"Maximum Bob" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leonard Elmore)

13

Bob Gibbs was outside waiting for her, standing in the beam of a spotlight mounted on the house. He motioned her to nose in toward the open garage and stop right there in the drive, behind the blue Ford pickup that had a cap with windows mounted on the bed.

“You have any trouble finding the place?”

“Not a bit,” Kathy said. She almost told Gibbs, helping her out of the car, to take his hands off her. A reflex, or not seeing that much difference between this judge and a criminal offender.

He brought her into the kitchen through the garage, told her to make herself at home while he fixed her a Jim Beam and water, not asking if she wanted one, and freshened his own. Both of their glasses were enclosed in orangey red holders-to keep the drinks cold or your hand dry-the word Gators printed on them. “In honor of the University of Florida football team,” Gibbs said, “not that visitation the other night.” He took Kathy out to the porch to show where the alligator had entered, the screen back in place but torn and sprung, held down with a length of two-by-four. “Smashed the glass door; I had it replaced, but I’m still waiting on the screen man. Look in there at the sofa how it’s all chewed up.”

“Your wife saw the alligator?”

“She pretty near stepped on it.”

“No wonder it scared her. She went up to Orlando, uh?”

“For a while. Come on outside.” He picked up a flashlight from the metal table.

They went out to a yard full of dark shapes, the judge stopping to sniff the air. “You smell it? Night-blooming jasmine.” Kathy sniffed, looking at Australian pines, a scraggly mahogany tree against the sky.

“You like tropical plants and flowers?”

“When I can see them.”

“Look it here.” The judge flashed his light over foliage, vines, identifying bird’s-nest fern, staghorn, Vanda orchids. “See the bloom spikes?” Here, a white Cattleya with a yellow throat. The lavender orchid was Dendrobium. He had orchids climbing trees and hanging from moss pots. “I deal with ugliness all day long and come home to beauty.”

Why was he telling her this? Or why had Elvin told her about killing a man? The judge and the ex-convict both trying to impress her. The judge showing what a sensitive guy he really was.

“Your wife work in the garden?”

“She plays with rocks.”

“She does? What kind of rocks?”

“Quartz crystals. She buries them in the dirt to clean them, restore their-whatever magic they’re suppose to have. This is called African Shield. My wife thinks those two petticoat palms were once women who were turned into trees. See what I mean? Look up there. Bougainvillea growing out of that cabbage palm.”

“Where do you think it came from? The alligator.”

“Canal over there, the other side of the house. Here, take this in your hand, crush it up good and smell it. Wild bayleaf.”

“What if someone brought the alligator?”

“As a joke? That’s a lot of trouble to go to.”

“I was thinking,” Kathy said, “more as a threat to your life.”

Bob Gibbs said, “Why?” and sounded surprised. “Because I hand out tough sentences? I never exceed the guidelines, I can’t. My rulings are fair, my convictions are appealed and sometimes reversed, but not too often. Look it up.”

Kathy said, “Yeah, but if some guy doesn’t see it as fair… There’re some crazy people in the world.” Thinking of Elvin again. “Or sociopaths, with no respect for human life…”

“You’re not kidding, honey, and there’s plenty of them. This is the vanilla orchid, the only one I know of with food value.”

Elvin came out of the dark with his pizza box into the spotlight shine looking at the Volkswagen parked there by the open garage. She was here, no doubt about it, and that was too bad. Ms. Touchy, she was a salty little thing for being as cute as she was. Spoke right up to you. He reached the front door thinking if she was in the toilet or someplace away from the judge he could do the job and she might never see him. Man, but it would have to be her birthday to get that lucky. He rang the doorbell. If she saw him he wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. He rang it again. Get right down to it, there was no way he could take a chance on her not seeing him, even if he didn’t see her when he shot the judge. No, he’d have to find her. Tell her, well, it’s too bad, but you shouldn’t have been here. He pressed the doorbell again, held it and could hear it buzzing inside the house. He let go and tried the door. It was locked. He walked along the house looking in windows at dark bedrooms till he came to the attached garage, saw a door in there, stepped in and tried it. The door opened in his hand. Now he had to quick put the pizza box under his arm and pull the Speed-Six revolver from his belt, underneath his shirt hanging out, before stepping inside.

