Set the Night on Fire by Libby Fischer Hellmann Page A

Lila, knocking her off her feet. A heavy weight pinned her to the sidewalk. She squirmed and wriggled, trying to free herself, but the weight bearing down on her made it impossible. As she gulped down air, another gunshot rang out.
    Then came an eerie moment of silence. Lila smelled wet wool. The pea coat. Had someone been hit? Nothing moved.
    A sudden growl from the motorcycle broke the silence. She might have heard someone grunt. Then the bike accelerated and sped off, its tires spraying wet snow and slush. As the roar of the bike faded, the man on top of her shifted. He was alive. She lay still. He was trying to get up, but his arms flailed, and his movements were awkward. Finally he pushed himself off and lurched to his feet.
    “Are you all right?” Lila croaked. Then she caught herself. What if he was in league with the motorcycle man? Maybe he was there to finish the job his partner had started.
    The man hovered above her. The ski mask still covered his face, and the only thing she could see were his eyes. Dark, intense. And something else. Lila wasn’t great at decoding feelings, but she thought she saw a gleam of satisfaction. Then he tore his gaze from hers, and, without a word, jogged away.
    “Wait! Stop!” Lila yelled as she pushed herself up. “Who are you?”
    The man headed east towards Lake Michigan. Before the night swallowed him, she noticed he was wearing sneakers. Sneakers in winter?
    She stood up gingerly, stretching and flexing her limbs. Everything seemed to be working, physically, but her pulse was pounding, and she started to shake uncontrollably. She’d never felt so cold. She pulled her coat more tightly around her. She spotted her purse on the ground a few yards away. She was amazed it was still there. She grabbed it and fumbled inside for her cell.

   

FIFTEEN
     
     
    “ S o you’re not sure if he was attacking or rescuing you?” the cop asked. His partner handed Lila some coffee. She was in the back seat of a patrol car a block away from the “incident,” as they called it, in front of a coffee house. Lila would rather be downing a belt of scotch from the bar next door, but she didn’t have the chance—or the nerve—to suggest it. She knew from the cops’ attitudes that they weren’t sure what they were dealing with and didn’t much care. Drive-bys were an unfortunate fact of life in Chicago. Even on the Gold Coast.
    The cop who’d bought the coffee slid back into the driver’s seat and twisted around. Although she’d already told them the basics, she started to explain again. The cop in the passenger seat cut her off with questions. No, she couldn’t identify the motorcycle. No, she couldn’t describe the rider. No, she couldn’t even describe the man who fell on top of her. She didn’t know where the bullets or shell casings might be.
    The cop in the passenger seat clicked his ballpoint pen. In, out. In, out. The sound of the clicks was mesmerizing. “So what happens next?” she asked. “Do you need me to come down to the station?”
    His voice was impassive. “That won’t be necessary. We have everything we need. We’ll file the report.”
    She eyed him. “And?”
    He shrugged. “You haven’t given us much to follow up on. A guy, on a bike you can’t describe, shoots at you. Another guy in gym shoes attacks you. A gun goes off that no one else seems to have heard.”
    She looked at the cop in the driver’s seat. “There’s got to be other people who heard the shots. I mean, they were loud. Maybe if you interviewed people nearby . . . ”
    The cop who was clicking the pen replied, “No one called in. We checked. And we don’t have the time or manpower to canvas the entire neighborhood. Especially when we don’t have a . . . well . . . ” His voice trailed off.
    A body. That’s what he was going to say. She wanted to rip the pen out of his hand. “The problem is I’m still alive, isn’t it? If I were dead, you’d be all over