Grimoire Diabolique

“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’.”