Sweetie's Diamonds (42 page)

Diane looked through the rear windshield and saw two bright headlights coming at them.
 
She was unable to see who or how many men were in the car.
 
The pursuing vehicle tailgated them for a while and then slammed into the Lexus' back bumper, jarring David onto the floor.
 
Diane shrieked and fell into the dash.
 

“Damn it, Diane, put on your seat belt!” Belgrad ordered.

She had to help David back into his seat first.
 
“Can you put your seat belt on, honey?”
 
He struggled weakly with it until she leaned over her seat to buckle it for him.
 

The Lexus was rammed a second time, knocking Diane backward into the dash again.
 

“I don't care who I hit, I'm letting loose,” Belgrad said as he increased the Lexus' speed.
 
Diane fastened her belt as the silver car stormed around a curve and scraped the side of a stretch limousine.
 
The driver honked at them.
 

“Sorry, pal,” Belgrad said, “I'm afraid I don't have time to stop and give you my insurance details.”

Then they heard gunfire and a piece of the back windshield exploded inward.
 

“Shit!” Diane cried.

“Get down!” Belgrad commanded.
 
“And keep David down!”

Diane crouched in her seat and looked back at her son.
 
He appeared to be unconscious.
 
At least he had the seat belt around his waist.
 
Diane brushed the broken glass off of him and then faced forward.
 

The Lexus screeched around another curve and finally made it to the foot of the hill.
 
Belgrad opened up, running a red light in order to beat a mass of cross traffic before it got in the way.
 
He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that their pursuers had no choice but to stop.
 
With the aid of the streetlights he could discern that it was a green Mercedes with three men inside.

“That'll put a little distance between us,” he said.
 
He sped toward the freeway entrance, zigzagging through traffic until he got to the ramp.
 
Ignoring the metered light, Belgrad shot out onto the 101, heading east.

“Where's the nearest hospital?” Diane asked.
 

“To tell you the truth, I'm not sure.
 
Do you know?”

“The only one I know is Cedars-Sinai.”

“Where is that?”

“Uh, West Hollywood.
 
Near Beverly Hills.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I think it's Beverly Boulevard and… damn, I can't remember.
 
San Vicente?”

“Okay.”

He shot around a slow-moving truck and veered right onto the Hollywood Freeway toward Universal City.
 
Diane heard a sharp report behind them and saw that the Mercedes was gaining.
 

“Nick—”

“I see them.”
 
He gripped the wheel and inched the speed to 95 miles per hour.
 
One of the guards leaned out the Mercedes' passenger window and aimed a handgun.
 
Belgrad saw him and warned Diane to keep down just as a bullet smashed his side mirror, startling them both.
 
“That was way too close,” he said and proceeded to cross lanes and weave in and out of traffic.

The Mercedes attempted to mimic the Lexus' maneuvers but the driver couldn't anticipate the lane changes before Belgrad performed them.
 
Belgrad managed to maintain a distance of approximately four car lengths between the two racing vehicles but that wasn't enough for him.
 

“I have to get off the freeway,” he said.
 
“It's the only way to lose these jerks.”
 
The Highland Avenue exit was next, so he took it.
 
“This will get us closer to your hospital, at any rate,” he observed.
 

The line of cars on the exit ramp was substantial but that didn't keep Belgrad from driving onto the curb, half-off the road, in order to get in front of the line.
 
Angry drivers honked at him and some cursed from open windows.
 

“Let's just hope we don't run into a cop,” he said as he ran the red light at the intersection.
 
A taxicab nearly collided with the Lexus but Belgrad slammed on the brakes, causing a deafening screech.
 
The car skidded and turned completely around.
 

“Whoa,” Diane said softly.
 
She was clenching the arm rest so tightly that her knuckles were white.
 

“Everyone okay?” Belgrad asked.
 

“Yes, just go,” Diane said.
 
She looked back at David and saw that he was still unconscious.
 

The Lexus sped south on Highland, crossing Hollywood Boulevard, and then it reached a red light at Sunset.
 
Belgrad looked into the rear-view mirror and couldn't see the Mercedes.
 
He stopped at the intersection.
 

“You think we lost them?” Diane asked.

“I don't know,” he answered.
 
He drummed his fingers on the wheel, waiting for the light to turn green.
 
“Come on…” he urged.
 
Then he saw the Mercedes in the mirror, just as the cross-town light turned yellow.
 
He didn't wait for his green.

The Lexus tore out across Sunset, again missing tardy traffic by a hair.
 
Unfortunately, the vehicles on Highland were moving slowly as they approached Santa Monica Boulevard.
 
Belgrad was stuck in the line, with cars in front and back of the Lexus.
 
The only good thing about it was that the Mercedes had the same problem a half-block behind them.
 

When the light turned green, traffic crawled across Sunset.
 
