Mr. Ed needs to blow off steam and he heads straight for the establishment where he hung out on a few other occasions. Decent food and drinks that are endless and cheap abound, but best of all there are no nosy people around that are in this habit of asking too many questions.
Mr. Ed had this nagging feeling that his stay in Martossa had made him docile. It didn’t make sense though, because he had unleashed his fury on that poor unsuspecting fellow that was finished by Victor Vaughn, who in turn was killed in a double murder by that other bad character named Malcolm Thompson.
The nagging feeling that he had was more about Mr. Ed’s Frozen Pizza: he wanted to be back on the floor with all the hustle and bustle. He had lived in the big city his whole life, and even though a small town by the sea was nice and all, it didn’t really feel like it was his town and it simply wouldn’t be enough in the long run.
1
It was almost as if those few nights that Mr. Ed had spend liquoring up had made him a regular. There were a few guys that nodded when he came in, the bartender asked him if he wanted a beer and the stool next to Marty was still empty.
Mr. Ed taps Marty on the shoulder.
“You again,” Marty says, “I wondered where you had been.”
“I needed to lay low for a while,” Mr. Ed says, deciding how much he was willing to tell, “Sometimes there are circumstances that dictate that kind of action.”
“Too much work, or too little money.”
“A nagging wife….”
“No….” they both say.
Mr. Ed sizes up the bar and he waits for his beer.
“You ever got this feeling as if you have got luck on your side.”
“Aaaah,” Marty says, “One in a thousand.”
Mr. Ed gives the number a thought. The bartender places the cold beer in front of him and Mr. Ed asks him to get another beer for Marty.
“I have had years like that,” Mr. Ed says, “But this last year it seems like I got at least ten in one year.”
“Getting a raise? Attention from a nice girl? Getting away with murder?”
“It really is that kind of lucky,” Mr Ed says cryptically.
Marty thinks: he finally did it – he finally went apeshit and started slashing away….
“Explain,” Marty says, not sure how much he wanted to know exactly.
“Maybe it’s more like winning the lottery.”
“….”
“Let’s just say that it has to do with business….”
“As long as you keep some cold ones floating towards me, I don’t care where the dough comes from….”
*
Mr. Ed needed to talk about what had happened, but he fully well realized that it would be more prudent to keep most of it to himself.
“There’s something on my mind though,” Mr. Ed begins.
“Shoot,” Marty says.
“You know about this question that has been asked a million times by a million different people: can a man do the bad thing for the right reason?”
“It kind of sounds like a contradiction.”
“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Ed says, “But let’s say that something like this happens: you’re working late one night and you’re the last one in the office. Then an intruder comes in. This character holds a gun to your head and he says he wants all the money. Then there’s some sound outside and he let’s his attention slide for a split second. You manage to get his gun and shoothim then and there. He then dies of the injuries. Later on it’s ruled to be self-defense and you get out blame free.”
“I’d say it’s self-defense.”
“A guy is dead.”
“In that moment you don’t know what else he had up his sleeve. Maybe a second gun? A knife?” Marty says, “We simply don’t need those kind of elements running around.”
“In other words: it’s possible to do the bad thing for the right reason.”
“It’s murky,” Marty says.
“Ok,” Mr. Ed says, “Let’s say this happened back than in the Gulf War. You’re on sentry duty and after a few hours your mind starts to shut down. Your eyes are getting tired, you’re feeling fatigue, you’re getting thirsty, hungry —all that. Now let’s say that there was this Iraqi that was watching you for let’s say the last two hours. This guy patiently waits for an opportunity to get close to knife you down.”
“My fellow soldiers can’t see me….” Marty says, “I’d say that the same kind of struggle ensues and it ends with the death of that Iraqi soldier.”
“Same basic situation.”
“Same outcome,” Marty says.
“And I must say I feel as bad for this Iraqi soldier as I do for this mugger,” Mr. Ed says, “Meaning: not at all.”
Mr. Ed takes a sip from his beer and he thinks it over.
“One more,” Mr. Ed says, “This one is from an old movie. There’s this guy. A rich guy. He has this younger secretary and she comes with him on business trips and it’s not long until they have an affair. From the beginning this guy kept telling himself that he shouldn’t let things get out of hand —but then they do. Now this secretary is getting fidgety and she has come to believe that there’s more going on than there actually is: she believes that this guy will leave his wife over her.”
“This is about you?”
“It ain’t,” Mr. Ed says, and he reads the expression on Marty’s face, “What can I say: it’s complicated.”
“…..”
“So this secretary wants to go public and she gives this guy an ultimatum: tell the wife before the end of the month, or she will,” Mr. Ed says, “So on the ride home this guy’s mind is on his predicament, because this woman has become a serious jeopardy.He can only think of one way out of it.”
“So this is where it becomes the same story as the one with the mugger and the Iraqi,” Marty says, “But still this one is different.”
“Because there’s a young lady that’s good in the sack?” Mr. Ed asks, “It will destroy his life: his wife will divorce him and go with half of the money and he’s convinced that she might even drag down the company with her.”
Mr. Ed gives it a thought.
“Never come clean,” Mr. Ed says, “That’s about the only advise that my old man gave that was any use to me. And that’s the only thing that I can make of this strange story.”
“It’s interesting,” Marty says, “I mean I would never be in a position to have a secretary, so this situation would never come up —for me. But still it’s tempting to imagine that it does.”
“My point exactly.”
“I would like to say that I would do the right thing, because that’s what we’re programmed to do,” Marty says, “But I doubt that I will...”
*
“Back to my initial predicament,” Mr. Ed says, “It isn’t like the mugger, the Iraqi and the broad, but it’ssomething like it. There was a situation that I had to deal with and then it resolved itself right before my eyes.”
“No loose ends?”
“Not one string.”
2
Marty hadn’t given Mr. Ed’s predicament much thought until the next day. After all, how much did he really tell? Then his mind started going over the way he said right before my eyes.
The glimpse that was in Mr. Ed’s eyes revealed that he still saw it before him and that’s when Marty realized that it wasn’t just a figure of speech. All of a sudden it gave him this eery feeling. A few months ago, this guy Mr. Ed comes to town. His gut tells him that this guy is bad news, but then nothing really happens.
What if he was a witness or he had something to do with those two bad elements that murdered each other at the edge of town. That in itself was the kind of bad thing that became good. What was it that this Mr. Ed guy had to do with those two?
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