Maximum Bob (8 page)

12

O
ne time Kathy said to her brothers, “You guys are lucky. You go after offenders you know are dirty, get a conviction and you have a sense of accomplishment, huh? You’ve done something. I think it’s like a game with you. High-risk but it pays off and it’s fun. You know what I do? Paperwork. I check up on people who wish I’d leave them alone and then I fill out forms. I don’t get anything out of it because I never finish. It’s always the same losers, one after another.”

The latest one, Dale Crowe Junior. She stopped by his house, didn’t see his pickup but knocked on the door. No answer, so she walked around the house looking in windows, hoping Dale hadn’t run off. Her brother Tony, with Metro-Dade, said, “You don’t like it, quit. Do what you want. You’re smart, for a girl. You think we have fun, apply to Palm Beach PD. That’d be pretty light duty, nothing you can’t handle up there.”

Her brother Ray, her buddy, said, “You know how to find people, you know how to talk to offenders. I think you’d make a good investigator. Why not?” Yeah, but have to drive a radio car first, do street work. Meet the same kinds of people she did now but on a different basis. Confront them armed. Perhaps some time or other have to use the gun.

She thought of it looking in Dale’s windows and right now wished she had the .38 snubnose Tony had given her. In case Elvin was home and got funny. Maybe asleep when she knocked on the door. But all she saw through the windows was trash, low-class living, discarded stuff, cans, longnecks, empty pizza cartons… She wished now Gary Hammond had come with her. Talk, get to know more about him.

Driving home she wondered where he lived. She was still in the apartment off West Atlantic in Delray Beach. No more Keith with his attitude and his sporty outfits she used to gather from the floor. Finding out about the blond nurse hadn’t bothered her as much as picking up after him. The blond nurse gave her a quick way out. She couldn’t imagine Gary Hammond leaving his clothes lying around, or the top off the toothpaste. But maybe she wouldn’t care if he did. Little things became irritations when you weren’t getting along. The last she had heard of the major irritation, Keith—excuse me, Dr. Baker—he had switched his specialty from psychiatry to anesthesiology. It was Ray who told her about it. He still didn’t trust Keith. She said, “I’ve almost forgotten him.”

Except now he was popping into her mind again when she thought about Gary Hammond, in a way comparing them. She had never caught Keith looking at her unless he wanted something. Looking just to look. In the shower she wondered what Gary Hammond saw when he looked at her with his nice eyes. The phone rang as she was getting out.

“This is Bob Gibbs.”

Kathy stood at her desk in the living room, felt the towel slip and held it with an arm across her breasts. She said, “Yes, Judge,” as if he called her all the time.

“You get my message at work?”

“I wasn’t in this afternoon.”

“You were supposed to call me.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“How’s your boy Dale Crowe doing?”

“I’m going to stop by his house this evening.”

“Good. I want you to come by here after. I’m at home. Be a good chance for us to talk.”

“Judge?…”

“Mainly about my wife’s condition.”

“How is she?” Kathy said, stalling. It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask.

“You mean is she normal? Hell no, I told you that.”

“Is she home?”

That was the question. It got a moment of silence.

“I suppose you heard about the alligator business.”

“It was in the paper.”

“I know it was. I didn’t want Leanne to get mixed up in it, her mind the way it is. I sent her to Orlando for a few days, visit friends she has there. You have a pencil? I’ll give you directions.”

“Judge, I’m not the least bit qualified.”

“Hon, let me decide that, okay? You want to help me, don’t you?”

She wanted to say, Look, I’m not going to bed with you. You mind? So leave me alone. If she could say that… But then wondered, what if she could learn something? If they did talk about his wife… Something Gary didn’t know about. Maybe help him. Get to see him again…

“Judge, it might be late.”

“That’s okay, hon. Long as I know you’re coming.” Kathy put on jeans and a polo shirt, opened a can of beer and made herself a tunafish sandwich. Now she was
hon
. What was she supposed to call him, Big?

•          •          •

D
ale’s junkyard pickup was in front of the house when Kathy returned, almost six-thirty, starting to get dark. But it was Elvin in his cowboy hat and boots who opened the door.

“Well, look it who’s here. You come to check my wee-wee?”

“I want to talk to Dale.”

