Quick

by Steve Worland

  Mr Yellow nods and presses the accelerator. The giant turbo diesel spools up and the truck gains speed, surges towards the set of traffic lights ahead. Fifteen metres away the light turns from green to amber.

  Red puts a hand on Yellow’s arm. ‘We don’t want to have an accident before we get there.’

  ‘Of course.’ Yellow nods and hits the brakes. The truck eases to a stop, right on the line. Traffic sweeps across the road before them.

  Red reaches into a backpack, pulls out three nine-millimetre Glock pistols, keeps one and passes the others to Yellow and Black. ‘They’re loaded and the safeties are on. Do not fire unless there’s no other option.’

  They both nod, then Yellow looks up at the set of traffic lights and waits for the green.

  ~ * ~

  Ernie accepted the news with good-hearted disappointment. From the sound of it Billy figured that Ernie had had plenty of students who had taken a couple of lessons before realising flying wasn’t their bag, so he didn’t take it personally.

  Billy shifts in the seat. Since his prang at Bathurst, sitting on hard surfaces for long periods, and long meant more than about three minutes, had become a bit of a chore. His lower back starts to sing, he gets pins and needles in his right thigh and his left foot cramps. Even so, he has no cause for complaint. For the first week after the accident the doctors were sure they would need to amputate both his legs, so the occasional bout of pins and needles and the odd cramp seem like the deal of the century in comparison.

  He’s seated on a wooden bench by the front window of an old building that had been gentrified and turned into a McDonald’s. He’s here because he loves the hotcakes at Maccas. Loooves them. But he only allows himself one serving per week so he doesn’t chunk up. After he’s eaten this week’s helping he plans to meet up with some mates to watch the Formula One qualifying at Albert Park, which will include a V8 Supercar race as a curtain raiser. He’s been looking forward to it for months.

  That’s strange.

  Through the window he catches sight of a red semi-trailer truck that waits at the lights. It’s a big one, an oversized version with a sleeper behind the cabin. Apart from the fact it’s rare to see a big rig without a trailer attached, and in the middle of the city no less, what surprises him is the fact that its windscreen has what looks like dark tint applied to it. He’s aware of this because he’s a proud member of the Victorian Police Force. He has worked a lot of traffic duty and ticketed a number of people, mostly young guys, for driving cars with tint that is too dark.

  Billy picked up the idea of joining the force during his year-long recuperation following his prang at Bathurst. The physical therapist had once been a cop and talked up the idea. Billy never imagined himself as anything but a racing car driver but when that door slammed shut he needed to find a job that would hold his attention. To his surprise, being a police officer did just that.

  He pulls his gaze from the red truck and looks at the hotcakes, then glances back at the truck. It isn’t just his imagination, is it? That windscreen is definitely tinted and that is illegal.

  The traffic light changes, there’s a blast of smoke from the truck’s exhaust stack and it rolls on.

  Time to make a decision.

  What do I do?

  ‘Christ.’ He stands and strides out to the footpath, pulls on his Detroit Tigers cap and Ray Ban aviators. Why, exactly, is he doing this? On his day off? Chasing up some bozo with illegal window tint? It doesn’t make sense and yet here he is, abandoning an incredibly tasty breakfast so he can write a vehicle defect ticket.

  Why?

  Well, technically it’s the ‘broken windows theory’ of policing, which states that law enforcement officers should always prosecute petty crimes, seemingly little things like graffiti and littering and broken taillights, otherwise the criminals will graduate to more serious crimes over time. The New York Police Department used it to great effect during the 1990s to cut the city’s crime rate. But Billy knows what he’s doing is not just about enacting a theory of law and order.

  It’s about the adrenaline rush.

  Since the accident he has rarely been able to find it. Nothing comes close to motor racing, as he just learned with those pricey flying lessons. He experimented with jet skis and skydiving and rock climbing and a bunch of other ‘xtreme’ pursuits, but they didn’t include the two most important elements for him: they weren’t competitive and they didn’t involve cars. He just loved bloody cars, had loved them since he was knee high to his father’s Falcon GTHO. Of course, he could have raced privately, but he barely had enough dough to cover his rent so that wasn’t going to happen. Motor racing was, even at the most junior of levels, eye-wateringly expensive. Luckily for him his job as a cop occasionally gave him the buzz he was looking for. It had the competitive element, the ‘will I or won’t I catch this bad guy?’, and it often involved driving a high-powered vehicle of some description.

  The other thing he liked about being a cop, which he hadn’t even considered before he applied to the academy, was ‘being of service’. Sure, you couldn’t always help everyone, but aiding people in need did leave him with a great feeling. It made him think about all the other things he could do, beyond what was happening in this city, or even Australia. What about the people who didn’t have running water, or adequate housing? He wondered if he shouldn’t take his next vacation somewhere he might be able to do something useful.

