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Payne flew down Seventeenth, hoping he could maybe get ahead of the van and cut it off. The Porsche shot, block by block, from ten m.p.h. to nearly sixty, then back to ten as Payne slowed and looked down every cross street toward Eighteenth.
Finally, at Spruce Street, he again stepped heavily on the brakes, looked toward Eighteenth—and saw the white van. There was no missing it, especially because it now was dragging its rear bumper. A shower of sparks flew as the bumper bounced wildly off the street.
The van quickly turned onto Spruce, fishtailing as its rear tires lost traction. More sparks sprayed.
Payne raised his voice: “Shooter’s vehicle now on Spruce heade
d toward South Nineteenth.”
Payne turned and sped after the white van, relieved that at least it now was going with traffic on the one-way street.
“Westbound Spruce at Nineteenth,” the dispatcher confirmed.
He heard her relay that over Police Radio, then she said, “Multiple units on their way, Sergeant.”
At Nineteenth, the traffic signal cycled red, and Payne had to cut between three cars blocking the intersection. Then, at Twentieth, he blew through the light that had just turned red, narrowly avoiding a SEPTA bus.
He shot through the next two intersections, barely slowing to clear them, each time the car becoming light on its suspension as it crested the crown of the cross streets.
The traffic signal at Twenty-second was about to cycle to green—he saw the DON’T WALK on the far corner, its flashing, upraised hand having turned solid red—but not in time. He had to brake hard to miss ramming a taxicab that was last through the intersection.
Still, he saw that he was closing the distance with the van.
As he raced even faster over Twenty-third, the street crown caused the Porsche to leave the ground. He pulled his foot completely out of the accelerator and, as a precaution, hovered it over the brake pedal as the vehicle tires returned to the street.
He watched the van make a sliding left onto Twenty-fourth, its rear end clipping the front fender of a rusty school bus that had CHRISTIAN STREET YMCA painted on its side. The impact caused the van’s bouncing bumper to break loose. It sent out a spray of sparks as it spun beneath the engine compartment of the bus.
“Shooter’s van now heading down Twenty-fourth just south of Spruce,” Payne announced loudly as the car decelerated from fifty.
“Southbound Twenty-fourth between Spruce and Pine,” the dispatcher said, then repeated the information over Police Radio to the responding units.
“Move!” Payne then muttered to himself. “Move! Move! Move!”
As the Porsche flew up on the bus, a series of enormous clouds of black smoke belched out from under it. It then started to slide sideways, coming to a stop when the front tires struck the curb.
“Damn it!” he said, smacking the steering wheel again.
Payne saw a shiny black slick spreading on the asphalt.
Bumper must have speared the oil pan, he thought. Not good . . .
He shoved the brake pedal toward the floor and instantly felt heavy vibration kicking back through the pedal, indicating that the antilock braking system was functioning.
The car stopped just short of the bus and the edge of the oil slick.
Payne looked up at the bus. Above its windshield a sign read OUT OF SERVICE. The emergency flashers came on and the STOP sign swung out from its side. The tall twin glass main doors opened outward and a big man wearing what looked like mechanic’s clothing stepped out. He went to the front, where he began surveying the damage.
“Say again, Sergeant Payne?” the dispatcher’s even voice came from the speakers.
In the distance, he heard the overlapping Whoop-Whoop! of multiple sirens.
“Sergeant? You okay?”
As the distinct heavy smell of hot tire rubber and brake pads started filling the car, Payne scanned the intersection. There was no way around the bus. And no time to turn back and take another route. He knew he could never catch up to the van now.
He shook his head in frustration.
“Pursuit ended,” Payne announced. “Shooter’s van still at large. Last seen southbound on Twenty-fourth. I’m headed back to scene of the shooting at Rittenhouse Square.”
