TWENTY
"Unit two five nine, suspects headed west toward Nevada state line, please exercise caution, they are considered highly dangerous," came the static-filled voice over the police scanner Tyrone Terrell had rigged to his dashboard. The drug lord and his entourage had been secretly following the police caravan all the way from Illinois, hoping to extract their revenge on the Brothers. And now, from what the information he was getting, they were quite close to their intended targets.
"At last," he said, rubbing his hands in delight, "We're going to nail those cretins for taking my capital. Vinnie, tell them…Vinnie, what the hell are you doing?"
His brother looked up from the tray of cocaine he'd been snorting, his face bleached white from it. "Just testing the next shipment, Ty," he told him in a high voice, "WHOOOOO BOY, this is kickin' stuff! We can make about fifty grand with this!"
Terrell grabbed the tray off his hands and tossed it on the floor. "You can test it later!" he snapped, "Right now we need to lock and load! We'll catch them in about five minutes."
He tossed a high-powered rifle at him and the two hit men riding in his personal limo. "Everybody load up!" he barked through his radio at the convoy of eight other cars trailing behind him in the dim Arizona dusk. When they hit their prey, they'd die very quickly and painfully.
"Yeah Foley, snuck right up on us," Jake said into his holy cell phone to someone Upstairs, "I don't know, are our reconnaissance units failing with the breach? Yeah, if you keep a watch for us, that would be good. Call me every two hours on their position except for an emergency. Yeah, I know."
"Foley?" Zee inquired as he hung up.
"Close friend of mine," Jake told him, "We have a lot in common, really. He always dreamed of being a high-flight comedian, but spent most of his life living in a van down by the lower Hudson. He sort of idolizes me in fact; follows me everywhere I go up there."
"And ya couldn't even keep a date more than one night in this world; go figure," Elwood shrugged. He flicked the main loudspeaker switch; they'd found an old rusted loudspeaker in a junkyard earlier in the day when they'd been briefly lost, and had decided to put it to use as they had for the one they'd used before the Palace Hotel Ballroom gig. ""Appearing tomorrow night in Los Angeles," he announced out loud to the practically deserted highway, "live from Universal Studios, the fabulous Blues Brothers show band and review, one night only for your entertainment pleasure."
"Well, we can certainly drum up a lot of customers out here," Zee said sarcastically, scanning both sides of the road.
"The more the better," Elwood said, "And if we can…"
"DOWN!" Jake abruptly pushed him to the floor just as a bullet shattered the Bluesmobile's rear window. More gunfire clanked off the loudspeaker. "Boy those cops caught up fast!" Buster lamented, sliding to the floor.
"It's not the cops, kid, it's the guys that enslaved you and your friend," Jake recognized the drug dealers even though it was almost dark outside.
"I'm on it," Elwood swerved off the road and rattled over the sand dunes at close to eighty miles an hour. The drug dealers followed, still firing away with everything they had. Bullet holes riddled the Bluesmobile all over. "The only way we're gonna shake 'em is to outrun 'em," he told a horrified Zee, "So hang on tight."
Zee looked rather nauseated. "Here you go," Jake said, handing him a vomit bag, which Zee promptly began using. "But don't you worry, brother," the angel continued, "I'll whip you into shape yet.
Elwood abruptly slammed on the brakes. They'd just arrived at the cusp of the Grand Canyon. This development did little to quell Zee's nerves. "Great, now you've got us trapped!" he berated Elwood, "How're you going to get us out of this one, may I ask?"
"The same way those two chicks did it in that movie," Elwood reversed the Bluesmobile and backed away roughly a half mile from the edge. The drug dealers' cars were now almost on top of them.
"Uh, Elwood, I should point out that Thelma and Louise didn't survive the jump into the canyon," Zee looked white as chalk.
"I believe," Elwood winked at Jake and accelerated toward the canyon. With the odometer reading over a hundred and forty miles an hour, the Bluesmobile hit the edge and shot into the air over the Grand Canyon. For what seemed the longest time, they hung in the air thousands of feet above the Colorado River and certain doom. Finally, they crashed down on the other edge of the canyon, the rear wheels slipping on the edge of the cliff. Elwood gave it all the gas it could take, forcing the Bluesmobile up and over to safety. "That was amazing!" Katrina exclaimed, looking back at the canyon, "Can we do that again?"
"Maybe we will," Elwood said, eliciting another nauseated groan from Zee.
On the far side of the canyon, the drug dealers' cars ground to a halt at the edge. "Damn!" Terrell shouted, smacking the roof of his car in disgust, "We had them just like that, and they got away!"
