Maximum Bob

8

There was a judge friend of Bob Gibbs, now retired from the bench, who described Palm Beach as “an island off the coast of the United States.” Bob Gibbs agreed one hundred percent. Cross Lake Worth east and you were in a different country, the top end of the Gold Coast where the rich and famous lived. But you know what? Go the other way, drive west out beyond Twenty Mile Bend and, man, you were in a different world, the Glades, bottomland America with a smell of muck and fish and half a million acres of sugarcane off on the left side of the road there. He liked Palm Beach, enjoyed being an honored guest at the balls and functions, eating free. But never felt the kick that coming out to the Glades gave him. Why was that? His judge friend who’d retired and moved up to the Panhandle said, “‘Cause you’re a redneck at heart. Why do you think? If you’d been born here you’d be moonlighting gators for hides and meat instead of sitting on the bench, an ill-tempered judge.”

Recalling that got Bob Gibbs in touch with his feelings, as Leanne would say, aware of a different kind of kick this trip. One right in the gut. Anger mixed with a foreboding something messy could come of this alligator business. What in the hell was Dicky Campau thinking that he delivered it alive?

They were to meet this evening at Slim’s Fish Camp on Torry Island. Cross the bridge over the rim canal and you were there, in the marshy lower end of Lake Okeechobee, not too far from Belle Glade. Bob Gibbs found the frog gigger inside Slim’s visiting with friends and pulled him out into the dark, over by the Coca-Cola machine.

“How many times did I tell you. It was suppose to be a dead one?”

“It was, when I left it.” Dicky looking bewildered at the thought of its having come alive. “Judge, me and my wife took the truck, figure to run along the dike. We spot her in the canal right there by the cleaning dock eating on some softshell turtle. I thought we might have to go clear to Canal Point, but there she was. I shine a light on her, see about eight ten inches between the eyes? I know she’s a big’n.”

Bob Gibbs said, “What was our deal? Deliver the son of a bitch dead.” He couldn’t say it enough.

“Judge, it was. Ask my wife. I used a snatch hook on a quarter-inch line. I caught her clean, one throw, tied off around my trailer ball and pulled her out of there. I don’t mean she come willing, she fought it, pretty near tore the trailer hitch clean off my truck. I said to my wife, ‘We got us one.’ Next, I hit that gator over the head with a ten-pound sledge. One stroke, she let out her air and never made another sound.”

“It came back to life,” Bob Gibbs said. “Walked through my screen porch and into my house.”

“Prob’ly smelled your dog.”

“It ate the dog.”

“Judge, I told you when you called, I hunt frog. Outside of that gator they arrested me for I ain’t trapped one in years.”

Bob Gibbs thought a minute, hearing insects in the night and the sound of country music coming from Slim’s.

“You know that canal by my place? I’m saying that’s what it came out of.”

“It could’ve.”

“I want to know for sure.”

“It’s possible she swum down there.”

“And came into my yard.”

“I guess. Listen, Judge? You know my wife’s pretty good at estimating. She looked at that gator and saw about four hundred dollars in the hide. She figured the meat, five bucks a pound, could bring another hundred. What I’m saying, that was part of the deal, Judge. You call me to pick her up afterwards and she’s mine. Am I right?”

“And nobody would know about it but us,” Bob Gibbs said. “That’s right too, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“I stopped by the Helen Wilkes after court this evening? Everybody in the entire goddamn place knew about it. They’re even speculating it was put there to get me. And you know why? ‘Cause the son of a bitch was alive. ‘Cause I had to call the sheriff to come kill it.”

Dicky Campau said, “So you don’t have it no more, huh?”