Edwin eases the sedan out of the club’s parking lot. The car is understated, powerful, and well-suited to the large man’s size. Topper is barely able to see over the soft leather dash. They ride along in silence until Topper can stand it no longer.
“Well, I guess you’re out of business,” says Topper with an air of finality.
“Hmm,” says Edwin.
“The bet. You said, if you lost, you’d stop advising villains.”
“Hmm.”
“So you’re gonna Welsh right?”
“No, I will honor my agreement.”
“But he was cheating his tight little pants off. You know that right?”
“Yes, I know he was cheating.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“Golf? I enjoy golf.”
“Okay,” says Topper, realizing that Edwin is toying with him, “Then why’d you throw the match?”
“I didn’t. You threw the match for me. Rather brilliantly I thought.”
“What! I got you back in the game. He was cheating! Cheating like crazy! Cheating like, like, like his head was on fire! I don’t know. And you didn’t do a thing about it. What? Was it some kind of mind control ray?” Edwin chuckles in that way Topper hates. The way that means that Topper has missed something big.
“So that is the only thing you noticed? That I was acting under the influence of a ‘mind control’ ray?”
“I noticed he was cheating.”
“Anything else?”
“But he’s a good guy. I mean he’s THE good guy. He’s not supposed to cheat. He can’t cheat. What else is there to notice? That you lost? I noticed that you lost.”
“Perhaps in the short term. But where does it net out? What’s the final accounting, the bottom line?”
“Okay, I give up. I can’t see how losing a bet — and I just lost $1000 to that battered old caddy because of you — I don’t see how it nets out for anybody other than the guy who wins. Please explain to me, Mr. Mastermind, how that nets out.”
“Someone has their hooks into him very deeply. I don’t know what drives a man like him, but it’s very, very bad. He’s trying to atone for something. Something he believes to be awful. I would venture to say that he hasn’t broken the “rules” since he was a child. But today! Today he broke loose. He felt the freedom of action. What it means to be a moral agent, rather than someone’s puppet. Did you see the joy in his eyes?”
“And here I thought that just came from beating you?”
“After both clubs melted? There is no such thing as coincidence Topper. It is always, always your enemies conspiring against you.”
“Okay, so what?”
“The man just lost his moral center. He’s now adrift in a world of complex choices. He has just remembered he has a soul. But he threw away the owner’s manual years ago. It is a fascinating predicament. He will need someone to turn to for guidance.”
“Hoooo boy, that’s rich. And it sounds like loser’s limp to me. You’re trying to tell me that if you zapped me with a ray that suddenly made me into Mother Friggin Teresa – repenting my evil defense lawyer ways — no longer defending drug dealers, embezzlers, wealthy pederasts — all the high paying scum of the earth — gave up the whores and the cocaine, devoting myself to patient, non-profit work and girls who are as tall as they are wide — that I would have some kind of gratitude for you? And then I would come to you for a little fatherly advice?”
“The only way to overcome such a man is to break him down inch by inch. Excelsior is a man with no character. He ha no real integrity. Just a blind lust for victory. Now that he has cheated, now that he has realized the full range of his options, I expect him to fall apart under the weight of his own power.”
“Seriously, I think you’re cracked. Terribly strained from your ordeal and defeat. I advise you not to sign any contracts or make any big life decisions, because you are—”
“Topper—”
“Edwin, if you messed with my head like that, you’d be lucky if I didn’t dress up in a fairy costume and pipe bomb your house. Seriously. If the most powerful man in the world comes unglued. GOD HELP US! God help us all.”
Edwin smiles at his friend, “I would have thought you might have made that appeal a little farther south.”
“What are you talking about? Sure, the devil is the patron saint of all defense lawyers, but God loves me. I’m meek.” Topper leans out the window and yells at a minivan driving slowly in the left lane. “Outta the way urinal puck! We’re not getting any younger!” Then he pulls his head back in the car and continues as if nothing had happened, “That’s why I’m going to inherit the earth.”