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.”
“We’re the ones who made the call to 911,” I say. “They shot out a window in our car.”
“Who did?” the officer asks. He probably is not even aware that there was a prior incident on the road; to him this must just be a crash scene.
“The two guys in that car,” I say. “They shot at us, we called it in, and they must have crashed in the pursuit.”
The officer considers this a moment. “Stay right here,” he says, and then goes toward the crash scene to check with his superiors. A few moments later he comes back and says, “Follow me.”
We do so, and as we get close to the crash, it looks as if the car containing the shooters smashed into a car parked along the side of the highway. It then flipped over, perhaps more than once, and came to rest as a complete wreck.
There is no doubt in my mind that no one in that car could have survived. The police have already set up a trailer, where they will spend the night as they investigate what they will consider a crime scene.
The officer takes us toward the trailer, and just before we get there, I whisper to Sam, “Do not say