  Billy breaks into a jog, his eyes locked on the red truck as it continues along Collins Street. It’s in the far lane, about twenty metres ahead. He’ll wait for it to stop at the next set of lights then make his way over to the driver, flash his badge and see what’s what. As he moves closer he notices a sticker on the cab’s rear window that reads Rentco. It’s the name of a large truck rental company that his dad sometimes used to ferry cars and equipment to interstate races back in Billy’s motor racing days.

  Why would a truck rental company put illegal tint on the windscreen? The answer is they wouldn’t. Whoever’s driving it did. And why would they do that? So they won’t be easily seen. And why don’t they want to be easily seen? Well that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? Suddenly leaving the hotcakes uneaten doesn’t feel so crazy after all. He instinctively reaches under his jacket to check his holstered Glock—and realises it’s not there because today is his day off.

  Bugger.

  ~ * ~

  ‘We have company.’ Black’s eyes are locked on the right side-view mirror as he takes in a young man who moves along the footpath and follows the truck.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means there’s a guy following us down the street.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Yellow turns, looks out the rear window.

  ‘It’s the guy in the dark denim jacket.’

  Yellow nods. ‘I see him.’

  ‘He’s looking at us, right?’

  ‘Who knows? He’s wearing sunglasses.’

  Black turns to Yellow: ‘We should abort.’

  Yellow’s helmet shakes. ‘No can do.’

  ‘What if he’s a cop?’

  ‘Then we deal with it.’

  Red points out the windscreen. ‘There it is.’

  ‘Okay. Here we go.’ They flip their helmet visors down as Yellow mashes the accelerator to the floor.

  ~ * ~

  The turbo diesel barks and the truck pulls away.

  ‘Christ.’ Billy takes off after it. He sprints hard and instantly his lower back starts to throb from the jarring impact of his heels on the pavement. He ignores it, as he always does, and promises himself a couple of Panadeine later, which he will forget to take.

  In spite of its size, the truck nimbly swerves through the traffic and Billy can’t help but think that whoever’s driving knows what he’s doing. It gains speed quickly, now half a block ahead. ‘Where the hell is it going?’ Billy cranes his neck—then sees where.

  ~
* ~

  Yellow’s eyes don’t leave the road in front. ‘That guy still on us?’

  Black glances back. ‘Yes, and now he’s running.’

  Red looks through the rear window at the guy as he shrinks into the distance behind them. ‘Yeah, good luck with that, buddy!’ Red turns to Black. ‘Guess you were right about him.’

  Black gets no joy from being correct. ‘I don’t feel good about this.’

  ‘You never feel good about anything. Now everybody hold on.’ Yellow yanks the wheel and the big rig cuts sharply across the road —

  Crunch. It clips the rear of a Mini and knocks it aside like a child’s toy, mounts the footpath and bowls over a parked Vespa motor scooter. The truck shudders to a halt, its rear wheels five metres in front of a hulking Brinks armoured car.

  Yellow turns to the others. ‘You know what to do. Don’t get dead.’

  Black pushes open the passenger door and leaps to the roadway, Red right behind. Pistols raised, they sprint to the rear of the truck. Black grabs two thick, metal chains coiled around the fifth wheel coupling, the flat metal circle a trailer would be hitched to. Both chains have a large hook attached to the end. Black moves to the front of the armoured car as Red covers him —

  A security guard, fifty if he’s a day, steps out from the right rear of the armoured car and double-takes. He’s genuinely shocked to see the two helmeted individuals. ‘Oh crap.’ He reaches for the gun on his hip.

  Red steps forward, raises the pistol. ‘Face down on the ground, hands behind your head.’

  The guard doesn’t need to be asked twice. He drops to the footpath.

  Black crouches, crawls under the front of the armoured car, reaches into the right wheel well and clank, attaches one of the hooks to the suspension’s right control arm, then slides across to the left wheel well and clank, attaches the second hook to the left control arm. He slithers out from beneath the vehicle and finds his feet as Red directs a second security guard to lie face down on the footpath too.

  Black and Red turn to the remaining security guard. He’s a kid, can’t be more than twenty-one, who sits behind the steering wheel in the cabin. He makes sure both front doors are locked.

  Red raps his pistol on the windscreen: ‘Out!’

  The kid shakes his head, his expression one of petrified resolve. Red knows that firing at the bulletproof windscreen won’t do any good so there’s no use wasting time. Instead Red points at the guy, ‘You’ll want to get out soon enough.’ Red gestures to Yellow with a thumbs-up sign.

  Yellow sees it through the truck’s rear window and steps on the gas. The turbo diesel barks and the prime mover surges forward. The metal chains attached to the truck’s fifth wheel uncoil.

  Twang. The chains pull tight and jolt the armoured car forward. Its handbrake is engaged so the wheels don’t turn but it’s dragged along the street anyway.

  The truck’s five hundred and twenty horsepower Cummings engine strains under the load as it hauls the armoured car forward in a long, screeching, slow motion skid. Black runs to the truck’s passenger door, yanks it open and climbs in as Red vaults onto the truck’s rear section and grabs the back of the cabin for balance.

