15
S
omething about when he was in the judge’s house bothered Elvin, sipping bourbon at the Polo Lounge as he retraced each step of the way in and out. The hell was it? Taking a big sip as he remembered,
Jesus
, the pizza box, and started coughing.
Now something else was bothering him. A little girl with curly blond hair and big seashell earrings next to him at the bar saying, “What’s wrong, sugar?” and patting him on the back. Elvin recovered, took another sip and it went down okay. But now the curly-haired girl was saying, “I haven’t seen you before. You with TAC, working undercover? I love your getup.” Elvin looked at her with the pizza box on his mind and told her to hit the road. She said, “Well, pardon me all to hell,” and slid off the stool.
Two more Jim Beams and the pizza box was nothing to worry about. Only a matter of seeing how others would look at it, cops going in the kitchen, what would they see? An empty pizza box sitting on the counter was all. If the shooter was outside he couldn’t have put it there. By now one of the cops had most likely thrown it in the trash. That out of the way, Elvin wished the cops luck in getting the son of a bitch who’d done the shooting.
Under its other name this place had been popular with cops and Elvin, looking around, believed still was. Cops and guys throwing darts at three boards out in the front part of the room where you came in. The cops were the ones in the suits and ties, dinks from the Sheriff’s Office that wasn’t too far from here. It made Elvin think of his brother Roland’s suits he’d stored in a trunk with mothballs. Maybe he ought to get them out. There were girls liked you looking spiffy and ones that went for the mean and dirty style of dress. Like the little curly-haired blonde or she wouldn’t have come over when he started coughing before.
Elvin had a view of the whole place from where he sat at the back end of the oblong bar, stools on all four sides, a barmaid in the middle, a friendly woman who poured a good drink. It was kind of dark in here. He could see the curly-haired girl though, no trouble, down at the other end with her girlfriend. Elvin waited for her to look this way. When she did, he touched the brim of his hat. That was all it took. Here she came.
“I had something on my mind there before was giving me a hard time.”
“Your job,” the girl said, working her butt up onto the stool. “I understand, sugar, and know what you mean. You married?”
“I was, you might say, the same as married for ten years. Actually to different ones, but I’m free as a bird now.”
“You work undercover, huh?”
Elvin gave her his dirty grin. “I’ll work under your covers anytime you say.”
“Hey, whoa. You might start a little slower if you don’t mind. Since I don’t even know your name.”
“Yeah, but I’m hot to go. I haven’t had none in so long I’m like a young virgin.”
“You are
weird
. You just got done telling me you were like married. What
is
your problem?”
“I been away.”
She said, “Uh-oh. You mean you were in jail?”
“Jail, shit, the big time. Honey I was up at Starke.” He got her by the arm before she could swivel off the stool and hunched in close, his hat brim touching her curly head, his eyes on her great big ones, saying, “How’d you like a convict hasn’t done it face-to-face in ten years? Huh, does it sound good to you?” He let go of her arm before she screamed or had a fit and that girl was
gone
, back to tell the other one her experience. Copfucker’s all she was. That kind, they only went for the mean and dirty look if they knew it was fake.
Maybe her girlfriend was different. Elvin tipped his hat down on his eyes and kept staring, waiting for her to look over, this one kind of red-haired, a mess of it piled on her head. Just then he heard loud voices from out where the guys were throwing darts, some yelling like one of them must’ve hit the bull’s-eye.
Elvin sat up to look, that part of the room lit brighter than in here by the bar. He saw the dart throwers and the heads of people sitting at a few tables out there. He saw a dark-haired girl that looked like… Jesus, it didn’t look like her, it
was
. It was the little probation officer sitting with a guy wearing a suit, another one of them, except he didn’t look like a cop, he looked like a dink state attorney.
The two of them at one end of a round table talking, looking at each other, not paying any attention to the dart throwers still hollering. Ms. Touchy sat back now and seemed to be laughing at something the dink said. Out having fun after getting shot at. It was the first time Elvin had seen her laugh. He had an urge to go over there and say to her, Well, hey, how you doing? You had a close one there, didn’t you? See her face. Not say another word, walk away… And spend the night in jail, deputies asking what was he doing there, delivering pizza? How come the best things you thought of to say, you couldn’t?
Shit, he’d better not even be seen here. Use that side door before she spotted him.
• • •
S
he said to Gary, “I’m going to tell you what I think. You don’t have to agree with me, but if you look down your nose I’m leaving. Okay?”
“What’s that mean, look down my nose?”
“Cop that typical attitude, I’m only a probation officer. What do I know?”
“Is this some kind of test?”