“Come on in.” She moved past him into the dim living room and Elvin called out, “Dale? Where are you, boy?” He paused, listening, and said, “I guess he ain’t home. I just got back myself from a business deal.”

Sounding like the judge. Both with that country-boy way of talking.

“You have a job?”

“One’s been offered me. A good’n too.”

“What kind of work?”

That got a smile.

“One that gives you peace a mind. Makes you feel good.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Playing with her. If he had a job he’d tell her.

“You know where Dale might be?”

“I ‘magine he’s in town hunting beaver. Get himself some of the real thing ‘fore he goes away.”

Kathy turned to leave. He reached out to take her arm and she pulled it away saying, “Don’t touch me, Elvin. You try it again you’re in trouble.”

That got another smile. Elvin holding his hands up, innocent. “I saved your butt the other night and you act like we’re strangers.” He moved past her, hands still raised. “Come on, sit down a minute. Remember I said I’d tell you about this dink I wanted to shoot?” Elvin eased his big frame into the sofa. “The time I got the wrong guy?”

Kathy said, “Will it take long?” Interested, but not wanting to show it.

“Lemme ask you one. How many people you take care of ever killed anybody?”

She came over to sit at the opposite end, not answering, on the edge of the sofa that smelled of mildew, aware of the stained walls, the bare light bulb in the lamp without a shade. It was behind Elvin’s cowboy hat as she looked at him, waiting.

“I’m the only one, huh? I’m your star you get for five years, if you make it. How long you been with Probation?”

“You want to tell me about someone you didn’t shoot or someone you did, or what?”

“Both,” Elvin said, smiling just a little. “You heard of my brother Roland?”

“Is he in prison?”

Elvin took his hat off saying, “He’s dead,” and put it back on. “Roland was working for the Eyetalians down in Miami when a woman shot him, said he broke into her house. See, the woman was married to an Eyetalian guy that died. Good-looking woman, wore sunglasses all the time, this hat with a big wide brim on it. Roland was taking care of her needs and this dink come along and edged his way in with her. On account of, see, she’s got all kinds of money. It was her pulled the trigger, yeah, but was this dink set it up. He
knew
it was Roland in the house and told the woman it was somebody broke in. ‘Cause he didn’t have the nerve to do it hisself. Understand?”

Kathy moved to get up. “I have to go.”

“I’ll cut it short, get to the good part where I find him tending bar and living in a two-bit motel on Dixie, up in Lake Park. That’s all Niggerville there now and wasn’t much better then. You know where I mean?”

She said, “Elvin, listen—”

He held up his hand. “I’m there now, wait. I’m watching him, I know it’s the guy. I’m deciding when to hit him when he takes off on me. I follow him, before I know it we’re out on the Turnpike heading north and I’m thinking, shit, I could end up touring the country after this boy. Well, he turns in at the first plaza, you know, the rest stop? There wasn’t hardly anybody there, it was late at night. I spot him going in the men’s room, so I take a minute to check this .38 revolver I got on me. Now there’s two doors to the men’s, so I go in the one he did that takes you in where the toilets are… Wait, I forgot to mention, there was a Greyhound bus pulling up as I come inside, so I know I don’t have more than a half a minute.”

Elvin squinted now, acting surprised, adjusting his hat.

“I look around, there’s nobody in the men’s. I’m thinking, What’s going on here? Till I notice, looking at the doors to the toilets, I see feet under one of ‘em. So I walk over and bang on his door, start yelling, ‘Come on out of there quick. The place is on fire.’ I hear him, this voice saying, ‘What? What?’ and then I hear the toilet flush.” Elvin grinning now. “Far as he knows the place is burning up and he’s in there flushing the toilet. I step back. Soon as the door starts to open I’m squeezing that trigger,
wham
,
wham
. See, I want him standing, but I want him to fall in there, not out in the open. I shot him four times in the heart.”

“Someone you never saw before,” Kathy said.

“Wait now. I didn’t see him good
then
was the trouble. I run out, here’s all these people coming off the bus. Five of ‘em ID’d me.”

“They caught you right away?”

“Still on the Turnpike. Florida Highway Patrol ran me down. They take me in, want to know what I got against Ignacio Nieves. I said, ‘Who’s Ignacio Nieves?’ Anyway that was the guy’s name. The only thing I can figure,” Elvin said, “this dink knew I was on him. I follow him in that one men’s room door to the toilets and he come out the other side from the washroom, giving me the slip. Don’t matter killing the guy was an accident. I pled to second-degree, best deal I could make with a semi-smoking gun and this judge, the son of a bitch, gives me ten to twenty-five with probation. You like my story?”

