Joe Lansdale - Mucho Mojo

I lay awake until the moon slipped away and the sun eased up, rose and gold and already hot.

Florida was still asleep, and so was Leonard, when I tiptoed into the kitchen and started coffee. By the time the coffee was beginning to perk, Leonard was awake. He came in wearing his gray robe and some grungy bunny-rabbit slippers. You know, those silly things with the ears on them, white cotton tails at the heels. Personally, I’ve always wanted a pair.

Leonard yawned, sat at the table. “Where’s Florida?” he said.

“Still sleeping. We were up late.”

“Contemplating the universe, of course. What’s this?”

He was pointing at his painting. After I got the coffee going, I had brought it into the kitchen and propped it up in a chair. I had the copy of Dracula on the table. I had a pencil and paper there too. I had drawn on the paper.

“I been thinking stuff over, Leonard. I believe I’ve come up with some ideas.”

“Like what?”

I poured him coffee, poured myself a cup, and said, “I’m looking at this now from your standpoint. Your uncle isn’t guilty. Once I could get myself to think that way, I began to get some ideas. That’s all they are, though, ideas.”

“Let’s hear them,” Leonard said.

“Your uncle was a fan of mysteries. He wanted to be a cop. He was a security guard. He claimed to have information regarding child murders, and wanted to have his own personal investigation with assistance from the police, but he didn’t want them in complete control. We know from what Hanson said that the child disappearances here on the East Side weren’t exactly given top priority, and now, even if someone came in and wanted to pursue them, like Hanson, it’s such an old case, it would still be a back-burner operation. We know too racial prejudice most likely affected the conclusions of previous investigators.”

“Bottom line, my uncle didn’t trust the police, but he saw himself as an investigator. It was his big chance to solve a real mystery.”

“Let’s say Illium, who was an ex-cop, met your uncle through one of his personal programs. Bookmobile, the recycling, whatever. They became friends, and they began to investigate this business. I don’t know why they began to investigate. Some little pieces of evidence got them curious, and they were bored, and they went to it. Or they found the skeleton by accident, and your uncle brought it here because he wanted to examine it, try and figure what happened. Thing is, though, if he was investigating with Illium, and they were serious about what they were doing, they must have made notes. But where are they?”

“You’re right,” Leonard said. “Uncle Chester would have made notes.”

“Let’s hold our water there and back up. Your uncle began to lose it. Alzheimer’s, not enough blood to the brain, whatever, but he began to experience problems. He got his will straight through Florida, left his stuff to you. But his thinking continued to muddle. Say he couldn’t work on the case anymore, and that just left Illium. Your uncle wanted this business solved, but it was different now. His brain was melting. He couldn’t hold his thoughts. I think that’s why you have that bottle tree out there. A part of him knew there was something corrupt about, but he couldn’t remember what.”

“So he translated it as something supernatural?”

“Something evil. If he heard about bad spirits when he was a kid, it could have come back to him as real, his mind messed up the way it was. He might have thought he was actually doing something that could protect him. And in clear moments he wanted to tell you about it, or write it down, but he couldn’t remember long enough, so the things that were important to the case became all the focus he had, and those things became symbols rather than thoughts.”

“The coupons. The book. The painting.”

“In a way, he was giving you a mystery to solve, not on purpose, but because those elements, those clues, were all that remained of his thinking on the matter. He might not even have known what those clues related to anymore, but they were important to him, and you were important, and he had enough savvy left to put those items together and have them stowed away in a safety-deposit box.”

“It really is Agatha Christie shit?”

“Let’s see what we got. The book, Dracula. I don’t think it means anything particularly. I believe your uncle was thinking about Illium. Not directly, perhaps. But the book had to do with Illium, and it merely indicates a connection.”

“Illium has, or had, the notes, is what you’re saying?”

“Could be. If he did have them, I figure whoever left him the little present of the kiddie pornography and the clothes found them and destroyed them. The coupons, now. Both Illium and your uncle had them, and they seem important, but not so important Illium’s killer took note of them. We certainly found them easy enough.”

“Meaning, if they were important,” Leonard said, “Illium’s murderer didn’t know they were.”

“Yeah. Your uncle gave some coupons to Florida to give to you, and he put some in a safety-deposit box. Illium had coupons in jars. But what’s it all mean? I haven’t come up with a thing on that.”

“The painting?”

“That one’s up to you, Leonard. Tell me about it.”

“I painted it when I was a kid, for my uncle. It’s of the old Hampstead place.”

“It’s a real place?”

“Yeah. It’s behind the house here, back in those woods. I used to go there now and then. The house was abandoned years ago. Hampsteads were white folks, and they owned all the woods back there. Used to be a couple hundred acres. The black community ended right behind the house here, where those woods begin. Guess it still ends there, but I don’t know if all that land’s still owned by the Hampsteads. They may have sold some of it. I really don’t know anything about it anymore. Just that the house was once a fine house, there was some tragedy in the family, and they moved out, but kept the land and the house, but didn’t attend to it. I been inside a couple of times. When I was a kid. Climbed through a window. It was a pretty spooky place. I don’t even know it’s still standing.”

“Better and better. Look here.” I picked up the pad and showed it to him. I had drawn a series of little rectangles within a series of lines.

“I don’t get it,” Leonard said.

“First day we came here, I saw a composition notebook on your uncle’s desk. I glanced at it. It had a drawing, or chart, or whatever, like this on it. I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was just doodling. For all I know, that’s what it was, but I suspicion it might be a note that didn’t end up with Illium. After the cops came, it disappeared. I guess they have it. Maybe they have more notes than we think, but I don’t believe so.”

Leonard studied the pad. I said, “I’m not sure I’ve remembered it exactly right, but that’s close. Does it make you think of anything?”

“A floor plan with six rectangles in it.”

“My thoughts exactly. What about the rectangles?”

“Furniture?”

“I don’t think so. But leave that for a moment. If it is a floor plan, it’s not to this house. Too many rooms. And the rectangles don’t correspond with your uncle’s furniture at all. Do you see what I’m getting at now?”

“If the coupons connect. If the book connects. Then the painting connects, or the location of it connects, and that location could go with this floor plan.”

“Right. We just don’t understand how they connect. Now, what comes in rectangles?”

“All kinds of things. A stick of gum. Books. He liked books, that could be it.”

“Proportion throws that. The rectangles are too big to be books if this is a legitimate floor plan.”