The last few days was about as weird as it could get for Edgar Willis. Meeting with Jessica Johnson and hearing her story had rattled his cage greatly. So when Friday finally came along, he was more than eager to hit his favorite bar and hang out with ex-partners from the force and talk shop. Being an cop for the better part of a decade made Edgar welcome to hang out with the guys, especially if he was willing to use his privately generated funds to buy a few rounds. Even though he liked being there and with the men he used to work with, business wise it was a good idea to remain in the good graces with the boys in blue. You never know when you'll need something from them and being on good terms made arm twisting less of a chore. Edgar strolled into the bar and slapped down two twenties and bought a few brews for himself and off duty officers sitting at the bar. While they were slamming down their long necks, many of them were talking shop but Edgar was still deep in thought about the messed up stuff that had happened earlier that day. After hearing a few stories, Edgar departed and went to his own table to dwell on the frustrations of his day alone. After nursing his beer for a few moments, he noticed Tuck walk into the bar and motioned him to order a few more drinks. Tuck came back not only with more brews for Edgar but with some honey garlic wings and a side of Jack Daniels for himself. After watching his partner wolf down a wing or two, Edgar broke the silence.

     "Do you think I was too mean to her?" he asked his partner.

     "You mean the nine eleven chick?" Tuck said, tearing off the side of a drum like a hungry raptor on a fresh carcass.

     "It's clear that she was obviously shocked by what she saw," Edgar recalled, "Regardless if there's a logical explanation for it or not. No one walks into a station full of cops and blurts out a story like that if she didn't in her own way believe what she saw. She really believes her mother is alive."

     Edgar stopped talking and again tried to drown his curiosity in alcohol. It wasn't a good habit, but it kept him out of real trouble.

     Tuck stopped eating and looked back at Edgar, "You want to take this case, don't you?"

     "No, no, no... never!" Edgar exclaimed, "I do not want this case! I just mean it's a shame no one can help her. Even if I wanted to, which I am not confessing too, we can't afford to spare the time and manpower for it anyway. There's no money in in, and this would take a very long time to see through."

     "You're preaching to the choir on that," Tuck confirmed, "I wish we had a client base solid enough to take any case we wanted to just for the hell of it, but our business has barely been up and running for close to eight years. We don't have the power or the finances to drop what we're doing for what is likely the mother of all goose chases. One day when we're more settled in, we'll have the power and freedom to make that choice. Until then, Uncle Ben rules."

     "I know. Uncle Ben's the man." Edgar took another swig and sank a hand into his face. Uncle Ben was their nickname for that guy who graced the one hundred dollar bill. Right now when he talked, bullshit and pretty much everything else went for a long stroll. Tuck was right however, and until they were more stable and had a base to work off of, they couldn't take the case regardless of how he felt.

     "We are not in the business of conspiracy theories, that's someone else's job." Tucker gestured to another person in the bar. In a far off corner sat a nerdy looking man with glasses and a tall mixed drink, eyes locked on his notebook computer.

     "Of course," Edgar said with a grin as he finally realized who Tuck was referring to. "Do you think I should talk to him about it? Pick his brain and see what falls out?"

     "He's good at what he does," Tuck added, "And you can never have too many friends who work for the police."

     Tuck was right. You could never have too many friends in this business, especially when they have badges. Edgar drained his bottle and walked up to the bar. He ordered another beer and a side of garlic bread. When served, he carried them both to the young man in the corner booth. He was head down into the notebook and typing away at a furious speed. Edgar caught his attention when he sat down and place the garlic bread on the table.

     "Jerome Ryan," Edgar said as he sat down, "I'm not sure you know who I am. I used to work for the force a while back..."

     "Edgar Willis, private investigator." Jerome said without even moving his eyes away from the computer, "To what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

     "I hear you're quite the connoisseur when it comes to the subject of conspiracy theories." Edgar replied, tossing the garlic bread onto the table. "I have something that is bothering me a bit and I was told you're very knowledgeable regarding certain government cover ups."