Belgrad slapped the wheel and barked, “Oh, come
on
!”
 
As soon as he reached the intersection, Belgrad made a sharp right and went west on Santa Monica.
 
It was a wider boulevard but traffic was just as thick.
 
A median separating the two directions of transit made the passage more difficult to navigate.
 

“This was not a smart move,” he said.
 
He looked into the mirror and saw that the Mercedes had followed them.
 
Belgrad reached underneath his jacket and drew his Browning.
 
He handed it to Diane and said, “Here, see if you can knock out one of their tires.
 
Or the driver.
 
Anything.”

She held it in her hand and swallowed hard.
 
Diane had considered removing the Colt from her handbag and attempting that very thing.
 
She decided to use the Browning instead.
 

The window went down and she leaned out.
 
The Mercedes passenger was already balancing himself on the door and aiming straight at them.
 
His gun fired and Diane felt the heat of the bullet whisk by her head, so close that it forced her back inside.
 
She clutched the side of her face in pain.

“Diane?” Belgrad called.
 
“Are you all right?”

She looked at her hand and saw there was no blood.
 
She pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror.
 
She was fine apart from a red streak on her cheek.
 

“Damn,” she said.
 
“I thought he had me.
 
I'm just a little burned.”

“Maybe you'd better stay inside the car.”

“No, I'm gonna try this.”
 
She leaned out the window again, took a bead on the Mercedes, and fired.
 
One of the headlights burst.
 
She fired again and saw a spider-web form on the windshield.
 
The Mercedes swerved momentarily but quickly got back on track.
 
Diane returned to her seat and re-fastened her belt.
 

“I hit something,” she said.
 

“Good girl,” Belgrad said.
 
“I'm getting the hell off this road.”
 
At the next intersection he pulled a left turn from the right lane, confusing and annoying all the other drivers.
 
The Lexus was now on Fairfax.
 

The Mercedes attempted the same daring maneuver but was hit broadside by a Corvette going thirty miles per hour above the speed limit.
 
The Mercedes spun in place and then tottered, two wheels off the ground, threatening to topple onto its side.
 
It didn't, though; the car fell with a thud on all four wheels.
 
The driver's side of the car was smashed in but the vehicle was still operable.
 
It dodged the other traffic and followed the Lexus onto Fairfax.

Belgrad slapped the wheel again and said, “Oh, man, I thought that was it.”
 
Determined to end the chase once and for all, he floored the pedal and the Lexus shot forward, practically lifting itself off the road.
 

“Look, there's Beverly!” Diane pointed.
 

“I see it.”
 
Belgrad turned a sharp right onto Beverly Boulevard with the wounded Mercedes hot on his tail.
 
Diane unbuckled her belt again and leaned out the window, the semi-automatic in hand.
 
Pointing it at the Mercedes, she squeezed the trigger several times, releasing a volley of rounds.
 
Flinching, she was unable to see what damage she caused but the Mercedes swerved sickeningly.
 
Then it ran up onto the sidewalk and crashed into the back of a parked Ford pickup.
 

“Yes!” she cried and got back in her seat.
 

“Did you hit the driver?” Belgrad asked.
 

“I don't know.”
 

He watched in the mirror until he saw the Mercedes back out of its predicament and resume the chase, but it was definitely a dying animal.
 

“You didn't hit him,” Belgrad announced.

“Nick, there's the hospital!” Diane pointed.
 
Sure enough, the massive Cedars-Sinai campus was up ahead on the right, beyond San Vicente, just as Diane had guessed.
 

“Maybe we can lose those bastards here,” Belgrad said as he swung into the emergency room drive.
 
The path curved behind a building, out of the Beverly traffic sightlines.
 
He pulled the Lexus up to the emergency room doors, stopped, held his breath, and watched the drive behind them.
 
The Mercedes failed to appear after a couple of minutes.

“Nick, you did it!” Diane cried.
 
She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek.
 

Belgrad laughed uncomfortably and then got out of the car.
 
He opened the back door, unfastened David's seat belt, and pulled him out of the car.
 
Carrying the boy in his arms, Belgrad ran inside the hospital with Diane at his side.

D
iane sat in the emergency waiting room for nearly two hours before learning anything about David's condition.
 
In the meantime, Belgrad had parked the Lexus in the hospital's garage, made some calls, and returned to find her wringing a magazine as if it were a wet towel.
 

“I think you killed that poor magazine,” Belgrad remarked.

She smiled when she realized that she had nearly obliterated it.
 
“I guess I'm pretty anxious.”
 
It was worse than that, though.
 
She had gone into her trance-like state while Belgrad was gone and felt as though the stress she was under would surely kill her.
 
Being in the hospital reminded her of the two times long ago when Sweetie was there.
 
First the drug overdose… and then later with the gunshot wound in the head…