“In a way, yeah.”
“Have I said anything to give you the impression—”
“Just listen, okay?”
They had been talking about the judge’s wife, Kathy learning things that seemed to back up what she believed and she was anxious to tell him. The guys throwing darts were a distraction at first and she would glance over, but not now.
“I don’t think anyone’s trying to kill the judge.”
“Even if he deserves it?”
“Look, he wants his wife to leave him and she did. He said to you, ‘An alligator walked in and my wife walked out.’ Right? He didn’t send her to Orlando to stay with friends, she walked out.”
“She still could’ve gone to Orlando.”
“Where she went is beside the point. She sees an alligator and that’s it, she takes off. Because when she was a mermaid, which the judge never mentioned to me, she was frightened by an alligator and almost drowned. Now the former mermaid is communicating with a former slave girl named Wanda Grace. The judge wants her to leave because she’s driving him nuts, talking in this little-girl voice, or, so he can be free to fool around, or both. You see what I’m getting at?”
“All I know is she walked out on him.”
“Because of the alligator.”
“Okay.”
“And you believe someone brought it. You’re convinced.”
“For the judge.”
“How do you know it wasn’t for his wife?”
“There’s no reason to think it was.”
“That you know of. Ask Leanne what she thinks.”
“Nobody shot at Leanne.”
“Nobody shot at anybody. Some guy broke a window, with a .22. Is that what you use you want to kill somebody? Lou Falco said the same thing about the alligator. There are better ways to do it.” Kathy sipped her beer, letting him think about it.
“There’s no apparent connection, though, between the alligator and the shooter.”
“Your boss believes there is.”
“Yeah, and if he’s wrong who’s gonna call him on it? You know what you’re saying? Or what I think you are…”
Kathy said, “Yeah, the judge had the alligator delivered knowing it would scare the shit out of Leanne. And it did, it worked.”
“What about the shooter? What’s he got to do with it?”
“I don’t know. Ask him.”
She watched Gary raise his beer and then pause.
“There’s no way I could question Gibbs about it. A
judge
pulling a stunt like that? I can’t see it.”
Kathy could, but didn’t say anything.
“He reminds me of a guy in the movies,” Gary said. “You know Harry Dean Stanton?”
It caught her by surprise—just as the dart throwers started to make noise, yelling and cheering at something one of them had done. Gary glanced over. Kathy didn’t, she sat back in her chair and then couldn’t help but laugh, because it was true and she wondered why she hadn’t realized it before.
“You’re right, he looks just like him.”
Gary said, “You know who I mean?”
“Harry Dean Stanton. How many are there?”
“You like him?”
“I love him. I think he’s great.”
“Gibbs has the same kind of, sort of a farmer look.”
“Exactly. The hair, everything.”
“I don’t think you look like Kathy Baker though.”
Zinging her again. Kathy started to smile, but then wasn’t sure. “You mean the one in the movies.”
“Kathy Baker. How many are there?” Giving it back to her. “You see
Clean and Sober
with her and Michael Keaton, they both play junkies?”
Kathy was nodding—this cop in the blue suit coming off even better than expected. “Yeah, I loved it, because I
know
those people, I have them in my caseload.” She moved her glass aside and leaned on the table looking at Gary, trusting him, a cop she could talk to. She said, “I’m going to tell you something else…”
And described the face or whatever it was in the kitchen window. Now he did sound a little more like a cop saying yeah, she might’ve seen someone. It’s possible there were two of them. Then ruled that out. If there were, he would have waited to finish the job. Kathy said what job? To break the window? He backed off saying well, if she wasn’t that certain to begin with, and since there’s no way to confirm whether she actually did see anyone or not… “I can’t say it was someone’s face,” Kathy said, “but that’s the way I think of it. I know it was there, because then it wasn’t.” That made sense to him, or seemed to. He nodded thinking about it before ordering a couple more beers.
Kathy said, “There was a guy down at the far end of the bar…”
Gary looked over.
“I didn’t get a good look at him. He’s gone now.”
“What about him?”
Kathy hesitated. “I better not tell you anything unless I’m sure.”
• • •
E
lvin located her Volkswagen, then moved the pickup to where he could sit and watch it without straining himself. The Polo Lounge was in a semi-mall of stores, all closed now except the bar.
