Twilight on Jasper Ch. 2

“Stop it! Let go’a me!! Steele, so help me, if you don’t fucking let go of me…”

“You’ll what, you’ll kill me? You couldn’t hurt a kitten, Jasper Collins.”

“Stop…CALLING ME THAT!!” *WHACK* I slam my knee into his crotch as hard as I can. He releases my wrists and grabs his groin with a loud cry. I don’t know what comes over me, but I uppercut him. He falls, but I know my punch did practically nothing to him. “Fucking pervert!!” I walk over and kick the side of his head, then a few times in the ribs. “I fucking hate you, you creepy ass psycho!!” I bend down and grab his hair, spitting in his face as I yell. “I don’t care if I was about to be put to death…I would never…EVER allow your ugly name to be printed on my comic, you understand me?! You suck donkey balls and your coloring skills bite whale ass!! Oh, and by the way…YOU’RE FIRED!” And with that, I walk over to the door, unlock it and walk out.

The bum in the lobby was gone and there was no sign of the hoodlum brigade all the way back to the subway station. I didn’t have any money so I ended up having to jump the turnstile just as the train was pulling in. Some fat transit cop attempted to chase me, but he was no match for my panicked state and rushing adrenaline. When I sit down on the train, I realize that I’m shaking like a leaf. This is stupid. Why am I doing this to myself? In a way, that creep, Steele was right; I caused this whole thing. It was me who fucked up and obliterated my own dream realm, it was me who indirectly killed that man, so it’s only fair that I take my punishment like an adult. Maybe it’s better this way. __

“Hi,” I go up to the officer behind the huge desk of the precinct when I first walk in. “I’m here to see Officers Nathan Morris and Michael Bennett. Are they around?”

“Yeah, what’s this about, son?”

I look him right in the eye and in a calm, collected tone, I say, “I’d like to confess to a murder, sir.”

“….Come with me.” He leads me around the corner, through a whole bunch of sparsely populated desks. Bennett and Morris are sitting at two desks facing each other.

“Well, well. It’s the man of the hour, Mister Montgomery.” Morris grins. “Thanks, sarge. Here, kid, have a seat.” Bennett pulls up a chair in between their two desks. I have their complete and total attention, and I don’t plan on disappointing them.

“I did it. I murdered that one guy. I didn’t mean to, and I know you two think I’m a royal fruitcake, but I’m here to say I did it.”

The cops begin chuckling quietly. Bennett shakes his head at me. “Aren’t you a little late for that, Jason?”

“…What? What are you talking about?” I glance back and forth at the two, who are still giggling at me.

“We already have the killer. He came in earlier tonight and confessed.” Bennett yawns.

“Confessed?? What, NO, I did it…me! It was me!” Who in the world could have… “How do you know he wasn’t lying? I know what those men were doing!”

“So did he. He also surrendered the getup to us and knew a few details about the crime only the real perp would know. So, yeah, I do know he wasn’t lying.” Morris sips at his coffee, spilling a little on his tie. “Fuck. Got a napkin, Mikey?”

That son of a bitch, if he doesn’t get the needle, I’ll kill him myself. “Wait, athletic Asian guy? Dark skinned, my height?”

The detectives look at each other. “That’s none of your concern. You’re off the hook, kid. Now go home and call your mother, she’s worried about you.”

“No, I know that guy, he’s a liar! He knew all that stuff because I told him, and he stole the costume from me!”

Bennett sighs heavily. “Both remaining guys picked the perp out of a line-up, kid. It won’t work. Now go home.”

I stand up, furious at them for speaking of my pride and joy like he was some common criminal. “Where is he? I wanna see him! I’m posting his bail!”

“He’s in the tombs, it’s past visiting hours and you can’t post bail because he hasn’t even been arraigned yet, now go the fuck home before I do decide to book you for something!”

Bennett stands up as well, equally as disgusted and we have a stare-down for a few seconds before I narrow my eyes and back away a few steps. “I’ll be back in the morning. I wanna see him before he gets arraigned.”

“I won’t make any promises.”

“Fine.” I turn around and walk out of the precinct. __

Earlier That Day: This is not a good idea, but it’s the only solution to get Jasper out of the mess that I put him in. He was right, this whole thing happened because I had to go and don the costume in a realm I had no idea about. I was stupid to think they’d merely just accept me, and so I decided to set things right. Bryon insisted on going with me, of course, to keep an eye out for me. He’s always been good like that. Seth Mendle is masquerading as my half-wit lawyer, just to give the blue boys a little false confidence, and Alejandro Vega is pretending to be an eyewitness and identify me so there are no questions. I handed them over my own costume, because I couldn’t get near Jasper’s apartment to get his homemade one. The surviving members of the rapists I beat up had no problem identifying me because, hey, I was the guy, right?

“My name…is…Hugo Leon.” I pretended to speak with an accent, saying I got here from Thailand illegally about two years ago, which explains the fact that I don’t have a social security number. I claimed that I first approached Jasper disguised as one of his characters so he’d be less hostile to my visit. I also said that Jasper consented to leaving with me and he would verify my story. That took Osiris off the hook. They took my prints and made me sign all sorts of forms, one of which being a full confession. I made sure to give them lots of little juicy details about the crime that only I would know so there wouldn’t be any questions. I claimed that I was a huge comic fan and became obsessed with In Your Dreams from the day I arrived in this country. I told him I made the costume myself, and that I saved Jasper because I knew he wasn’t guilty, and that it was my fault he’s now a fugitive. They bought it, and now I’m being escorted in cuffs to my new holding cell. Bryon is walking right beside us in tears, begging me to at least consider escaping. I don’t say a word.

