The Face

you certain deeply puzzling entomological details related to the victims of a serial killer operating throughout the Midwest.”
        [179] “Huh? Why would they think that?”
        “I have a source for excellent forged documents.”
        Roman boggled. “You?”
        “Frequently, it’s advisable for me to carry first-rate false identification.”
        “Are you delusional or merely stupid?”
        “As I’ve explained previously, I’m not just an effete professor who gets a thrill from hanging out with anarchists.”
        “Yeah, right,” Roman said scornfully.
        “I promote anarchy at every opportunity in my daily life, often at the risk of arrest and imprisonment.”
        “You’re a regular Che Guevara.”
        “Many of my operations are as clever and shocking as they are unconventional. You didn’t think I wanted those ten foreskins just for some sick personal use, did you?”
        “Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. When we met at that boring university mixer, you seemed like the grand pooh-bah of the demented, a moral and mental mutant of classic proportions.”
        “Coming from a Satanist,” Corky said with a smile, “that could be taken as a compliment.”
        “It’s not meant as one,” Roman replied impatiently, angrily.
        At his best, groomed and togged and breath-freshened for serious socializing, Castevet was an unattractive man. Anger made him uglier than usual.
        Slat-thin, all bony hips and elbows and sharp shoulders, with an Adam’s apple more prominent than his nose and with a nose sharper than any Corky had ever seen on another member of the human species, with gaunt cheeks and with a fleshless chin that resembled the knob of a femur, Roman appeared to have a serious eating disorder.
        Every time that he met Castevet’s bird-keen, reptile-intense eyes, however, and whenever he caught the pathologist, for no apparent reason, sensuously licking his lips, which were the only ripe feature [180] of that scarecrow face and form, Corky suspected that a fearsome erotic need spun the wheels of the man’s metabolism almost fast enough to cause smoke to issue from various orifices. Had there been a betting pool regarding the average number of calories that Roman burned up every day in obsessive self-abuse alone, Corky would have wagered heavily on at least three thousand-and he would no doubt have ensured a comfortable retirement with his winnings.
        “Well, whatever you think of me,” Corky said, “nevertheless, I would like to place an order for another ten foreskins.”
        “Hey, get it through your head-I’m not doing business with you anymore. You’re reckless, coming here like this.”
        Partly as a profitable sideline, but also partly from a sense of religious duty and as an expression of his abiding faith in the King of Hell, Roman Castevet provided-only from cadavers-selected body parts, internal organs, blood, malignant tumors, occasionally even entire brains to other Satanists. His customers, other than Corky, had both a theological and a practical interest in arcane rituals designed to petition His Satanic Majesty for special favors or to summon actual demons out of the fiery pit. Frequently, after all, the most essential ingredients in a black-magic formula could not be purchased at the nearest Wal-Mart.
        “You’re overreacting,” Corky said.
        “I’m not overreacting. You’re imprudent, you’re foolhardy.”
         “Foolhardy?” Corky smiled, nearly laughed. “All of a sudden you seem awfully prissy for a man who believes plunder, torture, rape, and murder will be rewarded in the afterlife.”
        “Lower your voice,” Roman demanded in a fierce whisper, though Corky had continued to speak in a pleasant conversational tone. “If somebody finds you here with me, it could mean my job.”
        “Not at all. I’m a visiting pathologist from Indianapolis, and we’re discussing your current manpower shortage and this deplorable backlog of unidentified cadavers.”
        [181] “You’ll ruin me,” Roman moaned.
        “All I’ve come here to do,” Corky lied, “is to order ten more foreskins. I don’t expect you to collect them while I wait. I just placed the order in person because I thought it would give you a chuckle.”
        Although Roman Castevet appeared too emaciated, too juiceless to produce tears, his feverish black eyes grew watery with