+J.M.J.+

A Slaying Song Tonight

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

This chapter ended up a lot longer than I originally intended. How was I to know that the mystery woman would…well, read on. I'll admit this much, the unexpected developments seem to have been inspired by a couple thoughts that ran through my mind when I got a spoiler on the film: "Oh, whatever happened to our gentle Jude!" and "Well, at least you have something nice to look at as you're dying."

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I

III: Take the Girl Tonight

He had to think up a way to get them apart, get the princess down an alleyway where no one would notice, away from any witnesses.

But then the woman looked right at him. This would make it even harder and the last thing he needed now was a complication…she might turn defensive.

Wait…was that a smile of approval crossing her face? Her eyes had been looking him up and down more than a few times. He returned the favor; he got a better look at her: Brunette, about twenty, tall, almost his height, short hair bobbed at the ears, a man's black fedora topping her head, tin rimmed glasses, heavy black topcoat over a black dress. Without the glasses, she'd be a knockout, a little flat up top, but that might have been a trick of the somewhat mannish way she carried herself. He preferred 'em blonde, but he couldn't help returning the smile.

He'd have to get the brunette away from her charge. She didn't have to be part of the picture.

"Excuse me," he said, glancing at his wristwatch. "I think my watch is slow: do you have the time?"

"Does anybody know what time it is?" the brunette asked in a husky alto, a gently cynical smile touching her lips.

"Bridie, it's cold out here," Angelica whined, pulling on the girl's arm.

"Well, you wouldn't be cold if you'd buttoned up your coat," Bridie said, checking her own watch. To Maguire, she added, "Sorry. I have 8.30."

Maguire set down his camera case and adjusted his watch. He knelt down to Angelica's level. "Hey, Princess, you need some help with those buttons?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, giving him a child star smile as he buttoned up her coat. God, the tot belonged in pictures, but he got a clear view of the tiny horns peeping from under her hair bow, holding up her halo.

"You have kids, chief?" Bridie asked.

"Oh no, I'm not married," Maguire replied.

"Really? I'd think a looker like you would already have been snapped up a long time ago."

"I'm married to my work: I'm in 'press'."

"A reporter?"

He picked up his camera case and stood up. "Mostly a photographer."

"I should have guessed from the camera case. Taking snaps of the holiday scene?"

"Just a few for my publishers: I specialize in crime scenes."

"Ah, shooting the dead?"

"You might put it that way—nice phrase. I never thought of it that way."

Bridie shrugged. "I just think 'em up off the top of my head." She hadn't taken Angelica's hand.

"You ought to write them down."

"I do: I'm a writer."

"You work for any of the papers?"

She shook her head. "Nah, I'm a professional liar. Mostly fiction: detective stories, crime dramas, here and there a scientifiction, which I'm trying to do more with."

"Excuse me, a what kind of fiction did you call it?"

"A scientifiction, the kind of stuff they print in Weird Tales and Amazing Science, glimpses at what life might be like on Planet X or in the year 1999, when all the buildings in Chicago are a thousand stories of chrome plating. It's gonna be the next big thing in a few years."

"I suppose with the depression setting in, folks need stories like that to keep up their hopes for better things in the future. Still, like they say: crime sells."

"True, in some ways it's a shame that it does. So, since I'm one of these do-gooder types, I always try to instill a moral journey element into my crime stories: the heroes are flawed and the villain has his redeeming qualities and what happens when the two collide."

She might be a bit brainy, but she had a good tongue in her head. "I'd think a nice girl like you would be able to find a better job than writing pulp fiction and serving as an honor guard for a princess," he ventured.

"It's hard with the depression. My uncle in Rock Island keeps trying to get me a job in one of his papers; 'Writing crime stories is no work for a lady,' he says, so I always say, 'What lady? Where? Who you calling a lady?'" This said as a comical whine, her eyes crossed ridiculously.

He chuckled with her. He strongly considered giving her his card, then asking her out on a date after he got this job finished, maybe get a room for the night. She was a little too dark for his usual tastes, but the change would do him good.

"I got the name of our princess here, but I don't think I got yours," he said, feeling for his card case in his pocket.

"It's Bridget, Bridget Rooney. B.H. Rooney to the publishing world, Bridie or Bridgie to everyone who knows me. And you are?"

"Harlen Maguire, though most people call me Maguire."

He was just pulling out his card case when Bridie turned around. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Angelica!"

The little tyke had toddled away, her tracks masked by the tracks of the passersby.

"She can't have gone far," Maguire said. "Let's split up, you and I, and look for her separately. We'll cover more ground that way. We'll meet back here in half an hour."

"That's a good idea," she said. "Maybe I should call the police."

"They'll all be home with their families," he argued.

"That's true."

Bridie headed down the street, in the direction Maguire had come and the same direction she had been traveling before their interlude. Maguire walked up the street, following the remnants of Angelica's tracks in the snow.

It couldn't have turned out better than if he had planned it. This way, he didn't have to do extra work. And lose a possible date.

Concluded in the next chapter…

Afterword:

WARNING: the rating goes up, next chapter.