Detective Yamamoto and Her Need For Speed Part 3

“Ready for what?” Satoshi asked.

“For the plan, of course!” Satoshi still wasn’t clear on exactly what the plan consisted of, and it was far too late to dispute any of the finer points if it came down to it.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he said after a moment of hesitation. Detective Yamamoto started her car again and the engine roared to life. Satoshi couldn’t help but notice how comparatively unimpressive the detective’s car sounded in comparison to the street racers’ vehicles. The detective floored the accelerator and bounded out from their hiding place. Her car dove into the street and she jerked the steering wheel, turning her car so that she and Satoshi faced the street racers head-on.

“Uh, detective?” Satoshi asked. His mouth had suddenly gotten very dry and the pit of his stomach had dropped so thoroughly that it felt like it was still lying on the ground back in their hiding place.

“Not now assistant!” the detective hissed. The street racers clearly took umbrage to this interruption of their race. They each responded independently, either revving their engines, honking their horns, or both. Detective Yamamoto remained silent, keeping her gaze locked on the street racers ahead of her. Slowly, she lifted her foot off the break pedal, and her car moved forward at its idle speed, as if she was a gunslinger slowly approaching a group of outlaws.

Finally, when all the honking and revving had proved ineffective, the driver of Big Red leaned his head out of the driver side window and shouted expletive-laden abuse at the detective.

“Get the hell out of the way, you idiot!” he finished lamely. Detective Yamamoto said nothing and continued to lurch forward, never wavering as she stared down the street racers. Finally, one of the street racers broke ranks, driving forward and swerving around the detective’s car. Once one of them had done it, the others followed en masse. As Big Red passed, the driver leaned further out of his window. Satoshi didn’t see exactly what he held, it may have been a knife, but he scraped it along the side of the detective’s car as he passed, laughing loudly and obnoxiously.

In disbelief Detective Yamamoto rolled down her window and looked down at the scratch. Beneath the rust and what remained of the paint, there was now a livid streak of shiny, bare metal, freshly exposed to air. The sound of roaring engines and screeching tires snapped Detective Yamamoto back to reality.

With a look of utter apoplexy plastered on her face, she stomped the gas pedal and jerked the steering wheel, turning her car around so that she now faced the rear bumpers of the street racers.

“Detective?” Satoshi asked. He felt that more of how he felt had crept into his voice than he intended, but that seemed like a lesser priority given the situation.

“Change of plans!” growled the detective. “They are going to pay!” Detective Yamamoto floored the gas pedal again and her car’s engine made a distressed noise somewhere between a small animal getting mangled in gears and catastrophic mechanical failure. Nevertheless the car, despite the rust and disrepair, acted like a faithful steed and it made its best effort to catch the street racers.

There was no doubt in Satoshi’s mind that the street racers thought they had nothing to worry about from a junk car like the detective’s, but as Detective Yamamoto and Satoshi clearly began to gain ground, he felt he had to question the wisdom of their supposed assumption.

Satoshi, in between reflecting on his mortality and hanging on to the grab bar for dear life, noticed the facial expression of the first street racer as the detective’s car passed it by. It seemed to sit somewhere between disbelief and terror, like he had woken up from a dream about eating a gigantic marshmallow to find that his pillow had disappeared.

Now, to an outside observer, the mere fact that Detective Yamamoto had managed to overtake a street racer given their respective equipment was nothing short of remarkable. This, however, was not enough for the detective. Big Red’s driver had scratched her car and Big Red was currently leading the pack. Satoshi didn’t think it was possible, but he felt his stomach sink even further as he realized what Detective Yamamoto intended to do.

The second street racer, who had seen the detective pass his compatriot in his rear-view mirror, attempted to take more active measures to block the detective. Needless to say, the driver was reticent to actually suffer a collision, so even though he tried to cut the detective off, her apparent willingness to ram the street racer if necessary convinced him to gracefully allow the rusty car to pass him.

