Bad Men

He paused beside her. She thought of the interview she would have to endure, the questions asked at the casino, the face of her boss as he told her that she wouldn’t have to come in Monday, wouldn’t have to come back ever, sorry, you know how it is.

“No,” she said. “Let’s go.”

He walked with her for a block or two, then hailed a cab. He dropped her off at the door of her apartment, but declined her invitation to come up.

“Maybe I’ll see you again?” he said.

She wrote her number on the back of a store receipt and handed it to him.

“Sure, I’d like that. I didn’t get your name?”

“My name is Edward.”

“Thank you, Edward.”

Once she was safely inside, the cab pulled away from the curb. She closed the door, leaned against it, and at last allowed herself to cry.

The guy’s name was Otis Barger. Moloch read it out loud from his driver’s license. Otis was from Anniston, Alabama.

“You’re a long way from home, Otis.”

Barger didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. His hands and feet were bound with wire taken from the trunk of Moloch’s car, and there was tape over his mouth. One eye was swollen shut, and there was blood on his cheek. His right foot was curled inward at an unnatural angle, broken by the heel of Moloch’s boot to ensure that he didn’t try to crawl away while Moloch took the woman back to her apartment. He was lying on the garbage bags where, only twenty minutes earlier, Marianne had lain as he prepared to rape her.

Moloch drew a photograph from Barger’s wallet. It showed a dark-haired woman-not pretty, not ugly-and a smiling, dark-haired boy.

“Your wife and child?”

Barger nodded.

“You still together?”

Again, Barger nodded.

“She deserves better. I’ve never met her, but that woman would have to be hell’s own whore to deserve you. You think she’ll miss you when you’re gone?”

This time Barger didn’t nod, but his eyes grew wide.

Moloch kicked at the wounded ankle and Barger screamed behind his gag.

“I asked you a question. You think she’ll miss you?”

Barger nodded for the third time. Moloch raised the leg of his pants and drew the pistol from the ankle holster. He looked around, kicking at the garbage until he found a discarded chair cushion. He walked to where Barger lay, then squatted down beside him.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “What was it you called that lady you tried to rape? Bitch? That was what you called her, wasn’t it?”

He slapped Barger hard across the head.

“Wasn’t it?”

Barger nodded for the fourth, and final, time.

“Well,” said Moloch. “She’s my bitch now.”

Then he placed the cushion against Barger’s head, pushed the muzzle of the gun into the fabric, and pulled the trigger.

Marianne knew nothing of this, although, as the years went by, she thought often of that night and wondered what had become of the man in the alley. Moloch would say only that he had beaten him and told him to get out of town. Since he was never seen in Biloxi again, she assumed that was the truth.

Except-

Except that during their years together, most of them spent in a little house in Danville, Virginia, she had grown increasingly fearful of this man: of his mood swings, of his intelligence, of his capacity for cruelty to her. He knew where to hit her so that it hurt most and bruised least. He knew places on her body where the mere pressure of his fingers was enough to make her scream. There was money, for he always had money, but he gave her only enough to feed their little family of three, for a son had been born to them during that terrible second year. She was required to produce receipts for everything, and every penny had to be accounted for, just as every moment of her day had to be described and justified.

It had begun almost as soon as they were married. It seemed to her that the marriage license was all that he wanted. He had wooed her, made promises to her, provided them with a house to live in. She had given up the job in Biloxi two weeks before the wedding, and he had told her not to take on anything else for a time, that they would travel, try to see a little of this great country. They had a short honeymoon in Mexico, blighted by bad weather and Moloch’s moods, but the proposed road trip never materialized. She quickly learned not to mention it, for at best he would mutter and tell her that he was too busy, while at other times he would hold her face, beginning with a caress but gradually increasing his grip until his thumb and forefinger forced her mouth open, and just when the pain began to bring tears to her eyes he would kiss her and release her.

“Another time,” he would say. “Another time.” And she did not know if he was referring to the trip, or to some promised treat for himself.

The first time he hurt her badly was when he came home from a “business meeting” in Tennessee, less than a year into their marriage. She told him that she had found a job for herself in a bookstore. It was only two afternoons each week, and all day Saturday, but it would get her out of the house. You see-

“I don’t want you working,” he said.