SOUTH FLORIDA WHEN GAMBLING WAS A CRIME
Louise Harper, in her police officer uniform, waited at the wheel of a Metro-Dade Police car, wondering if she had time to make another trip to the bathroom before her partner returned from his errand inside the Tropical Western Wear store.
Officer Greg Hallstead, also in uniform, browsed a row of soft leather moccasins on a shelf inside Tropical Western Wear. He passed a mirror that reflected both himself and, over his shoulder, the chubby, peroxide-blonde salesgirl, who was making moon-eyes at Greg's tight-fitting uniform.
Greg browsed onward, to a row of work boots. He passed another mirror, in which the salesgirl cast a hopeful smile at him. A man with Greg's physique got used to hopeful smiles from females. He smiled back, without showing teeth, and moved on.
When Greg came to a row of elaborately decorated cowboy boots, his eyes lit up. He pulled a flashy eelskin boot from the shelf and held it high, with a toothy smile for the salesgirl.
"Got this in a 10-D, honey?"
"If I have to go to the factory for it!" the girl vowed, hurrying toward the stock room in the back.
Greg stood admiring the boot display. He could take his feet out of Montana – and he had – but he always liked to have a little piece of Montana on his feet.
Outside the store, Louise reacted to a radio call, grabbed the mic and snapped a response. Then she leaped from the car and raced toward the store.
By the time Louise arrived inside Tropical Western Wear, Greg was standing in front of a full-length mirror admiring the outrageously colored cowboy boots on his feet. He handed the salesgirl his credit card without taking his loving gaze from the boots' reflection.
Louise entered the store on a run.
Greg saw her in the mirror and sent her a John Wayne drawl, "Whattaya think, Partner?"
"I think we've got a call, so you better get your cayoose in gear, cowboy." Louise ducked out the front door.
Greg ran after her, shouting and blowing a kiss to the salesgirl as he went, "I'll be back for my credit card, honey, and don't lose my shoes!"
Outside, the patrol car's engine roared. Louise had the door open and the car already moving when Greg jumped into the passenger seat. A beat-up red Camaro passed them at high speed a moment later.
"That's him!" shouted Louise, slamming the accelerator to the floor. "Call it in!"
Greg dutifully and tersely reported to Dispatch that he and Louise were in pursuit of the subject vehicle. He gave their position, speed, and direction, and he requested back-up units.
The red Camaro raced northward on U.S. Highway 1 alongside the elevated train tracks, under the elevated Plexiglas pedestrian tunnel, up the I-95 expressway on-ramp, and past the balconies of rainbow-colored high-rise condos.
Louise's patrol car screeches in pursuit as both vehicles wove through traffic, barely missing concrete sound barriers 20 feet tall and sending a yellow cab spinning across the wide asphalt. The cab sideswiped a rickety-looking landscapers' truck that tilted crazily and spilled a dozen potted palms across eight lanes of Interstate.
Inside the patrol car, Louise concentrated on maneuvering the vehicle while Greg stroked his boots as if they were a new pony. "So, whattaya think?"
Louise was too busy to spare him even a look. "Okay. What I think is, you blew a week's pay, and you'll be hysterical the first time you step in a cow pie in those things."
Greg gaped at her, open-mouthed. "I don't look like Clint Eastwood?"
The engine roared, the car swerved to miss a dump truck.
"Roy Rogers?"
Brakes squealed.
"Howdy Doody?"
Louise had to smile at this. "Okay," she said, "maybe Howdy Doody."
Greg grinned and touched her shoulder.
The red Camaro swooped from the far left lane to the right exit ramp, flew down the ramp, under a hotel skywalk, across a divided avenue, under the elevated train tracks, and balanced on two wheels as it turned 90 degrees onto the boulevard skirting Biscayne Bay.
Pedestrians took cover as the pursuing patrol car careered, howling, around the corner.
