Grimoire Diabolique

MR. TORSO

Ol’ Lud knew he was givin’ ’em purpose by what he was doin’. This was God’s work according ta the books he’d read, and Lud believed it might fierce, he did. Yessiree, he thought. That’s gettin’ it. He gandered cockeyed down at Miss August outa Hustler. As purdy a blondie as he’d ever seen. Ooh, yeah. Awright, so sometimes it took awhiles. Sometimes he had trouble gettin’ the ol’ crane ta rise, but jimmy Christmas, at sixty-one, what fella wouldn’t, ya know?

What’d these gals be doin’ otherwise? Gettin’ diseases an’ all, smokin’ the drugs, gettin’ cornholed by fellas. ‘Stead Lud was helpin’ ’em ta be what The Man Upstairs intended ’em ta be, an’ givin’ ta those without what they’se wanted fierce. And acorse paid fer. Ya know?

Lud’s mitt needed ta jack hisself up a tad longer ’fore he’d be able to get it, so’s he stared on at Miss August, one mighty purdy splittail with that velvety lookin’ snatch on her an’ that dandy pair of ribmelons. Yessir!

But it wasn’t that he was no preevert or nothin’ by’s doin’ this everday. He was puttin’ some real meanin’ in these gal’s lives, just like the books said. He was givin’ ’em purpose.

Once he was able ta pull hisself a stiffer an’ get to it, he wondered what the gal in the August centerfold’d look like without any arms n’ legs on her. Problee not too good, he reckoned.

But acorse sometimes God’s work weren’t purdy.

Tipps was contemplating the tenets of didactic Solipsism and its converse ideologies when he disembarked from his county car. Positive teleology? Tipps didn’t buy it. It had to be subjectively existential. It has to be, he thought. Any alternative is folly.

County Technical Services looked like scarlet phantoms roving the darkness. Sirchie portable UV lamps glowed eerily purple. The techs wore red polyester utilities so that any accidental fiberfall wouldn’t be confused as crime-scene residue by the Hair & Fibers crew back at Evidence Section. But Tipps, in his heather-gray Brooks Brothers suit, already harbored a clear notion that TSD was wasting their time.

The moon shone like a pallid face above the cornfield. Tipps walked toward the ravine, where red and blue lights throbbed. Maybe, by now, these south county boys were getting used to it. A young sergeant rested on one knee with his face in his hands.

“Get up,” Tipps ordered. “You’re not a creamcake, you’re a county police officer. Start acting like it.”

The kid stood up and blinked hard.

“Another 64?” Tipps asked.

“Yes sir. It’s another torso thing.”

Mr. Torso, Tipps thought. That’s what he’d come to think of the perp as. Fifteen sets of limbs dumped on county roads like this the past three years. And three torsos, all, white cauc feems. The perp yanked their teeth and did an acid job on their faces, hands, and feet. Tipps ordered up the new g/p runs on all the parts but thus far to no avail. K-Y jelly and sperm in the three torsos; the sperm typed A-pos. Big deal, Tipps thought.

“Down there, sir.” The cop pointed into the lit ravine. “I sorry, I just can’t hack it.”

This is getting to be a hard county, Tipps told himself and descended toward TSD’s lights. Techs crawled on hands and knees with flash-hats. Field spots had been erected; they were looking for tire indentations to cast. “Mr. Torso strikes again,” Tipps muttered when he glanced further. At the culvert, two more techs were pulling severed arms and legs out of the pipe. Then a figure seemed to drift out of the eerie light. Beck, the TSD field chief.

“So we got another torso job,” Tipps said more than asked.

Beck, a woman, had thick glasses and frizzy black hair like a witch’s. “Uh—huh,” she replied. “Two arms, two legs. And another torso that doesn’t match with the limbs. What’s that total now? Four torsos?”

“Yeah,” Tipps said. The torso lay off to the side, white slack breasts descending into its armpits. The stumps, like the others, looked healed over. The face was an acid scab.

“I’ll know more once I get her in the shop, but I’m sure it’s just like the others.”

The others, Tipps reflected. The previous torsos had been crudely lobotomized, according to the deputy M.E. A hard pointed instrument thrust up through the left anterior eye socket. Eardrums punctured. Eyes glued shut. Mr. Torso was shutting down their senses. Why? Tipps wondered. “Do another g/p run,” he said.

Beck half-smiled. “That’s been a waste so far, Lieutenant. We’re never gonna get a records match on a genetic profile.”

“Just do it,” Tipps said.

