Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

Elvin said, “Prison ain’t that bad, you get the hang of it… find yourself some buddies, a little housekeeper to take care of your wants…”

Dale wasn’t talking.

They drove out of this back-end part of Belle Glade where people like the Crowes and Campaus lived in old frame houses, their pickups and boat trailers in the yard alongside rusted washing machines, car parts, skiffs past use. Old boys sitting on porches drinking beer waved at the Cadillac driving past.

Now it crept down the main drag of storefronts, Elvin always amazed at the sight of cane cutters, hundreds of black faces on the street buying Walkman radios and little TVs to take back to Jamaica, their season almost done. Elvin said, “I ain’t gonna say nothing but, Jesus Christ, how come we bring all these people here when our own niggers could be doing the work? I know it’s a filthy dirty job and you can get hurt swinging them machetes, but they could at least try it, shit. Don’t let me get off on that, the invasion of the boogers. You think they’re gonna be happy staying only six months? Pretty soon they’ll be living here, as the Cuban and different other kinds are, taking our jobs.”

“Excuse me,” Dale said, “but when did you ever work?”

Elvin didn’t like Dale’s snippy tone of voice, but let it go, the boy scared and angry at the same time.

“I took folks for airboat rides,” Elvin said. “I even took rich boogers for airboat rides and it like to killed me. I had a mind to dump ‘em in the swamp. I got a deal on right now with a rich booger. He’s paying I mean top dollar for me to do a special kind of job. If it was only for pay, shit, I wouldn’t do it. But it turns out it’s for me and you mostly. You know the guy, Dr. Tommy, the one in Ocean Ridge. You want to guess what the job is?”

The boy didn’t answer. Not interested or too busy feeling sorry for himself.

“I understand where you’re at,” Elvin said, “facing up to a system known for not being fair.”

Dale said, “Shit, all I did was hit a cop. Why’re they any different?”

Elvin said, “I know, I’ve done it and paid. I’ve learned if you’re ever angry enough to hit somebody, don’t do it. Cool down and get yourself a pistol. There’s a cop pulled my hair I was dying to hit. Unh-unh, I’m waiting till the right time.” Elvin hunched close to the steering wheel, turning his head as he gazed up through the windshield. “Look it how they live.”

They were passing migrant housing now, two-story concrete barracks, wash hanging to dry on the upstairs rails.

“Day off, they drink rum and chew sugarcane. You go inside there, everyone of ‘em’s playing a radio. I never saw people liked radios so much.”

Dale said, “When’d you ever go in there?”

Looking for an argument in his frame of mind.

“I worked one time for a guy ran the bolita . You know, the numbers? I’d have to go in those places they lived, be the only white person in there, boogers looking at me like they wanted to cut my balls off with a cane knife. Ugly people but, man, did they love to play the bolita . They’d love this car too, wouldn’t they? They’d keep house in it.”

Out on the highway the sky to the south was full of black smoke where they were burning off the last of the fields. Trucks whipped past hauling cane stalks to the sugar house for processing. They drove their Ford tractors fast, dumped the loads off the trailers and headed back for more. It was a job Dale used to have and Elvin thought he would brag on it now, but he didn’t. That’s how mean his disposition was.

“Oh my, what to do,” Elvin said. “All right, I’m gonna make you a proposition.”

Dale didn’t even ask what it was. Didn’t say one word till they’d driven the forty miles back to civilization, took the freeway down to Boynton Beach and turned into the parking lot of the cocktail bar on S.E. 15th.

Dale said, “That’s my truck.” Not snippy at all now, more surprised than anything.

Elvin checked, didn’t see any surveillance, before saying, “Why yes it is.” The pickup still sitting where he’d left it yesterday. “And the keys are in it.”

They sat in a booth with their drinks, Jim Beam and 7-Up, dark in here this Sunday afternoon, Elvin relaxed with something he was anxious to tell, but irritated the drinks were served in skimpy glasses. He’d wave to the waitress for two more. She’d bring them and he’d quit talking and tell her to take it from the change on the table. The waitress would poke through the pile there, car keys, bills and silver, Dale’s cigarettes and matches, and pick out what she needed.

Elvin spoke of prison for a while, about sports and movies, making it sound not too bad. Though advised Dale to get laid tonight; be his last shot at some front-door lovin’. Dale wouldn’t talk about it. So Elvin said, “All right, you made up your mind.” On their third drink by this time. “Go on get in your truck and take off. By tomorrow they’ll have detainers on you clear across the country. But if that’s what you want to do…”

On their fourth round Elvin was telling him about the deal with Dr. Tommy. Top wages to shoot the judge and he’d give Dale, let’s see, two thousand to drive for him. How did that sound? “Take off in your old beat up truck or drive a Fleetwood Cadillac while we set up the judge.”

It got Dale to fidget around some in the booth.

“I’m thinking we’ll move in with Dr. Tommy,” Elvin said. “Have a party out there tonight, huh? Get some girls. I’ll tell you one I’m thinking of having sometime, that little probation lady. I’ve had Cuban puss and it ain’t too bad. We could have us some tonight, you want. Or this go-go whore I had over to your house last night.”

“You want to kill the judge?”

The boy finally waking up.

“I call it paying back. How about you?”

“They already think it was me tried.”

“Listen, that dink, whoever it was, he’s an amateur. You’re working with a pro here. I’ve done it.”

“And you went to prison.”

“Hey, that’s something else entirely. We set this one up right, it’ll work slick. You take off after with some cash on you.”

Dale was quiet, looking at his drink.

“Come on, what do you say?”

“I’m thinking.”

“While you’re doing that,” Elvin said, “I’m gonna go shake the dew off my lily.”

He got up and walked to the men’s room, all the way in back. Elvin was gone maybe five minutes. He washed his hands after, for no reason, then had to hold them under one of those goddamn machines you pushed the button and it blew hot air as you were supposed to briskly, it said, rub your hands together. That’s what took the time. Then after that drying his hands on his shirttail and having to stick his goddamn shirttail in his pants again. When he got back to the table Dale was gone.

The waitress said, “He didn’t leave but a minute ago.” Elvin ran outside hoping to catch him driving off. Beat some sense into the boy if he had to. He stopped short in the parking lot, around on the side of the building. Dale’s pickup was still there, nosed against the cinder-block wall.

It was the space where he’d parked the Cadillac that was empty.

They must have seen him drive up in the taxicab. Hector opened the door and Dr. Tommy was standing in the hall waiting for him.

Elvin said, “You know what happened?”

Dr. Tommy said, “Tell me.”

Elvin said, “Somebody stole your car.”

They stopped a hundred feet or so from the entrance to Dr. Tommy’s, on the opposite side of Ocean Boulevard. It was dark inside the unmarked Dodge, going on ten. Through a wall of trees and sea grape they could see lights on in the house. Gary said, “I guess you know what working surveillance is like,” as she was thinking this could be the time to bring him out, if he was willing to be brought. But no grabbing. With the right words, tone of voice.