The Camaro swerved to miss a MetroBus, skidded over the curb and across the wide sidewalk, over the grass toward the bay, and ended up, smash, in the Bayfront Park fountain.
In the park, pedestrians and picknickers ran screaming. The Camaro's drive jerked his door open, leaped out, and ran toward the Bayfront Amphitheater.
Behind him, the patrol car bounced to a halt on the grass, and Greg jumped out to chase the man on foot. Louise backed the patrol car onto the boulevard and raced northward again.
The perp led Greg up, down and around the concrete amphitheater, and finally into the northside alley. The patrol car cut him off. He locked eyes with Louise through the windshield.
Greg slowed up behind the man, thinking maybe the chase was over, but the guy reversed course, trampled right over Greg, and ran up the alley – ducking into the Bayside shopping mall.
Louise shouted out the driver's side window, "I'll head him off at the other end!"
Greg scrambled to his feet, dusted off the new boots, and shouted back, "I'll get him, Louise! You stay in the car!"
She slammed into reverse and whipped the car out of there, taking off toward the other end of the mall. "The cowboy creed," she muttered. "Never take help from a female."
The suspect had a head start, but Greg was gaining on him as they wove through the open-air corridors of the seaside mall, scattering tourists, shoppers, and kiosk merchants as they passed.
The prey took a desperate leap from the top of a fountain to the top of a flower cart, to the roof of a shop, and he raced along the roof toward the boulevard and freedom.
Greg's inappropriate boots slipped on wet tiles, plunging him into the fountain. He submerged totally and came up really disgusted.
"I'm not even supposed to be working today!"
Clambering out of the fountain, Greg ran again, knocked over a flower cart, and jumped like a kangaroo along the sidewalk beneath the roof, trying to keep his prey in sight. The man had a huge lead now.
The suspect reached the end of the mall roof, shinnied down a tall palm tree, and scampered between cars on the boulevard, apparently getting away.
Behind him, a bus screeched to a halt, so close it knocked Greg down. He rolled, came up and ran around the busin time to see Louise's car zip onto the median strip of the boulevard.
Louise leaped out and pursued the fugitive.
Still running, but a long way from his partner, Greg shouted into his shoulder mic, "Where that back-up?"
"E.T.A. thirty seconds," a dispatcher answered.
Greg's eyes widened as Louise took a flying leap and tackled the suspect. "No!"
Apparently believing in equality for women, the fugitive fought back, whomping Louise with a right cross.
In return for his faith in the power of her gender group, Louise decked him with her billy club and straddled his prostrate body on the sidewalk. She was fastening the cuffs behind his back when her partner and a second patrol car arrived.
Greg pulled Louise away, and the second car's two officers took the captured man.
Greg told the back-up officers, "We'll meet you at the station. Thanks."
Then he dragged Louise back to the patrol car, shoved her into the passenger seat, and ran around to the driver's side. Before closing the door, he emptied about a gallon of watter from each of his new boots.
When Greg had buckled himself in, he held his hand out to Louise for the keys.
She slapped them hard into his palm.
"You should have stayed in the car!" he said.
"You should stop being my mother, okay!"
"No, you should stop being my partner while you're becoming somebody else's mother. It makes me crazy."
"Greg, tomorrow I will be on maternity leave, and you will still be crazy, okay? I could've done just fine without you, okay? You're not even supposed to be working today."
"Gee, thanks. I'd forgotten." Greg started the car, put it in gear, then looked at Louise again. "You and the rugrat all right?"
"Yes, thank you. If you ask me that one more time before the end of the day, I promise to shoot you, okay"
"Ah, emotional roller coaster. I read that's normal. I forgive you." He looked down at his waterlogged boots. "Think I can return these?"
Louise looked at his feet. "Eelskin, right?"
"Yeah."
"So, the original owners wore 'em under water all the time, okay? What's the problem?"
Greg gave her a look that said, "oh, thank you very much," and drove away.
Louise rolled her eyes and dropped her forehead into her hand. Her partner was hopeless.