Beck’s sarcasm dissolved when she looked again to the ravine. “It’s just so macabre. This is the sixteenth set of limbs he’s dumped but only the fourth body. What the fuck is he doing with bodies?”

Tipps saw her point. And what in God’s name, he thought, is the purpose behind all this? Tipps felt strangely assured of that. His philosophies itched. He knew there was a purpose.

Ol’ Lud’s purpose, acorse, was ta get the gals knocked up. Then he’d wait till they dropped their rugrat an’ he’d sell it ta folks who couldn’t have critters of their own. An’ he wasn’t profiteerin’ neither—he’d use the green ta pay the bills and give the leftover ta charity. Nothin’ wrong with that.

Acorse he had ta do the job on the gals first. Seemed only proper an’ humane like, to relieve ’em of the mental turmoil. An’ he’d cut off their arms an’ gams so’s they could get by on less viddles and so’s he wouldn’t hafta worry ’bout ’em gettin’ away. Ol’ Lud poked their ears ’cos it didn’t seem right fer their jiggled brains ta be hearin’ things an’ gettin’ all confused, and same fer gluin’ up their eyes. These gals didn’t need ta be seein’ stuff.

And ’cos he felt for ’em, he jiggled up their brains a tad just like the way his daddy’d do years ago when some of the cows an’ hogs got too feisty. See, all ya do is stick the carvin’ awl up under a gal’s eye socket till ya hear the bone break, then ya give the awl a quick jiggle. Wouldn’t kill ’em, just messed up their brains so they couldn’t think. “‘Botomized ’em,” daddy called it. Lud didn’t need fer the gals ta be thinkin’ things an’ all. That’d be cruel seein’ that they couldn’t see or hear no how, an’ couldn’t walk no more or pick stuff up. Acorse, he had ta be careful doin’ the jiggle. See, a coupla gals kicked on him after awhiles, so’s that’s why Lud always disinfected the scratch awl now, so’s no bad germs’d get up in their noggins. Yessir, Lud felt mighty bad about the four that died, but what could he do, ya know?

So he dumped ’em. Yanked out their pearly whites with a track wrench, an’ burned up their kissers so’s the cops couldn’t recanize ’em and maybe figure out how he was nabbin’ ’em.

Lud had ’em all rowed up in the basement, twelve of ’em. He’d lay each of ’em in a pig trough with one end cut out so’s their lower parts’d kinda hang out over the edge. That ways all Lud had ta do was drop his drawers standin’ right there when he gave ’em some peter and they could whiz an’ poop without makin’ a mess of thereselfs ’cos Lud kept a milk bucket under each trough. He fed the gals three squares daily, good potatomash an’ milk an’ heathly stews ’cos he wanted nice strong critters ta sell. An’ the gals could swaller ’n’ chew just fine ’cos Lud didn’t pull their choppers unless they up an’ croaked on him on account he seed on CNN one night ’bout how the coppers could ’denify dead folks by comparin’ their teeth with dental records and some such.

Lud’s routine was monthly. That’s why he had twelve gals, ya know, one fer each month. Fer instance, right now it was August, so that’s why he this very second had his peter in the August gal. He’d give it to her least three times a day, ever day fer the whole month. That way it’d stand ta reason she’d be good an’ preggered by the time September rolled around. Then acorse he’d start givin it to the gal in the September trough. An’ when he wasn’t dickin’ em, or gettin’ ’em viddles or washin’ ’em up, he’d go upstairs and check out the city paper classified fer folks lookin’ fer a critter to ’dopt. Lot of them folks was rich and they’d pay good scratch with no questions asked rather’n wait a coupla years ta get a critter legal like through the ’doption agencies. An’ in his spare time, Lud’d kick back an’ read his favorite books ’bout the meanin’ of life an’ all. He liked those books just fine, he did.

Only problem was the task of gettin’ it on with the gals. See, sometimes it took awhiles ta get his peter hard enough ta give ’em a good pokin’ on account it was no easy thing fer any fella keep a stiffer when the gal was, like, ya know, didn’t have no arms or gams. An’ worse was the noises they made sometimes while Lud was tryin’ ta get his nut, kinda mewlin’ noises an’ another noise like “gaaaaaa—gaaaaaaaa” on account of ’cos Lud had jiggled their brains. Yessiree, downright unappealin’ they was ta look at an’ listen to which is why ol’ Lud’d put one of the girlie center-folds on their bellies so’s he had somethin’ inspirin’ ta look at whiles he was givin’ ’em the wood.

