Authors note: Wow...I am overwhelmed with your reviews. Thanks so much. Your take on this story really surprised me...and now...back at ya. Please keep the reviews coming.
*****
Chapter Four-"Action"
The director takes his place, the cameras are ready, and the actors are in position. As soon as the make-up people clear the scene, the director yells "Action!"
Polly starts running full speed up the sidewalk, passing a few extras that were placed there. She reaches the corner and turns, running out of sight. The camera then focuses on the other corner where the patrol cars are given the signal to go. Jay floors his car and screams around the first corner, followed closely by Skeet and Corey. They drive up one block and then make a right around the corner that Polly just ran around.
Polly runs partway up the alley and stops just a few feet in front of a group of men standing by a blazer, whom she thinks are extras that were placed there. She bends down placing her hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. Standing up straight but still breathing hard, she puts her hands on her hips, and looks at the men in front of her and realizes that the back of the blazer is open, and on the tailgate, is a briefcase of money, a suitcase full of heroine, and one guy is holding a test tube of liquid that is testing the purity of the drug. They are all staring at her.
She throws her hands up in a 'stop' gesture and says, "Aw God no...Hey...I'm not really a cop. I'm an actress." She slowly starts walking backwards. "We're filming a show. Whatever you're doing...I don't care. It's not my concern." Suddenly the air is filled with sirens, as two police cars, with lights, come screaming around the corner towards them. The guy with the test tube, hops into the back of the blazer and closes the tailgate while the man to his right runs to the drivers side and hops in, sending the blazer corkscrewing out of the alley.
Two of the three that are left, run towards a car that is parked across the street. The third guy, opens his full length, black leather coat and pulls out an automatic weapon and draws on them, as he sets his stance.
Polly turns and starts running towards Jay, who is watching this unfold. He is staring at the man with the long leather coat, his wavy, shoulder length hair and black goatee give him the eerie appearance of a gun slinger from the old west, except the weapon is firing at a rapid speed. Jay ducks below the dashboard, but not fast enough, as he feels his left shoulder ignite with a hot burning pain.
As Polly runs, she is watching the bullet holes being pounded across the car in front of her, starting from the passenger side, across the hood to the driver's side. The windshield and Jay, both disappear from sight...then the drivers headlight...then the mirror...and then she feels the impact in her back as she is pitched forward and thrown hard to the pavement.
It feels as though she was hit in the back with a baseball bat, and she struggles to get her breath. She is wearing a real bullet proof vest, but the impact knocks the wind out of her. Skeet throws his car in reverse and drives backwards out of the alley nearly running over a couple of extras.
Skeet and Corey hop out of the their car hollering frantically. The crew and the director start heading towards them to see what happened. Skeet is pointing and yelling, "They shot 'em. Oh my God...get security. Those were real shots. Polly was shot. She was laying in the street."
The gunmen joins the other two men in the car that they had stolen earlier. The car was hot wired, and now they can't get it started. They still believe that any minute, more cops are going to come around the corner, and they are in a panic to get out of this alley.
Bosco and Faith have now realized, that what just happened, was not part of the scene. They both draw their guns and run towards the alley, yelling for the crew to get back. Faith stops with her back against the building, and peeks around it into the alley. Bosco runs up to the back of Skeet's RMP. He gets on his radio and calls in a 10-13. He looks at Faith, "What the hell am I doing? Who do I call this in to?" They look at each other frantically. "We gotta do something!"
Peeking again into the alley, they see that the three men can not start their car, and they are now getting out of it, and heading towards Polly and Jay in the RMP. Bosco jumps up, pointing his gun at them. "Stop where you are!"
Faith steps into the alley, also pointing her gun and yells, "You are being surrounded. You need to put your weapons down...NOW!"
"DO IT!" Bosco yells, to which the three men open fire at them.
Ducking back behind the building, Faith gets on the radio. "This is 55 David...we are still three blocks north of sector 1...we have a 10-13...I repeat...10-13...we need police back-up at this location and an EMS forthwith!"
The men grab Polly, using her as a shield, and run to the police car. One climbs into the drivers seat, sliding Jay over to the passenger door. The other two climb into the back, pulling Polly in with them.
"We can't let them leave." Bosco says desperately, peeking over the car. "They're gonna leave with hostages." After a second he says, "Go get the car. Hurry!"
Bosco shoots at the tires, blowing out the two back ones, but the car still drives out of the alley.