They leave me in cuffs, and the door makes a horrible *CHUNG* sound as it shuts tight in between Bryon and I. I glance around at all the punks and gangsters I’m rooming with, and they’re looking at me like I’m a big piece of tenderloin swinging about inside a butcher shop window. I squint and smile at them as they chuckle and surround me. One of them is pulling off his belt.

“Hey there, pretty boy. You got a nice ass on you. Turn around so’s I can see it better.” He and the other six guys surrounding me laugh, and one of them laps his tongue out at me suggestively. Another one grips his crotch.

“Leave him alone, you shaved apes!” Bryon grips onto the bars, yelling at them. He’s gotta know only I can hear him. I merely glance back at him with a silent ‘hush’.

“You think the cops are gonna save you, boy? I don’t think so. They’re long gone. Now why don’t you make things easier for us and get on your knees, cause if you make us do it, it’s gonna be painful.” Damn, why did they have to leave the handcuffs on?? This was going to be a long night, and somebody is going to feel it in the morning. Unfortunately, right now, it looks like that somebody is gonna be me. __

Present: After storming out of the precinct, I decided to head back to the warehouse. I needed to do some thinking. Would it be wise to bust him out of there? Should I get one of my characters to do it? Should I just leave things alone and hope for an acquittal? I get down into the basement and open the door. To my shock, there’s nobody home, but there’s a bag full of fast food and thirty bucks waiting for me on the card table. There’s a note on the TV from Osiris saying he and a few of the others went and “handled stuff”, and that I should just go home and relax, my rug was dry and my landlord never found out about the flood. Not knowing what else to do, I take the food and the cash and go home. There, I find the whole crew sitting around inside my apartment talking, eating and laughing. When I walk in, dirty, tired and pissed off, Anubis sits me down, Russ feeds me a Napoleon while Quentin gives me a back massage.

“Can somebody please tell me what’s going on here? Mai is in jail and you guys don’t seem to care!”

“On the contrary, my friend.” Osiris speaks up, sitting cross-legged on my bed tacking away on his trusty laptop, hooked into what looked to be a brand new cell phone. “I have a plan.”

“Oh? Then enlighten me, my dearest expert hacker. And while you’re at it, you can tell me where you got the new hardware.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll never get caught.”

“He swiped it right off someone’s belt.” Matthew Hurst snickers.

“Anyway, tell ‘im about my plan, guys. Oh, this is dastardly. Simply brilliant.” Osiris throws his arms up and bows. “Awe and praise, everyone. Tell me how ridiculously and obscenely ingenious I am.”

“I’ll tell you how ridiculously and obscenely full of yourself you are.” Craig Kitterman frowns, crossing his arms.

“What was that? Do I smell something?”

“I’m afraid that’s me you’re smelling, Osiris. I was in Hellsville being assaulted by my lawyer.” I sigh. “Now will somebody please be kind enough to fill me in?”

“Sit back and put your feet up, Jasper. This one’s gonna knock your socks off.” __

Seth and I were standing outside that precinct first thing the next morning, and we wouldn’t go away until they let us see Mai. Apparently, we really were the first ones to see him that morning, because the cops were just as shocked as we were to find him handcuffed in a cell with about seven unconscious biker guys littering the floor.

“Hey, guys.” He gives us a big, innocent smile as the officer unlocks the door and barks at him to leave the cell. Mai calmly explains that these fine gentlemen wouldn’t take no for an answer and so he had to resort to violence. The cops can’t seem to get over the fact that he did all this while handcuffed. We were given a short while to talk to him alone, at which time we fill him into our plan.

“Hugo Leon?” I cringe. “What the hell made you use the name Hugo?”

“So you’d hear it and know it’s time hhyoooo-go post my bail! Heh heh heh…” Mai smacks the table and chuckles at his own joke.

“….” Seth smacks his forehead. “Mai, you’re an idiot.”

As the morning progresses, they place Mai in a cell by himself and we bring him back something to eat. We go with him to his arraignment and Seth argues that a person who walks into a police station and willingly admits to committing a crime is hardly a flight risk. The judge is tired and hungry and wants to rush things along, so he grants Mai $30,000 bail.

The night before, Osiris had used that laptop of his to trick a few ATM machines into giving up a good portion of their cash. This morning, before the bailiff could cart Mai off to Rykers, Seth posted his bail in cash and Mai was free to go. What the D.A., and even I didn’t know was that from the moment Osiris got here, while making his rounds at every internet café and library in the city, he had set up a nice little funneling system for himself, knowing something bad was going to happen. He created a few dummy accounts and funneled a fraction of a cent off the dollar from at least eight different banks. By now, we should have quite a fortune at our fingertips.

Osiris didn’t care about being subtle, because he knew that by the time they found out what was going on, the money would be ours. Last night, we began negotiations to buy a small island about six miles off the coast of Florida under a false name. The deal should go through long before Mai’s court date. The island would be for my babies, of course. It could never replace their realm, but it’s a good place to start.

As for me, my place is here, in my good old basement apartment with my brand new roommate, Bryon. After all, who else is gonna finish making In Your Dreams #20? Besides, I have to go down to visit my old friend, Irving Steele, who was stupid enough to find Bennett and Morris and tell them the truth, exactly as I told it to him. That little attempt to try and get back at me landed him a cozy little cell over at Belleview. From this I learned two things: first, homicide detectives can indeed be good for something, and two, whether you’re in a dream realm or in real life, there really is such a thing is “Happily Ever After”.

end