Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob

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2024-12-01 0 0 508.21KB 122 页 5.9玖币
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MAXIMUM
BOB
ELMORE LEONARD
For the Honorable Marvin
1
Dale Crowe Junior told Kathy Baker, his probation officer, he didn’t see where he had done
anything wrong. He had gone to the go-go bar to meet a buddy of his, had one beer, that’s all,
while he was waiting, minding his own business and this go-go whore came up to his table
and started giving him a private dance he never asked for.
“They move your knees apart to get in close,” Dale Crowe said, “so they can put it right in
your face. This one’s name was Earlene. I told her I wasn’t interested, she kept right on doing
it, so I got up and left. The go-go whore starts yelling I owe her five bucks and this bouncer
come running over. I give him a shove was all, go outside and there’s a green-and-white
parked by the front door waiting. The bouncer, he tries to get tough then, showing off, so I
give him one, popped him good thinking the deputies would see he’s the one started it. Shit,
they cuff me, throw me in the squad car, won’t even hear my side of it. Next thing, they punch
me up on this little computer they have? The one deputy goes, ‘Oh, well look it here. He’s on
probation. Hit a police officer.’ Well, then they’re just waiting for me to give ‘em a hard time.
And you don’t think I wasn’t set up?”
This morning Dale Crowe Junior was back in the Criminal Division of Palm Beach County
Circuit Court. In a holding cell crowded with offenders wearing state-blue uniforms that were
like hospital scrubs. Blue shapes standing around in the semi-dark. Kathy Baker recognized
some of them. They’d step into the light to say hi through the wall of bars. Mostly black guys
in there, they’d ask how she was doing. Kathy would shrug. Same old business, hanging out
in bad company. She told Dale Crowe, holding open his case file, he must be in a hurry to do
time. Two days out of jail he was back in.
“I haven’t even had a chance to fill out your post-sentence sheet, you’re in violation.”
“‘Cause I went to a go-go joint? Nobody said I couldn’t.”
“When were you around to tell you anything? You were suppose to report to the Probation
Office, Omar Road.”
“They said I had seventy-two hours. I been going out to the sugar house, seeing how to get
my job back.” Dale turned his head to one side in the noise of voices and said, “Hey, we’re
trying to talk here.”
The blue shapes in the dark paid no attention to him. Kathy moved closer to the bars. She
could smell Dale now.
“The police report says you were drinking.”
“One beer, that’s all. I urine-tested clean.”
“But you’re underage. You broke the law and that violates your probation.”
Dale Crowe Junior was twenty, a tall, bony-looking kid in his dark-blue scrubs. Dark hair
uncombed, dumb eyes wandering, worried, but trying to look bored. Dale was from a family
of offenders in and out of the system. His uncle, Elvin Crowe, had this week completed his
prison time on a split sentence and was beginning his probation.
Kathy Diaz Baker was twenty-seven, a slim five-five in her off-white cotton shirtdress
cinched with a belt. No makeup this morning, her dark hair permed and cut short in back, easy
to manage. She spoke with a slight Hispanic accent, the Diaz part of her, that was
comfortable, natural, though she could speak without a trace of it if she wanted. The Baker
part of her was from a marriage that lasted fourteen months. She had met all kinds of Dale
Crowes in her two years with the Florida Department of Corrections and knew what they
could become. His uncle, Elvin Crowe, had recently been added to her caseload.
“I can go to jail but I can’t have a beer?”
“Listen, I spoke to your lawyer—”
“You don’t think I stop and have a few after work, driving a cane truck all day? I never get
carded either, have to show any proof.”
“You through?” Kathy watched him take the bars in his hands and try to shake them. “I had a
talk with your lawyer.”
“Little squirt, right? He’s a public defender.”
“Listen to me. He’s going to plead you straight up, but try to make it sound like a minor
violation. It’s okay with the state attorney. She’ll leave it up to the judge, as long as you plead
guilty.”
“Hey, shit, I didn’t do nothing.”
“Just listen for a minute, okay? You plead not-guilty and ask for a trial, the judge won’t like
it. They’ll find you guilty anyway and then he’ll let you have it for wasting the court’s time.
You understand? You plead guilty and act like you’re sorry, be polite. The judge might give
you a break.”
“Let me off?”
“He’ll ask for recommendations. The state attorney will probably want you to do a little
time.”
“‘Cause I had a beer?”
“Maybe ask you to do some work release, out of the Stockade. Try to be cool, okay? Let me
finish. Your lawyer will recommend reinstating your probation, say what a hardworking guy
you are. He won’t mention you got fired unless it comes up, but don’t lie, okay? This judge,”
Kathy said, “I might as well tell you, is very weird. You never know for sure what he’s going
to do. Except if you act smart and he doesn’t think you’re sorry, kiss your mom and dad good-
bye, you’re gone.”
“What one have I got?”
“Judge Gibbs.”
It seemed to please him. “Bob Isom Gibbs, I know him, the one they call ‘Big.’ Election time
you see his name on signs, ‘Think Big.’ He’s famous, isn’t he?”
“He makes himself known.”
“He’s the one sent my uncle Elvin away.”
“Dale, he’s put more offenders on death row than any judge in the state.” That shut him up.
“What I’m trying to tell you is be polite. Okay? With this judge you don’t want to piss him
off.”
Dale was shaking his head, innocent. He said, “Man, I don’t know,” in a sigh, blowing out his
breath, and Kathy turned her face away. “You gonna tell him how you see this?”
“When the judge asks for recommendations, yeah, I’ll have to say something…”
