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saying to Gibbs, “Hey, Judge? I’m gonna see about this deal. You think you’re through with me, Judge, you’re fulla shit. Hear?” She saw Gibbs leaving the courtroom past two deputies who were moving quickly toward Dale Crowe with handcuffs and shackles. It surprised her the judge didn’t say something to Dale, hold him in contempt.
    Marialena Reyes touched Kathy’s arm.
    “You going to see him?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I think you’d better.”
    “He didn’t say I had to.”
    “No, but I think it would be a good idea.”
    Kathy said, “I have to smile, too?”
    Marialena stared at her for a moment. She said, “Do what you want,” and walked away.

2
    O ut of his robes Judge Bob Gibbs became someone else, pleasant, almost a regular guy, saying he didn’t mean to put her on the spot in there. No, what it was, he had a feeling young Mr. Crowe might have tried a sad story on her, he was sick or his mama needed him at home or he knew it would kill him to be locked up, the prey of older, lascivious convicts… “I said at one point, ‘Don’t thank me yet.’ Remember? Well, you can thank me now if you want.”
    “For what, Judge?”
    “Sending young Mr. Crowe away. Taking him off your hands. If I’d reinstated his probation like you wanted, he’d be in violation again before you know it and you’d have egg all over your pretty face. What’re you, Cuban?”
    “Born in Miami,” Kathy said. “I don’t think I asked you to reinstate him.”
    “You didn’t come right out and request it. I could tell, though, he’d been working on you. I was gonna say, you don’t look especially Latin.”
    Like he was paying her a compliment. If she wanted she could say, And you don’t look like a judge.
    What he looked like now, sitting behind his desk, was a farmer. The top of his forehead, where it disappeared into the dyed hair, was lighter than the rest of his face. A farmer or an Okeechobee fishing guide dressed for town in a short-sleeve white shirt and red patterned tie. He even had the cracker sound of those boys from the country. Old Bob Isom Gibbs, known as “Big” to his buddies. He sat with his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. From deep in the office sofa facing the desk, all Kathy could see of the judge were his raised arms, elbows sticking out, and his head, his hair shining in fluorescent light. On the wall behind him were framed photos of the judge posing with several different men holding strings of bass and what looked like speckled perch. No doubt taken at a fishing camp on the lake. In another picture the judge was standing in an airboat holding a two-foot alligator in each hand, by the tail.
    “Don’t feel sorry for him, he was due,” Bob Gibbs said, “being a Crowe. You’ve heard the expression ‘Born to raise hell’? That’s young Mr. Crowe’s belief. Mine’s ‘Hard time makes the boy the man.’ He’ll come out of jail therapy with a brand-new attitude, or else we’ll send him back, won’t we?”
    “I thought you might hold him in contempt,” Kathy said, “when he threatened you.”
    “Was that a threat? What’d he say, he’s gonna get me? Sis, that’s nothing, that’s water off my back. You going with anybody?”
    She had to take a moment to realize what he meant.
    “Not anyone special.”
    “You date police officers?”
    “I have, yes.”
    “Lawyers?”
    “Once in a while.”
    “Married ones?”
    “I won’t do that.”
    “Why not?”
    “I just won’t.”
    “You want to have some dinner this evening?”
    She said, “Judge, you’re married, aren’t you?”
    He kept staring at her before he said, “You are too, aren’t you? Or I mean you were . Why didn’t I think of that?”
    “Married and divorced,” Kathy said.
    “Sure, and that’s where you got your name. I knew it. What’s your maiden name?”
    “Diaz.”
    He seemed relieved. “Sure, Cuban, but born and raised here. What’s your dad do? Man, you people started