6. No Shirt, No Shoes, and Service
As it turns out they did find a place open; a bar and grill that didn't close until four in the mourning. As they walked in no one paid any mind to Max's unshod foot, his torn undershirt or empty holster strapped over it. Apparently this wasn't one of those 'no shirt no shoes no service' joints. A heavyset barmaid showed them to a booth and slapped down a couple of dirty menus.
"What'll ya have to drink?" She asked, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes.
"I'll have a Scotch on the rocks." Max said. The maid raised one eyebrow.
"And you?" She turned to Mark, who insisted on water. "I suggest he special." She stated flatly.
"What is it?" Mark asked.
"You don't want to know."
"Uh, we'll look at the menu, thank you." Mark said courteously. Max squinted at the dirty piece of paper then wiped some of the crud off of it with his sleeve.
"That's better." He said aloud. "I think I'll just have a hamburger." He handed her back the slightly cleaner menu. She looked expectantly down at Mark.
"I'll just stick with water." He gave her the menu and wiped the crud off his hands. The watched her stomp off with Max's order. There weren't many people there. Just a couple of guys sitting at the bar and an old woman in the far table that kept dipping her dentures in her water glass. Mark turned back to Max.
"You want to talk about it?" Asked Mark.
Max sighed. He supposed he had to tell somebody. But he made sure not to give any information about his identity…or former identity. "Well, I had this big fight with my wife. Now she hates me. I called her to tell her I was sorry and she hung up. And I lost the only job I've ever known. And everybody hates me." Max pouted.
"Can't you think of a few friends? I'm sure not everybody hates you." Mark tried to give encouragement and a listening ear but he wasn't used to playing shrink.
"Well, there is Hymie. It's almost impossible for him to hate at all."
"Hymie?" Mark scrunched his face up at the mention of the strange name.
"His father's name was Hymie." Max said in defense.
"Oh. Anyone else?"
"There's Fang, my dog. Then there's 44 and 13, I think they still like me." Max brightened only a bit.
"Forty-four and thirteen?"
"In my job we use our call numbers instead of our names."
"Oh."
Maxwell sighed again. "Well, I was suppose to follow this cat and I accidentally killed it. Then I found out my wife was following me and I kind of got mad because my boss didn't trust me and she got mad because of something I said. Then my boss got mad because I killed the cat and he fired me." He gasped for air, for he had said all of that in one breath.
"Why were you following a cat?" Mark was completely confused. Smart took a long sip on his water. He decided not to say anymore for fear of revealing his identity. After a long moment of silence Mark spoke up. "I can relate to loosing your job. I lost mine about a week ago and my reputation hasn't allowed me to get a new one."
"What did you do?" Max asked, relieved to get the focus off of him.
Mark straightened his glasses and squirmed in his seat a bit before he spoke. "Let's just say I had some very strong suspicions that something fishy is going on in the pet food warehouse. Anyway I went to the police and told them that a secret organization called KAOS is trying to brainwash our pets. To make a long story short they threw me out then my boss fired me for being a quack."
"Oh, you're that crackpot I read about in the paper." He took another long swig from his water then his eyes widened in realization. In his surprise he spit the water back in the glass before choking on it then almost shouted: "You know about KAOS?!"
"You…you mean you know about KAOS?"
"You probably won't believe me but I'm an agent for a top secret section of the government called CONTROL, whose prime goal is to counter the organization of evil and rottenness, KAOS."
"This place will be in chaos if you don't stop yelling," said the barmaid who plopped a plate of what passed for a hamburger on the table. "There you are." She walked away again.
"I found out about it a few months ago when I accidentally intercepted one of their messages." Mark began explaining.