The Freeloaders by Ed Lacy

Author:Ed Lacy [Lacy,Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3992-3
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1961-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

I AWOKE so early Saturday morning the sky was still pale gray with night. I lay in bed, fully appreciating the delightful cool Mediterranean breeze, or maybe it was coming down from the Alps. I had a small hangover and Gil was in my mind. I was wondering if he actually would be able to hit a cambio man with that thin blackjack.

Ed Jones was so right. It requires a certain type of mentality, or lack of one, to be able to walk into a store, a home, or anyplace, knowing you are about to split a stranger’s head open, perhaps kill him. I hadn’t felt the smallest remorse upon ending the hopes, desires, ambitions, of eleven strangers during the war. Nor did I feel any now. I am still convinced of the rightousness of my cause … and I am also aware “rightousness” can be a false and frightful screen. Doris used to say prejudice was the major sickness of our modern world. Not only the obvious and stupid racial hatred, religious or jingo narrowness … but the general intolerance in our air. Too many people seek the easy out, the magic, all-embracing one answer, the only solution — because it requires less thinking.

The more I travel, the more I learn, the more I’m convinced Doris is right, as usual. Tolerance can only be based on knowledge; hate can be drilled into you until it turns into a form of faith. Tolerance only comes when one realizes there isn’t any one answer. As people are neither all good nor all bad, so truth is composed of many half-truths and tiny answers.

All this was connected with Gil, in my head. I had killed, yet I couldn’t ever imagine myself, even if I were starving, walking into a shop knowing I was about to bash somebody’s head. Or did it merely prove that values are personal and confusing ideas?

I suddenly wished Doris were in bed beside me. Often in the mornings, while trying to stretch the comfort of sleep, we had our most interesting chats. That was what I missed about her — I had nobody to talk with. Charley, Gil, and Jonesy were not only strangers, but on different intellectual levels. (Nor am I hinting I’m on the higher level. That would be exactly the kind of intolerance I’m talking about.) Pascale was cute and playful, but you can’t have a decent conversation with a puppy.

I forced down an impulse to write Doris, asking to try it one more time around. If she agreed that would mean returning to the States. And I certainly hadn’t had my fill of Nice yet.

To stop thinking about Doris, I quickly dressed and went out. It wasn’t quite 7 A.M. and I walked up to the shop which sold the good tutti-fruitti ice cream. It was silly, I knew it would be closed. I dropped into a bar and had a Perrier, which toned down my hangover. (I’ve never been able to drink.) Then I bought an orange, some wonderful coarse rolls in a bakery, and for no reason boarded a bus.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.