Bad Men

Braun put his book down for a moment.

“You always watch movies where the leading men are doomed to die at the end?”

Dexter looked over at Braun.

“They seemed…appropriate.”

Braun held his gaze.

“Yeah,” he said. “Whatever.”

He returned to his book. He was reading Thucydides’s history of the Pelopo

Moloch lay on the bed in his room and cha

It would be enough.

Chapter Five

Strange now, or so it seemed, but Maria

But she had never liked his second name and had not understood its provenance until it was too late. It was only when she learned more about his ways and began to pick away at his facade that she came to realize the nature of the man with whom she was involved. She had once read a newspaper article about a sculptress who worked with stone and who claimed that the piece she was creating was already present within the medium, so that her task was simply to remove the excess material that was obscuring what lay beneath. Later, Maria

It had so many forms, so many derivations: Moloch, Malik, Melech, Molech. It could be found in Ammonite traditions, in Canaanite and Semite. Moloch: the ancient sun god; the bringer of plagues; the god of wealth to the Canaanites. Moloch: the prince of the Land of Tears; Milton’s Molech, besmeared with the blood of human sacrifice. The Israelites surrendered their firstborn to him, burning them in fire. Solomon was reputed to have built a temple to him near the entrance to Gehe

Moloch. What kind of man was called by such a name?

And yet, in the begi

And Moloch was different. She was working on the Biloxi Black Beauty, an imitation showboat painted-despite its name-so many shades of pink that it made one’s teeth hurt just to look at it. The cocktail waitresses were forced to wear white corsets, like nineteenth-century hookers cleaning up after a john, and bunched skirts that, one hundred years before, would have revealed no more than a flash of shin but were now so high that the lower curves of their buttocks were on permanent display, the ruffles of the skirts like stage curtains that had been raised to reveal the main act. In theory, the men weren’t supposed to touch them anywhere other than on the back or the arm. In reality, the tips were better if you didn’t stick too closely to the letter of the law and allowed them to indulge themselves just a little. If they got too frisky, it was enough to nod at the security guards who dotted the casino in their green blazers, as omnipresent as the artificial potted palms, although the palms were probably more likely to develop as individuals than the Beauty’s Deputy Dawgs. They would lean over, one at either side of the drunk (because they were always drunks, the ones who behaved in that way), scooping up his chips and his drink even as he was quickly hustled away from the table, talking to him all the while, calm and quiet, but keeping him moving for, being a drunk, he would find it hard to argue, walk, and keep an eye on his remaining chips all at the same time.

Then he would be gone, his departure ignored by the dealer, and eventually someone else would move to take his place at the table. It didn’t pay to complain too often, though. There were a lot of girls ready and willing to take your place if you got a reputation as a troublemaker or as a woman who couldn’t handle a little attention from the men happily throwing away their savings for a couple of complimentary, watered-down bourbons.

Maria

The nature of her father’s disintegration, and the sights that greeted her each evening in the casinos, had made her wary and intolerant of those who drank even moderately, but Moloch didn’t drink liquor. She asked him for an order as soon as he sat down and placed his chips carefully upon the table, but he refused the offer of a cocktail and instead tipped her a ten for every soda she brought him. He played seven-card high-low stud quietly, declaring high and low more frequently than any other player, and at least tying each way three times out of five. His clean white shirt was open at the neck beneath a black linen jacket without a single crease. He was a big man for his height, with broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist, and strong thighs. His hair was dark, with no trace of gray, and his face was very thin, with vertical creases ru