Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [84]
PSSSSSSSST
The effect was immediate. The car, with an unconscious driver slumped over its wheel, lurched to the right and came to a bone-rattling stop on the side of a parked car. Hardie’s cuffed hands were crushed by his own ass against the barrier. The vial slid out of his hands. He continued to hold his breath.
Come on come on come on…
Falling forward, Hardie led with his right shoulder and landed on his side. He flipped around and smashed against the window with both feet. First time nothing. Second time nothing. Third time was a charm.
KRESSSSHHHHH
The rest Hardie accomplished by rote, walking himself through his improvised plan step by step. It was the only way to do it. Skip to the end and realize how impossible this all seemed, and you might just lose hope.
So go ahead, Charlie.
Kick away the jagged glass from the frame. Sit up. Lunge yourself through the opening. Land on your shoulders. Breathe. You’re outside. You can open your mouth now. Suck in that air. Stand up. Come on, stand up. Get to that driver’s-side door. Turn around. Grab the handle with your fingers. Open it. Really yank it open. Cops never lock their doors because they have to get out quickly at any given moment, and the perps are always locked up in the back, so what does it matter? Open the door and let the driver come tumbling out, because many cops don’t wear their seat belts, either.
He’s down on the ground now. Good. Take the keys from his belt and uncuff yourself. You’re not going to do anybody any good with hands behind your back. Unsnap. Jam the key in. Twist. You’re doing fine, doing fine… and look, you’re free.
Now throw away the cuffs and give this poor bastard his life back. Don’t worry about 911. They’ll come soon enough, with all these bystanders with cell phones. Focus on the CPR. Chest compressions…
Survival rates for people experiencing cardiac arrest outside of in a hospital: eight percent.
Hardie knew that the mouth-to-mouth part wasn’t key. An EMT had told him so over a beer once, many moons ago: it was the chest compressions, stupid. When somebody’s heart stops, they still have oxygen in their blood. If you can get their pumper a-pumping again, the oxygenated blood will begin to circulate. Simple as that. In fact, blowing into someone’s mouth can be a bad thing, the EMT explained. You see a person drop, you tend to freak out. Freaking out increases your level of carbon dioxide. So you end up blowing carbon dioxide down their throat—when what they really need is oxygen.
The EMT shared a personal tip with Hardie: when compressing someone’s chest, play the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” in your head. That keeps you pumping at one hundred beats per minute.
At the time, Hardie, being a wiseass, had asked: Wouldn’t “Stayin’ Alive” be more appropriate?
The EMT responded: “So fucking cliché, man.”
You should be dancing.
Yeah…
The cop started coughing and sputtering and waving his arms around, wondering what the fuck was going on. Hardie scrambled up, his body screaming at him, and made his way to the other cop. Yanked him out of the passenger seat, started in with the compressions. Come on, come on, Hardie thought, all the while noticing that they were about the same age, about the same build.
27
Ouch. When you get those feelings,
insurance companies start to go bankrupt.
—Reginald VelJohnson, Die Hard 2: Die Harder
YES, THE whole hurting somebody thing sucked.
But he told himself this was just a role he was inhabiting. Other professions did it. Soldiers inhabited a role when they were sent to foreign countries and told to drop bombs on people and they tried to avoid running over bombs set by other people. It was never “Dave White of Clifton, New Jersey” sent over to kill people; it was “Sergeant White,” stripped of his full identity and given a new one by his superiors, with orders to terminate with extreme prejudice. Same thing here.
(The man pretending to be Philip Kindred played these ethics games in his head right before