What he was thinking, it might be good to learn where Ms. Touchy lived. If she visited the judge, walked around in the dark with him, maybe the judge visited her too. He’d no doubt have cops with him now wherever he went, guys in suits, and it would be harder to get to him. If he was to slip off to visit Ms. Touchy that might be the place to be waiting. Or work some way of using Ms. Touchy as bait. Like get her to call the judge, ask him over…
There was the curly-haired blond girl and her friend coming out, talking away—no doubt about her experience still—going to their cars now. He felt like honking the horn at her. Get Ms. Curlyhead over here and throw her in the back. Here he was again getting an urge and having to let it pass. In prison you couldn’t do whatever you wanted. Out in the civilian world, though, he’d always felt you could.
Watching the curly-haired girl he missed seeing Ms. Touchy come out. She was almost to her car, walking along with the guy in the suit, before Elvin noticed her. Now they were standing by her VW talking. Didn’t finish talking inside they had to talk some more out here. Elvin said, “Come on, God damn it, let’s go.” Gets shot at and stops at the bar with her boyfriend, the guy touching her arm. Elvin thinking, Kiss her good night or I will. Now she was touching
his
arm, still talking. Elvin waited for them to hug and kiss, but it didn’t happen. Ms. Touchy went and got in her car, the dink waiting there now so Elvin had to wait, not wanting to start the pickup and have the guy look over. Now her rear lights came on red and the guy stepped aside and waved and, shit, stood there watching her drive off. She was heading out the lot onto Military Trail before the dink finally turned and walked off and Elvin was able to get after her.
He had her now and would keep her taillights in sight all the way home.
16
O
ne time when Inez Campau’s dog Buddy was running loose and neighbors complained it was biting their children, Inez was told to bring the dog to the shelter. She brought her sister’s dog instead, a whiteish pit bull that was from the same litter and looked almost identical to Buddy. The sister, Mavis, was married to Dale Crowe Senior. When Mavis found out her dog had been put down in place of Buddy, she called the Belle Glade sheriff’s station. That not only took care of Buddy it got Inez charged with stealing her dog and fined fifty dollars.
So Inez couldn’t believe it when Mavis came to ask a favor. If Dale Junior could stay with her and Dicky awhile. Deputies were looking for him, wanting to charge him with trying to kill Judge Gibbs.
Inez kept her mouth shut and listened.
Mavis said it tore her up they’d think Dale Junior would do something like that. He was already supposed to go to prison, but now was thinking of going to California instead and maybe after while they’d forget about him.
Inez sighed, a wheeze of sympathy coming out of her sturdy two-hundred-pound frame in housedress and dirty apron.
Mavis said that having Dale Senior home didn’t help none. Oh, but he could tear up the house when he got mad, ‘specially when his stump bothered him, as it was doing now. Mavis said the only way to protect herself and all their dishes was to hide his artificial leg on him. His face would get red as fire when he tried to yell and carry on but wasn’t able to, his jaw wired from when he’d had it broken in Clewiston.
Inez kept her own mouth shut, having no sympathy for Dale Senior and knowing it wasn’t Dale Junior had tried to shoot the judge.
What she finally said was “Where’s your boy at now?”
“In Pahokee, at his sister Clarissa’s. They been checking on her two days now. Clarissa expects they’ll be back any time with a search warrant. So I got to thinking, they won’t ever look at your house, knowing me and you don’t get along.”
They never had. Not since years ago Dicky had hung out with Dale Senior, drinking on the ditch bank by day, going out in the lake by night in a Gillis boat to pick up bales of marijuana dropped to them from airplanes. Dicky had done jail time and Inez had blamed Mavis ‘cause she couldn’t blame Dale Senior to his face. He’d get drunk and bust her dentures.
The next question, “When’s your boy have to go to prison?”
“Not till Monday.”
“I’ll keep him the weekend’s all. I won’t hide a fugitive.”
“He’ll be gone by then,” Mavis told her, “either to prison or California. But you have to go get him. That darn Elvin’s using his truck.”
Inez watched her stringbean sister cross through the hedge grown wild to Dale Senior’s pickup in the street. Couldn’t walk the few blocks from their place. Always tired from having a mean one-legged man in the house. Inez closed the door, walked through the musty front room dark with its shades drawn to the smell of fish in the kitchen, bluegill crackling in the iron skillet, burning up. She’d told Dicky to keep an eye on it while she went to the door. He was at the kitchen table, still hiding behind the newspaper he’d been reading all morning.
SHOTS FIRED AT JUDGE’S HOME
The first time he read it Dicky said well, they didn’t know who done it, that was good. She told him if they did he’d be in the county jail having catfish for dinner, wouldn’t he?
This noon it looked like they’d have blackened blue-gill. Add cayenne pepper and Tabasco and serve it Cajun style.
