Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

A guy in a dark suit of clothes came in the lobby.

Elvin glanced over and then looked again, the guy standing at the reception window now. Jesus Christ, if it wasn’t the sissy blue-suit cop, Ms. Touchy’s boyfriend. He didn’t have to wait there but a minute. Somebody opened the door next to the reception window and was talking to him as he walked in. Elvin watched, thinking, Hey shit, I was here first.

Kathy was waiting for him outside her office. The first thing she said: “Did you see Elvin? He’s in the lobby.”

Gary walked up to her in the narrow hallway. “There were some guys-I didn’t notice.” He followed her into the office. “He’s here to see you?”

“He was. Should I have him come up?”

“If he’s still there.”

Kathy said, “I doubt it,” turning to her desk. “I should’ve had the receptionist tell you.” She was anxious now. He was too, but in a different way watching her pick up the phone and punch numbers, wanting to touch her, run his hands over familiar places, the feel of her ribs, her stomach sucked in, slim legs around him, seeing her tan lines in the dark and knowing where they were beneath the white skirt she was wearing. “This is Kathy. Is Elvin Crowe still there?” He liked the way her hair was short in back and showed her slender neck. She turned now, looking this way, waiting. He liked the way she moved. He liked her eyes, the way she looked at him and seemed to know things. She said, “Thank you,” and hung up, shaking her head. “He left.”

Gary smiled; he couldn’t help it. “You look good enough to eat.”

She gave him that bland, knowing look. “With a fork?”

He said, “With my fingers,” and watched her raise her eyebrows and move in a kind of lazy shrug. Another one to remember, store away, along with hooking her thumb in those narrow white panties and cocking a hip. He wanted to take her home, right now, but had to see a man about a Cadillac. He told her that Dr. Vasco, it turns out, owns a Cadillac and Dicky Campau says Dale Crowe was last seen in a Cadillac, driving around with Elvin.

“I’m gonna stop by Dr. Tommy’s later on this afternoon, if you’d like to come.”

“To get you inside? Sure, why not.” She was nodding, thinking of something else now, he could tell. “You wouldn’t want to take a quick run out to the judge’s house first, would you?”

Gary said, “For what?” without thinking, and said, “Not to look for the pizza box. Don’t tell me that, all right?”

“It’s evidence,” Kathy said.

“Of what? You want to go through it again? Elvin hasn’t done anything.”

“Not yet.”

“Or is planning any kind of criminal act we have evidence of, outside of what a rockhead thinks she remembers him saying.”

“But you’d like to talk to him.”

“About Dale. Dale’s now a fugitive and the Cadillac’s a lead.”

She said, “All right, I’ll go by myself.” Matter-of-fact about it, telling him if he didn’t want to go, fine. He liked that about her. She was direct, didn’t put on any kind of an act to get what she wanted. Telling him now, “I’ll pick up the pizza box and I’ll put it on your desk, as a favor. Then it’s up to you. You can take it to the lab or throw it away. But if you do, you’ll be destroying evidence.”

“You’re sure of that.”

She said, “Reasonably,” starting to turn away, and looked at him again. “If you want, you could come along for the ride. I’ll drive.”

He had to smile at her, wanting to go and said, “I would, really, but I can’t. I have to get a haircut.”

“You’ve been saying that for the past week.”

“I was leaving to come here, that same captain stopped me.”

“The one with the body shirt.”

“Yeah, he goes, ‘I don’t want to see you again, Sergeant, without a haircut. Have I made myself clear?’”

“And you told him,” Kathy said, raising her hand to touch his hair, “your goal in life is to live up to his expectations.”

“I just told him I’d get it cut.”

She said, “That’s too bad,” moving her fingers through his hair on one side and then smoothing it. “Have it thinned a little here and in back, but not too much, okay? I love your hair.”

All Elvin had to do was spot the blue-suit cop coming out of the building alone, he changed his mind like that about seeing Ms. Touchy. She’d be around the next five years to fool with. The blue-suit hair puller was here and now and chances didn’t come along every day.

Elvin had been sitting in the car with his hat off rubbing the red line it made in his forehead: thinking the two would come out together, it being noontime, and go eat someplace: thinking he’d most likely pick himself up a burger and fries, couple of beers, and come back here to wait on her to get dropped off.

But, Jesus, seeing the hair puller all by himself walking to his car, no idea he was being watched, got Elvin excited with the urge to get it done. Right now. No more thinking about it. The best time always when they least expected. Slip up on him in broad daylight driving along the street maybe. That could work. He had the Ruger Speed-Six in the glove compartment. Or wherever the dink was going, like someplace to have his dinner. Walk in, do it and walk out. Do it so fast nobody in there would see a thing. All this in his mind at once was making him more anxious. There, he was backing his car out now, the gray Dodge, from in front of the building. His name, he’d said that time at Dale’s showing his badge, was Gary something. Gary the hair puller.

Man, but strange things happened in life.

Thinking of this squirt grabbing him by the hair.

Thinking, as he followed the Dodge over to Dixie Highway and turned south, he had planned to get a haircut yesterday, but was too hung over to make it.

And where does the Dodge pull up to the curb and park? In front of a place called “Betty’s Hair Studio,” the name written big across the window.

Wouldn’t you know, Elvin thought, looking for a place to park, a hair puller would go to a beauty parlor?

The garage door was closed. That was the first thing Kathy noticed driving up to the house. It gave her a sinking feeling. She got out of her car telling herself it wasn’t locked, that all she’d have to do was grab the handle and lift up. She tried. Grabbed it with both hands and tried. Kicked the aluminum door and tried again. It was locked. Shit. Gary would ask her, well where is it? Gary with his new haircut. She caught a glimpse of him as a skinhead and got rid of that one. Saw him with the sides shaved Marine style and crew-cut on top saying to the crew-cut captain in the body shirt he was trying to live up to his expectations. With a straight face. He was actually a cool guy. He acted natural, didn’t pose or try to impress anyone. She should have cut his hair last night, in his under-shorts. Kathy stepped away from the garage to look at the front of the house, the door, sunlight on the windows. No one home, the place shut tight. She turned, wondering what to do, looking at the dense growth across the drive now, young palms and a lot of fern, and saw the car parked in tree shade.

A Ford Escort, dark blue, nosed into the cover of an old laurel oak.

The judge drove a pickup truck but could have a car too, whether he used it or not; it seemed reasonable. Unless it belonged to someone else, visiting.

Kathy walked to the front door and rang the bell, waited, tried it again. She could hear it ring inside.

The car could belong to a TAC guy still hanging around somewhere. They drove all different kinds of cars, whatever they appropriated. If a TAC guy was here she would have to tell him what she was looking for… Oh, a pizza box. Have to go into all that, explain her theory. Or make up a story. She lost an earring. In the garbage? Maybe swept up and thrown in the trash. And thought, You think too much. You know it?