Stacy crouched beside the Dumpster and watched as the dark blue Suburban, license number AOB 445, made its way through the crowded parking lot. She couldn't see the driver behind the tinted glass, but she knew he had to be searching for her, knew he had to be watching.
She was wearing her jogging shorts and her Bay to Breakers T-shirt. Her ticket book was in her fanny pack, along with her pen and her I.D. She clutched a bottle of Gatorade, and waited.
The faint odor of rotted meat blew across her. The nearby Price Choppers wasn't supposed to use this Dumpster, but often did when theirs was full. She hated those days. Usually she could crouch here, waiting for the Suburban, and smell only the paperwaste from the various storefronts in the strip mall. Today was clearly different.
The Suburban slowed in front of the Mongolian barbecue, and her breath caught in her throat. There was an open parking space--narrow, but possible. Maybe, after fifteen tickets, he had finally learned
Then Suburban swerved and took its usual place in the handicapped parking space right in front of JoLe's Stitch and Sew. The passenger side faced Stacy and, although she could hear the driver's side open, she couldn't see the person who got out.
Not that she was supposed to. The city's police department had instructed the volunteers not to get into confrontations with drivers. It's dangerous enough for police, Chief Danvers had said when he was introduced to the new volunteers. You're untrained. It had been obvious that he didn't approve of the new program, mandated by the Legislature, which allowed volunteers to write $250 citations to any able driver who parked in a handicapped spot.
But the moment Stacy had heard of the program, she'd signed up. She went through the training, which included a day-long self-defense course, and she had been on the street ever since. In the past five months, she had issued seventy citations, most of them spotted on her morning run.
Of the seventy, fifteen had gone to good old AOB 445. He had become her private nemesis. There had to be a number of citations at which even 445 would pay attention.
She got up and brushed the parking lot dirt off her bare legs. Her knees were cold. It was warm for April, but the air still had a damp chill.
She tossed her Gatorade into the Dumpster, and jogged toward the Suburban, unzipping her fanny pack as she went. She stopped in front of the Suburban, and pulled out her pen and citation book. The Suburban gleamed, its paint job new, its surface washed and polished. The smoky windshield, which she was sure was not standard, was covered with bugs.
The vehicle was empty, and the engine ticked as it cooled. She bit off the cap to her pen and began to write, feeling a mixture of malicious joy at catching him again, and anger that he wasn't learning. She had actually complained about him at the station after she had given him his tenth ticket, and the desk sergeant had explained that parking violations didn't count against a driver unless the driver left the violations unpaid. Apparently 445 had paid every ticket he had received.
She ripped off the ticket and was sticking it between the windshield and the driver's side wiper when someone grabbed her wrist. The grip was hard and firm, pinching the bones together, cutting off the circulation.
"So you're the bitch who's been costing me," a man's voice said.
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