Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

“He said something about me, huh?”

“Hector says if you ever want someone’s kitchen shot, you’re the one to hire.”

“Shit, he’s funnier’n you are. It wasn’t me, Doc. We better get that straight.”

Hector was talking again in a girlish way, moving his shoulders, Dr. Tommy grinning at him. Couple of dinks. Elvin picked up the glass and took a sip. He said, “Jesus,” and wiped his hand across his mouth. “What is this thing?”

“Banana daiquiri,” Dr. Tommy said. “You don’t like it?”

Hector was talking in Spanish again and laughing at whatever he said, this queer that put bananas in a drink, saying his name. Elvin thought of stepping over to smack him, but then had an idea he liked better and threw his banana drink in Hector’s face.

“Talk English in front of me. Hear?”

It stopped him moving his shoulders, all that creamy shit dripping from his face onto his hairless body. Elvin turned to Dr. Tommy. “You too. Talk English from now on.” He heard Hector’s stool scrape on the brick floor and looked to see him running out of the kitchen like a girl.

Dr. Tommy didn’t seem to mind. He drew on his weed and held the smoke in a long time before letting it out. He said, “Okay, it wasn’t you.”

“Listen,” Elvin said, “it not only wasn’t me, I almost got hit standing in the man’s house. You hear what I’m saying?” The doc’s eyes didn’t look too clear. “I was in there waiting on Gibbs to come in from the yard.”

“You were in his home?”

“I told you how I’d walk right up to him, didn’t I? Well, now he’s got police around him and I have to think of something else.”

Man, it was a job holding this guy’s attention. Now he was climbing off his stool, his robe coming open to show a bare leg, and Elvin said, “What’s that thing on your ankle, looks like a little radio?”

“It’s how they keep track of me.” Dr. Tommy was at the counter now putting more rum in his drink. “You never saw an anklet? You wear it, you can’t go no more than a hundred and fifty feet from your telephone. There’s a receiver in this thing and a box hooked to the telephone line, like you have with your cable TV.”

Elvin didn’t have cable TV or know what he was talking about, but said, “Yeah?”

“A computer calls my number every now and then and if I’m not in the house or close by, the computer doesn’t get a signal back and it lets them know.”

Elvin had heard of that. “You’re on probation? Shit, so am I.”

“Is that right?” Dr. Tommy was coming back to his stool. “I don’t think you told me that.”

“It don’t make any difference. They can’t check on me coming here.” He watched Dr. Tommy sip his drink, not saying anything. “Why don’t you take the goddamn thing off and set it by the phone?”

“You’d have to break it.” Dr. Tommy stuck his leg straight out. “You can, all it has is the strap holding it on. But there’s some kind of sensor in there, tells them if it isn’t on your leg.”

“You mean you can’t ever leave the house?”

“Only to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, twice a week.”

Shit, this was working out perfect. “Then you don’t need your car, do you?” Elvin told him why he couldn’t use Dale’s pickup with cops watching it. Then Dr. Tommy had to think about it, his mind fuzzed with weed, before he said, “You have my gun, now you want a car? There’s a difference. A gun doesn’t have a license plate on it.”

Elvin noticed Hector was back, standing at the counter now with one of those Cuban shirts on over his jockstrap, and his hands held together over his crotch. The booger music had finished playing. That was good to hear.

“I need a car for getting around in,” Elvin said, “as I track the judge, figure where I’m gonna hit him. Then when I’m set up I either swipe a car or use my brother’s truck. He don’t drive no more with one leg. He does, but ain’t suppose to. They took his license on account of he keeps running into things.”

Elvin got that booger stare before Dr. Tommy said, “You look different today.”

“I’m letting my beard grow.”

“Wants to look like a rogue,” the doctor said to Hector.

In English, so it was okay. “I’m thinking I may use dynamite. I know how. I shoot it sometimes I go fishing and I don’t have all day. My brother always has some.”

He had to wait then while Dr. Tommy relit his weed, took another drink and stared, trying to appear casual. He said after a minute, “Okay, you can have a Cadillac or a Lincoln. Hector likes the Jaguar to go to the store.”

His dead brother Roland had owned a Cadillac. It was Elvin’s choice without having to think about it. He said, “I might stay here too, since I know you have room.”

“Now you want to move in?”

“I’ll see, but I think I better while I’m working this out. Your probation officer comes by I’ll hide in the closet.”

He watched Dr. Tommy shrug inside his silky robe and give Hector a nod, the doc easy to deal with on his weed trip. So Elvin said, “I’ll need a couple hundred for expenses. So I won’t have to stick up a liquor store, your car sitting out front.”

The doc gave another shrug looking at Hector. Then had to say, “Give it to him,” when Hector didn’t move, still holding his hands by his crotch.

Something funny going on here. Elvin squinted at him. Dr. Tommy said some words in Spanish, his voice quiet, soothing, different than before. Hector slipped his hand under the Cuban shirt and drew a little bluesteel automatic from his jockstrap. Elvin said to him, “You little booger, you weren’t gonna shoot me with that, were you?”

“Hector worries about me,” Dr. Tommy said. “It’s all right. He won’t shoot you unless I tell him. He’s a very good boy. Aren’t you, Hector?” Hector turned his head to look away. Like a girl. Like he wasn’t ever going to speak to the doctor again.

These guys were creepy. Elvin took his expense money and the Cadillac and went back to West Palm to get laid.

“I was going to kill him,” Hector said in Spanish. “Shoot him at least several times and make up a story for the police.”

Dr. Tommy listened to this thinking, Not again, please. He said to Hector, “Don’t worry about it.”

“He has your car, your gun-don’t worry about it?”

“What gun?” Dr. Tommy said. “I don’t own any guns. Listen, he could be lucky and do it. You know why? Because he’s a fool. He doesn’t see what could stop him.”

“But this was something you thought about, when, a year ago. Now you’re thinking about it again?”

“I wasn’t, until I saw that in the paper, the judge and the alligator. See, I’m beginning to entertain the possibility again and this one walks in, a convict, tells me yes, of course, he’ll be happy to do it.”

“Like Saint Anthony answering your prayer,” Hector said, in a better mood now. “But what if he’s arrested?”

“If he is, or the time comes I can’t bear the sight of him, I report my car stolen.”

Hector came over with the blender and began filling their glasses. “I wanted so much to shoot him.”

“I know you did. Listen, it could still happen.”

“But if he does kill the judge, will you pay him?”

Dr. Tommy picked up his glass. “Are you serious?”

They were having coffee now and wondering what to do this evening. No more talk about work. Go to a movie, a bar, listen to a band. Gary asked if she liked to dance. They could go to the Banana Boat. Kathy said she’d have to go home and change. She said the only trouble with the Banana Boat, sometimes she ran into probationers and they always wanted to buy her drinks. Or they’d bother her till she’d finally have to leave. Gary said, “Oh?” stirring his coffee. “You go there alone much?”