Maximum Bob

28

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.

“That was too bad what happened to your boyfriend. I wonder who done it.”

Her bag was on the seat next to her, the snap open. He’d had no reason to search her, knowing probation officers were unarmed. Ordinarily.

“I said I wonder who done it.”

She thought, Why antagonize him? Stared at the road thinking, Why not? And said, “I’m surprised you didn’t shoot him in the back.”

That was done.

She glanced at the mirror to see him moving, getting comfortable, fooling with his hat. It didn’t antagonize him. It made him happy that she knew.

“Why you think it was me?”

That was it. No more.

“‘Cause you know I have the nerve?”

She kept quiet. It was hard.

“I ain’t saying it was me, you understand. You can think what you want. The thing I can’t figure is what you saw in that dink. A hair puller? Shit, you can do better’n that.” He waited a few moments. “Don’t care to talk about it?”

She stared straight ahead, eyes on the road: light traffic in this direction, most of it coming in toward West Palm.

“You’re prob’ly thinking I done Hector too.”

She almost looked at the mirror to ask him why. But that was what he wanted.

“Me and Hector went swimming last night. I ain’t seen him since.”

They passed the Polo Lounge off to the right.

“I could use a cold one, but I don’t expect they’re open this early. I get cranky I don’t have my beer in the morning. Maybe the judge’ll have one for me. I know he drinks Beam, I saw it there. You happen to know he keeps beer in the house?”

He was telling her, whether he knew it or not, he had been there. For whatever that was worth.

“I wish you’d talk to me.” They passed beneath the Florida Turnpike and he said, “Man, that road brings back memories. Go left at the next light. Case you forgot how to get there.”

Kathy made the turn before looking at the mirror again. She said, “How’re you going to get back?”

He didn’t answer right away. They were on the road through woods now, thick vegetation on both sides. She kept looking at his face in the mirror, his eyes, his hand fooling with the hat brim. He said, “You’re gonna drive me, aren’t you?”

Because he couldn’t say he was going to kill her. She felt it looking at him. But he would have to. He wasn’t going to leave a witness. Anyone who was there… She knew this from the beginning, from the moment he told her where they were going, but there was nothing she could do about it until maybe now, getting close to the house and thinking, He’s going to kill you. Concentrating on that fact alone. He’s going to kill both of you. She stared at the road again, empty, the way it was the other day, and thought, He’s going to kill all three of you.

Remembering the judge’s wife was home.

Elvin said, “Turn left and then left again.”

She needed time. Five seconds to reach in her bag and get turned around before he could grab her or pull his gun. He hadn’t shown a gun yet but would have one, it was what he used.

She made the turns, saw the canal extending along the left side of the road and it was in her mind to aim for it, grab her bag, dive out of the car… But it was too close, there wouldn’t be time. So she took the other way-mashed the accelerator and swerved away from the bank to bounce over a ditch, Elvin yelling “Jesus Christ!” as the VW plowed through scrub to scrape past trees and nose to a stop in thick brush. Before she could touch her bag Elvin’s hand was in her hair, yanking her head back hard against the seat. He hunched in close to say, “Hon, on second thought, I don’t think you’ll be driving me back.”

One thing about Leanne he always liked was how she called him Big. “Now we’ll go outside, Big, and I’ll show you how to draw energy from nature. But you have to be barefoot.” Well, naturally. So he took his shoes off and she brought him out to one of the petticoat palms where she told him to stand facing away from it, but close enough to reach back and touch it gently with his hands. She said, “You’re giving to the tree, Big, and it’s giving to you.” He tried it. She said, “Now don’t you feel better?” What he felt was stupid, but went along, telling her, yeah, he did, he felt his bodily juices flowing. She told him to swap energies with some of the other trees while she went in to change out of her leotards, her cleaning outfit, and put breakfast on.

He was doing a laurel oak now thinking how she smelled pretty nice; had baby powder on. Before, when she was scraping psychic dirt off the front of him, he felt himself getting a hard-on. She felt it too and looked at him in a way he hadn’t seen since she wore a lamé tail and smiled underwater. It was funny, he’d always meant to ask how you did that, smiled without taking in water, but never had. He wondered if he ought to slip in there now while she was changing and ask her. Take his clothes off, too, tell her he was full of sap from swapping energies with trees and would like to prove it to her.

He walked out of shade into sunlight and stopped.

Elvin had her by the arm coming around from the other side of the house. As soon as he saw the judge he let go and Kathy moved away from him, working her hand into the bag hanging from her shoulder. It was old leather, soft, in shades of brown. She felt her wallet and wanted to take it out, put it in her pocket. Elvin and the judge were staring at each other. Now the judge was looking this way.

He said to her, “What’s going on?”

Kathy wasn’t sure how to tell him. Now Elvin glanced at her and motioned with his hand.

“Get over there with him.”

She started to but stopped when Elvin looked at the judge again. Now she edged away, not knowing what kind of gun Elvin had and wanting some distance between them. Thirty feet would be about right-if she could get her hand on the.38 wedged down in the bag. She felt her ID case and a pack of gum.

Elvin said to her, “Where you going?” Then looked away as the judge spoke to him.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“When you sentenced me to ten years,” Elvin said, and gave his name.

“I know who you are,” Gibbs said. “I want you out of here. If you’re in trouble, get a lawyer.”

Elvin said, “I’m not in trouble, Judge, you are,” and brought the gun out of his coat pocket.

A Walther, Kathy was pretty sure, but couldn’t tell what caliber. Not that it mattered, as close as he was. Twenty feet from the judge, less than that from her. She brought her wallet out of the bag, dropped it on the ground and felt inside the bag again. This time her fingers touched the checkered grip of the.38. She got her hand around it, finger on the trigger, ready to fire through the bag as Elvin raised the Walther toward Gibbs, and a woman’s voice stopped both of them.

“Big?” Coming from the screened porch.

Kathy watched Elvin turn enough to look that way and still hold the Walther on Gibbs. She heard Leanne again.

“Big?”

And another voice she recognized.

“You bes’ go out there now.”

The screen door opened and Leanne came out in a loose white dress that reached to the ground. She seemed to barely move but was in the yard now, arms at her sides.

Elvin said, “I heard somebody else in there. A colored girl.”

“Look if you want,” Leanne said, staring at him, watching as he walked over and opened the screen door.

“Where’d she go?”

Leanne stood with her hands enveloped in the folds of her skirt-Kathy saw a priestess-a motionless figure in pure white. She said to Elvin, “I know why you’re here. I can tell, even though your energy is vibrating at a very low frequency. You must be caked with dirt. What’s that you have on?”

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?”