Grimoire Diabolique

do what I do ta give ’em the transertive purpose thats they’d never reckon on their own. I’se savin’ ’em from the clutches of human abserlutism, son, ya know, savin’ ’em from wastin’ their potential as posertive units of bein’. All they’d be doin’ otherwise is gettin’ the AIDS, the herpes, gettin’ abortions, smokin’ the drugs, an’ gettin’ thereselfs problee beat up an’ kilt. But alls forces in the universe is cyclic—like, ya know, one unit of bein’ feeding the other to a abserlute whole. Shore, I’se sells the critters but only ta folks who can’t have none thereselfs no ways. An’ the scratch I don’t need ta keep good care of the gals, I gives to charity.”

Tipps felt stupefied, locked in rigor. His astonishment caused the Glock’s front sights to drift…

“It’s all purpose, son. Human abserlute purpose.

Purpose, Tipps paused to wonder—

—and in that pause, a size 11 steel-toed boot socked up and caught Tipps square in the groin. He went down—the pain was incalculable. Through blurred and spider-cracked vision, he saw Mr. Torso standing now, rooting through the highboy’s drawers.

“Daggit! Where’s that big-tookus Webley!”

Tipps’ gunhand trembled as he extended his arm. He managed to squeeze off a double-tap—pap! pap!—and somehow both 9mm bullets hit Mr. Torso between the legs, from behind—

“Holy Jesus Moses ta Pete!” the old man wailed, collapsing and clutching the bloodflow at his groin. “Ya blammed neeherlistic copper bastard! Ya done shot me in the dickbag!”

Tipps, still shuddering in his own pain, crawled forward to finish the job. He could scarcely breathe. But when he raised gun—

What the—

—his foe’s crabbed hand slapped up and pushed it away, and at the same time a terrifying arc-movement fluttered overhead.

Then came a hideous kaCRACK!

Tipps’ world blanked out like a power failure.

««—»»

“Bet’cha got yerself a headache like a Old Crow hangover, huh?” A chuckle. Movement. “Yeah, I cracked ya a good one right smackdab on the bean with the butt of my daddy’s big-tookus Webley .455. Took ya right out, it did.”

When Tipps woke, he felt elevated somehow, drifting…

“Was all fired up ta kill ya but then I gots ta thinkin’.”

To the right and left, Tipps saw a long row of what appeared to be open-ended metal troughs on stilts. Twelve troughs in all, each labeled by masking tape with a different consecutive month. Tipps throat swelled shut…

Each trough contained a torso.

“Say hello ta my gals, copper.”

Each lay naked in their trough, their skin lean, white, and sweating in the basement’s heat and incandescent glare. Healed-over stumped hips were visible at each trough-end. As the line of torsos progressed, Tipps couldn’t help but note an increasing state of pregnancy: the later torsos sported bellies so distended they seemed on the verge of rupture, white skin stretched pin-prick tight against the burgeoning inner human freight. Fleshy navelbuds turned inside-out. Breasts heavy with mother’s milk.

Immediately before him lay a wan torso with matted red hair. The slack face with sealed eyes twitched, the head lolled. “Gaaaa!” she said. “Gaaaaa!”

“This here’s my August gal,” Mr. Torso introduced. He stood at Tipps side. “Been spunkin’ her up daily since the first of month so’s ta git her good’n preggered.”

“Gaaa! Gaaaaa!” she repeated.

“A regler chatterbox, ain’t she? Blabbers like that on account I’se ’botermized her, ya know, jigged up her brain a tad so’s she won’t worry an’ be confused an’ such. Don’t seem fair fer the gals ta keep their senses, bein’ in such a state. S’why I glued up their eyes too, an’ poked their ears. But don’tcha worry none, ’cos all their baby- makin’ parts works just fine.”

Now Tipps deciphered the drifting sensation. His vision cleared further, and four shuddering glances showed him that he’d been divorced of all four limbs. His torso was suspended in a harness that hung from a hook over the trough. Eleven more such hooks were sunk into the ceiling rafter before each torso.

