Play Dead

“Sam, can we finish this before you start making me offers I can’t refuse?”

“Sure. What else is there?”

I’m about to answer when I hear a loud crashing noise and then feel a sudden rush of warm air.

“Holy shit!” Sam screams, and I realize that there is no longer a side window; it has just seemed to disappear. “Andy! To your left!”

I look over and see a car alongside us, with two men in the front seat. The man closest to us, not the driver, is pointing a gun at my head. He looks to be around forty, heavyset and very serious-looking. In an instant the thought flashes in my mind that he looks like a man on a mission, not a joyride. There have been some random highway shootings in the past few years, but I instinctively feel that this is not one of them.

I duck and hit the brakes just as I hear a loud noise, probably another shot. It doesn’t seem to hit anything in the car, but I can take only momentary comfort in this. My fear-induced desire is to burrow under the seat, but I realize that my car isn’t equipped with autopilot, and if I don’t sit up and look at the road, we’re in deep trouble.

I sit up and get the car out of a mini skid, staying on the road. The car containing the shooter is now ahead of us, and I start to think how I can get over to the side and off the road.

Sam has other ideas. “Get behind them! Get behind them!”

“You want me to get closer to people that are shooting at us? Why would I do that?”

“Come on, Andy, you can’t just let them get away! Get behind them and put your brights on! We’ve got to get their license number.”

Sam seems as if he knows what he’s doing, and since I know that I don’t, I do as he says, getting in behind the other car and putting the brights on. I get close behind, and then they speed up. There is no sign that they will or can shoot at us from this position. My heart is pounding so loudly that I can’t hear myself think, although I’m too scared to think.

“We’re on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading north about a mile past the Newark Airport exit. Two men in a black Acura have just fired a handgun at us and hit our car. Their license plate number is VSE 621.” Sam is talking into his cell phone, apparently having called 911. “Yes, that’s right. In the left lane, going approximately seventy-five miles per hour. Yes, that’s right.”

“What did they say?” I ask, when he stops talking. He still has the cell phone to his ear.

“They want me to hold on.”

“But what did they say?”

“They said to hold on.”

I’m not getting anywhere with this line of questioning, so I concentrate on driving. I’m now doing almost eighty and they’re pulling away. Since I don’t want to get killed by either a bullet or a crash, I don’t speed up any more.

Moments later, we hear the sound of sirens, and police cars with flashing lights go flying by us as if we are standing still. “Holy shit, will you look at that!” Sam marvels.

It isn’t long before the car we’re chasing and the police cars are all out of sight, but I keep driving because I don’t know what else to do. Sam has lost his cell phone connection with 911, so we’re pretty much in the dark.

“Man, that was amazing!” Sam says. He seems invigorated; this is a side of him I haven’t seen before, and he certainly does not seem shaken by the fact that a window inches from his face was shot out. Am I the only coward in America?

We drive for a few more miles, turning on the radio to hear if anything is being said about the incident. I’m aware that I need to report this in person to the police, but my preference is to drive to the Paterson Police Department and tell my story to Pete Stanton.

“What’s that?” Sam asks, and when I look ahead I see what he is talking about. There’s a large glow, far ahead and off to the right, which turns out to be the flashing lights of at least a dozen police cars. As we approach, there is no doubt that a car has been demolished, and another car is also damaged at the side of the road. The police are surrounding the smashed vehicle, which I believe is the one that had contained the shooters, but not seeming to take any action.

Two ambulances pull up as well, and paramedics jump out. If there is anyone in the car, it will be up to the paramedics to help them. Good luck; they haven’t invented the paramedics who could help people in that car. It looks like a metallic quesadilla.

I pull over, resigned to speaking to the cops on the scene rather than to Pete. I park a couple of hundred yards away and turn off the car.

“We getting out?” Sam asks.

I nod. “We’re getting out. Leave your carry-on and take the cannolis.”

* * * * *

WE GET AS close as we can to the crash scene, which isn’t very close at all. The police have set up a perimeter at least a hundred yards away and are in the process of closing all but the left lane of the highway to traffic. This is going to be a long night for drivers heading north to the city.

Sam and I approach one of the officers in charge of keeping people away. “That’s as far as you can go,” he says. “Nothing to see here.”