Looks like you guys are as into this as I am. Things are getting good for Detective Casparus Abbet. Or, well, no. Bad, actually. Potentially lethal. But goooooood. The "A" fork has won again, though this time it was very close, and Abbet has found himself inside the lair of the bad guys.
Today we get to decide, is Abbet getting out of the diner, or is he going to end up on a slab with a bullet in him?
As promised, here's an attempt to do something on Steemit that can't be done nearly as well anywhere else: tell a story where the readers choose the path.
Below is the third scene of the novel Now You Don't. If you look, you'll find that there is another post with an almost identical title to this one, only that one is Episode 3Z, where this is 3A. Behold the power of Steemians.
The first half of the scene is exactly the same in both 3A and 3Z versions of this post. But the second half is different. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to upvote the one you'd like to make the true path of the story. If you'd like to see BOTH continue, you can upvote them both, but unless something really awesome happens, I will only be continuing the highest vote-getter.
Voting closes Monday, Midnight EDT, for this round. Then there will be a new one, with a new fork. New episodes twice a week, barring the radically unforeseen.
Scene 1 of Now You Don't is here.
Scene 2 is here.
You should read those first. Then the story continues below. Vote away.
Now You Don't Chapter One, Scene 3A
“Abbet,” Vernon said, his hands drifting upward like they were filled with helium, “Thought you were dead.”
“You sound disappointed. Ah ah, keep the hands where I can see them.” Abbet rummaged in Vernon’s pocket, but his piece wasn’t there. He had one, surely. “You want to toss your gun for me? Slowly now. I’m old. I might misunderstand a quick movement.”
Vernon pulled one hand down and drew a .38 out of his shoulder holster. Abbet tensed, finger pressing the trigger, but Vernon tossed the gun to the side.
“You got other people here?” Abbet said.
“Just me,” Vernon said, voice flat. Abbet couldn’t tell if he was lying.
“Sit down,” Abbet said.
Vernon’s head swiveled to look back. “You serious?” He wiped his pants. “I just got these pressed.”
“Your launderer won’t mind doing it again. Sit, and face me.”
Vernon went down on one knee, grimacing. He wiped a hand through his fair blonde hair, and sucked in a breath, glancing up to see if Abbet meant it. Abbet waved him down the rest of the way with the barrel of his gun.
Vernon shook his head, but put his cheeks on the floor. Abbet relaxed a fraction, and stepped back a couple paces. He caught another smell, underneath the dust. Something he couldn’t place, but it didn’t belong in a diner, whatever it was.
“What’s it been, Casparus? Ten years?” Vernon said, dusting his pants. It just spread the dirt. He scowled.
“Nearer fifteen. What are you doing here?”
“I bought this place. Gonna renovate it, do some modifications. I always wanted to run a diner.”
“You always wanted to eat in one, not run one. What’s really going on?”
“Cas, my friend, (here Abbet made a face) I’m opening a diner. Just like I said.”
“You have some interesting guests.”
Vernon’s eyes closed for a moment. A look of weariness blew across his face, and away. “Architects. Helping me with decor and suchlike. I got no head for that stuff.”
Abbet cast a glance around the room. A broken chair leaned drunkenly against the far wall. Two tables stood stacked on top of each other like psychotic toadstools. And everywhere the dust, the rot of the DoBro wharf district, gone to seed with most of its residents.
“You’re not making a lot of progress.”
Vernon spread his hands, a sheepish smile on his face. “I work slow. Not as young as I used to be. You look pretty good, for a fella your age.”
Abbet refused to be distracted. “How ‘bout you give me a look around. A tour of the premises.”
“I wouldn’t want to crease your pants funny. Besides, she doesn’t look her best right now. Come back in a month or so.”
Abbet’s nose twitched. Dust floated through the air. He could feel it in his lungs. They spasmed, struggling to work for him.
“I think I need to insist.”
Vernon smiled up from the floor. “Sure, sure. Just help me up,” he said, extending a hand.
Abbet was too long on the streets for that trick. He just waved the Hotrod at him again. “You can do it. You’ve got at least ten
years on me.”
“My old partner,” Vernon said, and shook his head sadly. “Nobody ever was as lucky as you when it came to getting out of the soup. But you’re not going to get out of this one.”
Abbet sensed something behind him, but he was too late to avoid the blow altogether. The cosh, a sock filled with pennies, whistled down. It missed his head, but thudded into his shoulder, sending a shock of pain through his arm. Abbet’s gun clattered to the floor. Spry as ever, Vernon rolled to the left, reaching for his .38.
But the henchman was off balance, his blow glancing off. The old cop dropped to a knee and whipped his elbow back, right into the man’s groin. He went down without a groan.
Vernon was out of sight behind a half wall and a pair of iron hat racks. Abbet stayed low, wishing he could put the bar between himself and trouble, and scooped his Hotrod off the floor with his left. His right hand wouldn’t work right, electrical shorts going up and down his arm. He listened for more footsteps, but aside from the pained whistle of the henchman’s breath as he writhed on the ground, he heard nothing.
“Abbet,” Vernon called into the silence. “I got nothing against you. You don’t want to get mixed up in any of this. You get out right now, I’ll forget you were here.”
Abbet jerked a thumb at the henchman, even though Vernon wouldn’t see it. “This fella won’t forget any time soon.”
“I’ll fix it with Marco. Just get gone.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“I know you couldn’t do that, once upon a time. You paid for that a long while, if I remember. And kept on paying for it, rumors said, whatever it was you did. I don’t care about that. I’m giving you a chance. You go out the front door, I don’t shoot you, we’re square and I never see you again.”
Marco’s eyes were open and malevolent, and he was getting to his knees.
Can’t stay here, can’t leave. Okay, Abbet, now what?