Lotta times too he’d go limp right in ’em an’ pop out, like right now with this red hairt gal in the August trough. “Dag dabbit!” he cursed ’cos Lud, see, he never took the Lord’s name in vain. Couldn’t get a nut out noways like that! So poor Lud stepped back from the trough with his pants around his ankles so’s he could jack hisself back up but meantimes the K-Y in the gal’s babyhole’d get gummy. See, ’fore Lud got ta dickin’ a gal he’d have ta give them a squirt of the K-Y on account the gals couldn’t get wet no more thereself ’cos of the brain-jiggle he gave ’em. But like just was mentioned, see, that K-Y up there’d go gummy sometimes just like right now with this red-hairt gal, so’s Lud’d have ta kneel down an’ hock a lunger right smackdab on her snatch ta wet her up again, all the whiles he’s jackin’ his peter. It got a right frustratin’ sometimes. “Ain’t got all blammed day ta be beatin’ my peter ’front of a torso!” he hollered aloud. “Jiminy Christmas! Can’t keep a good stiffer, can’t hardly come no more!” Acorse when such things happened ta cause Lud ta pitch a fit, he’d let hisself calm down and get ta thinkin’. Shore, it weren’t easy sometimes, but this was God’s work. He oughta be grateful—lotta fellas his age couldn’t get a stiffer at all no more and they’se shore as heck couldn’t have out with a nut. The books made it clear ta him. It was The Man Upstairs Hisself who’d called on him ta do this deed an’ by golly there weren’t no way he was gonna fail The Man Upstairs! His work weren’t always easy, weren’t supposed ta be.

So Lud gandered down real hard at that girlie centerfold of Miss August, pretendin’ it was her in that there trough ’stead of this red-hairt gal with no arms or gams goin’ “gaaaaa—gaaaaaa!” an’ he was jackin’ hisself real hard an’ fast eyein’ them purdy centerfold hooters and that nice paper cooze an— “Yeah, lordy!” he celebrated ’cos there his peter went finally gettin’ hard again. “Yeah, oh yeah! Here she comes, August!” he promised an’ just as ol’ Lud’d have his nut he stuck his peter back inta that stump sided red-hairt snatch an’ got a good load of his dicksnot right up theres in her baby-makin’ parts.

“Gaaaaa! Gaaaaaaaa!” went the gal’s droolin’ mouth.

“Yer quite welcome, missy,” Lud replied.

Next morning Tipps’ Guccis took him up to the city-district squad room where some newbies from south county vice swapped jokes.

“Hey, how’s a torso play basketball?”

“How?”

“With difficulty!”

“Hey, guys, you know where a torso sleeps?”

“Where?”

“In a trunk!”

The explosion of laughter ceased when Tipps’ shadow crossed the squad room floor. “Next guy I hear telling torso jokes gets transferred to district impound,” was all he remarked, then moved to his office.

The sun in the window blinded him. Tipps didn’t want the answers most cops wanted—he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t even care about justice. Justice is only what the actualized self makes it, he reflected. Tipps was obsessed with philosophy. He was forty-one, never married, had no friends. Nobody liked him, and he didn’t like anybody, and that was the only aspect of his exterior life that he liked. He hated cops as much as he hated bad guys. He hated niggers, spics, slant-eyes. He hated pedophile rings and church coteries. He hated God and Satan and atheists, faith and disbelief, yuppies and bikers, homos, lezzies, the erotopathic and the celibate. He hated kikes, wops, and wasps. Especially wasps because he himself was born a wasp. He hated everybody and everything, because, somehow the nihilistic acknowledgment was all that kept him from feeling totally false. He hated falsehood.

He loved truth, and the philosophical calculations thereof. Truth, he believed, could only be derived via the self-assessment of the individual. For instance, there was no global truth. There was no political or societal verity. Only the truth of the separate individual against the terrascape of the universe. That’s why Tipps had become a cop, because, further, it seemed that real truth could only be decrypted through the revelations of purpose, and such purpose was more thoroughly bared in the spiritual proximity to stress. Being a cop got him closer to the face that was the answer.

Fuck, he mused at his desk. He wanted to know the purpose of things, for it was the only way he’d ever discover his purpose. That’s why the Mr. Torso case fascinated him. If truth can only be defined on an individual stratum via one’s conception of universal purpose, then what purpose is this? Tell me, Mr. Torso.

