Need for Speed Page 12

  “Just keeping the engine hot,” he replied.

  She looked around them—the crowded streets, the crowded sidewalks. Everyone was looking at them.

  “Do you really want to be attracting so much attention?” she asked him. “You are on the run from the law, you know.”

  Tobey didn’t reply. He just smiled mischievously.

  A moment later a Detroit police cruiser pulled up next to the Mustang.

  The officer inside rolled down his window and yelled over to Tobey.

  “This your car, son?” the officer asked.

  “Are you crazy?” Tobey yelled back to him. “This is a one-of-a-kind car. Do you know how expensive it is?”

  The cop straightened up in his seat. He didn’t need this so early in the morning. He immediately tagged Tobey as being a problem.

  “Why don’t you pull it around the corner,” he told Tobey. “We can have a talk.”

  But Tobey ignored his request.

  Instead he yelled back. “Did you see how fast I was going?” he asked the cop. “It was like 160 miles per hour on that off-ramp back there. Insane! You gotta drive this car.”

  While all this was happening, Tobey was secretly taping himself and Julia on his iPad.

  “I’m sorry, officer,” Julia yelled over to the cop. “I think my boyfriend is just showing off to impress me.”

  The cop was growing increasingly exasperated. “Just pull it around the corner,” he yelled back.

  Tobey rolled up the window.

  “‘Boyfriend’?” he said to Julia.

  “I’m just trying to keep us out of jail,” she replied seriously.

  “If it’s getting too hot for you,” he told her, “you should probably get out now.”

  “Are you kidding?” she exclaimed. “This is my car!”

  “It’s Ingram’s car,” Tobey corrected her. “And, by the way, you may want to fix your hair.”

  “For my mug shot, you mean?” she asked.

  Tobey tapped the iPad, switching the POV to film what was happening through the windshield.

  “No,” he finally replied. “But I am about to make you famous.”

  Finn was watching all this from his fourth-floor office window, wondering what the hell was going on. It was almost magical to see the Shelby Mustang again. And he had no doubt who was behind the wheel—but what was Tobey up to? Joe was still on the phone with him.

  “That’s not exactly the part I wanted you to see,” Joe told him. “But just watch how the car leans when it pulls away from the cop.”

  Not a moment later the Mustang screamed away from the curb. It took off with so much force, it was going sideways. There was a storm of smoke and dust—and lots of earsplitting DBs.

  The lights on top of the police car came to life. With siren wailing, it was instantly off in pursuit of the Mustang.

  And suddenly, Finn was enjoying the little drama four stories below.

  “Wow, that Mustang is loose, man,” he said to Joe Peck. He was seeing what the Shelby could do for the first time.

  “I know,” Joe replied. “And if Tobey runs that setup at De Leon, well—”

  “He’s in the race, you mean?” Finn interrupted.

  “He’s about to be,” Joe replied, a little mysteriously.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Finn wanted to know.

  “It means he’s about to be,” Joe said again.

  Finn’s phone clicked. “Gotta go,” he told Joe. “Tobey’s calling.”

  Finn clicked over to answer Tobey’s call. While Tobey was, at that moment, driving the Mustang around in a loud, noisy circle, cop car behind him, siren screaming, trying to chase him, he was still somehow able to talk.

  “I need you, buddy,” Tobey yelled to Finn over all the commotion.

  But Finn stayed silent as he watched the cop car chase the Mustang round and round.

  Tobey continued. “Finn . . . brother?” he said. “I know you’re there . . . Okay, I’ll do the talking. I get why you left. It got nuts. It got nuts for all of us. But right now we’re doing something really stupid, and we really need you. It’s not Marshall Motors without you.”

  Finn took a deep breath and thought long and hard about what Tobey was telling him.

  Finally, he hung up the phone and said to himself, “This is a big mistake . . .”

  Then he walked to the elevator, pushed the down button—and began taking off his clothes.

