A chill went up Sandy’s spine. She hastily pulled over and jumped out of the car with her gun drawn. The young man looked up, startled. Then he leaped up from the sidewalk, knocking down his cup and sign, and ran down Chestnut Street with the dog barking loudly behind him.

As Sandy gave chase, frightened pedestrians moved aside and drivers stopped their cars to watch. The young man turned to see where she was and tripped and fell hard on the concrete sidewalk.

Sandy jumped on his back and flipped him over. The dog grabbed at her pants leg. Enraged, she swung her gun and clipped the dog’s jaw. The animal yelped in agony and limped away with its tail between its legs.

“What the hell are you doin’?” the young man asked, looking up at Sandy with streaks of dried sweat on his dirty face.

“Shut up!” she said, pointing her gun at his head.

He raised his arms in surrender as he lay flat on his back, looking up at Sandy with fear in his eyes.

“This is 9A,” she said, breathing hard into the radio that was perched on her shoulder. “I need a wagon on the sixteen hundred block of Chestnut. I’ve got a prisoner.”

“What did I do?” the man asked earnestly. “What are you locking me up for? Panhandling? I’ll stop, I’ll go someplace else, just…please, don’t lock me up.”

“I told you to shut up,” Sandy hissed as a crowd began to gather.

She made him lie on his stomach. Then she knelt on one knee and handcuffed him before grabbing a fistful of his hair and jerking his head back.

“What’s Daniel 10 mean to you?” she asked in a low voice.

His eyes began to shift nervously. His breathing pattern changed. He looked like he was considering running again, but Sandy placed the gun against the back of his head, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she was more than willing to shoot.

“Answer me,” she said, her tone low and angry.

“It’s just a tattoo,” he said with an anxious smile.

“And you’re just a liar,” she said, grabbing the handcuffs and pulling them up toward his shoulders.

He screamed in pain and someone in the crowd said something about abuse. Sandy ignored it. The only thing that mattered now was getting the truth.

“He wasn’t alone, was he?” she asked as the man lay on his stomach, turning his head sideways in an attempt to look back at her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his tone more fearful than it had been just moments before.

She holstered her gun, took out her nightstick, and used it to put him in a choke hold. Sitting on his back and pulling his neck toward her, she whispered menacingly in his ear.