Bullet Through Your Face (improved format) (15 page)

“I can’t even sleep anymore. I can
hear
him down there. He
jabbers all night long.”
This in fact was true. Even from the basement, Gormok could
be heard mattering inanities in arcane languages, and bubbling nasal
laughter.
Well, maybe if you fucked him a little better, he’d simmer
down
, Rudy thought.
Ain’t my fault you’re a dull fuck
.
Suck his big
dick harder—try that, bitch. Suck his ass—that’ll keep him happy.
Beth sat on the bed and began to cry.
“Sweetheart,” Rudy offered a phony consolation. “Don’t cry.”
“You said we’d get married,” she sobbed. “You said we’d have
children.”
“Honey, we will.”
“When, Rudy? I need to know when.”
“Soon, I promise.” He stroked her hair, kissed her teary cheeks.
“I’ve got a plan,” he whispered. “The race track, the ball games and all that? That’s smalltime.”
“What are you talking about?” she sniffled.
Rudy
reached into the night stand. “See this? It’ll set us up for life in no
time, honey.” What he showed her was the NASDAQ Index
of
The Wall Street Journal
. “We’ll be
millionaires,
Beth. And then, I
promise you, we’ll get married and have kids just like we planned.”

“I promise,” he reasserted. “But you’ve got to give this just a
little more time. Okay?”
Beth’s sobs began to abate.
“Honey? Okay?”
“Okay,” she croaked.
“Oh, Bethieeeeeeeee!” shot the voice from below. “Come hither,
please!”

Within a few months they’d moved out of the A-frame in favor of a
waterfront estate. The his and hers Mustangs were replaced by his
and hers Lamborghini Diablos. Rudy merely had Gormok perform a
few divinations, then laid his money down at a broker’s. It didn’t take
long. Blue Chip stocks. Municipal bonds. T-Bills. Not to mention
the thirty-million in 6-month CD’s
_.
Even in the highest federal and
state tax-brackets, Rudy had enough to keep them pig-shit rich for
life. And that bevy of call-girls? Well, now they were
his
girls. He
had thirty of them, one for each day of the month, and he put them
all up in luxury condos he paid for in cash. Things weren’t bad. No,
not bad at all.

And Rudy found a great solace in his calendar-month of bimbos;
they provided him the escape his psyche needed, the abstract
catharsis which relieved the entails of his complicated, high-stress
lifestyle. Plus they fucked good, which furthermore relieved the
hatred he now harbored wholesale for Beth. Rudy got lost in his women, and this banished the steady and
bothersome awareness
that his fiancé was impaling herself on a “bigger” man than he,
limblessness notwithstanding. Becky was his favorite, a slim, sultry
blonde, whose specialty was tongue-baths, which made Rudy a great
adherent of personal hygiene. Then there was Shanna, the full-tilt
brunette with a rack of tits you could use to drydock a Los
Angelesclass sub, and a welcome propensity for always asking Rudy to
enter
through the, uh, back door. And we mustn’t forget Chrissy—now
there
was a woman! She had looks that would make Jessica Alba
seriously consider suicide, not to mention a mouth that could suckstart a Ford Tri-Motor.

Yes, Rudy’s buxom recreational brigade all proved quite adroit
at helping him cope with his problems, to the extent that his only
real
problem was wondering just how much joy juice his vesicles
could manufacture. A man could only put out so much, but lo and
behold, his girls were always ready to prove that he was possessed of
an endless reservoir of love lava. And on those dread occasions when
he felt the old crane simply wouldn’t rise, his bevy of beauties were
always quick, by their sheer expertise to prove a grand synonymy
with Jesus—in that they could raise the dead. Rudy loved his women,
he
cherished
them. And whenever he grew sick of one, he simply
dumped her and found someone else. Just as there was no shortage
of beer in Bavaria, there was no shortage of beautiful women who
liked moolah. What a life!

In the meantime, Rudy urged Beth to research, as thoroughly as
possible, every aspect of Mesopotamian mythology, ancient ritualism,
pre-Christian divination, and the like. She even found one book
called
The Synod of the Alomancers
, and learned everything about
the Cenotes of Nergal, the Nashipus, the Ashipus, the ziggurats, and
all the intricacies of the regalia and the ritual. Rudy felt this necessary
in order to make Gormok feel more at home. He had contractors
make a mock temple out of the basement. He purchased real censers
and thuribles, standards and statues and murals etched with the holy glyphs. He even had a clothier make a special hooded black robe and
sash, identical to those worn by the ancient alomancers, which he
donned each time he asked Gormok The Talking Torso to perform
another divination. Rudy wanted the atmosphere to be right for his
dismembered bread-winner; he figured it was the least he could do.

On the other hand, though, Beth grew more and more sullen.
She rarely even spoke, not that Rudy was around much to talk to—
his harem kept him busy, when he wasn’t busy himself wheeling
and dealing at the broker’s. Beth became stoical, morose. Now, the
ludicrous head atop the diviner’s torso insisted she service him many
times a day, amid an array of kinky twists which were better left
undescribed.

It was funny, sometimes, how the universe worked. Rudy recalled
telling Beth once that there was never enough, but actually, now,
he found he was wrong. Already he was one of the richest men in
the country. What more did he need? So it
was
rather appropriate,
in a cosmic way, when Beth walked into his den one evening and
dropped the bombshell:

At
first Rudy felt enraged. “Pregnant! You’re shitting me! This
is a joke, right?”
“It’s no joke, Rudy. I’m pregnant.”
He gnashed his teeth and jumped up. “You mean you let that
goddamn horny torso
knock you up?
”
“I have to fuck him ten times a day,” she drily pointed out. “What
did you expect?”
“Well—well, goddamn it, Beth! I thought you were on the pill!”
“The pill isn’t foolproof, Rudy.”

Calm down, boy,
he induced himself.
Don’t panic
. “Yeah? Well,
it’s no problem. You’ll simply get an abortion.”
Her face looked carved in granite. “I’m not getting an abortion,
Rudy. I’m having this baby.”
“No. You’re not.” He opened and closed his fists, to quell his
rage. “You’re not going to have a kid by that
thing’s
spunk.”
“Thing?” Beth chuckled. “I thought he was
our man
. Forget it,
Rudy. I’m having this baby. You won’t give me one, so I’ll settle for
Gormok’s.”
You evil calculating bitch,
he thought.
You did this on purpose,
didn’t you? You went off the pill on purpose just to put me on the spot
.
“But I’m willing to make a deal,” she went on. “I will get an
abortion on two conditions. One, you make me pregnant, and two,
you kill Gormok.” Then she passed a small box to him. “Open it,”
she said.
Rudy opened the box to find it occupied by a Smith & Wesson
Model 65 .357 Magnum.
“You’ll do it right now, Rudy. No more lies. No more false
promises. You’ll dig a grave in the back yard. Right now. And then
you’ll take that silly thing outside and you’ll kill it. And I mean right
now.”
Rudy didn’t care for being dictated to, especially by a woman.
So she’s calling the shots now, huh? Beth the little Torso Fucker.
Well . . .
It was all he could do not to smile.
“All right,” he told her. “You’ve got a deal.”
Rudy found the shovel. Then he went out back,