“I’m not sure,” Kathy said, “why you told me.”

He looked surprised. “I want you to see I’m not some ordinary two-bit fuckup you got on your list.”

“What do you call shooting the wrong guy?”

“Anybody could’ve made that mistake. I’m talking about now. If we’re gonna be seeing each other the next five years…”

“Once a month,” Kathy said, getting up from the sofa. “We’re not going steady.”

Elvin was next to her by the time she reached the door. “Yeah, but there’s no reason we can’t get along.” He put his hand on the door as she started to open it.

“Touch me, Elvin, you’re back doing the twenty-five.”

“Listen, okay? I just want to mention, I had a girl write me when I was in the joint? One I never met in my life but seen my picture in the paper and read about me. She’d send these letters, say she knows in her heart I’m the kind of fella, all I need to straighten me out is some tender loving care.” Elvin grinned. “My cellmate sure liked to smell those letters. But what I was wondering, if that’s how little girl probation officers see us bad boys.”

“Yeah, what I do,” Kathy said, “is devote my life to making fuckups and losers happy. I’ll see you.” She pulled the door open and went out.

“You saying I’m a
loser
?” Sounding surprised to hear it. “Hey, there things I could tell you…”

“Next month, at the office.”

Going down the front steps to the walk she heard him say from the doorway, “How ‘bout tomorrow? You still need to see Dale, don’t you?”

•          •          •

H
e watched her drive off in her little Volkswagen. Ms. Touchy, that was a good name for her, asking did he have a job. He had felt like saying he was leaving for work directly and she’d read about it in the paper the next day or so. That would’ve been good. See her face after calling him a loser. Losers didn’t make ten thousand dollars for a night’s work.

The gun Dr. Tommy had given him was in the fridge, in a box a pizza had come in Elvin recalled as being piss-poor. The idea he had was to go up to the judge’s house with the pizza box, knock on the door… If there was cops around he’d say he must have the wrong address and do it another time.

Dr. Tommy’s boy Hector was a sketch coming out with the rifle first, this little pump-action .22. Elvin had looked at it and said, “Doc, I ain’t going after flamingos. I’m gonna shoot a full-size judge.”

Dr. Tommy thought he meant he wanted a heavier rifle. Well, let’s see, he had a Savage, a Remington, both thirty-ought-sixes.

Elvin said, “Doc, I ain’t gonna sit in a blind neither, waiting on a buck to come past. What I want is a gun I can stick in my pants and walk up to the man.” When Dr. Tommy looked like he had to think that one over, Elvin said, “I know a person like you, one time in the dope business, wouldn’t go to bed without a pistol in the drawer next to it. I bet chrome plate with a pearl grip.”

The one Hector brought out, once Dr. Tommy gave him the sign, was stainless but with a walnut grip, a Ruger Speed-Six .357. Not the gun he’d pick if he had a choice, but she’d do the job.

“Okay, and where’s my half down?”

This was where he ran into a wall.

“How do I know,” Dr. Tommy said, “you won’t take the five thousand and I never see you again?”

“‘Cause this is my kind of work,” Elvin said. “Why would I settle for half?”

Dr. Tommy’s offer was “Two grand when you tell me how you’re going to do it. The rest
if
you do it.”

Elvin didn’t like that
if
. He said, “I’m gonna knock on his door and shoot him when he opens it.”

“That’s your plan?”

“It’s how I do it.”

“I want to know when and where.”

“Tonight. How’s that? Out to his house.”

“Yes, but how do you know he’ll be home?”

Dr. Tommy dragging his feet. It got Elvin mad.

“You want this done or not?”

“I want to be sure.”

“So do I,” Elvin said. “What I’ll do is shoot him and you pay up after, the whole thing, or I shoot you too. How’s that sound?”

The doctor gave him a shrug. “You kill him and I read it in the paper, we have no problem.”

Nothing to it, since he wasn’t doing a goddamn thing. Elvin hated a person talking to him like that. Little booger sitting there on his patio… If he had ten thousand cash to pay out he’d have more where it came from, in the house. Something to look into after.