Dicky didn’t say a word about it till the story appeared in the paper, on the front page of the
Post
with Judge Gibbs’s picture, the same one they used with the alligator story Inez cut out and stuck inside the Bible. When Dicky got home the night before last, drunk and slurring his words, he told her someone was visiting the judge when he got there, so he wasn’t able to see him and make a deal. Yesterday, Dicky had stayed around the house all day hung over, sickly. This morning when the paper arrived and he looked at it, the first thing he said was, “Uh-oh.”
So Inez took the paper from him, read the story and said, “Did you think if you shot him you wouldn’t have to pay the fine?”
Dicky said what happened, Gibbs had a girl there with him. So he pulled back to wait till the judge was alone.
“You were drinking,” Inez said.
He’d stopped for a couple on the way, yeah. Think about what he was going to say to Gibbs. Get the words straight in his head.
She had told him exactly what he was to say.
I’d like to borrow five hundred dollars, Judge
, looking him in the eye. And if the judge pretended not to get it, tell him,
Or else it could be learned you ordered a gator delivered
. That was the part Dicky had trouble with.
“You stopped for a couple and picked up a fifth.”
He said a pint was all.
“You got drunk sitting in the woods feeling sorry for yourself,” Inez said, “went and got your rifle and took some shots at the judge, thinking it would solve your problem.”
Dicky said the judge was out in the yard with a flashlight, flashing it around, and at first he thought the judge was looking for him. But what he was doing, he was showing this girl his flowers.
“In the dark?”
Dicky said he never shot at the judge, he shot at a window where a light was on inside. He believed the kitchen.
Inez asked him why.
Dicky said to show him.
“Show him what, Dicky?”
That it wasn’t fair the way he didn’t keep his word.
“How’s he suppose to know,” Inez said, “that’s what shooting at his kitchen meant?”
It was to show what could happen you back out of a deal.
“Oh.”
“Don’t you understand? I had to do something.”
Inez said, “You poor soul, you still owe the court five hundred dollars and now you got more problems’n before.”
Dicky said he didn’t see how he could be in any deeper shit’n he was already in. Inez stuck his engineer’s cap on his head and told him to go on up to Pahokee and get Dale Junior, their weekend houseguest. It gave her time to think, see if there was a way to get clear of this mess.
What bothered her most was the newspaper bringing up the alligator again, mentioning it in the same story with shots being fired, investigators looking to find a connection. Also their mention of security measures being taken to protect the judge. It would make it hard now to talk to him directly about a deal.
What Inez did like was the mention they already had suspects. The paper didn’t give names, but if deputies were looking for Dale Junior then he had to be one. And if he was going to be staying here the weekend… What if Dale Junior could be traded for getting Dicky’s fine taken off the books? Was that possible?
It wouldn’t hurt to phone the judge and ask.
By the time Dicky walked in with Dale Junior, the boy showing his family trait, that sullen, mean expression, Inez was dishing up. She said, “You’re just in time, sweetie.” Wasn’t that the truth? “I have your dinner all ready.”
• • •
G
ary found Kathy Baker with four other young ladies around a conference table at the Omar Road office, one of them handing out case folders. Gary said, “Is this where you apply for a job?”
They all perked up, looking him over. Kathy said, “He can take Roger’s place.” The guy, she had told him on the phone, who’d quit all of a sudden and they had to come in today to divvy up his cases.
He asked if he should wait in the lobby. She said, “You can sit over there if you want,” and then zipped through an introduction. “Michelle, Karen, Paige, Terri, this is Gary. He looks like he sells insurance, but he’s really a cop.” Sassy with a grin in front of her co-workers. They said, “Hi, Gary,” giving him different kinds of flirty looks, these nice young girls in shorts and jeans who dealt with criminal offenders. He knew that eight out of ten probation officers in Palm Beach County were women; what surprised him, not one of them here could be over thirty.
Michelle seemed to be in charge, the one passing out case folders before she sat down. Blond hair tied back, perfect posture, back arched in a way that accentuated her compact little can. Kathy had a nice one too. Both girls were right up there. If Michelle was an eight, Kathy, with those smart brown eyes, was an eight and a half.
Gary took a seat out of the way. It was strange, to hear these young girls talking about bad guys.
“Oh, God, I used to have this one. He’d call every day, ask if I needed a car radio, a new TV…”
“He was lonely.”
“He was a jerk, but I liked him.”
“We’ve got a bunch under Community Control,” Michelle said. “Twenty house arrest and six on the anklet. One’s a rich doctor with three cars he can’t drive.”
“What’d he do?”
“Drugs. Two years probation.”
“They’ll go to AA just to get out of the house.”
“Listen, they’ll even go to church. I had one.”
