Read Online Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard - Free Book Online Page B

his dark-navy tropical suit, dressed to go to work.
    He had been told what to find here, but was still surprised to see the judge and a woman who must be his wife, in a pink warm-up suit, and four deputies with drawn guns, all looking at a full-grown alligator on the porch, the gator not paying much attention to them. It twisted sideways as if to bite its own tail, jerked itself straight and that tail lashed out to send a metal table and chairs flying. Now it crawled around to see what all the noise was about and rested there with its back to them.
    They had noticed Gary Hammond walk up, one of the deputies nodding to him; but now they were talking, the deputies and the judge, sounding like hunters.
    “We musta hit him.”
    “Yeah, there’s blood. See, on the cement there? Less he cut himself coming through the glass.”
    “No we hit him a good twelve times.”
    “More than that, boys. I put six in him before you got here.”
    This was the judge, in bedroom slippers and a sport shirt hanging out of his pants. Gary Hammond had appeared in his court to testify and have warrants signed, but had never been introduced to him.
    “I know a fella has a gator skull on his microwave,” a deputy said. “Looks like a hunk of rock.”
    “We need something heavy, a high-powered rifle.”
    “Hit him with an ax. That’ll do him.”
    “I think we better get Game and Fish out here.”
    “Or some old boy from the Glades, Canal Point.”
    Gary Hammond said, “One of you better bring a car around here.”
    That got them looking at him. The deputies knew he was a sergeant in the Detective Bureau, worked Crimes Against Persons and was maybe a homicide star. Check the suit. They might know he’d transferred from Palm Beach PD, where he’d kept the island safe for millionaires, but that was about all these deputies would know of Gary Hammond.
    One of them said, “Sir, what do we need a car for?”
    A mild kind of put-on, polite in front of the judge and his wife.
    “The gator walked in there,” Gary said, “it can walk out. What do you do then?”
    The deputy said, “I guess run like hell.” With a grin to show he was kidding.
    “I’d want a car to jump in,” Gary said, “even if we didn’t have Mrs. Gibbs to think of.” She looked as though she might be in shock or some kind of trance. He saw her eyes half close and the lids flutter as he said, “You know an alligator can outrun a man?”
    Gary turned toward the porch, see what the gator was doing, and just then heard a voice that sounded like a young black girl.
    “You bes’ hurry up get that car.”
    The one in Gone With the Wind , Butterfly McQueen.
    That was who he thought of and turned back expecting to see the deputies grinning, one of them way out of line trying to be funny. But they seemed as surprised as he was, glancing at one another.
    Now the judge said, “You heard him. Get a car.”
    Him ? Meaning you, Gary thought, not the voice. The judge ignoring the voice.
    Gary said, “Judge,” and introduced himself. Bob Gibbs gave him sort of a nod, that’s all. He seemed more concerned for his wife and took her aside now, whispering to her. One of the deputies walked off and then started to jog. The other three moved toward the porch, though didn’t get too close, talking again, looking at the alligator.
    Gary Hammond stood by himself in his neat navy-blue suit.
    This morning a few minutes before seven Gary’s boss, Colonel McKenna, had called him at home and said, “You’re not doing anything, are you?” Gary’s current assignment had him reviewing cold cases, homicides over a year old and still open. No, not something pressing, which McKenna knew. He told Gary about the alligator report and how to get to the judge’s house, out Southern Boulevard about a mile this side of the Stockade, turn left. “It might be the gator wandered in,” McKenna said, “a canal runs by his property. Or some idiot brought it as a joke. Or then again it wasn’t meant to