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.”