Free Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard

be funny. You understand? So look around good.”
    “What do I do about the alligator?”
    “Call Game and Fish if you have to. What I’m concerned with is finding out how it got there.”
    So now, the next step… He could call Game and Freshwater Fish, wait around for somebody to come out and kill the alligator. That was a fact, they weren’t going to dress its wounds. Gary watched a green-and-white creeping toward them from the far end of the house, coming past sabal palms, dipping over the uneven ground in low gear. The judge seemed to have a tropical garden out here, orchids hanging from trees… He was taking his wife by the arm toward the squad car. The three deputies were looking that way now.
    They could spend half the day waiting for a Game man to get here. Then stand around some more, watching. Gary thought about taking his suit coat off. No, he’d leave it on, he was comfortable in it. He drew the Beretta holstered on his right hip.
    Walking past the deputies Gary racked the slide to put a nine-millimeter load in the chamber. They turned as one at the familiar sound it made. Gary kept going, his eyes holding on the gator as he opened the screen door, closed it quietly, walked up to stand over the gator and stare at its head. You could crouch low and shoot it through an eye or into its ear to find its tiny brain. Or you could stand close and aim at a spot directly behind the animal’s skull, drive the bullet straight down to cut its spine. He had seen Game men and contract nuisance hunters kill this way. A shame even when it had to be done. Poachers hit them with an ax or a sledge looking at forty-seven dollars a foot for the hide to make belts and shoes for snappy dressers.
    Someone, Gary believed, had brought this gator. It did not know where the hell it was or want to be here lying on a cement floor. There were nicks in its hide, a mark on its skull, a dent, it looked like, where someone had given it a good lick. He aimed the Beretta at the spot behind the skull, the muzzle a foot away, and fired one shot. The gator flattened and lay still.
    The deputies waited for him to come out to the yard before they filed in, each one giving him a look before approaching the gator to poke it with a toe.
    •          •          •
    “I think it was brought here,” Gary said, standing with his back to the kitchen sink. “It could be malicious mischief we’re looking at, criminal negligence, or it could be more serious.”
    The judge had come into the kitchen dressed for business in a gray suit and maroon tie. He said, “Wait,” got a glass from one cupboard, a bottle of Jim Beam from another, and poured himself a good one, eight o’clock in the morning. He went to the refrigerator for ice, then moved Gary out of the way to add a splash of water. Now he took a couple of deep pulls on his highball, raised the glass and said, “Ahhh, that’s better. It’s been quite a day. An alligator walks into my house and my wife walks out. She says, ‘That’s it, I’m leaving.’”
    “I could see she was scared,” Gary said. “But she’ll get over it. I mean, you don’t think she’ll actually move out, do you?”
    “That’s what she says.”
    Gary watched the judge sip his drink. He didn’t seem too upset.
    “This is the second time it’s happened to her. She isn’t going for three, I know.”
    “You had one here before?”
    “No, it was up at Weeki Wachee, years ago. My wife was a mermaid at the time I met her. An alligator swam into her act one day and she hasn’t been the same since.” The judge paused to take a drink. “It did something to her, I don’t know what. See, then another one comes along, the poor woman can’t handle it. I said, ‘Well, hon, it’s up to you.’ At least she can go someplace there aren’t any alligators. Maybe in time… I don’t know, people do have phobias. Some are scared to death of cats. A cat walks in the room, they’re