“Nah, all they do is hang out. I go in there to check up on some guy, they think I’m a druggie. ‘Yo, babe. Sit here with me.’”
“I know. They come up and give you hugs. Hugging’s big. All that feely touchy stuff.”
“Here’s another one I had. Real skanky-looking guy, who wants him? He had a dirty urine twice in a row so I violated him.”
“The last guy I violated, he drove here to report in a stolen car. Took it from this tire shop where he works? His boss called to tell me. The guy’s sitting there nodding, all rocked out, while I go get a warrant signed. Then have to drive out to the Sheriff’s Office to get it put in the system. I come back, call West Palm PD and West Palm goes, ‘Is it in the system?’ I go, ‘Yeah, and the guy’s right here, sleeping on my desk.’”
“I know guys who’d rather do time than Community Control, sit at home all night.”
“Well, you can understand that. A year and a day of DOC time you do, what, ninety days maybe? A year on Community Control you do the whole bit, no time off.”
“I catch this guy leaving his house after curfew? He goes, ‘Oh, my phone ain’t working. I was jes’ going someplace to call you.’ Like a bar.”
“Or, you want a problem, they’re under house arrest and get evicted for not paying their rent.”
Michelle said, “We’ve got a doctor, a lawyer… We’ve got a woman and it’s not drugs.”
“No thanks, they’re too fucking devious.”
“Fraud, bank and credit card. She lives in Palm Beach.”
“The guy with the two dirty urines? He told the judge I was hounding him. I wanted to say, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’”
Kathy said, looking at him, “Gary wanted to bust me one time in Riviera Beach. He thought I was a rockhead.”
• • •
I
n the car, the unmarked Dodge, he said to Kathy, “You look more like a Rockette. You know it?”
“One of the first times I made a house call in a black ghetto at night,” Kathy said, “I walked up to the door—it was open and I heard a voice inside say, ‘It’s the Man.’ I weigh a hundred and five, but that’s who I am, the Man.”
“I can’t imagine any of you dealing with offenders, all you nice girls,” Gary said. “What did they say about the other night, your being at the judge’s?”
“I didn’t tell them.”
That surprised him. “Why not?”
“My name won’t be in the paper, so why mention it?” She said, “Have you ever shot anyone?”
He turned his head to look at her. “No.”
Wearing his sharp navy-blue suit again, or maybe a different one, white shirt and striped rep tie. All dressed up and she was in her jeans. “You ever have trouble making a collar, putting the cuffs on?”
He looked at her again. “Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“They usually cooperate.”
“Hold their hands out? Here, please.”
“Behind the back.”
“Gibbs said house arrest, wearing the anklet, is like being married.” She waited for Gary to comment, but he didn’t say a word, busy driving.
Last night she told him about her fourteen months with Keith—pardon me—Dr. Baker. Some of it. Gary said he went with a girl three years, they set a date to get married and a month before the wedding she changed her mind and went back to Chicago. He said the funny thing was, he felt relief. So then he wondered, what if he had married her? “You know what I mean? How can you be sure?” This was out in the parking lot. Kathy said, “Don’t ask me.” She could tell it was something he thought about. He said, “Would you get married again?” She said, “Of course. It’s what you do when you’re grown up. But that’s the tricky part.” He said, “What is?” She said, “Knowing when you’re grown up. You’re not doing it to play house and get laid whenever you want.”
She could talk to him now and feel at ease, say whatever she wanted. The breakthrough was Gary liking Harry Dean Stanton and the other Kathy Baker, those two among all the people in movies. She believed it saved them months of finding out about each other. That one thing.
She thought about it now and said, “Who does Elvin look like, in the movies?”
That’s where they were going now, to see Elvin. Gary had called the office and asked her to come along and they’d have dinner after.
He said, “I haven’t seen Elvin in ten years,” smiling a little as he looked at her. “I’ll let you know.”
She could tell by the look he felt something too, catching him looking different times last night. The trouble right now, she couldn’t think of a movie actor Elvin resembled even a little. Though if Gary mentioned one after seeing Elvin again it might be worth saying yeah, that’s the one I was thinking of. It would be okay to cheat. Or she might actually see the movie actor in Elvin.
She said, “I hope Dale’s home.”
“He wasn’t this morning,” Gary said. “Two of my guys stopped by to check. Elvin slammed the door in their face.”
“He still could’ve been there, inside.”
“You’re right. There could be a .22 rifle in there, too.”
“So get a warrant.”
“I’d rather not barge in. At this point do anything to get Elvin upset. You know, hard to manage.” Gary was quiet for several moments, passing cars in the freeway traffic. “I was thinking you might do it if I can’t.”