"Well I'm sure there's a bridge around here somewhere," his driver remarked.
"Then find it now you moron!" Terrell whacked him in the back of the head, "I want their heads!"
Back in the Bluesmobile, Elwood squinted into the distance. "Ain't that Vegas?" he asked, noticing a hard glow in the sky to the northwest.
"Should be," Jake told him, "Maybe if we're lucky enough, we'll be able to stop and gas up somewhere on…uh oh."
They'd crested a small hill to find themselves staring straight at Mercer's entire force. A sea of headlights almost six rows thick glared right at them—not to mention the countless helicopter lights beaming down from overhead. "OK Elwood," came Mercer's voice over a loudspeaker, "Save yourself the agony and give yourself up now."
Elwood swerved wildly to the left. The cops and agents quickly sped after him. "Attention all personnel," General Storrs ordered his troops from the back of Mercer's now roofless car, "Surround Las Vegas and create a perimeter. Do not let the Bluesmobile leave the vicinity."
"How many are there, Jake?" Elwood had to know as he roared toward the inviting lights of Vegas.
"Oh about three, four thousand," Jake estimated, "Nothing to worry about."
"Nothing to worry about?" Zee stared his natural brother in the eye, "Well I'm not going to jail because he's reckless!" he pointed at Elwood.
"They ain't gonna catch us," Elwood said, "We're on a mission from God."
He abruptly swerved to the right as more FBI and army cars came at him from the left. By now they'd left the desert and were into the suburban landscape outside Las Vegas. With a paved road once again under its wheels, the Bluesmobile gained speed. It seemed, however, that new police cars popped up at every intersection to join the chase. Soon their pursuers stretched all the way back to the horizon. They remained firmly in the overhead glares of the helicopters' searchlights as the suburbs gave way to Las Vegas proper.
"The Golden Nugget," Jake pointed to the casino at the corner of downtown.
"Yeah," Elwood nodded. Then he smashed abruptly through the front of the building, totaling slot machines and sending casino patrons scrambling. Several cop cars followed them through, wrecking more of the lobby. "Boy Vegas's sure changed," Elwood commented as he tore down Las Vegas Boulevard at over a hundred miles an hour, "When'd they add that big neon thing over downtown?"
"Oh, a couple of years ago," Zee was now lying on the back seat floor with his eyes closed. Armstrong snorted almost pathetically at him and leapt over the front seat to join his master. "Yeah, take a good look, Armstrong, you're gonna like this," Elwood scratched his ears. He swerved wildly in between traffic, narrowing missing a collision with a cement truck as he blew through a red light near the top of the Strip. The police were showing similar disregard for public safety; two cruisers right behind the Bluesmobile ran civilian cars right off the road and into several seedy motels.
"The Stratosphere," Buster pointed to the long thin spire marking the first mega resort on the Strip, "They always say that's a good one."
"One way to find out," Elwood hopped the curb and slammed through the casino, leaving a pair of large holes in the walls. "The Sahara," he said out loud, crossing the median and attacking the desert-themed hotel next, "That coaster's new."
"Speed the Ride, yeah, I've heard," Zee said meekly from the floor.
"This was the hotel Jake and me always wanted to play in when we formed the Blues Brothers," Elwood said as he destroyed the Sahara lobby, "We always dreamed of comin' to Vegas once we hit it big. Either this or the Sands."
"I preferred the Sands," Jake commented, feeding Armstrong another heavenly dog biscuit. The Bluesmobile knocked over a VIP luggage rack as it exited the hotel. The front two police cars after them crashed into palm trees behind them.
"Circus Circus," Katrina pointed to the next one on the route.
"Yeah," Elwood nodded, obliterating Circus Circus's outside casino. He then swerved across the street again and shattered the front of the Riviera.
"Well, if you were less interested in destroying all these symbols of corporate greed, you might be able to actually put some distance between them and us," Zee pointed out the back at the still expanding law enforcement vehicles behind them.
"No prob," Elwood zoomed toward the Stardust sign and knocked out a support column. The neon megalith swayed and collapsed onto the street, trapping several FBI cars underneath. The rest of the authorities swerved around onto the northbound lanes. Inside his cruiser, Daniel looked over at Mount. "Doesn't this seem a bit familiar?" he had to ask.
"Just like the mall twenty years ago," Mount knew, "Only now they've got more to work with."
"Treasure Island?" Elwood frowned in the meantime, staring at the unfamiliar hotel in front of them, "Where'd the Dunes go?"
"They tore the Dunes down years ago, Elwood, don't you hear anything in prison?" Zee seemed rather surprised.
