Joe Lansdale - Mucho Mojo

“You’re brooding, Leonard, my friend. What’s the problem?”

“I blew it with Fitzgerald.”

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. It was more like a nuclear disaster.”

“Just can’t stand shits like that guy, hiding behind the Bible and a church, judging everyone’s got a view doesn’t fit tight with his.”

“All you had to do was hold your tongue for five minutes and we’d have known where Illium’s house is. I think he knew exactly where he lived, but he didn’t entirely trust us. After we got what we wanted, you didn’t like the Reverend, we could have soaped his windows or shit on the lawn. Actually, I thought the old boy was pretty polite. He’s at least trying to deal with his community’s problems, and I guess religion is a better way than nothing. Truth is, you were itching for a fight.”

“Have me shot, will you?”

“Not the first thing you’ve fucked up. I can think of all kinds of stuff.”

“Thanks, Hap.”

“Seriously, pal. Reverend’s not the only one knows where Illium lives. It’s not like he’s hiding. We’ll find him when the rain stops.”

About ten minutes later, I heard a car sluicing through the rain. I went to the front door and opened it. The rain was like a steel-beaded curtain hanging off and all around the porch. It slammed the ground with a sound like ball bearings. The wind was the coolest it had been since last fall.

I could see car lights in the drive, and they were all I could see. They went out, I heard a door slam, a black umbrella and a yellow, hooded rain slicker split the curtain of water, and Florida was on the porch, her beautiful face staring out of the slit in the slicker hood. She grinned and held the umbrella down and shook it and collapsed it and leaned it against the wall next to the door.

“Hi,” she said.

“You should have stayed home,” I said.

“Good to see you too.”

We went inside.

“Hello, Leonard,” Florida said.

“Florida,” Leonard said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t get out in this. We been worried.”

Florida slipped off her raincoat, and I hung it on a wood-frame chair by the door. She had on laced workboots, blue jeans, and a loose-fitting plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Under the coat she had been carrying a cloth bag. She sat it on the seat of the chair and spread the mouth of it and pulled out a three-liter Pepsi and a bag of those vanilla cookies Leonard likes.

“Hap told me you were nuts for these,” she said to Leonard.

Leonard got up and took a look. “He’s right. Thanks.” He hugged her.

“You know I’m sorry how things are,” she said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Thanks.”

“First time I haven’t seen you in a dress, Florida,” I said.

“I was doing office cleaning,” Florida said. “I felt like grubbies. Make us some cocoa or something, Hap. I don’t think I’m ready for Pepsi.”

“It’s coffee or tea or slightly curdled milk warmed on the stove,” I said. “Take your pick.”

“That curdled milk sounds good,” Florida said, “but guess I’ll go for the tea.”

I made us a pot of tea, and we were sitting at the kitchen table drinking and eating cookies instead of having supper, when I heard another car come up in the drive.

“Would you get it?” Leonard said. “I’m kind of comfortable next to the cookies.”

“Yassuh, Massuh Leonard, I’s on it.”

I went to the door and opened it and a big shape in a black slicker mounted the porch. He looked a little like the Spirit of Christmas Future. He pushed back the hood of the slicker and smiled at me. It was Lieutenant Hanson.

“Come in,” I said.

Hanson slipped off the slicker, and I took it and led him inside. I hung the slicker over a chair and let the water from it puddle on the floor. I said, “Hey, gang, look who’s here.”

“Damn,” Leonard said, looking through the dividing space between kitchen and living room, “if it ain’t Sherlock Holmes, and come all the way in the rain just to visit. Can I hold your gun, sir?”

“No,” Hanson said, “but you can wear my badge a little while, you promise not to lose it.”

Hanson and I went into the kitchen, and Hanson smiled broadly and said, “Hi, Florida.”

“Hi, Marvin.” Florida had a pretty big smile herself.

“You two know each other?” I said.

“We’ve met a time or two,” Hanson said. “I’ve arrested a couple of her clients.” Hanson nodded toward the cup Florida was sipping from. “That coffee?”

“Tea,” Florida said. She smiled. Rather nicely, I thought.

I offered Hanson my chair and poured him a cup of tea and took my cup and went over and leaned against the kitchen counter and watched him watch Florida out of the corner of his eye. Watched Florida watch him for that matter. I didn’t blame him, she was beautiful. And I didn’t blame her, Hanson was powerful and charismatic and likable, if big and ugly and old enough to be her father.

Hanson looked at his tea and said, “You got any milk for this? I like milk in mine.”

“They just have curdled milk,” Florida said.

“I don’t like it that bad,” Hanson said. “What about sugar?”

“Would you like a rose in a vase to go with it?” I said.

“No,” he said, “but I’ll have some of those cookies.”

Leonard pushed the cookie sack at Hanson, a little reluctantly, I thought. In fact, I didn’t think he’d been sharing them all that well with Florida and myself.

Hanson crunched a few cookies and sipped some tea.

“You got questions for us, Lieutenant?” Leonard asked.

“No,” Hanson said.

“Then you have something to report?” Leonard said.

“I do,” Hanson said. “I thought you might like to know the preliminary forensic findings.”

“That’s awful chummy of you,” Leonard said.

Hanson shrugged. “I’m divorced. I’m lonely. And I got nothing better to do.”

“Why don’t I think that’s why you’re here?” Leonard said.

“You’re one suspicious sonofabitch,” Hanson said. “Your uncle’s house is involved. Possibly your uncle. You found the body. I thought it would be only fair I kept you informed.”

“Don’t pay any attention to Leonard,” I said. “He was raised in a barn.”

Hanson took a sip of his tea and frowned. He put the cup down, said, “We had a forensics guy come in from Houston. He’s taken the bones back with him, but he looked them over here, gave us a preliminary report. He could revise his opinion somewhat, he gets a good look, but the forensics guy says the skeleton in the box belongs to a nine- or ten-year-old boy. and he probably died of severe trauma to the head. After that, the body was cut up to fit into something small.”

“The trunk,” Leonard said.

“No,” Hanson said. “Originally, the body was in a cardboard box. On the bones were paper fibers and remnants of a kind of glue found in cardboard. Could I have some more tea?”

His cup was half-full, but I poured him some more.

“You’re saying the body was put in a cardboard box, then the box was put in the trunk?” Leonard said.

Hanson shook his head. “Nope. There’s not enough remains of the cardboard in the trunk for it to have ever been put in there whole. What about that sugar?”

I got Hanson the sugar bowl and a spoon.

“You got a longer spoon? You can’t stir good with these short ones.”

“No wonder you’re divorced,” I said. “And no, no teaspoon.”

Hanson stirred sugar into his teacup. He said, “The body was put in the cardboard box originally, but by the time the bones were put in the trunk, the cardboard had, for the most part, disintegrated. Some of the cardboard fibers stayed with the bones. Another thing. The clay on the bones doesn’t go with your uncle’s dirt beneath the house. The dirt found on the bottom of the trunk.”