Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

“Your Honor, I don’t know that much about the family.”

“You’ve heard of them though.”

“I’ve heard the name, yes.”

“Well, you see my point. Anyway,” Gibbs said, “if there’s nothing any of you wish to offer in bar, mitigation or aggravation of what I’m about to impose, then I adjudge you guilty, Mr. Crowe. It is the judgment, sentence, and order of the law that you be confined by the Department of Corrections for five years, with credit for time served. You have a right to appeal…”

Kathy Baker said, “Your Honor?” at the same time Dale was saying, “Five years for what, hitting a guy? What was I suppose to do? The guy was all over me.”

The young public defender had his hand on Dale’s arm now as Gibbs asked him, “Who was, Mr. Crowe?”

“The bouncer, as I was coming out of the bar.”

“But I’m looking at the original charge, Mr. Crowe. Battery of a police officer, causing injury. That’s what I’m passing sentence on, your indifference to, if not utter disregard of, the law. Further, I’m gonna recommend you be sent to FSP, the Florida State Prison, where your daddy and uncle served their time. You’ll be carrying on the family tradition.”

Kathy said, “Judge, I’d like to remind the court, the defendant was on probation only two days when he was arrested.”

“That’s a good point,” Gibbs said. “It confirms what I’m saying. He doesn’t stop and think, does he?”

“What I meant, he hasn’t reported to the office yet. Find out about all the conditions he has to observe.”

Gibbs said, “That’s a violation right there, not reporting in.”

“No, that part’s okay. He still had time.”

“You haven’t talked to him before this?”

She began to see where this was going and wished she hadn’t said anything. “I saw him this morning.”

“Where, in the holding cell?”

“Yes sir.”

“So what is it you’re telling the court?”

“I don’t think it’s in the interest of the state to give him all that DOC time, five years, for something he drew probation on originally.”

“You don’t?” Gibbs said, frowning, trying to look concerned, then glancing over at his bailiff and his court clerk, his team, before looking this way again. “What would you give him?”

Playing with her. She should never have opened her mouth.

“It isn’t my place to say, Judge.”

“You think Mr. Crowe’s probation should be reinstated?”

Kathy hesitated. She wasn’t sure that would be a good idea, let him off entirely. “I just think five years-he’ll do about twenty months? That seems like a heavy sentence.”

“I asked you what you’d give him, you haven’t told us.”

“I would consider, well, a year and a day, if you think he should do DOC time.”

“You’re basing this judgment on your appraisal of his character… What else?”

“Well, his age, the offense…”

“Having talked to him,” Gibbs said, “what, about ten minutes in the holding cell? Through bars, in all that noise and confusion? I’d be interested to know what you talked about.”

“I told him his lawyer was right, he should plead guilty.”

“And what did Mr. Crowe tell you ?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“If you want I can put it hypothetically,” Gibbs said. “What I’m getting at, how does an offender looking at five years get a pretty little probation officer to sympathize with his plight? What does he say to get you on his side?”

Kathy started shaking her head before Gibbs had finished. “Judge, I’m not on his side, I even told him that.”

“He never said a word to you.”

“Well, yes, he spoke…”

“I won’t tell the court what I’m thinking and have it go in the record,” Gibbs said. “But if you’re curious-Ms. Baker, is it? If you’d like to know what I suspect, stop in my chambers after we’re through here. In the meantime,” Gibbs said, making a notation in the case file before looking up again, “the decision of the court stands.”

Kathy kept watching Gibbs. The public defender was requesting Mr. Crowe be allowed time on the street, seven days to get his affairs in order. She watched Gibbs appear to think it over and finally rule okay, as long as the defendant reported to Probation on a daily basis. Now he was looking this way again, asking Kathy if she wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on her boy. She was thinking, You don’t have to smile. You don’t even have to answer. Or she could say, Who do you mean by my boy, Judge, the defendant? She heard Dale’s voice then, raised, and looked over, Dale saying to Gibbs, “Hey, Judge? I’m gonna see about this deal. You think you’re through with me, Judge, you’re fulla shit. Hear?” She saw Gibbs leaving the courtroom past two deputies who were moving quickly toward Dale Crowe with handcuffs and shackles. It surprised her the judge didn’t say something to Dale, hold him in contempt.

Marialena Reyes touched Kathy’s arm.

“You going to see him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you’d better.”

“He didn’t say I had to.”

“No, but I think it would be a good idea.”

Kathy said, “I have to smile, too?”

Marialena stared at her for a moment. She said, “Do what you want,” and walked away.

Out of his robes Judge Bob Gibbs became someone else, pleasant, almost a regular guy, saying he didn’t mean to put her on the spot in there. No, what it was, he had a feeling young Mr. Crowe might have tried a sad story on her, he was sick or his mama needed him at home or he knew it would kill him to be locked up, the prey of older, lascivious convicts… “I said at one point, ‘Don’t thank me yet.’ Remember? Well, you can thank me now if you want.”

“For what, Judge?”

“Sending young Mr. Crowe away. Taking him off your hands. If I’d reinstated his probation like you wanted, he’d be in violation again before you know it and you’d have egg all over your pretty face. What’re you, Cuban?”

“Born in Miami,” Kathy said. “I don’t think I asked you to reinstate him.”

“You didn’t come right out and request it. I could tell, though, he’d been working on you. I was gonna say, you don’t look especially Latin.”

Like he was paying her a compliment. If she wanted she could say, And you don’t look like a judge.

What he looked like now, sitting behind his desk, was a farmer. The top of his forehead, where it disappeared into the dyed hair, was lighter than the rest of his face. A farmer or an Okeechobee fishing guide dressed for town in a short-sleeve white shirt and red patterned tie. He even had the cracker sound of those boys from the country. Old Bob Isom Gibbs, known as “Big” to his buddies. He sat with his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. From deep in the office sofa facing the desk, all Kathy could see of the judge were his raised arms, elbows sticking out, and his head, his hair shining in fluorescent light. On the wall behind him were framed photos of the judge posing with several different men holding strings of bass and what looked like speckled perch. No doubt taken at a fishing camp on the lake. In another picture the judge was standing in an airboat holding a two-foot alligator in each hand, by the tail.

“Don’t feel sorry for him, he was due,” Bob Gibbs said, “being a Crowe. You’ve heard the expression ‘Born to raise hell’? That’s young Mr. Crowe’s belief. Mine’s ‘Hard time makes the boy the man.’ He’ll come out of jail therapy with a brand-new attitude, or else we’ll send him back, won’t we?”

“I thought you might hold him in contempt,” Kathy said, “when he threatened you.”