Von frowned. “How do you know she wasn’t already pregnant?”
Sammy paused. “You know, I didn’t even really consider that. She may have been carrying some stranger’s child, at that. Well, I sure am glad that worthless skank is dead now. Got what she deserved.”
“She’s dead?”
“They don’t make ‘em much deader. I was pounding away at her ass like a jackhammer, and then I hear this tearing sound, right? So I pull back and look down, and there’s this . . . Remember how the Play-Doh Factory had that thing where you cranked and all the stuff came out in four or five different clumps? It was like that, it just started oozing out of her and dropping on my lap. Kind of lukewarm. And I was thinking this was all a bit tragic cuz it was my kid—or at least I thought so at the time—o I tried to do the gentlemanly thing and hurry up and finish my nut, right? But she wasn’t making it easy on me. All that thrashing around and resisting—hell, it’s probably what cost her the little bastard in the first place. It was messed up, though, ‘cause it was like every time I sent the battering ram home, more of that shit would squeeze out. To make a long story short, I went off, she went out, and the rest went in a Tupperware bowl to be served to—” He paused here, as though stopping himself from saying more than he intended. “For a special occasion.”
Von caught the subterfuge. “Let’s talk more about the noises in the attic.”
“Yeah!” Greg echoed. “You got cops up there, waiting for us to make our ransom demand?”
“Yes, Greg, that’s precisely it. With a basement practically wallpapered in women I’ve raped, tortured, and killed over the past seven years, the police couldn’t wait to use me to put you two crime lords out of commission. I’m getting a key to the city after your trial.”
“Hey, wait, let’s calm down a second, guys,” Von said. “Can’t you see this whole dick caper thing is tearing us apart? This should be one of the happiest nights of our lives.”
“Von’s right,” Greg said. “This is getting out of hand. I didn’t really believe you had cops up there, Sammy. Sorry.”
Von hoped he hadn’t truly believed it, but he had his doubts. There was something more important than that, though. “And now that we’ve established that no one is trying to short-change no one else, what can you tell us about the attic, Sammy?” he asked.
“I can tell you you’ll never see the inside of it if you don’t make that phone call. Wait a second, though.” He left the kitchen and returned a moment later with a cell phone. “Last one I grabbed had this on her, probably so she could call someone in the event of an emergency. Looks like she wasted her money, wouldn’t you say?”
“It still works?”
Sammy handed it to Von, who saw the display was indeed lit up. “Hey, speaking of the recently abducted, we’ve got a present for you in the trunk, Sammy. Assuming she hasn’t suffocated.”
“Same thing happens to her either way,” Sammy assured him. “She can wait.”
Von punched in the Rochesters’ number. “You boys ready to become millionaires?”
Greg looked more like he was ready to puke, but gave a thumbs up anyway.
Celia Rochester answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Good evening, Mrs. Rochester. Have you heard from your husband recently?”
“Do you know what time it is? If you’re trying to sell me something, it’s against the law to call this la—”
“Ma’am, I’m not trying to take your mon …” Von stopped short. “I mean, I haven’t broke the law …” He stopped short again. “Look, this probably isn’t what you think it is.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is still the same. He’s not here. He’s away on business.”
Von laughed. “Is that what he told you? I regret to inform you he was actually seen in the company of cheap women this evening at a local establishment called the Electra Complex.”
Her voice turned hard. “Was he indeed?”
“Yes, ma’am, and—”
“That son of a bitch! That depraved, immoral, perverted little son of a bitch! He promised me never again!”
Her voice was now loud enough that Greg and Sammy could hear her clearly. Von held the receiver away from his head.
“Well, ma’am, I—”
“If he was here right now, you know what I’d do?”
“No, but—”
“I’d take a meat cleaver and chop him off. I’d dice his little cock into shish-kebab, that bastard—”
“In that case, I have some good news for you, ma’am. You see, we already took care of that for you.”
“You diced it into shish-kebab?”
“Well, not exactly. It’s still in one piece—” Here Von crossed his fingers. “—and if your husband wants it back, he’s gonna have to pay us.”
“Oh, he’s not getting it back,” she replied firmly. “He can spend the rest of his life pissing through a plastic tube for all I care.”
The three men shared a look of absolute horror—not at the prospect of Edward Rochester pissing through a plastic tube for the rest of his life, but the increasing likelihood that there wasn’t going to be any ransom payment.
“Wait, listen, the women really weren’t that cheap, and he wasn’t even buying lap dances, I swear!”
“Nice try, but I’m not going to be stupid about trusting my husband anymore.”
“Okay, but what about compensation?”
“I’m not reporting you to the police. That’s my final offer.”
“We want our jillion dollars, you bitch!”
She hung up on him with an efficient little click.
“Well, Von, you ready to go buy that yacht now? Hell, let’s go jet-setting,” Sammy suggested, for once not enjoying his own sarcasm.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Von shouted.
“Wasn’t it? All you had to do was say, ‘Look, I cut off your husband’s tool, and it’ll cost you three million dollars to get it back so they can reattach it.’ The way you did it, you may as well have said, ‘Hey, your husband just raped a bunch of preschoolers after firebombing six hundred sixty-six churches and performing analingus on your mother’s rotting cadaver, and by the way, how much will you pay to get back this penis I ripped from him?’ If someone said they’d kidnapped your girlfriend while she was out slobbing knobs for a five-spot on Seymour and Laymon, would you pay up?”
Von, who’d never actually had a girlfriend—not a willing one, at least—said nothing. He slammed the phone on the counter and curled his arm around the Tupperware bowl, almost protectively. He looked at the spoon, remembered its origin, and raised the bowl to his lips. He supped from it like it was the last of the milk in a cereal bowl.
“So you mean to say we ain’t gettin’ one red cent for what we’ve done tonight?” Greg asked.
“That’s what I mean,” Sammy clarified.
“You mean I had to put that guy’s . . . that guy’s thing in my mouth, and swallow it for nothin’?” Greg couldn’t have looked more outraged if Movie Heaven stopped renting out Gaping Anus.
“Yep,” Sammy agreed. “The eternal plight of women everywhere.”
“Well, that’s just low down as anything.” He sulked, miserable at the idea that they probably would be shopping for yachts right now if Von had just read his script.