Dicky didn’t say a word about it till the story appeared in the paper, on the front page of the Post with Judge Gibbs’s picture, the same one they used with the alligator story Inez cut out and stuck inside the Bible. When Dicky got home the night before last, drunk and slurring his words, he told her someone was visiting the judge when he got there, so he wasn’t able to see him and make a deal. Yesterday, Dicky had stayed around the house all day hung over, sickly. This morning when the paper arrived and he looked at it, the first thing he said was, “Uh-oh.”

So Inez took the paper from him, read the story and said, “Did you think if you shot him you wouldn’t have to pay the fine?”

Dicky said what happened, Gibbs had a girl there with him. So he pulled back to wait till the judge was alone.

“You were drinking,” Inez said.

He’d stopped for a couple on the way, yeah. Think about what he was going to say to Gibbs. Get the words straight in his head.

She had told him exactly what he was to say. I’d like to borrow five hundred dollars, Judge, looking him in the eye. And if the judge pretended not to get it, tell him, Or else it could be learned you ordered a gator delivered. That was the part Dicky had trouble with.

“You stopped for a couple and picked up a fifth.”

He said a pint was all.

“You got drunk sitting in the woods feeling sorry for yourself,” Inez said, “went and got your rifle and took some shots at the judge, thinking it would solve your problem.”

Dicky said the judge was out in the yard with a flashlight, flashing it around, and at first he thought the judge was looking for him. But what he was doing, he was showing this girl his flowers.

“In the dark?”

Dicky said he never shot at the judge, he shot at a window where a light was on inside. He believed the kitchen.

Inez asked him why.

Dicky said to show him.

“Show him what, Dicky?”

That it wasn’t fair the way he didn’t keep his word.

“How’s he suppose to know,” Inez said, “that’s what shooting at his kitchen meant?”

It was to show what could happen you back out of a deal.

“Oh.”

“Don’t you understand? I had to do something.”

Inez said, “You poor soul, you still owe the court five hundred dollars and now you got more problems’n before.”

Dicky said he didn’t see how he could be in any deeper shit’n he was already in. Inez stuck his engineer’s cap on his head and told him to go on up to Pahokee and get Dale Junior, their weekend houseguest. It gave her time to think, see if there was a way to get clear of this mess.

What bothered her most was the newspaper bringing up the alligator again, mentioning it in the same story with shots being fired, investigators looking to find a connection. Also their mention of security measures being taken to protect the judge. It would make it hard now to talk to him directly about a deal.

What Inez did like was the mention they already had suspects. The paper didn’t give names, but if deputies were looking for Dale Junior then he had to be one. And if he was going to be staying here the weekend… What if Dale Junior could be traded for getting Dicky’s fine taken off the books? Was that possible?

It wouldn’t hurt to phone the judge and ask.

By the time Dicky walked in with Dale Junior, the boy showing his family trait, that sullen, mean expression, Inez was dishing up. She said, “You’re just in time, sweetie.” Wasn’t that the truth? “I have your dinner all ready.”

Gary found Kathy Baker with four other young ladies around a conference table at the Omar Road office, one of them handing out case folders. Gary said, “Is this where you apply for a job?”

They all perked up, looking him over. Kathy said, “He can take Roger’s place.” The guy, she had told him on the phone, who’d quit all of a sudden and they had to come in today to divvy up his cases.

He asked if he should wait in the lobby. She said, “You can sit over there if you want,” and then zipped through an introduction. “Michelle, Karen, Paige, Terri, this is Gary. He looks like he sells insurance, but he’s really a cop.” Sassy with a grin in front of her co-workers. They said, “Hi, Gary,” giving him different kinds of flirty looks, these nice young girls in shorts and jeans who dealt with criminal offenders. He knew that eight out of ten probation officers in Palm Beach County were women; what surprised him, not one of them here could be over thirty.

Michelle seemed to be in charge, the one passing out case folders before she sat down. Blond hair tied back, perfect posture, back arched in a way that accentuated her compact little can. Kathy had a nice one too. Both girls were right up there. If Michelle was an eight, Kathy, with those smart brown eyes, was an eight and a half.

Gary took a seat out of the way. It was strange, to hear these young girls talking about bad guys.

“Oh, God, I used to have this one. He’d call every day, ask if I needed a car radio, a new TV…”

“He was lonely.”

“He was a jerk, but I liked him.”

“We’ve got a bunch under Community Control,” Michelle said. “Twenty house arrest and six on the anklet. One’s a rich doctor with three cars he can’t drive.”

“What’d he do?”

“Drugs. Two years probation.”

“They’ll go to AA just to get out of the house.”

“Listen, they’ll even go to church. I had one.”

“Nah, all they do is hang out. I go in there to check up on some guy, they think I’m a druggie. ‘Yo, babe. Sit here with me.’”

“I know. They come up and give you hugs. Hugging’s big. All that feely touchy stuff.”

“Here’s another one I had. Real skanky-looking guy, who wants him? He had a dirty urine twice in a row so I violated him.”

“The last guy I violated, he drove here to report in a stolen car. Took it from this tire shop where he works? His boss called to tell me. The guy’s sitting there nodding, all rocked out, while I go get a warrant signed. Then have to drive out to the Sheriff’s Office to get it put in the system. I come back, call West Palm PD and West Palm goes, ‘Is it in the system?’ I go, ‘Yeah, and the guy’s right here, sleeping on my desk.’”

“I know guys who’d rather do time than Community Control, sit at home all night.”

“Well, you can understand that. A year and a day of DOC time you do, what, ninety days maybe? A year on Community Control you do the whole bit, no time off.”

“I catch this guy leaving his house after curfew? He goes, ‘Oh, my phone ain’t working. I was jes’ going someplace to call you.’ Like a bar.”

“Or, you want a problem, they’re under house arrest and get evicted for not paying their rent.”

Michelle said, “We’ve got a doctor, a lawyer… We’ve got a woman and it’s not drugs.”

“No thanks, they’re too fucking devious.”

“Fraud, bank and credit card. She lives in Palm Beach.”

“The guy with the two dirty urines? He told the judge I was hounding him. I wanted to say, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’”

Kathy said, looking at him, “Gary wanted to bust me one time in Riviera Beach. He thought I was a rockhead.”

In the car, the unmarked Dodge, he said to Kathy, “You look more like a Rockette. You know it?”

“One of the first times I made a house call in a black ghetto at night,” Kathy said, “I walked up to the door-it was open and I heard a voice inside say, ‘It’s the Man.’ I weigh a hundred and five, but that’s who I am, the Man.”

“I can’t imagine any of you dealing with offenders, all you nice girls,” Gary said. “What did they say about the other night, your being at the judge’s?”

“I didn’t tell them.”

That surprised him. “Why not?”