Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

Elvin was squinting at her. “My suit?”

“It’s polyester, isn’t it? Yet I can feel your emotions, your purpose.” Her eyelids began to flutter.

Kathy saw it. Leanne seemed about to speak, then clamped her jaw shut, gritting her teeth, and her hand came out of the folds of her skirt with a revolver, firing it-firing again as Elvin swung the Walther from Gibbs to put it on her and this time she hit him. Elvin stumbled back, left hand going to his hip, caught himself planting his feet apart and was taking aim at Leanne as Kathy brought the.38 out of her bag and shot him, saw him look at her and shot him again and saw him go down.

She moved toward him-Elvin sprawled on his back, eyes open, arms outstretched, the Walther lying close by-and kicked it away, not sure if there was life in him until she stood close and looked. She had shot a man. Twice through the heart or close to it. She began to think, This is what it’s like… But this one’s different. You wanted to. And looked away to keep from thinking about it. At least for now.

She saw the judge with Leanne, taking the revolver from her, saying something Kathy couldn’t hear as he put his arm around his wife. Now she saw Leanne give him a vague, where-am-I kind of look and say, “What don’t you believe?”

The judge was patting her shoulder. “See you come out of the house with my gun? Do what you did?”

Leanne looked surprised now. She said, “I didn’t shoot him, Big. Wanda did.”

Kathy stood at the window by the sink. Gibbs had said, “Let’s wait before making the call,” and left her there. She had this time to stare at Elvin lying in the yard and go over it again, taking it apart. See Elvin turning as she shot him. Hear the sound of it and feel the gun jump in her hand. See him looking at her as she shot him again, concentrating, taking time to aim, doing it right her first time… And thought, Wait a minute, you didn’t mean that. Your first time . That was like Wesley saying, Not yet . Expecting it to happen. She wasn’t like that and it bothered her, the feeling, to know she could shoot someone if she had to.

You’re not like that. You don’t want to.

No, but there it was. She could do it.

The judge came in the kitchen and got out the Jim Beam and a glass, not bothering with ice this morning. “She’s on the porch staring at one of her rocks. You need a drink?”

Kathy said, “No thanks,” turning from the window, and said, “I keep expecting him to move.” Maybe to minimize what she had done, or to sound innocent; she wasn’t sure.

“The holes you put in him,” Gibbs said, “it would be a second coming if he even twitched.”

“Leanne shot him too.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“I mean Wanda.”

“She didn’t either,” Gibbs said. “Can you imagine Leanne at the coroner’s hearing? Talking to news people after? Saying a colored girl who died a hundred and thirty-five years ago shot him? Did it ‘cause if I passed over now I’d have an awful time adjusting?”

“I like Leanne,” Kathy said, knowing what he was leading up to.

“Then don’t let her become an object of ridicule. You shot him twice. I shot him once. Okay? Can you live with that?”

“I suppose.”

“We’ll get our pictures in the paper and it won’t hurt either of us one bit.”

“I’m going to get fired for packing a gun.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll speak to Corrections.”

“I’m ready to leave anyway,” Kathy said. “I’m thinking of going into something else.”

“It’s time you did,” Gibbs said. “You know what you’d be good at? Law enforcement. I could work it for you, too. All the friends I have at the Sheriff’s Office? You’d be an investigator in no time. Listen, have supper with me this evening and we’ll talk it over. What do you say?”

Elmore Leonard has written thirty-four novels, including such bestsellers as Cuba Libre , Out of Sight , Riding the Rap , Pronto , Rum Punch , Get Shorty , and Glitz . Many of his books have been made into movies and he has written numerous screenplays. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.