Bad Men

There were three things that Maria

The third was that it would take place on the last Thursday of the month.

She made her plans carefully. She called Karen from a pay phone and told her the exact time at which she would arrive to pick up the material. She contacted her sister, who lived only a few miles away, yet from whom she had become virtually estranged because of Moloch’s paranoia, and told her of her plan, and of the possibility that she and her sorry-ass husband might have to leave the state at some point in the future, but with money in their pockets. Surprisingly, Patricia seemed unconcerned by the prospect of uprooting herself. Bill had recently been let go from a plant job and she saw it as a chance for them both to start over again.

Maria

What she could not have known was that Moloch’s recent actions were merely one of a number of scams and crimes that he had put into operation over the years, and that there were other men involved, committing insurance frauds, drug rip-offs, minor bank raids in small dusty towns.

Murders.

And these were only the enterprises that produced a profit, for Moloch had his hobbies too. He had more in common with the would-be rapist Otis Barger than might once have seemed possible, except he picked his targets more carefully, from the ranks of whores and addicts and lost souls, and there was never a risk of them talking, because when he was finished with them, he disposed of their remains in forests and mountain bogs. Moloch’s peculiarity-one, if the truth be known, of many-was his disinclination to have vaginal sex with his victims.

After all, he did not wish to be unfaithful to his wife.

Yet even if she had known all of this at the time, had recognized the unsuspected depths of her husband’s degeneracy, Maria

She would still have told the police of the details of the bank job.

She called them shortly after she had retrieved the cash from the hollow beneath the shed floor and placed it in the trunk of her car, alongside the two small bags that represented all of the possessions she was prepared to take with her. She pla

She strapped her son into the baby seat, then drove to the mall and parked by the pay phone. She lifted the boy out and carried him, still sleeping, to the phone. From there she dialed the dispatcher at the Cumberland PD and asked to be put through to Detective Cesar Aponte. She had read his name in a newspaper one week earlier, when he was quoted during an investigation into a domestic assault case that had left a woman fighting for her life. If he was not on duty, she had three other names, all taken from the newspapers.

There was a pause, then a man’s voice came on the line. “Detective Aponte speaking.”

She took a breath, and began:

“There will be a bank robbery today at four P.M. at a First United in Cumberland. The man leading the robbery is named Edward Moloch. He lives at…”

Using RACAL, the call was traced back to the pay phone at the mall. By the time the local cruiser arrived, Maria

By then, Maria

She got out of the car and saw that Karen had a manila envelope in her hand.

“You’ve got it? You’ve got it all?”

“You’ve got my money?”

Maria

“Fifty thousand. I counted it this morning.”

“I trust you.”

She handed over the envelope. Maria

“Don’t you trust me?”

“If I didn’t trust you, do you think I’d be opening the trunk in front of you?”

“I guess not.”

She examined the passport, the driver’s license, the card bearing her social security number. She was now Maria

“You’ve left me with my own first name, almost.”

“You’ve never done this before. The first thing that will give you away is your failure to answer to your new name. It will arouse suspicion and attract attention to you. Maria

“And Da

“You get asked, his name was Lee Server, and he’s dead. In there is an obituary for Server. It will tell you all you need to know about him.”

Maria

“I should ask you for more money,” said Karen. “I had to pay off some people. The paper trail goes right back, even down to death certificates for your father and mother. There’s a typewritten sheet of paper in that envelope. Memorize the details on it, then burn it. It’s your new family, except you’ll never get to know them now. You’re an only child. Your parents are dead. It’s all very sad.”

Maria

“Thank you.”

“How the hell did you ever get involved with this guy?” asked Karen suddenly.

“A man tried to rape me,” she replied. “He saved me.”

There was a pause.

“Did he?” Karen asked sadly.