Maximum Bob

6

Kathy Baker sat in her secondhand VW, faded beige, 78,746 miles on the odometer and tires going bald, waiting for Dale Crowe Junior to show up. His house was dark. The Crisis Center, where she had worked when she was with South County, was only a few blocks down Swinton Avenue from here. It was weird telling the judge how she’d moved from public mental health to Corrections and he said she must like dealing with misfits, losers. Sounding exactly like Keith, her ex.

Pardon me. Dr. Baker.

The way Keith would say it, “No one with an ounce of ambition would work in public mental health.” With his condescending tone. While she was supporting him, paying the bills. “Your willingness to deal with subhumans indicates a definite personality disorder. Your adjustment reaction to adulthood.” Telling her she was unwilling to face the real world. A guy who locked his doors to drive through Little Havana, where she grew up.

Her mom said, “He’s perfect. Marry him quick before he gets away.” Sure, it was what you did, got married and had children. Most of her school friends were already married to guys in trades, working construction. Keith was at the University of Miami studying to be a doctor.

Her brother Ray Diaz, with Drug Enforcement, said, “That’s why you married him?”

She could talk to Ray because they were close and not just in age, two years apart. She had felt growing up that if she were a guy she would be Ray, just like him.

“I try to explain why I married him, it sounds dumb.”

Ray said, “Accept it. You were.”

“Gimme a break, I was twenty-three. Keith looked like he was sent from heaven. Coral Gables, good family, modeled for a sportswear catalogue…”

“You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

“He was quiet, had a nice smile, perfect manners…”

“No sense of humor,” Ray said. “The guy didn’t know shit except what was in books and you helped him with that. You know what the big problem was? He found out you’re smarter than he is. But once he got his MD he was a doctor and you weren’t. Ask Dad or Tony, they saw it.”

Tony, her older brother, a uniform Metro-Dade cop. She’d bring Keith home to visit or have dinner, her dad and Tony would watch sports on TV, any sport. When Keith got his MD and went to North Broward as a first-year resident in psychiatry, Tony said, “That’s all he is? I thought he was a fucking king at least.” Ray said he acted superior so no one would know he was a moron.

She said to Ray, “I thought he was just playing doctor and would get over it. I guess he never will. Keith said my problem was I thrived on abusive situations. Boy, tell me about it. When I did lay into him I said all the wrong things. You wouldn’t have made it through school without me. You wouldn’t have eaten, had clean clothes to wear, all that. He’d go, ‘Oh, did I force you? Make you work at that place?’ One time when I blew up he said, ‘I have to deal with emotional Latins all day and I come home to one.’ In that superior tone of his. I said, ‘For Christ sake, why did you marry me?’ You know what he said, now that he’s a doctor and doesn’t need me? He said, ‘That’s a good question.’”

And the judge, in his chambers, said she didn’t look especially Latin. Like he was paying her a compliment.

Oh, thank you, Your Honor. What she always wanted to hear from a redneck racist asshole old enough to be her father. So obvious, coming on with that business about his wife’s mental condition, speaking in another voice. Oh, really? Going along with it instead of saying, Judge, married to you, no wonder she wants to be somebody else.

She was supposed to feel honored a judge wanted to sleep with her. Like she’d made it to the big time and could tell the lawyers who hit on her to kiss off. The lawyers in their nifty suits. “You’re a bright little girl, I might be able to do something for you.” Like what? “Oh, make your job easier.” How? “Oh, put in a word here and there.” She was supposed to see it as her big chance. Wow, get to go to bed with a lawyer.

At hospitals it would be, get to go to bed with a doctor. A nurse at North Broward had liked the idea. The one Keith visited evenings, an hour or so at a time.

It was her brother Ray, a surveillance expert, who found out. He said, “If he was clean I would never have told you. But he isn’t, so there it is. You want, I’ll have a talk with Keith, straighten him out.” Kathy said, “No, I’ll handle it.”

