Bad Men

Jack bit his lip, then nodded. “Okay, we can try. This all your stuff?”

“It’s all that I had time to pack.”

Jack took a bag in each hand, then kicked the knapsack and said: “You’d best look after that yourself.”

They entered the living room, Jack leading. Marianne was so close behind him when the shot came that Jack’s blood hit her in the face before he fell to the floor. There was a wound at his shoulder. He clutched it with his hand, his teeth clenched as he trembled and began to go into shock. Danny awoke and started crying loudly, but she could not go to him. She could not move.

All that she could do was stare impotently at her husband, even as Dexter frisked her and took the gun from her coat. He raised it so that Moloch could see it.

Moloch grinned.

“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just not happy to see me?” Moloch asked.

He stepped closer to her and struck her hard with his right hand, sending her sprawling on a rug. She lay still for a moment, then crawled across the floor to Danny and gathered him in her arms.

“You’d better make that last,” said Moloch. “You don’t have much time left together.”

Moloch stared at his reflection in the painting, his face seeming to hang suspended above the dark waves that the old man had painted, the twin arms of the outcrops like horns erupting from his head, almost touching above his hair. He moved on to the next, a watercolor filled with blues and greens, before returning to the first. The waves in this version were very dark, almost black, white peaks breaking through, like the pale bodies of drowning men. A sliver of moonlight cast a weak silver glow across the skies above. There were no stars.

“I like this one,” he said.

Jack, seated on the floor, his hands bound before him with a length of clothesline, peered up at the intruder. He was deathly pale, apart from a smear of blood across his cheek. In the murk of the room, the blood appeared black against the pallor of his face, creating a strange resemblance between the artist and the work of art before which Moloch now stood.

“You go away and you can have it for free,” said Jack.

Moloch’s mouth twitched, the only sign he gave that he might be enjoying the joke.

“Something I’ve learned,” he said. “You get nothing for free in this life. Although I can say, with some certainty, that if you fuck with me, money is never likely to be a worry for you again.”

Dexter stood behind the couch. The appearance of the woman and the money seemed to have concentrated Moloch’s mind some. He was no longer rambling. Dexter began to experience a faint hope that they might somehow get out of this alive. His hand rested on the back of Danny’s neck in what might have been almost a protective way, were it not for the fact that the tips of his fingers were digging painfully into the boy’s skin, almost cupping his spine.

“Make him stop,” said Marianne. “He’s your son. Make him stop hurting him.”

Moloch walked toward the boy, who attempted to shrink back but found himself anchored to the spot by the force of Dexter’s hand. Moloch reached out and touched the back of his hand to the boy’s cheek.

“You’re cold,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll catch your death.”

He glanced at Marianne.

“He doesn’t look much like me. You sure he’s mine? Maybe he’s something that you and that dyke bitch cooked up between you with a turkey baster. She’s dead, by the way, but I suspect you knew that already.”

Marianne’s eyes blinked closed. She bit her lip to try to keep from crying.

“Actually, I got to tell you that a lot of people are dead because of you. Your sister, her husband, fuck knows how many people on this island, all because you were a greedy bitch who screwed over her own husband. You try that out for size, see how it fits on your conscience.”

He turned to Dexter.

“How long have we been here?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“We can’t afford to wait any longer for the others, but now that we have a boat a little closer to home”-Moloch kicked Jack’s leg, causing the old man to flinch-“it looks like I have some time to kill, in a manner of speaking.”

He reached out to Marianne, lifted her up by the arm, and started to guide her toward the bedroom. Danny tried to hold on to her, but Dexter’s hand kept him rooted to the couch.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to see you again,” he whispered. He grabbed her left breast and squeezed it painfully. “Look upon this as a conjugal visit.”

Marianne tried to pull away from him. Instead he thrust her forward, sending her staggering into the hallway.

“There was a time,” said Moloch, “when you used to beg me for what I’m about to give you.” He pushed her against the wall, the length of his body pressed hard against her, and clasped her cheeks in his hands, forcing her mouth into the shape of a kiss. He composed his own features into an expression of sadness.

“Maybe you’ve just forgotten the good times,” he said. “You know, I can promise you that in all the years we’ve spent apart, I’ve never been with another woman.”