Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

He’d even thought he might drown for a minute there last night, waves coming in high as he took the booger out to sea, Hector riding the raft taped to a patio chair.

Elvin worked his way out of the bed. He saw he had his socks on. He needed to piss and needed a couple of cold beers right after to settle him down, calm his nerves.

Taking care of the first matter, standing at the toilet, his eyes watering with the relief of it, he started thinking: What if there was a way to slip out while the house was being watched and get it done? Slip back in, they never knowing he was gone, and he’d be free and clear. Who me? You crazy? You been watching the house? Wasn’t I here all the time?

Like if Hector was still around… Sneak out at night afoot, Hector picks him up, takes him out to the judge’s place… Except that would only have worked if the booger could lose the tail they’d have on him. He wasn’t around anyway so, shit, think of something else. The beers might help.

Elvin went back to the bedroom, sat down in his shorts to pull his boots on. How about if he sneaked out and got a taxicab, took it over to West Palm and went in a mall. That could work. Swipe a car from the parking lot and drive out to the judge’s. Do it at night.

That didn’t sound too hard. No, for being hung over, usually a mean state of mind, he was calm and thinking pretty good. Couple of beers, he’d have this deal worked out.

He went along the hall to the stairway in his underwear and boots, working his mouth to get that awful taste out of it, reached the turn in the stairs and couldn’t believe his eyes.

Ms. Touchy standing at the bottom looking up at him.

She said, “Elvin?”

In that way she had, meaning business. Looking fresh and bright this morning making her calls. No doubt her car keys in that purse hanging from her shoulder. No doubt whatsoever, and her VW parked in the drive.

She saw a bare white body in striped underwear, boots to his calves-he looked soft but ten feet tall up there. Grinning at her, shaking his head.

“Man, you sure took me by surprise. You come to see me or Dr. Tommy?”

“Both of you,” Kathy said. “Is he awake?”

“I haven’t heard a peep, and I’m the early bird around here.”

“What about Hector?”

“Hector, he left.”

“You mean he quit?”

“I guess. He ain’t here.”

She’d save Hector till the doctor came down. “You going to put some clothes on?”

“I’ll be right back,” Elvin said. “Don’t go ‘way.”

She asked herself, Are you afraid of that? Watching him go up the stairs in his boots and undershorts, and answered, You bet I am. Holding on to her shoulder bag.

Kathy went back to the kitchen wondering about Hector. Down a hall past the laundry room she found the door to the garage. Two cars in there, a Lincoln and a Jag. She could imagine an argument with Dr. Tommy and Hector driving off in a snit. Maybe to stay with his mother or a friend, if he had one. Wait for the doctor to call. What she couldn’t imagine was Hector walking away from all this. Unless he was forced to. She would have to wait and talk to Dr. Tommy. Have Elvin bring him down. Make sure with clothes on.

She returned to the front hall to walk past the doctor’s abstract art, a painting done in silver she saw as hard smoke, a sculpture that could be a woman’s body with a hole in it, or it might be a doughnut. Something to think about. Decide if it made any difference… Kathy turned with the sound of heels clicking on the terrazzo floor.

Cowboy boots. Elvin, wearing a bright blue suit and his big straw, putting on a pair of sunglasses.

Kathy waited for him. “You going somewhere?”

He came toward her nodding. “We are. You’re gonna drive me.”

Leanne said, “Big, what I have to do first is remove all the psychic dirt that’s crusted on your body, built up there over the years.”

He asked her, “Will it hurt?”

“You’re an old scaredy-cat, aren’t you? No, it won’t hurt and you’ll feel lighter after, your body free of all that old static full of negative thoughts and emotions.”

He wondered if by “negative” she meant what were considered by some, dirty thoughts. Like having that little girl from the Port St. Lucie Shopping News in his mind, but no chance of it happening in real life, Leanne back in the house. They were on the screened porch this morning, seven a.m., Leanne in a white leotard and white hose, looking like an egg with arms and legs; the judge in a T-shirt and pants from his seersucker suit, both cotton, Leanne insisting he had to wear natural-fiber clothes for the cleansing or it wouldn’t work. He didn’t argue, still in shock from her homecoming.

“Once I clean you up,” Leanne said, “we’ll go outside and I’ll show you how to exchange energy with nature. It’ll do you good.”

Wasn’t that what he did growing orchids? “I communicate with it all the time.”

“I’m not knocking it, Big. I think it’s the only thing that has kept you whole. Oh,” she said, thinking of something else. “Please don’t tell me you’ve had a drink this morning.”

“Not yet I haven’t.”

“It doesn’t work if there’s alcohol in you.”

He wished he did, standing with his feet eighteen inches apart, knees slightly bent, the way Leanne had positioned him. She was behind him now.

“I’m hoping my body heat won’t interfere. I have to get close if I’m going to give you a good scraping.”

“You have to use the Epsom salts?”

A bowl of it sat on the table within reach.

“What I do after each scraping,” Leanne said, “is brush the psychic dirt from my hands into the bowl to be absorbed. Salt has been used for cleansing since the beginning of time. Maybe even longer, they’re not sure.”

He felt the side of her hand scraping down his back as she told him, “I have to be careful I don’t get any of your energy on me. See? I scrape my hand each time into the Epsom salts.”

“You gonna clean all my parts? I know one’s got rusty from not having been used.”

Leanne said, “Shhhhh.”

It was true. He could count on one hand the times he’d scored since Stephanie left. Well, maybe two. But, boy, he missed her. They had a routine, he’d walk up to her at the Helen Wilkes or wherever they were meeting and whisper in her ear, “What do you say to a little fuck?”

And Steph would turn to him and say, “Hi, you little fuck.” She was a big one. Outweighed him nearly twenty pounds. Ms. Bacar now, she was more his size.

Leanne said, “Your friend Kathy-”

And he jumped like she’d goosed him.

“What’s wrong?”

“You hit a tender spot there.”

This woman was spooky the way she seemed to read your mind. Like some little part of her otherworld airy-fairyness was real.

“I call her my messenger,” Leanne said, scraping away. “One that comes with glad tidings.”

Wesley blew his horn as they pulled out of the drive and turned north, away from him. Wesley letting her know he was alert, on the job. Elvin might have wondered about it, hunched down on the backseat, but didn’t say anything. He became talkative once they were heading west on Southern Boulevard, Elvin sitting up now, his face and part of his hat in the rearview mirror.

“Nice day, huh?”

Kathy didn’t answer.

“Yes, it is,” Elvin said. “I hope it don’t get too hot.”

She saw his face staring at the back of her head.

“Aren’t you curious why I want to see the judge?” He waited. “Or do you already know?”

About the only thing she wasn’t sure of this trip, how he was going to get back after.