Now You Don't--Chapter One, Episode 3Z

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 3A, where this is 3Z. 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 3Z

“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.”

“You always were a stubborn bastard,” Vernon said, climbing to his knees, then staggering to his feet. He stared at his pants, streaked with dust. “Aw, look at this. Cas, you got a lot to answer for.”

“Your turn to give me answers,” Abbet said, and stepped to the side. “Follow this path…follow…”

And he sneezed.

Not a petite ah-choo, but a full-throated, shnozz-clearing eruption that practically shook him off the floor and made his scars throb. Before he could recover, Vernon, all shamming gone now, ripped the gun out of his hand.

“Careless. You didn’t used to be careless,” Vernon said.

Abbet sneezed again and wiped his nose with a sleeve. “Not careless,” he said, snuffling, “human. I’m human.”

Vernon laughed out loud. “You? Human? You gone into standup now? No one in this city is less human than you. You almost make me believe in the resurrection.” He shoved Abbet back into a padded booth. The bench cut his legs from under him and he sat with a whump.

“But even if I couldn’t kill you…I could though, couldn’t I?” he said, raising the gun, Abbet’s own gun, and sighting along it. “Just pull the trigger, and bam, down you go. Easy.”

Abbet knew that could be. It had happened enough already, so many times he almost lost count. But he wasn’t dead yet. How, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t. And he wasn’t ready to go down this time, either.

So he said, “I know about Harold Crane.”

Vernon sighed. “Crane gets around. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“This isn’t the kind of social venue he’s normally seen in. What are you guys doing here?”

“Like you don’t already know.”

By now, if there had been anyone else in the diner he would have come out there, so Vernon had been telling the truth after all. So maybe it was time to use the rumors to his advantage.

Abbet pushed himself up with the table and the back of the bench. “Well, this chat has been lovely. But I have things to do.”

Vernon’s grin cracked a little. He held the gun out a bit more stiffly. “No, no, now. I can’t let you out of here.”

Abbet fixed him with a stare that came from the cold of Hell. “Stop me, then,” he said.