  People in the cubicles nearby stood to watch him. First Finn removed his shirt and folded it neatly, revealing his bony, bare chest. More people in his office took notice. Then he took off his pants and folded them along with the shirt. Then came the boxers—and just like that, except for his socks, Finn was naked.

  He waited calmly for the elevator. It arrived with a loud ding!

  That’s when he turned back to his coworkers and said, “Have a nice day.”

  The door elevator opened to reveal the car was crowded. Somehow, Finn managed to squeeze in.

  The passengers were horrified, but no one said a word. Finn found himself standing next to an older, smaller woman.

  “My friend is running the fastest Mustang in the world at the De Leon race on Sunday,” he told her.

  The woman smiled at him and said, “I’m in accounting.”

  “But don’t you feel like you’re dying inside?” Finn asked her.

  She didn’t stop smiling. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I do.”

  She glanced down at his nether regions and frowned. A frightened turtle came to mind.

  Finn was immediately defensive.

  “Hey, it’s cold in here,” he said.

  A moment later, the elevator door opened into the lobby. Joe Peck was waiting there. He saw Finn walk out of the elevator, nude except for his socks.

  Joe couldn’t believe it. “No freaking way!” he ex-claimed.

  “Where’s the Beast?” Finn asked him nonchalantly.

  “On the street,” Joe replied. “C’mon, we gotta roll.”

  Joe hustled Finn through the lobby. Many eyes were falling on them—though mostly on Finn. One woman took out her phone and made a hasty call. A guy in a suit applauded and started snapping pictures.

  “Why did you nude it up?” Joe asked his friend.

  Finn just shrugged. “I figured if I got balls-out naked in front of all my coworkers, I’d be too embarrassed to ever go back.”

  “So, you just left your clothes up there?” Joe asked him.

  “Yeah,” Finn replied. “Along with my dignity.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Tobey was driving very hard and fast and no longer going around in circles.

  He was screaming through the crowded streets of Detroit, making a lot of noise and getting a lot of attention. Luckily he was at his best in these kinds of situations. Checking mirrors. Effortlessly shifting up and down. Laying on the gas, using the brakes only when absolutely necessary.

  A second police car had joined the chase. But this only added to the excitement. Then came some positive news from Joe Peck.

  “I’ve got the package,” Tobey heard Joe say over the iPhone. “And we’re out the back door.”

  “That’s great news!” Tobey replied. “But we’ve only got twenty-eight hours to get to Cali.”

  That’s when Julia spotted something above them. It was a helicopter with “WLTV Channel 4” emblazoned on its side. It went right over the top of the speeding Mustang.

  “I’m afraid we’ve got company,” she said.

  Tobey’s phone rang an instant later. He answered it to hear an unexpected, but familiar, voice.

  “WLTV Channel 4 News with a question for Tobey Marshall,” the voice crackled. “On a scale of one to ten, how crazy hot is your passenger?”

  Tobey and Julia looked
over at the helicopter, which was now flying almost level with the Mustang.

  To their surprise, they saw Benny saluting them from the cockpit.

  “Like my new ride?” Benny asked. “Bitchin’, right?”

  Tobey couldn’t believe it—and neither could Julia.

  “What happened to the Cessna?” Tobey asked him.

  “They have flight restrictions over the city, bro,” Benny replied. “So I had to borrow my buddy’s little whirly bird.”

  Tobey expertly drifted the Mustang into a right-hand turn and zoomed into an alleyway. The cops were still right on his tail, lights flashing, sirens blaring, but they knew they had their hands full with a driver like him.

  So their plan was to trap him. One cop car followed him into the alley, while the other entered from the opposite end. Tobey immediately slammed on the brakes and began backing up.

  “Oh boy,” Tobey said, flooring the Mustang in reverse. “This might get interesting.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Finn was inside the Beast pulling on some of Joe’s extra clothes. Suddenly Benny’s voice came blasting through the supply truck’s two-way radio.