Faith runs to get the car, as Peterson calls in on the radio, asking what is going on, and insisting that there is no filming at the location they are giving. Bosco watches them drive away and turn north out of the alley. He tells Peterson to send everyone to this location, and that three armed men have taken hostages in RMP number 5649.
*****[On the road]
The three drug dealers, are still not aware that the two cops they have, are really actors. The driver, who's is also the gunman with the leather coat, is named Angel. He is the leader of this gang, and he tells them that they are going to drive the car to the edge of Red Hook, kill both of the cops, and leave them with the car. Then they can walk towards the city and find another car to steal. The other two guys are named Paulie and Emelio.
Paulie looks at him wide eyed. "Are you kidding me? Man...we kill those cops and we're looken at the death penalty. I'm not gonna do it." He looks to Emelio for support.
"I'll do it." Emelio says grinning.
Angel grabs Jay by the hair and lifts his head off the passenger door and says, "We may have already killed one."
Jay had felt nauseas after he was shot, and then lost consciousness. He is starting to come around. He tries to sit up, and a hot stabbing pain shoots through his shoulder, making him slump back down into the seat. Moaning, he looks around disoriented and brushes some broken glass off his face. He starts to remember what happened, and he guesses that the gunmen took his car to get away, and soon they will dump it off...along with him. He is not aware that Polly is also in the car, in the backseat.
Jay hears them talking but he is still confused. He only knows that there are more than one of them. He decides the best thing to do would be to play dead, and hopefully these guys will not try to harm him more...or kill him. If he just keeps his eyes closed, they will figure he is dead, or at least, that he's unconscious and can't identify them, which...he really can't. This should be over soon. He can feel blood running down his arm but he is afraid to reach his right hand over to put pressure on the wound, afraid of what they may do if they know he is awake.
He feels sick again. He is laying on the front seat, with his face against the door trying not to move, and he thinks to himself, 'what a wuss I am.' He spent nearly six days a week for the past four years playing this tough cop and here he is cowering. He thinks about the part he plays and how many times he acted the character in real life. He admits to himself that many times he's been in a situation where he drew up a little more confidence pretending to be the cop on the show, or acted a little tougher and cocky. He vows never to do that again...if he can get through this in one piece. He forces himself to stay awake so that when they leave, he can get help before he bleeds to death.
Emelio can't sit still. His one leg is bouncing nervously on the ball of his foot, as he stares wide eyed out the back window. "Where the hell did the cops come from anyway? Did Gonza set us up?"
"It doesn't matter, he's a dead man. He kept the money and the dope." Angel says.
"And he left us there." Paulie adds.
When Angel pulled out of the alley, he drove the car one block north, then turned east and turned again heading south. Without realizing it, he had doubled back behind all of the security police that are rushing north to the scene, and has made a clean getaway.
It is dark out now, as Angel drives past the abandoned buildings, the walls of shattered windows and spray painted symbols. He parks the car under a bridge just on the outskirts of the 'Junkyard'. They sit in silence for a second, listening to the sirens in the distance. They sound very far away. "We did it." Angel says with a smile. "We made it."
Jay feels the car come to a stop. He closes his eyes tightly and holds his breath. He never realized before, how hard it is to hold perfectly still when you're really trying to. Then he hears one of them say, 'Emelio...shoot her first' and he hears Polly's voice say 'no'. He hadn't considered that she may be in the car too.
As Angel opens the door to the back of the car, Paulie scrambles out of the backseat saying, "Man this is a mistake. The cops must know who we are already. They showed up at the buy. Angel, I don't want this on me."
Angel tells him angrily, "Go then. Get the hell out of here. Go get us another car. Just cross the bridge above us and you'll be back in a populated area. And hurry...the cops are all around." Paulie paces nervously, not sure if he should stay or leave.
Polly is aware that they are planning to kill her. She slides back against the door, and reaches for the door handle, but like a real cop car, it doesn't open from the inside. She is trapped. She pushes back into the corner as far as she can, staring through tears at Emelio as he leans towards her in the backseat. He raises his eyebrows and says, "You shouldn't have rained on our parade." Then points the gun at her.
Her voice is high pitched and hysterical, "Oh God...please...I'm not a cop. It is just a show. Please...don't. It's just a show." She is crying now and she puts her hand up to the barrel of the gun, still pleading for him not to kill her as she tries to push him away.
"Hold still you bitch!" Emelio says, as he grabs her wrists in his hand and pins them against the car door. She closes her eyes as he puts the barrel near her temple, and as she screams out "No", he pulls the trigger.
The shot echoes through the empty buildings. Paulie flinches and Jay jumps.
