White Space Season 2

of humanity evolved was slowly becoming the zeitgeist of the moment.
    Blake had lived a colorful life, and whenever someone put a mic in front of him, he’d tell equally vibrant stories.
    One of the favorites was from when Blake was just 7 years old. His father loaded him into the back of his truck, drove him down from The Gardens to the beach, dropped him off at the boardwalk, right in between a pair of empty boat slips, then told him he was responsible for finding his way back home, and then drove off.
    This wasn’t his father’s idea of punishment. No, Billy Conway just thought it was important to teach his son a bit of self-reliance.
    It took Blake most of the day to find his way back to The Gardens, but he did.
    When he reached the top, stumbling through the gates and practically collapsing through the front door, Blake didn’t stop to say hello to his father. He went into the kitchen, pulled two cookies from the jar, said, “Because I earned them,” then marched upstairs to his room and slept for 12 hours straight. To this day, Blake didn’t remember exactly how he managed to find his way home, but he remembered the taste of the cookies, and had never tasted one better since.
    Few people in the world — and Jon knew none personally — were able to stand up to Blake Conway and win. Jon knew several studio heads, and even some agents who seemed to practically live at the peak of Mount Olympus, decreeing orders with everyone tripping all over themselves to obey, but he had never come close to meeting his father’s verbal equal. The man was a master of words, and an elegant manipulator, always able to spin the tables toward his side of any argument, while moving strings as if he had a puppeteer above him.
    Jon drove through the gate’s entrance, after a quick greeting to Carl, then parked the Blacklander in front of the Conway estate and killed the engine.
    No sign of Warren, or his asshole Bentley.
    Jon went to the front door and readied himself to knock, but Mrs. Rasmussen opened it wide before he could.
    “Well good evening, Mr. Conway,” she said.
    “Well, hello to you, Madge,” Jon felt instantly better, ignoring her formal greeting and smiling at the only woman he’d known as long as himself. “I take it he’s still here?”
    “He hasn’t budged,” she said, then turned and nodded down the immediate hallway. “He went into his office about 15 minutes ago. Just remember, you promised you wouldn’t rat me out. You’re only here because you thought he might be.”
    Jon sighed. “Really? After all this time?” He shook his head. “I’m so disappointed.”
    “Well,” she smiled. “I’m sure you’ll get over it. In the meantime I’d like to fall asleep tonight knowing I’ll still have a job when I wake up. Your father’s always been kind to me, but you know how he feels about loyalty, and those willing to break it. Things aren’t always a happy game of Monopoly when you Conways are together, you know. I’m sure you don’t need a reminder of how you left the last time you were here.”
    Jon looked at his feet, remembering how slobbering drunk he was, when he had come over to rip the skin from Warren’s face, then left feeling gutted — the night he first had sex with Cassidy.
    “I’m sorry about that,” Jon said. “I’m sure that wasn’t fun to watch.” He smiled. “But you know that’s mostly Warren’s fault for being such an ass.”
    “It’s never fun to watch the people you love hurting, Mr. Conway. Certainly not you.”
    She patted Jon on the shoulder, then stepped to the side, opened the door all the way, and gestured down the hall as if Jon needed a prompt to find Blake’s office.
    He nodded, said thanks, then approached his father’s most private place in the world.
    Jon knocked, softly at first, then harder. Minutes passed with no one at the door. He knocked harder, and louder. After another two minutes of silence, Jon grew just agitated enough to pull his foot back, and launch it hard into the bottom of the door.
    The door — alloy, not wood like the rest of the house — hurt his foot. He yanked it back, wincing, then hopped on one heel, trying to throttle his pain.
    What the fuck, Father.
    There was no use asking Mrs. Rasmussen for a key. She didn’t have one. Blake’s office was the one place in the estate she never straightened, or had the cleaning crew do it for her. No one entered Blake’s office but him, and no one ever had. Even as boys,