"Oh well," Elwood shrugged and hopped onto the sidewalk. He blew the horn to get people walking along the old-fashioned wooden walkway to clear a path, which they did by diving into the lagoon. The Bluesmobile thundered up the stairs at the end of the walkway and leapt off the overpass, crashing down hard on the street. Three army cars that had followed them up the walkway tried the same maneuver and crashed headfirst onto Las Vegas Boulevard.
"The Venetian," Jake pointed to the ultramodern facility across the street.
"Impressive," Elwood commented. He broke through the Venetian's front doors and led the authorities on a merry chase through the resort's shopping center, taking the time to smash up various storefronts as he went. Breaking out the back wall, he turned back toward the strip, jumping over the canal in the process. "Harrah's," he commented just before destroying the front entrance, "The Mirage?" That's a new one too."
More police cars were coming at them. With nowhere else to go, Elwood jumped the Mirage's fence and rumbled up the side of the volcano. "It blows in five seconds, Elwood," Jake pointed out. He needn't have worried; Elwood roared off the top of the volcano just as it exploded for the hour, sending one pursuing cop car crashing into the lagoon below as it swerved to avoid the flames, and cutting off all the others behind them. "Good, at least they still got the Flamingo," Elwood commented as he smashed through its casino, adding, "Oh crap," just as he totaled several crap tables. "Caesar's Palace," he said next, causing two FBI cars to collide as he zoomed back to the southbound lanes, "Say Jake, whatdya say we do what Evil Knievel couldn't?"
"If you feel like it," Jake was clearly enjoying the motor madness. Elwood accelerated toward Caesar's cypress groves and roared up over the hotel's infamous fountains. "That felt good, huh Armstrong?" he asked the dog. Armstrong barked in agreement. The dog pushed past Jake to the passenger window and stuck its tongue out at the cop cars who failed to successfully duplicate the jump behind them.
"Do it again!" Katrina was now very much in the jumping mood.
"Bellagio dead ahead, go for broke," Jake pointed to the posh resort ahead. Elwood nodded and floored it. The Bluesmobile zoomed up an earthen bank and rocketed over Bellagio's lagoon just as its water show was in progress below. It crashed down hard on the sidewalk hard enough to shatter the suspension on a normal car. Behind them, no fewer than seven law enforcement cars tried yet again to follow their quarry and ended up in the middle of the lagoon, sopping wet. As if that wasn't bad enough for the authorities, the Bluesmobile, after landing, almost hit a cop car, which swerved out of the way and was hit by two more behind it. This set off a massive pileup of cop cars which, when it finally ended after taking the lives of almost thirty cars, blocked all southbound traffic. Nonplussed, the surviving authorities swerved into the northbound lanes, sending traffic shooting down side streets.
"Paris?" Elwood was surprised at the next hotel on the block, "Well, it is a small world after all." He proceeded to do the same thing to Paris as he'd done to the Venetian, and when he was finished no less than a dozen shops inside the French building were wrecked. "Wait, this ain't the Aladdin," he commented upon seeing the next one, "What happened to the old one?"
"Go through it anyway," Buster encouraged him. Elwood did just that. Nice architecture though," he said, awed at the Middle East theming, "They shoulda done this in the old days."
He zoomed through the indoor market, indescrimately destroying storefronts. To be fair, the police and FBI did more or less the same thing in pursuit, though. About midway through, two of the FBI cars hit debris from a shattered column and tipped over, sliding down the market at over eighty miles an hour. A fountain interrupted the path of one rudely, but the other kept sliding all the way into the casino, where it was knocking aside be the trailing cars. The Bluesmobile, in the meantime, plowed out the Aladdin's back wall and back across the street just in time to wreck the Monte Carlo's casino. "Almost home free," Jake said, noticing the end of the Strip not too far off.
"Oh really?" Zee spoke up again, "Don't you think they'd cover all the exits from this town to make sure we didn't get out that easy?"
Indeed at that moment, General Storrs was talking on his radio to his command about that very possibility. "They're almost in your clutches," he informed them, "At my command, close in on them."
"New York New York," Mercer commented from the front seat as the Bluesmobile zoomed across the mock Brooklyn Bridge and into the casino, "I always wanted to stay at this one, how about you, Ness?"
His dog was less interested in the casino as it was in chewing on Mercer's ashtray. "You know, in a way, I'm glad they're doing this," Mercer continued to his colleagues while deliberately demolishing a mock newsstand, "Now we've got them on at least a hundred counts of endangering the public and attempted vehicular manslaughter."
"The trouble is catching these clowns," Agent Orange pointed out as they exited New York New York through the large hole the Bluesmobile had left in the wall, "It shouldn't really be as difficult as it is."
