New Title 1 (47 page)

“I’ll
bet
it did, fella, I’ll
bet
it did,” and then Helton rendered assistance in positioning the awkward machine properly. Its pivot left the grind-wheel several inches over Sung’s face.

Sung shrieked prayers in Korean.

“Hey.” Paulie tapped Sung’s shoulder with a shoe-tip. “Where’s that guy think’s he’s Scarface?”

“I dron’t know, Prawlie! Ree haven’t sreen him all day! I’m not rying!”

Paulie contemplated the response. “Argi?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Start ‘er up.”

A cord was yanked, then the 5-horse-power engine came to chugging life. Argi grasped the guide bars, jiggling from the vibration. He squeezed the throttle on the handle several times, like some asshole showing off on a motorcycle.

Sung screamed so loud he could actually be heard over the motor’s terrifying din. At high-rev, the machine sounded like a chainsaw…

…only worse.

Then the throttle receded.

“Where’s the Scarface guy?” Paulie demanded. “What’s his name? Menudo?”

“Menduez, boss,” Argi corrected.

“Right. Where is he?”

As the grind-wheel blurred only inches from Sung’s face, his eyes seemed larger than his sockets. “Prawlie, I srare to Grod! I don’t know! And ree never kill no puppies! It was him! Only him!”

Paulie winced, pinching his chin. “What you guys think? You think he’s lying?”

Helton shook his head. “I gotta tell ya, Paulie. My backwoods instinct tell me he’s tellin’ it right.”

“Yeah, boss,” Argi said. “If he knew? He’d’ve given it up by now.”

Paulie reflected on a long pause, then said, “Yeah, you guys are right. This kid don’t know nothin’, but ya know what?”

“What’s that, boss?”

“My grandfather, Vinch the Eye—God rest his soul—”

Paulie and Argi crossed themselves.

“—my grandfather fought the Japanese in World War Two, so I say…GRIND HIM ANYWAY!”

“But I’m Ko-WEE-aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!” Sung bellowed and the engine revved and the grind-wheel lowered and in half-inch increments Sung’s face, then most of his head was spectacularly milled away into near nothingness. Particulated flesh, bone, blood, and brain sprayed outward in a great plume of gore, like sloppy joe in a snow-blower. The brainy mush fired ten feet across the room.

When the deed was done, only a rind of Sung’s head remained.

Helton’s brow arched. “Ya know, Paulie, you’n me got some hign’n mighty differences ta settle but with alls’a that, I gotta say…there ain’t no foolin’ around with you fellas. That grinder does a
dandy
job.”

“Yeah, it does, don’t it? And it does a great job on medium-width tree stumps too.”

“Ya don’t say?”

“Now it’s Superfly’s turn,” Paulie said. “Helton, how ’bout draggin’ him over here?” but all at once, they all looked to the corner where the barely conscious form of Case Piece had been deposited…

“Well ain’t
that
a kick in the dick!” Helton exclaimed.

Case Piece was gone, quite like a character in a novel set up to die but then the irresponsible author, at the last minute, foresaw use for that character in a future project…

“Shit, boss,” Argi remarked. “We were havin’ such a good time grindin’
this
guy, we took our eyes off of the other one.”

“Well,” Helton stepped right up. “I’ll’se have ta assume responser-bility. Guess that knuckle shampoo weren’t as hard as I thought.”

“Aw, forget it. He don’t count for shit,” Paulie said. “It’s that other one I want, and I want him
bad—
”

“This be who you’re talkin’ ’bout?” a confident voice piped up. Dumar pushed in a wheelbarrow filled with one absolutely terrified short-haired Hispanic male wearing a t-shirt featuring Al Pacino with an M-16. His wrists and ankles were expertly tied (the Hispanic’s, not Pacino’s).

“There he is,” Paulie chortled.

“What diss chit, mang?” Menduez tried but failed to act like he didn’t know what was going on. “I work for chew, mang!

“Not no more,”Paulie said. “You been torturin’ puppies, and we happen to
like
puppies. So we’re gonna torture
you.
”

Menduez glared, tremoring amid his bonds. “I dint kill no puppies, mang! Dat was Case Piece!”

“Yeah, yeah,” and then Paulie gestured Dumar after which the latter upended the wheelbarrow and dumped Menduez on the floor. At once, Helton and Argi walked the grinder over and positioned it above the Hispanic’s face.

“Chew got diss all wrong, mang!” Menduez pleaded.

Paulie leaned over and bellowed, “We just saw you on the fuckin’ tv stealin’ a puppy! The cops got you on video!”

“Aw, no, no, mang. Chore, I steal duh puppy but only ’cos Case Piece make me. Said he kick me out of duh fockin’ gang, mang! It was Case Piece, mang! He duh one dat kill duh puppies!”

Paulie’s shoe continued to tap. “What do you think, guys? Helton? What’s that backwoods instinct tellin’ ya?”

Helton chuckled. “Paulie, that fella there? He’s lyin’ like a tramp in a flop-house, yessir.”

