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After four blocks, the adrenaline rush wore off, and I realized the car’s body was rattling in time to metallic thuds. Richard Alcala was thrashing around, trying to pop open the trunk lid. He moaned and cursed but didn’t quite beg for help—whoever freed him would discover his identity. On one side, death row was waiting for him. On the other side, I was.

As my stolen Chevrolet Caprice passed by, some pedestrians shot sidelong glances. Drivers in the cars ahead eyed me through their rearview mirrors. With my nerves frayed, I couldn’t tell if I was just imagining those stares, or if it was obvious I had someone locked in the trunk.

The car’s body lurched with each jolt, like the parked van where I’d kept my cargo from killing the would-be model. Richard Alcala shouted for help with a tinny voice.

I switched on the radio and turned up the volume. The news anchor was talking about the Prowler again, repeating a tip line number. I spun the dial. Stations flickered in and out between bursts of static, snatches of sound. I landed on a classical music station but found the silences between notes too hollow. The next station played Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” a few lines after it began, about four minutes before the guitars would crash in and blow the song apart.

I listened, leaning back against the upholstery like I’d wrapped up a day’s work, but within seconds, a fresh round of thrashing, pounding on metal, and shouting ruined it. I squeezed the steering wheel, cursed, and cranked the volume to drown him out. I was drawing attention like a circus promotion vehicle blasting ads through a megaphone. A group of young men and women in bell-bottoms recognized the song and hollered. One woman in the group bobbed her head in time. Another one looped an arm around her friend’s elbow and started hopping, the hand holding her cigarette high, sketching a sinuous trail of smoke.

Traffic slowed me down and kept me from taking shortcuts. I was mapping out a clear route in my head, but the pounding reverberating through the car body shattered my concentration. Was Richard Alcala still screaming for help, or was I just hearing echoes in my mind?

The singer sang the last verse, and the guitars went wild. In the rearview mirror, two cars back, a police cruiser appeared. The officer behind the wheel leaned over to look at me through his sunglasses.

I pressed my fingertips against the radio volume knob like it was a membrane of glass, and eased the sound down until the song barely overlaid the cries for help. But the car was still rocking, as if Richard Alcala were kicking at the trunk lid with both legs.

We stopped at a red light. The police cruiser lit up its overheads, and the street woke to the howl of the siren.

I gritted my teeth. My blood turned to hot coals. I floored the accelerator and jerked the wheel. The cruiser followed. I barreled down a side street, slaloming between cars. I smashed the headlight of a car coming straight at me.

The cruiser wobbled in and out of my rearview with its lights flaring off the windshield. The cops inside were moving their lips, shouting something. As I drifted around a curve, tires screeching, the smell of burning rubber filled the car through the open window. I noticed that at the sound of the siren, Richard Alcala had stopped pounding and gone quiet.

My neck was stiff and aching. My grip on the steering wheel was so tight it felt like my palms and fingers would fuse to it. I shifted gears like a madman while ducking my head between my shoulders in case one of the cops decided to shoot through my back window.

I searched for narrow passages, shortcuts, but kept finding fenced-off lanes or dead ends where the car would get stuck. I refused to turn down any alleys; I might trap myself with nowhere to go.

The cruiser’s wail faded a bit amid the traffic noise. I got distracted scanning vacant lots along the sidewalk, and a pedestrian at a crosswalk had to leap aside to avoid me mowing him down.

I spotted a gate, its door ajar, leading to a paved path flanked by garages. I jerked the wheel, careened across the oncoming lane, and crashed through the gate. The door whipped inward, screeching. I followed the asphalt between the garages, and after passing half a dozen I spotted one open and empty. I spun the car around and skidded inside at an angle. Part of the trunk stuck out, but I didn’t have time to straighten the car fully.

I turned the radio down until it would only bother the neighboring garages. Richard Alcala was hammering on the trunk door. The guitars on the radio shrieked like harpies. My heart was pumping so hard it felt close to bursting, and the rush of blood in my ears blotted out the cruiser’s siren.

Red rings throbbed around my vision. A familiar fury was boiling in my gut. I shoved my way out of the Chevy Caprice and rounded the side to the trunk, where the lid bulged from all the pounding.

Shelves packed to overflowing lined one garage wall, with junk scattered across the floor. I blinked to clear my sight. Bleach bottles, two toolboxes, a shovel, a vacuum cleaner, a pair of scissors, even a surfboard. A roll of duct tape.

I rolled it between my fingers, searching for the tape’s edge. Tried to pry it free with my ragged nails, but no luck. I bit a corner, warping several layers of the tape. I snatched up the scissors, accidentally knocking over a metal box that crashed to the floor and spilled a couple dozen tools. I wedged one scissor tip under the tape edge, but it slipped and sliced open my left palm, the sting like ice water. Even as blood trickled from the cut, I worked the blade until I could peel up the middle of the tape. Then I tugged, and the duct tape came loose with a squeal.

I held the roll in my mouth. Its dangling flap swayed as I slid the key into the trunk lock. The flurry of high guitar notes clawed at my veins.

I threw the trunk open. Richard Alcala lunged sideways, reaching his arm toward my face. I smashed a punch into his eye, sending the side of his head crashing into the trunk rim. I grabbed his neck with my left hand and hammered punches into his mouth with my right until static buzzed through my arm and my fist went numb.

When I let go, Richard Alcala collapsed inside the trunk with a string of groans. The lower half of his face was disfigured in a bright burst of blood, as if he’d vomited straight up.

I relaxed my jaw, letting the roll of duct tape drop into my hand, then stuck the tape’s end to his cheek. I wound it around his head a few times, covering his mouth. I tore the strip off with my teeth. Next, I seized his wrists, pressed them together, and cuffed them with more duct tape.

I slammed the trunk shut, staggered back. The song was fading out to silence. My right hand throbbed as if several knuckles had cracked. The skin was peeled raw, and a broken tooth dangled from one of them. I shook my hand until it fell away.

On the radio, a DJ was cheerfully chatting about the bright sun and the weeklong stretch of fair weather.

I propped myself against the trunk to catch my breath, and listened for sirens.

In a far corner of the garage, three young Hispanic men sat on the floor. One, with obsidian-colored hair and a cat-like mustache, had an acoustic guitar across his thighs. He held a G chord in his left hand, his right hand—holding the pick—resting on his knee. Another guy, his hair clipped short with shaved sides, raised both palms in a peace gesture.

I dropped the roll of duct tape. It bounced and rolled out of the garage. I slipped the scissors into my jacket pocket, and from that same pocket pulled out a few bills. I counted four fifties and folded them. I tossed the money in front of the three young men.

“Buy yourselves some better duct tape.”

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Author’s note: today’s song, for no reason, is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” Wish I could have returned back in time and prevented you folks from getting on that plane.

As one commenter of the video put it succinctly: all crimes committed during the “Free Bird” solo are hereby forgiven.