A car rolled past, a dull shape, its exhaust rumbling, and stopped in front of Dale Crowe’s house. Two young guys got out with grocery sacks, one tall enough to be Dale but built heavier, broad through the shoulders. They walked up to the house talking in loud voices, flying high this evening, and went inside. A light came on in the front room, the door still open.

There were lights in some of the homes along the street, single-story frame houses back among old trees and overgrown shrubs, a low-rent neighborhood no one cared about.

The house where the nurse lived in Pompano Beach was like one of these. Three years ago-she might still be there.

The two young guys seemed right at home. Maybe they’d know where Dale was, seven days before going to prison. She should have taken the time, had a talk with him after the hearing instead of going in to see the judge, sit there like a good little probation officer. Yes, Judge… Oh, really?

Kathy got out of her car and locked it, thinking about the night she drove up to the nurse’s house, in the same car but didn’t lock it that time. She had walked past Keith’s Mustang convertible his parents had given him for graduation, went up to the door and rang the bell. She rang it six times and remembered thinking as she waited, they bought him a car but let her pay the rent, buy the groceries and she never said one goddamn word about it. The nurse opened the door frowning. A small blond nurse in a pink wrap and with a tiny white dog in her arm.

Kathy said, “There’s something I’d like to tell my husband.”

The blond nurse said, “Your husband?”

Maybe she didn’t know.

“The one in the bedroom,” Kathy said, moving past her.

He was out of bed standing naked, about to put on a pair of pale-blue briefs she washed whenever they were in the hamper. He looked at her and said, “Would you mind waiting in the other room,” in that tone of his.

“I guess I don’t know how you’re suppose to act,” Kathy said, “you catch your husband fucking a nurse.”

“Don’t be crude.”

“That isn’t what you were doing?”

“Why don’t you go home and wait for me. We’ll talk about it later. All right?”

“I brought all your clothes, your books…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I brought all your clothes and books. What do you think I mean? All your stuff, it’s in my car, loose, I didn’t pack it. I’m going to take it out and put it in your car. If it’s locked I’ll lay the stuff on your car or throw it in the street, I don’t know, whatever I feel like doing.”

“You brought all my things?”

“Everything you own, your books, your catalogues, anything else you paid for, which isn’t much. You can come out and help me if you want, or you can stay here and fuck your nurse or fuck the dog, I don’t care, you’re out of my life. And my apartment.”

He made faces, frowns, standing there naked with his cute undies in his hand. He said, “I don’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Hey, Keith, come on. We Latins are very emotional, man. You know that.” On her way out she said to the blond nurse still holding the dog, “He’s all yours.”

Elvin and Dale had to wait before the door was opened by a stocky little guy Elvin judged to be light-skinned colored, except he had a big honker on him and maybe was trying to pass. He looked out at Dale’s pickup in the drive sucking at his teeth, giving the truck a careful inspection before saying, “What is it you want?” With just enough accent that Elvin had to change his appraisal. This was some kind of Hispanic booger with a big nose, Cuban-looking now. There was all kinds of them.

Elvin said, “Where’s the doc at?”

The guy only had the door open a foot or so, peeking out at them. He had his hair greased back in a knot, a teeny stud earring in one ear, and was wearing one of those Cuban shirts that hang outside your pants. He said, “The doctor isn’t in practice, he’s retired.”

Elvin shook his head. “I ain’t sick, you dink. This is a social call. Tell the doc a friend of Sonny’s is here.”

The name didn’t seem to mean anything. The guy said, “Wait here,” and closed the door about a half inch from being shut.

Elvin said to Dale, “That ain’t nice, leave us standing here with our thumbs up our ass,” pushed the door open and walked in.

The Cuban-looking guy was already down the hall, clickity-clicking along the terrazzo floor in high-heel boots, turning into a doorway now. He never looked back, so didn’t see them come in. Elvin motioned and Dale followed, Elvin taking his time to look in the living room-too dark to see anything-and inspect the weird paintings and statues they had in the hallway, Elvin frowning, stopping at a black shiny one he told Dale he believed was a bare-naked woman, but wouldn’t swear to it.