Argi was nodding. “Shit, boss, he just gave six of the seventeen signs sure as shit. Worst liar I ever saw.”

“No, mang!” Menduez pleaded. “Chew got to believe me!”

Paulie grinned. “Grind him…”

Argi yanked the cord and revved the machine. Menduez screamed. The grind-wheel began to lower, and a wet spot appeared at the Hispanic’s crotch.

But Helton quickly whispered something to Paulie, then the don yelled.

“Argi, don’t grind him!”

“Don’t grind him, boss?”

“Don’t grind him.”

Argi turned the grinder off.

“Helton’s right,” Paulie averred. “Grindin’? It’s too
good
for this piece of shit. Too fast, ya know? So Helton suggested we do a Melda job on him.”

“
Great
idea!” Argi said.

“This fucker needs to die
slow…
”

Helton, Dumar, and Argi hoisted the trussed man and carried him out.

When the Winnebago door banged open, Dr. Prouty’s solitaire cards flew up in the air.

“Come on, Doc. We got the dog killer,” Paulie said in an antsy anticipation. “Get Melda ready.”

The doctor stalled. “Um, sir, perhaps you’ve forgotten in all the entails of the day but…Melda’s
dead.
”

Paulie shot the former plastic surgeon a look like someone with lemon juice in their mouth. “Doc, listen to what’cher sayin’.
So what
if she’s dead? Dead or alive, she’s still got a giant pussy, don’t she?”

Prouty fumbled. “Er, uh, why, yes, of course, sir.”

“So come on! Lube this scumbag
up!
”

With obvious distaste, Dr. Prouty covered the Hispanic’s head with more spoiling I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter; then all involved repaired to the back compartment.

“Jiminy!” Helton said. “That there’s some powerhouse funk!”

“Shore is,” Dumar said but then gulped when his eyes trained on the massive rice-paper-white corpse piled on the bench. By now, post-mortal lividity had purpled the gargantuan woman’s feet, hands, buttocks, and the bottoms of the depending sacks of flesh that were her breasts.

Menduez screamed when he got his first look. “What-what..what chew do, mang?”

“You’ll see, Pedro. Helton, how about pulling one leg up and Dumar can grab the other. Just pull her knees all the way back for a good cunt shot.”

This done, the abyssal maw
gaped,
and then all the men howled when an appalling release of vaginal gas escaped.

Helton fanned his face. “A gal cunt-fartin’s one thing, but a
dead
gal cunt-fartin’?”

“Sheee-IT!” Dumar guffawed.

“This is some party, huh, Paulie!” Helton laughed.

“Oh, this party’s just gettin’ started. Argi?”

Menduez screamed and screamed when the two mafiosos plugged Menduez’s shuddering head into Melda’s dead vagina. “Doc, tell us when a minute’s up.”

“Of course, Mr. Vinchetti.”

The doctor’s watch ticked. Helton and Dumar looked on in astonishment. Menduez convulsed.

“A minute has expired, sir.”

WHAP!

 
Paulie rammed his fist into Menduez’s crotch; the Hispanic’s suffocating scream could be heard even with his head deep in the cadaver’s birth canal.

“Pull him out,” Paulie directed, and they did.

Menduez
vibrated
on the floor, heaving in his first breath, but then—

WHAP!

—Paulie rammed his fist into the young man’s solar plexus, robbing him of all air.

“Back in!”

Amid a nauseous
schucking
sound, Melda’s dead vagina re-swallowed the Hispanic’s head.

“Gawd
dang,
Paw,” Dumar remarked. “This shore is some heavy-duty ruckin’!”

“That it is, son. Hope it’s a lesson to the fella.”

“We smotherin’ him now, boss?” Argi asked.

The two mafiosos shoved the head up
hard.
“Naw, not yet. I wanna have some
fun
with this one.”

They pulled the head out, then pushed it in, pulled it out, pushed it in…several times in a row.

“Longer this time,” and—
schhhhhluck!
—the head was re-admitted as the most horrendous odors were pumped from the vagina.

“Don’t know what she smells worse than, Paw,” Dumar laughed. “The gut-can at Hack Doobler’s butcher shop or the pit Charlie Fuchson’s uses to git rid’a his cows that die.”

“This gal’s pussy, son, I’d say smells
worse
that
both
them things.”

More muffled screams could be heard from the corpulent mass. Menduez began to enter death-throes.

“Look’s like he’s kickin’, boss.”

“Yeah, and I hope all them puppies he killed are waitin’ for him in hell.”

But, again, Helton whispered something in Paulie’s ear.

“Shit! Yeah!” the don exclaimed. “Argi, pull him out!”

“Pull him
out,
boss?”

“Pull him out! I want him alive!”

schhhhhhhhhhhhluck-THUMP…

Menduez’s head was extracted. The young man lay motionless now, eyes seared open by unmitigated, unutterable, and indefatigable organic horror.

“Aw, shit, he ain’t dead, is he?” Paulie complained.