  The truck picks up speed. The armoured car’s tyres grind and rip on the bitumen, trail an acrid grey smoke as it is dragged along Collins Street. Red scans the roadway, searches for the guy who was following them earlier. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of him— oh, there he is.

  He sprints after them, a phone to his ear.

  ~ * ~

  In the truck’s cabin Yellow keeps the accelerator flat to the floor, the speedometer touching fifty-five kilometres an hour. Their destination is just a short tour across town. It shouldn’t take more than three minutes to reach the large, empty garage they rented for today.

  A siren echoes across the soundscape. Black looks through the windscreen and is unhappy to see blue and red flashing lights in the distance. ‘Police.’

  Yellow nods. ‘I have it under control.’

  ‘I told you I had a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘Reminding me of that doesn’t help.’

  Black glances at the speedometer. ‘We won’t outrun them doing fifty-five.’

  ‘Really? Thanks for stating the obvious. I would never have worked that out on my own.’

  Yellow and Black see the Commodore police cruiser swerve through the traffic towards them. It’s only a few seconds away.

  Black’s voice vibrates with concern: ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to stop whining and I’m going to do this.’ Yellow pulls on the steering wheel.

  ~ * ~

  The truck tips into a sharp turn and its left front wheel lifts off the roadway.

  ‘Jeeze!’ Behind the cabin Red realises they’re pulling a giant U-turn and holds on tight. The armoured car is yanked into the U-turn as well and momentarily mounts the footpath —

  Crunch. It obliterates a post box then is hauled back across the roadway in a giant, screeching arc, tyres burning from unrelenting friction —

  Boom. The right side front wheel gives up the ghost and detonates in a spray of flaming rubber —

  Boom. The right side rear tyre blows next and the metal wheel rims dig into the road. The armoured car flips over and hangs in the air for an impossibly long moment —

  Slam. It thumps onto its right side and the windscreen pops out.

  The truck finishes its U-turn and drives along the opposite side of the road. Red watches the police cruiser roar straight towards them as the armoured car swings around to complete its U-turn —

  Wham. It spanks the side of the cruiser and knocks it across the road —

  Smash. The cruiser is launched through the window of a Priceline pharmacy and comes to a dead stop, lights still flashing, siren still blaring.

  ~ * ~

  Yellow watches it in the side-view mirror then turns to Black with a grin. ‘Told you I had it under control.’ Yellow floors the accelerator and the truck picks up speed. ‘That’s more like it. That thing’s easier to tow when it’s on its side.’ The truck touches sixty-five, then seventy kilometres an hour. ‘Okay, we can’t make it to location A so we head for location B.’

  Black nods, realises that making the U-turn has changed their plans. Unfortunately location B is a lot further away.

  ~ * ~

  Billy stops running as the truck heads back towards him on the opposite side of the road. It still tows the armoured car, which is now on its side and spraying the street with a shower of orange sparks. He had called for backup. Unfortunately the police cruiser that arrived had just been hurled through a shop window.

  There’s movement in the armoured car’s cabin. Billy’s eyes flick to a terrified security guard who climbs out through the hole where the windscreen used to be.

  ‘What the hell?’ Billy needs to help that guy. He turns, scans his surroundings—and twenty metres up the street sees a way he can do it.

  ~ * ~

  Red watches the security guard clamber onto the side of the armoured car. Why’s he doing that? Surely it’s safer inside the cabin.

  Bet he wishes he got out when he had the chance.

  Vroom. A black flash swerves across the roadway and speeds towards the armoured car.

  Is that a Vespa? Yes, it’s a black Vespa, the same one the truck knocked over earlier, and it’s being ridden by that guy who was following them earlier.

  ~ * ~

  The odd thing about Billy’s Bathurst near-death accident at Bathurst is that he didn’t lose his mojo afterwards. In fact the opposite happened. He now has too much mojo. Instead of realising that life is a precious blessing that must be treasured, he went the other way and now thinks nothing can kill him, or at least it would take a lot more than rolling a car eighteen times at two hundred kilometres an hour. That’s why he’s so good at his job. He is, by any real measure, fearless.

  Which is
why he gives the Vespa full throttle and swerves through traffic towards the armoured car. The scooter’s little engine sounds like a sewing machine on crack but hopefully has enough power for what he’s about to do. It had been knocked over by the truck but was still in working condition and only took a moment to hot-wire.

  Vroom. Billy swerves around a Corolla, then a Hyundai, and homes in on the armoured car. The sound of it scraping across the bitumen sets his teeth on edge.

  Clang. The truck clips a vehicle —

  ‘Christ!’ A Subaru spins towards him. He works the Vespa’s handle bars and swerves around the wreck. ‘That was close —’

  Bam. A tyre bounces through the wall of sparks and clips Billy’s shoulder.