Grimoire Diabolique (12 page)

Vinchetti was wincing at the site of Hymie strapped naked to the table. “Christ, Doc, that’s a lot of matzah balls; he looks even worse with his clothes
off
. The kid’s got enough blubber on him to keep an Eskimo family eating for ten years. No wonder there’s people starvin’ in the world. This fat fuck ate all the food.”

“I wouldn’t be too hasty in accusing the obese of a lack of will-power,” Dr. Prouty pointed out. “Recent research from John’s Hopkins indicates that perhaps as much as forty percent of obesity in America can be attributed to a previously unidentified icosahedral virus. Nonstructural protomers in the viral shell allow it to roam undetected by immune responses and directly attack the mitochondrion mechanisms in human fat cells. The result is a cell that cannot effectively turn glucose into energy—hence, an excess storage of adipose matter. Obesity is a tragic disease, not an instance of willful over-indulgence.”

“Aw, put a lid on that liberal bullshit, will ya, Doc? The fat motherfucker’s fat ’cos he can’t keep his fat fuckin’ hands out of the fuckin’ refrigerator. He eats six fuckin’ meals a fuckin’ day. He stuffs his fat motherfuckin’ face every fuckin’ chance he gets. It ain’t no fuckin’
virus,
Doc. It ain’t no fuckin’
disease.
The only problem this fat fuck has is a fuckin’ fork-to-mouth problem.”

Prouty knew the futility of taking exception. “Of course, you’re quite correct, sir. Pardon my oversight.”

Vinchetti smiled subtly. “Damn straight. And this fat fuck’s defnitely had
his
last fuckin’ meal.”

“Actually, sir,” the doctor reminded, “if you give the matter some abstract consideration, they’ll both be spending their final moments of life…eating with quite a bit of gusto.”

Vinchetti’s eyes dimmed for a second, then, “Oh, yeah! I get’cha, Doc! Man, is this gonna be sweet!”

Indeed,
Prouty commiserated. Medium doses of Phenolax had rendered both subjects unconscious, after which Dr. Prouty had stripped them and strapped them, face to face, on the table.

Then he’d…connected them…at the lips.

Vinchetti was leaning over, peering at their faces. “So how’d you do their lips, Doc? What, you
stitched
’em together? That looks like some pretty tough work.”

It was actually the simplest chore of all; the only “tough” work was suitably arranging Hymie’s incredible bulk on the table. “With this,” Prouty said, and held the instrument up.

At first glance, one might think the doctor had raised a chrome-plated curling iron, or even an electric steak knife. A power cord led to a shiny oval-shaped housing which fit comfortably in Prouty’s hand. From the front end protruded two very narrow steel tubules, whose gap could be adjusted by a knob at the base. “It’s a McCrath Model SS40-C, Series S, top of the line.”

“The fuck’s that?” Vinchetti queried.

“It’s a surgical stapler.”

And a fine one at that. It functioned similarly to an ordinary office stapler, though its feed mechanism was much more intricate. The impact tubule, containing the foot-end, ran parallel to the loading tubule. The two objects to be coupled were merely fitted into the gap at the end of the device, and—CLACK!—the power button was applied. The ends were joined while a curvicular one-millimeter surgical-grade staple was fired and shunted to the foot-end—and anything between it. The instrument was mainly used for long lacerations over deep wounds and re-attaching mesenterial tissue during primary abdominal operations. In
this
case, however, it was providing a very new and creative utility.

“You
stapled
their lips together?” Vinchetti deduced.

“That’s correct, sir. The entire procedure took less than a minute, I’d say.”

Vinchetti stepped back, astonished. “That’s really
neat-o!
”

Dr. Prouty rolled his eyes.
Yes. Neat-o.