Jay is shaking and breathing quickly through his mouth. He is terrified. He just heard them shoot Polly and he knows he is next.
*****
Chapter Four-"Action"
The director takes his place, the cameras are ready, and the actors are in position. As soon as the make-up people clear the scene, the director yells "Action!"
Polly starts running full speed up the sidewalk, passing a few extras that were placed there. She reaches the corner and turns, running out of sight. The camera then focuses on the other corner where the patrol cars are given the signal to go. Jay floors his car and screams around the first corner, followed closely by Skeet and Corey. They drive up one block and then make a right around the corner that Polly just ran around.
Polly runs partway up the alley and stops just a few feet in front of a group of men standing by a blazer, whom she thinks are extras that were placed there. She bends down placing her hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. Standing up straight but still breathing hard, she puts her hands on her hips, and looks at the men in front of her and realizes that the back of the blazer is open, and on the tailgate, is a briefcase of money, a suitcase full of heroine, and one guy is holding a test tube of liquid that is testing the purity of the drug. They are all staring at her.
She throws her hands up in a 'stop' gesture and says, "Aw God no...Hey...I'm not really a cop. I'm an actress." She slowly starts walking backwards. "We're filming a show. Whatever you're doing...I don't care. It's not my concern." Suddenly the air is filled with sirens, as two police cars, with lights, come screaming around the corner towards them. The guy with the test tube, hops into the back of the blazer and closes the tailgate while the man to his right runs to the drivers side and hops in, sending the blazer corkscrewing out of the alley.
Two of the three that are left, run towards a car that is parked across the street. The third guy, opens his full length, black leather coat and pulls out an automatic weapon and draws on them, as he sets his stance.
Polly turns and starts running towards Jay, who is watching this unfold. He is staring at the man with the long leather coat, his wavy, shoulder length hair and black goatee give him the eerie appearance of a gun slinger from the old west, except the weapon is firing at a rapid speed. Jay ducks below the dashboard, but not fast enough, as he feels his left shoulder ignite with a hot burning pain.
As Polly runs, she is watching the bullet holes being pounded across the car in front of her, starting from the passenger side, across the hood to the driver's side. The windshield and Jay, both disappear from sight...then the drivers headlight...then the mirror...and then she feels the impact in her back as she is pitched forward and thrown hard to the pavement.
It feels as though she was hit in the back with a baseball bat, and she struggles to get her breath. She is wearing a real bullet proof vest, but the impact knocks the wind out of her. Skeet throws his car in reverse and drives backwards out of the alley nearly running over a couple of extras.
Skeet and Corey hop out of the their car hollering frantically. The crew and the director start heading towards them to see what happened. Skeet is pointing and yelling, "They shot 'em. Oh my God...get security. Those were real shots. Polly was shot. She was laying in the street."
The gunmen joins the other two men in the car that they had stolen earlier. The car was hot wired, and now they can't get it started. They still believe that any minute, more cops are going to come around the corner, and they are in a panic to get out of this alley.
Bosco and Faith have now realized, that what just happened, was not part of the scene. They both draw their guns and run towards the alley, yelling for the crew to get back. Faith stops with her back against the building, and peeks around it into the alley. Bosco runs up to the back of Skeet's RMP. He gets on his radio and calls in a 10-13. He looks at Faith, "What the hell am I doing? Who do I call this in to?" They look at each other frantically. "We gotta do something!"
Peeking again into the alley, they see that the three men can not start their car, and they are now getting out of it, and heading towards Polly and Jay in the RMP. Bosco jumps up, pointing his gun at them. "Stop where you are!"
Faith steps into the alley, also pointing her gun and yells, "You are being surrounded. You need to put your weapons down...NOW!"
"DO IT!" Bosco yells, to which the three men open fire at them.
Ducking back behind the building, Faith gets on the radio. "This is 55 David...we are still three blocks north of sector 1...we have a 10-13...I repeat...10-13...we need police back-up at this location and an EMS forthwith!"
The men grab Polly, using her as a shield, and run to the police car. One climbs into the drivers seat, sliding Jay over to the passenger door. The other two climb into the back, pulling Polly in with them.
"We can't let them leave." Bosco says desperately, peeking over the car. "They're gonna leave with hostages." After a second he says, "Go get the car. Hurry!"
Bosco shoots at the tires, blowing out the two back ones, but the car still drives out of the alley.
Faith runs to get the car, as Peterson calls in on the radio, asking what is going on, and insisting that there is no filming at the location they are giving. Bosco watches them drive away and turn north out of the alley. He tells Peterson to send everyone to this location, and that three armed men have taken hostages in RMP number 5649.