“Oh, I’se ain’t gonna fiddle with yer eyes an’ ears,” Mr. Torso promised. “Nor’s I gonna ’botermize ya either. See, a fella’s sexshool responses are all up in his noggin, so’s I can’t be jiggin’ yer brain like I’se done ta the gals. Can’t very well git yerself a stiffer with yer brain all jigged up, now can ya?”

Tipps groaned from deep in his chest. He swayed ever-so-slightly.

“It’s proverdence, son. Okay, shore, ya shot me right smack in the balls, but see, old as I am I was havin’ a rough time keepin’ the crane up anyways, and sometimes I’se just couldn’t get a nut outa me ta save my life.”

“What,” came Tipps’ desolate, parched whisper, “did you say about providence?”

“This, son. Me, you, the gals here—everthing. This is God’s work, ya know, an’ I figure that’s why He sent ya to me, so’s you can continue with His work. Keep up the human telerlogic cycle that proverdence ordained fer us. Ya know?”

Tipps’ brain reeled. The hanging harness which satcheled him continued to sway ever-so-slightly. He saw that his butchered hips were exactly aligned with the redhead’s stump-flanked vagina.

“Ain’t much point at all ta life if we don’t never comes ta realizin’ our unerversal purpose…”

Tipps groaned again, swaying. The word, once ever-important to him, was now his haunting, his curse. And somehow, in spite of what had been done to him, and equally in spite of how he would spend the rest of his life, he managed to think: You asked for it, Tipps, and now you got it. Purpose.

“An’ don’t’cha worry none. That’s why I’se here, son, ta help ya,” said Mr. Torso as he opened the brand-new centerfold and carefully lay it on the redhead’s belly.

— | — | —

MISS TORSO

The woman had no arms; her name was Spooky, and the name suited her. Carbon-black hair and murky blue eyes, one iris minutely larger than the other due to a genetic defect called emmetropic binocular deviation. A demure, lilting voice but a mouth fouler than a waste hopper at a pork-processing plant. If anything, she was an interesting person—diverse and extraordinary. Spooky stood almost six feet tall, a hundred and twenty pounds, emaciated to near breastlessness, and all thin blue veins beneath parchment-white skin. It was the ice a.k.a. crank a.k.a. crystalized methamphetamine that kept her in the perpetual state of borderline starvation. Eleven years ago she’d been a runway model for the Ford Agency. A cover for Allure and ’90s Woman, a stint for Betsey Johnson, and several cosmetic commercials. After so many thousand- dollar-per-day shoots, however, it hadn’t taken Spooky long to become utterly habituated to drugs. The fall was fast. When Vinchetti’s spotters had seen her turning tricks in Utica, they’d snapped her right up; Vinchetti liked them tall, slim, and gutter-mouthed. One night she’d been higher than Robert Blake’s attorney fees when she’d made the very grave mistake of attempting to seduce one of Vinchetti’s most loyal buttons, Paulie, whose job it had been that evening to drive her home after her nightly visit to the compound; she’d confided: “Paulie, I fuckin’ absolutely fuckin’ hate fucking Vinch. He’s got a little dick, and his breath could knock down a motherfuckin’ brick wall,” and this she related with her hand deftly plying Paulie’s crotch. Paulie had simply smiled, shaking his head, and walked right back into the compound to relate the entirety of the incident to Vinchetti, who, by the way, was the supreme boss of what the U.S. Justice Department referred to as the Vinchetti/Lonna/Stello Crime Pyramid. Vinchetti controlled virtually all of the white heroin and underground porn distribution on the east coast. At any rate, as recompense for this foolish slight, Vinchetti’s personal doctor, a well- spoken, Deloreaneasque former Beverly Hills plastic surgeon named Winston F. Prouty, had painlessly amputated Spooky’s arms two inches above the elbows. Now Vinchetti used her for kink tricks and videos. He wanted plenty of stump left on each arm, so that the stumps could be inserted into other women during four- and five-ways. It made for great footage.

“Camera ready?” Frankie asked.