Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

Dr. Tommy paused to take a sip of his drink right in front of Elvin, not bothering to ask if he wanted one. Elvin wondering, What’s going on here?

Putting the glass down the doctor said, “Okay, he told you a different story. And you believe him because Sonny is a beautiful liar. Am I right?”

Elvin had to readjust his hat on that one, set it looser on his head. “You catch him,” Elvin said, “he’d like roll over on his back with his paws in the air. Give you this sad look so you won’t hurt him too much.”

“You know him,” Dr. Tommy said, “and you don’t know whose story to believe? I’m talking about why that young lady was killed. But really, what difference does it make? You’re more interested in those movies than the truth. I tell you they’re gone, you don’t believe me. It’s why you came back. What were you in for, in prison?”

Shifting his gears all of a sudden.

“I shot a guy,” Elvin said.

“You kill him?”

“Course I killed him.”

“I thought something like that. Okay, so now you come to work a deal on me. But there aren’t any movies, so what do you do now? You want to search my house if you think I’m lying?”

Here was this dink talking right up to him. It took Elvin a moment to adjust, resetting his hat again where it would stick to his forehead.

He said, “Well, we sure got a lot cleared up there, didn’t we?” and looked toward the house.

The doc’s boy, Hector, was out on the upper deck now in his Cuban shirt, leaning on the rail watching them. He had shoulders on him for a little guy, short in the legs but maybe worked out, knew some tricks. He acted like a girl and was an ugly fucker, reminding Elvin of sneaky types he’d known up at Starke.

“If I was to take you up on that,” Elvin said, “look around your place…”

“Yes, if it pleases you, do it.”

“He won’t try and stop me?”

“Who, Hector? What does he care? It’s not his house.”

“What’s he do for you?”

“Oh, the laundry, cleans the bathrooms, makes my drinks.” Dr. Tommy looked up at the deck. “He wants to know what you do for me.”

Elvin saw the guy up there hunch his shoulders, still leaning on the rail. He said something in Spanish. Now the doctor said something back to him and Elvin looked over to see him smiling.

“What’re you talking about?”

“He said if we have to serve time, this is the place to do it, that’s all. A private joke.”

“Guy like him, if he wasn’t so fuckin’ ugly he’d do okay in the joint.”

“Hector loves me,” Dr. Tommy said. “I could ask him to shoot you, I believe he would, yes. Hector is very emotional.”

Elvin said, “Convicted felon, you have a gun in the house? That could get you in trouble.”

All it did was get the doctor smiling again.

“You’re still looking for a way to work some kind of deal on me,” Dr. Tommy said. “Okay, you want, call the police. Tell them I have a rifle my father gave me. I was fourteen years old and he took me to hunt wild pigs. You know what happened? He caught me shooting flamingos. From that time when I was a boy he started watching me.”

Maybe this guy was a retard. Elvin said, “What’d you shoot flamingos for? You can’t eat ‘em, I don’t think.”

“Why? What difference does it make? Fuck the flamingos. Fuck you, too. You want to call the police, tell them I have a rifle? Uh, tough guy?”

Elvin said, “What’s wrong with you?” The guy acting strange, his eyes getting a funny look, while his voice was fairly calm.

“Or would you like to use it?” Dr. Tommy said. “You have the experience, uh? You’re looking for a score… I’m serious now. You listening?”

“Yeah, I’m listening.”

“I’ll pay you to kill a man. What do you say?”

What Elvin said was, “How much?”

And it got Dr. Tommy smiling again, the dink easy to tickle, saying now, “You’re my man, Elvin,” becoming pals all of a sudden. “I knew it as soon as you walked in the other night. You don’t care who, only how much.”

“If the price ain’t right,” Elvin said, “what’s there to talk about?”

The doctor nodded his head, his smile gone but his eyes shining as he gave the figure.

“Ten thousand.”

That didn’t sound too bad. Get half up front.

“To kill the man,” Dr. Tommy said, “who ruined my life.”

It didn’t look too ruined to Elvin.

“I can’t work, I have to sell my possessions to live. My paintings, works of art…”

Getting a good buck, too, if he had ten grand laying around the house. “We talking cash for this job?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You been thinking about it long?”

“More than thinking, finding out about him. Where he lives, where he goes to drink, the women he sees. Hector is my eyes while I’m a prisoner.”

Whatever that meant. Elvin said, “Well, shit, you ought to know where he lives.”

“But it could be too late,” Dr. Tommy said. He bent over in his chair and started gathering up the newspapers he’d dropped, Elvin noticing he had The Miami Herald , the Sun-Sentinel … The doctor handed him one saying, “Here, on the front page of the Post . You must have seen it.”

Elvin took the newspaper. The second he spotted the picture, that bony face grinning out of the page, he said, “Jesus Christ, this is the guy we’re talking about? Judge Gibbs? I thought you meant your daddy.”

“He’s already dead.”

Elvin said, “And didn’t leave you nothing, huh? On account of you shot that flamingo and been generally fucking up all your life. I forgot for a minute there it was Gibbs convicted Sonny and nailed you on the dope charge. He’s the same one sent me up.” This was getting good, realizing he had his own pay-back motive now besides money. Why hadn’t he thought of it? “The other day this same judge give my young nephew five years for nothing. You met him, Dale Crowe Junior?”

Dr. Tommy was waiting, staring up at him.

“Have you read the paper? I ask that assuming you can read.”

Elvin gave him a look, narrowing his eyes. “You think I don’t know how?”

“Well, for Christ sake do it, will you?”

Elvin found the column, read partway into the story that asked if the judge was gator bait and stopped.

“There’s somebody already tried for him?”

“That’s the question, why I wonder if it’s too late,” Dr. Tommy said. “If I thought of it, how many others have too? Are thinking about it right now?”

“Shit,” Elvin said, “you want Bob Gibbs you might have to get in line, huh?”

One time Kathy said to her brothers, “You guys are lucky. You go after offenders you know are dirty, get a conviction and you have a sense of accomplishment, huh? You’ve done something. I think it’s like a game with you. High-risk but it pays off and it’s fun. You know what I do? Paperwork. I check up on people who wish I’d leave them alone and then I fill out forms. I don’t get anything out of it because I never finish. It’s always the same losers, one after another.”

The latest one, Dale Crowe Junior. She stopped by his house, didn’t see his pickup but knocked on the door. No answer, so she walked around the house looking in windows, hoping Dale hadn’t run off. Her brother Tony, with Metro-Dade, said, “You don’t like it, quit. Do what you want. You’re smart, for a girl. You think we have fun, apply to Palm Beach PD. That’d be pretty light duty, nothing you can’t handle up there.”

Her brother Ray, her buddy, said, “You know how to find people, you know how to talk to offenders. I think you’d make a good investigator. Why not?” Yeah, but have to drive a radio car first, do street work. Meet the same kinds of people she did now but on a different basis. Confront them armed. Perhaps some time or other have to use the gun.