Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

“But what if there is someone who wants to kill you?”

“Listen, I got another one of those phone calls this morning. Some cuckoo, he’ll get picked up and thrown in jail for it. But now they’ll read in the paper the shooter was apprehended and it’ll be over. The nuts’ll have to think of something else to do.”

“Maybe,” Kathy said, “but I don’t think so.” She tucked her purse under her arm. “They shouldn’t have pulled the protection off you. Not yet.”

“You’re concerned about my welfare?”

“I don’t want to see you get shot.”

“Honey, that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me. Let’s have dinner this evening. Come on.”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t.”

“You have a date?”

“I just won’t do it.”

“If you’re afraid of us being seen, come out to the house. I’m all by myself now, my wife gone, run out on me.”

“I thought she was visiting friends.”

“Yeah, but now it doesn’t look like she’s coming back.”

“She afraid,” Kathy said, “another alligator might show up?”

Gibbs stared back at her with a mild expression that was almost a smile, a gleam, mischief in his eyes. This old-man judge acting like a little kid with a secret.

“You don’t think I’d have a live ten-foot gator brought to my home, do you?”

“I heard it was supposed to be dead.”

“You believe that story?”

Kathy said, “Yeah, I guess I do,” nodding.

Now he did grin at her. “See, that’s why I like you. You aren’t afraid to speak right up to my face. I saw it that time in my court I called you Ms. Bacar?”

“You always called me that.”

“You know the time I mean. You said, ‘It’s Baker, Your Honor. It’s always been Baker.’ I got a kick out of the way you stood up to me. You know what I thought? Why I wanted to talk to you after? I thought, well, I’ll be damned, this girl and I think the same way.”

“Excuse me,” Kathy said, “but you gave Dale Crowe five years and I tried to argue that was excessive.”

“You’re being picky now. What I’m talking about, you and I aren’t afraid to say what we believe. Hell, we could have more fun disagreeing with one another than most people have getting along. Listen, I can show you some sights, take you to society functions over in Palm Beach’ll knock your eyes out. Argue all the way over there and back.”

“We can talk about anything?”

“Pick a subject.”

“If you made Dicky Campau bring that alligator…”

“Who says? Listen, you want to know the honest truth? I told him bring me a little bitty one sometime. For fun, not to hurt anybody. I’d forgot all about it. Then one morning there it was. Yeah, it scared Leanne and she left. Of her own free will.”

There was that gleam in his eyes again.

“Why don’t you let him off?”

“Who, Dicky? It’s out of my hands. Listen, if he appeared in my court for sentencing I’d give him at least five years. You can’t fire a gun at somebody’s house and get away with it. But since it was my house I’d have to recuse myself anyway, step aside. So they’ll cut a deal, offer him six months and he’d be dumber than he looks if he doesn’t take it.”

Kathy said, “And no one’ll ever know…”

“It’s no one else’s business. I can tell you ‘cause we think alike and I know I can trust you with a personal matter,” Gibbs said, leaning on the counter close to her, confiding. She could smell his aftershave, look into his sad brown eyes and see a movie actor playing the judge, reciting his lines in the courthouse snack bar. He said, “You know I could be influential in your behalf. Couple of years from now see you named head of the Probation Department. How’s that sound to you? Big step up, lot more money.”

“Run a probation office,” Kathy said, “what I’ve always wanted to do.”

Gibbs, still with the sad look, said, “It’s a shame, you’ve got devilment in you going to waste. Well, I’m not gonna get down on my knees and beg, I’m feeling too frisky for that. You don’t want to have fun, there’s plenty others’ll jump at the chance.”

Elvin sat in Dr. Tommy’s gray Lincoln across the street from the Probation Office, a queer-looking pink building, two stories, but hardly any windows in it. Maybe so the poor assholes getting questioned in there would pay attention and not be looking outside, thinking of better places to be; though what you saw around here was all industrial, places to work and the sound of the freeway close by. Elvin had been in Ms. Touchy’s office on the second floor when he first reported. Sat cooped up in that dark-paneled shoebox while she filled out a post-sentence form on him. Prison time. Extent of Victim’s Loss or Injury. Socioeconomic Status. What? Vocational Skills. Alcohol Usage. Hobbies. Shit. He was thinking of going up there again to give her his new address, except now he forgot what it was. Six something, three other numbers, North Ocean Boulevard. He’d have to make it up. Tell Ms. Touchy he was working full-time over there on security and when she came to check on him bring her swimsuit. Or don’t wear one if she didn’t want to. Go in bareass like Dr. Tommy. Not a stitch on but his anklet, like some creature they had tagged in the wild to keep track of. The doc was turning into a crack dog since the other night with Earlene. When he was high the doc acted nervous and liked to go into his dance. Earlene said there was no such thing as the mumbo, it was the cha-cha. Take her word for it. The doc hardly ever spoke. Hector either. What Hector did was sneak around watching him wherever he went, making it hard to find where the doc kept his cash. Upstairs somewhere. Hector would go up there and come down with a hundred-dollar bill for crack cocaine or to go to the liquor store. About the only time Hector spoke was to ask him, You shoot the judge yet? Elvin believed he might end up shooting Hector. They had picked up none other than little Dicky Campau for shooting at the judge’s house. It was in the paper today and Elvin had phoned Inez to ask her the hell was Dicky up to? Ready to tell her Dicky had almost shot him , for Christ sake. But nobody was home. What it didn’t say in the paper was whether the judge was still being protected or not. Walk in the court building you had to go through metal detectors. So the judge’s house was still the place to do it. Get hold of another pizza box once the bodyguards cleared out. Elvin had not noticed any tails on him driving the Lincoln-even though that hair-pulling sissy cop was at Dr. Tommy’s yesterday and must’ve known he was there. It might be since they had Dicky in custody they weren’t looking for anybody else.

What’d be funny, press charges against Dicky for trying to shoot him and see Inez’s face. Here was still another instance, something you’d like to do but couldn’t.

Or ask Ms. Touchy would she like to have noon dinner with him and get turned down. He had always believed Hispanic girls would bust their ass to go out with a white man. If Ms. Touchy went with that hair puller she wasn’t any different. The thing to do was take the cop out of the picture.

Elvin got out of the car and crossed Omar Road to the building, trying to decide what color it was. Sorta pink, but not exactly. There were two colored boys in the lobby who looked like convicts and two young white guys, addicts of one kind or another. Elvin gave the woman at the reception window his name and Ms. Touchy’s and sat down to wait. Now the two white boys were looking him over, boots to cowboy hat, one of them making remarks to the other, grinning like a monkey. Elvin said, “You boys behave now, hear? I’ll have to take you outside.” The colored boys watched with sleepy looks. Up at Starke they’d tell you same old same old, in that peculiar way they spoke.