“How’d you girls like to come home with a real man?” he asked.
He received a few whimpers by way of response, and a redhead (natural, he noted with no small satisfaction) pointlessly tried to explain that if Greg didn’t call the police, Sammy was going to murder them all.
“Oh, well, that changes everything,” Greg replied and laughed.
The protesting began anew.
Von winced. “What’s the point of stealing ‘em off the streets and raping ‘em if you’re just gonna let ‘em nag like free women, Sammy? And why do you got her gagged when she should be calling Rochester and telling him to grab his checkbook?”
Sammy finally looked away from Angelique. “Don’t tell me you bought her story.”
“What do you mean?” Greg asked, then added, “Hey, Sammy, this girl ain’t got no butthole.”
“I mean think about it. Rochester’s her boyfriend? Then why does he go to the Electra Complex and pay her forty bucks to hum him?”
Von frowned. “That’s a good point. Hell, I wouldn’t waste any of my money if I already had the prize. Wait a minute . . . did you say that girl didn’t have a butthole?” He walked over to Greg, who was crouched beneath Mary Jane Turner’s derriere. They both appraised the stringy crevice left over from Sammy’s impromptu surgery like art aficionados in a museum.
“Impressive,” Greg surmised.
“I’ve seen half dollars that were less rounded,” Von said.
Sammy beamed proudly.
“Hey, speaking of, how’s that girl supposed to smoke with her asshole if we got her strapped down to that chair?” Greg asked.
Sammy sighed. “Will you give that up? It’s not going to happen. Ever.”
Greg sulked. “Well, that’s just great.”
“Cheer up. I’ll find you a napkin before you go . . . make her do lipstick blots on it with her butt for you. Does that sound good to you?”
Greg grinned. “Best deal I had since Christmas.”
“Hey, I want one too,” Von said.
“Lipstick blots for all,” Sammy affirmed.
“Hell, we don’t have even a cigarette anyway,” Greg pointed out.
“Anyway, it’s not like you won’t have your pick of butthole smokers when you get that cash,” Von said.
“Oh, come on, Von!” Sammy shook his head. “Did you forget what we were just talking about? You know, you boys have a one track mind when it comes to ass . . . anyone’s. I’m starting to worry about you. And she’d say anything to save hers right about now, don’t you think? You got a better chance of Santy Clause giving you that money. Let’s hear what other tall tales she’s got bouncing around in her dicksucker, though . . . we’ll liven up the night.”
Sammy ripped the tape off Angelique’s lips.
“You don’t understand Rochester,” she gasped. “He’s really sick in the head. He gets off on paying me in the Vacuum. That’s his kink, man! If he wasn’t paying for it in a place like that, he wouldn’t even care! He enjoys feeling like a pervert, like pure scum!”
“Well, I’m here to tell you the appeal of that wears off after about twenty-eight years,” Von informed her. “There really ain’t a whole hell of a lot of dignity left for me in pocket pussies and Rhonda Ream-Job dolls.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Sammy interjected, casting a wary eye toward Von, “but I definitely would have bought stock in motion lotion if I’d known I was going to wrack up so many solo frequent flyer miles.”
“Damn, Sammy . . . why the hell are you jackin’ down so much when you’ve got all these hot twats on tap down here?” Greg asked. “I don’t get that at all.”
“Unless ‘hot twats on tap’ is the answer why,” Von speculated.
Sammy shrugged. “Sometimes if you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself, especially when you can’t pay to have it done. Which brings us back to the subject at hand.”
“Let’s give her a chance to prove herself,” Von suggested. “It won’t hurt anything if she’s lying . . . except her, of course. Look at it this way, Angelique—you’ll be saving lives. Most importantly your own. Do you think if we could afford to get laid that we’d be settling for deadhead fellatio?”
Angelique recoiled. “You’re getting it from . . . dead heads? I only charge forty bucks at the Vacuum!”
Sammy shrugged again. “A machete only costs fourteen bucks. Comes with a sheath, too.”
“You know how to get in touch with Rochester?” Von asked her.
“I have his cell phone number.”
“Okay, so you’ll call him and outline our terms. And don’t try to tell him anything besides that.”
“Yeah,” Sammy added sarcastically, “definitely don’t use your pre-arranged code phrase for ‘I’m being held ransom in a basement with a bunch of naked women, including one with five extra vaginas and another with no asshole.’” Sammy gave Von a disgusted look.
“It pays to be careful,” Von said defensively. “Why take the risk?”
“Why indeed? I’ll make the call myself.” He turned to Angelique. “If it’s a wrong number, I’m going to work on you with a circular saw and iodized salt. This is your last chance to pull out.” As if the same thing wouldn’t happen to her regardless.
Angelique held her silence and only gulped audibly. If she’d known that amputation would only be the beginning of his overtures, the sound of her ass puckering up would have been audible through a bank vault. Sammy would never let someone die in such a passé fashion. For one, he would have mounted her as she lay there gushing blood from stumps at her elbows and knees, wallowing like a sea lion. He’d probably find the passage a bit dry, as sheer terror often had that effect on them, so he’d opt for plan B: the mouth. At this stage they generally thought they didn’t have anything to lose, so biting would be their predictable attempt at a pathetic vengeance. That’s when they found out they did have something left to lose, after all. Thirty-two somethings, as a matter of fact (if they’d brushed regularly). When the pliers came out, they’d do something Sammy wouldn’t have believed possible of women if he hadn’t seen it himself—they’d shut their mouths. Of course they’d eventually have to open them when Sammy pinched their nostrils shut, and then he’d prove a notorious adage—sometimes you really have to pull teeth if you want a woman to give you head. It took awhile to complete the excavation, and it wasn’t too pretty to look at with all the gaps in their gums and a few dangling nerves besides, but it didn’t take half the oxygen it would to blow up one of those dolls Von mentioned. He’d be soaked in blood like a newborn baby when he pulled out, but it wasn’t that much different than laying down pipe in a girl during her monthlies. They wouldn’t just bleed to death as Sammy poked and prodded for his standard thirty seconds, because he could tie off their severed arteries. Life assured that much longer, he’d been known to give the girls a hand—their own. One thrust between the legs, the other up the ass. Most would hemorrhage in the process of this internal handshake, but as they say, getting there is half the fun.
Naturally this wasn’t his only option. He could do Angelique like Erica Granger (found 04/09/2002 under a NO DUMPING sign . . . and also throughout an elementary school playground and in a dumpster outside the police station). He’d raided his father’s tackle box and fished out a few of those red and yellow plastic balls that bob in the lake when you get a bite. He’d secured several bait hooks to them with the help of adhesive so potent it would have removed his skin if he’d got any on his hands, and then strung the balls with fishing line.