They reached the doorway and there was the Cuban-looking dude standing with his back to them at a dinner table set with lit candles. Another Cuban-looking guy with slick hair was sitting by himself at the head of the table. This would be Dr. Tommy Vasco, having his supper. Elvin noticed another place set, another dinner somebody had been eating, and recalled the dude who’d opened the door sucking his teeth. But who was he?

He turned as Dr. Tommy looked this way and got up, holding a napkin to his silky shirt.

“I thought I told you to wait.”

The guy serious, giving them a dirty look. Elvin said, “Hey, I’m waiting. Come on.”

Then heard Dr. Tommy say, “It’s all right, Hector.” No doubt believing his guy was about to get knocked on his ass. Elvin could read guys like Dr. Tommy in a minute, the kind went through life scared and became sneaky. Born rich or he’d never be living in a place like this.

“I was hoping you might be showing your movies,” Elvin said, getting right to the point. He saw the doctor had on pants like pajamas and shiny little black slippers with gold crests on the toes.

Dr. Tommy said, “Excuse me?”

“The movies Sonny took of you and your women.”

Now the dink was trying to smile.

“Sonny, yes. How do you know him?”

“We jailed together. He said look you up, tell you he thinks about you all the time.”

“Oh, I see,” Dr. Tommy said, no doubt getting the picture. “You were with Sonny, uh?”

“He was with me. I’m Elvin Crowe? This here’s my nephew, Dale. Yeah, I took care of Sonny and he kept house for me.”

The dink was nodding. No doubt thinking fast.

“He was suppose to keep up this house but wasn’t too good at it. He had other things he liked to do better.”

“Like sell dope,” Elvin said.

“Yes, he was good at that.”

Now the dink was shaking his head instead of nodding, keeping busy there.

“It was a shame what he did to that girl.”

“He saved your butt, didn’t he?”

The doc smiled. “He told you that?”

“You got in a fight with her and she was beating the shit outta you, so Sonny hit her with a fireplace poker.”

Now the doc was shaking his head again.

“Sonny had his own reason for killing her. You want to know if I’m lying? Ask the police.” Dr. Tommy gave Elvin a shrug. “They have the weapon he used, his fingerprints. What Sonny did, he tried to involve me because he was alone. You know, scared to death. I understand that. I don’t hold it against him. Now it’s too bad, he’s paying for what he did.” The doctor looked at his gold wristwatch and said, “Listen, I wish I could ask you to stay, but I have an appointment this evening. I’m very sorry.”

Elvin said, “Yeah, I was hoping you might show me your movies.”

There he was trying to smile again, act natural, sucking at his teeth. The other teeth-sucker-Hector?-stood there staring. Elvin couldn’t tell from their plates what they’d been eating. Something with brown gravy all over it. It looked pretty good, whatever it was.

The doctor was saying, “No, I don’t have those movies anymore, they’re gone.”

Elvin thinking, Bullshit, but said, “Well, I just wanted to tell you Sonny’s doing fine, staying out of trouble.”

“Listen, that’s good to hear. I’m happy you stopped by.”

“I bet you are,” Elvin said. “Maybe if I’m over this way again and you’re home…”

“Of course, anytime. If I’m here you’re welcome,” Dr. Tommy said, holding out his arm to mean either his house or pointing to the door.

His guy Hector moved past them to show the way out, Elvin telling him in the hall he knew the way and getting another dirty look over the dink’s shoulder.

When they were in the pickup again heading out the drive, Dale said, “I thought you were gonna hurt him.”

“I am,” Elvin said.

“Well, when?”

“I haven’t figured out how yet,” Elvin said. “You hurt a guy for another guy, you want to see something in it for yourself, if you can.”

The one guy tried to give Kathy a hard time.

When she asked if Dale was home and they invited her in, they were okay for about half a minute. Once they started goofing around, insisting she have a beer with them, she brought a wallet-size case out of her purse and held it open to show her ID and shield. See it?

