Bad Men (2003) Read online

  “No-o-o,” she said. “Please don’t.”

  She looked to Bill for help, but the only help Bill could offer was to sell out his own wife.

  “She works late tonight.” The words came out in a rush. “Down at the mall.” He finished speaking and appeared about ready to retch at what he had just done.

  Moloch nodded. “What time does she finish?”

  Bill looked at the clock on the mantel.

  “About another hour.”

  Moloch looked at Dexter, who had paused by the doorway of the bedroom.

  “Well?” Moloch said. “What are you waiting for? You have an hour.”

  Dexter’s grin widened. He drew Jenna into the bedroom and closed the door softly behind him. Bill tried to move away from the wall, but the black woman’s gun was instantly buried in his cheek.

  “I told you,” said Bill. “I told you where she was.”

  “And I appreciate that, Billy boy,” said Moloch. “Now you just sit tight.”

  “Please,” said Bill. “Don’t let him do anything to her.”

  Moloch looked puzzled.

  “Why?” he asked. “It’s not as if she’s your wife.”

  Joe helped her put the glasses away.

  “I have to ask you something,” he said.

  She dried her hands.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s just—” He stopped, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “I have to know about the folks who come to the island. Like I said, it’s a small, close-knit community. Anything happens, then I need to know why it’s happening. You understand?”

  “Not really. Do you mean you want to know something about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Danny’s father.”

  “Danny’s father is dead. We split up when Danny was little, then his daddy died down in Florida someplace.”

  “What was his name?”

  She had prepared for this very moment. “His name was Server, Lee Server.”

  “You were married?”

  “No.”

  “When did he die?”

  “Fall of ninety-nine. There was a car accident outside Tampa.”

  That was true. A man named Lee Server had been killed when his pickup was hit by a delivery truck on the interstate. The newspaper reports had said that he had no surviving relatives. Server had been drinking, and the reports indicated that he had a string of previous DUIs. There weren’t too many people fighting for space by Lee Server’s graveside when they laid him down.

  “I had to ask,” said Joe.

  “Did you?”

  He didn’t reply, but the lines around his eyes and mouth appeared to deepen.

  “Look, if you want to back out of tomorrow night, I’ll understand.”

  She reached out and touched his arm.

  “Just tell me: were you asking with your cop’s hat on, or your prospective date’s hat on?”

  He blushed. “A little of both, I guess.”

  “Well, now you know. I still want to see you tomorrow. I’ve even taken my best dress out of mothballs.”

  He smiled, and she watched him walk to his car before she closed the door behind him. She let out a sigh and leaned back against the door.

  Dead.

  Her husband was dead.

  Maybe if she said it often enough, it might come true.

  Bill had curled himself into a ball against the wall, his hands over his ears to block out the noises coming from the bedroom. His eyes were squeezed tightly closed. Only the feel of the gun muzzle against his forehead forced him to open them again. Slowly, he took his hands away from his ears. There was now silence.

  It was a small mercy.

  “You’re a pitiful man,” said Moloch. “You let another man take your woman, and you don’t even put up a fight. How can you live with yourself?”

  Bill spoke. His voice was cracked, and he had to cough before he could complete a coherent sentence.

  “You’d have killed me.”

  “I’d have respected you. I might even have let you live.” He dangled the prospect of life before Bill, like a bad dog being taunted with the treat destined to be denied it.

  “How did you find me?”

  “If you’re going to run away, Bill, then you keep your head down and try not to fall into your old ways. But once a bad gambler, always a bad gambler. You took some hits, Bill, and then you found that you couldn’t pay back what you owed. That kind of mistake gets around.”

  Bill’s eyes closed again, briefly.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

  “Us,” corrected Moloch. “You know, Bill, I’m starting to think that you don’t really care about your wife, or that woman in the bedroom. What is her name, by the way?”

  “Jenna,” said Bill.

  Moloch seemed puzzled. “She doesn’t look like a Jenna. She’s kind of dirty for a Jenna. Still, if you say so, Bill. I’m not about to doubt your word on it. Now that we’ve rephrased the question to include your lady friend and your wife, we can proceed. I think you know what I want. You give it to me, and maybe we can work something out, you and I.”

  “I don’t know where your wife is.”

  “Where they are,” said Moloch. “Jesus, Bill, you only think in the singular. It’s a very irritating habit that you may not live long enough to break. She has my son, and my money.”

  “She hasn’t been in touch.”

  “Willard,” said Moloch.

  Willard’s bleak, lazy eyes floated toward the older man.

  “Break one of his fingers.”

  And Willard did.

  Joe Dupree checked in briefly with the station house. All was quiet, according to Tuttle. As soon as Berman returned, he’d turn in for an hour or two, he said, try to get some sleep.

