I was on the car radio, using the designated clear channel, talking to May Hess in dispatch, also to Sergeant Bob Nardone and Officer Gary Hoffman in the lead pursuit car.
Nardone’s voice came through the speaker as he shouted over the blare of sirens: “Turning left onto Cesar Chavez at sixty. I can’t read his plates.”
We were gaining on Nardone and Hoffman, and other cars joined in as dispatch sent units ahead to cut off the renegade cop car. Conklin and I followed a more or less straight route over the Illinois Street Bridge, took a heart-stopping turn onto Cesar Chavez, then an equally hard right onto 3rd. We sped parallel to the streetcar tracks on 3rd and continued over the Lefty O’Doul Bridge.
On the far side of the bridge was AT&T Park, the Giants home field—and there was a game on tonight. I could see the neon marquee and the stadium lights like a row of stars blazing through the fog. If the sirens hadn’t been screaming, I might have been able to hear the fans cheering as a game-winning Giants home run cleared the wall and plopped into McCovey Cove.
As it was, the sirens were screaming, but I knew that the Giants had won because inebriated fans, euphoric with victory, had begun wandering out onto the glistening street.
I was looking ahead as we hit King Street and Willie Mays Plaza, and that’s when, in the space of an instant, Randy Fish’s ride ran into trouble.
A tractor trailer was coming toward us in the opposite lane, like a freight train appearing out of nowhere in the night. Fish’s car was speeding, weaving through traffic, and had almost cleared the length of the big rig when the driver turned the wheel ever so slightly to the left.
Maybe the driver miscalculated how far he was from the semi, or maybe his hand slipped on the steering wheel. But whatever the reason, the getaway car clipped the back wheel of the looming, fifty-three-foot, twin-screw tractor trailer, and the whole freaking night exploded.
Chapter 98
I SAW IT all go down, every second of it.
Time didn’t freeze. There was no stop-motion, just the awful sight of the rogue squad car winging the back wheel of a monster truck and the front of the car whipping around, being dragged beneath the undercarriage, where it was mashed and mangled.
Tires exploded like gunshots.
Plumes of sparks lit the pavement, trailing behind the semi, as its brakes screeched and the truck jackknifed across two lanes, smacking into cars like a bowling ball taking down pins before it came to a halt.
At the same time as the accident was burning up King Street, Conklin was braking and turning the wheel of our car in the direction of our skid. As I braced for a crash, I saw what was happening just ahead of us.
Nardone’s car had slewed into the railing alongside the Mission Creek and the following car had piled into it. Our car slid sideways. I don’t know if I actually screamed, but I can tell you that I was screaming inside my mind.
I was thinking of my daughter, my baby, and that I couldn’t leave her now. My God, not now.
Conklin was doing his best, but still our car caromed off a guardrail, sideswiped Nardone’s car, and continued moving in a sickening spin, rocking from side to side. We balanced on two wheels, right at the tipping point, then, mercifully, dropped into a four-point crouch.
/> Richie was blanched and sweating. He asked for the second time in about ten minutes, “You okay?”
“Yes, you?”
“Fine. Holy crap.”
He took my shaking, sweaty hand and squeezed it. I have never loved my partner more.
I said, “You did great, Richie,” then I tuned into the screams of people and the fire blazing under the tail of the rig.
Conklin called dispatch, ordered fire engines with heavy equipment, as many ambulances as we could get, and every available cop to clear the road of pedestrians and lock down the scene.
I bolted from the car and ran to the first of the two crashed patrol cars. Nardone was panting, said that his right ankle was broken and that he couldn’t move. The cop who’d been driving the second car brushed glass off his face with his right hand. His left arm was hanging at a bad angle. He asked if everyone had made it.
“Stay where you are,” I told him. “Help is coming.”
Baseball fans were all over Willie Mays Plaza, some injured, moaning and crying, others forming a four-deep bank of spectators on the Portwalk, still others forming a matching wall of onlookers in front of the stadium. There were hundreds of people in harm’s way, a good number of them kids.
I smelled gasoline and that scared the hell out of me. The way that truck had slewed all over the street, the numbers of vehicles involved in the collisions—there could be gas everywhere.
I reached the big rig as the driver jumped down with a fire extinguisher in his hand. I followed him to the rear of the truck and he started spraying down the flames. I couldn’t see much of the car underneath the fifty-three-footer, but what I could see looked like a tin can that had gone into a meat grinder.
“I didn’t see him,” the driver was saying to me, tears flowing down his cheeks. “I didn’t know what had happened until I heard the racket. God help me. Please tell me I didn’t kill anyone.”
I ducked under the rig’s undercarriage to see what was left of the getaway cruiser, to see if by a miracle someone had survived.