No shit, a probation officer? Acting like they’d never heard of one before. They were both pretty ripped, their eyes shining like glass, and still drinking, a dozen or so longneck beer bottles on a wooden crate they used as a coffee table. One of the guys stumbled over to the sofa and fell into it. She was watching him when the other one grabbed the ID case out of her hand.

“Katherine Baker? You’re Cuban, aren’t you?”

Everyone interested in her nationality. “I’m Department of Corrections,” Kathy said. “What are you?” A rockhead for one thing, no doubt lights popping in his brain.

She snatched her ID case back before he decided to keep it and he didn’t like that one bit. Gave her a snarly look and tried to grab it again. He reached for the case and Kathy got hold of one of his fingers, the little one on his right hand, and bent it back enough to make him say “Owwww, hey,” hunching his shoulders. He made a fist with his other hand, cocked it getting a mean look and she bent the finger some more. This time he yelled out, “Jesus Christ, let go, God damn it.”

“If I do, you’ll behave?”

“I’ll bust you in the mouth if you don’t.”

She said, “You mean it?” giving the finger a twist. He was a big guy and that finger was thick.

He said, “Okay okay okay,” trying not to move, his shoulders hunched up again.

It was a tough situation to get out of.

Sooner or later she would have to let go. Then what? If he wanted to hit her, he would. She had a pistol Tony, her Metro-Dade brother, had given her and was licensed to carry, but kept it in her apartment. Corrections said probation officers shouldn’t get into situations like this, so there was no reason to pack. Walk away and call the cops. This had happened before and she wasn’t hit when she let go. But those times it was different, the guys were on probation. She told them, “Don’t ever touch me again, or even think about it,” and they backed off, knowing she could violate them, maybe break a finger, too. But this guy wasn’t on probation, that she knew of. If he hit her she could call the cops, get him for assault. Then have to appear against him in court, spend all that time…

“You know my name,” Kathy said. “What’s yours?”

He told her it was Ron, easing his shoulders down.

“You don’t want to get in trouble, do you, Ron?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You gonna behave?”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything you say.”

She did not want to let go of that finger, but said, “Okay then,” because she had to sometime and let go of it. Before she could move he grabbed her by the shoulders, threw her down on the sofa next to the other one sitting up asleep, and got on top of her, got her neck bent against the cushion smelling of mildew, one of his knees between her legs, working it up tight against her.

He said, “You know I just got out of jail?”

Wanting to scare her if she wasn’t scared already. Or maybe impress her, a guy his age.

“I know you’re going back, you don’t get off me.”

“You like to broke my goddamn finger. I never even touched you.”

“You’re touching me now, Ron.”

“Showing you I can be nice if I want.”

Breathing his beer smell in her face. She turned her head enough to see bare dirty windows, a lamp without a shade, paint peeling from the stained walls and ceiling.

“You’re a nice guy, then get up.”

“But I like it here. I’m close to it, huh?”

“You think you’re gonna have sex with me?”

“If I want, and I’m getting the urge. Feel it?”

She said, “Ron, I can break something else besides your finger.” And heard the door bang open.

Ron started to turn his head.

Now she saw a cowboy hat up there above them and Ron was gone from her yelling “Hey, shit-” as he was yanked away, knocking longnecks off the crate they used for a coffee table and she saw who it was in the straw cowboy hat, Elvin Crowe, holding the young guy Ron by his belt and shirt collar in back. Kathy pushed up in the sofa to straighten her shirtdress, get it down over her bare thighs. She saw Elvin looking at her and saw Dale now, Dale moving out of the way as Elvin threw Ron out the door. Elvin came over and pulled the other one up from the sofa, grunted with the effort but didn’t look at her now or say a word. She saw this one’s eyes come open, startled out of sleep, no idea what was happening. Elvin dragged him to the door and now this one was gone, out into the night. She saw Elvin turn to her adjusting his cowboy hat, though it hadn’t been touched, setting it straight again over his eyes.

He said to Kathy, “Now then, can I get you something? A cold drink?”