She made a savage left turn, the Crown Victoria crashing heavily over the central divider between two trees. Ricardo yelled in pain.
The Ram was too big to fit through the gap after them. She straightened and headed into the oncoming traffic, a car swerving on to the sidewalk to avoid a head-on collision, then turned again to swing the cab westwards.
The Dodge had to take the turn at a sharper angle. Its back end slewed wide, throwing Snakeskin back inside - and almost pitching the bald guy out on to the street. The oversized vehicle screeched to a halt to give the gunman time to pull himself back in.
The stop had opened up the gap between the two vehicles. But not by much. Nina scoured her mental map of Manhattan for anything that might widen it further, at the same time working out the quickest way to meet Eddie. Across Fifth and Broadway, then north on Sixth Avenue . . .
The Ram re-joined the pursuit, gaining fast.
The Lamborghini screamed southwards, eating up the three-mile straight of Central Park West. It was now near the bottom of the long avenue, approaching Columbus Circle. Eddie danced through the gaps in the traffic, accelerating.
‘Er, dude,’ Grant pointed out, ‘you’re gonna have to slow down for the turn - it’s one way.’ Southbound vehicles on Central Park West were forced to turn on to 62nd Street, the southernmost two blocks being northbound only.
‘It’s my way,’ Eddie corrected. There wasn’t time to take a detour. Instead he fixed his gaze on the lanes ahead. Was there a space?
There would have to be.
‘Dude,’ said Grant, voice rising in urgency as they neared 62nd Street. He jabbed a finger ahead - at the approaching headlights filling every lane. ‘Dude, dude, dude!’
Grimacing, Eddie turned—
Not right on to 62nd, but left - up the sloping kerb at a crosswalk and on to the broad sidewalk along the park’s walled edge. A long line of parked cars flicked past to their right, hemming them in.
‘You’re doing seventy on the sidewalk!’ Grant choked.
‘Yeah, I noticed!’ He batted the horn, people leaping aside as the Lamborghini swept past.
‘If the cops stop us, I’m totally gonna say this was a kidnapping!’
Eddie ignored him. They were at Columbus Circle, a large multi-lane roundabout.
And they were about to go round it the wrong way . . .
Grant let out a stifled gasp as Eddie whipped the Murciélago between two parked bicycle rickshaws and off the kerb, landing with a bang. Teeth clenched in a rictus grimace, he swung the Lamborghini between the disbelieving drivers rushing at him. Horns blared, tyres squealed, headlights streaked past on either side as he swung the supercar from left to right and back again, each barely missed vehicle making a sharp swip! of displaced air as it whipped by.
Central Park South—
He turned, foot down to blast through a gap before a truck closed it - and was clear.
For a moment. A siren wailed, a police car on Columbus Circle entering pursuit.
Grant looked back. ‘Oh, man! Cops!’
‘Just like in Nitrous, eh?’ Eddie said. He powered along Central Park South, swerving through traffic to make a screeching turn on to Seventh Avenue. The road down to Times Square was relatively clear; relieved, he accelerated again. Over the rising song of the engine he heard a voice. Nina.
‘The phone!’ he said. Grant held it up.
‘Eddie, Eddie!’ said Nina. ‘Are you there?’
‘Yeah, I’m here. Are you okay?’
‘They’re still after us! Where are you?’
He ducked across the lanes to avoid a knot of traffic. ‘Seventh.’
‘Seventh?’ He knew the scathing tone; that of every single New Yorker, convinced they alone knew the best way to navigate their city. ‘Why the hell are you on Seventh? Take Broadway!’
‘I know where I’m going!’
‘Dude, not the time for a domestic,’ Grant warned, pointing ahead. The neon glare of Times Square was approaching fast, the traffic getting thicker.
‘Where are you now?’ Eddie asked Nina.
‘On Sixth, coming up to 30th.’
He remembered that if he got on Broadway south of Times Square, it intersected Sixth Avenue at Herald Square, around 34th Street. ‘Keep going - I’ll meet you!’
‘And then what are you gonna do?’
‘I dunno - something violent! Just stay ahead of them!’
He ignored the sarcastic ‘No!’ from the phone, fixing on the road as the Lamborghini wailed through Times Square. Grant’s face, two storeys high, watched it pass from a billboard advertising his latest movie. Cars streamed across their path on 44th Street - and beyond, he saw more flashing lights as cops from the small police station at the square’s south end started their vehicles.
He speeded up, angling for a gap—
‘Shit!’ gasped Grant as the Murciélago shot through the crosstraffic, one car’s front bumper passing so close that it brushed the Lamborghini’s rear corner. ‘You said not a scratch, man, not a scratch!’
‘It’ll buff out,’ Chase replied, the joke a cover for the shudder that ran through him as he realised just how near he had come to a crash. He shot past the little police station, then turned hard, cutting across a short section of 42nd Street to join Broadway.
Strobe lights flashed across the buildings behind as more police cars joined the chase. He swore under his breath, looking down Broadway.
Where was Nina?
Where was Eddie?
The cab reached the lower end of Herald Square. Nina risked a glance up Broadway as she crossed the intersection and continued up Sixth Avenue, seeing police lights in the distance, before looking back at the nearer and much more menacing lights in the mirror. The pursuing police cars had also drawn closer, but were unable to overtake the powerful truck.
‘Hey, there’s my store!’ said Macy. Nina looked back, wondering what the hell she was talking about. ‘You know, Macy’s.’ She pointed as the giant store rolled past to their left.
‘Just hold up the phone,’ Nina snapped. ‘Eddie, where are you now?’
‘I’m almost there. Where are you?’
The taxi reached the 36th Street intersection, Nina checking for traffic coming from the left - to see a bright orange sports car zoom down Broadway. ‘Eddie, are you in an orange car?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘I just missed you! I’m going north on Sixth!’
Eddie said something, but it was drowned out by Macy’s cry of, ‘They’re catching up!’ The pickup’s driver had put the hammer down, the great chromed whale-mouth of its grille looming large.
And Snakeskin was leaning out of the window again, revolver raised—
Nina hurled the cab into a desperate left turn on to 37th Street as a bullet punched through the door just above her thigh.
Eddie heard the unmistakable sound of a bullet impact over the phone. ‘Shit!’
He had to double back - but two NYPD cruisers were moving to block Broadway ahead, despatchers alerting them to the second high-speed chase.
And there were more police cars behind him . . .
‘Hang on!’ he shouted to Grant as he stabbed a button to deactivate the traction control - then dipped the clutch as he spun the wheel with one hand and yanked hard on the handbrake with the other.
Even with four-wheel drive the Lamborghini couldn’t keep its hold on the road, slithering round in a 180-degree spin as Eddie mashed the accelerator to the floor. The engine roar was accompanied by an earsplitting scream from the smoking wheels as the Murciélago lunged forward again, the tortured tyres laying thick black lines of rubber on the tarmac.