"I Got Him! I Got Him!" ***by Frank Hickey*** "I got him!" I shout over the police radio, "Got him cold!" He races ahead of me in his stolen car. We rocket into the steamy swamp of Savannah, Georgia, on a July night. He hits 110 miles an hour. Scared, I try keeping up. Death-fast driving always scares me. He brakes and bolts out of the car. "I got him!" I keep shouting like a kid. Yanking my gearshift, I leap out of my car. He runs just ahead of me. "Police!" I holler. "Stop!" Something hits my leg. It hurts. The fender of apolice car bumps me again. Stunned, I whip around to look. It is my own car. I had moved too fast. I had left my car in the "drive" gear. My own car was hitting me. The teenage driver turns his head and sees this. He starts laughing. He chokes, out of control. "PO-lice run over hisself!" he hollers. Panicked, I leap towards my car. The car migh hit a tree and destroy itself. I am making about ten dollars an hour, after deductions. Buying a new police car would ruin me,. Scared, I leap inside my car. "PO-lice run over hisself!" he keeps singing out. My foot stabs the brake pedal. The car stops. The driver chokes again, still laughing. He giggles so hard that he cannot run. Adrenaline hits me. I rocket up to him, grab the belt and yank him down to the swamp mud. He keeps whooping his chant as my handcuffs click on his wrists. My sergeant and other cops arrive. The driver is still laughing, choking, and repeating his words. "What's he saying, Hickey?" my sergeant demands. "Did ya run him over or something? I gotta know." "Naw, sarge," I say, starting to shake myself. Adrenaline makes me feel sick. "Don't pay him no mind. He's all messed up in the head. I think he's on drugs." ***Frank Hickey was a cop. Somehow. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective.

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