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The Hot Car

Dennis Piszkiewicz

    Zach brings his car to a stop in front of Artie’s place and beeps the horn. A minute later Artie trots down the front steps. Zach is Artie’s older brother and occasional business partner.
    “What is that?” Artie says, pointing at Zach’s car.
    Zach answers through the open passenger-side window, “It’s a Lamborghini Aventador.” He pronounces it “event-adore.”
    Artie says, “It looks like a Corvette, the new one with the motor in the trunk instead of under the hood where it belongs.”
    “Yeah, and it’s got huge air scoops on its sides behind the doors, just like the ‘Vette’ ” Zach says. “But it’s nothing like a Corvette. It’s completely different.”
    “It looks the same to me,” Artie says. “What makes it so different?”
    “Well, to begin with, It’s hotter. The motor is bigger, and it’s Italian. Ain’t the paint job great? It’s iridescent orange.”
    “Yeah,” Artie says, “for anybody who likes riding in a pumpkin. So, how’d you get this road rocket? None of our grandfathers died and left us a lot of money.”
    “Uh ... there’s this guy I know. We live in the same apartment building; and we ... got to know each other. He had to go on a business trip, and he asked me to take care of his car while he was away.” Then Zach says. “You want to go for a ride?”
    Artie doesn’t waste time answering. He climbs into the shotgun seat.
    Zach hits the gas and says, “Feel that acceleration?” It sounds like a question but it’s really advice.
    Artie buckles his seat belt and pulls it tight.
    A few turns later on the streets of Los Angeles, the Lamborghini shoots up the on-ramp to the 405 freeway, going south into late afternoon traffic. A CHP cruiser is lumbering along in the far-right lane, two cars behind the orange Italian job, as the orange car shoots into the far-left lane. The cop’s cruiser gets behind it and matches its speed, as an over-the-limit 75 MPH. The cop’s car is is equipped with an Automated License Plate Reader—ALPR for short—that tells the cop that the Lamborghini is on the “hot list.”
    The orange car is just past Crenshaw Boulevard on the 405, still going south toward Long Beach. Artie notices the flashing red lights and the siren coming from behind them. He shouts to Zach, “Why is that cop chasing us?”
    It takes few seconds for Artie’s puzzlement to sink into his brain. “This is a HOT CAR! You could get us both arrested, you stupid SON OF A BITCH! What are we doing in a HOT CAR? We could go to JAIL!”

#

    At the top left of the big-screen TV, the caption says, “LIVE sky 9.” The banner at the bottom of the screen reads, “BREAKING NEWS / CHP Pursuit of Stolen Car.”
    The guy doing the voice voice-over on TV is in the helicopter high above the 405 freeway. He is giving a rapid-fire narration of what he sees like he’s doing a play-by-play of a Dodger’s game.
    A guy in the TV audience who just turned on his TV to get the evening news says to himself, “It’s time to get a cold beer, and a bag of hot popcorn.” He gets comfy on the couch to enjoy the show.
    He watches as the orange car lane-dances around and passes the well-behaved commuters who have found their comfortable speeds and lanes. A parade of cop cars, black bodies with white roofs and huge black numbers on the tops, struggle to keep up. There are five of them now, with maybe more behind and beyond the range of the camera of the Channel 9 chopper.

#

    Zach says, “If you got any oxy or speed on you, this might be a good time to dispose of it.” He quickly checks his pockets, fishes a small envelope from his jacket, and hands it to Artie.
    Then Zach, the protective older brother, asks, “Are you carrying a piece?” Zach reaches into a pants pocket and extracts a blue-steel Saturday night special he keeps for protection—just in case. Then he hands it to his younger brother.
    The Lamborghini zooms past an eighteen-wheeler on its right. Artie throws a couple of handfuls of contraband under the huge truck and hopes that its many massive wheels will grind the stuff into unidentifiable bits.
    Traffic on the freeway is getting heavier. The Lamborghini dives to an off-ramp. It shoots past the red light at the bottom of the ramp and crosses the street, barely missing two other cars crossing the intersection.
    Artie doesn’t scream because he is holding his breath in terror.

#

    The guy on his couch wants another beer to wash down what’s left of his popcorn, but he can’t risk missing any part of the action. He sees the orange car cross the intersection from the off ramp to an on-ramp back onto the 405 freeway. The cops are still there, behind the hot car. Zach does the high-speed lane-change dance again.
    The guy in the TV chopper says, “The driver must be doing over ninety miles per hour. The police cars are falling back.”

#

    Zach takes another off-ramp. Why not? It worked the last time. The signal at the end of the off ramp is red again. Artie hits the brakes, but not before a big green dump truck with “Waste Management” painted on its door crosses in front of the Lamborghini. Zach slams the brake pedal. Tires screech. Artie braces for impact. Seat belts grab their bodies. Air bags explode in their faces, and the hot car T-bones into the truck.
    The remains of the two-seat sports car looks like an orange-juice carton that’s been stomped on by a giant: No need to get the jaws-of-life to open-up what’s left of it, though. Zach and Artie crawl out through the shattered body panels. Cops swarm over them, putting them in handcuffs, their wrists behind their backs. The EMT guys arrive and check over the four-wheel fugitives to see if either of them needs to make a trip to the hospital ER. Nothing is broken; nothing is bleeding bad enough that it can’t be fixed on site with band aids; but those bruises will take on ugly colors and hurt for some time.
    Two cops, their arteries still pumped full of adrenalin from the chase, lead Zach and Artie to the back seat of a cruiser. One of the cops says, “Watch your heads.” He makes sure that Zach’s and Artie’s heads bounce off the top of the door frame.

#

    Channel 9 ends its live coverage of the chase, and the guy watching on his TV gets to pop the cap off another beer and watch an update by a perky blonde of the weather forecast. She says, “Temperatures tomorrow in the Los Angeles basin will reach into the nineties; and once again, air quality will be poor.”
    The guy on the couch has lost interest in the news and the weather. He shouts into the kitchen, “Hey, Honey, what’s for dinner?”

#

    As the police cruiser starts on its ride to the county jail, Artie says in despair to nobody in particular, “My parole office ain’t going to be happy when he hears about this.”

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