     Jerome slowed peeled himself away from the notebook and grabbed a gooey piece and took a big bite. "You'll have to be a little more specific. There are a lot of government cover-ups. Which theory happens to be nagging your fragile little noodle?"

     "Flight 77," Edgar said without hesitation. "I have someone whose been asking some really eccentric questions, the kind that don't gel with the man's official story."

     Jerome looked back up with an excited grin and sat back into chair and sighed. "9/11 and the Pentagon. Man that one is growing into one of the finest in our nation's history. What part did this person have a problem with?"

     Edgar couldn't believe he was going to ask, but took a swig of his beer and did anyway. "What are the odds of someone surviving that kind of crash?"

     "Well, that's a trick question." Jerome responded, before gnawing more on his piece of bread, "because in order for someone to survive the crash, there has to be one in the first place."

     Edgar was taken back by the comment. "What are you trying to say? I mean we all saw it on television. We watched the building burn."

     "I'm not disputing that part." Jerome countered, "What I'm saying is there are a lot of people who are not 100% sure what hit the Pentagon, but I am quite certain it wasn't a fully loaded aircraft, especially one as massive as the 757."

     "I'm curious to what makes you come to that conclusion," Edgar said as he took another slug of his beer, fully interested in what he was saying.

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     "First of all," Jerome started, "That 757 had over fifty thousand pounds of rocket fuel. That much fuel should have burned for days and turned that entire wing of the Pentagon into ash. We're talking hotter than napalm, which means the fire didn't match the amount of fuel that was alleged to have been on Flight 77, which was supposed to fly across the country to California. That bitch was fully loaded. And if the fire wasn't that hot, then there should have been some pieces of the plane left over. There's no wings, no fuselage, no bodes, no luggage, and not even a piece of the tail section! If anything, at minimum the engines should have been recovered because those bastards are made of titanium and are virtually indestructible. I could go on for hours about the stuff the 'pilots for 9/11 truth' have been preaching, but what really pisses me off is the lack of video footage of this crash."

     "Well, there's a bit of a difference between New York and Washington." Edgar responded, trying to coax him on. "I mean it's a bigger city and with that comes a higher chance of someone having a camcorder handy."

     Edgar's answer seemed to anger Jerome.

     "That's not what I mean!" He called out.

     "It's not?" Edgar asked. "What's bothering you then?"

     "This is not some downtown station we're talking about here, Edgar." Jerome started to rant, "It's the fucking Pentagon! The ultimate think tank and home base for the strongest military on the whole god damned world! Every room in this building is under some kind of video surveillance, so how could there not be a single camera that didn't catch any image of what happened?"

     "Wow," Edgar said, as he hadn't really considered that part. "That is actually quite weird when you think about it."

     "The mere suggestion is just flat out insulting," Jerome continued, "And don't even get me started on the footage from the gas station and the hotel. They would had perfect views of the incident and were taken by the feds less than an hour after the crash. There is video that shows what happened, but someone doesn't want us to see it."

     Edgar was becoming more and more fascinated as Jerome rambled on, "If there really is footage of the incident, then why doesn't our government want us to see it?"

     Jerome cracked a smile, "Because it's the 9/11 version of the 'Zapruder' film. Like the footage Zapruder filmed in Texas when Kennedy was shot, the film shows something that discredits the official story. Many of us are sure that footage from these cameras will show that it wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon."

     "Okay," Edgar said, "If it wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon, what do you think it was?"

     "A cruise missile," Jerome answered.

     Edgar was now in full devil's advocate mode and having a lot of fun with this. "I didn't realize Osama had access to cruise missiles. I mean why would he use planes if he had that kind of firepower to work with?"

     "He doesn't." Jerome said.

     "So who hit the pentagon then?" Edgar eager asked, hoping to see where Jerome was going with this.

