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ya’s. I sent Marshie to Vegas—”

“Vegas?” Argi remarked. “Man, I love Vegas. The old days, we’d whack guys right and left. Leave their fuckin’ heads in the desert and shit.”

“Yeah. But Marshie, she was so down in the dumps about her father’s birthday, I thought I’d send her on a snappy little vacation. She’s waitin’ for me at the Bellagio—I’ll just grab a flight once we get back to Newark.” Paulie rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, when I tell her we did a special job on the family that whacked her father, she’ll fuck me in a big way.”

“Sounds like a good deal,” Argi commented. “But, damn, boss, what about your kid—you know, the girl? Since we’re here, don’t ya wanna stop by the house and check on her?”

Paulie winced at the suggestion. “‘Becca? Fuck, she ain’t my kid, she’s my step-kid. Got no idea who the father is, probably some redneck ’cos that’s when Marshie got knocked up with the little smart-ass, back in her redneck days before she got her father’s money. Shit, if I stopped by the house, ‘Becca’d probably hit me up for cash. Last time it was fifty bucks to have her fuckin’ bellybutton pierced, and the time before that it was two-fifty for a goddamn tattoo. A fuckin’ butterfly or some shit, right above her ass. Kids these days, they’re all a bunch of selfish little assholes. And it just irks me, ya know?”

“What’s that, boss?” Cristo asked.

“I’ll wind up havin’ to pay for that kid’s college, and it wasn’t even my nut that knocked Marshie up with her. Just burns me up: spendin’ my hard-earned drug-and-porn cash raisin’ some other dude’s nut. Some redneck in a pickup truck gets the nut, I get the tuition.”

“Just ain’t right,” Argi remarked.

“Yeah, but what can I do?” Paulie conceded. “It’s my wife’s kid, and I love my wife.”

“An honorable burden you’ve taken upon yourself, sir,” Dr. Prouty said.

“Fuck…”

Argi stroked his chin. “But, boss, the kid’s just a teenager, ain’t she?”

“Yeah. The little smart-ass is sixteen.”

“And you and the wife give her the run of the house?”

“Naw, we got a servant looks after her.” He slapped his head, wincing further at the displeasure. “Oh, and I fuckin’ forgot! When ‘Becca turned sixteen, what did Paulie have to do? Had to buy the little shit a car!”

The topic was obviously eroding the boss’s mood, so Argi spoke up, “But, ya know, boss, that whore we fucked with back at the warehouse—Mama Lucretia! What a piece of ass!”

Cristo nodded. “Best fuck I had in a while, maybe even in years. Makes her pussy move kind of like a mouth.”

But the observation seemed to hinder Paulie’s spirit. He stared off…

“Somethin’ botherin’ ya, boss?” Argi asked.

“Indeed,” Dr. Prouty reflected. “Mr. Vinchetti seems to have become disquieted by an errant consideration.”

Cristo leaned his head up front. “Yeah, boss. All of a sudden ya look like someone shot your dog and—shit— you don’t even have a dog.”

“Fuck, fellas,” Paulie replied, eyes narrowed in self-ruminating concern. “I’ll be honest with ya. As hot-lookin’ as that whore was? My dick was harder watchin’ you guys stuff her head in Melda’s cunt than when I was actually fuckin’ her.” He shook his head. “Been thinkin’ about shit like that lately. I mean, all these snuff flicks and torture shit we film for the underground market? I get hard as a rock lookin’ at that sick shit. Startin’ to think maybe there’s somethin’ wrong with me.”

“Naw, boss,” Argi excused. “All men get their dicks up watchin’ flicks of women gettin’ raped, tortured, and murdered. It’s just that no one admits it.”

“Yeah, boss,” Cristo piped up.

But Paulie didn’t seem so sure. “Reminds me of a time long time ago—fuck, I was probably only fifteen. My dad… God rest his soul—”

He, Argi, and Cristo crossed themselves.

“My dad was showin’ me the ropes ’bout what goes on up in the compound—you know, givin’ me the ‘One day, son, all this will be yours’ speech—so he shows me how they snatched this gal who was married to some racketeering bigwig in the F.B.I., and my dad, see, he wanted to teach the guy a lesson. So, anyway, they got the guy’s wife stripped naked and hangin’ by her wrists in one of the snuff rooms, and then my dad’s major button at the time, Tony Guerini, he takes a boxcutter and he cuts a line around the bitch’s waist—you know, same place a belt wound be—and then he works his fingers around under the skin, and she’s screamin’ and flippin’ and floppin’, and you know what Tony did then?” Paulie’s eyes widened at the memory. “He starts pullin’ down on the skin, yankin’ it over her ass and legs just like he’s pullin’ off a pair of pants! ”

“Oh, I remember Tony,” Argi said. “Hardest-core button I ever saw. One time he machine-gunned a busload of first graders because one of the kids on the bus was a judge’s grandson. Another time he snatched this chick who was cheatin’ on one of your dad’s crew-bosses and tourniqueted her neck till her eyeballs popped out and her face turned the color of a plum.”

Cristo reflected. “You know, I think I heard of him. Is that the same guy made porn up the Pennelville House and filmed it while he’d stick a knife in a chick’s belly and fuck her stomach?”

“Naw, naw,” Argi said. “That was Rocco… God rest his soul.”

They all crossed themselves.

“Tony was the guy used to feed kids of cops to the pitbulls,” Argi corrected.

“Yeah, yeah,” Paulie agreed. “Same Tony, all right, but you’re missin’ my point. See, when he was yankin’ this gal’s skin off like it was a pair of fuckin’ PANTS, I’m standin’ there watchin’ it and thinkin’ ‘Man, this is some over-the—top fucked-up shit, and then I look over at my dad, and you know what he’s doin’?” Paulie stared off. “He’s got his cock out, and he’s beatin’ off! ”

Argi chuckled. “Yeah, boss, your dad was a character, all right. Loved the hardcore vendetta shit.”

“Sure, sure, Argi, but I mean, he was beatin’ off watchin’ a girl get her skin yanked off her ass and legs! And what I thought first is I thought, ‘Holy shit, my old man’s a sick pup jerkin’ off to all this torture, he must be sick in the head, and since he’s my dad…maybe that sickness’ll get passed on to me!’ But you know what? The second I thought that, I realized somethin’ else…” Paulie gulped. “My dick was rock-hard too…”

“Such are the rites of passage of industrious young men destined to become Mafia bosses,” Prouty offered. “The arrival of self-actualization amid such…axiomatic environs are no doubt quite common.”

Paulie smirked at the spiel. “No, no, Doc, what I mean is… If my dick gets hard watchin’ murder and torture and snuff-flicks and all that..doesn’t that mean I’m mentally fucked up? Doesn’t that mean I’m abnormal?”

Dr. Prouty stifled a gag, knowing that a negative response would only exacerbate his employer’s already negative mood, the result of which might have very negative effects on Prouty. Why? Because Paul Vinchetti was more than likely the most sexually sociopathic and bloodthirsty individual the good doctor had ever observed. “Abnormal, sir? I should think not. For normalcy and abnormalcy are subjective terms and therefore cannot be defined objectively. The primal human mind is incalculably intricate, and tags such as normal and abnormal, moral and immoral, good and bad, etc., are all subject to interpretation. One’s life-experiences and learned behavior most indubitably make subconscious impressions via observation: a normal function of the brain. Hence, sexual paraphilias and/or fetishes are derived quite naturally. So to answer your query, no, sir. You are not abnormal.”

Paulie relaxed in the plush forward seat, a hand to his heart. “Damn, I feel much better now.”

Prouty sighed in relief.