The Forking Story: Throw The Bones (A Cheating Death splinter story)--Version 3A

cristof (56)in #fiction • 7 years ago (edited)

Here's the shtick: I write a story, a scene at a time. Then I write a pair of second scenes, taking the story in two different directions--a story fork. The reward total after three days determines which fork survives.

Fork 2A won the second round with room to spare. So that's the story that continues, below.

The Story So Far (picks up from Scene 2; go here for Scene 1):

Abbett watched the street. Shimmies of heat jitterbugged on the pavement. Nothing moved.

Not even Abbett, whose eyes stayed pegged forward like they’d been stapled to Wadsden Street. He’d have a crick in his neck later, but that water was already under the bridge and gone, and all that was left to him was to make sure the pain earned something worthwhile. He increasingly doubted it would. Not enough to move, though.

To his right, a sidewalk, cracked and weedy, with a chain link fence where a building had once been. Bricks, rust-colored and crumbly, lay haphazardly in the vacant lot. Next to it, farther up the street, stood a decrepit warehouse, windows boarded up. Beyond that, a car sat in front of what had been a diner, back when this part of town had regular people in it. The rest of the block was similar, stretching out ahead. Both sides. Slowly decaying in the blazing July sun, like hundreds of other blocks in dozens of cities.

But those blocks didn’t have that car parked there.

Abbett’s eyes hurt from the reflection off the chrome bumper of that car. It gleamed like a department store Christmas display. Even brand-new cars didn’t come that clean. The tailpipe jiggled every now and then, just a fraction, but enough that Abbett knew the car was running. Had been, for going on half an hour, since it had glided to a stop in front of that diner.

By that point, Abbett’s head had already been down low, out of easy sight, and behind the front bench. Someone in that car had glanced through the driver’s window on the way by. Empty. No one ever looked in the back seat.

Two men had exited the car, both wearing suits in the July heat, one with a conspicuous bulge at his left breast. They’d walked across the sidewalk and down the short flight into the sunken diner.

Abbett’s car blended perfectly with the rest of the street. Missing a hubcap, once-white paint scratched and patchy, decorated with rust, it had been parked there for months. Abbett parked it there himself.

The back seat was surprisingly comfortable, and the car had more to recommend it than it appeared from the carefully-prepared exterior. Today Abbett thought he might get to use some of the other qualities than the cushy rear bench. Today. Had to be today.

If those men would just come back out of the diner while Abbett could still use his neck muscles.

Scene 2:

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 was sure he'd turned to marble already. 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 the car.

Abbet’s left hand found the bulge in his own coat pocket, where his Czech Hotrod lay cool and anxious. He slid his hand into his pocket and gripped it, the slight movement out of sight behind the front seat.

Whitespats took a couple more steps, then turned at the sound of a door opening.

The diner. A black fedora pushed through the door and out into the sunshine.

Crane said something Abbet couldn’t hear, but Whitespats turned, tossing his cigarette into the vacant lot, and went back to his own car. He held open the rear door, let Crane in, and climbed in after him. The car pulled smoothly away from the curb and glided down the street a block. It turned right, and was gone.

The sound of the engine hadn’t died completely away before Abbet was out of the car and making for the diner. He twisted his head, feeling the muscles cramp, trying vainly to loosen them. Eight steps, nine, and he jogged down the stairs and opened the door.

The interior was so dark his eyes had trouble picking anything up but shadows. But a voice called out from in the back, “You forget something?”

Abbet grunted, a noise he hoped wouldn’t be immediately identifiable as not belonging to Crane, and stepped farther in. He drew the Hotrod and crouched behind the counter. Dust coated everything, thick and velvety, except for a trail across the floor from the door back around past the bar and to the right, where a decrepit sign said “estroo” with an arrow.

Footsteps. A man stepped round the corner and looked toward the door. Abbet, deep in shadow, wished his hair was the dark black of his youth. But the man didn’t see him, just kept coming around the bar, a quizzical look on his face. When he drew even with Abbet and reached for the door, Abbet stood up and put the Hotrod against his thoracic vertebrae.

“Hello, Vernon,” he said.

Scene 3:

“Abbett,” 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.” Abbett 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?” Abbett said.

“Just me,” Vernon said, voice flat. Abbett couldn’t tell if he was lying.

“Sit down,” Abbett 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 Abbett meant it. Abbett 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. Abbett 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 Abbett 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.”

Abbett 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.”

Abbett 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.”

Abbett’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.”

Fork 3A:

Vernon smiled up from the floor. “Sure, sure. Just help me up,” he said, extending a hand.

Abbett 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.”

Abbett 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. Abbett’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. The old cop dropped to a knee and whipped his elbow back, right into the man’s groin. He went down with a groan.

Vernon was out of sight behind a half wall and a pair of iron hat racks. Abbett 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.

“Abbett,” 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.”

Abbett 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, Abbett, now what?

Voting commences now. You can vote for this story and for Fork 3Z, if you like them both, but only one will survive. Move that slider to weight the story you can't live without. Deadline is Wednesday, midnight GMT, when the larger payout lives on and the smaller withers and dies.

~Cristof