Joe Lansdale - Mucho Mojo

“And he’s a friend of the police chief’s,” Leonard said.

“Yes,” Florida said. “And he’ll just build the house back. Cheaply, of course.”

“Well, that’s for another discussion,” Leonard said. “Good night, Florida. Hap, don’t you stay up late, now. I don’t want you fussin’ when I get you out of bed tomorrow.”

Leonard went in the house and Florida and I sat on the porch in the glider. I remembered that the glider was where our romance had begun.

I said, “This is sort of the Dear-John talk, right?”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you, I just haven’t had the guts, because I really don’t know what to say.”

“I guess ‘Bye-bye, Hap, and don’t forget your hat’ would be OK.”

“It’s not like that.”

“How is it?”

“I’m going over to Marve’s tonight.”

“I’d rather you just said, ‘Bye-bye, don’t forget your hat.’”

“He’s a good man, Hap.”

“That’s what pisses me off. It’s hard for me to feel self-righteous. I like the big bastard. But I still don’t like hearing it. Not that I didn’t already know.”

“I wanted you to hear it from me. I just didn’t have the courage to do it right away. I should have said something soon as I knew. Hap, it wasn’t like you and me were a hundred percent anyway. I never said our relationship was forever.”

“Hurts just the same.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather it have worked out.”

“Me too. Really. I do care for you. I maybe even love you a little.”

“Please.”

“It just happened, Hap. I don’t know what to tell you. It happened, and it happened fast. It was good between you and me, and you taught me some things about myself, but-”

“Hanson’s black.”

“I suppose, if I’m honest with myself, I’ll admit that makes it easier.”

“You never took me to that movie, Florida. You know, I never even been to your place. I bet Hanson has. Hasn’t he?”

“Yes. But I knew the night I saw him over here he was the one. I don’t know why. I’d seen him before, but that night was the first time I was really close enough to feel the heat.”

“Maybe it was just a hot night.”

She smiled. “No. It wasn’t just a sexual thing. There was that, but it’s not that he’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s not the prettiest thing anyone’s ever seen.”

“But I saw him, and somehow I knew. And the other night, when he took me home, we didn’t go to bed or anything like that. I wanted you to know that. We didn’t just jump in the sack. We talked, and talked, and talked. There was a connection between us that goes deeper than the one you and I’ve got. It’s that simple. Maybe being black does give us a kind of history, but what I feel for Marve isn’t merely because he’s black.”

“Of course, you two don’t just talk now.”

“First time we made love was tonight. Charlie called for him at my place when they got the news about the fire and about you and Leonard. After Marve left, you called and told me where you were. But of course, I already knew. I was about to be on my way. I figured you and Leonard could use a lawyer.”

“Did Charlie calling interrupt anything?”

“That’s juvenile, Hap.”

“Sorry.”

“We were lying in bed talking. Talking about you.”

“Comparing dick sizes?”

She got up briskly and started to leave. I caught her wrist and she jerked it away from me. “Let go of me, damnit!”

“Florida,” I said. “I’m sorry. Really. But this isn’t easy for me.”

“It’s not easy for me, Hap. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But you want us to be friends, right? Isn’t that the thrust of this talk?”

“I know you’re hurt, but I didn’t plan this. It happened, damnit. It just happened.”

I turned my head and looked toward the pile of blackened rubble that had been the crack house. Smoke was drifting up into the starlight. I turned back and looked at Florida.

“There really isn’t anything I can say to that,” I said.

She slowly and carefully sat down beside me. She sat close. I could smell her perfume. It was the same perfume I often smelled on my pillows. She took my hand.

I said, “You really sounded like someone who was more than an ambulance chaser tonight.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“Hanson knew you got our case in court, personal feelings or not, you’d have given him hell.”

“And I’d have beat him too. Even if you did burn the house down. And on purpose.”

“You’ll do all right,” I said. “Maybe you just needed a little rest. Sounds to me, you got your ambition back.”

“Can we be friends?” she said. “I know it sounds cliche. But I really and truly want to be friends.”

I spent a minute thinking about it. “Give me some time on it. Right now I look at you, I don’t see you that way. I don’t know how I see you.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re a good find for the right person, Hap. I’m just not the right person.”

“That’s what they all say.”

She stood up and touched my shoulder. “I’ll see you, soon?”

“Soon as I can handle it,” I said.

She drove away. I watched her taillights till they were out of sight. The wind picked up and turned cool and hooted in the bottle tree.

When I awoke it was early morning and I was lying on the glider and my back ached. Where I’d caught those punches hurt too. My wrist ached from the shock of the blow I’d dealt Mohawk on the side of the head.

There was a blanket over me and a pillow under my head. Leonard, the one constant in my life, had been out to check on me. I hadn’t even felt him move my head or cover me. Bless him.

I sat up slowly, feeling the stiffness. The air was intense with the charred aroma of next door. The sunlight was beautiful. It was still cool. I missed Florida.

Before we left the station last night, Leonard told Hanson about the Hampstead place and what was under it. Today, late morning, Hanson and a hand-picked crew would be out. He was also bringing in a friend from Houston, a retired coroner.

In spite of his talk, Hanson wasn’t ready to turn what he knew over to the police chief after all. He wanted to make sure everything we told him was as we said, wanted to make sure we’d translated the evidence properly.

I think he knew too, if he told the police chief what he had discovered, told how Illium was linked, the chief would take the case away from him for not coming forward sooner. But if Leonard and I were right, if Hanson could get all his ducks in a row and solve this case, no matter what the chief thought, things were going to turn out OK. It’d be pretty hard for the chief to fire Hanson for solving a multiple child-murder case, considering the publicity that would surround it.

And I was pretty certain Hanson knew we were still holding out on him. That we had an important part of the puzzle we weren’t showing.

So, Hanson was going to get a court order, quickly and quietly, not hide it from the chief, but not announce it either, and he and his crew were coming out.

His crew was going to be Charlie, the retired Houston coroner, me and Leonard, and a couple other folks he thought he could trust. It wasn’t a morning I looked forward to.

I stood up and stretched and checked out the remains of the crack house, felt a rush of adrenaline from last night. I also felt a rush of shame.

Violence and anger against another human being always made me feel that way, no matter what my justification. I lost it, I always feel somewhat diminished. But I would have felt even more diminished to have done nothing. That little boy, dying up under the house like a dog with a belly full of glass… It’s hard to figure why it has to be that way.