  “Listen up, guys,” Benny began. “I almost borrowed an Apache chopper from the Great Lakes Air Base—but Colonel Gatins was sweating me hard.”

  Joe Peck just rolled his eyes.

  “Here we go again,” he said.

  Finn yelled into the microphone. “Enough with the Apache helicopter bullshit. Give it a fucking rest!”

  “I’m not talking to you, Finn-ski,” Benny yelled back.

  “Roger that, Liar One,” Finn retorted.

  Benny’s voice went up a notch.

  “Finn, you’ve been back in the crew for ten minutes and you’re already up my skirt, talking shit,” the pilot scolded him. “You’re going to rue the day you started calling me that.”

  Finn laughed. “‘Rue the day’?” he asked. “What, did you go to college all of a sudden?”

  “That’s an ignorant thing to say,” Benny shot back. “God, are you ignorant!”

  Tobey and Julia were listening to the chatter between the crewmates, all while the Mustang was furiously going down the alley—in reverse.

  Julia couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said to Tobey. “Are these guys still in elementary school?”

  Tobey smiled as he finally backed out of the alley at 70 mph and headed up another street—in the wrong direction, of course.

  “Is it going to be like this the whole way?” Julia asked him.

  Tobey just shrugged as he upshifted and laid on the accelerator.

  “We’ve all known each other for a very long time,” he told her.

  “That’s a ‘yes,’ then,” she huffed.

  Benny’s voice interrupted them.

  “Beauty—this is Maverick,” he began. “The Motown Mounties really want to speak with you. Come back.”

  Tobey was maneuvering fiercely now, swerving around the oncoming traffic, while noticing that a third police cruiser had joined the chase. Just as he was about to hit one civilian car head-on, he downshifted and hit the brakes and the gas, all at the same time. The result was a perfect reverse 270-degree turn.

  When the smoke cleared, he found himself facing the right way down Michigan Avenue. He laid down the hammer again, taking off like a rocket. This caused the first cruiser to collide with the second one, putting both out of action. The third one, though, kept up the pursuit.

  Tobey did another hard drift and wound up in the city’s waterfront district.

  He was now topping 100 mph, but the third police car was gaining on him.

  Up in the news copter, Benny heard another voice come on his radio. It was distinctly female.

  “Romeo, stand by,” it said.

  “Standing by,” Benny said, with some uncertainty.

  He had moved the copter’s traffic cam off the roadways and onto a hot-looking female running along the waterfront park. Just for kicks, he zoomed in.

  As it turned out, the strange voice was coming from the Channel 4 newsroom.

  He heard it again. It said: “We go live to Romeo in the Channel 4 traffic chopper. How are we looking, Romeo?”

  Benny replied in a typical TV announcer voice.

  “We’re looking good, Beth,” he said. “Real good.”

  But then a producer’s voice interrupted, “Is that Romeo in that helicopter? What’s going on?”

  At that moment, the copter cam pulled into an extremely tight shot of the jogger’s derriere.

  Immediately, the producer started screaming, “Commercial! Go to a commercial!”

  Benny just laughed.

  “Hey, Motown, gotta lighten up,” he said.

  * * *

  As all this was going on, Tobey found himself hurtling toward a huge bridge.

  “Eyes on the road,” he told himself aloud.

  Benny saw the long span at the same time.

  “Whoa, I think that’s the Ambassador Bridge,” he yelled. “And it’s filled with the bumper-to-bumper.”

  He pulled back on the copter’s controls, putting the machine into a near-hover.

  “Tobey, brother,” he called down to the Mustang. “It’s going to take a three-lane grasshopper to disappear. Do you copy?”

  Tobey was quick to reply: “I copy.”

  “Okay,” Benny said. “On my count, then . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  The Mustang hit the I-375 on-ramp at tremendous speed. This despite lots of traffic everywhere—and a cop car, siren wailing, right behind it.

  Julia took her usual crash position, and braced for impact.

  “What’s a grasshopper?” she yelled over at Tobey.

