The Midnight Crime - Chapter 12

With his entire life spent slinking through the narrow alleys, Falcon had learnt the art of melting soundlessly into shadows and moving along with them. He moved forward now with a practiced pace, the dark a comforting curtain against his train of thoughts.

Autumn had spent the rest of the evening working at a café, and he had noticed her carefully, sitting across the street inside a coffee house with the cap pulled low over his eyes. She moved with precision and grace, sliding between the tables fast and carefully, without dropping anything. She had spent another thirty minutes cleaning up the café after it closed, as the owner, a fat angry woman, counted the money. He cursed her a few more times as Cyan and the package pressed heavily on his mind, while the coffee house owner gave him dirty looks for occupying the table. He ordered a Latte but immediately spewed it out. The barista making the coffee had forgotten to taste the milk, the sour taste of which spread like poison in his mouth. He drank the rest of it for the sake of doing something with his hands, else he rapped on the table and caught the other customers’ attention.

Falcon wondered if Cyan would have noticed his absence, hopefully he would be too drunk by now. Pitt would probably come for him but he was not important. He embraced the silence of the night, as he hurried through, eyes and ears tuned automatically to any small sound emerging, trying to locate the source. He was dressed all in black again, his weapon snug at his waist, while his boots made no sound on the ground.

He followed Autumn cautiously as she hurried through the alleys, hands tucked inside the pockets of her uniform, her head ducked against the wind. Few of the strands of her hair were moving with the breeze before framing her face again, which he knew would be immersed deep in thought. He didn’t know if she knew he was there, chances were that she didn’t, but she wasn’t ordinary and he was aware of it.

Who the hell are you, he wondered. I hope I don’t have to get rid of you too.

This assignment was proving to be too much of a headache, but the money. The money was worth it, he reminded himself as Autumn turned into an alley. He waited a few seconds then followed her.

When Falcon went around the corner, she’d vanished. His chest heaved suddenly, the surprise of her disappearance hitching his breath. It was an alley of dingy motels, some offering rooms, while others showing signs of NO VACANCY in loud, bold letters. A door creaked to his right and he turned slowly, every move causing the silent air to stir with a whisper. He let out a relieved sigh as he saw a door to a hotel’s front close, creaking again as the lock clicked. A flash of brown curls disappeared behind the ajar slit and he smirked. A smug feeling of triumph settled over him as he glanced at the sign.

ANGEL INN

It said in crooked letters, barely clinging to the sign. A poorly carved wooden angel was next to the sign, her chubby cheeks pulled into a smile. She was gripping an arrow tightly, aimed high, as if welcoming the visitors under its shadow. The building was dilapidated, the sign hanging loose as if it would fall off and flutter to the ground with one harsh jerk of the wind. Several of the windows were broken, the glass ending in jagged corners, cardboard stuffed to let no intruders peek in. It was as high as two stories, the bricks a muddy brown and splattered with water from the puddles in front of him. For the name Angel Inn, it looked like it had come straight from hell.

Falcon stared at the low building. His instincts told him Autumn would go for the highest room, so would he, if he had been in her place. High places gave him a sense of security along with privacy with the satisfaction of watching others while staying invisible himself. He raised his hand to the bell outside the door, but dropped it back, not wanting to alert Autumn and letting her slip through his hands.

There was a thick pipe on the front wall, coming from the roof and emptying on the street, no doubt to drain all the rainwater. He caught hold of it and pulled, finding the material sturdy enough to balance his weight. Falcon climbed the pipe quickly, hands and feet moving up soundlessly. He knew he looked like a pole dancer, and he wondered what someone would think if they saw him clinging to a pipe late in the night.

He stopped when he levelled with the second floor windows, and stared at the broken glass. The window was stuffed with cardboard with a hole in the center, he pumped his fist into the soft material, which landed with a soft thunk on the floor inside. He wondered if the person inside would have woken up from the noise. The odds of it were very low, as the night was the kind of unforgiving when you just want to get under the blankets and get carried away by the warmth to your dreamy paradise. Also, at this hour, he knew only the owls were awake.

The hole was big enough for him to squeeze through, though the jagged edges of the glass nicked his jacket, small rips appearing in the leather. He huffed at the damage, crushing the broken glass in his fist at the inconvenience. Ignoring the sharp pain, he dropped down into the room, the interior so dark that he couldn’t even see his own hand which he held in front of his eyes. It took him a solid two minutes to adjust to the blankness, and he slowly made his way through the scattered objects on the floor. The person inside the bed was a guy and fully asleep, the sounds of his snores like an angry troubled truck engine reverberating in the still air.

Falcon squeezed his eyes against the noise, the snoring was giving him an earache as he made for the door. His movements were like a snake, slithering so quietly through the dark that even his own shadow couldn’t hear them. The litheness had come from years and years of experience, since he had started breaking in and learnt the dos and don’ts of a successful robbery. The door was locked, though the knob was rattling quite badly, threatening to fall off at any second. It was thanks to the man’s nightmarish snores that he jimmied the lock and wasn’t heard, not wanting to break the knob and cause more damage to the inn owner. Outside, the narrow hallway was lit with a dim bulb which kept electrocuting every three seconds, making Falcon’s eyes pain at the sudden disappearance and reappearance of the light. He was annoyed, that he almost hit it out with his fist when he remembered not every annoying thing was his punching bag.

The hallway led into a wide space with doors on all four sides with a staircase at the far corner, leading to the floors below. A beaten snooker table occupied the space in the middle of the floor. He wondered if it was even used, or if it was kept there only to remove the drab feeling and replace it with a homelier one. He glanced around the floor, drenched in the nude bulb’s weak light and wondered which of these closed doors held Autumn behind it.

‘Looking for me?’ a voice said from behind him.