Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

“Why?”

“Well, I did notice driving in, there’s a canal over on the other side of your property where it might’ve come from…”

The judge said, “I don’t see there’s any question about it. That canal hooks into a network of canals. One or the other will take you right up to Okeechobee.”

“I know,” Gary said, “but I can’t see a gator that size climbing the spoil bank and coming all this distance through your orange grove away from water.”

“You’re an alligator expert,” the judge said. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“No sir,” Gary said, “but I do know they live in water and never go too far away from it. That’s why I think it was brought here. And if it was, its mouth would’ve been taped shut and its legs bent up behind its back and taped together. The legs hinge in a way you can do that. So I wondered, when they got here and pulled the tape off, if they might not’ve just thrown it aside.”

The judge half turned toward the window again.

“That’s what they’re looking for, tape?”

“Duct tape or electrical tape. Either one.”

“You find any?”

“Not yet.”

The judge nodded and took a sip of his drink.

Gary said, “You didn’t hear anything last night?”

“Not a sound.”

“I was thinking if they drove in with it, came past the house… Maybe your wife heard something.”

“No, she didn’t either.”

“Could I speak to her?”

“You’re asking me, can you have a conversation with her about al ligators? In her condition?”

“I wondered if she might’ve heard a truck.”

“Jesus Christ, but you keep beating on it. I just told you she didn’t hear a thing. Now we’re through here. I’m going to work.”

Gary said, “Yes sir,” and paused and said, “Can I ask you something else? It’s unrelated. Well, in a way it is.” The judge, with the glass raised to finish his drink, didn’t answer. “When I first got here,” Gary said, “I told one of the deputies to go get a car. In case the gator came out after us.” The judge lowered the glass and was looking directly at him now. “Right after I said it, I heard a voice that sounded to me like a young black female, you know, kind of a high voice? Repeating pretty much what I said.”

Gary waited.

The judge stared at him.

Gary didn’t care for his expression. Ice-cold.

The judge said, “What’s your name again?”

“It’s Sergeant Gary Hammond.”

“You like detective work?”

“Yes sir, very much.”

“Better than driving a squad car.”

“Yes sir.”

“Did you know Colonel McKenna was a buddy of mine?”

“No sir, I didn’t.”

The judge said, “Well, you do now, boy. When I tell you we’re through here, it means we’re through, you don’t ask any more questions. You understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“The alligator wasn’t brought here as a prank or otherwise, to cause anybody harm. It came out of that canal all by itself. So there’s no need of you to write up an Offense Report.”

Gary said, “I still have to tell Colonel McKenna what happened.”

“That’s all right,” the judge said, “long as you don’t color it.” He smiled then, his mouth did while his eyes remained cold. “Tell Bill for me he should’ve sent the dog-catcher.”

Gary said, “Yes sir, I will,” paused a few seconds wanting to bite his tongue, but had to ask it. “Judge, has your life ever been threatened?”

There was a judge friend of Bob Gibbs, now retired from the bench, who described Palm Beach as “an island off the coast of the United States.” Bob Gibbs agreed one hundred percent. Cross Lake Worth east and you were in a different country, the top end of the Gold Coast where the rich and famous lived. But you know what? Go the other way, drive west out beyond Twenty Mile Bend and, man, you were in a different world , the Glades, bottomland America with a smell of muck and fish and half a million acres of sugarcane off on the left side of the road there. He liked Palm Beach, enjoyed being an honored guest at the balls and functions, eating free. But never felt the kick that coming out to the Glades gave him. Why was that? His judge friend who’d retired and moved up to the Panhandle said, “‘Cause you’re a redneck at heart. Why do you think? If you’d been born here you’d be moonlighting gators for hides and meat instead of sitting on the bench, an ill-tempered judge.”

Recalling that got Bob Gibbs in touch with his feelings, as Leanne would say, aware of a different kind of kick this trip. One right in the gut. Anger mixed with a foreboding something messy could come of this alligator business. What in the hell was Dicky Campau thinking that he delivered it alive?

They were to meet this evening at Slim’s Fish Camp on Torry Island. Cross the bridge over the rim canal and you were there, in the marshy lower end of Lake Okeechobee, not too far from Belle Glade. Bob Gibbs found the frog gigger inside Slim’s visiting with friends and pulled him out into the dark, over by the Coca-Cola machine.

“How many times did I tell you. It was suppose to be a dead one?”

“It was, when I left it.” Dicky looking bewildered at the thought of its having come alive. “Judge, me and my wife took the truck, figure to run along the dike. We spot her in the canal right there by the cleaning dock eating on some softshell turtle. I thought we might have to go clear to Canal Point, but there she was. I shine a light on her, see about eight ten inches between the eyes? I know she’s a big’n.”

Bob Gibbs said, “What was our deal? Deliver the son of a bitch dead .” He couldn’t say it enough.

“Judge, it was . Ask my wife. I used a snatch hook on a quarter-inch line. I caught her clean, one throw, tied off around my trailer ball and pulled her out of there. I don’t mean she come willing, she fought it, pretty near tore the trailer hitch clean off my truck. I said to my wife, ‘We got us one.’ Next, I hit that gator over the head with a ten-pound sledge. One stroke, she let out her air and never made another sound.”

“It came back to life,” Bob Gibbs said. “Walked through my screen porch and into my house.”

“Prob’ly smelled your dog.”

“It ate the dog.”

“Judge, I told you when you called, I hunt frog. Outside of that gator they arrested me for I ain’t trapped one in years.”

Bob Gibbs thought a minute, hearing insects in the night and the sound of country music coming from Slim’s.

“You know that canal by my place? I’m saying that’s what it came out of.”

“It could’ve.”

“I want to know for sure.”

“It’s possible she swum down there.”

“And came into my yard.”

“I guess. Listen, Judge? You know my wife’s pretty good at estimating. She looked at that gator and saw about four hundred dollars in the hide. She figured the meat, five bucks a pound, could bring another hundred. What I’m saying, that was part of the deal, Judge. You call me to pick her up afterwards and she’s mine. Am I right?”

“And nobody would know about it but us,” Bob Gibbs said. “That’s right too, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“I stopped by the Helen Wilkes after court this evening? Everybody in the entire goddamn place knew about it. They’re even speculating it was put there to get me. And you know why? ‘Cause the son of a bitch was alive . ‘Cause I had to call the sheriff to come kill it.”

Dicky Campau said, “So you don’t have it no more, huh?”

Kathy Baker was here because the detective, Sergeant Gary Hammond, had called the office wanting to talk to her about Dale Crowe Junior. She told him she was just walking out the door, but had to be at the Detention Center this afternoon and could stop by later. The county jail was right behind the sheriff’s building. He said fine. She had met Gary Hammond once before, but he didn’t seem to remember.