THE HORNET SPED up in the first two blocks, getting up to sixty-five in a residential twenty-five. The first stop sign came up fast. The driver in the Hornet braked hard and the front of the car surged down. Their speed bled off to about thirty. The right rear passenger took the slower speed as an opportunity and bailed out. He hit the asphalt hard and spun like a top. He got up and ran, looking over his shoulder, sure a bullet from a deputy’s gun would take him in the back. Los Angeles County Sheriffs didn’t work anything like LAPD. They still shot fleeing suspects who presented a danger and a threat to public safety.
Ciotti pulled his car to the right, his driver’s door held open with his foot as his car came to a stop. He intended to chase the guy. I opened my door, held it with my foot, and drew my revolver, ready to jump as soon as Good stopped our car.
The Hornet let off the brake and hit the gas.
Good said, “Fuck that guy, we’re gonna take the car.” He hit the gas, too.
I let the sudden momentum close my door. “Hey, hey, we need to back Ciotti. He’s by himself with an armed suspect.”
He ignored me and spoke into the radio. “Two-Fifty-Three-Adam, we are now primary in the pursuit, still southbound on Platt Avenue. Two-Fifty-One is in foot pursuit.”
I’d not taken my eyes off the suspect or Ciotti, now out of his patrol car and running, trying to catch up. The suspect, still looking over his shoulder, couldn’t see what came in front of him. He ran head-on into a block wall and fell to the ground just as we drove on by.
We entered the Freeway Corridor off Fernwood. The State of California had bought or condemned all the houses for the new 105 Freeway, which when finished would run east and west and transect all the north–south freeways, connecting them all to the Los Angeles Airport. The project had been in the works for the last twenty years. All the houses had been razed. The area now looked like one long, giant park with trees and shrubs, concrete foundations and curbs and gutters.
The area turned darker, more ominous without houses. If the suspects bailed out here, they could melt into the background and we’d never find them. Maybe these guys knew the area and that’s what they intended.
The Hornet turned east from Platt onto Fernwood, went two quick blocks, and turned north again right into the heart of the Freeway Corridor.
One block north, the driver braked hard. This time the driver bailed out of the Hornet, which was still moving at thirty miles an hour. Driverless, the car now contained two suspects, one in the right front and one in the back left, two crooks now just along for the ride in a ghost car.
The driver rolled two times and came up running like some kind of circus acrobat. He ran right across our path, headed westbound.
Good gunned our car and jerked the wheel, trying hard to hit the suspect. He just missed him. The patrol car banged over the curb. I bounced and hit my head on the ceiling. Mr. Freeman moaned, “Lordy, lordy.”
Good brought his gun up with his right hand crossed over his left arm and rested it on the windowsill as he horsed the steering wheel one-handed. He lined up on the running suspect and fired. The noise exploded in the interior of the car. Bright light from the muzzle flashed the night in a strobe as he fired again and again until his gun clicked empty.
Mr. Freeman moaned and moaned, only now it came out muffled.
Behind us, more shots went off. I spun in my seat.
To our rear, the Hornet, without a driver, veered off and crashed into a block wall. A Lynwood black-and-white came up in the street we’d just left, and slowed. The deputy stood on the sill of his open passenger door shooting at the occupants of the crashed Hornet.
Good jerked the wheel hard. A split second before I turned to look forward, my mind clicked in and identified the deputy doing the shooting.
Sonja.
Good gunned the big Dodge Diplomat, spinning the back tires in the grass, trying to gain traction to run down the suspect in front of us.
Cordite filled our car like a fog bank, bitter to the taste.
I held on to the spotlight handle and the upright shotgun in the rack. I needed to get free of this crazed man, to get back to Sonja, to see if she was okay.
We gained speed, dodging full-grown cypress and pine. “Stop. Stop.”
Good paid me no mind, his eyes intense, his mouth a straight line. He only took in one thing: the man who ran in his headlights, the car eating up the distance in between.
I braced for impact.
The suspect juked at the last second and disappeared into the darkness off to the left. Good missed him by no more than a breath. Good jerked his head to look over his shoulder, his third or fifth mistake of the evening.
Without the driver’s attention, the car hit a dip, a deep one. The bottom dropped out of my stomach as gravity grabbed hold and pulled. The next second, I turned weightless.
The engine roared.
The tires spun free.
The car came down on something hard and immovable. I crashed into the ceiling. The world flickered on and off, then stayed on.
We’d come to a complete and abrupt stop. I didn’t know how. Everything had gone quiet except for the ticking and hissing car. I opened my door and fell out onto the wet grass that had once been someone’s front yard. I switched on my flashlight. Steam and smoke roiled out from the undercarriage.
Good yelled, “My gun, my gun. I can’t find my gun.” He floundered on the ground in the wet grass on his hands and knees on the other side of the car.
The suspect might not have run off. He might’ve stayed close and now lurked in the area looking for a little retribution. And Good didn’t have his gun. Worse, he’d told everyone within hearing range he didn’t have a gun.
I stumbled around the front of the car. For some reason the headlights stood out higher than normal. The car teetered a little. I looked underneath. We’d come down on the stump of a huge tree. The entire undercarriage looked mangled and shoved to the back, the transmission and drive train in ruin.
I grabbed onto Good, shook a little sense into him. I pulled my backup gun from my ankle holster and told him, “Here, cover us, I’ll find your gun.”
“No, gimme your service weapon.” He reached to grab the larger gun in my holster. I shoved him away. “Kiss my ass. Now cover. I’ll find your gun.”
He hesitated. I put my flashlight into his face. He flinched and brought his arm up, the distraction enough to pull him out of his crazed funk and back to reality. He brought his arm down, his eyes going wide. “Hey, hey, you better back me up on this. You hear me? Come on, let’s get our story together.”
He’d gotten caught up in all the excitement of the chase, the adrenaline of the violence, and violated ten or fifteen department policies, several of which carried enough weight for termination and even criminal charges: involvement in a pursuit while transporting a prisoner, shooting from a moving car, shooting with a transport in the car, crashing said car with a transport, totaling the car, leaving a deputy involved in a foot pursuit. The list went on and on.
“I’m not backing you on this. There’s nothing for it. It is what it is.”
He grabbed my arm. Something evil flashed in back of his eyes. For a moment I thought he might raise my own backup gun, point it at me, and shoot. I put my hand on the stock of my gun. “How,” I asked, “are you going to make this something it’s not? Not with a witness in our backseat.”
His head jerked to the side, to the back window of the patrol car. His mouth made a little “O” as he just started to realize the full ramifications of his actions and the mess he’d stepped in.
“Bruno, hey, buddy, you gotta back me up on this. You gotta help me out here or I’m totally fucked.”