It had to be unique. It had to be—

Brilliant, he considered. Mr. Torso was making effective efforts to avoid detection, which meant he was not pathological, nor bipolar. The m.o. was identical, painstakingly so. Nor was Mr. Torso retrograde, schizoaffective, ritualized, or hallucinotic; if he were, the psych unit would’ve discerned that by now, and so would the Technical Services Division. Mr. Torso, Tipps thought. What purpose could there be behind the acts of such a man?

Tell me, Mr. Torso.

Tipps had to know.

Lud always ’ranged ta meet ’em out in the boonies, with phony plates on his pickup. Old lots, convenience stores an’ the like.

“Oh thank God I can’t believe it’s true,” yammered the blueblood lady when ol’ Lud passed her the fresh, new critter. The critter made cute goo-goo sounds, its pudgy little brand-spankin’ new fingers playin’ with his new mommy’s pearl necklace. She was crying she was so et up with happy. “Richard, give him the money.”

Lud scratched his crotch sittin’ back there in the back seat of this fancified big lux seedan, one of them ’spensive kraut cars was what he thought. But the gray hairt guy in the suit gave Lud a bad look. Then, kinda hezzatatin’ an’ twitchy, this fella asked, “Could you, uh, tell us a little bit about the mother?”

She’s a torso, ya dipstick, Lud thought. An’ it was my spunk preggered her up. But what’choo care anyways? I got’cha what ya wanted, ain’t I? Jiminy Christmas, these rich folks!

“I mean,” the suit said, “you’re certain that this arrangement is consentual? I mean, the child wasn’t… abducted or kidnaped or anything like that, right?”

“No way this critter here’s kitnapped, mister, so’s you’s got nothin’ to worry about.” Then Lud felt the fella could use a reminder. “Acorse, no questions asked is what we agreet, weren’t it? Like ya said in yer ad, conferdential. Now if yawl gots second thoughts, that’s fine too. I’lls just take the little critter back and yawl can sign back up at the ’doption agency, a’course if ya don’t mind waitin’ like five er six years..”

“Give him the money, Richard,” the lady had out in a tone’a voice like the devil on a bad day. Women shore did have them some wrath now an’ again. “Give him the money so we can take our baby home! And I mean right now, Richard, right now!”

“Er, yes,” mouthed the new papa in the suit. “Yes, of course.” And then he passed ol’ Lud an envelope full ’o hunnert’ dollar bills stuffed like ta the tune of twenty grand. Lud shot the folks a smile. “I just knows in my heart that yawl’ll raise yer new critter fines an’ proper. Don’t ferget ta teach ’im ta say his prayers ever night, an’ make shore he’s raised in the ways of The Man Upstairs now, ya hear?”

“We will,” said the suit. “Thank you.”

“Thank you thank you!” gushed the new mommy all silly-face happy and teary eyed. “You’ve made us very happy.”

“Don’t’chall thanks me ’s much as The Man Upstairs,” Lud said an’ scooted outa the big lux kraut seedan parked at the QWIK-STOP. ’cos it’s Him that called me ta do this. After the rich folks left, Lud hisself drove off in his beat-ta-holy-hail pickup, thinkin’. He had work ta do tonight. What with that skinny-ass brownyhead dyin’ on him yesterday (Lud figured she musta got some bad germs up in her noggin when he jigged her brain, and that’s why she didn’t live long). He had to swipe hisself a new gal an’ get her torsoed up ’cos the June trough was empty now. Acorse, ’fore he did that he figured he best git home ta that red-hairt August gal ta lay some afternoon peter on her, get some good spunk up her hole. After all, Lud had future orders now, and it didn’t seem fit ta hafta keep God’s work waitin’. An’ he also knew, from his fave-urt books, that The Man Upstairs kept his mitts off the world itself, ever since Eve put her choppers ta that apple, so’s there was physerolegy in play too, which was why ol’ Lud knew he hadda get his dicksnot up the girl’s hole many times a day as he could manage so’s she’d be shore ta get preggered up just fine.

And bring new life unto the world.

Tipps wore the morgue’s ghastly fluorescent light like a pallor; he could’ve passed for a well-dressed corpse himself, here in such company. Jan Beck, the TSD field chief, set a bottle of Snapple Raspberry Iced Tea on a Vision Series II blood-gas analyzer. “Be with you in a minute, sir,” she offered, matching source-spectrums to the field indexes. Tipps wondered how she applied her own notions of truth to her overall assessment of human purpose. Did she have such an assessment? She histologized brains for a living, autopsied children, and had probably seen more guts than a fishmarket dumpster. What is your truth? he wondered.