At the same moment, the door opened, and in walked Vinchetti’s most trusted lieutenant, a weasel-faced little man with hair like steel wool and more pock-marks than Tommy Lee Jones. Tony Guerini had worked his way up from the bowels of Trenton. As a kid, he’d bagged for the numbers racket in all the worst neighborhoods, and as a teenager he was working enforcement. When a hooker gypped her pimp, it was Tony who uglied her up, cutting off her clitoris for the first offense, her nose for the second, then the head for the third. When a numbers collector came up short, it was Tony who shattered his spine, and when a distro guy stepped on the smack a little too hard, it was Tony who cranked the tourniquet around his neck till his eyeballs popped half out and his face hemorrhaged. Tony was an industrious young man. And by the age that most young men were graduating college, Tony was proving himself as a most reliable “button” for the Vinchetti Family. He deemed no job too abhorrent, no hit contract too deplorable. Be it a hardened crew-boss from a rival family or an eighty-year-old lady who was a crooked cop’s mom, Tony would tear out the heart of the crew-boss with a claw hammer and rape the old lady to death without so much as a blink. He’d once machine-gunned an entire busload of first graders simply because one of the kids was a judge’s grandson, and when the Catholic diocese had threatened to not pay back their loan, it was Tony who kidnapped those three nuns from St. Christopher’s and…

Well…

You don’t really want to know what he did to them.

It should suffice to say, then, that Tony didn’t tiptoe through the tulips when it came to getting family work done, and when the Paul Vinchetti had had to go to war, Tony was his commander in the field. A loyal friend and most trusted adjutant.

“Tony!” exclaimed Vinchetti with enthusiasm. “Where ya been, my man! The fun’s about to start!”

“Wouldn’t miss it for a cock-suck from Jenna Jameson,” Tony replied, sporting a high-end Sony Max-Cam. Then he took a look at Hymie’s bulbous hairy buttocks. “Er, on second thought, maybe I would.”

Vinchetti honked comradly laughter and slapped his friend on the back. “Aw, come on! Big, bad, tough-guy, human meat-grinder like you? You’ll
love
this!”

Tony (who, by the way, wore an absolutely ridiculous white suit, black satin shirt, and red tie) screwed the camera onto a Vivitar tripod. “Fuckin’ Hymie,” he muttered. “I told ya, boss. I told ya that tub’a shit was skimming some cream off the top.”

“Yeah,” Vinchetti remarked. “I had Lunky put a hidden camera in the cash room. Got the walrus-lookin’ fat scumbag rippin’ me off
on tape.
”

“How much did he pinch? Couple hundred large?”

“Fuck, no. Twenty bucks. It ain’t the amount, ya know? It’s the deed. Ya gotta be loyal in this business.”

Tony nodded sternly. “Damn straight.”

Dr. Prouty, meantime, stood aside, barely listening to the wise-guy banter. He hoped they could get on with it soon.
Emeril Live
came on in an hour. Bam!

Now Tony was widening the hoods on the lights. “So when did ya tell him you had him cold?”

Vinchetti’s slick grin turned up higher. “This morning right after breakfast. You should’a seen him, Tony! He put down four plates of hash and eggs, so then me and Knuckles Jr. bring him into the office, show him the tape. He was blubberin’ like a baby—a
giant
baby!—and he’s on his knees beggin’ for his life, kissin’ my wing-tips. Thought he was gonna upchuck all that food right there on the carpet.” Vinchetti’s eyes took on a glitter. “And it’s a good thing he didn’t ’cos…”

But Tony’s attention had drifted to the broad lab table where Hymie and Darcy lay strapped. He squinted in confusion. “Who’s that there strapped next to him? Darcy?”

“Yeah, she mouthed off,” Vinchetti explained. “Didn’t know a good thing when she saw it, if ya know what I mean. Kind’a hate to see her go, though. Flap-jacks for tits and a pussy on her about useless—you could stick a magnum of Asti Spumanti up there and there’s
still
be slack—but,
man
, could she chug a cock. I’ll tell ya, Tony, she’d have my rod in her yap right down to the root and
still, somehow
she’d be able to tongue my asshole.”

“‘S’shame to have to deep-six a talent like that.”

Vihchetti made an odd pause. “Well, you know what I’m talkin’ about, Tony. Right?”

“What’cha mean, boss?”

“Yeah, sure. I heard she’s been blowin’ you all along, same time she was blowin’ me. Heard you were fuckin’ her too.”

Tony shot a dark glance right back. “Hey. Boss. Jokin’ around like that ain’t funny. I would never, and I mean
never,
fuck around with your private stock.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tony said.

Vinchetti eyed his friend a moment more, then cracked his hands together and burst out laughing. “Hey, Doc! Would ya get a load of this guy? He thought I was
serious!
” Vinchetti slapped Tony hard on the back, still honking laughter.

