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watch the reactions in the audience. The men that think they are tough sit up and poke their chest out. The less aggressive seem to get shorter. I wasn’t sure at first what that was from. And then, one club-owner told me that they had to pop one guy off his seat [make an oral popping noise] like a plunger.
    And, of course, gay men smile, and their faces light up. Sorry guys [turn around, shake butt and wag finger] this is an exit hole only! See me after the show, though, and I will give you some names and inmate numbers that you can write.
    The women, on the other hand, are another story. That all depends on the man they are with. The proper woman will cower closer to their date . . . spouse . . . escort. No, just kidding. But they still look me up and down with that questioning face. [Wiggle eyebrows, give audience a wicked smile.]
    Rougher, country, “red neck” women usually start calling me forward or winking. After going out with a few of them, I realized that all they wanted was information about their families and exes. “Did you know my daddy? . . . brother? God-damn husband? Is he okay? Queer? . . . Dead?”
    No, really, none of you have anything to be afraid of. I didn’t kill, rape, attack, mutilate or do any of the really “cool” crimes. I was one of those [dripping with sarcasm] really bad guys: Breach of trust with fraudulent intent . . . 673 counts, of course.
    If any of my victims are in the audience, this gig doesn’t pay squat, so leave me alone after the show. Ten years for that—go figure, ha ha.
    Prison is strange. It is and it’s not what the media makes it out to be. It can be tough. I mean, the first day I was given a total body shave, a delousing, a wire-brush scrub, stuck with two needles and told I would probably get a rectal exam.
    Yeah, at the end of the day I just looked at my cell-mate and said, “Do you think they will let me out of the cell tomorrow?” He just kinda smiled and said, “I hope not!”
    The first thing I had to do once in prison was learn the language of the convicts. Everyone knows what a rat or a snitch is, and of course shanks and shivs are homemade—excuse me, cellmade—weapons.
    But there is also the “deck”, a pack of cigarettes, “buck” which is inmate-made wine. Oh yeah, good stuff, not Dom Perignon but Dumb Parthenon, when it hits you will buck like an idiot in a Roman arena.
    One of my favorite prison slang words is “sack,” a quantity of marijuana so small that it is folded and folded into a piece of one-inch square paper until it is about the size of a pinkie nail. Costs five bucks.
    And then there’s the “sit-up.” No, that is not how you trick inmates into indecent carnal acts....

    And on and on it went. Stanko thought he was a riot. When he wasn’t studying serial killers, he was watching stand-up comedy on TV, checking out the tricks they used, the timing of it. He was so going to be a star.
    Then the unexpected happened. He got a real job. During the first months of 2005, Stanko worked as a salesman at Stucco Supply in Myrtle Beach.
    But the job didn’t last. He was fired on April Fools’ Day by the general manager, Jeff Kendall. Stanko was hired to be a salesman, but he didn’t make enough sales—so he was served the pink slip.
    On the surface, one might think Stanko a natural at sales. Instead, he daydreamed, perhaps plotting the future, not maximizing the present.
    Perhaps Stanko’s preoccupation with manipulating people proved to be a detriment. That was counterintuitive, but maybe Stanko actually found himself unable, or just unwilling, to work for a living; so hungry was he to scam and to con, to exploit the fact that others had consciences.

    According to one “dear friend” of Laura Ling’s, it was that first week in April, after Stephen Stanko lost his job, that Stanko “totally took over” the Socastee library. She said he turned the place into his own personal office, where he pretended to be a lawyer and conned