“Your man wears size-11 shoes.”

“That’s great!” Tipps celebrated.

“Ground was wet last night.” Beck chewed the end of a fat camel’s-hair brush. “Left good impressions for the field boys.” Rather despondently then, she closed a big red book entitled: Pre-1980 U.S. Automotive Paint Index. “I checked every source index we got, and it’s not here.”

“What’s not here?” Tipps queried.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. When he backed up to the ravine last night, his right-rear fender scraped the culvert rim. I ran the paint-residuum through the mass-photospectrometer. It’s not stock-auto paint so I can’t give you a make and model. All I can tell you is he drives a red vehicle.”

Tipps felt delighted. Finally they had a real lead…

Beck continued, sipping her Snapple. “And that g/p-run you asked for? Well, you hit pay-dirt this time, Lieutenant. We got a positive match with the state CID records index. Torso Number Four has a name. Susan H. Bilkens.”

“Why the hell’s she got a genetic-profile record?”

“She’s a whore, er, was. Six busts, five city, one county. Pressed charges against her first pimp last year so the city asked for a g/p-material sample. The pimp cut her up a little, they hoped the g/p-sample would match blood on the pimp’s clothes.” Beck let out a humorless chuckle. “Too bad it didn’t wash in court, fuckin’ judges must be out of their minds. But at least it gave the girl’s name for a rundown.”

“Susan H. Bilkens,” Tipps repeated. He appraised the naked torso on the stainless-steel morgue platform which came complete with removable drain-trap and motorized height-adjustment. The torso’s acid-burned face more resembled a mound of excrement, and her y-section had been stitched back up like a macabre zipper. “You said she’s a hooker?”

“Was a hooker, that’s right.” Another chuckle. “She’s just a dead torso now. Worked the West Street Block, the dope bars, till she shitnamed herself with the pimp thing. For the last year she was turning her tricks at a truck stop up on the Route.”

“This is… wonderful,” Tipps intoned.

“The postmortem gave us more of the same. Teeth manually extracted shortly after death. Eardrums ruptured, eyes glued shut with cyanoacrilate aka Wonder Glue. Minor insult across the lateral sulcus in the frontal lobe. He lobotomized her just like the others. Oh, and I was able to match her body with the arms and legs we found in Davidsonville four months ago. You ready for the bombshell?”

Tipps looked at her.

“Tally this up, Lieutenant. Like I said, we found her arms and legs four months ago.”

“I heard you.”

Beck sipped her Snapple. “When she died she was two months pregnant.”

Two month’s pregnant, he recited, motoring down Route 154 in his unmarked. It seemed spectacularly… hideous. With each revelation, Tipps felt beckoned to unveil Mr. Torso’s conception of human truth, and, hence, his empirical purpose.

Mr. Torso, Tipps thought. I’m going to get you, buddy, and I’m going to find out. Not only was Tipps a conclusionary-didactic nihilist, he was also a proficient investigator. A records check dropped the prostitute’s life into his lap. Twenty-five years old, Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, 5’5”, 121 pounds. Tipps wondered how much she weighed without her arms and legs. Since she had been run off the red-light block in town, she worked a truck stop near the county line called The Bonfire. Truck stops were the first places banished prostitutes fled to, and there was only one in all of south county…

He parked between two Peterbilt semi’s at the end of the lot. The little dive of a restaurant glowed beyond, peppered with minute movement in its plate-glass windows. Tipps sung a tune in his mind, with a slight lyrical modification—“Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Torsos”—scanning the Bonfire with a small pair of Bushnell 7x50’s. In the binocular’s infinity-shaped field, he could see them in there: Unkept, nutritionally depleted, desperate. Most, he knew, were clinical drug addicts, their only human purpose in the universe being to cater to the axiomatic and primordial male sex-drive in exchange for crack money. They fluttered about the restaurant interior, fussing with corpulent truck drivers whose stout arms provided tattoo-tapestries. Some of the girls dawdled outside, hidden within the gulf of shadows.

Tipps wondered about them, these sex-specters. Did they even realize their place in the ethereal universe? Did they ever ponder such considerations as existential verity, psycho-societal atomism, tripartite eudaemonistic thesis? Do they ever wonder what their purpose is? Tipps wondered to himself. Do they even have a purpose?

At once, Tipps sat up. The Bushnell’s fine German optics easily revealed the dilapidated red pickup truck that pulled into the lot, as well as the long fresh scratch along the right-rear fender.

