White Space Season 1

Alex yelled, his echo mocking him off the cave walls.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Jon Conway

    Friday evening

    Jon left the Sands of Time to meet Houser, who had given an adios to the island hotel an hour earlier so he could drive Hamilton Island and “see what he could see.”
    The pair met up at Coconuts , a place that was every bit as ridiculous as Jon remembered, still decorated like a tropical island paradise, even though Hamilton was a world and a half from Hawaii. The jukebox — made to look like it was manufactured in the 50’s, even though it played audio files and every one of its ‘records’ were fake — wore the same scars it always had. The only difference Jon could see in the entire joint was that they’d changed the marquee outside from, “Free Beer, Topless Waitresses and False Advertising” to the far less charming, “Beer: Because Your Friends Just Aren’t That Interesting.”
    They were on their second basket of onion rings, and Jon on his fifth round of Heinekens when he said, “Jesus man, don’t you ever gain any weight?”
    Houser looked at Jon, grinned, then glazed his mouth with grease and shoved another matching set of onion rings into his mouth. “What sorta bitch question is that?” he asked, still chewing.
    “All I ever see you eat is garbage. And that garbage is usually deep fried.”
    “So?”
    “So you’re built like an action figure!”
    Houser laughed, shrugged, then shoved more onion rings into his still semi-full mouth. “I’ll pretend you’re not asking bitch questions, and you can pretend I didn’t just say, ‘you look just fine, Jonny Hollywood.’ And don’t act like you don’t eat the same shit I do. I’ve seen the shit you eat when you’re really hungry, when you’re not ordering bean sprouts or whatever the hell it is you Hollywood types like to ‘eat.’”
    “Yeah,” Jon said. “Difference is, if I ate like this as often as you do, I’d never get another role ever.”
    Jon nibbled from the edge of another onion ring. Houser popped a whole one in his mouth.
    “Don’t let my carefree attitude fool you,” Houser said. “I spent years getting in shape so I could eat like shit. And I still wake up three hours earlier than I want to be in the gym while you’re still banging some 18 year old super model you met the night before. You wanna look this good, you’ve gotta become a monk when it comes to self-discipline.”
    “Well, ain’t that ironic,” Jon said, laughing. “Spend so much time getting in shape and you’re unable to go out and enjoy the fruits of your labor. And in case you didn’t pick up on it before now, self-discipline has never really been ‘my thing.’”
    Houser laughed.
    Jon let Houser spend a few more minutes making fun of him and his weight concerns, real and imagined, before circling back to the personal history lesson he’d been giving Houser.
    “I want to know what happened,” he said. “But I don’t want to ask Cassidy.” Jon took another gulp of beer. He was throwing them down faster than he had in a helluva while. “Way I see it, I’ve got two choices.”
    Houser finished Jon’s thought: “You could go directly to Warren and demand the truth, or you could ask me to dip my bucket in the well and see how deep the fucker drops, right?”
    Jon swallowed, finished his bottle, then slammed it on the table harder than he meant to and slurred, “Yeah, something like that. What do you think I should do?”
    Houser took a smaller sip of his own beer, then motioned for the waitress with his eyes half on Jon and said, “Any harm in doing both?”
    The cute waitress with the pigtails Jon had been eyeing since he first sat down spoke to the private dick while stealing sideways glances at the movie star. “How can I help you?” she said. “Another bottle?”
    Jon shook his head and gave the pigtails an excuse to give him her undivided. “You have any whiskey?”
    “Sure,” she said. “What kind?”
    “I don’t care,” he said. “Surprise me.” Jon laughed, and Pigtails laughed along with him, stealing another few seconds before slipping off toward the bar.
    “You are the only asshole I would ever drink who hogs all the attention from the ladies. That makes you less fun to hang with, just so you know.”
    “Bullshit,” Jon said. “Makes me more interesting. And you say the word, and we can party back at the hotel with two or three more just like her.”
    “Ha,” Houser took another swallow.