The ceiling light was on in the kitchen. Elvin stood listening for sounds, voices, till he noticed the bottle of Jim Beam there by the sink. He stepped over to it, laid the pizza box on the counter and had himself a taste of the bourbon. Mmmmm, for pleasure only, not the least nervous. Okay, they weren’t in the bedrooms he’d looked in the windows at. They weren’t in the dining area, dark in there. A lamp was on in the living room, but it was about all Elvin could see from the kitchen. He held the Speed-Six in front of him moving from bright light to dark to soft light in the living room, nobody here either. But, hey, the glass door to the porch was slid open and a lamp was on out there. He saw a round metal table, some chairs. He saw where the screen was ripped and pushed in and felt himself jump as a beam of light came on outside and flashed around in the trees. That’s where they were, out in the yard. He saw the light beam move and touch the little girl, saw her face white in the dark… He’d been looking to have some fun with her, but that was not going to work out. The judge had the flashlight. The hell was he showing her? Elvin watched for a minute. It made sense to wait for them to come inside, be able to see them good. He might even have time, sure, for another taste of that Jim Beam.

The judge showed her a plant called monstera deliciosa saying, “It looks like a big green weenie, huh? It turns ripe you can eat it.” This guy was too much. She was pretty sure he winked at her in the dark.

They walked back toward the house, the judge holding on to her arm now above the elbow, fingering her bare skin, telling how he liked to go down around Immokalee in the Everglades every once in a while, wade in the swamp with an onion sack and a hunting knife looking for wild orchids. Plenty of them down there. He asked if she liked to camp out, but didn’t wait for an answer. He said she ought to go with him sometime, it was an experience. You could not get closer to nature than in the Everglades.

Kathy said she didn’t care too much for snakes.

Or alligators. She wanted to get back to the alligator on the porch, ask if it might have been meant for his wife. Find out if she was coming back or not.

They were near the house, walking past the kitchen toward the screened porch. The judge said he had two prize orchids in there he wanted to show her. He’d freshen their drinks and they’d sit down, get comfortable… the judge speaking when the pane of glass in the kitchen window shattered with the hard sound of a gunshot. Kathy turned toward the window, saw the light on inside, white cupboards, saw… something else as the second pane shattered and again heard that hard crack of sound out in the dark she knew was rifle fire. She dropped to the ground dragging the judge with her as another pane shattered and another and heard a final gunshot without glass breaking, the report echoing, coming from somewhere in the back part of the yard.

Neither of them moved lying face-to-face in coarse grass, one of his legs over hers, Kathy listening. There were no sounds now, not even insects. She tried to concentrate and picture exactly what she saw in the window as the second pane of glass exploded: a glimpse of movement that could have been a man, there for part of a moment and gone.

She heard the judge say, “Jesus Christ,” in a whisper and saw the stunned expression in his eyes. “Somebody’s trying to kill me.”

What Elvin did was lose his concentration for a minute sipping the Jim Beam, comparing it to what he used to drink at Starke, the shine they called “buck” and wasn’t any stronger than wine, about fourteen percent, tasted awful but did the job. That recalled the smells and noise living in a cellblock, the same dirty walls in your face all the time, and he stepped to the kitchen window not thinking till he saw them outside, right there, through his own reflection and the glass broke, Jesus, as he looked at it, woke up and ducked aside as the glass kept breaking, glass flying, Jesus, somebody shooting at him!

Elvin left the way he had come, ran down the gravel drive crunching under his boots to Dale’s pickup and drove out of there, none of it making sense till he was back on familiar ground, on Southern Boulevard heading east and had time to think.

To realize, no, it couldn’t have been the judge shooting, it was somebody else back in the yard shooting at the judge, not him. And thought of what he’d said to Dr. Tommy about having to get in line. Like a Canal Point turkey shoot, load up and wait your turn.

And if all the shots did was hit the window, then the judge was still game. That was a relief.

Coming to Military Trail, Elvin saw the lights of the Polo Lounge off to the left. Last time he was in there it was called Flounders. He bet though they’d still pour you a Jim Beam if you asked.