Lud loped outa the Bonfire, wearin’ the usual overalls an’ size-11 steel toes, totin’ a bag of mags. See, the Bonfire up ’fore the register had thereselfs a rack of the girlie mags and a lotta the September issues’d just come out. Lud never quite reckoned why, for instance, the September mags always come out third week of August, not that he much cared. Next week’d be time ta start gettin’ his peter up inta that lil’ blondie with the hairlip sittin’ cozy an’ limbless in the September trough. She had a nice set of milk wagons on her but a joyhole big enough ta take a ham hock. What’d fellas been stickin up this gal ta get her so stretched out—their blammed heads? Or was she just born that way? Acorse bein’ real big likes that’d make it easier for her ta drop critters-Jiminy, big as she was she could problee drop a whole kindergarten at once! An’ the lips ’round her snatch looked like a bunch of hangin’ lunchmeat er somethin’. ’Least she didn’t make a ruckus like the gal in the August trough who Lud was gettin’ a might sick of by now. See, that’s why Lud buyed hisself new mags each month, ta open the centerfolds onta their bellies so’s he could get his peter up proper an’ come. An’ on account of the June gal up an’ dyin’ on him an’ his havin’ ta dump her last night, Lud needed hisself a new gal ta take her place. These hookers always hanged out at the Bonfire ’cos the truckers was ferever tryin’ ta get their peters off in some splittail ’tween their long hauls, and ways it was set up, that big tookus-lot with all them semirigs parked alls over, Lud could propersition a gal right quick and have her outa there without no one bein’ the wiser.

Walkin’ down, though, he sawed all them rubbers layin’ on the cement, like a whole lot of ’em, an’ this made Lud right sad. Don’t fellas know nothin’ these days? Didn’t fellas ever use their brains fer more’n skull-filler? The dicksnot, see, was fer more an just feelin’ good whiles it was comm’ out’cher peter. It’s a ’lixer of life, it was. It was a special gift The Man Upstairs gave ta fellas so’s they’se could have their peters in gals proper the way He intended an’ get ta makin’ critters once that good spunk got up there inna gal’s baby-makin’ parts. Givin’ life an’ all, that’s what the dicksnot were all’s about, see? Droppin’ new rugrats onto the earth ta carry on with things the way God wanted. And it was a blammed shame seein’ all’s this good spunk wasted just fer the sake o’ havin’ a nut. Weren’t supposed ta be shot inta some infernal conderm! These little things layin’ all over lot, they was like a slap ta the face of The Man Upstairs in a way of reckonin’, a way mankind’d figured on cheatin’ the ways things was supposed t’ be. Lud had a mind ta collect up all these rubbers each night an’ empty ’em like maybe inta a soup bowl er somethin’, them git hisself a turkey baster so’s he could give each of his gals good squirt without havin’ ta do it hisself. Acorse, that might not be such a hot idea considerin’ all the devil-made diseases goin’ ’round these days. Just seemed a cryin’ shame fellas’d see fit to wastin’ their juice like that, kinda in a way of like puttin’ a little bit of God in a bag an’ flushin’ Him down the crapper or throwin’ Him down on some dirty trucker parkin’ lot—

“Hey, pops, for twenty bucks I’ll suck your cock so hard your balls’ll slide out of your peehole.”

Lud gandered this little stringbean who’d came outa the shadows. They’se was all mostly rack-skinny like this one an’ all had there-selves lank straight hair on ’em an’ mostly little-type hooters ’cept a’course fer his September gal with that big ol’ pair of the chest melons. “Well, say there, missy, that sounds like a right deal ta me,” Lud enthused “Just foller me yonder to my truck’n we’ll have ourselfs a dandy ol’ time”

They gots in the pickup an’ Lud had his peter out even ’fore she could pussy-pocket that double-sawbuck he gave her. Then she opened her yap an’ got ta work lickety-split. Lud figured he’d let her suck awhiles, not that he was plannin’ ta waste a perfectly good load of his critter-goo on her yap but just ta let her get on it awhiles so’s he’d be good’n boned up fer later when he were givin’ his August gal her beddy-bye pop. Lud in fact ’preciated it. It made things easier later ta have his stiffer all hot’n bothered by a gal who still had her arms an’ gams connected to her, yessir, right nice change ta be with somethin’ other’n a, brain-jiggered blabberin’ torso with a girlhole full of the K-Y. An’ this little stringbean here was just a’smokin’ his pole like a regler trooper she was, an’ kindly givin’ his ballbag a good feelup while she was goin’. Lordy, can this gal suck a peter! Lud exclaimed in thought. A regler machine she is, like ta suck the peterskin right off my bone! Then she stopped sucking a speck an’ kinda snotty said, “Hey pops, I been doing this a while. You getting close?”