The third street racer, who sat in a distant second place behind Big Red, seemed to be the most intelligent of the group. Sure he was a street racer and found tearing around residential roads at dangerously high speeds fun, but given that someone had now challenged their supremacy over the streets, he suddenly thought better of the whole thing. Detective Yamamoto hadn’t so much as feinted her car at him when he abruptly slammed the breaks until he decelerated to the speed limit and turned off on a side street, alone.

Satoshi found that behavior especially curious, but Detective Yamamoto remained absolutely focused on Big Red. There was now no one between them. Detective Yamamoto depressed the gas pedal even further, further than Satoshi thought possible, as he had naturally assumed she had already floored it, and the howl of the engine increased in pitch. It was now less like a big animal roaring and more like a dog yelping because it’s paw had gotten pinched by something. Incongruously, Big Red seemed to be slowing down, allowing Detective Yamamoto to catch up.

“You’re mine now!” Detective Yamamoto shrieked as she pulled up alongside Big Red. Before anyone could react, the street racer or Satoshi, Detective Yamamoto wrenched the wheel over, and Satoshi’s passenger side door became intimately acquainted with Big Red’s driver side door. Satoshi could see that the driver was utterly incensed to the point of frothing and screaming, but everything he said was drowned out, first by the noise of the engines and then by the sound of scrapping metal.

Big Red tried to escape, but Detective Yamamoto kept the steering wheel locked in position. Eventually, there was nothing else to do but slow to a stop, in no small part because a set of flashing lights in the rear view mirror alerted all involved that the police were now on the scene. At first there was only one set of flashing lights, but soon its peers joined until the police outnumbered the street racers three to one.

With the gravity of the situation beginning to sink in, Detective Yamamoto endeavored to extricate her car from Big Red and pull off to the side of the road. A few moments later, a police officer dressed in uniform and mirror sunglasses approached the detective’s driver side door. Detective Yamamoto rolled down the window.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” she asked sheepishly.

SATURDAY

Against all odds things had worked out pretty well. The street racers had been stopped with minimal collateral damage, the police were back to doing their job, while also hopefully filling in their paperwork correctly, and Detective Yamamoto got to inform her client that the streets had just gotten considerably safer. The gratitude and the payment was well worth being chewed out by the police and the damage done to her precious car, especially when contrasted by the spate of arrests the street racers suffered.

The smile of the mother warmed her heart and distracted her from the quote the machine shop had sent her. All told, Detective Yamamoto felt there was cause to smile herself. The Detective’s marginal good mood was swiftly punctured by the piece of mail Satoshi brought in with him. As she opened it, it was a traffic ticket for speeding, and one with a rather hefty fine attached. As she gaped at the number of digits on the sum she was required to pay, a smaller, handwritten note fell out of the envelope. Satoshi stooped to pick it up and found it was addressed to the detective from Officer Ishioka. The note read:

Detective Yamamoto,

I feel I owe you an apology, both on behalf of myself and the precinct. If it were not for us, you wouldn't have had to step up.

That said, I've had to pull a lot of strings and call in a lot of favors to get you off with just this ticket. Some of the higher ups made it clear they wanted to have you thrown in jail with the rest of the street racers. I managed to talk them down, thanks in part to that woman you helped. Otherwise you would be in a cell right now.

I think this should make us even now.

Thank you again,

Officer Hitomi Ishioka

Detective Yamamoto read the note twice before looking up, bleary-eyed.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” she grumbled, slumping into the chair behind her desk, while also grumbling something inaudible about a net loss. Satoshi cleared his throat and sat at his adjoining desk.

“I can help you pay the ticket,” Satoshi offered, reaching out to grab the ticket. He winced when he saw the number. “It could always be worse,” he said weakly. Detective Yamamoto waved her hand dismissively.

 “It’s fine,” she said. “I guess we just have to take on more cases.”