Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Hills

Six-X-Thirty-two was waiting to turn right onto Hollywood Boulevard from Vine Street when the Wickland Gallery van drove past, heading eastbound.

“Whoa!” Flotsam said. “That’s the van that Nate and me checked out the first night you were off.”

Jetsam said, “What was wrong with it?”

“Turns out nothing,” Flotsam said. “The guy driving was a nephew of the owner, but the way I got it from Nate, he shouldn’t be driving it anymore. Wanna check it out, dude?”

“Go for it, bro,” Jetsam said. “Nothing else to do.”

Flotsam sped around the traffic until he was behind the van and then turned on his red-and-blue wigwags and beeped his horn. The van kept going. Then he flicked the switch and hit the siren.

Jonas Claymore had been seeing so many hallucinatory cops everywhere he looked that he almost didn’t recognize real ones. Then he heard the yowl of the siren and he looked in his sideview mirror. Now he was sure of it. They were onto him. They were stalking him. They were going to kill him! He jammed the pedal to the floor and pulled out into the number-one westbound lane, causing all oncoming traffic to swerve right.

Jetsam keyed the hand mike and said, “Six-X-ray-Thirty-two requesting a clear frequency! We’re in pursuit!”

After that, he gave the make, model, and color of the van, including the California license plate number. And then, over the din from the wind rushing through their open windows and the yelps of the siren and the RTO’s squawking radio voice repeating the streets and direction of travel that Jetsam was yelling into the mike, Flotsam hollered to his partner: “Tell them it’s got Wickland Gallery on the side of the van! I want Nate and Viv and Georgie to know who it is!”

The black-and-white Crown Vic suddenly skidded at Hollywood and Bronson after braking for the driver of a Toyota who they figured had to be deaf. And after the radio car got straightened out, Jetsam yelled into the mike, “Cargo van has Wickland Gallery printed on the side panels!”

When the RTO at Communications Division repeated that information, Hollywood Nate, who was already racing toward the pursuit, said to Snuffy Salcedo, “Hey! That’s the van I checked out when you were off getting the nose job. Man, there’s something going on with that guy.”

Six-X-Seventy-six was one of the many units coming from several directions, all hoping to intercept the pursuit vehicle. The driver, Georgie Adams, said to his partner, Viv Daley, “Yo, sis! I think that’s the van our boy Jonas Claymore was driving when Nate and Flotsam jammed him, wasn’t it?”

Viv Daley cinched her seatbelt a bit tighter and said, “If it’s him, I can’t wait to hear his explanation this time. Hit it, Gypsy!”

Six-X-Forty-six, the only midwatch unit that was too far away to be racing toward the pursuit, was driven by Della Ravelle, who said to her rookie partner, “Damn, Britney, we had to get that call way up in thirty-one’s district. Those lazy bastards’re probably screwing off as usual. I wanted you to get in on your first pursuit. And this sounds like a good one. Damn.”

“My luck,” Britney Small said with a little sigh of resignation.

Jonas Claymore decided that getting anywhere close to his apartment in Thai Town was hopeless. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw at least three cars with red-and-blue lights flashing. There were too many headlights and too many cops and too much traffic. He couldn’t go fast enough to shake them. The yelping siren made it hard to think.

Then he thought of where there wouldn’t be so much traffic at this time of evening. An area where he could abandon the van and escape into the brush and hide in the darkness where cops couldn’t find him. And lately it was an area that he had come to know. He made a hard, sliding, screeching turn northbound on Gramercy Place and then turned westbound on Franklin Avenue. He was heading for the Hollywood Hills.

Della Ravelle said, “Hey, they’re coming our way. Maybe we’re not completely out of it after all.”

“They’ll probably double back and head east again,” Britney Small said glumly. “With my luck.”

The lead chase car, containing the surfer cops, careened up over the sidewalk on the north side of Franklin Avenue to avoid a bicyclist with no lights who’d darted across the wide street at midblock. When the black-and-white came crashing back down onto the street, the Crown Vic was lurching and nosediving. The tires screamed when Flotsam jumped on the brakes, but then he jammed down on the gas pedal again, and silhouettes rocketed past on both sides and horns blared.

Jetsam groaned and said, “Our shop’s shaking like a shuttle entering orbit. I think I just got me another muscle spasm.”

“Sorry, dude!” Flotsam said, cranking the wheel hard to the right when the car fishtailed again.

“I’m gonna try to parallel them on Yucca,” Hollywood Nate said to Snuffy Salcedo, who once again cinched up his seat belt and replied, “Is this any way to treat an old man with a new nose?”

Georgie Adams was doing his best to stay close to 6-X-32 by riding in their siren draft, but he drifted back a few car lengths when they hit heavy traffic at Cahuenga and even worse traffic at Highland.

Jonas Claymore was beyond reckless now and he simply blew across Highland Avenue heading west with complete disregard for the red light and the traffic moving north and south. He caused three fender benders before he miraculously crossed the busy thoroughfare and kept going west. That slowed Flotsam and Jetsam, who had to weave around the traffic collisions, siren still blaring, and it allowed Georgie Adams and Viv Daley time to catch up.

By then, Lieutenant O’Reilly and Sergeant Murillo were monitoring the chase in the office. The lieutenant was almost apoplectic because of the dangers posed to motorists by this wild pursuit.

“Get on tac! Get on tac!” he yelled to Sergeant Murillo. “There’re too many units involved. Tell them to drop off!”

But of course in a pursuit like this, with adrenaline erupting and endorphins exploding, the risen Christ couldn’t have made them drop off, and Sergeant Murillo knew it. Still, he issued the order on the tactical frequency, knowing that none of his coppers would listen to a drop-off order at this moment. And they didn’t.

When Jonas Claymore made the northbound turn onto Outpost Drive, he felt like cheering. This seemed familiar. This seemed possible. This was the area he’d been casing with that bitch that deserted him. This was Bling Ring country. This was the Hollywood Hills!

Della Ravelle and Britney Small were still driving east on Woodrow Wilson Drive approaching Mulholland Drive when they heard Jetsam yelling into the open mike that the pursuit had turned north on Outpost.

“No shit!” Della Ravelle said, making a hard right turn onto Mulholland.

The Wickland Gallery van careened north on Outpost Drive with three midwatch units behind it. And when 6-X-46 heard Jetsam yelling into the mike that the van was now turning west on Mulholland, Della Ravelle said to her young partner, “They’re coming right at us! Unlock the shotgun!”

She turned on her red-and-blues and her high beams to get the Mulholland traffic out of the way of the pursuit that was coming right at them. Jonas Claymore saw those lights in the distance just after he passed the big house where he’d first stolen this van. He was hyperventilating and had trouble filling his lungs, and now with cops behind him and cops ahead of him he considered bailing out, but then thought, No, not here. He was going to bail by the big house where it had all started. Where he had first set eyes on this vehicle that was taking him to his destiny.

He made a sliding, squealing U-ee and was heading back down only a hundred yards away from the cars coming up. And then he lost it. He veered too far right and hit a large steel mailbox in front of a view home and the van went skidding left on a collision course with the first chase car.