“Wells, try ta be patient, missy. Ol’ fella the likes of me sometimes takes awhiles ta get his nut out.”

She sucked awhiles more, harder an’ faster with that little hand of hers just a pumpin’ away on his sack like it were a full-up milkbag on a cow, an’ she was a’slurpin’ an’ lickin’ an really goin’ t’town down there on his meat an’ makin’ more noise than a couple of thousand-pound Hampshire hogs havin’ a row in the mudhole, but then she stops again an’ bellyaches, “Come on, pops. Hurry up and come, will ya? I ain’t got all night.”

“What’choo got, missy,” Lud kindly corrected, “is yer whole life ta turn from the errah of yer ways an’ starts ta doin’ what gals was meant ta do in the eyes of The Man Upstairs, like havin’ critters and perpetcheratin’ the species. What I’se talkin’ ’bout, missy, is the purpose of the whole ball of wax we calls life,” an’ just right then lickety-split, Lud gave her a thunk fierce on the bean with a empty Carling bottle an’ put her little lights right out. He stuffed her down inta the footwell an’ droved outa the lot with his peter still out’n stickin’ up all high an’ mighty from that humdinger of a suck she were givin’ him, an’ it kinda seemed a shame, ya know, what he’d hafta be doin’ ta her shortly.

Way he’d do it, see, is he’d take ’em downstairs an’ make ’em swaller a bowl of potatomash full of horse trank, so they’d be out deep for a good spell. Then he’d glue up their eyes an’ poke their ears an’ ’botermize ’em with the scratch awl so’s they wouldn’t sense no more an’ not be confused an’ all. Then he’d lop off their arms and gams with his field adze, which were like a axe only the blade went crossways, and acorse before he’d do that he’d tie off each arm an’ leg right close with heavy sisal rope so’s the gals wouldn’t bleed ta death once he had off with their limbs.

And that’s just what Lud did when he gots back ta the house with that little suckjob gal he picked hisself up at the Bonfire. Each time looked a little neater, ’fact by now Ol’ Lud could have off with a gal’s arms an’ gams just as neat’n clean as you’d ever want, provided acorse that you’d ever in the first place want a livin’ torso in yer basement. The stumps’d heal over just fine in about a coupla weeks, then he’d be all set ta get ta pokin’ her. This is one here, now that she were buck nekit, had some right nice little hooters on her an’ a nice big clump a’hair down there on her babyhole, an’ she even had a real fine little line’a hair goin’ from her snatch ta her bellybutton which Lud always thought was just as cute as could be. One thing he didn’t much care fer, though, was the tattoos—lotta these gals had tattoos on ’em—-like this here brownyhead who sported one just over her right tittie, a silly little heart with a knife in it it looked like. Seemed a blammed shame ta Lud that gals’d have so little respect fer their bods ta scar ’em up like that ’cos the ways Lud saw it, ’least accordin’ ta the books he’d read, was the body was a temple of The Man Upstairs and ta scar it up with silly tattoos were just the same as like throwin’ garbage in a church or spraypaintin’ the swear words on the altar an’ bustin’ up the stainglass winders with stones an’ such. Didn’t matter now, though, not fer this stringbean little brownyhead ’cos now she were well on her way ta some real godlylike meanin’ in the scheme of life. Lud’d wait a spell ’for gettin’ her settled down inta the June trough though, an’ meantime, he bandaged up her stumps so’s she wouldn’t get no ’nfections. Then he picked up her arms an’ gams’n carried ’em upstairs ta put ’em in the truck fer dumpin’ a little later after he burned up the hands ’n’ feet with mercuric acid, an’ he’s walkin up them stairs his size 11s goin’ clump clump clump but, see, he stopped in his tracks on the top landin’ ’cos first thing he sawwed was some fancified fella in a suit waitin’ for him an’ this fella had in his mitt a big tookus-gun that he was a’pointin’ right smackdab at Lud’s face…

“The blammed tarnations!” exclaimed the old man in overalls. He’d stopped cold on the landing, his arms heavy-laden with—

Limbs, Tipps realized. He’s carrying severed limbs. “Don’t move.” Tipps stared at the wizened man, astonished. He kept a headshot bead in the adjustable sights of his Glock 17, whose clip was full of 9mm Remington hardball. His brain seemed to tick with arcane calculations. “Now,” Tipps said. “Drop the… limbs.”

