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her a car, too, a Ford Escort she drove to health food stores and now and then to Winn-Dixie when he hollered for meat and potatoes.
    “Big, how can you eat the flesh of once-living things?”
    “Easy, I chew each bite forty times.”
    But he didn’t fence off the canal or put in a swimming pool or take her to any Palm Beach society functions where she might start talking like the help and embarrass him.
    Was that the sign of a negative ego?
    If it was, then maybe he’d better start thinking positive. Instead of not doing anything that would make her want to stay, work on an idea that would get her to leave. Of her own free will, without any hassle, legal complications.
    And thought of a way to do it that made him smile it was so simple, sometimes wheeze out loud with delight as he entertained the idea and refined it. But then for months he continued playing with it, taking his time, not quite ready to commit himself…
    •          •          •
    U ntil this morning talking to the little-girl probation officer, Kathy Bacar, he realized she was the incentive he needed to get going. Kathy Baker .
    He wasn’t sure why at first, but this little girl raised his vibration level, got him feeling energized for the first time in almost a year, since his girlfriend Stephanie moved to Orlando and for a while there he enjoyed a few casual encounters. But, man, it was work getting them from drinks and dinner into the sack the same evening. One-nighters could kill you. It was better to have a girl right there you could count on. Like Stephanie.
    The minute she appeared in his courtroom charged with indecent exposure, jogging topless in John D. MacArthur State Park, he knew this big redheaded girl would fill the bill. She’d said to him in court, “Your Honor, I was doing nothing lewd or indecent.” No, but he’d bet she would if given the chance, a woman he decided then and there had to be full of fun. He fined her two hundred dollars—had to—waited a week, phoned her and said, “How about a couple of hundred-dollar dinners to make up for what I put you out?” Their first date he learned Stephanie loved to drink as well as expose herself. He said to her, “I know where you can jog topless through a garden to your heart’s content, while my semi-estranged wife is at a seminar in Ohio.” What a picture it turned out to be: this big redheaded nymph, his Nature Girl, ducking through the laurel oak and cabbage palms, not a stitch on, her buddy the judge waiting with a Jim Beam in each hand. Simple pleasures were the best kind. Fond memories to store away—while you work on a new set.
    Kathy Baker was a different type of girl, more virginal even though she’d been married. He hadn’t really noticed her till she spoke up in court and he decided to chew her out. But then talking to her after changed his mind, seeing this was a good-looking girl up close with a cute figure. She had spunk too. If she was Cuban, so be it; there was a lot of it going around. She might not want to run naked through his garden; still, the garden could be used to soften her up, thinking this little girl would be squirmy and fun in bed. There he was wondering how to get to her and she says she’d worked in mental health. Bingo. All he had to do after that was tell about Leanne, ask the little girl her opinion and act interested. Maybe a benign form of schizophrenia, huh? Yeah, I’ve thought about a psychiatric evaluation, but the idea of it—I have that done to criminals. Nodding, saying yes, uh-huh, and I hope we can talk about this some more. “I’ll be in the bar at the Helen Wilkes Hotel, five o’clock, if you have time for a drink…”
    Where he was now and every evening at five.
    He didn’t expect her, so wasn’t surprised or disappointed when she didn’t show up. The big kidney-shaped bar at the Helen Wilkes was a hangout for judges and lawyers, both sides, and some of the newspaper people. Knowing this, the