roof to the other, pe
ering over, but when the police made it up to the roof five to ten minutes later, he was gone. (That afternoon, when a bloodhound named Emily was taken to the garage to follow Andrew’s scent, she went straight to all four corners of the roof level.)

  At first the crime looked very much like a “murder-for-hire type of hit,” Scrimshaw says. The dead bird, a traditional Mafia symbol, was duly noted. As a result the FBI was notified early, and four agents from the murder-for-hire squad were dispatched. Two .40 caliber brass jacket casings were recovered right away, one on the street and one on the steps. (The bird was between them.) Many people didn’t know who Versace was, including the Italian vice-consul in Miami, who asked, “Is he the guy who makes the jeans?” At FBI headquarters in Washington, few recognized the name. “I thought he was a singer,” says Roy Tubergen, the head of violent crimes. Versace was hardly a household name, but he would soon become one.

  At 9:21 A.M., at the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Gianni Versace was pronounced dead. Detective Gus Sanchez, assigned to hospital duty, retrieved Versace’s personal effects—$1,173.63 in cash and a small religious picture of the Virgin of Medjugorje. (In interviews, Gianni had pooh-poohed organized religion.) The family had requested that a priest administer last rites. Sanchez entered with the priest and found that “Versace’s T-shirt was gone from the room—disappeared.” Later there were “unconfirmed rumors,” Sanchez says, that Versace’s X rays also vanished. Were grisly profiteers already at work? A nurse told Sanchez that the T-shirt had probably been left in the emergency room and thrown away.