The old man frowned, then released his burden. Two arms and two legs thunked to the hardwood floor.

“Sit down in that chair next to the highboy. Keep your hands in your lap. Fuck with me and I blow your goddamn head off.”

Wincing, the old man seated himself in an antique cane chair that creaked with his weight. “Ain’t no call fer swear words, son, and no call ta be takin’ the Lord’s name in vain.”

Tipps kept the gun on him. “You’re the guy… Mr. Torso.”

“That what they’se callin’ me?” Mr. Torso sputtered. “Blammed silliest-ass name I ever did hear.”

But Tipps’ thoughts revolved in a kaleidoscope of wonder, triumph, and conceit. I got him, he thought. I got Mr. Torso.

“You’re a blammed copper, ain’t’cha?” Lud asked. “How’d ya find me, son? Tells me that.”

“I followed you from the truck stop.”

Lud could’a smacked hisself right in the head. I am just done ET UP with a case of the DUMBASS! Led this poker-kisser copper in the fancified Ward an’ Roebuck suit straight to him! Jiminy Christmas I must’a passed my brain out my butthole last time I went ta the crapper!

But, acorse…

Lud believed in proverdence. He believed what he eyeballed in them there books, an’ he believed The Man Upstairs shore worked in some strange ways. An’ it was proverdence he reckoned that this copper’d made him sit in the chair right next ta his dead mama’s old highboy. And Lud knowed full well that in the top drawer was daddy’s big ol’ Webley revolver…

Tipps’ gaze flicked about. It was an untold fantasy: I’m in Mr. Torso’s house! “I want to know what you’ve been doing?”

“What’cha mean, son?”

“What do I mean?” Tipps could’ve laughed. “I want to know why you’ve dismembered sixteen women over the last three years, that’s what I want to know. You’re keeping them alive, aren’t you?”

Mr. Torso’s white hair stuck up in dishevelment, his chin studded with white whiskers. “Keepin’ what alive?”

“The girls! The… torsos!” Tipps yelled. “My forensic tech told me the torso you dumped last night died within forty-eight hours, you crazy old asshole! We matched her body to a set of limbs you dumped four months ago, and she was two months pregnant! You’re impregnating them, aren’t you? Tell me why, goddamn it!”

Mr. Torso shut his eyes. “Aw, son, would ya please stop takin’ tha Lord’s name in vain? Come on, now.”

Tipps took a step forward, training the Glock on the old man’s 5x zone. But at that precise moment his flicking gaze snagged on a row of books atop the veneered highboy. What the… hell? Many of the titles he recognized, many he owned himself. The chief works of history’s most preeminent philosophical minds. Sartre, Kant, Sophocles, and Hegel. Plato, Heidegger, and Jaspers. Aquinas, Kierkegaard…

“You…” Tipps faltered, “read… this?”

“Acorse,” Mr. Torso affirmed. “What, just ’cos I wears overalls an’ live in the sticks, ya think I’se just some dumb-tookus rube with no hankerin’ of the meanin’ of life? Lemme tell ya somethin’, son. I ain’t no sexshool preevert like ya problee think. An’ I’se ain’t no psykerpath.”

“What are you then?” Tipps’ question grated like gravel.

Calmly, Mr. Torso went on, “I’se a perveyer of sorts, ya know? A perveyer of objectified human dynamics. Volunteeristic idealism’s what they’se call it, son. See, the abserlute will is a irrational force ’less ya apply it ta the mechanistics of causal posertivity as a kinda counter-force ta the evil concreteness of neeherlistic doctrine. What I mean, son, is as inderviduals of the self-same unerverse, we’se all subject ta the metterphysical duality scape, and we must realize what we’se are as transcendental units of bein an’ then engage ourselves with objectertive acts, son, ta turn the do-dads of our units of bein’ into a functional deliverance of subjecterive posertivity in the ways of The Man Upstairs, see? No, I ain’t no psykerpath. I’se a vassal, er a perpetcherater of Kierkegaardian fundermentals of human purpose.”

Tipps stared as though he’d downed a fifth of Johnny Black in one chug. Holy fucking shit! he thought. Mr. Torso… is a teleologic Christian phenomenalist!

“It’s takin’ things inta our own mitts, see? Like with the gals, livin’ in a neeherlistic void of spiritual vacuity. I 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.