Dr. Prouty rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, boss, you’re a real comedian,” Tony said.

“Bet’cha about shit yer pants, huh! Naw, Tony, I know you’d never fuck me over; I was just funnin’ with ya. But this crackhead bitch here—she’s got a good one comin’.”

“So what she mouth off about?”

“Can ya believe it? The little spunk rag said that I…” Vinchetti thought the better of elaborating. “She just got mouthy, you know?”

“Sure. Ain’t nothin’ worse than a split-tail who don’t know her own place. Only time a chick’s mouth should be open is when someone’s got a hard-on to stick in it. Rest of the time it should be closed.”

Dr. Prouty nearly blanched.
I have a feeling these two don’t make any charitable donations to the National Organization of Women.

“I hear that,” Vinchetti agreed. “And what do guys like us do every time? Give ’em some green, put some nice jewelry around their skinny necks, and then they start to think they’re special. They start to get uppity. Start mouthin’ off, start gripin’ and takin’ you for granted. Well fuck that shit.”

Tony nodded in this deep philosophical unanimity. “Fuckin’ chicks. Ain’t none of ’em no good when ya get down to it. Ain’t nothin but a bunch of cum drains, boss, a bunch of low down dirty whores.” But Tony flinched immediately after he’d spoken the words. “Er, what I mean is all of ’em except your wife, boss.”

A laudable exclusion,
Prouty thought.

Vinchetti returned the nod. “Well, yeah. Right.”

“So what’cha got planned for these two?”

“Oh, it’s a doozy, Tony! Doc here came up with the idea. Take a look, take a
close
look at ’em.”

Tony leaned closer over the two immobile faces. “Looks like… What the hell? Looks like they’re stuck together somehow…by their lips.”

Vinchetti chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t it neat-o? Doc here’s got this machine that stapled their lips together.”

“It’s a McCrath Model SS40-C,” Dr. Prouty piped in, holding the device up. “From their ‘S’ series, ‘S’ for small. It’s quite a quality item. The adjustable impact and foot assemblies allow for a—”

“Shaddap,” Vinchetti said, turning his attention back to Tony. “Ain’t that somethin’? Ain’t that some work?”

Tony continued to examine the fine details of the “work” with a watchmaker’s study. “You ain’t kiddin’. But… I don’t get it. They ain’t dead already, are they?”

“Naw, just unconscious. Doc here shot each up with some heavy duty tranks.”

“Actually,” the doctor interjected, now holding up his Bush automatic syringe, “I used the latest barbituric-acid derivative, Phenolax. Induces total unconsciousness in less than twenty seconds. It works by reducing the biogenic output of the diazamine receptors in the brain and—”

“Shaddap,” Vinchetti ordered then said back to Tony, “And they’ll be coming to in a few minutes—that’s when the fun begins. Remember what I said about Hymie, right? The fat hump plowed down
four plates
of hash and eggs for breakfast, and I’m talkin’
stacked
plates, Tony. I’ll bet this kid’s got five pounds of grub in his belly, and now Doc’s gonna make him throw it all up.”

Tony’s minor powers of calculation ticked for a moment, then he saw the ploy. “Aw, boss, that’s low down. He’ll be puking it all up right into Darcy’s mouth.”

“That’s the plan. Slick, huh? And shell have to scarf up all that puke and fast, or else she’ll kick, right, Doc?”

“That’s correct, sir,” Prouty replied. “Once Hymie begin’s to aspirate the vomitus, it will have no place to go but into Darcy’s oral cavity, and due to the obvious fact that their mouths are surgically adhered, Darcy will need to swallow it all as quickly as it is disgorged. If she does so, she’ll survive; however, if the volume of the regurgitant exceeds her capacity to swallow it, her tracheal passage will become obstructed, whereupon the vomit will congest in the upper bronchi. As I was remarking to Mr. Vinchetti earlier. She’ll have to eat it, or she’ll drown.”

Vinchetti cracked his hands together. “Damn! Ain’t it great the way Doc talks?”

Tony’s brow furrowed in an expression of deep admiration. “I
like
it. The skinny bitch drowns in Hymie’s hash and eggs.” Then he scratched his head. “But how are you gonna make him puke?”