“Well, that’s good. Tell him I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen years old and I know
how, no problem. Listen, and tell him I’m still working out the sugar house. Have a good job
and don’t want to lose it.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I can think of.”
“Just lie for you?”
“It wouldn’t hurt you none, would it? Say I’m working? Jesus.”
“You think I’m on your side?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Dale, I’m not your friend. I’m your probation officer.”
• • •
She left the holding cell, the dark shapes, the noise, passed through locked doors to a well-
lighted hallway and was back in the world among sport shirts and flowered dresses, people
waiting for court sessions.
“What’s the matter?”
Kathy looked up. It was Marialena Reyes with her fat briefcase, the assistant state attorney
who would be prosecuting Dale Crowe in about ten minutes. She was a friend of Kathy’s, a
woman in her forties, unmarried, dedicated to her work, this morning in a brown linen suit
that needed to be pressed.
“I just talked to him,” Kathy said, and shook her head.
“What else is new?”
“Nothing changes. They look at me, I’m this girl who comes around with a clipboard
checking up. Like a social worker.”
“It’s up to you. I’ve quit saying go back to school, get a law degree.”
“I’m in court enough as it is. What will Dale get?”
“I think a year and a day. He’ll only do ninety days, but it’s state time. Maybe it’ll scare him
good.”
“He’s just a dumb kid, thinks he’s tough.”
“Sure, that’s his problem. Look at the positive side. It’s one less you’ll have in your
caseload.”
“I’ll still have seventy-three. I trade Dale for his uncle Elvin. He came in Saturday, this big
guy from the swamp in a cowboy hat. He sits down, starts fooling with things on my desk…
He doesn’t think it’s fair he had to do ten years DOC time and now five years probation—
listen to this—for shooting the wrong guy. Not the one he was after. He wants to tell me all
about it sometime. His attitude, it’s like okay, so he killed a man, what’s the big deal? I can
see Dale Crowe in about twenty years…”
“If he makes it,” Marialena Reyes said. “Yeah, I think he’ll get at least a year and a day.
Although you never know about Gibbs. If he got laid last night he could be in a good mood.
He’ll ask you for a recommendation.”
“I know, and there isn’t much I can say.”
“You get along with him? He must’ve noticed you by now.”
“We’ve never spoken outside of court. He calls me Ms. Bacar.”
“That’s close. He thinks he’s funny, so everyone humors him.”
“But I’m not Ms. Bacar,” Kathy said. “And I don’t feel I have to smile for him.”
“You don’t see him practically every day. At least I don’t have to go out with him,” Marialena
Reyes said, “he likes them young. You see he was up before the Qualifications Commission
again?”
“I heard something about it. Asked a woman to take off her clothes?”
“In his chambers, a public defender, a new one. Asked her to, quote, ‘show me your goodies.’
He told her he was helping select contestants for the Miss Sugar Cane Pageant and said, I
believe you have what it takes.’”
“And they let him off.”
“With a reprimand. They ruled his behavior reflected a misguided sense of humor rather than
social maladjustment.”
“I’m surprised,” Kathy said, “she filed a complaint.”
“Yeah, not many do. The last one was a court reporter. Not his, some other judge’s. Gibbs
asked her if she wanted to play Carnival. She said she didn’t know how to play it and Big
said, ‘You sit on my face and I guess your weight.’”
Kathy caught herself trying to picture it.
“Maybe he’s crazy.”
“It’s possible,” Marialena said. “What we know for sure, he’s pretty horny for a guy his age,
almost sixty.”
• • •
There he was now, and to look at him he appeared harmless. About five-seven with a solemn,
bony face, dark hair combed flat to his head. Maybe too dark, Kathy thought. He dyed it. A
little guy in judicial robes that looked too big for him. Round-shouldered in a way that made
him seem purposeful crossing to the bench. His bailiff, Robbie, a sheriff’s deputy in a uniform
sport coat, told everyone to rise. Kathy glanced around. There weren’t more than a dozen
spectators, friends or relatives of offenders sitting in the front row, the ones in state blue.
Everyone remained standing as Judge Bob Gibbs looked over his court, his gaze moving from
the public defender, a young guy Kathy didn’t know, to a county deputy removing Dale
Crowe’s handcuffs. Now he was looking this way, where Kathy stood at the prosecution table
with Marialena Reyes.
He said, “Buenos días, ladies. I see we have the Latinas versus the Anglos today. Good luck,
boys. You’re gonna need it.”
The young public defender smiled. Dale Crowe, standing next to him now, didn’t smile. The
judge turned as his court clerk, Mary Ellen, handed him a case folder. He glanced at it and
then looked toward the court reporter relaxed behind his steno machine. “You want this one in
English, don’t you, Marty?”
Marty said, “Yes sir,” without moving, as deadpan about it as the judge.
Looking this way again, Gibbs said, “Ladies, is that okay with you? We take it slow and talk
Southern? Else I don’t think it would be fair to the defense.”
Marialena Reyes smiled and said, for the people of the state of Florida, “I would prefer it,
Your Honor.”
“Ms. Bacar, is it okay with you?”
The little bigot with his solemn face and dyed hair stared at her, waiting.
Kathy said, “It’s Baker, Judge.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Baker, not Bacar.”
Gibbs looked down at the case file and up again.
“It was Bacar though, huh, before you changed it?”
“It was always Baker,” Kathy said.
Let him figure it out.
• • •
摘要：

MAXIMUMBOBELMORELEONARDFortheHonorableMarvin1DaleCroweJuniortoldKathyBaker,hisprobationofficer,hedidn’tseewherehehaddoneanythingwrong.Hehadgonetothego-gobartomeetabuddyofhis,hadonebeer,that’sall,whilehewaswaiting,mindinghisownbusinessandthisgo-gowhorecameuptohistableandstartedgivinghimaprivatedanceh...

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