  Tobey did not have time to answer. He jerked the speeding car into the on-ramp’s fast lane. Up ahead, but getting closer very quickly, there was a huge embankment just before the entrance to the bridge itself.

  “You might want to close your eyes,” Tobey warned her.

  Julia held on tighter, if that was possible.

  “Oh my god,” she screamed. “Is it worse than ‘bus bus bus’?”

  Benny’s voice came over the radio. “Aim for that light pole,” he told Tobey. “Then spread your wings . . .”

  At those words, Tobey jerked the car out of the fast lane and up the embankment toward the light pole. He put the gas pedal to the floor . . . and suddenly, they were airborne.

  Julia’s eyes nearly fell out of her head. They were flying over three lanes of traffic, the Mustang’s tires nearly clipping the roofs of the cars below. But before she had a chance to scream again or say anything else, they were suddenly back down, landing with a resounding thump! on the slope of a church parking lot. Without missing a beat, Tobey drifted violently across the grass, across the lot, and onto another street.

  He straightened out the Mustang and downshifted for more RPMs.

  Then he turned to look at Julia, expecting her to be in a state of shock or worse. But she was completely opposite of how Tobey thought she’d be.

  She wasn’t hurt or stunned or nauseous. Instead, she was laughing hysterically.

  “We’re alive!” she screamed with pure joy. “Amazing! You are amazing!”

  Tobey almost started laughing himself—her laugh was sweet and funny and nearly contagious.

  “It’s what I do,” he said in a perfect deadpan.

  The Mustang roared down the street at an extremely high speed, heading away from Motor City.

  High above, Benny had been looking down on the display of incredible extreme driving and admiring Tobey’s out-of-this-world talent.

  But now he had to go.

  “Time’s up in this bird,” he radioed down to Tobey. “Talk soon, bro.”

  But De
troit wasn’t giving up so easily.

  One of the pursuing cops was especially pissed off. His patrol car had been involved in the accident that Tobey’s wild driving had caused, and that made him mad.

  He was now burning up his radio.

  “All units be advised,” the cop said. “Heavily modified silver Ford Mustang last seen on I-375 heading westbound. Contact state police for air support.”

  Sixteen

  DETROIT REGIONAL AIRPORT was a very busy place this morning.

  Many commuter planes were taking off and landing—some small airliners, too. The airport’s helicopter section was especially humming. Private helicopters as well as TV news choppers were coming and going with great frequency. Support personnel and ground crews were dashing about, servicing the flock of whirlybirds.

  It was in the middle of this hubbub that Benny managed to land the Channel 4 news copter. He came down hard, the chopper’s rotors crying loudly until he mercifully cut the engines. Then he jumped out of the copter and sprinted away unscathed.

  It took him only a minute to get back to his Cessna, which was parked nearby. He climbed in, did his prep-sheet, and then went to turn the engine over. But it misfired—two loud bangs, and then nothing.

  He tried again, with the same result.

  “Goddamn,” he cursed, not wanting to attract any more attention to himself. “Why are you being cranky now?”

  Meanwhile, out of his sight behind him, a state police helicopter was taking off.

  It quickly went up to two thousand feet, beginning its routine traffic patrol. But suddenly its radio came to life.

  “All air units be advised,” the dispatcher said. “Be on the lookout for a silver Mustang with New York plates: Alpha, Delta, Tango, four, six, one, niner, heading west on I-94. Repeat, silver Mustang, heading west on I-94 . . .”

  The pilots acknowledged the call and then turned south, pointing the copter’s nose toward the interstate.

  * * *

  At the same moment, Tobey was roaring down Route I-94, free of pursuing authorities. But he was getting an uneasy feeling.

  He hit upload on his iPad and tried to call Benny.

  “Liar One? I’ve got the feeling we’re going to have an air bear sniffing our tail soon,” he said. “Are you tracking anything like that heading toward I-94? If he spots me then the game is over.”