Yesterday's Gone: Season One

just stared right back.” He poured some fire down his throat, then emptied the rest of the bottle into an oversized glass.  
     
    “I won’t tell you to stop, just remind you once more that every one of us matters right now. I’m sure I speak for the group when I say I’d prefer to not leave the hotel one man shy in the mañana.”
     
    John’s face softened. “I’ll be fine. A man has a right to grieve without the entire world getting in his way.”
     
    Desmond poured some of John’s drink into his own glass, nodded at John, swallowed the fire in one large gulp, then set his glass on the bar and approached Jimmy, Paola and Mary. The kids were cracking up.
     
    “What’d I miss?”
     
    “Paola says I smell like a marijuana skunk.”
     
    “She has a point,” Desmond said.  
     
    “She always does, whether I like it or not.” Mary laughed. Her wine glass was near empty, so she went to the bar to fill it. “It’s getting warmer in here,” she said walking back. “Do you feel that?”
     
    “I do,” Paola said. Jimmy nodded.  
     
    “Might be five degrees,” Desmond said, “but the difference is definitely there.”
     

     
    They ignored the climbing thermostat and fell deeper into their drinks. Eventually, Paola made herself a bed by pulling two lounge chairs together. She was asleep seconds after her head touched the pillow they’d grabbed from a room. Jimmy managed a few minutes of small talk, then offered to pass the peace pipe with the rest of the grownups. When they declined, he smiled and slipped away to enjoy his stash, saying, “More for me,” with a giggle.
     
    Mary smiled at Desmond and said, “So, we’re all alone and it’s the end of the world where money doesn’t matter. Will you finally tell me how you made all yours?”
     
    Desmond laughed. “I’ve told you before.”  
     
    “How about telling me in a way I understand?”  
     
    “I use the Internet.”
     
    “So do I, so does everybody. My cards were wholesaled across the world on my own dot com. I know how I do it. How do you do it?”
     
    “Well, there’s no easy answer. Cool thing about the Internet is it’s still mostly frontier. There’s plenty of treasure for anyone who knows how to dig. Best part is, you can even learn how to make the treasure yourself.”
     
    They’d been down this road before. His answers, no matter how thorough, usually left her more confused then when he started, and sounded more like a rousing speech about online potential than a solid business model. “You make it sound like magic.”
     
    “It is, sorta. Just like any illusionist, Internet entrepreneurs can make the impossible look like downright inarguable.” Desmond took a drink. “Money isn’t hard to make. You just need to find a river and dip your bucket. But the Internet makes finding the rivers a whole hell of a lot easier.”
     
    “I don’t care what you say. It’s not that easy.”
     
    Desmond blushed. “Okay, it’s not that easy . But it’s easier than you think. People go online to look for stuff, right? If you have what they’re looking for, can lead them toward it, or help them keep it organized once they get it, then there’s good money to be made — and a never-ending supply of leads.”  
     
    “But what do you do ?” Mary figured it had to be shady if he couldn’t say what it was in 10 words or less.  
     
    “I don’t do anything illegal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”  
     
    Mary laughed and shook her head, “I never said that. ”
     
    Desmond smiled with a blush, “I make a lot of stuff. I have a company that builds ‘roads’ that help users get from A to B quickly, software that helps people organize the growing assault on their digital lives, and a publishing company that releases heavily-researched white papers and reports. It used to be mostly Buyer Beware-type consumer lists we wrote for,” he looked at Mary seriously. “People will pay to be informed, so we used to do a lot of work at the consumer level, but we’ve moved into science and alternative research. The dollars are exponentially larger and some of our papers have commanded ... well, staggering fees.”
     
    “So what do you do all day?”
     
    “Look for and evaluate new information, talk to my team, read, write, watch movies. Sometimes I play Call Of Duty .” He smiled.
     
    “Why don’t you live someplace else? New York, Los Angeles, Sydney even! Why Missouri? ”
     
    “Missouri’s