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. Read Carefully.
Below is the second 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 2A, where this is 2Z. Behold the power of Steemians.
The first half of the scene is exactly the same in both 2A and 2Z versions of this post. But the second half is different. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to upvote the one you want to see continue. 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 Friday, 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.
The first scene of Now You Don't is here. You should read that one first. Then the story continues below.
Now You Don't Episode 2Z
Abbet’s eyes flicked down to his watch. Four oh eight. More than half an hour now. Shadows had begun to creep along the street, but it would be another three or four hours before the sun got low enough that he could move without worrying about being seen. Because though the two men were inside the diner, one more was left outside, keeping the car running. Abbet could see the driver shift every so often and raise his hand to mop his brow.
Must be nice.
Not for the first time today, Abbet wondered if he was too old for this.
The diner door opened. One of the men—Abbet had begun calling him Whitespats—came out onto the bottom step of the stairs and stretched, adjusted his hat, and climbed up to street level. He scanned the street, and, seeing nothing, bent to chat with the driver through the passenger window.
He was nothing. It was the other man Abbet wanted, the one still inside.
Harold Crane, who was supposed to be forty-six blocks uptown in a posh office a quarter mile from City Hall, shuffling papers for the Mayor. Instead, he was here. Again.
Crane didn’t come out. A bead of sweat collected at the crown of Abbet’s head and decided to roll backward through his thinning hair and down his back.
Come on.
Whitespats lit a cigarette and stood with his back to the car, watching the diner and keeping an eye on the street. From behind Abbet, a car rolled down the street toward them. Whitespats kept his profile low, behind his own car, not crouching, but not presenting a target, either. His hand drifted upward to the bulge in his coat.
But the car passed, chugging down the center of the street, and turned left at the next block.
The street went back to decaying in the sunshine.
Whitespats turned and looked directly at Abbet.
Abbet would have frozen, but he had already not moved in so long he didn’t know if he’d be able to. He was deep in the shadow of the back seat, his head even with the headrest. With the glare off the windshield, he should have been invisible. But Whitespats took a puff on his cigarette and kept his eyes locked on Abbet’s car. With a little lurch, he pushed off his own vehicle, shrugged his coat into place, and started toward Abbet.
Abbet was armed, of course, his snub-nosed Smith and Wesson .32 strapped to his ankle, but his fingers couldn’t quite reach it without bobbing his head. Maybe he wasn’t blown. It had to be impossible to see him against the glare of the sun, but Whitespats tossed his cigarette and drew his pistol. His steps went from tentative to purposeful. The gun came up.
Abbet jerked open the street-side door and vaulted himself out of the back seat. He dropped to the street and rolled under the car.
Two shots cracked through the glass above and the car rocked gently. Abbet scraped his arm across the pavement, drawing a bead on the feet coming toward him. He had maybe an inch between the top of the curb and the bottom of the car, and if he missed, the ricochet would be lethal in this tight space.
It was that or lie there and wait for Whitespats to blow out the tires and crush him. He squeezed the trigger.
The boom sounded like a grenade.
And then an avalanche of shots tore through the air. Whitespats went down against the chain-link fence. Glass rained down like a thunderstorm. On the street, tires squealed. Shots cracked off the facing of the diner, plucking shards of concrete with invisible fingers.
Abbet couldn’t turn his head. There wasn’t room. But he sure as hell wasn’t coming out.
It lasted three seconds, maybe four, but it was as if Abbet could see the seconds take half an hour each, the second-hand practically frozen behind the scratched face of his watch.
Another squeal of tires, and a car turned the corner down the street and was gone.
Abbet waited. Whitespats bled a little into the dust. He didn’t move. He wasn’t going to, either.
From over by the diner, a door creaked open. A moment later, footsteps came up the stairs and onto the street. Abbet saw the gleaming wingtips pause over by the vacant lot.
A voice said, “Well, hell.”
And then, “Harkness, get out here. Looks like Bunko’s boys left us a little present.”