Joe Lansdale - Mucho Mojo

“Fucking assholes,” the big guy said, then he quit grinning and looked all of us in the holding cell over. “You’re assholes too,” he said.

None of us assholes argued with him. Me and Leonard, we were tired and sore assholes. The big guy, without putting his dick up, wandered over to the far edge of the cell and intimidated a sad-looking little Mexican guy by giving him the hairy eyeball. Also, a guy staring at you with his dick out will make a person nervous.

Hanson came up to the bars and stood looking inside. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans and what looked like house slippers. His stomach bulged inside the T-shirt, but it looked hard, like a washpot. The wet end of a chewed cigar stuck out of the T-shirt pocket. I gave him a little wave. He smiled insincerely and spread his arms wide. “My boys! How are you?”

“We’re a little tired, Lieutenant,” Leonard said.

“Arson and assault, trespassing,” Hanson said. “These things wear on you. Jailer. Open up.”

The jailer opened up. Hanson stood in the open doorway and said, “My boys, come to me.”

We got up and started out. The big guy with his dick out came over and tried to follow after us. “Not you,” Hanson said, and after we passed Hanson pushed the guy back inside.

“Piss on you,” the big guy said and thrust his hips forward like he was going to piss on Hanson. Hanson reached very quickly and grabbed the guy’s crank and yanked it as if he were popping a whip. The guy made a noise like a sudden hole in a helium balloon and went down to his knees.

Hanson said, “Put that thing away, or I’ll have it mounted on a board.”

Hanson came out of the cell, the jailer closed the door, and Hanson gave us a soft shove down the corridor.

We came to a door and Hanson reached between us and opened it. “Gentlemen,” he said.

We went inside. It was an office full of smoke. Charlie was sitting behind the only desk in the room with his feet propped on it. He had thin soles on his shoes. He had a copy of a trash rag and was reading it. He had his suit coat slung over the back of the chair, and he was wearing a green pajama shirt stuck in his slacks, and he had his porkpie hat tilted back on his head.

Mohawk was sitting in a fold-out metal chair on the left side of the room. Just sitting there smoking a cigarette. There was an ashtray on the floor in front of him and it was filled with cigarettes. There were stomped out cigarettes all around the ashtray.

Charlie wasn’t paying Mohawk the least bit of attention. He didn’t look at us when we entered the room. He was deep into his rag.

On the right hand side of the room, wreathed in Charlie’s smoke, was Florida. She was leaning against the wall next to a fold-out chair. She was dressed in jeans and a tight white T-shirt; she was a knockout. Just what I needed to see at a time like this. Then again, I knew she’d be here. She was mine and Leonard’s lawyer, and when I got my one call, I’d called her.

“Hap,” she said.

“Florida,” I said. “Thanks.”

Leonard nodded at her.

Hanson said, “Charlie, watch ’em. I got to wash my hands. I been pullin’ a guy’s dick.”

Charlie didn’t look up from his rag. He just lifted a hand over it. Hanson went out and shut the door.

I glanced at Mohawk and Mohawk glanced at me. He’d looked better. His mohawk was leaning a bit to the left, and there wasn’t one ounce of cockiness about him. There was a knot on the side of his head where I’d hit him. He looked away from me and took in Leonard.

Leonard smiled at him. It was one of those smiles Leonard can give that you’d really prefer not to see. Mohawk’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and fell back down. He dropped his eyes to the floor. The cigarette between his fingers was almost burned down to his skin. He sucked it once and dropped it. It nearly hit the ashtray. He said, “Where the hell’s my motherfuckin’ lawyer? They got their lawyer here, I want mine.”

“Got to call him first,” Charlie said, and turned a page on his rag.

“You ain’t let me call shit, man,” Mohawk said. “That ain’t legal.”

“Hey,” Charlie said, “we’re busy, we’ll get to it.”

“You look busy,” said Mohawk.

“The work of the mind is subtle,” Charlie said.

During this exchange, Charlie hadn’t once looked away from his paper. He kept reading. After a few moments, without taking his face out of the paper, he said, “You know, there’s some strange things in the world. They found a picture of Elvis in an Egyptian tomb.” He put the paper down and looked at me. “You know that, Hap?”

“No shit?” I said.

“No shit. Painted right there on the fucking wall. Had his hair slicked back and stuff. Had on a white jump suit and aviator glasses. It’s right here in the article. They got a picture.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “They hunt around the tomb some more, they expect to find a mummy with the facial structure of Elvis.”

“You’re certainly on top of things,” I said.

“You’d be surprised the stuff I know,” Charlie said. “I keep up with current events. I’m real current. Most current is I had to get out of bed ’cause I heard about a fire tonight, and I heard it was you two assholes set it.”

“We looked out our window and saw a fire,” Leonard said. “We went over to help pull the victims to safety. We’re goddamn heroes.”

“That motherfucker’s lying!” Mohawk said.

“Keep your seat, Melton,” Charlie said.

“Don’t say anything else,” Florida said to Leonard. “You and Hap be quiet. You’ll do better being quiet.”

“Ah hell,” Charlie said, “Hap and Leonard, they like to talk.”

“That’s true,” Leonard said. “We can’t shut up.”

Hanson opened the door and came in. He went over to the desk. “You mind I have my chair?” he said to Charlie.

“Naw,” Charlie said, “it’s all right.”

Charlie got up and went over to Mohawk. He said, “Get up, Melton.”

Mohawk looked at Charlie. Charlie grinned. Mohawk got up and leaned against the wall. Charlie sat down and used his foot to move the ashtray and the ill-aimed cigarette butts aside. He scooted the chair forward and put his feet on the edge of the desk and rocked back so the chair was against the wall. He looked pretty precarious.

Hanson sat behind his desk and studied me and Leonard. “First time I seen you guys, I liked you. I don’t like you so much now.”

“That hurts,” Leonard said. “Shit, man, we like you.”

“I been eating Rolaids like they’re candy,” Hanson said. “I almost lit my cigar again. And you guys know why? I’m tired of the bullshit. Arson, that’s a serious crime.”

“So’s selling drugs,” I said. “That boy under our house might even think using them’s a bad idea.”

“He don’t think nothing,” Hanson said. “He died before he got to the hospital.”

Silence reigned for a moment. Leonard said, “I think the whole goddamn police force has got some gall, that’s what I think. These fuckers,” he jabbed a finger at Melton, “they been in that house for ages, selling drugs. They fed that boy dope. That boy is dead, man, and I’m not supposed to have a right to get pissed? I know they’re selling drugs. Everyone here knows it, but now you got us on arson, and you’re saying we’ll do time?”

“Could be,” Hanson said. “I ain’t got shit to do with the way the law works, just with doing what it says.”

“Some law that lets people like this creep do what they’re doing,” I said. “What happened to justice?”

“We get enough evidence, we pick ’em up,” Hanson said.

“And let them go,” Charlie said.