  Dupree drove down unmarked roads, for most of the streets on the island were still without names. It took the cops who came over from the mainland a few years to really get to know the island, which was why those who took on island duty tended to stick with it for some time. You had to learn to always get a phone number when anyone called, because people still referred to houses by reference to their neighbors—even if those neighbors no longer lived there, or had died. You figured out landmarks, turnings, forks in the road, and used them as guides.

  Dupree returned again to thoughts of Marianne and her past. He had seen something in her eyes as she spoke of Danny’s father. She wasn’t telling him the truth, at least not the full truth. She had told him that she had not been married to Danny’s father, but he had watched as her hand seemed to drift unconsciously toward her ring finger. She had caught herself in time and tugged at one of her earrings instead, and Dupree had given no indication that he had noticed the gesture. So she didn’t want to talk about her husband with a policeman, even one with whom she had a date the following evening. Big deal. After all, she hardly knew him, and he had sensed her fear: fear both of her husband and of the implications of any disclosure that she might make about him. He was tempted to run a check on this Server guy, but decided against it. He wanted their date tomorrow to be untainted by his professional instincts. Perhaps, if they made this thing between them work, she would tell him everything in her own time.

  Dexter came out of the room just as Bill stopped screaming.

  “I’m glad you did that now, and not earlier,” he told Moloch. “You might have put me off my game.”

  Bill was crying again. His face was pale with shock.

  “You okay, Bill?” asked Moloch. He sounded genuinely concerned. “Nod if you’re okay, because when you’ve recovered, Willard can move on to the next finger. Unless, of course, you think you might have something more to tell us?”

  Bill was trembling. He looked up and saw the clock on the mantel over Moloch’s left shoulder.

  “Aw, shit,” he said. His eyes flicked toward the half-open bedroom door. He could see Jenna’s shadow moving against the wall as she tried t
o dress herself. Moloch watched him with amusement.

  “You worried about her coming back, maybe finding out about your little piece on the side? Answer me, Bill. I want to hear your voice. It’s impolite to nod. You nod at me again, or make me wait longer than two seconds for an answer, and I’ll have Willard here break something you have only one of.”

  “Yes,” croaked Bill. “I’m worried about her finding out.”

  “A more self-aware man might have realized by now that he had bigger problems to face than his wife discovering his affair. You are a remarkable man, Bill, in your capacity to blind yourself to the obvious. Now, where is my family?”

  “I told you, she hasn’t been in touch, not with me.”

  “Ah, now we’re making progress. If she hasn’t been talking to you—and I’ve got to be honest here, Bill, I’d prefer not to be talking to you either, so I can understand her point of view—then she has been talking to her sister, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re such a piece of shit, Bill, that even your own wife won’t tell you where her sister is.”

  “She doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “But you must know how they communicate?”

  “Phone, I guess.”

  “Where are your phone records?”

  “In the cabinet by the TV. There’s a file. But she never uses the house phone. I’ve looked.”

  “Does she receive mail?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where does she keep it?”

  “In a locked box in the bottom drawer of her nightstand.”

  Moloch nodded at Willard, and the boy went into the bedroom to search for the box.

  As he left the room, car headlights brightened the hallway, briefly illuminating their faces and casting fleeting shadows across the room. Leonie pressed the gun against Bill’s teeth, forcing him to open his mouth, then shoved the barrel inside.

  “Suck it,” she whispered. “I see your lips move from it and I’ll pull the trigger.”

  From the bedroom came the sound of sudden movement: Jenna was trying to make for the window to raise the alarm, Moloch guessed. Willard was too quick for her, and the movement ceased. Moloch heard the car door closing; footsteps on the path; the placing of the key in the lock; the door opening, then shutting again; the approach of the woman.

  She stepped into the living room. She was older than he remembered her as being, but then it had been more than five years since they had last met. In the interim, Moloch had been betrayed and they had run, scattering themselves to the four winds, inventing new lives for themselves. Even with Moloch behind bars, they remained fearful of reprisals.

  Patricia had long, lush hair like her younger sister’s, but there was more gray in it. She wasn’t as pretty, either, and had always looked kind of worn down, but that was probably a consequence of being married to an asshole like Bill. Moloch, who didn’t care much either way, still wondered why she had stayed with him. Maybe, after all the fear, she needed someone even semireliable to stand beside her.

  Patricia took in her husband, huddled on the floor, the woman’s gun in his mouth; Dexter, his shirt still untucked; Braun, an open magazine on his lap.

  And Moloch, smiling at her from an armchair.

  “Hi, honey,” he said. “I’m home.”

  All was quiet. Even Bill had stopped sobbing and now simply cradled his damaged hand as he watched his wife. She stood before Moloch, her head cast down. Her left cheek was red from the first slap, and her upper lip was split.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She did not move and he struck her again. It was a light slap, but the humiliation of it was greater than if he had propelled her across the room with the force of the blow. She felt the tears roll down her cheeks and hated herself for showing weakness before him.

