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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 179: Cooper 57
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 348
Patrolling that night by himself because Tommy was spending time with Vashti and Derek at the manse, Mister Justice was not surprised to hear the shattering of glass two streets over. He remembered that the high-end liquor store nearby displayed their items behind a plate glass window.
Even if he was not at all in favor of public drunkenness, he was even less enthused by breaking and entering to achieve intoxication. Starting to run, he reached the corner, cut right, and two blocks down saw a man stepping into the window of Super Spirits. Shifting up another notch, he ran ahead, crossing a street which was empty save for some parked cars, and came to a halt amidst the glass scattered on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store.
Inside, a man in a short sleeved white business shirt with a loosened tie, slacks, and shoes was tossing bottles off the interior counter with casual abandon. Mister Justice reached for his Sword, and then reconsidered. The smell of alcohol was already heavy in the air. Perhaps a flaming sword was not a good idea.
“Friend, why don’t you come on out of there, and we can talk it over? Whatever happened, it’s not this bad,” Brian Barrelmaster called out enticingly. The man looked up with shock, opened a crystal bottle top, and took a swig. He tossed it down.
“Hey, you’re um, Mister Justice aren’t you?”
“Yes I am. Who are you?”
“Raymond Cantrill, philosophy minor, accounting major. My father said, get the accounting degree to pay for the philosophy. It’s a lot more fun spinning theories about the nature of Man and how certain we can be of knowledge when you’re eating good food in a warm house.”
Mister Justice stepped over the sill of the broken window, avoiding the shards of glass still jutting up from the edges, and stood on the table inside. He hopped down from that so as to not loom over the slight young man.
“Your father sounds like a smart man.”
“He is.” The collegian reached for another bottle, studied it, and dropped it. “I am looking for the good stuff. Not just the pretty good, which is all I can afford, or even the really good, but the best.” Mister Justice was about to gag from the heavy alcohol fumes.
“Did you lose your father?”
Raymond tilted his head up, and then shook his head ‘no’. “Is this where we fight?” he asked.
“I mean, we could, but I’d prefer not too. Why don’t you come along with me, and we can visit the police precinct?” Just in time for that some sirens made themselves heard down the street. Raymond walked across the room to another small bar, and looked behind it as Mister Justice entreated him.
“Ah ha. I found it. Two thousand dollars a bottle. The best booze in this here town, unless you visit some of the richy riches in their wine cellars.”
Things had gone far enough. Mister Justice surmised that Raymond had not yet gotten drunk, so his sedative should not cause any problems. He pulled the dart pistol.
“Put the bottle down, Raymond. Put your hands on your head.”
“Oh, eh, no.”
Mister Justice shook his head. He’d have to catch the man when he fell so as not to get him cut on the glass mixing with the liquid on the floor. He fired his dart pistol, and the blue exhaust of the rocket shot the dart to impact against Raymond’s shirt right over his stomach. Bulls-eye.
The dart bounced off and clattered to the glass-strewn wet floor of the liquor store.
As Raymond opened the bottle and took a chug with a pleased grin, Mister Justice fired again with the same null result.
“You’re a supervillain.”
“No.” Raymond took another chug. “You want some? I mean, this is good. Notes of chocolate, and honey, and it tastes like sunshine on a winter morning.”
“No? Then what are you?”
“I’m a man having a long dream.”
The police car pulled up outside, and Mister Justice yelled that he was inside with the suspect which made Raymond giggle. “Me, a suspect.”
“This is real.”
“Consider this, Mister Justice, I was sitting outside this night on the roof, contemplating Nietzsche’s Man and Superman, smoking a cig, when two supervillains landed behind me and got into an argument. I was startled, and one of them saw me, and blasted me off the roof. I went down three stories, head first. So--did I, a fairly drab individual, suddenly get superpowers, or am I in the hospital right now with a coma? The balance of evidence supports a coma. Darts did not bounce off me before tonight. I hated pins and paper cuts. So that makes you a figment of my imagination.”
He sauntered up to the window sill, and waved at the police.
“Your guns can’t hurt me.” He said. Brian shrugged and swung the Sword without lighting it, and it passed through the young collegian who collapsed. While society might have preferred he catch the expensive hooch, Brian instead caught Raymond before he could hit the ground and get cut on glass. He might be invulnerable to darts and bullets, but that said nothing about knife-like glass shards.
“I wonder why I decided to let you put the whammy on me.” He mumbled as Mister Justice toted him out, and the police put him in handcuffs. The police were eager, too eager, to send him on his way, and so Mister Justice left, then climbed to a rooftop to get a better view of the crime scene. The two police officers quickly loaded a dozen bottles of expensive hooch into their police car’s trunk. Brian sighed, and left for home, a bit disheartened, reeking of alcohol, and wondering what he should do about corruption in the police department.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #519: Versers Congregate. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
