Dialogue At The Moloch Club, Hollywood

 BLACK HAND INCORPORATED ADDITIONAL CHAPTER:

DIALOGUE AT THE MOLOCH CLUB, HOLLYWOOD

Tinseltown, from its beginning, is where puritanical America reinvented biblical Canaan.

Michael Tumesne, journalist, in the preface to his bestselling vice and corruption exposé book 'Golden Hollywoodland: An American Gomorrah', Cosmopolis University Press, 1968, Vol II.

Transcript-excerpt from Black Hand Incorporated company confidential archives, miscellaneous information and targeted espionage files. Original spoken audio dialogue captured using replica micro-miniaturised tape recording device once the property of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this instance the device was built into a customised briefcase and remotely activated. Date and target individual(s) are strictly classified designated Need To Know criteria, company archivist's eyes only. Location of target-contact dialogue is a private luxury office suite and secure currency exchange/treasury within the Moloch Club, Lower Sunset and Lower Sepulveda Boulevards intersection, Bel-Air Sloughway, South Central Hollywood, Los Angeles County.

(Sound of drinks being poured and mixed and liberally decanted with ice being carefully added. An occasional discordant sharp clacking noise accompanies the conversation as it proceeds.)

SURVIND JUGGERGHAZI (Company Alias Classified): "Thank you for the cocktail, it's a remarkably good Double Hangman Special. I'm something of a connoisseur of them. What a remarkable abacus too. Alternating beads of ivory and black jade carved with the signs of ancient Near Eastern gods. The wires are gold. The inlaid silver inscription on the base honours Mammon in classical Latin. I must take a closer look."

(Rustling sound as SJ(cac) removes a small object from his pocket.)

MIDDLE AGED UNIDENTIFIED HUSKY FEMALE VOICE (surprised): "You read them old languages?"

SJ(cac): "Required learning at my preparatory school. The passage here is a neat satire on the famous biblical admonition 'You Cannot Love Both God And Mammon'. Deliberately mis-conjugating and spelling the quote so that it can also be read as loving only Mammon is good. An informed scholar's work. I've never seen an object quite like this or read of one."

MAUHFV: "It was made in 1925 by a craftsman in some small town in Liechtenstein. You know, in Europe? It was commissioned special for the joint."

SJ(cac): "So it's unique?"

MAUHFV: "Far as anyone knows. The guy made a lot of neat stuff to order like it, though."

SJ(cac): "Mammon wasn't actually an Eastern god of the time. He was probably regarded more as a demon or what is called a djinn or genie, a mischievous spirit. But some of these beads are named for known aspects of Baal and Marduk and Dagon and Tiamat."

MAUHFV: "Does that make it more valuable?"

SJ(cac): "You could probably name your price for it to the right collectors."

MAUHFV: "I've got one of those new big Texas Instruments electric calculators on the desk. It even prints out an itemised receipt on a little roll of paper you put in the back. See? They make 'em easy to slot in. But I prefer using the abaculus. Feels more appropriate somehow for the place."