Le Club Chat Noir locked the doors and turned off the lighted sign. Pegeen Vane, one of the last to leave, waited by the corner as the customers drove away, to homes and the possibility of sex with a lover, or hooking up, or wherever people who lived in the sunless hours went as morning crept nearer. She began walking toward the Capitol Building.
The main street of the city was deserted and dark but for scattered streetlights; the stores and offices closed and bolted against lawless beings in the shadows of the night. Her destination was the only downtown place open all night, the Timmons Grand, a four-star hotel one long block from the Capitol. She wanted to be in her apartment, sleeping in her bed, with her cat, Trixie, a small, warm, circle beside her, but she was staying a hotel room four blocks from her apartment.
Det. Lance Burns asked her to take this decoy assignment, the last before she quit the city police and started at the County Library, and she'd agreed. She tightened her coat against the chill but decided not to button it. She stared up at the clouds curtaining the stars on this moonless night and wished she'd refused.
The Killer-by-Night had notched seven victims in the last six months, with few connections among the crimes. Lance informed her the analysis of the victims showed that every other victim had a large life insurance policy, a fortune, or was an ex bleeding their former spouse. The victims in-between were random--students with little money and often debts. She had her degree and the student loans to repay and lived paycheck to paycheck. She could masquerade as a broke student. An in-between victim was due, and she walked the dark city this night to lure the killer.
Student victims were taken from the blocks in the city near the Capital Building and the University, where the odd student making a few dollars from a job that ended in the wee hours wandered home alone. Hence, she walked to the room at the hotel the Police booked for her for safety reasons as the time neared 3:15.
A car slowed, and she stiffened, her hand on the microphone on her coat to alert Lance she wanted backup. A cab driver stared at her; she ignored him, and he drove off. She released the microphone and looked in a store window. Her dim reflection gazed back at her.
The window shimmered, her reflection disappeared, and she saw herself hiding in bushes. Her heart pounded as the glimpse of the near future ended with two dark figures, one on a bicycle, searching the bushes for her. Her erratic precognition had struck again, without telling her anything really useful. She figured she had a few minutes to avoid the danger. The vision faded and she hurried on.
I should let Lance know I'm going to the hotel, she told herself. The lights of the Timmons were a bright spot on the other side of the street. She crossed the road and heard the faint clink of a bicycle. A grey bicycle with a dark rider raced at her. The killer found her. She ran for the Timmons, big feet pounding the pavement when a figure with a black mask and cap darted from between a car and a delivery van and grabbed her sleeve.
Pegeen grabbed the stranger and whirled, a mad dance that ended with her whipping the stranger into the van.
"Yeoww!" The stranger screamed, and Pegeen knew it was a woman. The bicyclist was almost upon her. She slipped out of her coat, leaving the woman hanging onto the sleeve, and sped towards the Capitol and the scene of her vision.
The bicyclist stopped and muttered something to the woman. The bicyclist chased after her with the woman clinging to the bike.
Pegeen's long legs and speed were no match for the bicycle, she knew, and she'd lost the mic when she left her coat behind. She hurtled into the shadows of the Capitol grounds and hooked a left into darkness. She darted into some bushes and crouched, gasping for breath. Her lousy precognition had warned her this was a safe place to hide.
The bicyclist and the runner reached the grounds and stopped.
"Split up," said the bicyclist. "Go to the steps and I'll go left. Watch for any movement. That fat chick can't run far. We need a victim before our next contract killing."
Pegeen took a deep breath as her breathing slowed. She texted Lance: 'Two kilers chased me onto Capitol Grounds, one on bike, on on foot. I'm in bushes t left of steps.' She sidled deeper into the bushes and felt a long stick on the ground. She lifted it; it was about the length of a baseball bat and an inch thick.
She tried to move quietly to the sidewalk and sneak away in the shadows, but she stepped on leaves that crackled.
"Over here!" the bicyclist called to the runner. He pedaled slowly in her direction. She ran from the bushes. He hastened after her.
He neared and she jumped aside and jammed the stick in the spokes. The bike stopped instantly and skidded onto the street. The bicyclist slammed into the handlebars as the bike fell over. The bicyclist groaned and struggled to get free from the bike.
Pegeen raced down the middle of the street as the runner chased her, but Pegeen was faster. A car sped towards them, and she recognized the unmarked police vehicle. Lance.
Lance leapt from the car followed by other officers. They grabbed the runner, wrestling her to the ground. Another car pulled up and she directed them to the bicyclist.
*
She sat in Lance's office the next morning. "Good job, Pegeen. Those two were contract killers who killed random victims to disguise their contracts, or maybe just for fun."
"Thanks. This was my last job. For sure."
Lance grinned. "I'll take you to lunch to celebrate your new job at the library."
