Edward Lee - Grimoire Diabolique

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?”