     "I'm not sure, but it wasn't an airliner hijacked by box cutter welding minions of Allah." Jerome popped the last bite of his bread into his mouth and then started on a new piece. "Like I previously stated, the fire is inconsistent with rocket fuel and again there were no parts on the ground consistent with any crashed airliners. Usually experts can take pieces from any plane wreckage and put all of them back together like a kid with a few boxes of legos. We've had planes shatter like glass into the ocean and experts still have been able to assemble over seventy percent of them in some cases. But here they can't even bother to try to put it back together, and claim that the entire plane burned up when the fuel ignited. Last but not least the alleged plane just happened to hit a wing that was under renovations, which resulted in minimal casualties within the Pentagon. Talk about the mother of all coincidences. When you add all these up, they all point the same thing that has worried many since day one: government conspiracy and cover up."

     Edgar gave up the fight and drowned his loss in what was left of his brew. He had a lot of things racing through his mind, but after all that he had heard that day there was only one question on his mind.

     "If we concede that the plane didn't hit the Pentagon like some are saying," Edgar suggestion, "Then what the hell happened to Flight 77 and its passengers?"

     Jerome sat back and grinned, "That my friend is the sixty thousand dollar question. Just because people out there believe something fishy is going on doesn't mean we have all answers. It just means we can smell the bullshit and don't buy the cookie cutter story the Whitehouse and it's crooked commission has been trying to ram down our throats for the past half a decade. It's a denial of the official story, not an embrace of all the crazy shit."

     Edgar needed to stay on topic, "So if the plane never crashed, what happened to the passengers? Could they still be alive?"

     Jerome could tell that Edgar was genuinely interested in what was going on, and took out a business card and started to write something on the back of it. "If that plane didn't hit the Pentagon, anything is possible."

     While Edgar was mulling over that answer, Jerome passed a card over to Edgar. It was his business card, and Jerome had written some had some web addresses on the back.

     "I'd recommend taking a gander at a few of these sites." Jerome informed him, "Once you go through a few of them, you'll realize it's time to stop drinking the kool-aid and look at the world with open eyes. It's time to look deeper into the rabbit hole and see how pouched we all are."

     After looking at the card for a moment, Edgar stood up. "Thanks for your time. I might come back to you if I have more questions."

     "My door is always open," Jerome replied, "Feel free to show up at the station so I can have something interesting to do for a change."

     As much as he liked working with the force, Jerome's work was mind numbing and too systematic to keep his interest. Edgar knew how he felt.

     "I might do that. Thanks," Edgar said, before strolling back to his original table. Tuck wasn't there, but he didn't seem to care as he sat back down and waited for him while looking at the addresses on the card Jerome gave him, a constant reminder that he might have been wrong.

     Edgar remembered what a dick he had been to Jessica, who was only trying to tell him what she had seen. She too didn't claim to know the answers, she just had seen something that contradicted the story everyone was so quick to believe. Suddenly Edgar didn't know what to believe anymore. Did Jessica really see her dead mother? He ordered another beer and tried to ignore the idea because despite his newly acquired information, the case still wasn't feasible to peruse.

     Tuck came back to the desk several minutes later, "Have a good chat with conspiracy boy?"

     "It was educational." Edgar replied, "Disturbing, but educational."

     After he said that, Edgar slammed a fist into the table in frustration.

     Tuck responded to that by tossing a twenty on the table. "Take a cab home tonight, and I'll meet you at the office tomorrow. Rest this off and show up whenever you want tomorrow. We don't have any new clients lined up so go home and sleep it off."

     "Alright," Edgar said as he finished off the beer he had in his hand, and then staggered off to get his cab.

     Tuck walked him to the door, and out to the cab. Edgar normally didn't need a babysitter when he went out, but Jerome seemed to make him want to drink a little more that night. Edgar knew he was tipsy and accepting Tuck's help was better than putting the company in unwanted trouble again. Tuck knew this as well and made sure Edgar was on his way home before making his own way home. Tuck had some news for his partner, but didn't feel that his current state was the right time to spring the news. Maybe in the morning when he's had a few caffeine boosts in his system, Tuck thought, then I'll drop the bomb on his day and see how he reacts. He giggled at the thought as he watched Edgar's cab fade into the background lights of the city and then hailed his own to bring his own evening to a conclusion.