Andrew Cunanan thought Pulp Fiction was the best movie ever made. A friend remembers how he was "all animated and yelling" when he saw the film at its San Diego premiere, finding particular delight in the scene where a man gets his head inadvertently blown off in the back of a car. It is thus a minor enigma, one of the many Cunanan has left behind, whether his final, apparently desperate act was also an attempted coup de theatre, in which the fugitive of a thousand faces--seen everywhere and nowhere--tries to destroy the only one he has left in order to remain forever masked in mystery.
If so, the penultimate scenes of the drama, before he finally put his overused .40-cal. revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger, were rather desultory. Right after the murder of Gianni Versace on July 15, Cunanan broke into a 25-ft. sailboat docked in Miami Beach, sneaking in not only a bag of pita bread to eat but also newspapers to read, including Italy's Corriere della Sera. Cunanan, never averse to attention, could have had no doubt he was known all over the world--and wanted in the worst of ways.
Escape was paramount. When the owner of the boat returned on the afternoon of July 16, Cunanan fled. But where could he hide? In the first 48 hours after he shot Versace, Cunanan phoned a friend in California and asked for help obtaining a passport and false identification so he could leave the country. About 10 mutual acquaintances came up in the discussion. FBI agents who had been methodically contacting his known associates found the man Cunanan called, forcing him to divulge the potential sources of false paperwork. And before Cunanan could reach those people, the FBI was waving them off and thinking of setting a trap for the fugitive. The law-enforcement squeeze play limited Cunanan's options even as intense publicity peeled away his once infinitely varied faces. He would not get two miles beyond the crime scene.
In the end, Cunanan found refuge in an unoccupied two-story houseboat that was still supplied with electricity but was without water. Belying reports he was dressed as a woman, he had a few days' stubble on his face. And then, at 3:30 p.m. on July 23, caretaker Fernando Carreira and his wife came by to check on the houseboat. They noticed that the wrong lock was secured, and Carreira drew his gun. He then heard a shot, ran out and, while watching the door, eventually got his son to call the police. They descended in force, complete with tear-gas-launching SWAT teams. Bullhorns brayed, "Andrew, come out, the whole world is watching!" By then, he probably couldn't hear the message. His body lay lifeless in the houseboat, the revolver by his groin. As for his face, one source said it still bore a resemblance to the photos in his wanted posters.