I won 5th place in a noir writing contest in The NY Times with this entry:

Her name sounded just like the click of her stilettos: Nikki. Nikki walked Atlantic Avenue every morning after her shift at the dance hall. The same pack of thugs were always loitering on the corner, leering as she passed. She’d already been manhandled all night and their catcalls and wisecracks were just an end-of-work steam whistle to her. Then back to the flat she shared with her sister, Gladys. 

This morning was different. She looked up at the hooligans and gave them a half smile as she walked down the stairs to the subway. “See you in hell, chumps.” She ran her hand over her handbag and felt the outline of the gun. In just a few hours, she and her sister Gladys would be speeding out of the city, laughing and singing along to the radio in a newly snatched sky-blue convertible with two hundred grand and a dead man in the trunk.