  “I’ll let you live,” said Moloch. “If you help me, I’ll let you and Bill live. Someone will stay here with you, just to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, but you will be allowed to live. I won’t kill her. I just want my money. I don’t even want the boy. Do you understand?”

  Her mouth turned down at the edges as she tried to keep herself from sobbing aloud. She found herself looking at her husband. She wanted him to stand by her, to be strong for her, stronger than he had ever been. She wanted him to defy Moloch, to defy the woman with the gun, to follow her even unto death. Yet he had never shown that strength before. He had always failed her, and she believed that even now, when she needed him most, he would fail her again.

  Moloch knew that too. He was watching what passed between them, taking it in. There might be something there he could use, if only—

  Willard came out of the bedroom. There was blood on his hands and shirt. A spray of red had drawn a line across his features, bisecting his face. Life was gradually seeping back into his eyes. He was like a man waking from a dream, a dream in which he had torn apart a woman whose name he had barely registered, and whose face he could no longer remember.

  Bill screamed the name of the dead woman in the bedroom, and his wife knew at last that all she had suspected and feared was true.

  “No, Bill,” was all that she said.

  And something happened then. They looked at each other and there was a moment of deep understanding between them, this betrayed woman and her pathetic husband, whose weaknesses had led these men to their door.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for it all. Tell him nothing.”

  Bill smiled, and although there was a touch of madness to it, it was, in its way, an extraordinary thing, like a bloom in a wasteland, and in the midst of her hurt and fear, she found it in her to smile back at him with more love and warmth than she thought she would ever again feel for him. Everything was about to be taken from them, or what little they had left, but for these final moments they would stand together at last.

  She turned and stared Moloch in the eye.

  “How could I live if I sold out my sister and my nephew to you?” she whispered.

  Moloch’s shoulders sagged. “Dexter,” he said, “make her tell us what she knows.”

  Dexter’s face brightened. He started to walk across the room, and for an instant, Leonie glanced at him. It was Bill’s opportunity, and he took it. He struck out with his uninjured hand and caught Leonie on the right cheekbone, close to the eye. She stumbled back and he reached for the gun, striking her again with his elbow. The gun came free.

  Across the room, Braun was already reaching for his weapon. Willard still looked dazed, but was trying to remove his own gun from his belt. The gun in Bill’s hand panned across the room, making for Moloch. Moloch grabbed Patricia and pulled her in front of him, using her as a shield.

  From the corner of his eye, Bill registered the guns in the hands of the two men, Willard frozen in place, Leonie rising to her knees, still swaying from the impact of the blows, the voices shouting at him.

  He looked to his wife, and there came that smile again, and Bill loved her.

  He fired the gun, and a red wound opened at his wife’s breast. For an instant, all was noise.

  Then silence.

  They said nothing. Bill lay dead against the wall. Shepherd and Tell were at the door, drawn by the commotion. Patricia Gaddis was still alive. Moloch leaned over her where she lay.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me.”

  He touched his finger to the wound in her breast, and she jerked like a fish on a line.

  “Tell me and I’ll make it stop.”

  She spit blood at him and started to tremble. He gripped her shoulders as she began to die.

  “I’ll find her,” he promised. “I’ll find them both.”

  But she was already gone.

  Moloch stood, walked over to Willard, and punched him hard in the face. Willard stumbled back and Moloch hit him again, driving him to his knees.

  “Don’t you ever do that again,” said Moloch. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on anyone unless I give you permission to do so first.
I will tell you what I want from you, and you will do it. From now on, you breathe because I allow you to breathe.”

  Willard mumbled something.

  “What did you say?”

  Willard took his hands away from his ruined nose.

  “I found it,” said Willard. “I found the box.”

  The letters were postmarked Portland, Maine. Patricia should not have held on to them—her sister had warned her against it—but it was all that she had of her, and she treasured every word. Sometimes she would sit alone in the bedroom and try to catch a hint of her little sister, some trace of her perfume. Even when the scent of her had faded entirely, Patricia believed that she could still detect some faint remnant, for the memory of her sister would never leave her.

  “It’s not a big city, but she still won’t be easy to find,” said Dexter. They were already leaving the scene, departing Camp Hill. Initially, Moloch wasn’t sure if the gunshots had been registered by the neighbors, for nobody was on a step or in a yard when they left the house, but minutes later they heard sirens. They had ditched the van that had been parked at the back of the house as a precaution, but the risk had been worth it.

  “And she won’t be using her own name,” Dexter continued.

  Moloch raised a hand to silence him.

  She won’t be using her own name.

  If she was using an alias, she would need identification, and she could not have assembled that material for herself. She must have approached someone, someone who she believed would not betray her. Moloch went through the names in his head, exploring all of the possibilities, until at last he came to the one he sought.

  Meyer.

  Karen Meyer.