*****[On the road]
The three drug dealers, are still not aware that the two cops they have, are really actors. The driver, who's is also the gunman with the leather coat, is named Angel. He is the leader of this gang, and he tells them that they are going to drive the car to the edge of Red Hook, kill both of the cops, and leave them with the car. Then they can walk towards the city and find another car to steal. The other two guys are named Paulie and Emelio.
Paulie looks at him wide eyed. "Are you kidding me? Man...we kill those cops and we're looken at the death penalty. I'm not gonna do it." He looks to Emelio for support.
"I'll do it." Emelio says grinning.
Angel grabs Jay by the hair and lifts his head off the passenger door and says, "We may have already killed one."
Jay had felt nauseas after he was shot, and then lost consciousness. He is starting to come around. He tries to sit up, and a hot stabbing pain shoots through his shoulder, making him slump back down into the seat. Moaning, he looks around disoriented and brushes some broken glass off his face. He starts to remember what happened, and he guesses that the gunmen took his car to get away, and soon they will dump it off...along with him. He is not aware that Polly is also in the car, in the backseat.
Jay hears them talking but he is still confused. He only knows that there are more than one of them. He decides the best thing to do would be to play dead, and hopefully these guys will not try to harm him more...or kill him. If he just keeps his eyes closed, they will figure he is dead, or at least, that he's unconscious and can't identify them, which...he really can't. This should be over soon. He can feel blood running down his arm but he is afraid to reach his right hand over to put pressure on the wound, afraid of what they may do if they know he is awake.
He feels sick again. He is laying on the front seat, with his face against the door trying not to move, and he thinks to himself, 'what a wuss I am.' He spent nearly six days a week for the past four years playing this tough cop and here he is cowering. He thinks about the part he plays and how many times he acted the character in real life. He admits to himself that many times he's been in a situation where he drew up a little more confidence pretending to be the cop on the show, or acted a little tougher and cocky. He vows never to do that again...if he can get through this in one piece. He forces himself to stay awake so that when they leave, he can get help before he bleeds to death.
Emelio can't sit still. His one leg is bouncing nervously on the ball of his foot, as he stares wide eyed out the back window. "Where the hell did the cops come from anyway? Did Gonza set us up?"
"It doesn't matter, he's a dead man. He kept the money and the dope." Angel says.
"And he left us there." Paulie adds.
When Angel pulled out of the alley, he drove the car one block north, then turned east and turned again heading south. Without realizing it, he had doubled back behind all of the security police that are rushing north to the scene, and has made a clean getaway.
It is dark out now, as Angel drives past the abandoned buildings, the walls of shattered windows and spray painted symbols. He parks the car under a bridge just on the outskirts of the 'Junkyard'. They sit in silence for a second, listening to the sirens in the distance. They sound very far away. "We did it." Angel says with a smile. "We made it."
Jay feels the car come to a stop. He closes his eyes tightly and holds his breath. He never realized before, how hard it is to hold perfectly still when you're really trying to. Then he hears one of them say, 'Emelio...shoot her first' and he hears Polly's voice say 'no'. He hadn't considered that she may be in the car too.
As Angel opens the door to the back of the car, Paulie scrambles out of the backseat saying, "Man this is a mistake. The cops must know who we are already. They showed up at the buy. Angel, I don't want this on me."
Angel tells him angrily, "Go then. Get the hell out of here. Go get us another car. Just cross the bridge above us and you'll be back in a populated area. And hurry...the cops are all around." Paulie paces nervously, not sure if he should stay or leave.
Polly is aware that they are planning to kill her. She slides back against the door, and reaches for the door handle, but like a real cop car, it doesn't open from the inside. She is trapped. She pushes back into the corner as far as she can, staring through tears at Emelio as he leans towards her in the backseat. He raises his eyebrows and says, "You shouldn't have rained on our parade." Then points the gun at her.
Her voice is high pitched and hysterical, "Oh God...please...I'm not a cop. It is just a show. Please...don't. It's just a show." She is crying now and she puts her hand up to the barrel of the gun, still pleading for him not to kill her as she tries to push him away.
"Hold still you bitch!" Emelio says, as he grabs her wrists in his hand and pins them against the car door. She closes her eyes as he puts the barrel near her temple, and as she screams out "No", he pulls the trigger.
The shot echoes through the empty buildings. Paulie flinches and Jay jumps.
Jay is shaking and breathing quickly through his mouth. He is terrified. He just heard them shoot Polly and he knows he is next.