"On the bright side though, you've just got to love the fresh desert air," Mercer said, breathing in deeply. He'd been slowing gaining on the Bluesmobile, and was now a mere twenty feet behind it as the chase now entered the MGM Grand. "No escaping now, Elwood," he said, putting the hammer all the way down. His mood changed significantly, however, once the Bluesmobile broke into the lion's exhibit. For with the roof of his car now gone, two of the lions jumped right into the car, growling at having their space disturbed. "Nice kitties," Mercer said weakly, trying to force a smile, "Please don't hurt Uncle Burt."
The nearest lion roaring menacingly. Faced with imminent death, Mercer did the bravest thing he could think of—he dove out of his car. With no one driving it, the car smashed out a back window and toppled twenty feet into a ditch behind the hotel. Agent Orange and General Storrs, who foolishly had not been wearing their seatbelts, were sent flying through the air into a tree. "That was stupid!" the FBI man shouted, picking himself up.
"Hey!" General Storrs ran back toward the car. One of the lions was chewing his radio. It dropped it and took off running as he approached. "Oh perfect!" the general groaned, holding up its shattered remains, "Now there's no way I can coordinate the troops!"
"How about using a payphone?" Agent Orange suggested.
In the meantime, Elwood had just finished destroying the Tropicana's Vegas museum. "Informative stuff," he mused as he crossed the street one last time, the Excalibur in his sights, "Too bad we could only take the express tour."
Zee had started to regain himself a bit now that the chase was starting to wind down a bit. "This is my favorite, Excalibur," he said, wincing as they smashed into the back of the hotel, interrupting the Tournament of Kings show and sending the show's horses scattering in panic, "If there's one I wanted to stay at, this was the one."
There was another crash behind them as three military cars wiped out trying to follow them across to the Luxor. "This musta cost a lot," Elwood commented, slamming into the big pyramid and completely obliterating priceless Egyptian artifacts.
"More than the gross national product of Eritrea, I can tell you that," Jake said, "I'll going to make sure they don't follow us after this. You just keep driving."
"Gotcha," Elwood nodded. He glanced off a large camel statue, which toppled over onto the windshield of Suntzman's car. "Marvin, get this damn thing off!" the Joliet warden ordered his adjutant, "I can't see a damn thing!"
"I'm working on it; Mr. Lancaster, Mr. Danson, give me a hand with this!" Marvin appealed to their passengers. Keith and Buster's fathers leaned over and strained with Marvin, finally managing to push the camel off as they exited the Luxor. This became, however, a serious hazard for the trailing cop cars, which crashed again when trying to avoid it. Although less consuming than the previous crash, this one blocked access out of the Luxor for the rest of the force. Suntzman, meanwhile now had a clearer view with his windshield completely gone now…and was aghast at what he saw ahead of them. "It can't be!" he exclaimed, pointing at Jake as he climbed out of the Bluesmobile's right window and raised both hands in the air, "Jake!"
"It can't be Jake sir," Marvin told him, "Jake's long dead. You and I both know that."
"Still," Suntzman looked rather shaken, "we've got to catch them just to make sure. If this turns out…"
"Watch out for that…!" Tony Danson's shout came just a second too late before Suntzman crashed into a palm inside Mandalay Bay, totaling the front half of his car. "…tree," the rich man finished after the fact.
Ahead, Elwood noticed something out of the ordinary happening as he hydroplaned across Mandalay's pool. "It's snowing," he said. There was no mistaking the white flakes hitting the windshield.
"Yeah," Jake climbed back inside, "And a lot of that can blind an opponent. Keep heading west; they'll lose us very quickly."
And sure enough, by the time Elwood had left Mandalay and was heading back into the desert toward the distant Sierra Nevada, the desert was being pelted by a major snowstorm. The flakes were flying so fast that General Storr's perimeter units were caught in a total whiteout. "Sir, we'll have to abort mission," one of his commanders said into his radio, "There's just no way we can see out here. Sir? Sir? Are you there sir?"
All up and down the Strip, law enforcement authorities slowly climbed out of their wrecked cars. One sentenced echoed all throughout Las Vegas: "THEY BROKE MY WATCH!" At the end of Mandalay, Daniel screeched his cruiser to a stop as the storm reached its zenith. "Keep going you fool!" evil Cabel berated him from the back seat.
"I can't in this mess; do you want us to get killed?" Daniel shouted back. He turned to Mount again. "I'll tell you Charlie, this is really getting out of hand now," he had to say.
"Indeed," Mount nodded, "It's almost like someone's helping them along."